The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is the “universal sacrament of salvation” (John Hardon, The Question and Answer Catholic Catechism (Garden City: Image, 1901), Question #401.). According to its dogmas, it confers grace upon Christians through the sacraments which it says are seven in number. They are:
Baptism
The Roman Church believes that one’s past sins are forgiven through water baptism by a priest. [See the articles on baptism, history and Scripture, for a refutation of this.]
The Eucharist
The Roman Church teaches
that a believer’s post-baptismal venial sins are forgiven through the
Penance
The Roman Church teaches that private confession to a priest and the subsequent good works one does can expiate post-baptismal venial sins. Also, a believer who has committed a mortal sin can be absolved of his sin by a priest and regain his salvation. [See the article on Confession and Penance for a refutation of this.]
Confirmation
This sacrament is conferred on those who have already been baptized. It gives an increase of ‘sanctifying’ grace and a greater boldness to confess the name of Christ. [See John Calvin’s The Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.19.4-13 for the refutation of this.]
Marriage
Roman Catholicism makes marriage something ordained by the Church (as opposed to ordained at the creation of the world as it is seen in Protestantism). [See John Calvin’s The Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.19.34-37 for the refutation of this.]
Holy Orders
Roman Catholicism teaches that being part of the clergy confers an increase in sanctifying grace, and it gives sacramental power to those who are made priests. Once someone is made a priest, then they will always be a priest even if they commit apostasy or mortal sin. [See the articles on the Priesthood for a refutation of this.]
Extreme Unction
This is the sacrament that is given to the seriously ill and/or those who are about to die. It gives spiritual aid and comfort and attempts to restore physical health. [See John Calvin’s The Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.19.18-21 for the refutation of this.]
History of
the Numbering
In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent, numbered the sacraments at seven and said that if anyone should
deny this that they would be anathema (i.e. eternally condemned). The popes and councils of the Roman Church have always sworn
to never interpret the Scriptures outside of the unanimous consent of the church fathers. But is this true? Have the sacraments
of the Roman Catholic Church always been seen as sacraments by the church of the past? Philip Schaff, the famous
“The use of the word sacramentum in the church still continued
for a long time very indefinite. It embraced every mystical and sacred thing (omne mysticum sacrumque signum). Tertullian, Ambrose,
Hilary, Leo, Chrysostom, and other fathers, apply it even to mysterious doctrines and facts, like the Trinity, the divinity of Christ,
the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. But after the fifth century it denotes chiefly sacred forms of worship, which
were instituted by Christ and by which divine blessings are mystically represented, sealed, and applied to men…Augustine was also
the first to frame a distinct doctrine of the operation of the sacraments. In his view the sacraments work grace or condemnation,
blessing or curse, according to the condition of the receiver. They operate, therefore, not immediately and magically, but mediately
and ethically, not ex opere operato, in the later scholastic language, but through the medium of the active faith of the receiver.”
-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, ch.7, part 91
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm
Already,
we see that there was no consensus in the early church on the nature of a sacrament. This is hardly something we would expect
to find if it was something that was taught by the apostles and handed down faithfully through the bishops to the present time as
“The number of the sacraments
remained yet for a long time indefinite; though among the church fathers of our period baptism and the Lord’s Supper were regarded
either as the only Sacraments, or as the prominent ones. Augustine considered it in general an excellence of the New Testament
over the Old, that the number of the sacraments was diminished, but their import enhanced, and calls baptism and the Supper, with
reference to the water and the blood which flowed from the side of the Lord, the genuine or chief sacraments, on which the church
subsists. But he includes under the wider conception of the sacrament other mysterious and holy usages, which were commended
in the Scriptures, naming expressly confirmation, marriage, and ordination. Thus he already recognizes to some extent five Christian
sacraments, to which the Roman church has since added penance and extreme unction…This uncertainty as to the number of the sacraments
continued till the twelfth century. Yet the usage of the church from the fifth century downward, in the East and in the West,
appears to have inclined silently to the number seven, which was commended by its mystical sacredness.”
-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, ch.7, part 91
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm
The number
and nature of the sacraments as taught by the Roman Catholic Church was not that taught by the church in the earliest of centuries.
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Also, some helpful audio on this topic can be found at:
http://www.straitgate.com/webster/
Calvin’s Institutes can be found here:
http://www.reformed.org/books/institutes/
Suggested
reading:
- Robert Morey, Studies in the Atonement (Las Vegas, Nevada: Christian Scholars Press, 1989).
- James R. White, The Roman Catholic Controversy (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1996).
- Eric Svendsen, Evangelical Answers (Lindenhurst, New York: Reformation Press, 1999).
- William Webster, The Church of Rome at the Bar
of History (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995).
The Seven Sacraments