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A Fundamentalist Tries to Prove That Catholics Aren’t Saved
My answers to the questions posed in a Fundamentalist Protestant tract
Years ago, someone forwarded the following tract to me. I have since found out it was written by someone named Alex O. Dunlap and that more recent versions omit question 12.
The letter proposes 18 questions to ask a “saved Roman Catholic,” the answers to which supposedly demonstrate that Catholics are not saved. The tract is presented below in blue and my answers are in black. After I answer these 18 questions, I present a few of my own.
Occasionally, some well-meaning Christian thinks he knows a “saved Roman Catholic.” We invite such a person to introduce us to his friend so that we may, in his presence, ask the Roman Catholic the following questions. His answers will easily determine that he is not saved in the true, Biblical sense.
The new “accommodation” approach of the Roman Church in these ecumenical days of apostasy is to use the same expressions as Fundamental Christians. But Christian love is not shown by permitting these people to believe they are saved when they are not. Christian love is shown by making the true Gospel [Copyright ©️ 1881, by B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge] plain and clear so that the “religious but lost” person will recognize his unsaved condition and his need of a Saviour, the true Christ of the Bible, not a counterfeit, as in the Roman, Greek and many other churches.
The Apostle Paul said that he was free from the blood of all men. May the same be true of every genuine witness for Jesus Christ! Here are the questions:
1. When were you converted?
I was converted to Jesus Christ in the Spring of 1986, at Gateway Baptist Church, Blacksburg, Virginia. In 1997-1998 I determined that the Catholic Church was the Church Christ founded, and which he commanded His followers to obey (Matthew. 18:17, Hebrews 13:17, etc.).
2. How were you converted?
I became convinced that I was a sinner in need of a savior, and that Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins.
3. To what, or to whom, were you converted?
I was converted to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world, who loved me and gave himself for me.
4. What do you believe now that you did not believe before your conversion?
That God exists. That he is the God of the Bible. That Jesus is his only-begotten Son. That I am a sinner. That I am powerless to save myself, and I need a savior. That Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins. That he rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into heaven. That I am saved by grace alone, through faith. That no one comes to the Father, but through Jesus.
5. What does it mean to be saved?
While I’m here on earth, it means to be regenerated and made spiritually alive; to have my sins forgiven and to be a new creation in Christ. Ultimately, it means to be admitted to heaven at the last judgment, and to be spared from being “cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).
6. On what Scriptural promises do you base your salvation?
7. What does it mean to be born again?
It means to be spiritually regenerated, to cross over from spiritual death to spiritual life; to be forgiven and cleansed of sin.
8. Are you sure today that if you die tomorrow, or at any time in the future, you will be in heaven immediately after death?
I’m reasonably confident that I’m in what Catholics call “a state of grace,” yes. But I recognize that I could be mistaken, and I also recognize that I must persevere in faith to the end. So I would say, in the words attributed to St. Joan of Arc, “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.”
As for whether I would enter heaven “immediately” after death, that would depend upon whether God still needed to complete my sanctification—to cleanse me of whatever residual impurity remained. Which leads us to …
9. What do you believe about Purgatory?
I believe that I am a sinner and that, although God’s grace is sanctifying me, I have not yet reached perfect holiness. I also believe that “nothing impure will ever enter” heaven (Revelation 21:27). Therefore, if I die in God’s grace while still imperfectly sanctified, God must complete that sanctification before I enter heaven.
Most Protestants agree with the basic premises. They do not believe that Christians ordinarily become morally perfect in this life, yet they believe that those who die in Christ will be perfectly holy in heaven. Therefore, something must happen between those two conditions. Catholics call that final purification “Purgatory.”
Purgatory is not a second chance at salvation, nor is it an alternative to Christ’s saving work. It is Christ completing his work of sanctification in those who die in his grace. This is consistent with the biblical picture of salvation in which a person’s work is tested by fire and he “shall be saved; yet so as by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15).
10. What do you believe about the Mass?
I believe that the Mass is not a re-sacrificing of Christ. Jesus is not crucified again, he does not die again, and he does not suffer again. His sacrifice on the cross was offered once for all.
Rather, in the Mass, that one sacrifice is made sacramentally present to us. The sacrifice of the Mass is not another sacrifice added to the sacrifice of Calvary; it is the same sacrifice of Christ made present sacramentally. Christ offered himself once for all, and through the Eucharist Christians throughout the ages are able to participate in that one sacrifice.
I also believe that the Eucharist, the focal point of the Mass, is truly the body and blood of the Lord. This was the teaching of Christians from the earliest centuries. As Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century, explained:
We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. 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 which 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 nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that Incarnated Jesus. (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66, A.D. 151).
11. Do you still participate in the Mass?
Yes, as often as I can.
12. Do you believe that to miss Mass voluntarily on Sunday would be a mortal sin, so that if you did not confess it before you died, you would not go to heaven?
I believe that deliberately refusing, without a serious reason, to fulfill our obligation to worship God on Sunday is grave matter. We are creatures, and our highest duty is to worship our Creator. In our sin-distorted thinking, we may not think it’s any big deal to blow off church on Sunday, but that only shows that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways (Isaiah 55:8). We need to find out what God thinks is important, not merely what we think is important.
But grave matter by itself does not necessarily constitute mortal sin. For a sin to be mortal, there must also be full knowledge and deliberate consent. And obviously, someone who misses Mass for a legitimate reason—illness, dangerous weather, inability to get there, caring for someone who is sick, etc.—has not committed a sin by doing so.
Nor does the Catholic Church teach that someone who commits a mortal sin and then dies before he can physically get to confession is necessarily damned. Perfect contrition, which includes the intention to receive the sacrament of reconciliation as soon as possible, obtains forgiveness even before the sacrament can actually be received.
13. Do you believe that any sinner can be saved who dies without trusting in Jesus Christ alone for the salvation of his soul and forgiveness of his sins?
I believe that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ. Every person who is saved is saved by Christ, through Christ, and because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. There is no other Savior.
The question is whether a person must always have an explicit knowledge of Christ in order for Christ to save him. Normally, of course, we are called to hear the Gospel, believe in Christ, and follow him. But what about someone who, through no fault of his own, has never heard the Gospel?
I believe that God, in his mercy, can apply the merits of Christ to such a person if, enabled and assisted by God’s grace, he sincerely seeks God and attempts to do his will. If that person is ultimately saved, he is not saved apart from Christ. He is saved by Christ even though he did not know Christ explicitly during his earthly life.
God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). And Scripture tells us that “God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him” (Acts 10:34–35). In the end, God is a perfectly just judge. No one will be condemned because he failed to believe something he had no reasonable opportunity to know.
14. Do you believe that Mary and Roman Catholic saints can help you get to heaven?
Sure. They can help me the same way you can help me: by their prayers on my behalf. Now, if you ask me how their prayers help, I can only say that I don't know. I don't know how your prayers help me, either, but I know from Scripture that somehow they do. And Scripture says that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). Therefore, I do believe that the saints in heaven, and the saints on earth (both Catholic and non-Catholic), can, in the mysterious providence of God, help me by their prayers. Will you pray for me? “As for me, God forbid that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you” (1 Samuel 12:23).
15. How do you believe that the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ is applied to your soul?
I believe that the saving grace Christ won for us on the cross actually transforms us. God does not merely declare me righteous while leaving me inwardly unchanged; by his grace he really makes me righteous.
The Bible says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). When Scripture says that through Adam’s disobedience I was “made” a sinner, I understand that to mean that I really am a sinner, not merely that God considers me to be one. Likewise, when Scripture says that through Christ’s obedience we are “made righteous,” I understand that righteousness to involve a real interior transformation, not merely an external declaration.
I believe that this gift of regeneration is ordinarily given through baptism. Scripture says that God “saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). It says, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins” (Acts 22:16), and that Christ sanctifies his Church “with the washing of water by the word” (Ephesians 5:26).
Scripture further says that “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13), and that “as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Compare that with Paul’s statement that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Jesus himself says that “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5), and that “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved” (Mark 16:16). Peter tells his hearers, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), and later writes that “baptism doth also now save us” (1 Peter 3:21).
So when I trust in baptism, I am not trusting in something instead of Christ. I am trusting Christ to do what he promised to do through the means he established.
16. Have you told your priest you have been saved (converted)?
Sure. Every time he holds up the Eucharist and says, “The Body of Christ,” I say, “Amen.” By saying that, I not only confess my faith that the risen Lord is present right before my eyes, but I also confess that I believe and personally embrace everything the Church teaches about him.
17. Do you believe you will still go to heaven if you leave the Roman Catholic Church, receive believer’s baptism and join a fundamentalist Bible believing, non-Catholic church?
I don’t plan to do that. I used to be a Protestant, and I became Catholic precisely because I became convinced that the Catholic Church preserved the historic Christian faith more faithfully than the Protestant theology I had previously held. By the way, I have already received “believer’s baptism.” I was “re-baptized” in the South Fork of the Shenandoah River by a Methodist minister in about 1990.
Obviously, I have no intention of leaving the Catholic Church to join a Fundamentalist Protestant church. But if I did, the effect on my salvation would depend upon my personal culpability. If I knowingly rejected what I believed to be the Church established by Christ, that would be a serious matter. Christ told his apostles, “He that heareth you heareth me” (Luke 10:16).
On the other hand, if I sincerely became convinced that Catholicism was false and left because I believed faithfulness to Christ required me to do so, that would be a very different situation. God alone knows the degree of a person’s knowledge and culpability, and ultimately it is he—not I—who judges the soul.
18. When and where do you plan to do this?
I don’t plan to do this. I would much rather remain a member of what I believe to be the historic Church Christ established—the “church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15), “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20).
If I became convinced that the Catholic Church was not that Church, then intellectual honesty would require me to leave it. But after studying the biblical, theological, and historical evidence, I reached precisely the opposite conclusion. That is why I became Catholic in the first place.
As these questions, and others you can think of, are discussed in detail, you will quickly see that the person is trusting in his work, merits, baptism, confirmation, sacraments, or something besides — or plus — Jesus Christ and not in Christ and Christ ALONE. He can then be shown the difference between his unbiblical form of salvation and the saving faith of the Bible.
This presents a false dichotomy. Catholicism does not teach that we trust in baptism, the Eucharist, or the other sacraments instead of Christ, as though they were independent sources of grace competing with him. We trust in Christ working through the means he established.
Suppose, for example, that Christ chose baptism as the means through which he ordinarily gives us the grace of regeneration. If I submit to baptism because I trust Christ’s promise, am I trusting baptism instead of Christ? Of course not. I am trusting Christ enough to receive his gift in the manner he chose to give it.
The real disagreement, then, is not between trusting Christ and trusting the sacraments. The question is whether Christ instituted the sacraments as instruments through which he communicates his grace. Catholics believe that he did. The sacraments are therefore not human works that we add to Christ’s work. They are works of Christ himself, through which he ministers the grace he won for us on the cross.
My Comments
The author of these questions apparently believes that unless one accepts the Fundamentalist understanding of the gospel, one is not saved. But why should I accept his interpretation rather than someone else’s?
Christians who sincerely believe the Bible nevertheless disagree about important aspects of salvation. They disagree about baptism, justification, whether salvation can be forfeited, the role of good works, and the sacraments. Each group appeals to Scripture, yet they interpret it differently. So whose interpretation should I trust?
I found an important clue in Paul’s epistles. He told the Galatians, “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:9). The gospel was something the Galatians had already received from the apostles. Likewise, Paul told the Thessalonians to “stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).
The New Testament preserves the apostles’ teaching, but it was not written as a systematic theology textbook. Its books were written for particular purposes, usually to Christians who had already been instructed in the faith. The earliest Christians learned Christianity from the apostles themselves—through their preaching and teaching as well as their writings.
Fortunately, we can still read some of the Christians who lived in the generations immediately following the apostles: Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others. When I first read them, I was amazed. Their Christianity looked very different from the Fundamentalism I knew and strikingly similar in important respects to Catholic Christianity.
I found a visible Church governed by bishops, presbyters, and deacons; an emphasis on Church unity and authority; baptism associated with regeneration and the forgiveness of sins; and the Eucharist treated as the body and blood of Christ. By the early second century, Ignatius of Antioch was even referring to the worldwide body of believers as the “Catholic Church.”
These writers were not infallible, but they are important historical witnesses. They lived far closer to the apostles than we do and provide valuable evidence of how the apostolic faith was understood and practiced by the earliest Christians.
So I stopped asking only, “Which interpretation of the Bible seems right to me?” and began asking, “Which interpretation corresponds to the faith actually received and practiced by the earliest Christians?”
That question eventually led me to the Catholic Church. Before accepting the Fundamentalist claim that Catholics have a false gospel, I would first need to be convinced that the Fundamentalist gospel is itself the gospel taught by the apostles and received by the earliest Christians.
That leads me to a few questions of my own.
18 Questions for Fundamentalist Christians
My Fundamentalist Christian brothers believe that they present salvation and the gospel “the Bible way.” So I’d like to ask them a few questions of my own. Since Fundamentalists commonly regard the Bible as the sole infallible rule of faith, I’ll begin there:
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