Consider the following basic Christian concepts...
- God exists.
- God is personal, living, moral, and rational.
- God created the world and created mankind in His image.
- There is objective right and wrong, rooted in God's nature.
- Humans have free will and moral responsibility.
- Sin is a personal, moral choice that results in spiritual death.
- We are not born guilty; guilt comes from our own sin.
- Jesus Christ is the incarnate Logos who died and rose again to offer life.
- Salvation is by grace and requires a free, personal response of trust and faith.
- Believers live in ongoing relationship with God through faith, love, and obedience.
Those ten points should be accepted universally by anyone who believes in BIBLICAL Christianity. The degree to which one diverges from them is the degree to which one’s theology has been influenced by extra-biblical traditions, philosophical distortions, or human systems of thought rather than the plain reading of Scripture and sound reason.
So where are the Catholics in this regard?
Points 1-3: I'd have to say that there's no appreciable divergence at all on these points. They seem to affirm all three.
Points 4-5: Here is where their divergence begins:
Catholicism officially affirms free will and moral accountability, but it also introduces the idea of "concupiscence" (i.e. a weakened will due to inherited sin) which blurs the line between moral capacity and inherited condition, thereby undermining God's just character.
Points 6-7: There is major divergence on these two points:
Catholicism teaches original sin as inherited guilt and a state of spiritual death from birth. This is where the Augustinian (i.e. Greek philosophy: Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, et al) influence takes over. Catholicism views infants as in "need of the new birth in Baptism", which contradicts the biblical teaching that sin is not inherited but chosen (Ezekiel 18).
Points 8-9: Catastrophic divergence:
Catholicism affirms Christ's death and resurrection, but it adds sacramentalism, which is the idea that grace is dispensed through the Church’s rituals (especially infant baptism, confession, and Eucharist). This turns salvation into a mediated, institutional process rather than a direct, relational response to God.
Point 10: Totally divergent trajectory!:
Catholicism emphasizes merit, penance, indulgences, purgatory, and ultimately makes salvation something that must be maintained through
Church-prescribed means. While they use biblical language (grace, faith, works), the system undermines the simplicity of biblical trust in Christ to the point that it bares little real resemblance in either belief or practice.
Let's put some numbers to it. I started to do this with the identical ten points but it gets complicated because there are various flavors of Catholicism (Augustinian, Jesuit, etc) and so I just sort of winged it here a bit and basically ignored issues like Augustinian predestination. Has I not done so, the score would be much lower.
On a scale from 1 to 10 (These are subjective, of course, and I've intentionally been generous.)....
1. God exists: Fully affirmed without caveat.
Score: 10
2. God is the Creator of all: Unreservedly affirmed in Catholic dogma.
Score: 10
3. Man is made in God’s image: Affirmed, but Catholic anthropology is marred by original-sin guilt from conception.
Score: 7
4. Man has a conscience and is morally accountable: Catholicism teaches both personal sin and concupiscence. A weakened will clouds full moral accountability until sacramental restoration.
Score: 5
5. Jesus is the sinless Son of God who died and rose again. Dogmatically identical.
Score: 10
6. Man is spiritually alive until he sins: Flatly denied. Catholicism holds all are born spiritually dead.
Score: 0
7. When one sins, they die spiritually and need salvation: They affirm need for salvation, but only on top of inherited need. The trigger (personal sin) is buried under original-sin presupposition.
Score: 2
8. Salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone: While Christ is central, grace is only conveyed through Church and sacraments, so it’s never “Christ alone” in practice.
Score: 3
9. God calls all people to repent and believe: The biblical call exists, but is administered through infant baptism, confirmation, penance, etc., making the call mediated rather than direct.
Score: 3
10. Those who trust in Christ are forgiven and have eternal life: Forgiveness and eternal life are potential but require ongoing sacramental cooperation; assurance is explicitly denied.
Score: 2
That's 52 out of 100.
That's a failing score in any school I ever attended!
