Gospel Catholic

The Surprising Reason So Many Are Going to Hell

Aaron Althoff — Sat, 05 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In this article, I am not going to argue against the idea that hell is largely empty. I will simply start with the premise that there are indeed not few, but many in hell, and many more on the way, based on Jesus’s consistent teaching which is especially clear when he compares the wide and narrow gates (see Matthew 7:13-14). So the question is, since there are so many going to hell, what’s the reason?

The answer is not some particular neglected sin, lurking like a shadow beneath the empty pews in your parish (although there are certainly too many of those). No, the answer is more simple and encompasses all serious sin. The reason so many are going to hell is because many people don’t actually want to go to heaven.

That’s right. And that’s why it’s surprising. We often think everyone wants to go to heaven, because who would not want to be happy forever, free from sickness, pain, and suffering? Many people, however, have little idea what heaven is like, and if they did, they would be utterly repulsed by it.

The “Heaven” of the Average Person’s Imagination Doesn’t Exist

Descriptions will vary, but most people still believe a “heaven” exists where there will be no more sorrow, no more suffering, and where those who are good enough to get there will be happy forever, hopefully reunited with long lost loved ones. There may be further imaginings of fluffy clouds, plumb harp-playing cherubim, and an endless buffet of delectable pastries, among other delightful fantasies.

But do you notice anything missing in this common description of heaven? If not, there is a big problem. The average person’s conception of heaven is void of God. (This is basically the definition of hell!). Sure, some may get around to acknowledging that God or at least some spiritual force is probably there somewhere, but it’s likely an afterthought. We’ll see how this heaven-with-God-as-an-afterthought compares to the real heaven in a minute.

So at the onset, the problem is the heaven of the average person’s imagination doesn’t exist. Their conception of heaven is largely an exalted earthly experience, excised from pesky things like mosquitos and church attendance. It may be something akin to what an atheist conceives as the “best of all possible worlds,” a suffering-free paradise without God watching our every move. Thankfully, the real heaven is nowhere near this dull.

What the Real Heaven is Like

Heaven is overwhelmingly awesome and endlessly euphoric—or unimaginably abhorent—dependent entirely on one’s relationship to the One who made it. There is no in-between. That’s because heaven, first and foremost, is where God’s holy presence resides. And not just confined to some holy throne over there past the dessert lines. In the real heaven, God’s holy, consuming presence pervades every ounce of being and every moment is plunged into the mystery of his essence. Like how a raging fire engulfs a forest, heaven is blazing with the holy presence of God, and this flame engulfs the hearts of the holy ones uniting them in love with their Creator. So yes, the first and most important reality of heaven is that God is there. This is not great news for those who have little interest in God.

The second aspect of heaven, which would be repugnant to so many, is the complete obliteration of one’s will. In heaven, only God’s desires will be carried out for every moment for all eternity. There is not a single moment when a saint could take a breather and opt for something besides God’s will. Of course, for the saints this will be a true freedom, finally being unshackled from their wounded wills that too often offended God despite their deepest desire to serve him always. But for the masses? Come on. They would prefer to suffer in endless agony with their wills untouched rather than have their wills invaded and reshaped by their Maker. This is not so hard to imagine as day after day we see millions choosing to live in flagrant opposition to God’s commands and asserting their rights to live as they please without divine interference. A heaven that requires humility, chastity, mercy, forgiveness, and repentance of one’s sins would be abominable.

Thirdly, heaven is also liturgical. While the average person yawns his way through Sunday morning at home, at Mass we sing, “Holy, holy, holy,” in unison with the saints and angels in heaven. Mass is nothing other than heaven invading earth, where God reveals himself and the faithful unite themselves and offer true worship back to the Father through the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is incredible. But for many, this sounds incredibly boring. “Yeah, churchy stuff, worship, blah, blah, blah … I’d rather sleep in or work on my golf game.” What a shock they would be in for in heaven!

Heaven is filled with liturgy, from the four living creatures night and day saying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty” (Rev 4:8), to special garments (3:5), incense, prayers of the saints, and an altar (8:3), to—most importantly—a sacrificed Lamb (5:6) whose presence radiates so much light that the sun is no longer needed (22:5). Heaven, to the chagrin of many, will be very “churchy.” Not just an hour a week, but forever, with God inextricably fixed as the focal point—not us.

The Mercy of Hell

For those who would find heaven intolerable, God created a more bearable alternative: hell. Now I have no intention of downplaying the horrors of hell. Even if you believe hell exists and is terrifying, it’s much worse than you think.

The reality is, though, that God doesn’t force us to love him. Even if heaven is infinitely better for us, he gave us the freedom to freely choose him or to reject him. So hell, filled with demons who rejected God’s will and surrounded by suffering souls, is a merciful alternative for those who would find heaven even more intolerable because there the focus is entirely on God, not ourselves.

Ultimately, It’s Our Choice

At the end of our earthly lives there will be one phrase that determines our eternal destiny. Either the repentant sinner says to God, “Your will be done” and is caught up into heaven or the damned hears from God, “Your will be done” and is cast into hell. Our fate is sealed with our last breath.

The sexually immoral, covetous, prideful, indifferent, merciless, the heretics and schismatics—the distinctions between all of these people are far less important than what they share in common: My will be done. My sexual preferences. My secret desires. My intellect and accomplishments. My willful neglect of heavenly things. My power over others. My beliefs and interpretation of Scripture. My authority over the authority of Christ’s holy Catholic Church. Not God’s will, my will be done.

Our wills are mortally wounded and our desires are warped inward. Just look around, or better yet, look inside your own heart and you can readily see this is true. This is the sad reality of humanity. But it is not the end of the story.

Although I argued that many people don’t actually want to go to heaven, the good news is our tastes can change. By God’s grace, we can desire heaven, the real heaven, which is what we are made for. So this is not a message of despair but a plea to acquire the taste of heaven by falling in love with Jesus and his Church. If you have already been enraptured by our Savior’s sweet mercy, then fall even deeper for him and bring many others to the divine Doctor to receive healing, hope, and mercy.

The real heaven is an acquired taste. And oh how sweet the taste is, more than all the pleasures of the world, for those who are willing to set aside their preferences, have their hearts refashioned by grace, and choose the One who chose us and loved us first.

Resources:

The Hell There Is by Msgr. Charles Pope
The Dogma of Hell by Fr. F. X. Schouppe, SJ

Is Jesus the Only Way to Heaven?

Aaron Althoff — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

I remember lying awake late at night while wrestling with this question. I was in college and this was a common occurrence during a period of searching for answers to life’s big questions: What is the meaning of my life? Does God exist? What will happen when I die?

Growing up as an under-catechized Catholic, I did not have strong religious convictions. But by the time I was a sophomore in college, I was eagerly looking for ultimate truth. When my spiritual search was leading me towards the faith of my upbringing, I still found myself struggling with this pivotal question, a question many have pondered: Is Jesus really God, and is he really the only way to heaven? If this was true, and if I really believed it and loved others, I knew I would have to commit the rest of my life to telling everyone I know about Jesus. Yet I had many doubts and questions and wasn’t sure I was ready for that. So the question gnawed at me.

While I never got caught in the trap of relativism, the fact that there were many other religions still posed a serious problem. There are billions of people in the world and most of them do not believe in Jesus. Plus, many smarter than I have reached very different conclusions when it comes to religion. This is hard to reconcile. I won’t attempt to resolve all these difficulties here, but in order to provide a basic answer to the question at hand, I first need to respond to the common claim that religions are essentially all the same.

Aren’t all Religions Basically the Same?

We have all probably heard something like this: “When it comes to religion, we are all on a journey. There are many paths up the mountain of personal spiritual fulfillment, and we’re all free to pick the path that best suits us. No path is better than another; they’re just different routes all leading to the same place.” The problem is, this can’t possibly be true if we take even a cursory look at the claims of the various religions. First, though, let’s acknowledge some similarities between the major religions.

If you strain your eyes a bit, you can find some similarities between the various major religions. Sure Hinduism is polytheistic, where many gods are believed in and worshiped, but Hindus do at least believe in some higher power like adherents of other religions. While Buddhism does not posit belief in an infinite, creator God, Buddhists do seek spiritual growth and enlightenment similar to those of other religions. There is even more similarity between the Abrahamic religions. Unlike the Eastern religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are more closely associated as they profess to belong to a common ancestry rooted in Abraham, who was in a covenantal relationship with God. These three religions are not only monotheistic, but they believe in one God as revealed in the holy texts they share in common.

This is all true.

But to stop there and to conclude that the overlap is all but complete and any remaining differences are irrelevant, as many do, is absurd. This would be like claiming that Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump are all essentially the same since they are all politicians and share some common goals. I don’t think there is a single soul anywhere along the political spectrum that believes this. But when it comes to religion, why do so many make the nonsensical claim that all religions are virtually the same just because religions share some things in common and they all fall into the bucket of religion? There are many reasons for this, including intellectual laziness and indifference, the prevailing winds of relativism which denies objective truth, a desire to think happy thoughts about the fate of oneself and others, and a fear of being seen as judgmental. What I want to focus on now, though, is the most important area of disagreement amongst religions: the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?

There is only one religion that claims Jesus is God. If he is God, Christianity is true and all other religions are false. If he is not God, Christianity is false and therefore all Christians should abandon their religion.

Some, though, believe this thinking is too narrow-minded and misses the important agreement amongst the various religions, even concerning the person of Jesus. Most religions believe that Jesus was a good, moral teacher. Maybe he was some sort of prophet, maybe not, but he came and taught people that spirituality must include loving our neighbors as ourselves, and the world and all religions can be grateful for that.

The problem is, Jesus didn’t leave this open as a possibility. The one thing he could not have been was another good, moral teacher like those who went before him and those who have come after him. Why? Because he claimed to be God. And as C.S. Lewis famously articulated, since Jesus claimed to be God, that leaves us with only three options. Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or he was who he claimed to be, the one Lord of heaven and earth.

If Jesus was not God, he was a liar. And not just your average liar, but one on the grandest scale.

Imagine if your uncle gave up his career and committed his life to convincing everyone he knew that he was God. He knew he wasn’t God, but tried to gain a following of those who would worship him as God. That is serious moral depravity. Strike one against Jesus being a good, moral teacher.

If Jesus wasn’t a liar, maybe he was a lunatic. Maybe he honestly believed he was God but he was mistaken. We’re all mistaken about some things, but do you know anyone who honestly believed he was God? If you ran into a nutcase like this, you would certainly keep your distance and hide your kids. Insanity—a non-starter for a good, moral teacher.

That leaves us with Lord. By his miracles, especially by his rising from the dead, Jesus proved he was who he claimed to be. Jesus is Lord. Not just a moral preacher of sorts, and not a liar or a lunatic. He is God, and he became man, died, and rose from the dead to save us from our sins. Christianity is not just one of many options—it is the only option if you desire to spend eternity in heaven.

The Bible Says Belief in Jesus is Necessary for Salvation

Just prior to Jesus’s death and resurrection, Jesus prayed to the Father saying, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:1-3).

John’s gospel doesn’t only say that eternal life requires knowing the only true God. Jesus says that eternal life is knowing the only true God, who is a triune God. Knowing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the entire point and purpose of heaven. To think that heaven is simply a place of clouds, harps, and no more stubbed toes is to inexcusably sell short the glory that is to come for those who know and embrace the love of God who loved us from all eternity past and desires to be united with us for all eternity future.

Heaven is not for people that are generally pretty good, those who are at least better than average and who haven’t killed anyone. The Bible says heaven is for sinners who realize the depravity of their ways and cry out to God to save them. God hears their cries and offers a sure path to heaven, the cross of Jesus. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). This is good news! We were dead in our sin, and God didn’t leave us there but stooped down to save us by sending his Son to give up his life for us, offering us hope of eternal life if only we believe in him. What a good and gentle God we have.

God didn’t create multiple ways for us to get to heaven because his one path, through faith in Jesus Christ, is perfect. He didn’t create a backup plan in case this whole Jesus thing didn’t work out. Jesus is the only way to heaven. Anyone who makes it to heaven makes it because of the grace offered to us through Jesus Christ. As St. Peter said after being a witness to Jesus’s resurrection, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The Church Teaches Belief in Jesus is Necessary for Salvation

The Catholic Church, of course, affirms the teaching of the Bible that belief in Jesus is necessary for salvation. The Catechism puts it this way: “Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. … ‘without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘but he who endures to the end’” (CCC 161). Jesus is not one of many options including Muhammed, Buddha, or yourself as your own spiritual guide to spiritual fulfillment. Heaven is real, there is a real God there who really wants us there, and he tells us how to get there. Believe in Jesus and follow him. That’s the simple message, and that’s the one way to heaven.

The Catechism also explains that “faith is not an isolated act” (CCC 166), which means we come to faith in community and must remain a part of that community to maintain our relationship with God. Faith is a gift, and we receive it through the community Jesus established, the Catholic Church, which has been spreading the gospel across the world, one relationship, one conversation at a time, for 2,000 years. Following Jesus includes entering his Church where he abides and teaches us and pours his life into us through the Sacraments.

Yes, Jesus is the Only Way to Heaven

Our loving God went to extreme lengths to save us because of his great mercy. We can’t create our own path to heaven, and God’s path is not flawed. The only way to heaven is to repent, turn to Jesus, and place all our trust in him. This is what the Bible teaches and this is what the Church teaches and always will. It may not be popular, it may be difficult and you may need to wrestle with it, but it is the truth. And what an amazing and grace-filled truth it is. If you have never done so before, I would encourage you to read through the gospels and encounter the captivating person of Jesus Christ. What you will find will not disappoint and may prove to be the answer to your deep spiritual longing and search for truth.

A final note. Some readers may have noticed that several related and important questions are not directly addressed here. Questions such as, “What if someone dies before ever hearing the gospel, will he be damned even though he never had a chance to believe?” and “Does this mean all non-Christians, or all non-Catholics, are going to hell?” I intentionally avoided these questions for three reasons. First, too few people, including Catholics, know the basic and correct answer to the question “Is Jesus the only way to heaven?” is a resounding “Yes!” Second, I didn’t want to shortchange these questions with an all-too-brief response that would likely be unhelpful without further explanation. Third, because I intend to write a future article diving deeper into what the Church teaches on the topic of the possibility of salvation for those outside the Church.

Resources:

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
The Gospel of John

Answering Common Protestant Objections

Aaron Althoff — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

As a Protestant, I had to wrestle with these and many other objections about Catholic beliefs and practice on my way back to the Catholic Church. If you are Protestant, whether genuinely curious, vehemently anti-Catholic, or somewhere in between, this will help you to better understand what the Catholic Church actually teaches. If you are Catholic, this will give you confidence to gently respond to family or friends who may challenge your beliefs.

Catholics worship Mary.

Catholics don’t worship Mary. In fact, when some early Christians began worshiping Mary it was the Catholic Church that condemned the practice and declared Collyridianism a heresy.

Being a mere creature, Mary is infinitely less important than God. But being specifically chosen by God to be the vessel of our salvation, Mary plays a unique role in salvation history. This is why Catholics place such an emphasis on Mary—because Jesus did. Jesus chose to save us through Mary. No one honors Mary more than Jesus, and Catholics simply try to imitate Christ in honoring Mary, who is given to us as our own mother.

On the cross Jesus said to John, “Behold, your mother!” Just as John “from that hour took her to his own home” (John 19:27), Catholics welcome Mary into their own home and hearts by praying the rosary (which is a beautiful practice of meditating on the life of Christ while reciting Scripture), asking for her intercession, and affectionately addressing her with titles such as “Mother of God” (see Luke 1:43), “Queen of Heaven” (see Rev 12:1), and “Our Lady of Grace.” (see Luke 1:28). Notice how these titles are rooted in Scripture and show Mary’s place of honor only in reference to Jesus, who is God incarnate, the all-powerful King of Glory, and Author of Grace. As the moon emanates no light of its own but simply reflects the light of the sun, so too Mary reflects the light of the Son and continually draws our gaze to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Question for Protestants: Is it wrong to follow Jesus’s lead in showing honor to Mary?

Catholics reject Jesus as the “one mediator” (1 Tim 2:5) when they pray to the saints.

Scripture says, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power” (James 5:16). This, of course, does not mean righteous persons are powerful by their own strength; Christians are more or less holy based solely on their conformity or proximity to Christ, the “one mediator.”

The holiest people are our brothers and sisters in heaven, where there is no sin and no separation between the righteous and God. By praying to the saints (which is simply asking for their intercession; God alone is to be worshipped), Catholics simply ask for the help of fellow Christians, the faithful ones who have gone before us who are now perfectly united to Christ in heaven. The saints are cheering us on as we run the race (Heb 12:1) and want to help us, just as our guardian angels (Matt 18:10) protect and assist us, especially when called upon.

The intercessory prayer of the saints in heaven is not only a theoretical possibility but a reality. There are many documented miracles that have occurred due to the intercession of the saints, including a recent incredible story from 2010 that took place in Peoria, Illinois. Bonnie Engstrom delivered a stillborn baby boy, and through the intercession of American bishop and evangelist Fulton Sheen, after 61 minutes without a pulse, the boy came back to life. A panel of seven medical specialists examined the case and James Engstrom, who, despite all odds, developed normally without severe organ failure or disabilities, and determined the case had no known scientific explanation.

But we don’t need to go outside the Bible to find evidence of the intercession of the saints. In the last book of the Bible John tells us “when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev 5:8). In Scripture we are told the elders, or saints in heaven, offer the prayers of the saints on earth before Jesus, which is also what the angels do before the throne in heaven (8:3-4).

Question for Protestants: If we ask our earthly friends to pray for us without rejecting Jesus as the “one mediator,” why can’t we ask our heavenly friends to pray for us?

Catholics should confess their sins directly to God rather than to a priest.

God alone can forgive sins. But he often chooses to work through his faithful servants to save his people.

Moses’s role in the exodus offers a great example. When the Israelites were fleeing the Egyptians, God commanded Moses to stretch out his hand over the sea twice: once to separate the waters to allow the Israelites to escape, and again to close the waters to kill the enemy. The Israelites recognized that God saved them through Moses. “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day … and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.” (Ex 14:30-31). God didn’t need Moses, but he chose him as his instrument to free his people from slavery.

This is what happens during the sacrament of Confession. God uses his servant, an ordained priest, to save his people from the slavery of sin. When the priest stretches out his hand over the penitent sinner and says the words of absolution, “I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” it is Christ working through his servant to grant forgiveness of sins.

The power to forgive sins is not granted to everyone but only to the ministerial priests of the New Covenant. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld’” (John 20:22-23).

Question for Protestants: Do you follow the Bible and “confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16)?

Catholics try to earn their salvation by works apart from grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ” (CCC 2020). Anyone who is saved is saved by the grace of God. Apart from faith and grace, no one can be saved. We are all sinners in need of God’s mercy.

All of salvation is a free gift of grace. This includes initial conversion by faith, and ongoing conversion involving good works done in faith. Faith and works are both necessary for salvation, and although our cooperation is required, even our cooperation is only possible by grace. The Catechism says, “The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.” Quoting St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Catechism continues, “In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes” (CCC 2011). Check out my article on justification to learn more.

Question for Protestants: Is it surprising that Martin Luther, who started the Protestant Reformation, tried to excise the letter of James from the Bible because it says, contrary to his new theology of justification by faith alone, “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24)?

Purgatory is unbiblical.

Purgatory is the Catholic doctrine that those who die in a state of grace but who have imperfections receive purification before entering heaven. It is not a third option between heaven and hell, which is a common misconception. The eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death when souls are immediately judged by God; then the reprobate descend immediately to hell, and the elect enter either directly into heaven, or first undergo purification before entering heaven. Everyone in purgatory is saved by the merits of Christ and will one day be united with God in heaven for all eternity.

Scripture says heaven is a place where “nothing unclean will ever enter” (Rev 21:27). The problem is, those of us Christians who are honest will admit we are not free from sin and that our love for God is far from perfect. This is unacceptable as Jesus commands us to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48).

This is where purgatory comes into play. Purgatory is good news. It is the purifying car wash before entering heaven, allowing our souls to sparkle with perfect holiness without which we would be unworthy to meet our infinitely holy Father face to face. As the Catechism says, purgatory is a “purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030; see also Heb 12:14). The Church leaves the question open if there is physical fire (see 1 Cor 3:15 for the biblical basis for this idea), and it’s possible the purification is instantaneous since it’s uncertain how time operates after death. But the idea of purgatory has biblical roots spanning back to the Old Testament (2 Macc 12:44-46), and it’s logically necessary for those in a state of grace but who remain imperfect at the moment of death. Imperfections can be due to disordered attachments to things other than God, unconfessed venial sins (see 1 John 5:16-17 for the biblical distinction between mortal and venial sin), and temporal punishment for sins already forgiven (see 2 Sam 12:13-14).

Question for Protestants: If you are not perfectly holy at the moment of death but you will be perfectly holy and sinless in heaven, what happens between now and then to bring about this change? That’s what Catholics call purgatory.

Catholics reject the Bible’s unique authority.

Catholics have a deep reverence for the Bible and fully accept its unique authority as the word of God. It is infallible because God is the author. But the Bible was never meant to be the only authority for Christians. How could it be when the Bible as we know it didn’t even exist until the 4th century? Ironically, sola scriptura, the Protestant idea that our only infallible authority is the Bible, is itself unbiblical.

Because of the Bible’s importance, God, in his loving care for his children, provided a means to ensure the Bible (which, by the way, didn’t drop out of heaven) be free from errant interpretations, which are many and multiplying. He did this by establishing a Church endowed with the authority of Christ to teach the faithful without error.

Question for Protestants: Where does the Bible say the Bible is the sole, infallible authority for Christians?

Popes are fallible, just like the rest of us.

Correct. Popes are fallible, or able to make errors, just like the rest of us. It’s also true that all popes are sinners and in need of God’s mercy, just like the rest of us. But consider the human authors of Scripture. No one claims that the writers of Scripture were infallible all the time, but Christians believe they were infallible at a particular time: when they were writing Scripture.

That is what Catholics believe about the Pope. The vast majority of the time, just like the writers of Scripture, popes are fallible. But on narrowly defined and specific occasions, when defining beliefs about faith or morals to be accepted by the entire Church, the pope is protected from error by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said to Peter, “you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church … I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:18-19). By giving Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” and the power to “bind” and “loose,” he invested Peter, and each successor pope, with his own authority to teach the faithful and resolve disputes in a definitive way without error.

Question for Protestants: If God used fallible men to write the infallible word of God, couldn’t he use fallible men to teach the word of God infallibly?

It’s prideful to claim that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church.

An extended family member once said to me, “Couldn’t it be that God wills all these different denominations to keep us humble? Besides, no one knows everything, and all Christians will be united in heaven.” I would be sympathetic with this line of thinking if disagreements among Christians were limited to secondary issues. But they aren’t. Christians disagree on all sorts of issues, from sacramental theology to specific moral issues, and from the nature of Christ to the content and implications of the gospel itself. Protestants themselves are deeply divided and cannot even agree on the “essentials” necessary for salvation.

God has certainly permitted the fracturing of Christendom, but this is not his will. Jesus prays for perfect unity (John 17:21), not only in heaven but starting here on earth. God wills Christians be perfectly united in beliefs, worship, and practice. That is only possible if heresy can be clearly named and rejected. To paraphrase Catholic convert and writer G.K. Chesterton, we don’t need a church to tell us when we’re right, we need a Church to tell us when we’re wrong. Unlike any of the thousands of Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church has the power to teach with authority so Christians know what to believe, how to worship, and how to live. And it is above all the Mass that brings about this unity, where St. Paul tells us Christians who “partake of the one bread” (i.e., consume the Eucharist, which is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus in sacramental form), become “one body” (1 Cor 10:17).

It is a matter of humility to accept, as a historical fact, that the Catholic Church is the one Church Jesus established and to join that Church rather than setting up endless new churches made in our own image. Jesus only started one Church, and he promised “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16:18).

Question for Protestants: Who started your church?

Conclusion

For my Protestant brothers and sisters, first of all, thank you for reading this. It can be difficult to muster up the desire to hear from another perspective, and I want to acknowledge that and express my appreciation. I highly value learning from and having conversations with others who disagree with me, and yet I still find it difficult and uncomfortable.

Maybe this was your first time encountering Catholic responses to some of your objections, and although some objections likely remain or were not addressed here, maybe you realize some of your beliefs about what the Catholic Church taught were caricatures or misconceptions. I sincerely appreciate your openness to learning what the Catholic Church actually teaches and hope this prompts your search for the truth to continue.

To learn more, check out the books below. Several include testimonies of Protestants who relate their difficulties with various Catholic doctrines, and ultimately what convinced them of the truth of the Catholic Church, and others offer book-length defenses of specific Catholic doctrines covered only in summary here. You may also benefit from my article, The Best Way to Learn What the Catholic Church Actually Teaches.

Resources:

Rome Sweet Home by Scott & Kimberly Hahn
Surprised by Truth by Patrick Madrid
Crossing the Tiber by Steve Ray
Stunned by Scripture by John Bergsma
Behold Your Mother: A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines by Tim Staples
The Saints Pray for You by Karlo Broussard
Purgatory is for Real by Karlo Broussard
Pope Peter by Joe Heschmeyer

10 Devastating Contradictions of Transgenderism

Aaron Althoff — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 12:00:00 GMT

In my previous article I show why it is helpful to begin a conversation about LGBTQ+ ideology by gently questioning the claim of inclusivity and showing that affirming traditional views of sexuality is about love, not judgment. But that only scratched the surface and got the conversation started. A more thorough analysis of the transgender movement, and specifically its claim of inclusivity, is needed to address the crisis and confusion. This article aims to reveal the tactics used by transgender activists and show their deception and contradictions. But let’s first pause and take stock of how we found ourselves in a world where the idea of a “transgender person” is part of normal, everyday life.

How Trans Activists Changed Public Opinion

Transgender activists, many of whom do not identify as transgender themselves, have shown remarkable shrewdness and have celebrated tremendous success in their efforts to change public opinion about transgender ideology. A decade ago, the idea that someone could be a gender different from one’s biological sex was outlandish to virtually all Americans. Now, even questioning someone’s transgender identity is, in some places, a criminal offense. As a culture how did we go from dismissing the idea of transgenderism as a radical fad that will never last to only a few years later punishing those who pause to question the validity of this ideology?

The answer is inclusivity. Trans activists craftily smuggled this radical sexual ideology into mainstream culture by marketing it under the umbrella of “inclusivity.” For who doesn’t want to be inclusive? But in reality, inclusivity, which is a good thing in itself if properly understood, was the Trojan Horse to unleash transgender ideology upon the culture, normalize deviant sexual behavior and erroneous beliefs about human sexuality, and change the minds of the average American. And they have been incredibly successful. But it doesn’t stop there. Ultimately, the goal is to enforce total submission to the dogmas of transgender ideology or else risk excommunication from our now “trans-affirming” society. Trans activists proudly wave their victory flags as they continue to issue new, ever-changing, always-conflicting doctrines and mete out punishment upon the heretics. What was once dismissed as silliness is now the new rigid orthodoxy. The transgender movement is a strategy of deception that is contrary to science, reason, and authentic human flourishing. Unfortunately, many have been thoroughly deceived, others have been coerced to step in line, and some courageous enough to call out the lies have been forcefully silenced.

“Inclusivity” was the seemingly-innocent vehicle to unleash this sexual confusion upon the masses. It was the honey used to help the medicine go down the throats of Americans. Now that we see the honey was counterfeit, it’s time also to assess the contents of the sinister concoction that is being forced upon us. The following is an analysis of 10 of the most devastating contradictions, in terms of both logical incoherence and detrimental effects, put forward by trans activists.

1Gender identity is “innate and unchanging” … but gender is “fluid.”

The idea that gender identity is “innate” has been gaining ground. Some people are simply born trans, they say. Because gender identity is unchanging, when a person embraces a trans identity he doesn't change from a man to a woman, or vice versa, he simply discovers who he always was.

However, at the same time, we’re told gender is “fluid.” According to this CNN article, “how one identifies can change every day or even every few hours.” Gender, which refers to the psychological and cultural characteristics associated with sex, is considered malleable and wholly separate from biological sex.

These cannot both be true. (In reality, neither is true, but the point here is simply to call out the contradiction.) Gender identity cannot both be “innate and unchanging” and “fluid.” But rather than being consistent and sticking with one, trans activists will assert both, depending what is convenient at the time.

It’s worth lingering for a moment on the logical consequences of this. If gender is fluid, we could never know with absolute certainty if anyone was male or female. Think about it. If gender is fluid and can change “every few hours,” what if someone died unexpectedly before being able to update his current gender on social media? Even the skeletal remains of those who have lived generations ago would provide no evidence of their gender since gender isn’t tied to biology, they say. Perhaps then no one could say with confidence that anyone had a great-grandfather. How could it be proved that we don’t all have four great-grandmothers?

2Gender stereotypes are rejected … but serve as the basis for confirming a trans identity.

LGBT advocates bemoan the restrictive usage of rigid gender stereotypes. As they should. Men are not less masculine if they help with the dishes and women are not less feminine if they are assertive in board meetings.

However, while claiming to reject gender stereotypes, trans activists rely on these very stereotypes to determine if someone may have a trans identity. Instead of rejecting gender stereotypes and allowing a 4-year old boy to wear pink or a 12-year old girl to prefer dressing in baggy “boy clothes” who simultaneously exhibits unusually aggressive behavior, those in the medical community who affirm transgender ideology see this as evidence for a trans identity that needs to be affirmed for the wellbeing of the child. Rigid gender stereotypes should be rejected, and because they should be rejected, we should let boys be boys and girls be girls in the broadest sense of the phrase. This means boys should be free to enjoy stereotypical girl activities, such as playing with dolls over racing trucks in the mud, and girls should be free to enjoy stereotypical boy activities, such as watching football over figure skating, without calling into question their gender.

3Feelings determine reality … but not when it comes to age, height, race, and species.

I once asked a friend who endorses transgender ideology if he would affirm me one day if I were to tell him I now identify as a 5-foot tall, Chinese grandmother. After much hesitation, he admitted he could never accept that that is who I truly was, even if I was fully convinced of it myself. I admit I was a bit surprised but relieved by his common sense response. But the question is why. Why can feelings determine reality when it comes to sex but not when it comes to other biological factors including age, height, race, or even species?

Trans activists cannot give a reasonable let alone unified answer. On the latter point, some are willing to bite the bullet and say, “Yes, if you truly feel that you are a cat then I affirm that you are a cat. Who am I to say otherwise? I don’t want to judge, and anyone is free to be whoever or whatever they want to be.” Thankfully, claiming that someone can become a cat still seems ridiculous to the average person, even those who otherwise affirm transgender ideology. Nearly everyone would still be willing to say, as a matter of conscience, “No, I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings, but you are not a cat. I simply can’t affirm what you are not.” Now we just need to take one more step back into reality where we can all reaffirm, without judgement and as a matter of fact, that one cannot become the other sex just because one feels like it.

4Affirms someone’s self-proclaimed true self … but rejects those who rediscover their true self after detransitioning.

Insisting that others didn’t feel something they actually did is the height of hypocrisy and ideological oppression. And this is exactly what the trans community does when they reject those who detransition. Sadly, the growing number of people who detransition are often labeled “traitors” or are told that they were never really trans in the first place, even though they are simply coming to believe that who they truly are is not in conflict with their biological sex as they mistakenly believed.

This happened to Chloe Cole, one of the brave individuals who was a victim of gender ideology and has been traveling the country sharing her story to warn others about the dangers of transitioning. She started medically transitioning at 13 with the full support of the medical staff, had a double mastectomy at 15, then detransitioned only a year later at age 16. As a preteen she was a social outcast for her tomboy personality and thought that transitioning would resolve her anxiety and hatred of her body based on the glamorous stories she found posted by the online trans community. However, transitioning only increased her suffering, and she realized her gender dysphoria was only a phase brought on by receiving unwanted attention to her body when she underwent puberty earlier than her classmates. Detransitioning resolved her identity crises but it can never undue the harm that she was allowed to inflict upon herself as an anxious and confused teenager.

Hudson Byblow has also widely-shared his story of struggling with his sexual identity. His earliest memories involve cross-dressing, and as a young boy he daydreamed what it would be like to be a girl. He first experienced pornography around the age of 9, which had a profound effect on him. A combination of moving on to gay and trans porn, which gave a bigger high than his initial porn experience, and being molested by a man as a teenager, led him to begin internalizing the identity of gay and then trans. He never medically transitioned, just as many who identify as trans don’t. But he soon found that his unwanted homosexual desires didn’t define him and his true identity could not be separated from his biological sex. Ultimately, the only way Hudson found peace was by rejecting these false identities and returning to his Catholic faith.

Many others have shared publicly that they were lied to by medical professionals and that transitioning did not provide lasting relief or resolve their underlying issues. Rather, social and especially medical transitioning increased their suffering. It’s time we take the stories of detransitions seriously. There are real men and women, boys and girls being harmed by LGBT ideology, many of whom now have to face the very practical, life-altering consequences of being encouraged and assisted in destroying their bodies.

5Affirms those who identify as a “trans man” or a “trans woman” … but can’t give a coherent definition of what a man or a woman is in the first place.

If a man could be “stuck inside a woman’s body” it’s necessary to know what a man is and what a woman is for this statement to have any meaning. The problem is, no coherent answer can be given by trans activists. “A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman” is as meaningful as saying “a triangle is anything that is a triangle.” A definition based on the word it seeks to define is circular and therefore meaningless. If someone identifies a four-sided object as a triangle, that identification would be wrong based on the definition of a triangle. For a triangle to be a triangle, it must have three sides, and only three sides.

It’s not enough to critique an obviously false idea. So what is a man and what is a woman? A man is an adult human being ordered towards impregnation. A woman is an adult human being ordered towards gestation. These definitions do not reduce persons to mere reproductive functions, but it is necessary to define sex by looking to biological reproductive capacities. Jason Evert quotes Neuroscientist Dr. Deborah Soh who explains that “Sex is defined … by gametes, which are mature reproductive cells.” Soh continues, “There are only two types of gametes: small ones called sperm that are produced by males, and large ones called eggs that are produced by females. There are no intermediate types of gametes, between egg and sperm cells. It is not a spectrum” (Male, Female, Other?, 56). The ability to produce one of the two gametes is determined at the moment of conception and is embedded in our DNA.

The fact that in rare cases someone’s biological sex cannot easily be determined does not disprove the sexual binary and leave open the possibility of a third gender. Even the difficult intersex cases rely on the sexual binary as there could be ambiguous genitalia of the two sexes. There is no third gamete; sex is not a spectrum.

Likewise, infertility does not somehow render the sexual binary void. If someone is blind that doesn’t somehow mean there are some people who are “transvisual.” Infertility involves damaged organs, and an infertile man is no less a man than a fertile one. A blind man is a man who has visual organs that don’t work properly, and an infertile man is a man who has reproductive organs that don’t work properly.

6Gender is not based on the body … but bodily transitioning is seen as necessary for those who identify as trans.

While some make the unscientific claim there is such a thing as a “trans brain,” many trans activists are content to abandon the body entirely as a means to determining gender. (Of course, many won’t shy away from claiming both that there is a “trans brain” and that gender is not based on biology. Needless to say, that’s another contradiction in and of itself.) Biology does not determine gender. Whatever gender (or nongender) they feel like in the moment, apart from any physical or biological features, is who they truly are.

Ironically, even though gender is said not to be based on the body, bodily transitioning is seen as a necessary solution for those who identify as a gender at odds with their biological sex. To put it another way, our bodies don’t determine our gender but bodily transformation in line with rigid gender stereotypes is necessary to affirm our gender. Either way, the claim is our bodies don’t matter but they do matter. Which is it?

7“Gender-affirming care” is life-saving medical treatment that is all reversible … but this involves unprecedented medical abuse with irreversible consequences.

“Gender-affirming care” is promoted as life-saving medical treatment when in reality it is a euphemism for unprecedented experimentation of the human body and entails grave and wide-spread medical abuse. A study has shown that those who have medically transitioned are at 19 times greater risk of suicide compared to the general population. While this doesn’t prove causality, it should elicit caution in promoting medical transitions. At the very least, it provides strong evidence that the underlying issues of those experiencing gender dysphoria are not resolved after transitioning. Additionally, the American College of Pediatricians explains that 80 to 95 percent of children experiencing gender dysphoria naturally grow out of it after passing through puberty. Yet we find that trans-affirming medical professionals, instead of cautiously working to understand the possible underlying causes of gender dysphoria, including childhood trauma, psychological disorders, and learning disabilities, and allow time for the gender dysphoria to likely dissipate on its own, maddeningly choose to fast-track children to embark on gender transitions with life-altering consequences.

Space does not permit an extensive survey of the medical abuses involved, but I will list a few of the consequences of so-called “gender-affirming care.” What should be emphasized, however, is that all forms of medical treatment that seeks to reinforce a transgender identity involve medical abuse because the efforts work under the false belief that one’s true gender could be at odds with one’s biological sex.

No long-term studies have been performed to assess the safety or effects of administering puberty-blocking drugs to children. This alone should produce caution. What is known, however, is that they can cause mood changes, anxiety, delusions, insomnia, osteoporosis, and severe depression. This information is often withheld from parents and children.
Cross-sex hormones render children permanently sterile if administered immediately after puberty-blocking drugs. Do medical professionals honestly believe children are capable of making rational life-altering decisions that include assessing the consequences of lifelong sterility?
Women on testosterone have an increased risk of heart disease and strokes. Men taking estrogen have an increased risk for blood clots.
“Gender-affirming care” sanctions the surgical removal of healthy reproductive organs including a woman’s breasts, uterus, and ovaries, or a man’s testicles and penis. Sometimes the genitalia are surgically refashioned to produce the appearance of the genitalia of the opposite sex. There are many known risks and complications, depending on the specific procedure.

On the last point, consider body integrity identity disorder (BIID) which is a psychological disorder that causes one to believe a limb or body part should not be a part of one’s body. Rather than amputating a healthy limb, which would be a serious act of medical abuse, reputable clinics would seek to resolve the psychological disorder and help the patient to feel comfortable with his body. This clinic says, “Ethically, surgeons and providers won’t perform an amputation on a healthy limb without a clear medical need. This goes against the ‘do no harm’ principle of healthcare.” When it comes to the psychological disorder called gender dysphoria, the same “do no harm” principle should be heeded and healthy reproductive organs should not be removed. (Unfortunately, the same clinic opposed to amputating a healthy limb, has no qualms about removing healthy reproductive organs.) Rather, as a matter of proper and ethical medical intervention, medical professionals should help one feel comfortable with one’s biological sex and address the underlying issues that may have led to the onset of gender dysphoria.

Needless to say, there are many dangerous consequences of “gender-affirming care,” many of which are irreversible. Given the experiential nature of transgender medical intervention and the numerous known short-term and long-term effects, “gender-affirming care” can be likened to the horrors of lobotomy, a not-so-distant dark period in medical history, and is a case of rampant medical abuse harming those we love.

8Privacy of trans individuals is prioritized … but jeopardizes the safety and privacy of other vulnerable individuals.

Care must be taken to find reasonable accommodations for those experiencing gender dysphoria or who identify as trans. (These are not the same thing; one could identify as trans without experiencing any discomfort or anxiety about one’s body, unlike someone experiencing gender dysphoria.) For example, opening unisex restroom facilities for those who identify as trans who otherwise might feel uncomfortable in a restroom aligning with their biological sex would help to protect their privacy. But this isn’t good enough for trans activists. Trans activists demand that those who identify as trans have unrestricted and unquestioned access to things such as public restrooms and school locker rooms that align with one’s gender identity rather than one’s biological sex.

But what about the safety of other vulnerable individuals, including girls and women who have suffered from sexual abuse? If a biological man can simply claim to be a woman and walk into a girl’s bathroom, locker room, or battered women’s shelter unimpeded (since even questioning or requiring some sort of evidence of one’s gender identity is considered discriminatory), what is to prevent a sexual predator from taking advantage of this policy? Unfortunately, there are increasing reports of this occurring. Even if the risk of this may be remote, the increased possibility itself can be psychologically debilitating for girls and women. Being forced to share facilities with the opposite sex is inappropriate and dismissive of the very real concerns of some of the most vulnerable in our society and in our schools.

Segregating restrooms based on sex is not bigotry, it’s a simple matter of biology. Men’s and women’s bodies are biologically different, and the concerns of biological girls and boys having to share facilities with those of the opposite sex cannot be flippantly dismissed.

In schools with trans-affirming staff, children with special needs are especially vulnerable to a mistaken claim of “privacy.” Due to inflexible black-and-white thinking, children with autism in particular have a higher likelihood of experiencing gender dysphoria if they don’t easily fit into a masculine or feminine stereotype. They could have a hard time developing an understanding that it’s okay to be a boy who doesn’t like certain “boy things” or to be a girl who isn’t “girly” because their concept of gender is fixed upon simplistic gender stereotypes. This means autistic children have an outsized risk of being encouraged to embrace a false trans identity.

Autistic or not, in some schools, in order to “protect the privacy” of a child who identifies as trans, the staff will use the child’s preferred pronouns in class but will revert back to pronouns aligning with the child’s biological sex when communicating with the child’s parents if the parents are found to be unsupportive of the trans identity. This is troubling on many levels with any child involved, but especially if the child is autistic. If a child with anorexia identifies as obese, would it be supportive or abusive to secretly encourage this false identity and withhold this information from the child’s parents? To say that it’s idiodic and unethical to trust a psychologically impaired child’s feelings as the basis for reality—let alone any child’s—while simultaneously lying to a child’s parents as a matter of “privacy,” is a gross understatement.

9LGBT is a unified ideology … but “T” is in conflict with “LGB.”

“Everything is about the ‘T’ now, entirely eclipsing the ‘L,’ ‘G,’ and ‘B,’” says lesbian feminist Julia Beck. She continues, “‘T’ is diametrically opposed to the first three letters in the acronym.”

One of the most flagrant contradictions of LGBT ideology is that the sexual ideologies represented by the letters “LGBT” are in internal, irreconcilable conflict with one another. (This is before adding any other letters, numbers, or symbols, such as the dizzying “2SLGBTQIA+” advertised on the website of one trans activist organization. One may wonder at which point a movement loses all hope of meaning when the average person cannot understand an acronym even after it is decoded with the latest round of coined terms and definitions.)

The feminist movement fought hard to establish women as equal to men. This is not without merit as men and women are different but complementary and indeed equal in dignity. However, with the emergence of transgenderism, the “T” is undermining the gains made by feminists. If the feminist movement is about elevating women, the transgender movement is about destroying the very idea of women. And if feminists don’t get along with the program and allow “trans women” to pass as real women, they are silenced and labeled “transphobic,” which is ironic considering “L” came on the scene first, both historically and in the acronym LGBT.

10Affirms an individual’s subjective beliefs … but then forces these beliefs upon others as objectively true, as seen by the policing of preferred pronouns.

Recall Julia Beck’s video linked in the previous section. As a lesbian feminist, she goes on to explain that she was ousted from the Baltimore mayor’s LGBT Commission. For what? Refusing to refer to a male rapist by his preferred female pronouns. He was a rapist, and she is the one guilty of “violence.” You heard that right. This is not a fight between conservatives and liberals. This is a fight between transgender activists and the rest of the world, including feminists on the far left.

Transgender ideology did not pop up in a vacuum. There are several philosophical principles that have been eroding and reshaping the modern mind, one of which is relativism, the idea that there is no objective truth. Reality is whatever individuals subjectively believe it to be, the world tells us. There is nothing that is objectively right or wrong; whatever feels good—go for it.

It is not hard to see how this permeates and energizes the transgender movement. Without anything objective out in the world which is true and real for everyone, we can turn into ourselves and determine our own reality. Our bodies are no exception. “Male” and “female” have no objective meaning as discovered in nature. Rather, these are simply terms to be reshaped or abandoned if it does not align with one’s ever-evolving inner sense of self.

Therefore, affirming one’s subjective beliefs without question is at the heart of transgender ideology. However, this poses an immediate problem. What if someone’s subjective beliefs are at odds with someone else’s? Consider a homosexual couple where one partner transitions and now identifies as a woman. If the other male partner stays in the relationship, must he affirm he is now in a heterosexual partnership? Can someone’s subjective beliefs change objective reality for others? What if my subjective feeling is that someone identifying as a “trans woman” is not really a woman? Once again, transgender ideology collapses under the oppressive weight of its own incoherence.

Conclusion

The question of who we are—our identity—is not a mild hunger. It is our pressing question, and we are starving without a satisfying answer. In a truth-starved world we are offered false solutions, transgenderism being among the most menacing. Wholly untethered from truth, it is not surprising that this mangled ideology peddled by trans activists is hopelessly confused and filled with contradictions. It remains unruly and dangerous, but when transgenderism is brought into the light, its true form is revealed; it’s vanquished of its only real power, its power of deception. This article is far from an attack on those who have embraced a lie—it is a beacon of hope shining in the darkness, illuminating a path of escape from the shape-shifting fiend prowling about in the shadows seeking the destruction of embodied souls.

For those struggling with gender dysphoria, my heart goes out to you. This is a heavy cross, one I have not had to endure. The Church has not always loved you well, I fully admit, but I believe with everything I have that the Church is the only place you can be accepted where you are while being called to embrace your true identity. Your loving Father made you in his image and likeness, either male or female at the moment of conception, and he loves you unconditionally. This is your identity, and we all share in the beautiful God-given gift of our human sexuality. There is hope in the Truth.

Many others reading this do not struggle with gender dysphoria but struggle to comprehend the mysterious world of transgenderism. It is a dystopian nightmare manifesting itself before us, and it’s deeply unsettling and confusing, causing harm to those we know and love. My hope is this article provides clarity to this often foreign set of ideas and that you are now better prepared to think through this more carefully and engage others more effectively and charitably. To learn more, I highly encourage checking out the resources below.

Resources:

The Detransition Diaries by Jennifer Lahl and Kallie Fell
Male, Female, Other?: A Catholic Guide to Understanding Gender by Jason Evert
When Harry Became Sally by Ryan T. Anderson‍
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman

How to Start a Conversation About LGBTQ+ Ideology

Aaron Althoff — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 12:00:00 GMT

A cousin “comes out” and shares that she is now in a serious relationship with another woman. A coworker states his pronouns to show support for the transgender community. Your company sends out a Pride Month email celebrating LGBTQ+ employees. A pink-haired librarian finishes an inclusion display and hangs a colorful sign that says “ALL ARE WELCOME HERE.”

What would have been considered shocking only a few years ago is now the norm. Any and all sexual preferences, lifestyles, and identities are not only tolerated but celebrated. For many, this is nothing short of inspirational progress—maybe the single most important step forward for humanity—where all can be fully embraced for who they are without judgment. For many others, however, simply seeing the letters LGBTQ raises the blood pressure.

Now imagine an interaction between a conservative and that cousin, or coworker, or even the pink-haired librarian. Icy tension, darting scowls, expletives spewing forth, at least in one’s mind if not under one’s breath. This is what many imagine because this is the world we live in. There is anger, division, and confusion. Common ground between liberals and conservatives is all but extinct. And conversation is seemingly no longer possible.

Or is it? I have recently encountered some of these scenarios, but what ensued was not judgment or violence from either side but a respectful exchange from people with diametrically opposed views of sexuality. Calm, fruitful conversation is possible. Here are a few tips based on my recent experience.

Build Real Relationships

Be real. Be raw. Be relational.

Constructive conversations could be had with total strangers, but oftentimes an established relationship is necessary to fruitfully explore virtually any topic, especially controversial ones. So first you should build real relationships. That is, you should truly care about and get to know other people, including those who have opposing views. It is part of life that people disagree with each other, and it is tragic that deep friendships between people who hold different views are increasingly rare today.

One way to begin to overcome this and to open up your heart to others is to share your story and invite others to share theirs. Relationship is built upon trust, and trust comes from being real and being vulnerable. Get beyond small talk covering only weekend plans and the weather and actually get to know people. If you wait for the other person to break the ice and go deep, you may very well only remain at the surface. When the time is right, don’t be afraid to take the first step, let your guard down, and invite someone into your story.

That time for me was earlier this year. I got real, sharing my spiritual journey with Eddie Trask, the host of Catholic ReCon, which involved divulging my struggle with deep-seated sexual sin within the first five minutes of the podcast. As difficult as it was for me to be so vulnerable (I was nervous that I would back out before it started), the response and support I have received has been overwhelming. There’s something about vulnerability that opens up hearts in a way that nothing else can, the heart of the giver and receiver. We crave authenticity because we crave something real, something raw and unedited, something that truly unites us together. There is nothing more real than your story and your own struggles. Find the right person, and share it. And open your heart to allow others to share theirs.

Present Positive View of Authentic Sexuality

When we think of morality we often think of a list of “no’s.” This is unfortunate. Above all, morality is about happiness and goodness, and anything that is wrong and off-limits can only be correctly understood in light of its opposite virtue.

So as much as possible, we should share the positive view of authentic sexuality before critiquing contrary views. It is not a coincidence that my previous article was about St. John Paul II’s beautiful vision of human sexuality commonly known as Theology of the Body. In fact, my website is based upon the advice I’m giving here: start with sharing your story (home page), give a positive presentation of the faith (especially the gospel, my first article), then offer charitable but clear and hopefully persuasive critiques of contrary views. Start positive, and even while offering critiques, try to do so with grace without letting anger or frustration short-circuit the process of healthy dialogue.

Plant Seeds: Ask Good Questions

This goes for any conversation but especially for a conversation as controversial as sexuality.

Spoiler alert: you are not going to change someone’s mind from a single conversation. I’m not saying it’s entirely impossible, but that cannot be your expectation entering any conversation. By having realistic expectations, you can remain calm, knowing that if a compelling point you are making seems not to be landing, that’s okay. The goal isn’t to change someone’s mind on the spot. And being too aggressive or growing quickly frustrated is only going to turn someone away, even if you’re right.

Instead, prepare for the conversation and think through possible objections. But maybe more than anything else, think of some questions to ask. Planting seeds requires receptive soil, and in order to plant a seed you need to be gentle, open, and allow time for the whole process to develop naturally. Leave your conversation partner with questions to think about so the seed has a chance to grow on its own timeline—not yours. Don’t expect immediate results unless you’re intent on sowing division. Trees don’t grow overnight, but weeds do.

Also, relax! Have you ever come away from an important conversation saying everything you wanted to say, having fully listened to every word of your dialogue partner, and responding perfectly in tone and content at every turn? Me neither. We are clumsy creatures and people get that. Don’t worry about making little mistakes. Be humble, listen with genuine interest, and good things can happen.

Here are some possible questions to ask to get the conversation started. The list starts with relationship building, then includes questions to pave the way to share the positive view of authentic sexuality, then ends with questions to broach the topic of LGBTQ+ issues specifically. Keep in mind these questions are designed to build upon an existing relationship, and the point isn’t to try to cover all these questions in a single conversation.

Tell me more about yourself. Do you have a faith background?
Do you mind if I tell you a little about my spiritual journey?
Have you heard of Theology of the Body?
We all struggle with sexuality in different ways. Do you think Jesus loves us despite our struggles?
Do you think it’s possible to love someone without supporting every action and decision?
What is marriage? What is a woman?
Should we be open and inclusive towards those who are unsure about the redefinition of marriage and gender?
Have you ever considered that LGBTQ+ ideology is exclusive not inclusive?

Show Why LGBTQ+ Ideology is Exclusive not Inclusive

Ideally having a conversation about controversial issues like LGBTQ+ ideology would follow after there is an established relationship and mutual trust has been established. But that is not always possible, especially in a short period of time, and I believe the practical conversation tips I share below can be useful in a wide variety of contexts.

The overarching claim for LGBTQ+ ideology is that it is inclusive. So while there are many specific issues to navigate, I have found that it is important to address the claim of inclusivity first.

The LGBTQ+ agenda is inherently exclusive, not inclusive. The liberal sexual agenda endorses a particular set of views and excludes others. To show this is quite simple. All you have to do is ask a liberal friend this question: "Do you think the definition of marriage as a lifelong union between a man and a woman is correct?" The answer will be no. Then you can respond, "Okay, so we're in agreement on one thing. We both agree some views of sexuality are wrong and should be rejected." Wait for a cock of the head and an awkward pause while this is being digested (and likely rejected - see Objection #1 below). A conversation has now started.

Taking a different approach but getting to the same conclusion you could simply ask, “What is marriage?” A typical response from someone endorsing liberal views might be that marriage is a loving and deeply committed relationship between two consenting adults. The point here is not to dissect the offered definition and show why it is flawed. All you need to do is to point out that this is a definition, and by definition, it defines boundaries and excludes contrary views.

Marriage is . Gender is . Those supporting LGBTQ+ ideology take a stance on this and claim that other views (other definitions) are wrong. This is clearly true but it will likely be met with some resistance because this cuts against the whole notion that liberal sexuality is all about inclusivity. Here are three common objections and possible responses.

Objection #1 - But my view doesn’t reject other views, it is simply inclusive towards more views.

First, you can reiterate that this is simply false. For example, the definition of marriage as a life-long union between a man and a woman is claimed to be wrong. This definition is excluded and rejected in favor of a different definition. But more can be said to address the claim of inclusivity.

Sure we can all admit it’s more inclusive to say 2+2 equals 3, or 5, or 6, or anything else other than 4, but the problem is this excludes the one correct answer. Being more inclusive is clearly not always a good thing. If my little guy is eating spaghetti in his high chair and starts to shove a noodle up his nose or in his ear, my wife and I will try hard not to laugh, but as parents should we encourage and embrace his inclusive view towards eating? Or take something more serious: an eating disorder. To love those struggling with bulimia, do we need to endorse a more expansive view towards eating that includes vomiting after meals? This would be more inclusive, but obviously this would be unacceptable. Bulimia is an eating disorder, because it is harmful and contrary to what it means to eat. It goes against the purpose and definition of eating, which is natural, necessary, and good for us.

Expanding definitions breaks them and can cause real harm to real people. False definitions about sexuality are no exception. Real people are being hurt by “inclusive” (false) definitions about sexuality.

Objection #2 - Okay, so maybe I don't accept all views of sexuality as equal (your view is outdated, wrong, and narrow-minded), but we should be inclusive towards all people.

It is unclear what it means to be inclusive towards all people. Must we agree with every action, idea, and identity of people in order to be inclusive towards them? Does this mean merely tolerating a variety of lifestyles or affirming all lifestyles as good and equal? Should people with traditional views of sexuality be tolerated and accepted for who they are? It is not clear and you will get very different, contradictory, and sometimes even shocking answers.

A personal story will illustrate my cause for concern about the murky term "inclusivity" better than any logic ever could. In a corporate setting I once asked a presenter advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and encouraging us to reconsider our "gender assigned at birth" if we should be open and inclusive towards those who are unsure about the redefinition of marriage and gender. He was the hired "inclusivity" expert, and yet his response boiled down to a feeble "I don't know." This was the most unnerving thing anyone has ever said to me. What does that mean? I thought all are welcome here, no exceptions? When it comes to the radical advocates of LGBTQ+ rights, should I be worried about losing my job—or my life? This was several years ago, but in light of the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, maybe I have now found the answer. And yet, I continue to earnestly pray for this very confused man.

So I would suggest, rather than speaking about inclusivity, which is prone to confusion and obscures the truth (based on my experience, I would argue this is intentional), we should instead be asking what is the most loving view and how we can best love all people. And the most loving view can be none other than the correct view, as true love, in order for it to be authentic and true, must be grounded in the truth, not falsehood or error—or confusion.

Objection #3 - But your view is judgmental.

Is it judgmental to hate drunk driving? To say that some action is immoral has nothing to do with judging others. We judge behavior all the time (we don’t give toddlers timeouts and send people to jail for being too kind), but that doesn’t necessarily entail judging people. We love children by correcting bad behavior. We reject drunk driving, not the drunk.

At this point, if it has not already come up, as a devout Catholic I would say wholeheartedly, “I believe all people are created with equal dignity and each and every person is deeply loved by God. There is no choice or lifestyle that nullifies the fact that everyone is made in the image and likeness of God and is created for deep, authentic love.” (This could also be an opportunity to share the gospel, which is simply a summary of and invitation to consider the depth of God’s love for each and every one of us.) “I love all people, and my views on marriage and gender have nothing to do with judging others but simply reflect what I believe to be true.”

Conversations are unpredictable and could go in many different directions. The point isn’t to try to craft a perfect script or to have a ready response for every possible objection. But with some specific ideas and questions to ask, my hope is to offer encouragement that you can do this. You can have a conversation on this topic and remain calm, kind, and even joyful.

Just Getting Started

The goal is simple: just get the conversation started and show that you truly care. If you fail here by not respecting the other person and aggressively stating your views, for many, nothing else matters, including the truth. You can’t have truth without love. And you don’t enter the human heart with a hammer but with gentle precision, with empathy, with a desire to heal even if it may be painful, and by showing, above all, that you have a heart too.

With prayer and a bit of preparation, there is hope that starting a gentle conversation about LGBTQ+ issues with these tips in mind may just allow a new relationship to be formed, strengthen an existing one, or perhaps be the impetus for an old one to begin healing. There is mutual respect, growth in understanding, and hopefully some life-giving truth lovingly delivered. This is a humble start, but it is truly something to celebrate.

Theology of the Body

Aaron Althoff — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 12:00:00 GMT

The Catholic Church teaches that sex is good. In fact, it was a celibate priest, now St. Pope John Paul II, who helped the Church and the world discover just how beautiful God’s design for human sexuality truly is.

To begin to understand the Church’s positive teaching on sexuality, we will take a look at John Paul II’s groundbreaking contributions commonly referred to as the Theology of the Body. This fresh unveiling of the importance of embracing human sexuality was delivered through 129 talks given by the Pope between 1979 and 1984. As the Pope explains, our bodies and our sexuality are not something to spurn or be ashamed of, and our natural desire for deep intimacy isn’t something to blush at. God designed us with these desires. He made sex, and he made it very good! The problem is the world has twisted God’s design for our sexuality, as we can so clearly see from our own struggles and witnessing the many broken relationships in the lives of those around us. Thankfully, there is hope to reclaim the beauty of God’s design and thus embrace who we were truly created to be.

Our Bodies are Good

Let’s start back at the beginning, in the garden of Eden. God created Adam and Eve, and made them husband and wife. We are told they were naked and unashamed. What do you think the couple did with some of their free time? They did what they were told, and they didn’t have to be told twice—they had sex! “Be fruitful and multiply,” God said. So they did. And God called everything he created very good.

God did not make a mistake. He made us male and female, gave us bodies with sexual features, and created strong desires to go accompany his awesome design. John Paul II said, “Every human being is by nature a sexual being, and belongs from birth to one of the two sexes” (JP II Love and Responsibility, 47). Of course, God didn’t create us merely for sex. But, as John Paul II points out, he did make us all sexual, and each person is created either male or female. We cannot know ourselves apart from our sexuality, which means we cannot know ourselves apart from our bodies, which is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.

Our bodies are good. We wouldn’t be human without them. For God made us not as pure spirits without bodies (those are angels), and he did not make us as mere matter without souls (those are rocks and water), and he didn’t make us as irrational creatures with bodies who act only according to instinct (those are animals). He made us in his own image and likeness, with intelligence and free will, and with bodies. We are embodied souls, a synthesis of spirit and body, where our soul is the form of the body and our body is the matter of the soul. We are far from being “trapped” inside our bodies. Our bodies are good and they are integral to who we are.

Made for Intimacy

God made us for intimacy, intimacy with each other and intimacy with himself.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC 221). “God is love,” (1 John 4:8) Scripture says, which is to say God is a communion of love, love being shared in the context of relations. God is intimacy, and he created us for intimacy, for joyful, authentic relationships.

Ultimately, we are created for intimacy with God. Our earthly lives are short and eternity is forever. We are made for eternity, to be caught up into God’s eternal “exchange of love.”

The union between God and man is meant to be so intimate that the Bible uses the language of marriage, where Christ is the bridegroom and the Church is his bride (see Eph 5:31-32). Upon marriage of God and man, there are no longer two but one, as God enters and transforms us while we receive and participate in the eternal communion of love. In personal terms, St. Paul puts the union this way, “It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Notice the penetrating closeness of this image. God is not distant and indifferent but wants to vivify us by entering us completely. Jesus enters us through the heart by faith, transforms us, and gives us new life, which is only possible when we give ourselves entirely to him. This union starts here on earth for the baptized and reaches its full consummation in heaven, when we are deified and caught up into God’s eternal passionate love forever. This is reminiscent of human marriage, or rather, human marriage is an image of the Triune God and our transformative union with him.

Marriage as a Participation in God’s Love

John Paul II said, “The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it” (Theology of the Body, 19:4). God designed all of creation and placed man and women at the center, as the pinnacle of all his physical creation. So his design has a unique and particular purpose. According to John Paul II, this was to reveal the invisible, to be a sign of God, especially by the fact that the Word of God took on a human body. God is revealed to us through his body and through our bodies.

By creating us male and female, God shows us that the sexes are complementary and that we are made for communion. This communion is most clearly revealed in the institution of marriage, which is a reflection of the Trinity, and our hoped for union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in heaven. And of course, human marriage is not simply a spiritual reality but a physical one. Let’s get specific: among many other things, marriage involves sex, which is very physical and very good. That’s the way God designed it, and I don’t hear many complaints!

John Paul II says, “Every man and woman fully realizes himself or herself through the sincere gift of self. For spouses, the moment of conjugal union constitutes a very particular expression of this” (Letter to Families, 1994). Marriage is a union of one man and one woman which, in a unique way, reveals what we are made for: selfless intimacy, by offering ourselves completely as a gift to our beloved. In marriage, a man and woman give themselves to each other, and as especially seen through the act of sexual intercourse, become no longer two but one. Similarly as to how we are created for union with God, with Christ being the bridegroom and the Church being his bride, we are also created for union with each other. While not all are called to marriage (thankfully, John Paul II wasn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t have benefited from his teaching on sexuality!), this intimacy is perhaps revealed most clearly through the beauty of the sexual embrace of a husband and wife.

Sex is such a great gift that the Church encourages couples to joyfully pray before sex, thanking God for the gift of marriage, sexuality, and the deep union that he designed us for. This may seem strange at first. Someone might wonder, “Why would I want to kill the mood by praying before sex?” My response would be this: “How could sex be better by keeping its Designer out of the equation?” If couples want better and more fulfilling sex, the best thing to do is to pray about it! Sex is not meant for the selfish fulfillment of every extravagant fantasy, and it’s not meant to be a mere physical release of pent-up sexual tension. But that does not mean it’s not supposed to be good—no, great—for both partners. In fact, consider what John Paul II considers as “necessary” to reach the fullness of sexual intimacy between a husband and wife. “It is necessary to insist that intercourse must not serve merely as a means of allowing sexual excitement to reach its climax in one of the partners, i.e. the man alone, but that climax must be reached in harmony, not at the expense of one partner, but with both partners fully involved” (Love and Responsibility, 272). Did you expect this coming from a celibate priest?

Above all, sex is about giving oneself entirely to the other, for the mutual good of the couple, where this particular expression of authentic human love is so powerful that it has the ability to bring forth new life. Sex is a participation in God’s very own creative power, a power that both unites a couple and has the potential to create new life destined to be loved.

When Sex is Distorted

So it’s clearly not that sex is bad, it’s that the world’s view of sex is shallow and twisted. As Christopher West, a popular speaker and promoter of John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, likes to say, by untwisting the image of sex that has been crumpled by the world, we can rediscover God’s original design and the true beauty of our sexuality.

The problem with the casual hook-up culture, where bodies are a mere commodity to be used and disposed of to satisfy a fleeting sexual desire, is not that we place too high of a premium on sex, but that our view of sex is far too low. The culture settles on the fast food of casual sex, which feels initially satisfying, but over time leaves us sick and, at the same time, craving for more and more without ever finding lasting contentment. Without realizing there is another option, we keep coming back to the same junk food and become addicted to the very thing that is making us miserable. That goes for every sort of sexual malady that is all-to-common in our culture today. This cycle of cheap sex and inauthentic sexuality has left many of us weary, broken and broken-hearted, and yearning for something more.

Reclaiming the Beauty of our Sexuality

The good news is there is an alternative. God didn’t design us to binge on fast food, but to enjoy the sumptuous feast he has prepared for us in the gift of our sexuality, which is expressed in a profound way in the life-long marriage between a loving husband and wife. We long for union, we long for love, we long for friendship and to be truly known. God didn’t create us to frustrate our desires but to fulfill them! Put another way, the Church doesn’t tell us to hold back on sex but to hold on to our true sexual identities, and to find the freedom and lasting fulfillment that is only possible by recognizing the magnificence of the bodies God has given us and embracing our sexuality.

There is hope for everyone, no matter how much brokenness and baggage there may be. Hope in this life with a restored vision of human sexuality, and hope for life in the next, where God and man will no longer be two but one, where the Lover and the beloved will experience the eternal bliss of intimacy greater than anything that could ever be imaged.

Resources:

Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West
Good News about Sex & Marriage by Christopher West
Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love by Edward Sri
Loved As I Am by Miriam James Heidland

Justification: Catholic Teaching from the Council of Trent

Aaron Althoff — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT

One of my theology professors at the Augustine Institute, a former Protestant pastor, converted to Catholicism after reading the Council of Trent documents. This is just one example of many that speaks to the effectiveness and lasting importance of the Council of Trent for properly understanding the Catholic Church’s teaching, especially when it comes to the hotly debated topic of justification. The Council of Trent, held between 1545 and 1563 to respond to the issue of the Protestant Reformation, was one of the most successful and influential councils in Church history by bringing about sweeping reforms within the Church (which corrected many of the abuses and concerns vocalized by Martin Luther and others within the Church before him) and issuing remarkably deep and clear teachings on many disputed topics.

The Catholic Church does not teach that we are saved by works apart from grace. That is pelagianism, a heresy condemned by the Catholic Church at the Council of Carthage in 418. Also, it does not teach that God gives us the initial spark of grace then we can “work out our salvation” (Phil 2:12) and merit heaven on our own after that. That is semi-Pelagianism, a heresy condemned by the Church at the Council of Orange in 529. These are two misconceptions about Catholic teaching commonly held by Protestants that continue to persist, despite the fact that they are explicitly rejected by the Catholic Church.

Much confusion about Catholic teaching on salvation and justification can be resolved by reading what the Catholic Church officially teaches. In this short article I hope to summarize the main points of the Council of Trent’s teaching on justification relying upon Session Five, the Decree Concerning Original Sin (before explaining justification we need to first understand why we need to be justified) and Session Six, the ever-important Decree on Justification.

Why Must God Initiate Our Conversion by Grace?

Our becoming slaves to sin and being placed under the dominion of the devil began when Adam rejected God and lost for all of mankind the holiness and justice that had been graciously granted to Adam before the Fall. The sin of Adam, while not the personal sin of his descendants (Session V.3), was passed down to all of mankind by generation and leads everyone to sin and death, death of both body and soul. God must then save us, for nothing, not the efforts of human nature nor the law of Moses (Session VI.1), can remove this original sin save the “merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ,” who has “reconciled us to God” by his Passion (Session V.3). For although everyone maintains free will after the Fall, Scripture clearly teaches and the Catholic Church has always taught that “there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Session V.3, citing Acts 4:12).

As the Apostles also handed down, it is through the sacrament of baptism that the merit of Christ is applied to both infants and adults, cleansing them of original sin and regenerating them unto new life (Session V.4). At baptism the Holy Spirit infuses faith, hope, and love into the soul, all of which are necessary to become a living member of Christ’s Body (Session VI.7). The grace received at baptism is not merited by our own prior faith or works for nothing preceding justification can “merit the grace itself of justification” (SessionVI.8). Likewise, no one can even begin to move towards the grace of justification without prevenient grace and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Session VI, Canon 3). Without denying man’s freedom and need to cooperate with God’s grace, the Council of Trent teaches that it is truly only by grace and the merit of Christ that man can be saved.

What is Justification?

According to the Council of Trent, justification is the action of God bringing us into the state of grace through the sacrament of faith, which is baptism, when one becomes an adopted son or daughter of God. Our justification is made possible by the exceeding charity and meritorious act of Christ’s Passion (Session VI.7) which makes us supernaturally alive and worthy of eternal life.

To expand on this, justification starts at baptism when the charity of God is infused into a soul through the Holy Spirit. The theological virtues faith, hope, and love are infused into the soul of the regenerate, the child of God is cleansed of original sin and all personal sin, and the original justice and holiness lost by Adam, the first man, is regained through the merit of the second Adam, Jesus Christ (Session VI.4).

Trent states that faith is essential to be justified for without faith “no man was ever justified” (Session VI.7). While it is not by faith alone, we are justified by faith “because faith is the beginning of human salvation, the foundation, and the root of all Justification; without which it is impossible to please God” (Session VI.8). According to Trent’s teaching on justification baptism, faith, and works cannot be separated without straying from the pure faith that has been preserved and perpetually taught by the Catholic Church.

How Do Our Actions Affect Our Salvation?

Trent teaches that we must freely assent to and cooperate with God’s grace to achieve salvation. God does not save us against our will. We can freely accept or reject God’s grace and therefore can either freely accept or reject God’s free offer of salvation. As Trent says, before justification is achieved through Christ bestowing his merit upon us one must “be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will” (Session VI, Canon 9), which is indeed only made possible by grace.

Contrary to what the heretics and schismatics claim, it is not by faith alone that we are justified and it is not with vain confidence in our justification that we can be certain of our salvation. Our salvation must be worked out to the end, and we are indeed further justified, after our initial justification by faith, by following the commandments of God, through “faith co-operating with good works” (Session VI, 10). Again, both initial and ongoing justification are only possible by grace.

Since we still have free will after receiving initial justification at baptism, we are ever inclined to fall into sin because concupiscence, or the inclination to sin, remains (Session V.5). So salvation can be lost if we freely consent to temptation, but it always remains possible to stay free from sin by God’s grace, “For God commands not impossibilities, but, by commanding, both admonishes thee to do what thou are able, and to pray for what thou art not able (to do), and aids thee that thou mayest be able” (Session VI.11). And yet, the salvation that can be freely gained by grace through baptism and lost through mortal sin (grace can be lost even if faith remains intact (Session VI.15; Session VI, Canon 28)) can again be regained by receiving God’s grace through the sacrament of Penance.

Lastly, because the justified are continually infused with the virtue of Christ, they are empowered to perform good works that are truly meritorious. Through freely cooperating with grace and being made a living member in Christ, we can merit eternal life. But although our merits are our own, they are not founded on ourselves apart from God but only in union with him by being infused by the merit of Christ (Session VI.16; Session VI, Canon 32).

Conclusion

Much more could be said about the Council of Trent’s teaching on justification and the Catholic Church’s teaching on this topic in general, but I hope this helps to clarify the Church’s teaching and provides a basis for further study. To start, I highly encourage you to read the Council of Trent documents yourself, in particular, the Decree on Justification. It is not long, is extremely clear, and is as relevant today as it was 500 years ago immediately following the Protestant Reformation. Of course, one could still disagree with this theology when rightly understood. But who knows? If you happen to be like my former professor, a devout Protestant earnestly seeking the truth about Catholic teaching on justification, maybe this will be the turning point in your own journey across the Tiber.

Resources:

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1987-2029 “Grace and Justification”
Grace & Justification: An Evangelical’s Guide to Catholic Beliefs by Stephen Wood
The Council of Trent Documents:
- Fifth Session (Decree Concerning Original Sin)
- Sixth Session (Decree on Justification)

Is the Eucharist Really Jesus?

Aaron Althoff — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 12:00:00 GMT

The Eucharist, or Lord’s Supper, or Communion all refer to the same thing: something that Jesus instituted at the Last Supper just prior to his crucifixion 2,000 years ago (see Matthew 26:26-30; Mark 14:22-26; Luke 22:14-20). Is that something—the Eucharist—really Jesus, or is it just a symbol?

For some Protestants, this is an important question, but for many other Protestants it really doesn’t matter what Christians believe about the Eucharist. Whether Christians believe Jesus is physically present in the Eucharist, spiritually present, or the Eucharist is merely a symbol, many Protestants think this is simply a matter of one’s own interpretation of the Bible and that it is therefore a “non-essential” disagreement. This is ridiculous. No matter what a Protestant personally believes, indifference to divergent views of the Eucharist is an indifference to heresy, to true worship, to the salvation of fellow Christians, and ultimately reveals an indifference to Jesus himself.

What I hope to explain is 1) why a correct understanding of the Eucharist is essential to Christianity and authentic worship, 2) what Catholics mean by Jesus being truly present in the Eucharist, and 3) why the Eucharist really is Jesus based on the Biblical testimony, especially Jesus’s own words, and the unwavering belief of the earliest Christians.

Why the Eucharist Matters

Does it really matter what Christians believe about the Eucharist? Here I simply intend to show why the Eucharist cannot in any way be considered an insignificant matter, where Christians can casually agree to disagree.

First, Jesus says it matters. When instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper, Jesus says to the apostles, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you” (Luke 22:15). Is it reasonable to think Jesus, being God incarnate, “earnestly desired” to do anything of trivial importance? Certainly not. Additionally, the fact that he immediately commands the apostles to “do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19) is striking. Since the Passover was a Jewish celebration instituted by God during the Exodus centuries before, and Jesus is now telling his apostles to continue this meal for all future generations of Christians, it shows that God had been planning this special meal from the very beginning and he intends for it to continue until the end of the age. Clearly, something is special about this meal. But even if we may have trouble understanding the significance of this meal, the fact that it was important to Jesus means that indifference to divergent views on the Eucharist is not an option. How could completely missing the point of this meal not matter when Jesus eagerly desired to celebrate this meal before the creation of the universe and intended all Christians to partake of this meal into perpetuity? Getting the Eucharist wrong matters to Jesus.

Let’s consider this from both sides. If the Eucharist is only a symbol, then those who believe the Eucharist is really Jesus and worship Jesus in the Eucharist are committing idolatry. Idolatry is false worship and cuts one off from relationship with God. If the Eucharist is only a symbol, a correct understanding of the Eucharist matters, for rejecting this view can result in idolatry and loss of one's salvation. On the other hand, if the Eucharist really is Jesus, and those who receive the Eucharist really receive the God of the universe into their bodies, then those who don’t have the Eucharist and don’t believe they are receiving Jesus fail to be united to God in the most profound way possible on earth. If the Eucharist really is Jesus, a correct understanding of the Eucharist matters, for rejecting this view rejects union with Christ, the very point of Christianity. Either way, it is clear that the Eucharist matters. Jesus said it matters, and the opposing views have radical consequences that reach to the heart of Christianity: from idolatry to true worship and union with Christ.

What does it mean that the Eucharist is Really Jesus?

The point of Christianity is the Eucharist. If this sounds like an exaggeration then you likely don't understand what it means that the Eucharist is really Jesus. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” because “in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch” (CCC 1324). If the point of Christianity is to be united with Christ, and the Eucharist unites us with Christ himself in the most complete way possible here on earth, then you could say the whole point of Christianity is summed up in the Eucharist. Man and God become one. This is what we were made for. This is the reality that begins here on earth, especially through the Eucharist, and which will reach its fulfillment in heaven. The Mass, where the Eucharist comes about, really is heaven on earth.

The Church uses the term “transubstantiation” to describe the change of the elements of bread and wine at Mass into the body and blood of Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit and by Christ speaking through the priest, during Mass the bread and wine change from something to Someone. Through the Eucharistic prayer, there is no longer bread and wine but Jesus’s very own body and blood. Catholics throughout the world who receive the Eucharist receive not just a part of Jesus, for Jesus cannot be divided. Someone doesn’t nibble on his toe while someone else nibbles on his finger. The Eucharist becomes truly Jesus and contains his body, blood, soul, and divinity, and this is true for every morsel of the Eucharistic bread and every drop of the Precious Blood. Catholics consume their Lord thus becoming united with God himself.

While the words of consecration cause the substance to change to Jesus’s body and blood, the accidents, or attributes associated with bread and wine, remain. This means the Eucharist still looks and tastes like bread and wine but it is no longer bread and wine. If this seems impossible to believe, consider the Incarnation. The infinitely powerful Creator of the universe chose to take on human nature and come into the womb of a 13-year old Jewish girl, gestate for 9 months, and be born into poverty in a stable? If God can become man, he can certainly change bread and wine into his body and blood. Yes, it takes faith, just like the Incarnation, but there are good reasons to believe transubstantiation truly takes place at every Mass, just like there are good reasons to believe in the Incarnation.

A point to emphasize is that Jesus unites himself in a special way to the Church he established through the liturgy. By establishing the Catholic Church and instituting the Eucharist (the Last Supper was the first Mass), he established the way Christians are to worship God. We do not get to choose how to worship God; God reveals to us how he deserves to be worshiped. So through the Mass—and only through the Mass—does the Eucharist truly become Jesus. For those Protestants that believe in some form of real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, such as Lutherans and some Anglicans, the sad reality is they do not truly receive Jesus sacramentally at their communion service. Jesus established the priesthood to perpetuate his very life in us, and it is by the priest’s unique involvement in the Mass that Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist. So the Eucharist is bound up with the Mass and we worship God by participating in and receiving the Eucharistic sacrifice, Jesus himself. Jesus died once for all for our sins and this one sacrifice is made present to us at every Mass.

John 6 Proves Jesus is Speaking Literally

In the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and by blood is true drink” (John 6:53-55). This is intense! Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you and you won’t attain eternal life? What!? He can’t be serious.

If this is your reaction, you are not alone. Jesus’s own disciples who were there and heard him say these words were floored: “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” (John 6:60). Yeah, no kidding! Thankfully, Jesus clears up the misunderstanding. He says he was only speaking symbolically and all his disciples are relieved and continue to follow him. Wait a second, what does Scripture say? Rather than backing down, Jesus doubles down. He says, “Do you take offense at this?” (John 6:61) then goes on to affirm that the words he spoke are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). Now the disciples knew for certain Jesus was not speaking symbolically. They had no doubt that Jesus was speaking literally and they responded in disbelief. “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66). But wait, surely there was still just a misunderstanding and Jesus will clarify to win back his disciples? Instead, Jesus turns to the twelve disciples and says, “Do you want to go away as well?” Wow. He really means it. He is letting many disciples walk away because they could not believe they were really to eat his flesh and drink his blood. These disciples knew Jesus was speaking literally, they rejected his teaching and walked away, and Jesus let them go.

Peter, undoubtedly very perplexed, nonetheless responds with faith. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). Peter’s faith-filled response was not based on understanding but on trusting Jesus and his words. Jesus doesn’t ask us to fully understand everything he says, but he asks us to fully trust him. He said, with no uncertain words, that his flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. Who are we to question this? Remember, those who rejected Jesus’s words “turned back and no longer walked with him.” To reject the Eucharist is to reject Jesus.

The Church Fathers Believed in the Real Presence

Christians have always believed that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist. Here is a small sample of the early Christians' unwavering belief in the Real Presence.

St. Justin Martyr - “For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food that has been made into the Eucharist by the eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of the incarnated Jesus” (First Apology 66 - A.D. 151).
Theodore of Mopsuestia - “When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, “This is the symbol of my body,” but, “This is my body.” In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, “This is the symbol of my blood,” but, “This is my blood” (Catechetical Homilies 5:1 - A.D. 410).
St. Augustine - “What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But your faith obliges you to accept that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 227 - A.D. 411).

Justin Martyr, all the way back in the mid-second century, speaks to the Eucharistic prayer of the Mass that brings about the real presence of Jesus . Theodore of Mopsuestia, based on Jesus’s own words, rejects a merely symbolic understanding of the Eucharist a whole millennia before the Protestant Reformation. Finally, Augustine, beloved by Catholics and Protestants alike, explains that it is by faith we accept what our eyes fail to perceive, that the bread and wine or no longer bread and wine but are truly the body and blood of Christ.

Conclusion

I don’t believe in the Eucharist because I fully understand it. I believe in the Eucharist because I trust Jesus at his word. Jesus is really present in the Eucharist. Like it or not, understand it or not, this is what Christians have always believed. So too, I hope, all Christians will once again come to believe in the Real Presence. Above all, by coming to believe this truth revealed by Jesus, I hope all Christians will come eagerly to the Passover feast to receive our Lord, the Paschal Lamb, who so eagerly sought to give himself to us in the Eucharist. Through the Mass, where true Christian worship occurs, heaven comes down and we receive Jesus’s body, blood, soul, and divinity, are nourished in body and soul, and are given hope to be raised up on the last day (John 6:54).

Resources:

The Eucharist is Really Jesus by Joe Heschmeyer
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre
The Lamb’s Supper by Scott Hahn

The Best Way to Learn What the Catholic Church Actually Teaches

Aaron Althoff — Tue, 20 May 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Why does the Catholic Church teach that homosexual attraction is sinful? Why does it teach that sex is dirty and should only be tolerated within marriage? And how can the Church justify its belief that women are inferior to men, which is why the Church refuses to ordain women? Also, why is it that the Church teaches Mary is as important as Jesus? And how could the Church teach that the Pope can never make a mistake?

Did any alarms go off? The Catholic Church does not teach any of these things. If you thought it did, then this article is for you.

Before diving in, there is something too important to simply include in a list. If you really want to know what the Catholic Church teaches you should first and always pray. God wants you to know what the Catholic Church actually teaches, so whether you are a non-Catholic looking from the outside, or even a Catholic looking from the inside, it is essential to start and continue the search with prayer. Even a simple and authentic skeptic’s prayer will do wonders: “God, if you exist and you are listening, please show me the truth about what the Catholic Church teaches. If what the Catholic Church teaches is false, help me to reject it and help others to do the same. If what the Catholic Church teaches is true, help me to understand and open my heart to embrace it. Not my will, but your will be done. Amen.”

Read the Bible

For Catholics and non-Catholics, the first reaction when trying to figure out what the Catholic Church teaches should be to go to the Bible. This is God’s one and only inspired book written for us!

This may come as a surprise to some non-Catholics, and perhaps even to some Catholics, but the overwhelmingly dominant view of the Church Fathers is that the Bible contains, at least implicitly, all doctrines taught by the Catholic Church. Over the centuries most Catholic theologians have believed that the “material” of all Catholics doctrine is contained within Scripture, again, at least implicitly, even if the Church is still needed to provide clarity when disagreements arise.

So if you want to know what the Church teaches about Jesus, read the gospels. If you want to know what the Church teaches about prayer, read the Psalms and the Our Father (Matt 6:9-13). Whether you’re curious about the sacrament of Baptism (Mark 1:9-11; John 3:3-5, Acts 2:38; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 3:21), the Eucharist (Exod 16; John 6:25-69; 1 Cor 11:23-30), or Confession (John 20:22-23), or you want to learn what the Church teaches about Mary (Gen 3:15; Luke 1:41-45; John 19:27; Rev 12:1-6) or what the Church teaches about sexuality (Gen 1:27; Mark 7:21-23; Mark 10:11-12; 1 Cor 6:19-20), or any other belief, start with Scripture. Seriously, take a pause here and open up a Bible if you have one to check out one or more of the references listed above. The two minutes it will take you to do that will be time better spent than finishing this article.

Ignatius Catholic Study Bible by Curtis Mitch and Scott Hahn

Consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Of course, while Scripture is essential, Catholics believe God’s public revelation is contained both within Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The comprehensive reference summarizing all Catholic beliefs as contained in both Scripture and Tradition is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The Catechism is broken down into four parts and corresponds to the following pillars of Catholic faith and life: the Creed (core beliefs), the Sacraments, Life in Christ (morality), and Prayer. Each topic is further broken down into numbered paragraphs for easy reference.

While the Catechism may seem overwhelming at first, it is an invaluable storehouse of Catholic teaching. It contains innumerable footnotes connecting any specific Catholic belief to its scriptural roots and has copious quotations from Church documents and the Church Fathers. In addition, it is very readable. (I was surprised by this when I first started reading it on my way back to the Catholic Church.) So don’t let its size scare you away. Begin by finding a single Catholic belief you want to learn more about, find the relevant section in the Catechism, and go from there.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Read Other Official Church Documents

The Church has been around 2,000 years and has produced a multitude of official writings. There are the early creeds, papal letters, decrees from ecumenical councils, and many other documents. Here are a few recommendations to get started. The first three are important papal encyclicals from the past 60 years which address key issues, such as contraception, objective truth, and the impossibility of the Church ordaining women (this is not because the Church teaches women are inferior to men). The last two are much longer as they are the official documents from two pivotal ecumenical councils: the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and Vatican II (1962-1965). These can all be found for free online or you can easily track down print copies.

Humanae vitae by Pope Paul VI
Veritatas splendor by Pope John Paul II
Ordinatio sacerdotalis by Pope John Paul II
Council of Trent documents
Vatican II documents

Learn from Catholics

Whatever you do, do not try to learn Catholicism from non-Catholics or former Catholics. Whether you agree with Catholicism or not, you should at least ensure you are learning true Catholic beliefs.

If you have a knowledgeable and faithful Catholic friend or know of a good local Catholic priest, this is a great way to start learning the Catholic faith. Even if this is the case, for those wanting to dive deeper, it is also important to explore the writings of Catholic authors. This includes the saints, the Church Fathers, theologians from across the centuries, and contemporary writers.

To make things simple, here is a list of recommended resources to get you started. There is a recommendation for an informational book, a book containing one or more testimonials, and a book about Catholic spirituality, each broken down into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. The Church teaches we are integrated corporal beings, both body and soul, mind and heart. So in order to truly “get inside Catholic theology” one must learn what the Church teaches, yes, but it’s also valuable to hear why others have become Catholic, often at much personal cost, and to expose oneself to the deep wellspring of Catholic spirituality, thus learning how a Catholic prays and is to orient his or her life.

Beginner

Informational: Why We’re Catholic by Trent Horn
Testimonial:
- Protestant: Rome Sweet Home by Scott & Kimberly Hahn
- Non-Christian: Not God’s Type by Holly Ordway
Spiritual: The Story of a Soul by St. Thérèse of Lisieux

Intermediate

Informational: An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine by St. John Henry Newman
Testimonial: Confessions by St. Augustine
Spiritual: Introduction to the Spiritual Life by Brant Pitre

Advanced

Informational: The Case for Catholicism by Trent Horn
Testimonial: Evangelical Exodus: Evangelical Seminarians and Their Paths to Rome by Douglas Beaumont
Spiritual: The Fulfillment of All Desire by Ralph Martin

Explore Good Online Resources

Finally, exploring websites and podcasts is another good way to tap into Catholic beliefs. Here are a few that are informational and engaging, faithful to Church teaching, and which I have found to be especially helpful.

Catholic Answers
The Coming Home Network
The Counsel of Trent (podcast hosted by Trent Horn)
Ascension Presents (podcast featuring Fr. Mike Schmitz and others)
Godsplaining (podcast hosted by very intelligent and very funny Dominican friars)
Pints with Aquinas (podcast hosted by Matt Fradd)
Shameless Popery (podcast hosted by Joe Heschmeyer)

Conclusion

If you were hoping to find direct answers in this article about the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, Mary, or the Pope, don’t be disappointed. God willing, I will be able to write about these and many other topics in the future. Besides, the purpose of this article was to point people in the right direction to find answers to any question about Catholic teaching. Based on the suggestions in this short article and by checking out the recommended resources scattered throughout, I hope you will be more confident about where to begin to learn more about Catholic teaching.

Lastly, I started by suggesting prayer and I will end by suggesting prayer. If you are struggling with the Church’s teaching on any topic, whether you are a Catholic or a non-Catholic, take your doubts and concerns directly to Jesus. Find a local Catholic Church, stop into the chapel, find the red candle indicating Jesus’s real presence in the Eucharist, and be real with him. Don’t hold back your doubts, pain, or frustration. He can take it. If you let him, Jesus will grant you peace and will guide you to the life-giving truth about him and his Church.

A Starter Guide for Truth-Seekers

Aaron Althoff — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 12:00:00 GMT

We are all truth-seekers. Some maybe more naturally than others, but we are all made to ask big questions and passionately seek for answers. The trouble is, finding the truth in any matter, let alone for the ultimate questions, is fraught with difficulty. Not the least of which is discouragement in this most necessary task due to the overwhelming nature of the search and an uncertainty of where to begin. If this is you, you are not alone. I have been there and wish someone had given me a similar guide years ago.

There is always time to start or renew the search for truth. Here are seven time-tested guidelines for us truth-seekers, young and old.

Step 1: Learn How to Think Logically

This is an absolutely essential first step. You can not truly seek the truth if you do not first know how to think clearly. Familiarize yourself with the laws of logic and common logical fallacies.

The laws of logic are discovered, not created. One law is the law of noncontradiction, which states that something cannot both be true and false in the same way at the same time. For example, the screen you are looking at cannot both exist and not exist. To state otherwise would break the law of noncontradiction and therefore be illogical.

There are also many logical fallacies, or errors in logical thinking. A common fallacy is a circular argument, which is when the conclusion restates the argument rather than actually proving it. For example, “This burger is delicious because it tastes really good.” The evidence that the burger “tastes really good” is simply a restatement of the claim that the sandwich is delicious. It means the same thing. To make this a logically coherent argument a reason must be given as evidence, such as the gooeyness of the cheese or the tenderness of the meat.

We all commit logical fallacies, but by understanding them we can work to limit them and graciously help others to avoid them. Sometimes though, you just have to let the child (or adult) enjoy his sandwich, fallacies and all.

Step 2: Critically Evaluate Truth Claims

We should critically evaluate all truth claims, especially those that make the biggest claims and have the greatest potential to affect our lives. By first growing in our understanding of logical thinking (step 1) we can then more effectively evaluate the veracity of any truth claim. This means many things. Simply increasing our awareness of the need to question assertions is a first step. When someone states something as a matter of fact, don’t just accept it as fact. Question it, ask for reasons to support the claim, and ask for definitions of any unclear terms. We know we should do this, but how often do we actually do it? Thinking is hard work and we’re all prone to take the easy path.

In addition, sharpening our critical thinking skills allows us to search out hidden assumptions in arguments, recognize logical fallacies, and even craft our own arguments. Above all, seeking the truth and critically evaluating truth claims means learning to ask good questions. Take this article for example. An active and critical reader might ask: Are there any unstated assumptions? (Yes, there is truth and it can be found. But now these aren’t unstated! You will have to do the work yourself next time.) Why did I choose these seven guidelines? Could they be arranged differently? Are there only seven steps or are important ones missing?

Step 3: Regularly Set Aside Time to Think

I don’t mean sitting there hunched for hours a day with your chin resting on your fist. While chiropractors would appreciate the extra business from such a habit being recommended, setting aside time to think includes especially setting aside time for study. Read lots. Read books—yes, those paper things you find in libraries. Read difficult things, especially things that you know are beyond your comprehension. Unless you are reading for leisure, which is strongly encouraged, if you are not thinking hard while you are reading you are doing it wrong. What other way is there to learn than to study things that will stretch your knowledge and current abilities?

Step 4: Expose Yourself to New Areas of Study

Everyone has different skills and interests. That is part of the beauty of humanity: we are all unique and have specific ways we are best-suited to grow and contribute to society. But truth is everywhere, and we shouldn’t limit ourselves to any one field of study.

Search for truth in unexpected places, even in places where you have little natural interest. You may be surprised by what you find. I admit I’m not always the perfect model in this regard. But I’ve found that exposing myself to learning in new areas only increases my curiosity and hunger to learn more. And the more we learn, the more we are able to synthesize all discovered truth by putting the pieces together into a cohesive whole. We won’t do that perfectly of course, but casting the net far and wide offers the greatest chance of bringing in an exotic array of specimens to consider, admire, and add to our ever-expanding mosaic of reality. (Truth is always about reality whereas falsehood, or non-truth, is always about non-reality.)

Step 5: Reevaluate Your Own Beliefs

Another incredibly important step is to get in the habit of reevaluating your own beliefs, especially when new evidence or arguments present themselves. This does not mean you should be tossed to and fro whenever a new idea passes by. But, when armed with the tools of logical thinking, you can take stock of new evidence, analyze the arguments, and if needed (if you are intellectually honest) you must be willing to exchange your mistaken belief for the truth. Just like dispeling a rotten meal that causes food poisoning may be unpleasant, in the end, working to dispel false ideas is always worth the temporary discomfort.

A helpful way to critically evaluate your own beliefs is to engage in conversation with those who hold opposing views. First, this can help to clarify your thoughts and strengthen you in your own beliefs. Second, it can help to clear up misunderstandings, both about your position and the opposing position. In addition, if you are convinced you are right in a certain important matter, it is an act of charity to try to share that truth with others. Lastly, at times a respectful disagreement will reveal fundamental flaws with your own beliefs. For a truth-seeker, this is great news! Finding out you are wrong about something is perhaps even more important than finding out you are right. Unhitching from the dead weight makes the rest of the journey that much lighter.

But there is a reason this isn’t the first step. You don’t want to get conned. Every position and ideology has its persuasive peddlers, many of whom may be well-intentioned, but even the well-intentioned can be flat out wrong. This happens all the time. (I know from experience, both on the giving and on the receiving end.) You should be much more concerned about clearly understanding the underlying arguments than about admiring someone’s rhetorical abilities or even sincerity. Rhetoric, or the art of persuasive speech, is not bad in itself, but it is never enough and an over-reliance upon it often proves only to obscure the truth. And even if a sincere inquirer asks you a pointed question which you cannot answer or poses an objection to your beliefs you have never encountered before, that does not automatically mean your position is undermined. Being willing to simply say “I don’t know” is sometimes the best and most honest thing you can do. But don’t just leave it at that. Do some research and circle back with your conversation partner. This is all part of the lifelong dance of truth-seeking: asking questions, being asked questions, and always being open to embrace wherever the evidence leads.

Lastly, don’t seek disagreement for the sake of disagreement, but seek others who are willing to follow the evidence of truth together. Oftentimes, others can greatly assist with this pursuit, those who agree with you, and perhaps especially those who don’t.

Step 6: Learn from the Greatest Thinkers in History

From Socrates (469-399 BC) to Saint Thomas Aquinas (AD 1225-1274) to René Descartes (AD 1596-1650), history is filled with influential and ground-breaking thinkers without which we would not be where we are today (for all of its glory and its woes!). I am only a beginner myself, but all I can do is recommend that we all seek out the wisdom of the intellectual giants from the past. The greatest ideas never grow stale.

You’ll quickly notice, however, that not all thinkers agree, not any one thinker was correct on all points, and intelligence alone does not protect against some truly awful ideas. For example, take Karl Marx’s political philosophy. Marxism has directly caused more human death and overall human suffering than any other philosophy in history. Marx’s influence is truly great in the most horrific way. Yet we can learn from studying all influential thinkers of the past, no matter the legacy they left behind.

When learning about the greatest ideas history has passed down to us, ensure you take time to understand both the thinkers and their ideas. Ask yourself questions: What influenced this thinker’s philosophy? Why precisely is this idea good or bad? Is it consistent with lived experience or is there a logical fallacy that undermines the idea? What corrections to the ideas are needed, if any? If I were to appropriate this idea, how would that change my life and way of thinking? Can the idea be applied to help solve a particular dilemma facing us today, or, perhaps, is this idea the cause of one of our society's most pressing issues? Sometimes the ideas most familiar to us pose the greatest risk of failing to be truly understood. So, as a starting point, you may want to search out the historical roots of your own intellectual tradition. What you find may embolden you in your beliefs or even shock you. History is full of surprises just waiting to be (re)discovered.

Step 7: Prioritize Ultimate Questions

Maybe it’s just me, but after one of my children says a particularly amusing and seemingly unique statement, I sometimes wonder how many other children have said the exact same thing. None? One, but in a different language a thousand years ago? Two hundred in the past week? It’s a mild curiosity, but I would be nuts if I were to abandon my career and sell all that I had to seek out the answer to this quirky question. Even if I found the answer, what difference would it make?

As truth-seekers, we must prioritize seeking answers to the most important questions. That does not mean we should not entertain silly questions or even pursue personal intellectual interests with vigor. Our lives are often enriched by such endeavors. However, there are some unavoidable and ultimate questions that we must prioritize above all else. Finding answers to these questions unlocks the very essence of who we are, empowers how we live, and determines how (and whether) we will exist after our short lives have ended.

How do I attain happiness?
What is the purpose of my life?
How can I know the difference between right and wrong?
What will happen when I die?
Does God exist?

The profundity and difficulty of these questions should not deter us but propel us to search with absolutely all we have. If you have to abandon your career and sell all you have to find these answers—do it.

Conclusion

It seems fitting to conclude with some wisdom from one of the saints, who are the greatest truth-seekers. For the saints not only sought the truth, but even when they found what they were seeking, they passionately sought to know and love the Truth evermore.

In an encyclical entitled The Splendor of Truth, Pope John Paul II wrote “Although each individual has a right to be respected in his own journey in search of the truth, there exists a prior obligation, and a grave one at that, to seek the truth and to adhere to it once it is known” (Veritatas splendor, 34).

Resources:

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking by D. Q. McInerny
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren
Socrates’ Children: An Introduction to Philosophy from the 100 Greatest Philosophers by Peter Kreeft
Veritatas Splendor by John Paul II

5 Problems with Sola Scriptura

Aaron Althoff — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

A Protestant friend recently told me “The Bible is absolutely sufficient for my salvation.” This, of course, is not at all unusual to hear coming from a Protestant. The doctrine of sola scriptura was proudly proclaimed by Martin Luther, over against the need for Sacred Tradition and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and is considered the formal cause of the Protestant Reformation. What is unusual is for Protestants to be aware that there are significant problems with this claim. Here are five of them.

Problem #1: Sola Scriptura is Unbiblical

Surely the Protestant doctrine about the sufficiency of Scripture, which claims that Scripture alone is the sole infallible guide for all Christian beliefs, has abundant and indisputable evidence in Scripture. How could it not? On the contrary, the strongest Biblical “evidence” offered in favor of sola scriptura is from Paul’s second letter to Timothy.

Paul says “All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16). To this Catholics say, “Amen!” But where in this passage is there any reference to the Bible being the sole infallible guide for Christians? Perhaps if “profitable” were substituted for “sufficient” Protestants could make some sort of case for sola scriptura, but that is not what the text says.

In context, when Paul is referring to Scripture he is referring to the Old Testament, for much of the New Testament had not even been written yet. Additionally, the fact that Scripture is God’s inspired word and profitable or useful for many good things—which Protestants and Catholics both agree upon—does nothing to support the idea that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith. Protestants mistakenly (and often unwittingly) read sola scriptura into this and other passages that speak to the inspiration and importance of Scripture because they already assume sola scriptura to be true. What is revealing is that some Protestant apologists have begun admitting that the Bible does not explicitly teach sola scriptura but then claim that this does nothing to undermine the doctrine. I will let the reader decide if this seems plausible.

What the Bible does teach is that authentic Tradition is to be embraced as authoritative. Paul elsewhere says “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess 2:15). Notice that the Apostles’ verbal and written teachings are placed on an equal plane and that both are considered “traditions”. Tradition here is clearly shown to be a positive thing, not something to categorically reject as many Protestants do.

We can therefore conclude that sola scriptura is unbiblical both due to a lack of evidence in its support and because of the explicit evidence against it.

Problem #2: Sola Scriptura is Insufficient to Maintain Christian Unity

In a previous article I provided a list of essential disagreements among Protestants regarding faith and morals. I will not relist those disagreements here. Instead, I will provide further insight into why the Bible alone is insufficient to maintain Christian unity.

1The Bible is a collection of books in need of interpretation

Christians agree that the Bible is the inspired word of God. But the Bible is still a book, or rather, a collection of books, in need of interpretation.

There are many difficult passages in Scripture. One common solution put forward by Protestants to shed light on these dark passages is to use the clear passages in Scripture to explain the unclear passages. The problem is no one can agree on which passages are clear and which are unclear. The Bible can’t interpret itself and it doesn’t give a list of the supposed clear and unclear passages. Because the Bible is a book, it requires an interpreter. Without an infallible authority to resolve the many debates by providing a correct and authoritative interpretation of Scripture, “Bible only” Christians are left fighting over the Bible based on their own fallible interpretation over not only innumerable secondary issues, but on doctrines affecting the gospel and salvation.

2Not all important faith and moral questions are answered in the Bible

Many important questions about faith and morals are not directly answered in the Bible. Debates about the nature of God (e.g., Is God a Triune God?) and the nature of Christ were not resolved for centuries and only after much debate. Other modern moral issues, like IVF and surrogacy, cannot be addressed in the Bible because the issues had not arisen when the Bible was written.

But another problem is that even when the Bible does address specific moral questions, it is not always clear if the Biblical mandate is culturally-dependent or if the moral instruction is intended to endure for Christians of all later generations. Examples range everywhere from “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (1 Cor 16:20) to the question if the Ten Commandments are still binding on Christians today. Christians disagree on all sorts of moral issues explicitly taught in the Bible because the Bible is not always clear which mandates are transient and which are to persist, which goes back to the need for an authoritative and trustworthy interpreter to resolve debates.

3Christianity, the greatest idea, is subject to developments over time

In An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, John Henry Newman masterfully articulates another reason why sola scriptura is insufficient for Christian unity. Newman said that ideas contain a “living principle” within them, and once an idea possesses the human mind there is an active process of trying to understand it as the idea is freshly considered from every conceivable angle by a variety of people. But that process takes time, especially for the greatest of ideas. The greatest idea of all is Christianity, which is more than an idea, but an idea nonetheless.

As Christians sought to unpack the deepest mysteries of the faith, more and various developments came about, some authentic to the original idea and some foreign. As Newman argues, the very nature of ideas and their development makes it extremely probable or even necessary that there be an infallible authority to judge between true and false developments. Without such an authority, Christians are left with only the Bible, which is inspired and essential but unequipped for the task of definitively resolving future disputes after its pages were written.

Problem #3: Scripture is Dependent Upon Tradition

All Christians accept the canon of Scripture on the basis of Sacred Tradition and the authority of the Catholic Church. This is an inconvenient historical fact, one that many Protestants are unaware of.

God did not hand us a stone tablet with the books of the Bible engraved on it. We know which books belong in the Bible because a group of Catholic bishops, being guided by the Holy Spirit, authoritatively declared the canon of Scripture, first at the Council of Rome in A.D. 382, and later by reaffirming it at the Council in Hippo in A.D. 393 and at the Council in Carthage in 397.

It is worth noting that ever since the canon was settled by the Catholic Church in the 4th century, Christians held to a biblical canon of 73 books. It was only in the past 500 years that Martin Luther and the Reformers took out 7 books from the Bible, the deuterocanonical books in the Old Testament. This was because these books supported Catholic doctrines about purgatory and praying for the dead, which the Reformers rejected on the basis of their own interpretation of Scripture. But if the Reformers were able to remove books from the Bible because certain books went against their own theology, what is to keep others from doing the same?

Sola scriptura is undermined by Protestants’ reliance upon Tradition and the authority of the Catholic Church for the infallible list of books included in the Bible, thus making the doctrine of sola scriptura self-defeating.

Problem #4: Sola Scriptura is Unhistorical

If the idea that “The Bible is absolutely sufficient for my salvation,” as my friend put it, is true, should we not expect to find ample and early testimony from Christian writers espousing such a critical doctrine? The issue is not that we simply lack sufficient early Christian writings—we have copious extrabiblical documents, especially in later centuries. No, among the thousands of pages from the Church Fathers and voluminous writings from later Christians writers, we don’t have any source that asserts this one allegedly essential thing: that all Christians need is the Bible. For at least the first 1,000 years of Christianity, there is no compelling historical evidence that anyone believed in sola scriptura.

Sure, there are many passages about the inspiration of Scripture, the necessity of Scripture, the primacy of Scripture for Christian belief and practice, and even the material sufficiency of Scripture, but nowhere is a single passage, correctly understood in context and in light of everything else written by the author, found in support of the idea that the Bible is the sole infallible rule of faith for Christians. Instead, we find statements like this from none other than Saint Augustine: “For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church” (Against the Fundamental Epistle of Manichaeus 5).

Do your own research. But then ask yourself: Why is so much written about the need to follow the bishops and the teaching authority of the Church while there is little to nothing in support of sola scriptura? Is it possible that sola scriptura is in fact unhistorical and was an innovation introduced very late in Christian history by the Reformers? The historical record speaks for itself and is readily available to anyone willing to commit to some personal study.

Problem #5: Sola Scriptura was Impossible for the Earliest Christians

It is indisputably true that the earliest Christians did not believe in sola scriptura. In fact, both Catholics and Protestants agree that sola scriptura was impossible for the earliest Christians.

First, the books of the New Testament were not all written until several decades after Jesus’s resurrection, so the earliest Christians could not have accepted the “Bible alone” even if they wanted to. Additionally, as noted above, we didn’t have the Bible as we know it until the 4th century when the canon of Scripture was declared by the Catholic Church. Until this infallible decision was made, there were disagreements between believers about which letters were considered inspired. So since sola scriptura is based on the idea that the Bible is all Christians need, and the earliest Christians did not have the Bible until the 4th century, sola scriptura was impossible for the earliest Christians at least until the 4th century.

Rather than relying on the Bible alone, the earliest Christians followed the authoritative teaching of the Apostles, those entrusted with Jesus’s own authority to preach the gospel. And when disputes arose, these very first disciples, who were primarily Jewish followers of “the Way” (Acts 9:2), did not look solely to the Scriptures (i.e., the Old Testament) for answers. Instead, we know from Scripture that disputes were resolved by the Church. For example, when some Jews were insisting that gentiles needed to be circumcised to be saved, Paul took the dispute to the Apostles in Jerusalem where the problem was definitely resolved when Peter stood up and spoke to the assembly, declaring that circumcision was not necessary for salvation (Acts 15:1-21).

Since sola scriptura was impossible for the earliest Christians, is it unreasonable to think it is also impossible for Christians at all times in church history, including for Christians today?

Conclusion

Based on the many problems with the doctrine of sola scriptura, five of which have been outlined here, it is not difficult to see that sola scriptura is nothing other than a tradition of men that Jesus warned his followers to reject (Mark 7:8).

Jesus did not teach sola scriptura or expect his followers to believe it. No, he loves us too much to leave us to our own feeble resources as we each try to interpret a diverse and incredibly difficult collection of ancient texts written in foreign languages. Indeed, it is because we are all individually fallible and uncertain that Jesus gave us an alternative: the trustworthy teaching authority of the Catholic Church, which is grounded in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Holy Spirit will not fail to “guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13) when you follow the teachings of the Church, which is “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

Resources:

The Bible is a Catholic Book by Jimmy Akin‍
By What Authority?: An Evangelical Discovers Catholic Tradition by Mark P. Shea‍
Not by Scripture Alone by Robert A. Sungenis‍
The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity by Casey J. Chalk

3 Arguments for God's Existence

Aaron Althoff — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Growing up I thought questioning God’s existence was off-limits. I assumed that even wondering how we can know God exists might in some way offend God. Aren’t we just supposed to believe? Many atheists believe that is exactly what theists do—believe in God out of blind faith without any good evidence or reasons to do so.

I soon discovered, however, that not only is it okay to ask questions about God’s existence, but that some of the greatest minds in history, many of whom were devoutly religious, have been meticulously exploring such questions for centuries. “Does God exist?” is the most fundamental question all truth seekers must wrestle with. Using reason alone apart from any religious truth claims, here are three classic arguments for God’s existence.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Introduced by Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages, this first argument gains further evidence in its support from modern science. The basic structure of the argument is laid out below. The syllogism starts with two premises and ends with a conclusion, which logically follows from the premises.

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Let’s start with the first premise: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. This is simple enough. We don’t see kittens or bananas popping into existence out of nowhere. The only thing that comes from nothing is nothing. If something begins to exist, something else caused it to come into existence.

The second premise is: The universe began to exist. This is strongly attested to by modern science, but that was not always the case. However, in 1927 theoretical physicist and Catholic priest Father Lemaitre proposed a theory that asserted the universe came into existence from an incredibly dense point, rapidly expanded, and is still expanding today. Interestingly, this idea was ridiculed by an atheist cosmologist who dubbed it the “Big Bang” theory in hopes to discredit it. For until this theory was accepted by the scientific community, it was commonly thought that the universe had always existed. Therefore, it was often thought, the need for a cause (especially a divine cause) of the universe was unnecessary. Now, the question is not whether the universe began to exist, but what caused it to come into existence?

If the first two premises are correct, that everything that begins to exist has a cause and the universe began to exist, then it follows necessarily that the universe has a cause. What is the cause?

We can start in the right direction by a process of elimination. The universe could not have caused its own existence. (It is important to note that the universe did not appear in an empty vacuum, for a vacuum assumes space already existed. With the start of the universe, space was one of the things that was created.) Before the universe began to exist, there was no space, time, or matter. And since the only thing that comes from nothing is nothing, something must have caused the universe to exist. Therefore, since the universe contains all matter, space, and time, the cause must be immaterial, spaceless, and outside of time. In addition, the cause must be powerful enough to create the universe out of nothing.

So what is this eternally (since it is outside of time) powerful cause? Perhaps it is not God but an impersonal force. The problem with this option is that an impersonal force cannot choose. Since the universe did not exist eternally but came into existence a finite time in the past, something with will power must have chosen to create the universe. The universe did not have to exist. But there is a universe, and it began to exist because something, or someone, with choosing power willed it into existence.

This leaves us with an all-powerful personal mind, for only a mind can choose. We can thus conclude that the cause of the universe is an immaterial, spaceless, timeless, all-powerful intellect or mind. The best option that fits that description is God.

The Moral Argument

This is one of my favorites because it’s intuitive and undeniably practical while being just as logical as other arguments for God’s existence.

Objective moral facts exist. We know this instinctively and (thankfully!) almost no one denies it. For example, imagine you are leaving the grocery store and see a man snatch a little girl from her mother’s arms, throw her into an unmarked van, and speed away while the mother screams and runs after her kidnapped daughter. You don’t pause and wonder what an interesting reaction the mother is having to someone else’s free choice—you call the police! That is because we know kidnapping is wrong. But the only reason this is wrong is because there is an objective moral order based on God’s existence.

If atheism were true and there is no God, there would be no such thing as objective moral facts. Child abuse, sex trafficking, rape, and murder would all be a matter of personal preference and social conditioning as part of the evolutionary process. If a lion forcefully copulates with a female, we would not accuse it of rape. Animals act on instinct and their actions have no moral value. But if we are just more evolved animals, then there is no objective moral basis for our actions either. We are just another species of animal made up of the same elements and will all soon return to lifeless carbon matter, just like a dead lion, toad, or slug. Without God, there is no such thing as good or bad. Everything, including ourselves and our actions, is simply the meaningless byproduct of random chemical reactions.

Therefore, because objective moral facts exist, God exists. Kidnapping a child from a grocery store parking lot is really and absolutely wrong. It doesn’t matter what the kidnapper thinks or what the prevailing laws are in his country. We know this. The only reason why we know this is because there is an objective moral order grounded in God’s existence.

The Contingency Argument

This third argument is perhaps most well-known as one of St. Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs for the existence of God. Aquinas, a Dominican friar who lived in the thirteenth century, is widely considered one of the greatest philosophers and theologians of all time. The contingency argument goes something like this.

The world is filled with contingent beings, that is, beings that do not need to exist. I exist, but I did not need to exist, and the cause of my being is outside of myself. I can point to the cause of my existence as my parents, but they also did not need to exist just as their parents did not need to exist. This continues back all generations. And the same is true with everything we encounter in the world. Everything we see did not need to exist, and the cause of its existence is found outside of itself.

But this cannot go on infinitely back in time. For if there are only contingent, non-necessary beings, there would be nothing outside of these contingent, non-necessary beings to cause their existence. But contingent beings exist. Therefore, there must be a necessary being that caused the existence of all contingent beings.

Unlike a contingent being, this necessary being does not point outside of itself for its existence but is something that points only to itself for its existence. It is necessary in that it cannot be distinguished between what it is and that it is. A necessary being is a being that must exist by its very nature. Contingent beings and everything in the material world are not like this. Therefore, this necessary being must be something outside of matter and time which are bound by the universe. This necessary being has always existed and cannot not exist. It is existence itself. In the words of Aquinas, this is what we call God.

Conclusion

One could easily think of many bad arguments for God’s existence. For example, imagine a friend tells you “I won the jackpot after going to church, therefore God must exist.” All we can conclude from that is that your friend better buy you lunch and that this latest trip to the casino hasn’t helped your friend’s critical thinking skills. Of course, winning the lottery could have been total luck and likely did not involve any divine intervention.

But there are also many good arguments for God’s existence. Here I have summarized three that I find particularly helpful. Not all objections to these arguments were addressed, which would be impossible in a short article, and much more could be said. My hope is that this introduction to a few arguments for God’s existence will spark new questions and prompt further study.

Resources:

One Less God Than You: How to Answer the Slogans, Clichés, and Fallacies That Atheists Use to Challenge Your Faith by John DeRosa
Who Designed the Designer: A Rediscovered Path to God’s Existence by Michael Augros
From Atheism to Catholicism: Nine Converts Explain Their Journey Home by Brandon McGinley
On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig
Five Proofs of the Existence of God by Edward Feser

Do Protestants Agree on the "Essentials"?

Aaron Althoff — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Many Protestants assume that within the various denominations, while Protestants admittedly disagree on various secondary points on Christian faith and life, at least they agree on the “essentials” necessary for salvation. This is more often assumed than stated outright. Either way, when the claim is even briefly examined, it is clearly proven to be false. Protestants disagree not only on innumerable “secondary issues,” but the various denominations hold views on primary issues regarding faith and morals in direct contradiction to other denominations.

This is because Protestants hold to sola scriptura, a foundational doctrine from the Protestant Reformation that asserts “the Bible alone” is the sole infallible guide for Christians. Scripture is indeed God’s inerrant inspired word, but it never claims to be—nor could it ever be, given it is still a book in need of interpretation—the sole infallible guide to determine the essentials necessary for salvation. The Bible alone does not clearly state what is essential for salvation and cannot resolve disagreements between Christians on what is necessary for salvation.

Essential Disagreements Among Protestants

Here is a partial list of essential disagreements among Protestants. For each question below some Protestants say yes, others say no, and still other Protestant responses land anywhere in between.

Must a Christian believe in the Trinity, a term not found in Scripture?
Does Christ have a human will and a divine will?
Is Baptism necessary for salvation?
Should infants be baptized?
Is Christ really present in the Eucharist or is it only a symbol?
What is the nature of the atonement? Did Jesus die for all or only for the elect?
Can non-Christians be saved?
Do works play any part in salvation?
Do Christians have to go to church on Sunday?
Are the Ten Commandments binding on Christians?
Can you lose your salvation?
If so, which of the following qualify as “sin that leads to death” (1 John 5:16)?
- Apostasy
- Adultery
- Divorce & remarriage
- Homosexual acts
- Abortion
- Contraception (All Christians agreed this was immoral until 1930 when the Anglican Church, at the Seventh Lambeth Conference, made a limited exception for married couples. All other Protestants quickly followed suit and changed their beliefs. The Catholic Church now stands alone in maintaining the immorality of contraception.)

Protestants do not agree on any of these and many other doctrines because Scripture doesn’t provide a list of what is essential for salvation. (Even if it did, the list would need to be interpreted, and the list would not include future moral issues made possible by modern technology like IVF and surrogacy.) Yet we must know what are the essentials for salvation and need to have certainty about what sins lead to damnation, if any.

Disagreements on the Basic Gospel Message

Even if you boil down the “essentials” to a basic gospel message, like “Christ saves us from sin,” there still is not agreement among Protestants. These terms need to be defined. Who is Christ and what is his nature? How does he save us? What actions are considered sin? There are disagreements even on these basic points integral to the gospel.

Most Protestants would say not any gospel saves. Having the correct gospel and correct theology matters. For example, some Protestants would say you must hold the correct Christology from the Councils of Nicea and Chalcedon, or you must accept that Baptism is necessary for salvation or else jeopardize the salvation of those who are not baptized (to their credit, from a Catholic perspective). But, of course, other Protestants disagree. Trying to find a least common denominator between Protestants is perhaps understandable, given the ever-increasing fractionalization within Protestantism and the desire to try to minimize the significance of divergent views, but it is a futile task. Protestantism, which is founded on the principle of sola scriptura, was fatally flawed from the start. There is no way for Protestants to resolve doctrinal disputes of even the greatest magnitude.

At this point, some may be tempted to throw up their hands and say, “Well it doesn’t really matter if there are disagreements, still the only thing that really matters is having authentic faith in Christ.” This would be simply a dismissal of the unavoidable conclusion that Protestants disagree on various points of the gospel and disagree on what is considered authentic faith and life in Christ. Protestantism leads to subjectivity leaving every Protestant to try to figure out Christianity for oneself based on one’s own interpretation of Scripture. That is a heavy burden for any Christian to carry. How is anyone to know if his or her interpretation is correct, even on essential doctrines? Thankfully, Christ left us with an alternative: the Catholic Church, which Scripture calls “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

Jesus Established the Catholic Church for Our Salvation

In conclusion, here is the pivotal question: Who gets to decide what the “essentials” are? Is it up for each individual Christian to decide? I submit, only God can determine what is necessary for salvation, and because it is essential to know what is essential, God must have provided a means for us to know the essentials not based on anyone’s individual opinions. Scripture alone does not—and cannot—provide that certainty. One reason is because the canon of Scripture itself is a Tradition accepted based on the authority of the Catholic Church (whether Protestants realize it or not). Only an infallible living authority guided by the Holy Spirit can provide the assurance of what is needed for salvation, and indeed, authoritatively declare what books belongs in Scripture in the first place. This is the authority Christ granted to the Church he established, the Catholic Church.

Jesus established the Catholic Church for our salvation. Without the Catholic Church, we have neither confidence in the essentials of the faith nor the means of obtaining that saving faith, which is granted at baptism, Jesus’s chosen entry point for us into the Church. With the Catholic Church, we are granted the certainty of faith as passed down from Christ to the Apostles. The teachings of the Apostles were then passed on through the Church in both Scripture and Tradition and are safeguarded by the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit. Most importantly, by being united to Christ in the Church, we not only have the certainty of faith and the truths necessary for salvation, but we receive a share in Christ’s life in the most intimate way here on earth. Through the sacraments—especially the Eucharist—Christ unites us with himself and transforms us. All are invited to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church where the faithful are given true peace, freedom, and the hope of entering into eternal union with the Word who became flesh (John 1:14), who gave himself freely to us on the cross for our salvation.

Resources:

The Protestant’s Dilemma: How the Reformation’s Shocking Consequences Point to the Truth of Catholicism by Devin Rose

What is the Gospel?

Aaron Althoff — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Imagine you are a captive on an island and risk a narrow escape as your enemy pursues you. Now you are frantically trying to swim to safety. But it is night, there is a raging storm with surging waves, and you can hardly keep your head above water. Land is nowhere in sight. Suddenly, you hear a loud voice. The enemy spots you and quickly advances on your position. Hope slips away as you are swept beneath the surface for the last time, exhausted from the struggle. You let out an inaudible cry for help as darkness overwhelms you.

Then, as you are about to lose consciousness, you feel a strong arm grab you and pull you out of the water. Gasping for breath and worried to face your enemy’s retaliation, you are alarmed at first. The strange man in front of you is not your enemy. You feel a sense of peace. The storm has cleared. Dawn is breaking. He assures you with a voice that arrests your attention and comforts your heart. You are safe. You are headed home.

This is the gospel: we are the captives, and Jesus is the man who saves us. But why do we need rescuing? And how does he save us?

Sin Has Broken Our Relationships

We all struggle with the weight of regret, broken relationships, and unfulfilled desires. Something is clearly wrong, but maybe that’s just the way it is and the way it has always been. No. This was not God’s plan.

God created all things good. We were to live with him, and with each other, in perfect harmony. We were freely and joyfully created out of God’s desire to share his very own life with us. He did not need us, but he loves us and wants us to share in his love.

But the devil tempted Adam and Eve, our first parents, to question God’s love. They fell for the lie and rejected God. Sin entered the world and all were exposed to eternal separation from God in hell.

We all experience the effects of sin. Instead of experiencing fulfilling relationships and having full control over our emotions and our decisions, we struggle to trust and believe in God and often choose things that harm ourselves and others. We turn inwardly and selfishly pursue every gratification, and those we love the most constantly disappoint us. Finally, at the end of our short and frustrated lives, we die.

God knew our plight. He heard our cries for help. In his love, he sent his only Son into the world to save us.

Jesus’s Death Takes Away Our Sins

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Jesus is the eternal Son of God, through whom all things were created. But, for our sake, he “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6-7). The Creator took on the nature of his own creation!

Jesus, both fully man and fully God, lived a perfect human life doing the Father’s will without sin. He did this for our salvation. For at the end of his life, he willingly “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). Jesus offered himself to the Father as a perfect sacrifice to take away our sin. Our sin was great. His grace is far greater, as evidenced by God raising Jesus from the dead, proving that his death was not in vain and that he truly is the Son of God. Death and sin have been destroyed. Jesus, the God-Man, lives and reigns in heaven now and forever.

But he is not simply watching the world from a distance. He is reaching out to us each individually. Jesus says to you, at this very moment, “Follow me” (Mark 1:17). How will you respond?

Surrendering Our Entire Lives to Jesus

The gospel means “good news.” The good news is that Jesus rescues us from our sins and gives us new life. There is no sin so evil, no lifestyle so corrupt, no person so far gone that God will give up on us and withhold a final chance for redemption. God does not require a certain degree of goodness in order to be loved by him. In fact, there is nothing we can do to earn his love, to be worthy to receive his grace. Our salvation is a gift from God. The cost, though, is our entire lives. But this is part of the good news, because it’s entirely worth it. By surrendering ourselves wholly to God in return he, the God of infinite love and mercy, gives himself to us and grants us the hope of eternal life.

Christianity is not centered on a list of rules or doctrines we must believe. These are important but that’s not the heart of Christianity. The heart of Christianity is a person, Jesus Christ. He doesn’t want us just to know facts about him. He wants so much more. Our hopes, our desires, our struggles, our doubts, even our sin. He wants it all. Above all, he wants our hearts. Jesus says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21).

Surrendering our lives to God means we trust in Jesus completely seeking to do only God’s will, not our own. Jesus isn’t just one thing to add into the mix of your life. Jesus is the life. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). It's all or nothing. So how do we begin? How do we become followers of Jesus?

The Apostle Peter tells us in his first preaching appearance after being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). In this initial conversion we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins, accept Jesus as our Savior, and commit to follow him with our whole lives and with all our heart. We are baptized into Jesus’s death and resurrection, are cleansed of our sin, both Original Sin and all personal sin, and receive the Holy Spirit into our souls. We become a new creation, but more than that, we become sons and daughters of God.

This is the central gospel message. We are saved by believing in Jesus and surrendering our lives to him. But it doesn’t end there. As children, we need to grow as we mature in our faith and walk with Jesus. And all the baptized have the privilege to share this good news with others!

The Church & Ongoing Conversion

In the scene at the beginning Jesus is the man who pulls us out of the water and rescues us from drowning. But he doesn’t send us straight to heaven. Instead, he pulls us onboard the Ark of Salvation, the Church. Why do we need a church? Well, Jesus could have saved us any way he wanted. He didn’t have to die, but he did. He loves us that much. He didn’t have to establish a church, a community of imperfect saints in the making that gets to receive the supernatural graces of the sacraments, but he did. He loves us that much. Jesus established the Catholic Church to be the instrument of dispensing his grace into our souls because the truth is we are ever in need of a deeper conversion. We continue to sin and always need more grace. Conversion isn’t a one-time event. We need to grow in faith, surrender more fully, and be transformed by the powerful graces made available in the sacraments.

Baptism is the passage of entry to the Church and life with Jesus. In baptism, our sins are washed away and we receive the Holy Spirit. Faith, hope, and love are infused into our soul. But aboard the Ark, we continue to stumble and fail to love God and each other well. Thankfully, no matter how many times we fall away and sin, Jesus welcomes us back with open arms and offers words of healing and forgiveness through the sacrament of Confession. Speaking through the priest, Jesus absolves us of our sins and restores our relationship with him and each other.

The climax of our life with Christ is receiving Jesus himself in the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, Jesus gives us his own body and blood to consume, uniting himself to us in the most intimate way possible here on earth. He says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (John 6:54-55). This supernatural meal available at every Mass gives us new life now, uniting us with each member of the body of Christ, and is a foretaste of the perfect union we will experience with God in heaven.

Jesus established the Catholic Church to share his life to us, especially through the sacraments. He also established the Church as the instrument by which the world would come to know him and his teachings. By passing on his teachings to the Apostles, who in turn passed on his teachings to their successors, the bishops, Jesus uses the Church as the conduit to share the joy of the gospel. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide the Church so that we could have confidence in the truths necessary for salvation and know how to live good and upright lives. The Church, by God’s design, leads us on a path to true freedom and happiness. By following the Church’s teachings, frequenting the sacraments, growing in prayer and fellowship with other believers, we grow into the fullness of who we are called to be.

The gospel is the greatest love story known to man. Jesus loves us so much that he became man, suffered a humiliating death on the cross, and rose from the dead, all to create the path of reconciliation between God and mankind. By giving our hearts to Jesus, he promises to grant us the fulfillment of all our desires, leading us to eternal life with the Father. In the end, “[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more … for the former things have passed away. Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:4-5).

Resources:

The gospel of Mark
Made for More by Curtis Martin
What Do You Seek?: Encountering the Heart of the Gospel by Edward Sri
The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ by Brant Pitre