Why Catholics and Protestants Can't Hear Each Other

Why Language, More Than Doctrine, Divided the Church — and How Renewing Our Understanding of Linguistics Could Fix the Great Schism.

What if the Great Schism that's divided Christianity for centuries wasn't truly about differing doctrines but about something far deeper and more hidden than you would expect?

What if the gap between Catholics and Protestants isn't theological but epistemological, shaped by invisible linguistic biases that have quietly shaped our beliefs without us ever realising it?

In an age of digital dialogue, theological podcasts, interdenominational panels, and instant access to centuries of theological tradition, one might expect Christians, especially Catholics and Protestants, to finally begin speaking the same language.

And yet, they don't.

Or more precisely, they think they do, but they don't.

Behind the polite veneer of ecumenical discussion often lies a silent, invisible force: linguistic bias. The deep, usually subconscious frameworks that shape how believers mean what they say.

Most Christians today, no matter what denomination, rarely notice that the way they speak about God and faith is governed by hidden 'rules' or conventions they've learnt from their religious communities.

Just as grammar structures language, these inherited theological expectations structure how individuals express and understand their own beliefs.

Catholics still speak as though doctrine always is and was a blueprint of metaphysical precision, expecting faith to be perfectly defined, categorised, and handed down to them through man-made institutions.

Protestants, in many quarters, still speak the language of the heart and of the conscience, drawing from deeply subjective, text-centred expressions of faith.

In both cases, the form of language, not just the content, determines what is accepted as legitimate religious truth.

Even today, attempts at dialogue often descend into frustration; each denomination prioritises a different "language game", one authoritative and institutional, the other subjective and textual.

Both sides argue past each other, resulting in frustration and misunderstanding rather than clarity or consensus.

And to remember, this is not because of disagreement over facts, but because each side is playing a different language game.

No matter how charitable or well-read the participants, they often cannot hear each other because they are not speaking the same language—even when using the same words.

We are not just dealing with theological disagreement—it’s epistemological dissonance.

Perhaps it's one of the main reasons why many modern Christians disengage entirely from doctrinal conversation, choosing instead vague spiritualism or institutional detachment.

But this isn’t anything new...

What I am about to explain to you is the deeper linguistic and epistemological divide underlying the Great Schism.

The rupture of the Great Schism was not merely about divergent doctrines but about fundamentally different assumptions regarding religious language, truth, and authority.

What’s needed is not just better doctrine or more dialogue but an awareness of the rules that govern our religious speech.

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Catholicism and the Cognitive-Propositional Model

Catholic theology, particularly from the mediaeval period onwards, developed in extreme alignment with the cognitive-propositional model of religious language (i.e., a framework that treats religious doctrines as objective, truth-bearing propositions, much like scientific or philosophical statements). In this model, doctrines aim to describe metaphysical realities in a clear, fixed, and universally valid form. It emphasises propositional clarity, logical coherence, and authoritative definitions as central to theological validity.

This alignment became, over time, a form of linguistic extremism within religious discourse. Doctrines were not only treated as binding truths but as non-negotiable assertions of metaphysical precision. The Church’s theological language evolved to prioritise absolute clarity and unquestionable authority, minimising the role of ambiguity, mystery, or experiential nuance. The cognitive-propositional model, when pushed to extremes, tends to reduce the richness of lived faith into rigid, formalised assertions that are less open to reinterpretation or contextual adaptation.

For example, the insistence on transubstantiation using Aristotelian metaphysics created a doctrinal formulation that required the faithful to affirm a complex philosophical claim as literal truth. Similarly, the Immaculate Conception was declared not merely as a pastoral affirmation of Marian devotion but as a dogmatic, infallible proposition. Perhaps most striking is papal infallibility, which asserts that under specific conditions, a single individual can pronounce unassailable doctrinal truths on behalf of the entire Church.

These are not simply isolated claims but instances of doctrinal language that developed gradually and compounded over time, culminating in what may be seen as a form of cognitive-propositional extremism. Each doctrine layered upon the last, creating a tightly controlled and increasingly inflexible theological system. The trajectory of Catholic dogmatic development shows how the demand for ever-greater precision in articulating theological truths led to doctrines whose authority rested more on formal definition than on spiritual resonance or communal discernment.

These examples reflect how Catholicism’s commitment to cognitive-propositionalism hardened into a form of theological absolutism. While they were intended to preserve orthodoxy and coherence, they also illustrate how religious language, when overly constrained by propositional logic, can become exclusionary and inflexible.

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Protestantism and the Experiential-Expressivist Model

In contrast, Protestantism—especially in its formative Reformation context—aligns more closely with Lindbeck’s experiential-expressivist model. Here, religious language is primarily viewed as an expression of individual or communal religious experience. Doctrines are valuable insofar as they articulate or support the believer’s direct experience of God, often centred on Scripture.

Examples include:

• Sola Fide (Justification by Faith Alone): Luther emphasised personal trust in God’s promise over adherence to ecclesiastical formulations. Justification was understood as a transformative experience of grace, not merely an assent to doctrinal propositions.

• Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone): This principle underscores the primacy of personal engagement with the Bible. The interpretive authority is decentralised, promoting individual reading and understanding as legitimate sources of theological insight.

• The Priesthood of All Believers: By asserting that all Christians can access God without priestly mediation, Protestantism foregrounded the believer’s subjective and communal spiritual experience over hierarchical structures.

These features fostered a linguistic culture in which religious truth was authenticated through inward transformation and personal encounter with divine revelation. Importantly, this development did not arise in a vacuum; it was, in many ways, a consequence of the Catholic Church's increasing reliance on cognitive-propositional extremism. As Catholic doctrine became more rigid, systematised, and metaphysically assertive, it inadvertently provoked a counter-response—one that sought to recover the immediacy of faith, the primacy of Scripture, and the authenticity of individual experience.

Martin Luther's objection to the sale of indulgences provides a clear example of this linguistic and theological divergence. In the Catholic cognitive-propositional frame, indulgences were formalised instruments grounded in doctrinal claims about the treasury of merits and papal authority. Luther, perceiving this as a corruption of the true nature of grace, responded not just with doctrinal counterclaims but with a fundamentally different language of faith—one rooted in personal repentance, the sufficiency of Christ, and trust in divine mercy. His experiential dismay was not simply about misuse of a tool but about an entire linguistic worldview that commodified forgiveness. The Reformation’s expressivist language of faith emerged as a necessary fracture: a linguistic and theological alternative born from the alienation felt within the overly formalised doctrinal structures of late mediaeval Catholicism.

Nonetheless, this does not automatically make Protestantism correct; rather, Protestants replicated the Catholics' error, only to gradually shift towards an experiential-expressivist extreme. As a result, thousands of Protestant denominations have emerged, often holding conflicting views and interpretations.

But why did this happen? Why has it continued to happen with different forms of schism?

Because when schism occurs, it is not necessarily the result of one tradition being more faithful or correct but of both having become unconsciously embedded in their own religious language models. Over time, these linguistic frameworks, whether cognitive-propositionalist or experiential-expressivist, harden into assumptions that go unexamined, leading to division.

The faithful become so fluent in their inherited grammar of belief that they fail to see how that grammar itself might distort, limit, or obscure the very truth their faith seeks to proclaim. In this way, each tradition can become blind to the fullness of its own message, confusing the form of its language for the substance of divine revelation.

So, when we look back on the great schism of the filioque clause, this was not merely a dispute over theological content but rather a clash of divergent religious language models that had become embedded in their respective geographical traditions.

The Greek East’s resistance to the “filioque” was not only doctrinal but also linguistic; the addition of “filioque” represented, in their eyes, a move toward rationalising the ineffable: fitting divine mystery into Western philosophical categories (e.g., Augustinian and Scholastic thought), which the East considered an improper use of theological language. They represent a cultural-linguistic model of faith that prioritised a more mystical and apophatic theology of experiential coherence and conciliar tradition over propositional innovation.

The West’s insertion of the filioque, shaped by a cognitive-propositional model, clashed fundamentally with the East’s experiential-symbolic framework, leading to a breakdown in mutual theological translation. Similarly, Orthodoxy's resistance to papal authority reflected this underlying divergence, as the Eastern tradition's more experiential-expressivist language of doctrine—theologically centred around communal and mystical experience rather than propositional declarations—created further friction concerning the West's structural, hierarchical assertions of authority.

Each side assumed their linguistic structure was normative, and thus, rather than a shared effort to understand the divine mystery, the debate became an irreconcilable linguistic fracture.

Lindbeck’s theory helps us see that what appeared to be a theological dispute was at heart a case of two traditions speaking past each other within incompatible linguistic frameworks.

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The Historical Drift Toward Cognitive-Propositional Extremism in Catholicism

The intensification of the cognitive-propositional model within Catholicism contributed to the Reformation rupture. Several key developments mark this trajectory:

• Scholasticism (12th-14th centuries): Theologians such as Thomas Aquinas systematised doctrine using Aristotelian logic. While intellectually fruitful, this approach elevated doctrinal formulation to a nearly scientific discipline.

• The Fourth Lateran Council (1215): As noted, this council codified transubstantiation and centralised doctrinal authority, reinforcing the propositional nature of Catholic teachings.

• The Council of Trent (1545-1563): In response to Protestant challenges, Trent reaffirmed Catholic doctrines in highly specific and authoritative terms, effectively doubling down on cognitive clarity as a defence against perceived heresy.

• Vatican I (1869-1870): The definition of papal infallibility epitomised the peak of cognitive centralisation, asserting a singular locus of doctrinal authority.

These developments, while aiming to preserve orthodoxy, unintentionally alienated believers who yearned for more personal and experiential modes of religious engagement.

The Reformation can thus be seen as both a theological and a linguistic rebellion against an increasingly propositional and institutionalised model of faith.

This framework of understanding gives us a compelling explanation for the pervasive unconscious linguistic biases that characterise not only much of Christian division but also religious division across all traditions of faith.

The underlying issue for religious believers is their oversimplification in assuming truth must be exclusively either cognitively propositional: clearly defined and articulated through doctrines, or experientially expressivist: deeply personal, subjective, and intuitive. True understanding of faith requires integrating these modes rather than opposing them.

So, who is right?

Which denomination is the "true faith"?

Who really is the "true apostolic church"?

Neither tradition can rightly claim exclusive authenticity, precisely because each has fragmented itself from the other through a failure to recognise the deeply embedded linguistic structures that define its expression of faith.

Rather than seeking mutual recognition and a shared grammar of understanding, all have become entrenched in their respective models to the point that they can no longer perceive the partiality of their own frameworks. This lack of awareness blinds them to the deeper unity their faith traditions could achieve if they were able to transcend these inherited linguistic divisions.

Because what was the "True Apostolic Church"? It was a unified church before language games became a dividing factor of faith.

Understanding Lindbeck's linguistic-cultural approach highlights that doctrinal and religious differences are deeply embedded within language and culture rather than simply being about theological disagreements alone. By clearly recognising how our religious expressions are culturally and linguistically shaped, we gain the essential common ground needed to begin meaningful dialogue, allowing us to address longstanding misunderstandings. Ultimately, this model provides a practical foundation from which Christians can work together, clarify points of contention, and move beyond entrenched divisions toward lasting unity.

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Be Part of The Discussion

One of the central aims of these articles is to spark meaningful conversation around the intersections of religion, theology, and philosophy within the framework of Christianity. I warmly invite readers to share their thoughts and engage in respectful discussion in the comments below, helping to cultivate a space where rigorous thought and sincere belief can meet in pursuit of truth.

Let’s create theological discourse in the comments below!