An Apology for Newton/Amazing Grace

Amazing grace how sweet the sound 
that saved a wretch like me...

"Hold it.  This song refers to human beings as wretches.  That's not okay.  It's obviously a protestant understanding of grace.  Throw it out.  It is of no use to a Catholic.  In fact, it's anti-Catholic."

I've heard this before, albeit not in as many words, from many people in the Church, and it has never sat right with me.  But, it always seemed to me that they had a point, so I wasn't going to argue.  In fact, it can be understood from the point of view of total depravity of man, that man is absolutely worthless, that man is fundamentally wretched...

...but then I realized that there's more than one way to understand it.  And that's okay.  It is in fact not an obviously protestant understanding of grace.

First, context is ever relevant.  We ought to know a bit about the author of the hymn, John Newton.  He was an English sailor involved in the slave trade, who later converted and studied theology and became a pastor (yes, a protestant pastor).  The song, while not directly a reference to giving up the slave trade, clearly springs out of Newton's own personal experience.  I think that this tells us a lot about the word "wretch," as employed by Newton.

As for the word itself, the last I checked, "wretch" is not a theological term.  Since this is poetry we're talking about, it is open to mean a whole range of things, including yes, a totally depraved pile of refuse.  But it can also simply mean a sinner.  It could mean one who is in a wretched state or one who is very unhappy or misfortunate (which is actually the common usage).  Why would we immediately jump to think that "wretch" is intended to imply a Calvinist total depravity?  What on earth points us in that direction?  Nothing that I can see.

But furthermore, even if Newton intended "wretch" to imply total depravity, why does that mean that when I use it, I also have to mean total depravity?  I think that the hymn is beautiful, and if we understand "wretch" to mean "sinner," then it's perfectly okay from a doctrinal standpoint.

If we are to read into "wretch" the idea of total depravity, then perhaps we should do the same to this passage from Augustine:

In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.

Are we to conclude from the word "unloveliness" that human beings are totally worthless wretches?  Is Augustine denying that his being is fundamentally good in that he's made in the image and likeness of God?  I think not.  I think rather that Augustine is making a point about God's loveliness--he had just before referred to God as "Beauty ever ancient, ever new."   In the same way, Newton is saying something about God's forgiving and redemptive grace, grace which is in fact an amazing gift to us who were found in a sad state (wretchedness of a sort).  We shouldn't be afraid to sing his beautiful hymn.

Oh, but wait - if we sing further on we come to this line:

How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.

"Wait a minute!  Grace does not depend on my believing in it.  It is not my action that brings about my salvation.  This line is way off!"

...Okay, that's true, grace doesn't depend on belief, but if we slow down and read the words we'll see that the song doesn't make that claim either.  If we ignore the first few words of the line, then yes indeed, it becomes problematic:  "...grace appear[ed] the hour I first believed."  However, the words "How precious did that" are important qualifiers.  They're actually pretty vital to the meaning of the sentence.

It's not saying that there was no grace until I believed, that grace suddenly appeared in that moment when I accepted the Truth (which would be incorrect, because grace is not dependent upon my acceptance of it or my belief in it).  It's saying that when I believed I became aware of the grace and it appeared to me precious.  We can return to our good friend Augustine and see almost this exact same kind of exclamation in the words "Late have I loved thee, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new."  Augustine is lamenting that it had taken so long for him to realize that only God can satisfy his longings.  ("Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.")  He doesn't mean (and no one would suppose that he would mean) that God's Beauty is dependent on his own late arriving love for God.

Just so, John Newton is making no assertion whatsoever that grace only appeared at the moment of belief.  (Or if he is, he's doing a pretty poor job of it by choosing these words.)  He's saying that at that moment, when he finally saw the grace for what it is, it appeared to him precious--a Beauty ever ancient, ever new.  I think that John Newton's own realization of his place before God was not that dissimilar to Augustine's.  However, please don't overreact against me for comparing the faith experience of a protestant to one of the great Latin doctors of the Church.  The only thing I know about Newton are the lyrics of this song, so if I'm somehow deeply wrong in this comparison, mea culpa.

Looking at the words themselves, I see no reason to exclude this hymn from Catholic use.  I've seen people get very bent out of shape over this line, and that's really quite amazing.  Simply paying closer attention to the words makes the problem go away entirely.  It is a non-issue.

An unrelated photograph:

I wanted to see the Globe Theatre,
but all they had was this replica.