A video of John Piper has been up on YouTube for a while now in which he is asked, “If you could spend two minutes with the pope, what would you say to him?”
John Piper’s response is as follows (pay special attention to the section I’ve highlighted in bold):
I would say, “Could you just in one minute explain your view of justification?” And then on the basis of his one minute, I would give my view of justification.
I think Rome and Protestantism are not yet ready [for something, which he does not quite spell out—he puts his hands together here, implying perhaps that they’re not yet ready to “come together”].
I don’t think the Reformation is over. I don’t think that enough changes have happened in Roman understanding of justification and a bunch of other things. I’m just picking justification because it’s so close to the center. You could pick papal authority, or the nature of the mass, or the role of sacraments, or the place of Mary, but those seem to be maybe a little marginal.
Then [I would] go right to the heart of the issue of, “Do you teach...sir...that we should rely entirely on the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith alone as the ground of God being 100% for us after which necessary sanctification comes? Do you teach that?”
And if he said, “No, we don’t,” then I’d say, “I think that right at the core of Roman Catholic theology is a heresy.”
That last sentence is more difficult to parse, as he is not precisely clear as what he means to say here (if you watch the video, you can see why an accurate transcription of this sentence might be difficult), but I’m assuming that he is saying two things:
- Not teaching imputed righteousness as defined by John Piper above is right at the core of Roman Catholic theology.
- Not teaching the doctrine of imputed righteousness as defined by John Piper above is a heresy.
This brings me to my core issue with the video: What heresy did John Piper truly identify in Roman Catholic theology? Of course, now that the most recent pope has just announced his resignation, Piper can now wonder how the new pope (whoever he is) might answer his question. How Benedict might have answered it is not necessarily the same as how the next pope would formulate an answer to this.
Let’s go back to the beginning of Piper’s response and analyze it piece by piece (Piper’s comments are in italics):
I would say, “Could you just in one minute explain your view of justification?” And then on the basis of his one minute, I would give my view of justification. If such a conversation took place, even if it were only two minutes, it would probably be a worthwhile one. Perhaps, though, they’d need a little more than two minutes to have a truly decent conversation on this issue, and it probably wouldn’t necessarily change either theologian’s mind, but given that Piper comes from a different theological trajectory than the pope does, the challenges each one gives to the other might at least give both participants pause for thought and reflection about how they read the biblical text. And perhaps they may find surprising areas of agreement!
I think Rome and Protestantism are not yet ready. Piper doesn’t spell out what he means by “ready,” but as I said in my inserted bracketed comments in the quotation above, I think he means “ready to come together,” that is, “ready to come together as fellow Christians.” He puts his hands together in this video, suggesting that Rome and Protestantism are still too far apart in some way. And perhaps he is right that Roman Catholics and Protestants still have a way to go toward understanding each other, but as Piper goes on to say, he seems to think that it is the Catholics who need to do the theological adjustments, not Protestants:
I don’t think the Reformation is over. I don’t think that enough changes have happened in Roman understanding of justification and a bunch of other things. It is not surprising in some ways that Piper believes that more changes need to happen in “Roman understanding of justification and a bunch of other things,” but he does not say that more changes need to happen in “Protestant understanding of justification and a bunch of other things.” That is, Piper does not challenge the prevailing Protestant “magisterium” (even though it is not “official” in the same way that the Catholic magisterium is), but he is happy to challenge Rome’s magisterium. I don’t find this to be surprising because Piper reads Scripture through the lens of the Reformation. The first questions for Piper are not, “What are the first-century categories for understanding Paul’s explanation of justification?” but “What are the sixteenth-century categories that the Reformers use for understanding Paul’s explanation of justification?”
I’m just picking justification because it’s so close to the center. You could pick papal authority, or the nature of the mass, or the role of sacraments, or the place of Mary, but those seem to be maybe a little marginal. Notice that Piper says that justification is “so close to the center.” I would ask Brother Piper, “What do you mean that that?” The center of what? Biblical theology? If so, what is the center, and how is it that justification is “so close” to this center? I don’t disagree with Brother Piper’s obvious belief that justification is very important, but I’m not as sure as he is that it’s the center. And perhaps this relates to his contention with N.T. Wright on the issue of what constitutes “the gospel/good news.” Is the good news that we are justified by faith through grace? Surely, that must be part of it, as N.T. Wright says in What Saint Paul Really Said, but the good news is so much bigger than that! It’s the reign of God established on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the wonder of the gospel. You can’t reduce it to “It’s such good news that I’m saved by grace through faith.” The good news goes beyond this, even into the very fabric of the pangs of creation itself. God wants to reconcile all things to himself, which does, thankfully include us too.
Then [I would] go right to the heart of the issue of, “Do you teach...sir...that we should rely entirely on the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith alone as the ground of God being 100% for us after which necessary sanctification comes? Do you teach that?” I can’t claim to speak for how any pope—past, present, or theoretically in the future—might respond to this (and I’m not Catholic myself, so I don’t want to speak for how a Catholic in general might answer this), but I do want to dissect this in particular, as it articulates some things I myself am not entirely sure about. For instance, when he says that “we should rely entirely on the righteousness of Christ imputed to us,” what does that mean? What is meant by imputed? What does that look like? Is Christ’s act of passing his righteousness to us another way of saying that he declares us righteous (in which case I would agree)? Can Brother Piper back up impute as being an appropriate translation of λογιζομαι (“I reckon,” “I consider”) in Romans 4 and Galatians 3? Also, what does Brother Piper mean by “necessary sanctification”? If we have the “righteousness of Christ,” does “necessary sanctification” mean that we will automatically do right things (at least on a general level)?
I ask all these questions to point out that Brother Piper’s description of how he teaches justification is not as straightforward as he appears to think it is. If the pope were simply to say, “No, we do not teach that,” my guess is that he would probably have more to say than just that, and I’m sure Brother Piper is aware of this.
I suppose my main contention, as I said before, is that Brother Piper seems willing to call something a heresy for what is not said, rather than what is said.
Of course, there are major differences between Catholics and Protestants, and we cannot ignore them. (And going over at least some of those differences may be the subject of a future post, but not this one.) But I do take issue with Brother Piper when he implies that it is Catholics who need to reform their teaching, yet he says nothing about a reformation among Protestants with regard to Protestant teaching. Can we who are Protestants really pretend that we are immune from the need to be reformed ourselves?
Justification is certainly a massively important doctrine in Christian faith, and because of this, we must avoid the temptation of reducing justification to slogans. Our conversation should always be centered around a humble, careful reading of Scripture, always being willing to listen to what people in the church throughout its history have said about this topic (and not just the Reformers).
Surely Brother Piper would agree that Protestants are not above the temptation to forget to let themselves be corrected by Scripture. As many wise theologians have said, we should not ever try to be masters over Scripture, but we should let Scripture master us.
I ask all these questions to point out that Brother Piper’s description of how he teaches justification is not as straightforward as he appears to think it is. If the pope were simply to say, “No, we do not teach that,” my guess is that he would probably have more to say than just that, and I’m sure Brother Piper is aware of this.
I suppose my main contention, as I said before, is that Brother Piper seems willing to call something a heresy for what is not said, rather than what is said.
Of course, there are major differences between Catholics and Protestants, and we cannot ignore them. (And going over at least some of those differences may be the subject of a future post, but not this one.) But I do take issue with Brother Piper when he implies that it is Catholics who need to reform their teaching, yet he says nothing about a reformation among Protestants with regard to Protestant teaching. Can we who are Protestants really pretend that we are immune from the need to be reformed ourselves?
Justification is certainly a massively important doctrine in Christian faith, and because of this, we must avoid the temptation of reducing justification to slogans. Our conversation should always be centered around a humble, careful reading of Scripture, always being willing to listen to what people in the church throughout its history have said about this topic (and not just the Reformers).
Surely Brother Piper would agree that Protestants are not above the temptation to forget to let themselves be corrected by Scripture. As many wise theologians have said, we should not ever try to be masters over Scripture, but we should let Scripture master us.
What do you make of Brother Piper’s comments? Do you think he was clear and right on the money, and that perhaps I am simply not understanding him correctly? Or perhaps you disagree with my post? Please feel free to express any disagreements or thoughts in the comments section below.
