Observations on Alejandro Bermúdez’s Digital Book
Although on more than one occasion I had considered the debate closed — believing that all the important arguments had been analyzed — I wanted to write one final post, for several reasons.
First, because I cannot let this occasion pass without sharing another digital book on the subject, titled “God Forgives but Also Punishes,” written by my friend and brother in the faith Adrián “UnCatólico” Ferreira, who runs the apologetics website UnCatolico.com. He has done a superb job, and everything is magnificently documented. I congratulate him most warmly.
Second, because a number of readers have asked me to write one more installment to analyze Alejandro Bermúdez’s new book. At first I thought it would not be necessary, since if he was simply going to compile what he had been presenting in his audio programs, there would be nothing really new to add. But having examined it carefully, I find that this is not the case — which gives me an opportunity to delve a little deeper into the subject and, at the same time, to offer my final impressions on a debate that I am certain, though it has been long, will have been for the benefit of many Catholics.
Initial Impressions
One problem I encountered throughout Alejandro’s book is the continuous recourse to fallacious arguments. For example, he identifies those who defend the opposing position as close to “traditionalism” (ad hominem), misrepresents their position as defenders of “the image of a punishing God” (straw man), and accuses them of having branded those who hold a contrary position as “traitors” to the Church (falsehood). Throughout the rest of the book he adds many other fallacies (false authority, dialectic of opposites, etc.). The problem is that a large part of his audience will not be able to detect the use of these fallacious devices, because he does not identify who holds the opposing arguments, nor does he say where they can be read firsthand. He does not mention me, for instance, nor my website, nor Infocatólica. While there will always be a reader with sufficient initiative to investigate independently, the great majority will simply accept Alejandro’s version of events and would have no initial reason to doubt it — since, as we well know, he is a Catholic journalist of great prestige and considerable influence within the Catholic Church.
Clarifications
It is important to clarify first of all that we are not traditionalists — or at least those of us who have had the greatest role in this debate are not. I am not one (those traditionalists who read me and know me can testify to this), nor is our director at Infocatólica, Luis Fernando Pérez, nor our editor, the priest and doctor of theology José María Iraburu. Much less so are those other priests and theologians who have participated at various points in the debate to express their agreement with our arguments — including Mons. Miguel Antonio Barriola, a member for two quinquennia of the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Prelate of Honor to the Pope, and Fray Nelson Medina, a well-known international preacher. (I do not mention here all the priests who have privately told me they agree with what is set out here, but only those who have done so publicly.)
But if those who hold our position are truly “traditionalists,” Alejandro must explain whether he also considers traditionalist the Benedictional of the Roman Liturgy — the product of the liturgical reform — which includes among its prayers:
“Let us pray. Hear, O Lord, our supplications, and since we are punished for our sins, and suffer the misfortune of natural calamities, deliver us from these evils for the glory of Your Name, and preserve our lands from all adversity, so that whatever grows in them may serve Your majesty and relieve our needs. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. R/. Amen.” [T.N.: translated from the Latin Benedictionale of the Roman Rite; official English rendering may vary by edition]
Or whether the Popes who have affirmed time and again that God can punish and indeed does so can also be labeled “traditionalists” — among them John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and — before becoming Pope — Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.
Nor have we maintained that those who defend the contrary position are “traitors to the Church.” What we have done is cite Benedict XVI, who gave a very lucid diagnosis of where this error originated — an error he characterizes as a “narrowing of the concept of love.” Allow me to cite him again, underlining in bold some important points:
“The Archbishop of Dublin told me something very interesting. He said that ecclesiastical penal law functioned until the late 1950s, and that while it was not perfect — there is much to criticize — it was applied. But since the mid-1960s it was simply no longer applied. The prevailing mindset was that the Church must no longer be a Church of law but a Church of love — that she could not punish. In this way the sense was lost that punishment can be an act of love.
In those days, even among very good people, a peculiar blurring of thought took place. Today we must learn anew that love for the sinner and for the victim lies in their right balance through a punishment of the sinner applied in a possible and adequate way. In this sense, in the past there was a transformation of consciousness through which there occurred a darkening of the law and of the need for punishment — ultimately also a narrowing of the concept of love, which is not, precisely, only sympathy and amiability, but is found in truth; and part of truth is that one must punish the one who has sinned against true love.” (Benedict XVI, Light of the World, Herder, 2010, pp. 16–17)
Note that we have cited Benedict XVI precisely because we share his view that this error has arisen among those he identifies as “very good people.” It is unnecessary to point out that “very good people” is not the same as people who are “traitors” and “ignorant.” From the beginning I have been saying that I do not consider Alejandro or those who hold his position to be either “traitors” or “heretics,” but rather people who have erred on an important point of Catholic doctrine — and a point that, taken to its logical conclusions, does lead to heresy.
A “Punishing” God versus an “All-Love” God
In his defense of the image of an “all-love” God who does not punish, Alejandro attributes to us the defense of a “punishing” God. Just as he defends that God “never” punishes, he tries to make us responsible for saying that God “always” punishes. But that is not what we maintain. We do not say that God applies a merely commutative justice (we clarified this in our second installment), but rather that His justice is distributive — therefore both remunerative and vindicative. This is simply and plainly the Catholic doctrine found in any manual of theology, which teaches “that God is a just judge, who rewards good and punishes evil.”
And here we see that Alejandro invariably falls into what we have identified as the fallacy of the dialectic of opposites — presenting as mutually exclusive concepts that are perfectly complementary. The best example he gave himself when one day he published through social media a rather amusing meme in which King Leonidas of Sparta is seen shouting furiously “God punishes!”, then he reflects on the fact that God is “all love,” and finally retracts and says that “God does not punish.” Beyond the humorous touch that will surely garner many “likes” on his Facebook page, it summarizes very well the fundamental error in his “theological reasoning” — which ignores what Pope John Paul II had already said: that “the paternal love of God does not exclude punishment, though this must be understood within a merciful justice that re-establishes the violated order for the sake of the good of man himself.” So certain is it that divine mercy and justice are not in conflict that John Paul II himself went so far as to title one of his catecheses “God Punishes AND Saves.” It is not, then, that God saves “OR” punishes; it is that the same God who “saves” also “punishes,” as Scripture says: “For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” (Heb 12:6) (And forgive me for citing the word of God — since we have seen that doing so exposes one to being branded a “Protestant,” which would be the last straw.)
There is a very interesting audience of Pope John Paul I in which he speaks precisely about how there are pleasant truths of faith and others that we find uncomfortable, but that we must not filter Christian doctrine or sift through it keeping only what does not seem harsh to us. And on this point he says that maintaining that God punishes is one of those unpopular truths — but certainly a truth of faith:
“A great French bishop, Dupanloup, used to say to the rectors of seminaries: ‘With future priests, be a father, be a mother.’ This is pleasing. But before other truths, we feel difficulty. God must punish me if I persist in sin; He follows me, He begs me to convert, and I say: ‘No!’; and thus I myself almost force Him to punish me. This is not pleasant — but it is a truth of Faith.” (John Paul I, General Audience, September 13, 1978)
It must also be said that this error had already appeared in other periods in the history of the Church. Already in the Early Church, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon — one of the greatest Fathers of the Church of all time, disciple of Saint Polycarp who was himself a direct disciple of the Apostle Saint John — had denounced it in his celebrated manual against all heresies:
“Another error consisted in wresting from the Father both judgment and punishment, thinking that such power is unbecoming to God. For this reason they imagined they had found a God who is ‘good and without wrath,’ as well as another God ‘whose office is to judge,’ and ‘another to save.’ These poor people did not realize that they were depriving both of wisdom and of justice. For if the judge were not good at the same time, how would he give a reward to those who deserve it and reprove those who need it? A judge of this kind would be neither wise nor just. And if he were a good God — solely good, but without judgment to discern who is worthy of that goodness — such a God would be neither just nor good, for his goodness would be impotent; nor could he be a universal Savior if he lacks discernment.
Marcion, for his part, by dividing God in two — calling the first ‘good’ and the second ‘just’ — ended up killing God on both sides. For if the ‘just’ God is not also ‘good,’ then one who lacks goodness cannot be God; and if he is ‘good’ but not ‘just,’ he would in the same way suffer the loss of being God.” (Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies; trans. ANF)
Observe that it is not without significance how striking the similarity is between the error of Alejandro Bermúdez and the one which Saint Irenaeus condemned at that time. It is no coincidence that in his audio programs Alejandro resorts to the same reasoning that Marcion employed in that era — arguing that the God of the Old Testament was indeed a “punishing” God, while the God of the New Testament is a “merciful” God who never punishes. Saint Irenaeus and many other Fathers combated this error by teaching that both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament God is just and also merciful.
Understand, then, Alejandro, that we are not defending the image of a “punishing” God; what we reject is the image he presents of a God who “never” punishes. The fact that you defend the image of a God who is “only love” does not mean that we defend the image of a God who is “only justice.”
Important Concessions
But beyond all this, there are some important concessions that Alejandro himself makes in his new e-book that are worth noting. Let us see all that he now acknowledges but previously denied. Alejandro Bermúdez writes:
“Is the idea that God ‘punishes’ present in Sacred Scripture, including the New Testament? Yes, without doubt.
“But does this resolve the question of whether God truly punishes or not? The answer is NO. An affirmative answer could only come from a completely Protestant interpretation of Scripture — that is, one that dispenses with allegory, metaphor, and the fundamental exegetical tools.”
This is an important concession, because we must recall that in his first podcasts he had emphatically maintained that the notion that God could punish was limited solely to the Old Testament, and he affirmed that in the entire New Testament that notion appeared nowhere at all. As we now see, this is not so — and he now admits that in the New Testament as well it is affirmed that God punishes. Is it in a purely metaphorical or allegorical way? Let the reader decide. But I doubt that is how Zechariah understood it when he lost his voice for nine months for having doubted the divine messenger (Lk 1:19-20), or Herod when he fell ill for blaspheming (Acts 12:21-23), or Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-10) when they died for mocking the Holy Spirit — still less the Christians who fell ill for profaning the Sacred Eucharist (1 Cor 11:29-30). On this point I humbly suggest that Alejandro study what can truly be considered allegorical or metaphorical in Sacred Scripture, because it is evident that the one who does not know is he himself.
Alejandro continues:
“Is the affirmation that God punishes something affirmed by councils, popes, saints, and even the Blessed Virgin Mary herself in apparitions ‘approved’ by the Church? The answer is yes. The advocates of a punishing God have compiled a long list of citations, with the conviction — absurd, incidentally, from an apologetics standpoint — that the more citations they accumulate, the more solid their argument.”
Another important concession — for in his previous series of programs, Alejandro had limited himself to acknowledging that the Councils, the Popes, the saints, and even the Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Lord in their private revelations approved by the Church had spoken of some “relationship” between God and punishment. Now, although he does not admit our point of view, he at least acknowledges what we have been saying all along: that what the Magisterium establishes between God and punishment is not a distant connection, but rather that it explicitly affirms that GOD DOES INDEED PUNISH — an affirmation which he himself now recognizes is found in extraordinary abundance in Ecumenical Councils, the Magisterium of the Popes, the Saints, and even in private revelations.
However, in the following admission he falls far short when he concedes:
“It is true that the contrary affirmation — ‘God does not punish’ — as a verbatim citation, is scarce in the doctrinal body of the Church. In a ‘war of citations,’ the theologically correct position is not going to win.”
And I say he falls far short because it is not true that the contrary affirmation “God does not punish” is “scarce” in the doctrinal body of the Church. No — it is not that it is scarce, but that it DOES NOT EXIST — including in the ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium. I invite the reader to review each and every one of Alejandro’s contributions, beginning from his audio podcasts down to his latest digital e-book, to see that he has been unable to cite a single magisterial source, treatise of theology, or similar authority affirming that God never punishes. And this is so evidently the case that if it were otherwise, he would not have had to complete his digital book with merely:
1) Two articles — which are not Magisterium — by two theologians who themselves acknowledge that they are not disputing the fact that God punishes, but only whether God could have punished with a natural catastrophe, striking the innocent along with the guilty.
2) A single citation of Cardinal Ratzinger, before becoming Pope, in a press interview following the terrorist attacks of September 11 — in which he does not deny that God punishes, but rather explains in very general and non-theological terms that sins attract ontological penalties, that is, consequences of our own actions.
Taking all this into account, it is not reasonable for Alejandro to claim that his position is “theologically more secure and certain than the contrary” — asking us in good faith to believe something that is not only absent from but explicitly contradicted by the ordinary and extraordinary Magisterium of the Church. To attempt to justify this on the basis of a supposed “theological reasoning” that reduces itself to a line of thought which can be summarized in a simple meme with Leonidas shouting “God does not punish because He is all love.” In short, he asks us to believe that although the Bible (the Word of God), the Magisterium, the Popes, the Saints, and even the Virgin and Jesus in their private revelations teach one thing, we must understand exactly the opposite — namely, that God never punishes — and all this solely because “God is all love.” Can anyone seriously believe that this constitutes a “serious and coherent theological reasoning”?
Conclusions
With this I consider that I have analyzed all the important objections. I now genuinely believe I am closing this debate (although I make no promises). The readers have in their hands sufficient tools to judge the arguments for and against and draw their own conclusions. They already know that above I have placed the links to the three digital books — those of Alejandro Bermúdez, of Adrián Ferreira, and my own — so that they have access to all the information. They need only click on the images.
I remind you lastly that as Catholics we must remain firm in the teaching of the Magisterium, so that “we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph 4:14). I sincerely hope that you have learned much from this debate; I am certainly sure that I have.
God bless you.
