I’m intrigued by a question Daniel posed in the Orthodoxy thread below: "Does anyone else think the Catholic Church could rethink and restate
the doctrine of papal primacy without conceeding anything essential,
yet render it more palatable to the Orthodox?"
How about we start a new thread to discuss it? Michael the Austrian has just posted a rather strong "no" in the Orthodoxy thread, so maybe we can continue from there. My own answer is a hesitant and not particularly thought-out "yes."
By the way, Daniel wondered (privately) why I kicked off such a controversial topic (the Orthodoxy thread) and then didn’t contribute to the discussion. It’s partly because I’m too busy, but mainly, as I told him, I really don’t have much to contribute. I am far less knowledgeable theologically than many of you, and I asked the question ("Is Orthodoxy Part of the Church?) not for the sake of discussion in itself but because I really don’t know the answer and wanted to see if others did.
Michael’s key point (as I see it):
Your suggestions that the clear formulations of Vatican I on papal
primacy are to be understood in anything other than an absolute and
transhistorically binding fashion entail a fatal capitulation to
relativism.
–Maclin Horton
Could someone be so kind as to actually post the “unpalatable” passages from Vatican I in question? I’m only familiar with the ones on infalliblity, which don’t strike me as so.
I’m really not at all prepared to give a definite answer to this question–an answer of my own, I mean–the definite and binding answer is of course not mine to give.
But my initial reaction is that of course the way papal primacy is thought of and exercised can change, because it has already changed quite a lot. We’re in a period now where most Catholics who are very serious about the faith are papal maximalists, attributing a very, very high degree of permanent authority to almost everything a pope says. I think the key there is “permanent.” There’s also, of course, the very hands-on universal jurisdiction of the modern papacy. I don’t know that this state of affairs is or should be itself permanent.
In all the blogosphere debate about torture, for instance, people brought up medieval papal statements of approval for the use of torture as proof that it could not now be intrinsically immoral, in the strict sense. I doubt the people of the time took these as once-and-for-all pronouncements, but rather as something more analogous to commands from a monarch: he says do it, you do it. I suspect our having lived in non-monarchical societies for a couple of hundred years now has affected our understanding of the psychology here.
But Michael the Austrian (whom I’ll hereafter call, with a nod to the Kingston Trio, MtA), makes–if I understand him correctly–the case that the dogmatic pronouncements of Vatican I have effectively closed off the possibility of the kind of loosening of the papal reins that Daniel seems to have in mind, because it would lead to an effective remanding of some of VI.
I’m just thinking out loud (so to speak) but I do think there’s a problem here.
Apparently the primacy of the Pope over the univeral Church was recognized long before Vatican I.
See:
this
Voting for pro-abortion candidates and downplaying the primacy and authority of the Pope. I thought this was a Catholic blog …
rjp, I don’t think there’s any confusion or misgiving about the fact of papal primacy. Even the most sketchily informed Catholic knows that it’s been around since the beginning (or ought to). The question (as I understand it) is about the details of how it’s implemented and exercised.
ANM, have no fear, the existence of the papacy is a big part of the reason why I’m Catholic at all.
Maclin wrote:
“We’re in a period now where most Catholics who are very serious about the faith are papal maximalists, attributing a very, very high degree of permanent authority to almost everything a pope says. I think the key there is ‘permanent.'”
There is a tendency to equate everything the pope utters to an infallible statement. But this is not the teaching of Vatican I nor of Vatican II. Both recognize various levels of authority.
I think before we discuss the character of the conciliar pronoucments on papal authority, we need to read them. Does anyone want to post the relevant passages? I would, but I don’t have time now.
Thanks for starting a new thread on this, Maclin. The importance of this issue of the objectively binding meaning content inherent in dogmatic cannot be underestimated.
The crux of the matter is the following dogma from Session 4, Ch. 3 of Vatican I:
“So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.”
This is the doctrine of papal primacy: According to the Catholic Church, the pope is sovereign by divine right in the areas both of teaching faith and morals, and the governance of the Church. As such, he may be rightly judged by no other earthly agency. One consequence to be deduced from this is the obligation of absolute obedience of assent even to non-infallible papal teachings. The popes themselves argued for just such a view of their authority in a number of encyclicals between Vatican I and Vatican II.
I assert that this can be construed in no other way than as transhistorically binding upon all Catholics, in all times and in all places. Anything else fatally relativizes the meaning content of dogmatic language – and indeed of all language. Also, anything else eliminates the basis for any knowledge of transcendent truth, and makes us all hopelessly subject to historical and cultural conditioning that necessarily subjectivizes and relativizes any transcendent truth claims.
Nobody has ever had that interpretation because Michael
is reading into it as a fundamentalist. Just like some people read scripture fundamentally by saying it is wrong to call a
priest or pope father because Jesus said “Do not call anyone father but God” Vatican 1 was a incomplete council,called off early because of Poplitical turmoil & coul could address these questions. Vatican II did. As Cardinal Newman stated at the time of Vatican 1—“I drink to the Pope but to CONSCIENCE first”
Pope Honorius was condemned for heresy at 3rd Council of Constantinople
Pope Gregory hailed sex in marriage as a necessarry evil tainted with sin
Pope Leo XII condemned Vaccinations for sick(including) children
Pope Sixtus & earlier councils condemned Usury under any circumstance(the Vatican Bank today charges Usury) Etc
Why did these teachings & more Channge ?
The ancient doctrine of the Sense Of The Faithful or the doctrine of reception.
When the Church(the People Of God) reject foolish or reactionarry teachings—future Popes & councils revise them or abandon them altogether. This was affirmed at Vatican II which hailed that infallibilty belongs to the church as a whole. It also stated LOYALTY to CONSCIENCE & never loyalty to the Pope at the expense of that conscience. As JPII stated in the threshold of Hope “If Newman places conscience above authority he is proclaiming nothing new”
When Bishop Gasser presented the doctrine of infallibilty at Vatican 1 he said the consent of the church(the people) can never be lacking in a infallible teaching. Vatican II placed primacy in the context of Collegiality & service as practised in the first 1,000 years. Pope Vigilius was excommunicated by a synod of bishops. One pOpe Gregory VII I think hailed the creation of the railroad as satanic. Nobody is to be forcrd to go against a informed conscience——Catholic Catechism—“CONSCIENCE IS THE ABORIGINAL VICAR OF CHRIST”
This is a topic that has the utmost in terms of existential relevance for me personally, so I pray for all of your indulgence as I add a bit to what I just said in my previous post:
The post I was responding to was the following one by Daniel Nichols (by the way, Dan, I do state my points forcefully, but without rancor as far as possible, and I want to make it expressly clear to you that I do so with a spirit of good will towards you personally):
“To return to the subject at hand, note that I said “rethink” as well as restate the doctrine of papal primacy. That is, must we insist that every formulazation of the doctrine from Vatican I is absolute? Might not some of the more autocratic expressions be conditioned by the ecclesial culture of the time? Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium for example returned to a more Gospel-inspired way of stating things, with an emphasis more on service than rule.
I have long suspected that when reunion comes it will be accompanied by two relatively small schisms within the respective Churches, as neither traditionalist Orthodox or Catholics are likely to be pleased by the terms.
Again, the more ancient expressions of the Faith may arguably be incomplete in light of later developments; they are not rendered erroneous. And we must be willing to question which “developments” are essential and which may be hampered by the way they have been expressed.”
And my admittedly pointed response to Daniel was as follows (but I am NOT accusing Dan of being a bad-faith relativist – merely that the position he adopts in good faith LOGICALLY ENTAILS relativism):
Dear Dan,
Your suggestions that the clear formulations of Vatican I on papal primacy are to be understood in anything other than an absolute and transhistorically binding fashion entail a fatal capitulation to relativism. The language of the papal dogmas themselves makes the claim on their part to be transhistorically binding and absolute abundantly and unambiguously clear. Thus, by making such proposals as you do, you fatally relativize the meaning content of dogmatic language, and eliminate any basis for it to be the bearer of objective meaning.
Your position also entails the consequence that what those at Vatican I THOUGHT were objective religious truths about the papacy were in fact nothing other than subjectivized religious beliefs with no real purchase in reality, owing to the cultural and historical limitations of the time. If this is so, then what basis is there to suppose that we are in any better position to discern objective truth than they were? After all, we also operate within the framework of cultural and historical limitations.
In short, your proposed manner of dealing with the problematic aspects of Vatican I doctrine is thus a fatal capitulation to the “dictatorship of relativism.” Moreover, the very fact that you are even making such a proposal can be used in a persuasive way by Post-modernists to claim to demonstrate that any serious attempt to maintain the existence of objective truth really DOES, in the final analysis, inevitably devolve into some form of radical relativism.
In Ut Unum Sint, John Paul II asked the ‘pastors and theologians’ of ‘our Churches’ – ie, the RC and the Orthodox Church – to come up with suggestions about how the primacy could be exercised in ways that would unite rather than divide.
This is in Ut Unum Sint, paras 95-95:
“I am convinced that I have a particular responsibility …above all in acknowledging the ecumenical aspirations of the majority of the Christian Communities and in heeding the request made of me to find a way of exercising the primacy which, while in no way renouncing what is essential to its mission, is nonetheless open to a new situation. For a whole millennium Christians were united in ‘a brotherly fraternal communion of faith and sacramental life … If disagreements in belief and discipline arose among them, the Roman See acted by common consent as moderator’.
In this way the primacy exercised its office of unity. When addressing the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Dimitrios I, I acknowledged my awareness that, ‘…what should have been a service sometimes manifested itself in a very different light. … I constantly pray the Holy Spirit to shine his light upon us, enlightening all the Pastors and theologians of our Churches, that we may seek – together, of course – the forms in which this ministry may accomplish a service of love recognized by all concerned’.
“This is an immense task, which we cannot refuse and which I cannot carry out by myself. Could not the real but imperfect communion existing between us persuade Church leaders and their theologians to engage with me in a patient and fraternal dialogue on this subject, a dialogue in which, leaving useless controversies behind, we could listen to one another, keeping before us only the will of Christ for his Church and allowing ourselves to be deeply moved by his plea ‘that they may all be one … so that the world may believe that you sent me’ (Jn 17.21)?” [paras 95-95]
He goes on to state one condition:
“The Catholic Church … holds that the communion of the particular Churches with the Church of Rome, and of their Bishops with the Bishop of Rome, is – in God’s plan – an essential requisite for full and visible communion. Indeed, full communion, of which the Eucharist is the highest sacramental manifestation, need to be visibly expressed in a ministry in which all the Bishops recognize that they are united in Christ and all the faithful find confirmation for their faith. The first part of the Acts of the Apostles presents Peter as the one who speaks in the name of the apostolic group and who serves the unity of the community – all the while respecting the authority of James, the head of the Church in Jerusalem.” [para 97]
These statements indicate that
1) The question of how the papal primacy is exercised has been put on the table by the pope.
2) Anyone who doesn’t think the question of how the papal primacy is exercised is open to discussion effectively rejects the authority of the pope to put the question on the table, and therefore is in an odd not to say contradictory theological position.
If the *how* of papal primacy is been put on the table, the *what* of it has not. It still remains that the pope’s power is, in the words of Vatican I, “ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful.”
But to say that the pope’s ordinary power is immediate does not mean he has to exercise it in the same mode as the popes have exercised it in the West, at least since Trent. It does not even mean that the post-Tridentine mode of exercising the primacy is to be conceived of as the normal or preferred mode of its exercise.
The complementary reality to the papal primacy is the role of the college of bishops, who are not mere functionaries or employees of the pope, but are successors of the apostles in their own right and true rulers of their churches. They are not the pope’s representatives. It would seem that the “normal” or preferred mode of operation would be for the bishops and the pope to act collegially, both in discipline and in teaching, always respecting the unique character of the Petrine ministry.
Thanks for posting those passages, Francesca. I remembered having read them or something similar but couldn’t remember the exact source.
As to the question, I find myself nonplussed. I am beginning to understand why some or many very traditionalist Catholics had misgivings about John Paul. Not saying I share them, but I begin to see the problem. And I see MtA’s problem.
How far can the pope delegate his authority?
Here are a few thoughts:
It is right to point out that the Catholic Church, in places such as UT UNUM SINT, has merely put the MODALITY of exercise of papal primacy on the table with the Orthodox, not the more fundamental question of whether the pope even disposes over such power to begin with. But it is precisely the latter issue – the chief dogmatic contradiction between the two Churches – that needs to be discussed. A truthful answer to the question must be found. This is only possible if the discussion takes place in an atmosphere where both parties to the discussion 1) place the issue squarely on the table, and 2) admit the possibility that their own Church dogma on the matter may be in error.
Also, the logically necessary and transhistorically binding consequences of the Pope’s possession of the “fullness of supreme authority, and not merely the principal parts thereof,” need to be properly understood:
As far as this impacts the relation of pope to bishops, Vatican I itself insists that the bishops are, both individually AND COLLECTIVELY, to be regarded as heirarchically subordinate to the supreme authority of the pope. This follows logically from the fact that the bishops – even collectively – possess NO PART of the supreme authority inherent in the Church. I think this aspect of Vatican I dogma calls into serious question the logical and doctrinal tenability of speaking of “episcopal collegiality” with the Pope, since the term “collegiality” misleadingly implies that the Bishops DO possess some part of the supreme authority.
Nor do any of the individual faithful possess any share of the pope’s plenary supreme authority – most especially in the area of the teaching of faith and morals. As such, the pope may, as a matter of logical necessity, be judged by no other earthly agency in his sphere as teacher of the faith. The call of the faithful is therefore to absolute obedience and assent to papal teaching WHETHER FALLIBLE OR NONINFALLIBLE. This understanding of the matter was the common one between the two Vatican Councils, and was taught by the popes themselves in a series of encyclicals in the period (such as Leo XIII’s SATIS COGNITANS).
But this obviously creates serious difficulties with regard to papal decrees in the past, such as those concerning the legitimacy of torture cited earlier. According to the transhistorically binding doctrinal implications of Vatican I, the faithful of the time would have been obliged to embrace these with the absolute assent of obedience.
I don’t see how what I suggest renders me a “relativist”; after all, I stipulated that rethinking does not mean discarding any essential elements of the teaching.
Still, one could eschew ways of constructing the doctrine that are offensive or easily misunderstood.
Something very like what I suggest has occured in Christological dialogue, with both the Coptic Orthodox (“monotheists”) and the Assyrian Church of the East {“Nestorians”), in which, laying aside the acrimonious approaches of the past, it was seen that there had been bad faith and misunderstandings in the past, and doctrinal statements were eventually agreed upon that brought our Churches to the brink of unity.
The West is, in the eyes of the East, excessively analytical and juridical, and perhaps stepping back from the very juridical statements of Vatican I would help. Clearly John Paul II was open to doing so.
It would help tremendously if the East was reassured- perhaps with some formal proceedural arrangement- that Rome would not again exercise her juridical power arbitrarily or without consultation, and that intervention in the lives of particular Churches would only be as a last resort.
I use the reform of the American Roman Catholic seminaries as a model: the American bishops had for nearly two decades failed to straighten out the mess of the seminaries, most, perhaps, which were open refuges of a homosexual and heretical subculture.
Rome stepped in, investigated the sitution, and very quietly and quite swiftly reformed the institutions, to the point that if there is today a Catholic seminary with an open homosexual subculture I am unaware of it.
I believe then-Cardinal Ratzinger once said that if the Churches are reunited it will be on the basis of the Faith of the first, undivided, millenium. Most Orthodox theologians do not object to Roman primacy, for which there is much evidence in the Eastern Fathers. Rather they object to the way it has been exercised, and the overly juridical emphasis on the role of the Pope in the West.
I don’t see how what I suggest renders me a “relativist”; after all, I stipulated that rethinking does not mean discarding any essential elements of the teaching.
Still, one could eschew ways of constructing the doctrine that are offensive or easily misunderstood.
Something very like what I suggest has occured in Christological dialogue, with both the Coptic Orthodox (“monotheists”) and the Assyrian Church of the East {“Nestorians”), in which, laying aside the acrimonious approaches of the past, it was seen that there had been bad faith and misunderstandings in the past, and doctrinal statements were eventually agreed upon that brought our Churches to the brink of unity.
The West is, in the eyes of the East, excessively analytical and juridical, and perhaps stepping back from the very juridical statements of Vatican I would help. Clearly John Paul II was open to doing so.
It would help tremendously if the East was reassured- perhaps with some formal proceedural arrangement- that Rome would not again exercise her juridical power arbitrarily or without consultation, and that intervention in the lives of particular Churches would only be as a last resort.
I use the reform of the American Roman Catholic seminaries as a model: the American bishops had for nearly two decades failed to straighten out the mess of the seminaries, most, perhaps, which were open refuges of a homosexual and heretical subculture.
Rome stepped in, investigated the sitution, and very quietly and quite swiftly reformed the institutions, to the point that if there is today a Catholic seminary with an open homosexual subculture I am unaware of it.
I believe then-Cardinal Ratzinger once said that if the Churches are reunited it will be on the basis of the Faith of the first, undivided, millenium. Most Orthodox theologians do not object to Roman primacy, for which there is much evidence in the Eastern Fathers. Rather they object to the way it has been exercised, and the overly juridical emphasis on the role of the Pope in the West.
oops, double post…
Michael the Austrian writes:
“The call of the faithful is therefore to absolute obedience and assent to papal teaching WHETHER FALLIBLE OR NONINFALLIBLE.”
But the Church distinguishes between the assent to be given to papal teachings that differ in solemnity. Ex Cathedra teachings are to be given the assent of faith, which is absolute. A teaching according to the ordinary and universal authority of the pope are also infallible, not simply because it derives from the pope simply, but because it gathers the assent of the bishops in communion with the pope. Other teachings of the pope must be accorded a religious assent which is short of an assent of faith. And as it is short of such assent, the assumption is that they could be wrong and the faithful could disagree with the teaching.
To say no one has authority over the pope is not to say that no one can judge a particular action or teaching by a pope as wrong or erroneos. It simply means no one has the authority of jurisdiction over the pope. A perhaps bad analogy would be to the United States Supreme Court. A citizen could judge that a court decision is not in accord with the Constitution, but he would not be judging the decision as one who has any power or legal authority.
Granted, the Catholic Church teaches no individual can reject infallible papal teaching without courting damnation. But not all papal teaching is of this sort, as the Church herself says.
Finally, the college of bishops includes the pope, just as a body includes a head. Thus, the college of bishops does possess authority over the entire church, in virtue of itself, not by derived authority. To say the pope is a necessary component to the exercise of this authority is merely to say that the head is a necessary component to the operation of the body.
Daniel says The West is, in the eyes of the East, excessively analytical and juridical, and perhaps stepping back from the very juridical statements of Vatican I would help.
I agree with that, and would like to see it happen. I think MtA’s point, or part of it, is that the very statements from which we would like to retreat seem to deny that retreat is permissible.
Or, in other words, did we burn the bridge?
To Maclin:
The dogma of Vatican I that I quoted earlier makes it clear that the pope, as a matter of how the Church is divinely and transhistorically constituted, possesses “the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals,” but in other things as well, including Church governance.
But he ALSO possesses the fullness of Supreme teaching authority. No other earthly agency, whether episcopal or that of the ordinary faithful, possesses even a portion thereof. As such, in principle, no other earthly agency has the right to judge the pope – whether the other bishops collectively, the other bishops individually, or any ordinary member of the faithful.
The only exceptions to this can be ones that the Pope himself, acting in his sovereign teaching authority, chooses to make. Thus, he can choose to delegate certain areas of speculative study regarding areas undefined by the faith to the science of sacred theology. This delegation involves the permission by the pope for those well-trained in the relevant areas to risk drawing conclusions that possibly run contrary to the personal convictions of the pope on the matter. But, acting on the basis of the fullness of his supreme authority, the pope is free at any time to withdraw this permission. In the last analysis, even well-trained theologians are subject to giving the pope assent of obedience, due to the FULLNESS of supreme teaching authority.
As a rule, however, the popes of the pre-Vatican II era have generally been disposed to give a limited amount of provisional free-reign to the speculative opinions of theologians. As a hedge against things getting out of line, an elaborate system of classifying papal teachings according to the degree of their authority has been developed – to give some indication of just how much provisional free reign the science of Sacred Theology has in any given instance.
But the inner logic of the dogma that the pope possesses the fullness, not merely the principal part, of sovereign teaching authority requires that this free reign granted to sacred theology even in the pre-Vatican II era be regarded as strictly provisional, and unilaterally withdrawable by the Pope at any time. The elaborate formulation of various degrees of authority must be understood in this light, since we are talking about a clear and unambiguous dogma of the Church
To Daniel:
I will paste in selected portions of your last post, and reply on a point-by-point basis:
“I don’t see how what I suggest renders me a “relativist”; after all, I stipulated that rethinking does not mean discarding any essential elements of the teaching.”
The question is whether it is logically and doctrinally possible to engage in such rethinking without necessarily discarding any essential elements of Vatican I teaching in the process. It is my considered conviction that the answer to this question is in the negative.
“Still, one could eschew ways of constructing the doctrine that are offensive or easily misunderstood.”
The language of Vatican I is transparently clear, and is therefore not really subject to being misunderstood. What’s more, it articulates a highly systematic and logically self-consistent understanding of papal powers that easily permits one to draw logically necessary deductions about the nature of these papal powers from what is not explicitly stated in Vatican I itself. The obligation of the obedience of assent is a good example of this, and popes between Vatican I and Vatican II therefore expected this obedience of the Catholic faithful.
“Something very like what I suggest has occured in Christological dialogue, with both the Coptic Orthodox (“monotheists”) and the Assyrian Church of the East {“Nestorians”), in which, laying aside the acrimonious approaches of the past, it was seen that there had been bad faith and misunderstandings in the past, and doctrinal statements were eventually agreed upon that brought our Churches to the brink of unity.”
I have studied these dialogues closely myself; in fact, I know the Assyrian Bishop who took the lead in these consultations, Mar Bawai Soro, quite well. And I agree that this dispute is largely rooted in misunderstandings of language. However, Vatican I, when closely read and analyzed, admits of no misunderstandings. Those who are under the misimpression that it is not as authoritarian in character as I am arguing are either not sufficiently familiar with what it says, or are prepared to treat it with a relativizing hermeneutic which, were it extended to other dogmas (such as those of the trinity and the incarnation) would eviscerate them all of any abiding objective meaning content.
“It would help tremendously if the East was reassured- perhaps with some formal proceedural arrangement- that Rome would not again exercise her juridical power arbitrarily or without consultation, and that intervention in the lives of particular Churches would only be as a last resort.”
But just what sorts of circumstances would constitute such a last resort??? The Orthodox are understandably worried about such uncertainties associated with the Catholic position. More fundamentally, however, the Catholic position presupposes that the Orthodox even accept the position of papal primacy by divine right. I nearly became Orthodox myself ten years ago, so I can assure you that on this point you are misinformed: The Orthodox do not accept papal primacy by divine right. For more information on this, you may want to read THE PRIMACY OF PETER IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH, which includes essays by Meyendorff on the topic, among others. Also, the monks of Athos are vehemently and bitterly opposed to papal primacy, as may be ascertained in books by the Greek author Alexander Kalomiros. And I personally asked Bishop Kallistos Ware about this very point about five years ago at a conference: Would the Orthodox ever agree to a union with Rome that involved a doctrinally principled acceptance of Vatican I? His answer was an emphatic no. And a number of autocephalous Churches within Orthodoxy either refuse to engage in the dialogue with Catholics, or do so with considerable reserve, due to this very crux of papal primacy by divine right.
As long as the Catholic side fails to grasp that papal primacy by divine right REALLY MATTERS to the Orthodox, and that they will never accept it, all efforts by Catholics to pursue union with the Orthodox will continue to be doomed with bitter disappointment.
“I believe then-Cardinal Ratzinger once said that if the Churches are reunited it will be on the basis of the Faith of the first, undivided, millenium. Most Orthodox theologians do not object to Roman primacy, for which there is much evidence in the Eastern Fathers. Rather they object to the way it has been exercised, and the overly juridical emphasis on the role of the Pope in the West.”
That is an incorrect assessment of the Orthodox position; see above. And Cardinal Ratzinger’s proposal tacitly takes for granted that it is the pope alone who makes the decision to grant the Orthodox the autonomy associated with relations between the Churches in the first millenium or not. According to Vatican I teaching, this decision CANNOT be a collaborative one, since the Orthodox hold no part of supreme authority.
But it is precisely what Ratzinger tacitly takes for granted that the Orthodox fundamentally object to.
I can see that much of this discussion is going to be out of my historical and theological depth. I’m going to zero in on this from MtA:
In particular, the second part (“or are prepared…”). I’m not prepared to concede the rest of that sentence, but can’t really say anything useful without thinking about it some more.
One other point to keep in mind: Like Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy is filled with its share of theological liberals, who are heterodox in relation to the teachings of their own church. I attended St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York for a semester ten years ago, and I left it precisely for this reason: Most of the faculty were heterodox and liberal in their commitment to Eastern Orthodoxy. A similar situation prevails at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Monastery in Boston, based on what I have heard about it. Based on personal knowledge, St. Tikhon’s in Pennsylvania is, however, more orthodox in their Orthodoxy.
The reason I bring this up is because it is important for the Catholic side to know whether they are dealing with orthodox Orthodox, or heterodox Orthodox, in their ecumenical dialogues. On the whole, the more doctrinally principled the Orthodoxy of the particular Eastern Orthodox in question, the less inclination they will have to engage in ecumenical dialogue with Catholics. This is precisely because the orthodox Orthodox take the doctrine of papal primacy by divine right seriously, and vehemently reject it, whereas the heterodox Orthodox don’t even take it seriously, and are willing to wink-and-nod about it with their Catholic interlocutors as a result.
A good example of a heterodox member of Eastern Orthodoxy who is rather prominent in ecumenical discussions is John Erickson, the current Dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary. John Behr, who teaches Patristics there, is also hopelessly heterodox: It appears to me that he has fallen into the trap of applying the hermeneutic that Daniel wants to apply to Vatican I to the teachings of the Trinity and the Incarnation, thus eviscerating them of their meaning content. And Fr. Paul Tarazi, who teaches Old Testament at both St. Vladimir’s and Holy Cross, is utterly liberal in his understanding of Scripture, to the point of approaching apostasy.
Daniel,
What would “stepping back from the very juridical statements of Vatican” mean?
I don’t know what Dan means by ‘stepping back from the juridicial statements’ but what I would say it might mean is using a different metaphor through which to consider the papal primacy. Using a different metaphor doesn’t change the facts on the ground, but it it does change the way we imagine and conceive them. An analogy is the change in metaphor between the ‘mystical body’ cum juridicial metaphor of the church in “Mystici Corporis” which entails one is in the Church or not in it (and therefore makes it impossible to distinguish between a Protestant Christian and a Thor worshipper) and the ‘communio’ metaphor favoured by Vatican II and UUS. The 1992 CDF document, “On some Aspects of the Church understood as Communion,” stated that the ‘communio’ metaphor was the key to understanding Vatican II ecclesiology, and reiterates the teaching that communion in a single faith and baptism is the shared property of all Christians. It speaks of a “certain communion, albeit imperfect’ shared amongst Roman Catholics and “the non-Catholic Churches and Christian communities” and notes that this communion is held “especially with the Eastern Orthodox Churches”, although their communion is “wounded” by the breaking of the bond with “the universal Church, represented by Peter’s Successor” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on some Aspects of the Church understood as Communion,” May 28, 1992, para 17).
If a metaphor has intrinsic shortcomings, or is simply creating obstructions to people’s understanding, or both, one way forward in dialogue is to change the metaphor. Sometimes a specific metaphor (phantasm or image if you are into Thomist terminology) can block a deepening of conceptualization. It is not impossible that imagining the pope as exercising his primacy ‘in communio’ could help those eg the Orthodox who are put off by imagining the pope as exercising primacy juridicially.
The only thing I really have to add are a couple watch points:
1) Almost any argument denying the teaching authority of the pope can be used to deny the teaching authority of a metropolitan or patriarch.
2) A bishop’s authority is full and total in his diocese.
3) Objections over infallibility are almost always objections over authority.
Be well!
Yes, Francesca, that is what I was trying to get at.
I distinguish between the heart of a dogma and the way it is expressed in a human construct. That is what John Paul II was doing in rethinking Roman primacy, even going so far as to ask for assistance from the Orthodox.
I only mean that sometimes the heart of the dogma can be obscured to those outside the tradition that has articulated it by the language it uses; like the world looks different through different colors of glass. I realize that when I speak like this that some folks are immediately wary; it sounds like modernist relativism, like when I suggested a fifth way to understand problematic Old Testament texts a month or so back. I assure you this is not my intention, and appreciate you all keeping me on my toes.
I am not sure what MtA is talking about, but my antennae go up when someone starts accusing teachers at mainstream Orthodox seminaries of being “heterodox Orthodox”. After all, if that is true then the Orthodox episcopacy is also heterodox. I once had a hyper-Orthodox guy inform me that the Ecumenical Patriarch was “not Orthodox”. Sort of like the “more Catholic than the Pope” crowd we sometimes see here.
I would like to hear, sometime, Michael’s tale of pilgrimage, how he ended up Oriental Orthodox (right?) Is it online anywhere, Michael?
Dear Francesca,
Thanks for advancing your suggestions as to how Daniel’s basic thinking might be expanded upon. Below are the key points in your post, followed by my responses:
“Using a different metaphor [in connection with papal primacy] doesn’t change the facts on the ground, but it it does change the way we imagine and conceive them.”
The language of Vatican I is not metaphorical. It states the truth claims regarding papal primacy in direct and unambigious terms. These are the ‘facts on the ground,’ and all Catholics are obliged to assent to the meaning of the language as infallible. Moreover, in the interest of complete disclosure of objective truth, any Orthodox person or Church who contemplates union with Catholicism deserves to know exactly what the teaching is also. Using metaphors to obscure the clear teaching on primacy when dealing with the Orthodox, rather than merely presenting the teaching for what it is, does a disservice to the cause of basing the ecumenical dialogue on objective, doctrinal truth.
“If a metaphor has intrinsic shortcomings, or is simply creating obstructions to people’s understanding, or both, one way forward in dialogue is to change the metaphor.”
No metaphor is necessary or desireable, since the teaching regarding the extent and scope of papal primacy is sufficiently clear on its own terms.
“Sometimes a specific metaphor (phantasm or image if you are into Thomist terminology) can block a deepening of conceptualization.”
That is very true in the present case, where the concepts themselves are articulated with complete clarity in Vatican I itself. As such, the use of ANY metaphor WHATSOEVER will tend to block a deepening of this conceptualization.
“It is not impossible that imagining the pope as exercising his primacy ‘in communio’ could help those eg the Orthodox who are put off by imagining the pope as exercising primacy juridicially.”
From the Catholic standpoint, the pope CANNOT possibly exercise his primacy ‘in communio.’ The inner logic of the doctrine of papal primacy in Vatican I preclude this. This is due to the fact that, according to Vatican I, the pope possesses the FULLNESS of supreme authority in the Church, not merely the principal part thereof. As such, any union with the pope by the Orthodox cannot be on the basis of anything other than a complete submission to the fullness of this supreme authority – which, of course, the pope could then use later to change the exact manner of governing relations with the Orthodox at will.
The only other possible basis for union with the Orthodox would be if the Catholic side were to admit that the pope’s claim to possess the fullness of supreme authority as a matter how the Church is divinely constituted involves a doctrinal error. If this were to happen, then a part of the supreme authority that inheres in the Church as a whole (which Catholics at present locate wholly with the pope) could indeed be shared with the Orthodox, and it would be possible for them to preside over the Church jointly with the pope ‘in communo.’
Francesca,
The problem, as I see it, is that Vatican I is not speaking metaphorically. It is speaking juridically, which I think one has to do when one is speaking about the governance of the Church. One can use other images to express the same reality, and one should because the juridical doesn’t exhaust the mystery; but I don’t think that one can abandon the juridical mode of speech. It will have to part of the complex of what might prove to be a deeper or broader understanding of the character of the Church.
The Orthodox, too, as I see it, understand the juridical mode of speech. They use it in regard to their own sees and patriarchates. Does not an Orthodox bishop have juridical authority over the priests in his diocese? Has not the Moscow patriarchate argued with others, particularly Constantinople, over questions of jurisdiction? As I have said before, I think they disagree with the content of Vatican I; they understand what the council said; they simply disagree with it. The Catholic task is to show how what Vatican I said fits in the entire tradition of the Church.
“Communion” is also not a metaphor; it is a literal expression of the union between members of the Church. Further, while there is a certain communion between Catholics and non-Catholics, it is not a communion “in a single faith,” since we do not agree on what that faith entails. We do not share one mind.
Michael the Austrian wrote:
“The only other possible basis for union with the Orthodox would be if the Catholic side were to admit that the pope’s claim to possess the fullness of supreme authority as a matter how the Church is divinely constituted involves a doctrinal error.”
Or, that the Orthodox admit that their doctrinal claims on the papal office are erroneous.
Dear Daniel,
In the spirit of fraternal charity, I would like to begin by acknowledging your avowed intention to be orthodox and non-relativistic in maintaining your Catholic beliefs. I feel it necessary to repeat this because I fully realize that I am pressing my position quite hard as this thread progresses.
Now, to some of your key points:
“I distinguish between the heart of a dogma and the way it is expressed in a human construct.”
The problem is that if the way the heart of a dogma is expressed misleads some into believing that key aspects of what the dogma itself involves have been abrogated or do not exist, it retards rather than advances the cause of objective truth. For example, the fact that Pope John Paul II considered the heart of papal doctrine to consist in a “ministry of love and union (probably not exactly what he ever said, but still essentially correct)” does not in the least diminish the force of papal primacy that arises from the various clauses of the Vatican I anathema I cited some ways up. Thus, making the Orthodox an offer to embrace this “ministry of love” without also making clear to them the divinely constituted terms upon which the Orthodox embrace this union, as articulated in Vatican I, is not very likely to lead to a union based on the fullness of dogmatic truth.
“That is what John Paul II was doing in rethinking Roman primacy, even going so far as to ask for assistance from the Orthodox.
I only mean that sometimes the heart of the dogma can be obscured to those outside the tradition that has articulated it by the language it uses; like the world looks different through different colors of glass.”
But the language used in Vatican I to describe how the heart of papal ministry is exercised is infallible, non-metaphorical, and clear in its meaning. Embracing its meaning in its fullness is thus necessarily part of a “package deal” that the Orthodox would embrace by accepting what lies at the heart of the doctrine.
“I realize that when I speak like this that some folks are immediately wary; it sounds like modernist relativism.”
If you have the time and are able to put in the effort, I would be grateful for your replies to the arguments in my original post which claimed to show that your position relativizes the meaning content both of language, and makes us all hopelessly subject to the vagaries of culture and history in the formulation of our ideas about transcendent truth.
“I would like to hear, sometime, Michael’s tale of pilgrimage, how he ended up Oriental Orthodox (right?) Is it online anywhere, Michael?”
I am a member of the Church of the East (“the Nestorians”). My main problems with Catholicism are its doctrines on Papal Primacy and Original Sin. I nearly became Eastern Orthodox ten years ago, but then further research convinced me that they, along with the Oriental Orthodox, have erred in their historic condemnation of Nestorius, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Antiochene Christology generally at the Third and Fifth Ecumenical Councils. Since I believe there is a True Church, it is therefore the Church of the East by default.
Dear Christopher,
You wrote that the breach between Catholicism and Orthodoxy could be healed if “the Orthodox admit that their doctrinal claims on the papal office are erroneous.”
That is true. However, the problem is that the Catholics are not inclined to discuss the issue of papal claims at all. Rather, the Catholics attempt to confine the discussion to one of how the papal primacy will be exercised. They thus presuppose as true the very doctrinal point that keeps the Orthodox separate.
One side or the other ultimately needs to admit to error. However, the only way to come to that point would be for the truth or falsehood of every single point of dogma from Vatican I to be subjected to minute and painstaking discussion by both sides, in a spirit of unbiased openness to objective truth, and with a view to determining its truth or falsehood as dogma. A very exhaustive and detailed examination of the facts associated with Church History would play a very large role in such an investigation.
Michael the Austrian,
But why stop at Vatican I? Why submit only the doctrine of papal authority to minute and painstaking discussion? Why not any doctrine upon which those who call themselves Christian disagree? The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is that if we call into question papal authority we are left with nothing but individual interpretation of scripture and tradition. For, outside the Catholic system, there is not authoritative voice that can not be wrong. It is cliche to say it, but without the pope, we’re all popes.
Dear Christopher,
I could not agree with you more, actually. The Catholic Church acknowledges 21 Ecumenical Councils as dogmatically binding. The Eastern Orthodox acknowledge only the first Seven of those as dogmatically binding (that constitutes the bedrock of their faith, proving that a papacy is not necessary to guarantee the existence of such a bedrock).
The 14 later Ecumenical Councils not acknowledged by the Orthodox contain a vast body of dogma. In order for union between the two Churches to be based on objective doctrinal truth, it would be necessary to examine EACH AND EVERY DOGMA of these 14 Ecumenical Councils on an individual basis, and in a painstaking way. In many cases – probably the considerable majority – it would turn out that there is no disagreement between the two sides. These could be then accepted by both sides in a spirit of genuine unity that is based on a mutual conviction as to what the truth of the faith is.
However, I believe there are also a good number of dogmas from the latter 14 Catholic Councils that are infallible for Catholics, but that the Orthodox would seriously dispute. In every case, the same procedure I already enunciated in connection with papal primacy would need to be followed for dealing with these dogmas:
1) The nature of the irreconcilable disagreement needs to be clearly stated, and clearly understood by both sides;
2) A mutual effort must be made to ascertain the truth, in a way that fundamentally allows for the possibility that one’s own side may in fact be in error on the dogma in dispute. And in every case, the Catholic position must be approached with the same rigorous attention to the objective meaning content of the dogmatic texts that I have already articulated as being necessary in the case of papal primacy. Otherwise, any resulting union would probably be a false one in the sense that mutual agreement is claimed when there is really disagreement that has been obfuscated by placing the cause of unity ahead of that of truth.
There are many other dogmas besides papal primacy for which it is at least somewhat likely that there exists some sort of mutually irreconcilable doctrinal stance between Catholics and Orthodox that can only be reconciled in the fashion outlined above. Based on my own limited knowledge of Orthodox and Catholic dogmas (which is in no other case nearly as in depth as is my knowledge of the papacy issue), such potential problem spots may very well include the following: The Filioque, Purgatory, Indulgences, whether grace is Created or Uncreated, the Catholic condemnation of semi-Pelagianism (which the Orthodox effectively endorse), the dogma of Transsubstantiation, and the Catholic dogma of original sin. There are probably other potential problem spots as well, but these occur to me off the top of my head.
MtA, I have to say that your warnings about heterodox Orthodox suggest an awfully good argument for the papacy. How, in the end, do we know what is orthodox? I believe you suggested earlier that not all Orthodox bishops are to be trusted.
Even more significant is your statement about how you got to be where you are: I am a member of the Church of the East (“the Nestorians”). My main problems with Catholicism are its doctrines on Papal Primacy and Original Sin. I nearly became Eastern Orthodox ten years ago, but then further research convinced me that they, along with the Oriental Orthodox, have erred in their historic condemnation of Nestorius….
This reminds me a lot of a Mennonite friend of mine, who’s pretty well educated theologically. He knows, for instance, something of New Testament Greek, which I do not. And yet it seems to me that he is ultimately thrown upon his own resources, which I don’t think is what God wants. It’s absurd to think that he expects *every* believer to make these researches for himself. And yet without the papacy, at least in its minimal capacity as court of last theological appeal, what else can one do? As Christopher says, it’s every man his own pope. How could one ever be at rest in the confidence that one has the right answer? This train of thought is probably the biggest single reason for my becoming Catholic.
None of this is to say you don’t have a very good point about the project which is the subject of the original post here. But I think the substance of your argument undermines authority altogether, as M.Z. Forrest says above.
I can’t say I’m real happy with the tone of the Vatican I pronouncements, nor even entirely happy with the substance–as noted, I’m very much in sympathy with Daniel’s hope–but in the end I’ll take that over the idea that it’s up to me to figure out the truth.
Yes, it is curious that a popeless fellow would find his way to Nestorianism. How does one end up in an historical heresy except by eccentric personal taste? That is, what possibly was your compass on the way to such a destination?
I am not suggesting that the statements of Vatican I were metaphorical, but I don’t think it a stretch to say that they emphasize only one element of a vast mystery, and do so with an autocratic mindset. I was told in theology studies that VI was incomplete, that it was interupted by war, and its ecclesiology was completed with Vatican II, with its complemenery emphasis on the role of the bishop.
I do know that the task cannot be an impossible one, as John Paul II thought it doable, not to mention all those heterodox Orthodox theologians and bishops:).
Ironic that a Nestorian would presume to pronounce on the orthodoxy of other Christians…
I am calling ‘juridicial’ or ‘communion’ metaphors in the sense that, as Dan puts it, they only focus one aspect of the mystery.
That is, they only enable us to form a concept of the Church under that aspect. It is a metaphorical concept rather than an analogous concept in that not only is it partial but we cannot see how it integrates with the other valid (ie Biblical, revealed) concepts of the Church, such as the bride.
Dear Maclin,
Thank you for your thoughts. By way of reply, I will adopt the mode of pasting in selected portions of your note, with my replies. This seems to be working well enough to warrant the extra space:
“MtA, I have to say that your warnings about heterodox Orthodox suggest an awfully good argument for the papacy. How, in the end, do we know what is orthodox?”
My position is that the Scriptures, combined with the doctrinal patrimony of the Church of the East, provide the starting point for all investigations into genuine Christian Orthodoxy. The irrevocable doctrinal commitments of the Church of the East come from the first two Ecumenical Councils: Nicea in 325, and Constantinople I in 381. (And by the way, these are actually not “ecumenical” councils at all, but local councils of the Roman Empire, to which the Church of the East in the neighboring Parthian empire also gave its assent. Only on these grounds are these Councils TRULY universal.)
“And yet it seems to me that [your Mennonite friend] is ultimately thrown upon his own resources, which I don’t think is what God wants. It’s absurd to think that he expects *every* believer to make these researches for himself. And yet without the papacy, at least in its minimal capacity as court of last theological appeal, what else can one do?”
Yes, having to research these matters for oneself is very arduous. But it is necessary to do so because my desire for objective transcendent truth did not find firm intellectual purchase in the Catholic faith that is my heritage. I have tried to indicate some of the reasons for this in this thread, and I can see that the issues I have brought to the fore are troubling to a number of other posters as well. As to the question of whether God would permit the situation regarding transcendent truth to be as chaotic and confusing as my faith journey suggests it may be, allow me to remind you that we live in a world where unspeakable evils (such as the Nazi Holocaust) happen all the time. Should it really be so surprising that Satan has also managed to usher in an atmosphere of utter confusion and chaos regarding the discoverability of transcendent truth?
“As Christopher says, it’s every man his own pope. How could one ever be at rest in the confidence that one has the right answer? This train of thought is probably the biggest single reason for my becoming Catholic.”
The Church of the East is NOT an arbitrary and purely subjective construct, but an objectively real, Sacramental, and historically apostolic Church every bit as much as are the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. All other things being equal, it might just as easily be the TRUE Church among this group as any other. One must not make the mistake of believing that one happens to be in the True Church simply because this has been told one from birth, or simply because one was searching for it and the Catholic Church happened to be the only one in the group that was readily accessible to one’s own horizon of experience.
“None of this is to say you don’t have a very good point about the project which is the subject of the original post here.”
So would you agree that all my arguments about the need to take every dogma of Vatican I seriously, and that any failure to do so is logically tantamount to relativism, are sound? Have I made any errors in logic or appeal to evidence that you can detect?
“But I think the substance of your argument undermines authority altogether, as M.Z. Forrest says above.”
It doesn’t necessarily undermine authority if you are willing to take what Vatican I says about this authority at face value – as Catholics should be doing anyhow.
“I can’t say I’m real happy with the tone of the Vatican I pronouncements, nor even entirely happy with the substance–as noted, I’m very much in sympathy with Daniel’s hope–but in the end I’ll take that over the idea that it’s up to me to figure out the truth.”
So you are willing to lend unquestioning assent of obedience to everything the pope says qua pope (as opposed to private individual or theologian)?
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for your additional thoughts also. I will probably have to split my reply to you up into two posts, since I need to teach a class in about ten minutes. In dialogue with key points from your last post:
“Yes, it is curious that a popeless fellow would find his way to Nestorianism. How does one end up in an historical heresy except by eccentric personal taste? That is, what possibly was your compass on the way to such a destination?”
As I said in my note above to Maclin, the Church of the East is every bit as much an objective reality, with a continuous lineage to apostolic times, as is the Catholic Church. I therefore see no basis for your charge that I have been led on my intellectual journey by personal taste. With all due respect, I think the charge is much more applicable to your own reluctance to embrace fully the more distasteful dogmas of Vatican I.
“I am not suggesting that the statements of Vatican I were metaphorical, but I don’t think it a stretch to say that they emphasize only one element of a vast mystery, and do so with an autocratic mindset.”
It is not merely an autocratic mindset that we are talking about here. The dogmas themselves are autocratic in the strictest sense of the term, since they concentrate all supreme ecclesiastical powers into the hands of a single individual. That is simply what Vatican I objectively says, as a matter of transhistorical truth-claims binding upon all faithful Catholics.
“I was told in theology studies that VI was incomplete, that it was interupted by war, and its ecclesiology was completed with Vatican II, with its complemenery emphasis on the role of the bishop.”
Whatever completion takes place cannot abrogate even a jot or tittle of what Vatican I already has laid down dogmatically. Catholics are stuck with the supreme authoritarianism of that Council’s understanding of the papacy, whether they like it or not. As for the complementarity of Bishops, I argued in an earlier post that the very notion thereof is misleading, since it suggests a share on the part of the Bishops in the supreme authority of the Church, along with the pope’s other share. But this is in contradiction to the express teaching of Vatican I, which insists that the pope possesses the FULLNESS, and NOT merely the principal part, of supreme authority. Where is there any room here for “complementary” or “collegiality,” terms which suggest some form of equality that is unambiguously repudiated by Vatican I?
Francesca,
The juridical model in Vatican I is not meant to be a concept of the Church as such but of the relationship of the pope to the bishops and the faithful. And I think its the central concept of this relationship which solidifies and grounds other concepts.
For instance, it is important to hold to the concept that the pope “presides in love” over his brother bishops and the faithful, insofar as it spells out what should be the motive and font of his ministry. But it does not tell us the mode in which the ministry is to be conducted. A merely titular head or symbol of unity could preside in love. A mere teacher presides in love over his students. But in what capacity does the pope preside? Vatican I says, as a ruler, as well as as a teacher and a symbol of unity.
Too, we speak of the pope as part of the college of bishops, as a brother bishop. But this does not tell us whether he has a unique role in that college or what that role might be.
What might be added to Vatican I, I think, is an explanation, not of the extent of papal authority, but of the circumstances in which he should exercise the fullness of his power and those in which he shouldn’t.
However absolute the authority of the papal office is, it is not so absolute as to allow the pope to operate in violation of justice and charity, any more than the teaching office allows him to declare outside the parameters of revealed truth. The pope, as Christ’s vicar, may not command what Christ would not command.
Are there situations where papal ruling authority may be justly resisted? Do the bishops and the faithful have any rights which the pope may not justly violate? Vatican I, as I see it, does not answer these questions; for though it and Latin tradition state that the pope is not subject to another’s judgement, I think, as I have stated before, that this refers to an authority of jurisdiction. In other words, there is no divinely constituted human authority to which the faithful may appeal juridicially above the pope. The council does not tell what the faithful are to do when the pope acts outside of justice; that is, when he acts tyranically.
Michael the Austrian,
You seem to want to limit the dialogue about the nature of the Church to the Catholics, the Orthodox, and the Orientals; but why stop there? Why not include the Anglicans, the Lutherans, the Calvinists? And if we do include them, will we not have to be willing to relativize even such concepts as apostolic succession, the authority of the fathers, and what constitutes the canon of scripture — not to mention the Eucharist, sacramental theology, and beliefs regarding grace and free will?
The uniqueness of the Catholic Church is that it is the only body which has a clearly defined teaching authority that saves us from the morass of individual interpretation of scripture and tradition. The Orthodox can not agree on what constitutes an ecumenical council, the only infallible teaching authority they seem to recognize. Scripture is not sufficient, since it is hard to understand. And the fathers don’t always agree with each other; to know them with any assurance requires an intensity of study that even few scholars can barely achieve.
And, by the way, I am not troubled by anything you have written. I honestly don’t find many of your arguments very convincing. And I myself find Vatican I quite tasty.
Christopher,
I don’t think we disagree. Let me give an analogy for what I’m trying to say. Within Scottish Calvinism, in the 19th century, penal substitution with the concomitant of limited atonement was the rule – one could be excommunicated for denying it, as John McLeod Campbell was, in 1831, for proposing that love precedes justice within the atonement – God the Father sends his Son to die *because* he loves us, rather than becoming loving after the Son has paid the judicial price of sin. Campbell went on to have a huge influence within Scottish Calvinism, as did one of his contemporaries whom you probably know – George MacDonald. The Calvinists took these prodigals on board by sidestepping their *substitution* of love for divine justice, and, instead, more sensibly, realising that love is the wider concept within which divine justice must be interpreted.
Analogously, one could say that Vatican II’s ecclesiology, and that of encyclicals like Ut Unum Sint, makes ‘communio’ the wider concept (and perhaps practice) within which judicial authority must be interpreted. It’s not replacing the one with the other, but showing that the juridicial authority of the pope is conditioned by and relative to the church as ‘communio’. Making ‘communio’ the wider notion effects the exercise of jurisdiction – or can be a help in thinking about how jurisdiction could be exercised in a way that the Orthodox would be able to accept.
Isn’t that why the encyclical talks about Communion for 93 paragraphs and then says, let’s sit down together and talk about how the primacy could be exercised in such a way as to bring about unity?
Dear Francesca,
Your suggestion of juxtaposing “communion” metaphors in reference to the Church with the strict dogmatic decrees delinating papal authority in Vatican I is valid in principle – as long as the “communion” metaphors in question do not obscure, or relativistically diminish, the meaning of the strict dogmatic decrees in view. As I said in an earlier post, the “communion” metaphors suggested by John Paul II necessarily come as a package deal along with the authoritarian decrees of Vatican I for anyone who wishes to remain true to the faith that Catholicism objectively teaches.
Note, however, that I hedged what I just said with the phrase “valid IN PRINCIPLE.” That is to say, one can raise a basic question about whether the authoritarian dogmas regarding papal primacy are even fundamentally compatible with notions of what the Church is that are clothed in “communitarian” metaphors. If the answer to this question is yes, then the faithful Catholic has no choice but to discard the “communitarian” metaphors in her thinking about the Church, so as to remain true to the strictly binding dogmas of Vatican I which preclude them.
Though I haven’t ever thought about it in any great depth, I have a sense that the answer to the question I just raised may very well be “yes.” Moreover, it is quite possible that your own and Daniel’s and Maclin’s discomfort with the authoritarianism of Vatican I is itself concrete evidence pointing precisely in the direction of there being a fundamental incompatibility between the authoritarian dogmas of Vatican I, and the “communitarian” metaphors of the Church that came into favor in the wake of Vatican II.
I’m not uncomfortable with the authoritarianism or juridicial nature of Vatican I. I just believe in the development of doctrine, as led by the Holy Spirit, within the Church. When doctrines develop, nothing true is left out or discarded, but new growths condition older truths. Everything that was said at Vatican I about the pope’s judicial authority is just as true today as it was then (or else it would not have been true then). But this truth is laid within a wider framework, that of communion.
The only sense in which I am ‘uncomfortable’ with judicial authority is if it is taken out of context – the context of the development of doctrine, for example. One meaning of Catholicism is ‘wholeness’. As you must know, Chesterton said that Protestantism is not about saying false things, it is about exaggerating one truth at the expense of others. The way in which you expound Vatican I sounds to me like a Protestant interpreting it – like a Protestant taking one line in the Bible out of context and putting huge and solitary weight upon it. When one does this, what is believable in context because unbelievable out of context – because it is distorted.
I meant ‘what is believable in context becomes unbelievable out of context, because distorted.’ I really must read the stuff before I hit post.
Dear Francesca,
I would say that all of my reasoning is based upon what the dogmas of Vatican I themselves expressly and unambiguously say. I believe that I am being as true to the objective meaning content of the Catholic faith, as this is articulated in the dogmas of Vatican I, as one can possibly be. If you disagree with this, then I invite you to show me where I have erred in anything I have said about 1) what Vatican I actually says, and 2) what it necessarily implies about other matters I have discussed.
My approach is not that of a Protestant. It is that of someone who is rationally attentive to what is objectively given, in terms of dogma and language, with a view to gaining a firm and certain grasp of transcendent truth. This presupposes a basic belief that language can be the bearer of objective meaning content that conveys transcendent truth.
For your convenience, I am posting the single most crucial dogmatic passage from that Council below (Session 4, Ch. 3). I would be grateful if you could reread all my previous posts on its meaning in light of this passage, and point out any errors I have made. If you think I am taking this passage out of context, then you might also read the rest of what the Council says about papal primacy, and see for yourself whether it is in clear accord with my interpretations of it or not:
“So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.”
Dear Francesca,
Please forgive the double reply. I deviated from my dialogical mode of replying to posts in my last message to you, but I think my response was not as focused as it could have been as a result. So here are the key points you made that I would like to address:
“I just believe in the development of doctrine, as led by the Holy Spirit, within the Church. When doctrines develop, nothing true is left out or discarded, but new growths condition older truths.”
That is the way it should be: New truths should be added, without contradicting older ones. However, I would argue that the addition of new dogmas which contradict older ones is precisely what takes place when concepts such as “episcopal collegiality” get introduced in connection with Vatican I. If the meaning of this term is taken at face value, it implies an equal sharing of supreme authority between Pope and bishops, which contradicts Vatican I’s expressly limiting the fullness of this supreme power to the pope alone. If the meaning of the term is NOT taken at face value, then its use is merely misleading. Why use a term that is naturally taken to mean the opposite of what you intend it to mean in order to express new dogma? Where do you think heterodox Catholics get their ideas about the “spirit of Vatican II” from? It is in part from terms such as “episcopal collegiality,” which, taken on their face, imply a new teaching that CONTRADICTS Vatican I: Namely, that the bishops have an equal share in supreme authority along with the pope.
“Everything that was said at Vatican I about the pope’s judicial authority is just as true today as it was then (or else it would not have been true then). But this truth is laid within a wider framework, that of communion.”
This framework of communion is vague, at least so far in the discussion. But perhaps that is in keeping with its basic character as a metaphor. But again, insofar as elements of this metaphor suggest concrete notions about papal primacy that contradict the teachings of Vatican I, the metaphor ought best to be discarded, as being potentially misleading to people about the binding content of Catholic dogmas.
“The way in which you expound Vatican I sounds to me like a Protestant interpreting it – like a Protestant taking one line in the Bible out of context and putting huge and solitary weight upon it. When one does this, what is believable in context because unbelievable out of context – because it is distorted.”
I think what I said in my prior post suitably addresses this. The only thing I would add to what I said there is that, at this juncture, the burden of proof is on you to show that my understanding of Vatican I is distorted. This cannot simply be claimed; it must be argued for and demonstrated.
Hi Michael, I live and work among believing conservative Protestants. Everything or very much they read in the Bible is true. You (or I) can’t show it’s false by inspecting the quotation – it is objectively true. It’s just not the whole truth. It is for instance objectively true and Scriptural that Christ dies on our behalf, for our sins. That is Scriptural. But read out of the context of the Church as a whole, and its understanding of Scripture, that becomes Calvinist penal substitution. Similarly, if you take what Vatican I says out of the context of the whole interpretation of the papacy, including Vatican II, what is true in it is distorted.
Michael the Austrian,
You continue to shudder at the statement of Vatican I, but, as I and others have pointed out, the Church teaches that there are levels of teaching authority and different degrees of assent to be given them. Further, it seems clear to me, at least, that the questions I asked concerning the exercise of papal jurisdiction in my last post are not precluded by Vatican I, especially when one reads it in light of the theological tradition from which the council’s statement sprang.
The theological setting of the council’s decree is that pope is Vicar of Christ; and as such he can not rightfully violate the will of Christ. The Church does not teach that the pope is impeccable; therefore, he can act tyranically, and, according to the Scholastic tradition, at least, a ruler who acts tyrannically acts outside his proper authority and can be resisted. The Vatican decree nowhere contradicts this.
The analogy here is to a supreme ruler in a state. Citizens are bound by conscience to obey the ruler; he has authority over the state as a whole and over the individuals in it. No juridically established body or individual stands over him as a court of appeal. But, the ruler himself has no authority in acts where he violates natural law, and citizens are not bound to obey such acts. This is the tradition in which Vatican I made its decree.
Francesca,
I suppose it’s unclear to me how the notion communio would help Orthodox better understand the role of the pope as Vatican I defines it, except in terms, perhaps, of allowing for the notion that the papal office can be exercised in different ways in different times and in relation to different groups. How does it develop the concept to make papal primacy as defined more approachable?
Apropos of our discussion, perhaps, I would encourage you all to read this excerpt from Vladimir Soloviev’s Russia and the Universal Church. It gives I think an interesting perspective to Western emphasis on centralized authority in Rome. As you all probably know, Soloviev was Russian Orthodox, though some say he received last rites from a Byzantine Catholic priest. Anyhow, the link is
http://tcrnews2.com/SolovievEastWest.html
Enjoy!
Don’t the Orthodox have a view of the Immaculate Conception that is fairly different from Catholic teaching?
Dear Christopher,
Your point about a framework of natural law being tacitly presupposed as a limiting context for the Vatican decrees is a good one, I must admit. Even though it is not explicitly stated in the Council decrees themselves, it is hard to argue against the position that the Council Fathers had this in mind as a hedge, due to reasons you allude to as well as many others, and I will not attempt to do so.
However, given that this is so, how would you approach the matter of medieval popes issuing decrees and bulls which not merely morally condoned torture, but which expressly commanded it? (A bull from 1240 or so entitled EXECRABILIS by one of the Pope Gregorys comes to mind as a concrete example; I read about it some years ago in Henry Lea’s HISTORY OF THE INQUISITION.) Are/were these papal injunctions to be disobeyed on the grounds of the natural law context of papal supremacy? In light of this hedge, such decrees would have to be considered tyrannical usurpations both of the Pope’s sovereign jurisdictional authority, and, by implication, also of his sovereign teaching authority concerning faith and morals, since the command to torture could not be given except on the presupposition that it is morally licit.
Dear Christopher,
You are, however, incorrect to say the following:
“for though [Vatican I] and Latin tradition state that the pope is not subject to another’s judgement, I think, as I have stated before, that this refers to an authority of jurisdiction.”
But in point of fact, Vatican I explicitly extends this idea of being able to be judged by no one to the area of teaching faith and morals as well. This emerges very clearly from the capitalized portions in the Vatican decree below:
“So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the FULL AND SUPREME POWER OF JURISDICTION over the whole Church, and this NOT ONLY IN FAITH AND MORALS, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has ONLY THE PRINCIPAL PART, BUT NOT THE ABSOLUTE FULLNESS, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.”
Not only that, but it is the very fact that the pope possesses the FULLNESS, and not merely the principal part, of supreme teaching authority that constitutes the logical and doctrinal basis of infallibility. For if he possesses the FULLNESS of this supreme teaching authority, then the infallibility that is associated with this supreme teaching authority, which Christ has vested in the Church, is necessarily concentrated solely in the office of the papacy.
Dear Christopher,
To press my point further: If the pope alone possesses the fullness of supreme authority in the area of teaching faith and morals, and no other earthly agency possesses even a portion thereof, it would seen to follow that no other earthly agency has the right to judge the pope in this area either. This is tantamount to an obligation of rendering absolute obedience of assent to all papal teaching, both infallible and non-infallible. For not to do so amounts to elevating oneself to a position of judgment over the pope’s unjudgeable teaching authority. If you see anything wrong with this reasoning, I would be grateful if you would point it out to me.
To anticipate one important objection: Earlier, you raised the point of different levels of authority in papal teaching, with corresponding different degrees of required assent. To see how I would answer that, please scroll back to my lengthy post of November 16, 2006 at 08:59 AM, which is specifically devoted to this issue (and which I do not want to repeat in full here, since this thread is already very lengthy as it is).
To clarify, I don’t have a problem with the statements of Vatican I in their substance, either. Clearly there must be a way within the Church to resolve problems in local Churches when the bishops are unwilling or unable to do so. In this sense -that the Pope requires no special permission- he exercises “ordinary jurisdiction”. “Ordinary jurisdiction” does not mean that this is the way the Pope “ordinarly” acts. “Ordinary jurisdiction” is in fact only exercised in extraordinary circumstances.
However, the autocratic and less-than-humble way that the Fathers of Vatican I express it makes it sound like the pope can arbitrarily rule and meddle. Granted, it has sometimes seemed like popes have done so, but that is not the way gospel authority should be exercised. That is why juridical frameworks ought to be constructed, limiting the Pope’s exercise of his juridical role, to reassure other Churches.
Collegiality does not contradict papal authority; it merely means that the bishop within his diocese does not receive his ecclesial and sacramental power from the pope, but is hierarch of a real Church. The bishop is not a mere delegate of the Pope. The Fathers teach that the Church exists in fullness where the bishop and the people worship. Of course, there is a lack of fullness of Catholicity when unity does not exist with the See of Peter.
No offense, Michael, but I find your claim that the Nestorian Church is a credible candidate for the role of the One Church not particularly convincing; it is a remnant, a marginal and ethnic subsect, hardly catholic, hardly dynamic.
Christopher Zehnder asks what difference it makes if one qualifies jurisdiction with communion. It makes a difference to ecumenical dialogue if, on the one hand one starts the conversation from the position that all non-RCs are on the outside, not obeying the pope, or, on the other hand, one starts from the position that all already belong to a communion, albeit ‘wounded,’ and now can we talk about jurisdiction. Vatican II makes a start in the direction of noting commonalities between Eastern Orthodox and RCs and between Protestants and RCs. Since then, in a sense, these commonalities have been given a name – communion. It means that Christians are in a (kind of) analogous relation rather than an equivocal one.
On the question of whether the Vatican I popes are autocratic, one has to consider the political context. By the 19th century, the once Catholic European countries, eg Spain, post-revolutionary France, the Josephite and post-Josephite Austro-Hungarian Empire, wanted to keep the Church firmly under the thumb of the State. They were Erastian or ‘Gallican’ in practice – effectively, they wanted something like the Anglican solution, with the King as head of state, appointing the Bishops. They were very much in favour of collegiality, because if they picked the bishops (as had happened in France, for instance, since Napoleon), a collegially run Church would be entirely in their pockets. The rulers of the nation states have wanted ‘collegiality’ ever since the Conciliarist movement of the 15th century. By 1870, they were determined upon getting it. It is against this nationalism that the authority of the Pope is defined at Vatican I. Consider this Vatican I statement:
“we … teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power …and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the church throughout the world.
Furthermore, it follows from that supreme power which the Roman pontiff has in governing the whole church, that he has the right, in the performance of this office of his, to communicate freely with the pastors and flocks of the entire church, so that they may be taught and guided by him in the way of salvation. And therefore we condemn and reject the opinions of those who hold that this communication of the supreme head with pastors and flocks may be lawfully obstructed; or that it should be dependent on the civil power, which leads them to maintain that what is determined by the apostolic see or by its authority concerning the government of the church, has no force or effect unless it is confirmed by the agreement of the civil authority.” (Vatican I, Session 4, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, chapter 3 On the Power and Character of the Roman Pontiff, [1870]).
The paragraph from ‘furthermore’ onwards gives the clue to the purpose of the definition. Very many decisions and definitions taken and made by ecumenical councils have been in response to specific arguments and debates – eg the Arian controversy and Nicaea. The debate which precedes Vatican I is about the relative authority of church and state. Having largely conceded to the states the ability to select the Bishops, it was crucial ‘autocratically’ to define the authority of the Pope.
Once the European states pulled out of selecting RC bishops, by the mid 20th century
From a ‘Social and Political Thought’ it was possible to talk about collegiality. Not before, because of the danger of nationalism, or turning the RC church into a giant Anglican communion.
From a political perspective, in short, the point of defining infallibility is to prevent the Pope and thereby the Church as a whole from being controlled by modern nation States.
In addition, infallibility as taught by Vatican I is highly qualified: “…we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a dogma concerning faith and morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith and morals.” (Vatican I, Session 4, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Chapter 4 On the infallible teaching authority of the Roman pontiff).
I don’t know how that ‘from a social and political thought’ got in there.
In other words, in the 1860s, there wasn’t a big debate going on the RC church about how much authority local bishops should have, and Vatican I responded by clamping down on them. There *was* a big push by the European nation states to gain control over the Church. That’s the context.
Michael the Austrian asked,
“How would you approach the matter of medieval popes issuing decrees and bulls which not merely morally condoned torture, but which expressly commanded it?”
I would say that the popes commanded something that was immoral, though I doubt whether they or anyone at the time thought they were immoral. The commands to torture were particular acts of papal authority directed to particular circumstances and so do not have the dignity of a decree binding the universal Church. In other words, the pope did not command something to the effect of, “inquisitors the world over shall use torture,” but rather directed inquisitors in, I believe, Albigensian areas were to use the standard juridical means of those areas for obtaining confessions.
Was this tyrannical? Certainly not in intent, since torture was accepted at the time as an accepted means for obtaining confessions and punishing. But were the popes who commanded this commading something immoral? I think so.
Dear Daniel,
Thanks for your most recent posts. Here are my thoughts (in reply to yours):
“That is why juridical frameworks ought to be constructed, limiting the Pope’s exercise of his juridical role, to reassure other Churches.”
The inherent problem with such juridical frameworks is that, from the Catholic standpoint, they are unilaterally abrogable at any time. Not only that, but their very implementation can ultimately be solely at the Pope’s discretion. In the last anaylsis, the Orthodox could act as nothing more than powerless advisors, without any true say whatsoever of any decision about such juridical frameworks. All of this is a direct consequence of the fact that the Pope possesses, solely on his own, the FULLNESS of supreme governing authority required. As such, the Orthodox do not, and CANNOT, have any share in it, given the dogmas of Vatican I.
“Collegiality does not contradict papal authority; it merely means that the bishop within his diocese does not receive his ecclesial and sacramental power from the pope, but is hierarch of a real Church.”
I think the time has come for me to quote the passage from Vatican I that speaks directly to the nature of the relation between pope and Bishops. Here it is, with the aspects thereof pertinent to the current discussion highlighted in caps:
‘Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal AND IMMEDIATE. Both CLERGY and faithful, of WHATEVER RIGHT AND DIGNITY, both singly AND COLLECTIVELY, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of HEIRARCHICHAL SUBORDINATION AND TRUE OBEDIENCE, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.’
It emerges very clearly here that the entire body of Bishops is required to render true obedience to the pope in matters of teaching faith and morals, as well as of Church governance. No earthly agency may judge the pope in either of these areas, including the collective body of bishops. Where is there room here for any notion of collegiality? The very notion implies a measure of equality between pope and bishops that is only possible if the Bishops possessed a SHARE in the supreme authority that resides in the Church. But they do not, nor can they, since Vatican I makes expressly clear that the pope alone possesses the FULLNESS thereof. As such, Vatican II terminology such as “collegiality” is, at the very least, misleading and therefore best discarded – or, at the worst, in outright contradiction to Vatican I.
“No offense, Michael, but I find your claim that the Nestorian Church is a credible candidate for the role of the One Church not particularly convincing; it is a remnant, a marginal and ethnic subsect, hardly catholic, hardly dynamic.”
But you do not yet know the full extent of the case that I could make on behalf of the claim that the Church of the East is the True Church; in fact, you only know a very small fraction thereof. Therefore, your judgment about the merits of my position is premature at this stage.
The argument you give against this claim based on its being a helpless and marginal remnant in strictly human terms is a consideration that is entirely accidental to the key issue, which is the following: Among the four doctrinally distinct Apostolic Churches extant today, which one has never erred in any of its irrevocably binding faith commitments? It is my considered view that the Church of the East alone never has, which establishes it as the True Church.
Briefly stated, the outline of my case is as follows: The Catholic Church has fallen into grave doctrinal error with regard to its teaching on Vatican I (among other things). This can be overwhelmingly proven based on a sweeping and detailed knowledge of the facts of Church History, and a rigorous evaluation of their doctrinal significance with regard to the papal claims advanced at Vatican I. It is, of course, impossible to adequately prove something like this short of book-length posts, but I can certainly recommend books which adequately demonstrate this to you if you are interested. On the whole, the more Church History one knows, the more obvious it becomes that the transhistorical papal claims advanced at Vatican I can find no solid purchase in these facts, and are in fact decisively refuted by them at many turns.
As for the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, the decisive problem resides in their unwarranted rejection of Antiochene Christology at the Third and Fifth Ecumenical Councils. To a considerable extent, in fact, the Fourth, and especially the Sixth Ecumenical Councils, amount to nothing other than a vindication of what it is that the Antiochenes were actually fighting for at the time of Ephesus: namely, the substantial reality of Jesus’ humanity.
At the same time, however, none of this is in contradiction to the Cyrillian Christology that prevailed at Ephesus; they complement one another (and I myself actually prefer Cyrillian to Antiochene Christology from the perspective of my own spiritual life). That has always been the official position of the Church of the East: They never condemned Cyril; they merely condemned those who condemn Theodore of Mopsuestia and the other Antiochene Christologists.
Dear Francesca,
You write the following:
“On the question of whether the Vatican I popes are autocratic, one has to consider the political context.”
And then you proceed to give a lengthy explanation of how the fact that the secular powers of the time motivated Pius IX to define papal powers that I have characterized as “autocratic” as Catholic dogma.
With all due respect, I think that this misses the point. From the Catholic standpoint, the “autocratic” dogmas of Vatican I merely state transhistorical realities that have been in effect ever since Christ gave Peter the power of the keys in Matthew 16:18. Thus, from the Catholic standpoing the popes have ALWAYS AND AT EVERY TIME possessed the powers defined at Vatican I.
Your argument suggests that it is somehow these “autocratic” powers themselves which accrued to the popes as a result of the transient political circumstance in Europe of the late 19th century. But that is not true at all. It is in fact merely the FORMAL DEFINITION of these “autocratic” powers as dogma that was motivated by these political circumstances. If you would want to say that the POWERS THEMSELVES came into existence of these transient political circumstances, then you admit to the changeability, and also the fundamental historical relativity, of Catholic faith claims about the nature of the Church that are supposed to be transhistorically changeless from Christ’s act in Matthew 16:18 onwards. This, too, would amount to a fatal capitulation to the “dictatorship of relativism” (not that you would want this, to be sure, but it does follow from this way of construing your position as a matter of logical necessity).
Dear Christopher,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply to my provocative challenge to you regarding torture and the papacy. Herewith my thoughts, in response to yours:
“I would say that the popes commanded something that was immoral, though I doubt whether they or anyone at the time thought they were immoral.”
But how could this be, if the Popes are transhistorically reliable authorities regarding changeless moral truths? If historical and cultural circumstances blinded even the popes to the intrinsic wrongness of torture 750 years ago, then what reason is there to believe that these blinding historical and cultural circumstances are any less operative now? As such, your remark that no one (including the Popes) thought torture was immoral at the time could be immediately seized upon by post-Modernists as powerful evidence that they are right about the hopelessness of arriving at transcendent truth after all.
“The commands to torture were particular acts of papal authority directed to particular circumstances and so do not have the dignity of a decree binding the universal Church. In other words, the pope did not command something to the effect of, “inquisitors the world over shall use torture,” but rather directed inquisitors in, I believe, Albigensian areas were to use the standard juridical means of those areas for obtaining confessions.”
Yes, but these were nevertheless EXPRESS COMMANDS made by Popes to engage in torture. Certainly, the commands only applied to particular circumstances. But that is not really a relevant consideration. The popes could have only commanded torture upon the tacit supposition that the following moral principle is transhistorically true:
“Torture is not intrinsically in moral violation of the fundamental dignity of human beings created in God’s image and likeness.”
Thus, the commands to torture inevitably IMPLY a stance on what the moral teaching of the Church is. This particular moral teaching is, I hope we will all agree, transparently and self-evidently false. So what does this do to the pope’s claims to be a reliable teaching authority in the area of morals? I respectfully submit, given the inherently morally repugnant character of torture, that it fatally undermines these claims.
“Was this tyrannical? Certainly not in intent, since torture was accepted at the time as an accepted means for obtaining confessions and punishing.”
But, according to your own natural law principles, it is not the subjective intent, but the objective nature of the act of torture itself, that determines its intrinsic evilness. Again, if the teaching primacy enunciated at Vatican I gives the popes some kind of uniquely privileged transhistorical window on morals, then why did the Popes of 750 years ago not discern this?
Michael the Austrian stated:
“Vatican I explicitly extends this idea of being able to be judged by no one to the area of teaching faith and morals as well. This emerges very clearly from the capitalized portions in the Vatican decree below.”
I maintain my contention. No bishop, synod of bishops, priest, or lay man may, in the manner of possessing teaching authority, judge the teaching of a pope. I used this analogy before, but I present it again. In the U.S., the supreme court has been accorded the supreme authority of interpreting the constitution. (I know many dispute that this is constitutional; I’m just going by the customary law.) This is, in effect, to say that no body or individual has been constituted as a court of appeal above the supreme court. But it is not to say that no body or individual may not form a private judgement about the a supreme court ruling or dispute it. They or he simply does not have the authority to abrogate the ruling. It remains the official or authoritative key to interpreting the constitution until such time as another supreme court changes it.
Teaching is authoritative when it proceeds from one who has authority. Above the pope, there is no person or body which may correct a papal teaching in an authoritative manner, or with authority. The pope remains the supreme authority in teaching faith and morals.
But this does not mean that every papal teaching has the same authority and thus carries the same sway over the conscience.
You noted previously:
“As a rule, however, the popes of the pre-Vatican II era have generally been disposed to give a limited amount of provisional free-reign to the speculative opinions of theologians. As a hedge against things getting out of line, an elaborate system of classifying papal teachings according to the degree of their authority has been developed – to give some indication of just how much provisional free reign the science of Sacred Theology has in any given instance.”
I admit that the right to dispute even non-infallible papal statements publicly is provisional, since the pope, in view of the common good of the Church, has the right to silence public utterances of theologians and others. But I don’t think the teaching about various levels of papal teaching authority has been made for expedience’s sake, as I think you are suggesting. I think it is intended to state a fact about the nature of papal teaching authority.
The pope may have the right to silence public dissent on certain teachings — say, if the dissent has the real potential of scandal or is done without piety — but he does not have the right to command the individual conscience to give a papal teaching more authority than it actually possesses or to think otherwise, if the teaching has not been expressed as binding one in faith. As for infallible teaching, it is that demands of truth that determine one’s acquiescence.
One who disputes a non-infallible papal teaching, however, would have to dispute it, not as one who stands in judgment over the pope, but as one who humbly suggests an alternative view, always expressing the willingness of being corrected. Included in this category would be statements the pope makes as pope, not simply as preacher at a Sunday Mass or as one addressing a university audience, or as theologian. If, for instance, the pope writes a book on some point in theology, he is not necessarily speaking with papal authority.
Further, the pope is bound is indicate what authority he exercises in an particular utterance. As Lumen Gentium 25 states, “This loyal submission of the will and intellect must be given, in a special way, to the authentic teaching authority of the Roman Pontiff, even when he does not speak ex cathedra in such wise, indeed, that his supreme teaching authority be acknowledged with respect, and sincere assent be given to decisions made by him, **conformably with his manifest mind and intention,** which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with whicha certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated.” If the pope does not manifest his “mind and intention,” he can not bind the faithful, since no one is bound to act on a doubtful conscience.
Dear Christopher,
This is perhaps also a suitable moment to resume the earlier part of our discussion where you asserted that Vatican I dogmas presuppose a natural law framework. As you recall, I granted you this point as undeniably true. You have further suggested that if pope’s abuse their primatial powers in a tyrannical way, then the faithful and the rest of the clergy are within their natural rights to resist him.
But I see a grave logical problem with your position: Let’s take the commands to engage in torture mentioned earlier as examples. I myself believe that, based on the objectively heinous character of torture according to principles of natural law, these decrees are good examples of ones in which the faithful might have been placed in a position to seriously question whether they involved tyrannical abuse of papal primacy. (In fact, I believe that question must unequivocally be answered in the affirmative.)
But here is the difficulty with your proposal that the faithful might arrive at this conclusion: In order to determine whether a particular decree or edict of the pope constitutes an act of tyranny or not, the faithful must necessarily adopt a posture of being in JUDGMENT OVER the pope’s (possibly tyrannical) decree. Moreover, this judgment is of a SPECIFICALLY MORAL character. However, as I argued above (and my reasoning on this has not yet been refuted), the fullness of the Pope’s supreme teaching authority in the area of morals requires strict obedience of assent, since the pope may be judged by no earthly agency in this area, as the passage from Vatican I that I have cited a number of times necessarily entais. But this dogmatic reality fact logically precludes THE VERY POSSIBILITY that the faithful could ever set themselves up as moral judges of the pope’s decrees. For this is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to the Pope’s divinely granted right to be judged by no other earthly agency as a teacher of morals. Thus, the inner logic of papal primacy also LOGICALLY PRECLUDES the possibility of ever arriving at the conclusion that the pope’s decrees or acts (such as those concerning torture) are tyrannical.
This would perhaps not be a problematic aspect of Vatican I dogma if the Popes had NEVER ISSUED tyrannical decrees regarding morals and church governance. But the fact is that they HAVE issued tyrannical decrees over the centuries – in spades – and the decrees regarding torture are some leading examples of this.
Michael: Very, very many dogmas were defined as a result of controversy. It was not that they were not believed before the controversy, but they were not formally defined. A clear example, which I gave in my post, is the Nicene homoousios. No one thought of defining Christ’s relation to the Father until Arius denied he was fully God. Likewise, until the Alexandrians and the Antiochenes started arguing about the relation of the two natures in Christ (a controversy of which you no doubt do not need to be reminded), no one had defined that relation.
Likewise, again, in the 19th century, papal authority was controversial. But, I suggested, this controversy did not arise amongst the RC bishops, as an intra-ecclesial issue, but amongst the heads of the European states. These heads of states by now had gained the privilege of electing RC bps – although the Pope retained a veto. The heads of state wanted collegiality or something like it, because they would then have the whole show. Thus, my point is that papal authority was defined, not in order to ensure his autocratic control of the bishops, but in order to ensure that the Church did not become a tool of the state. I was not of course saying papal authority had not existed before, but defining the context and thus to an extent the meaning of the definition. To repeat, *if and where* the State has the power to elect Bishops (as it did in much of 19th century Europe), then one must define papal authority extremely clearly, or else one is by omission giving the state ascendancy over the Church. In such a context, the pope must be the one guy who is not a state appointee, if the Church is not to succumb to Erastianism/Gallicanism/Anglicanism.
My point was made in response to Dan saying that the Vatican I popes were autocratic. My response is, yes, they do look autocratic to us, but in that 19th century context, nationalism had become a religion, and the popes were attempting to face it down. Sooner than one could have imagined, the state would effectively deify itself in the person of A. Hitler.
Nonetheless, that model of the Church is now past. With the loss of temporal power and with the state withdrawing from the demand to select bishops, the Church was able to reflect on other aspects of the Church, such as collegiality and communion.
Michael the Austrian,
Commands are not teachings. For the pope to command torture is not the same as for the pope to teach that torture is permissible. There is a different modality here.
A papal command made to the universal Church or clearly directing an act that can be construed as universally binding or permissible, would be guaranteed freedom from error. The papal laws directing inquisitors in a particular legal context, do not have this character. At the very least, they do not demonstrate the clear intent of universality.
And, granted, the popes of the Middle Ages may have thought torture was permissible under certain circumstances. But that is irrelevant. Papal statements, not papal thoughts and opinions, bind Catholics.
As for the papal laws regarding torture, they were immoral then as well as now. The culpability of the actors, however, is not clear, given what they thought.
Michael the Austrian,
I have stated ad nauseam that there is a difference between acting as a constituted authority and as a private individual. No one person or body holds constituted authority over the pope. But, acting as an individual, one can form opinions about particular papal acts or teachings. One may dispute these, but not as one possessing authority. This, I think, is the basis for the teaching of Vatican I.
Dear Christopher,
Thanks for carefully studying my earlier posts about how the reality of varying degrees of authority of teaching are properly to be understood, in light of the inner logic of Vatican I papal dogmas.
You write the following (the point you make that I want to challenge is in caps):
“[The pope] does not have the right to command the individual conscience to give a papal teaching more authority than it actually possesses OR TO THINK OTHERWISE.”
But it seems to me that he DOES have the right to command the individual conscience not to think otherwise. That is not only integrally bound up with the inner logic of Vatican I teaching, but it seems to me that it is also affirmed by the passage from Vatican II that you quoted in your own post. To begin with, the passage expressly affirms the obligation for the faithful to conform their mind to that of the pope. Further, as you point out:
“the pope is bound is indicate what authority he exercises in an particular utterance.”
I agree with you that this is a reasonable interpretation to attach to the following clause:
“**conformably with his manifest mind and intention.**which is made known principally either by the character of the documents in question, or by the frequency with which a certain doctrine is proposed, or by the manner in which the doctrine is formulated”
But here is the problem: The LUMEN GENTIUM passage is also phrased such that the degree of authority attached – as well as the corresponding degree of private reservation admitted in the form of a failure to FULLY conform one’s mind to that of the pope – is itself entirely subject to the discretion of the pope. In other words, it is HE ALONE who decides what it is that is to be made known about the degree of authority his teachings are to be regarded with.
As such, there is nothing in the decrees of Vatican I or II that preventsthe pope (as a matter of allegedly divine right) from clearly making known that there is to be NO HESITATION OF ASSENT WHATSOEVER to any decree or utterance that he chooses to issue. He CAN of course PERMIT reservations in assent IF HE SO DESIRES, and he can even establish formal conventions whereby he signals the extent to which such reservations are permitted. All of this can be “made known” by him in any of the ways indicated in the LUMEN GENTIUM passage, as well as in other ways.
But, in principle, his divinely instituted role as a teacher of faith and morals, who may be judged by no one EVEN AS TO THE DEGREE OF AUTHORITY attached to the teaching, permits him to signal, by any of the means indicated in the LUMEN GENTIUM passage, that there is to be no deviation in obedience whatsoever from any utterance he makes touching on faith or morals – and this no matter whether the teaching is fallible or infallible.
Dear everyone,
This is a very intense discussion, but also a very engaging and fruitful one, I think. I want to say that I am very grateful for the level of civility and respect that you have shown me throughout, despite the high-stakes nature of the discussion.
I also want to apologize for any transgressions of the norms of civility and respect that I have committed. I try very hard to avoid this, but minor slip-ups from time to time in the heat of the moment are virtually unavoidable, due to my own weakness. For any such slip-ups on my part in the past, I ask all of your forgiveness.
Michael, I wanted to say that when I use the term ‘Protestant’ I do so descriptively not evaluatively. I work among Protestants and admire them hugely.
Michael the Austrian,
Of course, the pope may bind the conscience; this is the essence of what it means to be a teaching authority. If one admits the existence of a living teaching authority, the ability to bind the conscience makes perfect sense. If one does not, then it is, of course, tyrannical.
My point was not to say that the pope can not bind the conscience at all but that he can not bind the conscience to accept as infallible what is not infallibly proposed for belief. He, too, is bound by justice, charity, and the constitution of the Church — by which I mean, not canon law, but the will of Christ. But when he binds the conscience to accept what is infallibly declared, he merely enunciates and commands what truth itself commands. No one has the right to believe error.
In short, papal power is absolute within its sphere, and that sphere, while encompassing governance and matters touching on faith and morals, is still circumscribed by the law of Christ.
I might add, or rather, ask:
If the Church has no authority like the pope, how does one escape the Protestant principle of individual interpretation?
Miss Francesca,
I can see how the idea of communio may be conducive to a more open or friendly or fraternal dialogue about the nature of the pope’s office. But I think it does not address the particular question of papal authority directly.
The more relevant concept would be collegiality, I think. What is the role of the bishops? How do the bishops participate in the teaching and ruling of the Church? Why is it preferable to have collegial statements of doctrine rather than unilateral papal ones?
As to the last question, perhaps the key is reception of doctrine rather than determination of what the doctrine is. Evidently, the pope can declare doctrines without consulting the bishops. But given the fact that the pope is bishop of Rome and derives from the Western tradition, his formulations might lack the universality of expression that is needed for them to be comprehended and thus received by the non-Western parts of the Church — or even by certain cultural groups within the Western Church which, nevertheless, are not Western in their thought tradition. Unilateral papal determinations are sufficient for the definition of a truth, but not for the comprehension by all of that definition or for the fullest expression of the definition. After all, the Church is to teach all nations, not just Western European nations, or not just Western European peoples who have maintained a certain tradition.
Dear Christopher,
It appears, then, that in the end we agree about the limits of papal authority as this is enunciated by the Catholic Church: As a matter of dogma, papal authority is circumscribed by no earthly agency, but only by the law of Christ.
You also write the following:
“If one admits the existence of a living teaching authority, the ability to bind the conscience makes perfect sense. If one does not, then it is, of course, tyrannical.”
It would be far easier to admit that the papacy constitutes a living teaching authority instituted by Christ if there were no instances in history where this authority was exercised tyrannically. But in fact, there are many such examples.
A particularly troubling sort is the ones concerning torture. I would be grateful if you could address this issue, and if you could take into account what I wrote about the matter a few posts up in your reply.
Another type of papal tyranny that I find troubling is the tendency by popes of the past to secure obedience on the part of the faithful through instilling a fear of damnation for rejecting this authority for any reason. That is the ultimate purpose and meaning of the notion that there is “No salvation outside the Church” as it was understood in medieval times. Probably the most famous exercise of this form of tyranny occurred in the Bull UNAM SANCTAM of Boniface VIII in 1302. That is a very convenient form of meta-tyranny, since the fear of damnation it instills effectively prevents the faithful from raising questions about other types of papal tyranny (such as the decrees commanding torture that were being issued throughout the same period).
Dear Christopher,
You also ask the following:
“If the Church has no authority like the pope, how does one escape the Protestant principle of individual interpretation?”
First of all, the meaning of the Bible starts to become much clearer in many ways if one knows it well. Catholics typically do not know the Bible well, which does not put them in a good position to judge whether individual interpretation is a viable prospect or not. Over the past three years, I have tried to remedy this deficiency in my own Catholic formation by reading the entire Bible cover to cover seven times (so far – and it is important to know BOTH testaments intimately). If more Catholics made a habit of being more attentive to reading the Bible, perhaps there would be fewer complaints about how difficult it is to interpret.
A very substantial additional problem for Catholics arises from the nearly monolithic hold that the apostasy of higher biblical criticism has in the Catholic intellectual world. Even recent popes have not been unaffected by this pernicious assault on the very foundations of the faith – including both John Paul II and Benedict. To me, these deplorable facts constitute a very strong argument against papal infallibility, and, more fundamentally, against the divine origins of papal authority, since it is precisely these sorts of attacks upon the faith that their teaching authority is supposed to guard against. But the Popes have failed to do so for nearly 100 years – since the time of Pius X, and have instead capitulated in varying degrees to higher biblical criticism themselves.
In addition, it is important to be clear about the fact that I am NOT a Protestant. I am a member of the Church of the East, which offers the world a basic bedrock of faith that is as solid as it needs to be, in the form of the doctrinal content of the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople I in 325 and 381, respectively. The hermeneutical key offered by this doctrinal framework, combined with a careful historico-grammatical exegesis of Scripture, as well as the judicious appeal to the traditions of the Fathers, is sufficient to lead one to the truth. It is also NECESSARY to operate within this doctrinal framework as a hermeneutical key to the interpretation of Scripture, since the doctrinal frameworks of all other forms of Christianity (including the Protestant ones) are distorted in important ways.
M. the Austrian,
Leaving Pope Benedict aside. Except for the JP2neophites, how could one not have been sedevacantist if your understanding of papal infallibility was correct. Asisi alone would have been enough.
In fact, you make the same error as the sedevacantists do in expecting more from the pope than should be expected. You do so by putting meaning to words which are simply not there by not putting limit where limit exists. The rebuke of St. Peter, who received the keys from Christ, teaches us that infallibility in matters directly concerning the Church are not without limit.
The rebuke of St. Peter makes evident that the logical conclusion is not to read all comments by the Pope as infallible, but to attempt to discern which ones are.
As it happens, Mr Salazar, John Paul II made a priest who had critised Assisi a bishop, just a few months after the instance.
Not to change the subject, but :
Miss Francesca,
How does that change what occurred at Assisi? And looking to examples of Bishops and especially Cardinals is usually used against Pope John Paul II, and for good reason..
A good short article on the subject is:
John Paul II and Assisi: Reflections of a “Devil’s Advocate” by Father Brian Harrison O.S. which appeared in Latin Mass Mag. Advent/Christmas 2005
http://pblosser.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_pblosser_archive.html
Michael the Austrian wrote,
“It would be far easier to admit that the papacy constitutes a living teaching authority instituted by Christ if there were no instances in history where this authority was exercised tyrannically. But in fact, there are many such examples.
A particularly troubling sort is the ones concerning torture. I would be grateful if you could address this issue, and if you could take into account what I wrote about the matter a few posts up in your reply.”
But I have answered this question and the larger question of the nature of disciplinary decrees, at least twice.
You also have made it clear that you accept no authority besides your own powers of interpretation. I wonder: how did you come to determine the contents of the canon of scripture?
Michael, I would also suggest, with all due respect, that you should really study Catholic teaching regarding papal infallibility. Your questions reveal a marked ignorance of its content. It’s good to know what you reject.
You say belong to the Church of the East. I take it you mean the Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East? You are subject to the Patriarch of Babylon?
Sorry not to have participated more in this discussion: circumstances usually tend to deprive me of both the time and the opportunity to concentrate required.
MtA, I don’t think anyone here objects to a pointed debate, as long as it remains courteous, which I think all concerned are doing very nicely.
I wanted to respond to a point you made a couple of days ago: As to the question of whether God would permit the situation regarding transcendent truth to be as chaotic and confusing as my faith journey suggests it may be, allow me to remind you that we live in a world where unspeakable evils (such as the Nazi Holocaust) happen all the time. Should it really be so surprising that Satan has also managed to usher in an atmosphere of utter confusion and chaos regarding the discoverability of transcendent truth?
Well, yes, it would be, if you intend the word “utter” in its sense of complete and unmitigated. It seems untenable to me to suppose that confidence that one has found the source of truth would be dependent on intellectual ability, access to books, leisure for study, and so forth. What about the vast majority of the human race who are either intellectually or by force of circumstance unable to do this? Are they to take the word of someone who has, like yourself, done the research? But what about all those who, equally learned, have reached different conclusions? Which one should the rest of us believe?
It seems to me only consistent with the magnitude of the Incarnation that the story and its meaning could not be lost, and to me that logically entails a single visible authority. That authority should be, and broadly speaking is, the Church, but in case of disagreement and schism within the Church, it makes sense that there be one final court of appeal.
You asked if I consider your arguments sound. Yes, up to a point. I think they are cogent and that you make some telling points about the way the authority of the papacy is exercised, but at the same time you confirm my belief that the office is a necessary one.
I have some serious difficulties with the way papal authority has been defined and viewed in recent centuries, which I’m going to leave unspecified now, as being a subject too big to tackle in this forum. But I would seek to resolve those within the confines of the assumption that the authority of the office is real and necessary.
Thank you all for your most recent round of responses. This is a very important cluster of topics that we are dealing with, so I want to continue pursuing the various debates in which I am currently engaged with various individuals. But I feel that it would be a good idea for me to carefully review all of my discussion going back to the very beginning before I do so. For, as Christopher’s remark that I have overlooked some of his earlier responses regarding papal tyranny indicates, I have somewhat lost my focus at the present juncture in the discussion. So it seems like a good point to conduct a thorough review, so that my next round of responses can truly advance the discussion to the next step. This may take a day or so, as the entire debate has really become pretty voluminous. But I think it would be well worth the trouble.
I am, however, presently able to resume my discussion with Maclin in a focused way:
“It seems untenable to me to suppose that confidence that one has found the source of truth would be dependent on intellectual ability, access to books, leisure for study, and so forth. What about the vast majority of the human race who are either intellectually or by force of circumstance unable to do this?”
The fact is that, from the Catholic standpoint that you all share, the vast majority of humankind IS in a state of invincible ignorance with regard to Christian truth claims. This makes clear that God does permit many, many people to be born and live their entire lives in a state of substantial error regarding ultimate truths. As a general matter (there are exceptions, of course), these truths come to be believed on the basis of socialization. In other words, it is cultural and historical circumstance that determines what most people believe regarding ultimate issues, and not ready access to the transcendent truths themselves. They may THINK they have access to transcendent truth, but they are in error about it.
So I have this question for you: What makes you so certain that you are not in the same boat? You would, no doubt, answer that the authority of the papacy offers a guarantee of access to transcendent truth in an undistorted form, not influenced and marred by socialization. I used to believe that too, but, following a number of years of diligent historical research, I came to the devastating conclusion that this belief was also merely a result of my socialization.
Is there a way out of this conundrum, or are the post-Modernists and relativistic “all religions are equal” school right after all in their despair of having unblemished access to transcendent truth – an access not hopelessly marred by one’s cultural environment and socialization? I believe the answer to this is yes – as long as the intellectual credibility of the Bible’s claim to be historically reliable can be maintained. For it is in the historical events recorded most especially in the Gospels that our Christian faith finds its TRUE locus of epistemological purchase. It is for this reason that the reign of Higher Biblical Criticism in today’s Catholic academy is so devastating and pernicious: It places a stranglehold upon the very well-spring of transcendent Christian truth claims, and reduces them to a mere socio-cultural myth of Western civilization.
In short, if the Biblical historical accounts are mythical, then our faith is in vain. But if the historical accounts can credibly be shown NOT to be mythical, then our faith has the REAL epistemological basis that it requires, and no papacy is necessary.
“Are they to take the word of someone who has, like yourself, done the research? But what about all those who, equally learned, have reached different conclusions? Which one should the rest of us believe?”
In my opinion, one of the chief reasons why arriving at transcendent Christian truth claims is as difficult as my intellectual journey would suggest it might be is because, down through the ages, Christian intellectuals and higher clerics have done a deplorable job of marshalling effective intellectual defenses against hostile attacks. Much energy down the ages has been wasted on internecine strife among Christians, and this internecine strife has in turn led to permanent divisions in the Church marred by errors regarding transcendent Christian truth. This in turn has further enervated the vigor of Christian intellectuals, because it has forced them to waste much precious energy defending false and untenable doctrines that they had been socialized to believe against each other. This is one of the truly tragic aspects of the rightly-lamented state of division among Christians.
And what compounds the tragedy all the more is that they could all learn so much from one another, if they could just overcome the barriers to taking what their separated Christian brethren have to say seriously due to having been socialized into partly erroneous understandings of Christianity. I have read widely among Christian intellectuals writing in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian, Dispensationalist Protestant, and classical Calvinist traditions, among others, and I can see very clearly how they are all blind to their own weaknesses, and to the other parties’ strength. There is great tragedy in this, because the Christian faith could be so much more better defended intellectually than it is if these different groups were to marshal their forces as one. But this would require a basic willingness on the part of all parties to acknowledge weaknesses in their own position that perhaps entail their having been socialized into believing certain erroneous transcendent truth claims regarding the faith. For various psychological and sociological reasons, this happens extremely rarely.
“It seems to me only consistent with the magnitude of the Incarnation that the story and its meaning could not be lost, and to me that logically entails a single visible authority. That authority should be, and broadly speaking is, the Church, but in case of disagreement and schism within the Church, it makes sense that there be one final court of appeal.”
I think the perceived need for an authority as a final court of intellectual appeal is itself a result of the intellectual chaos and confusion that developed and expanded in magnitude down through the ages of the Church, going back to very early times. There is an understandable psychological desire to short-circuit all this confusion by appealing to a final court of authority. But, unfortunately, the confusion cannot be short-circuited in this way: There is no choice but to trace the development of these divisions and the resulting confusions back to the very beginnings of the Church (in the life of Christ as recorded in the Gospels, as well as in the life of the people of Israel whose promised Messiah He was). Had the chaos and confusion not gotten too out of hand at a certain point in the history of the Church, the need for such a final court of appeal would never have been perceived.
One other thing, before I adjourn for the day or so:
In answer to Deniel’s question: I am materially a member of the Assyrian Church of the East, yes (though, being Austrian myself, I prefer to call it just the Church of the East). For a variety of reasons having mainly to do with my remoteness from any parish, I have never formally joined. I was at one time on rather intimate terms with one of the leading Bishops in the Church, however: namaly, His Eminence Mar Bawai Soro.
I also wanted to say that in order to properly understand the Christian faith, I believe it is also necessary to have a thorough knowledge of the Old Testament, especially of the promises made therein to the Jews. I also believe that a knowledge of Orthodox Judaism, and of its take on the Old Testament, is necessary in order to correct many errors that have arisen in various Christian traditions with regard to the role of the Jewish people in salvation history, and also with regard to a clear understanding of the relation between the Old and New Testaments.
Michael the Austrian writes:
“Is there a way out of this conundrum, or are the post-Modernists and relativistic “all religions are equal” school right after all in their despair of having unblemished access to transcendent truth – an access not hopelessly marred by one’s cultural environment and socialization? I believe the answer to this is yes – as long as the intellectual credibility of the Bible’s claim to be historically reliable can be maintained.”
Of course, how does he know that this answer is not a result of his cultural environment and socialization? It would appear that, for Michael, faith is a function of natural reason, not a supernaturally-given evidence of things unseen. What lies beneath his way out of the conundrum he proposes is pure skepticism.
I will further note that the question Maclin posed is not similar to the problem of those who are invincibly ignorant. Under Michael’s notions, only scholars and those with leisure can attain to truth — perhaps. And this is even true of those who are not ignorant of Christ; they can never be certain of the content of their belief, unless they are scholars. And, even then, they have to wonder whether their cultural environment and socialization are not clouding things.
Under Michael’s system there is finally no cure for skepticism, there can be no assurance of the truth. The Catholic system, while admitting there are those who through no fault of their own have not the Gospel, at least says there is a font of truth in the world that is accessible to every class and level of intelligence. The poor and ignorant can know by what means they need to save their souls. The means of connecting the ignorant with the truth is preaching, going out into all the world. Basically, what the Bible tells us to do; for “how can they hear without a preacher?”
So, whatever difficulties the reality of the invincibly ignorant presents us with, they are not the difficulties of the Catholic faith as such but of the biblical faith and all who hold to it. Michael’s solution violates the message of Scripture, where the gospel is preached to the poor, lowly, and ignorant, who, Our Lord has said, can know the truth that sets them free.
Dear Christopher,
I have not had a chance to conduct a thorough review of past posts, but I still intend to do so – among other things to pick up the thread on our “tyranny” discussion, which I think is extremely important.
In the meantime, permit me to reply to your latest post. You write:
“Of course, how does he know that this answer is not a result of his cultural environment and socialization? It would appear that, for Michael, faith is a function of natural reason, not a supernaturally-given evidence of things unseen.”
The way out of the dilemma I have articulated is to have a firm intellectual basis for believing in the historical reliability of the Gospels. That is to say, one must be able to decisively refute all arguments which claim to demonstrate that the Gospel accounts are mere myth and fable. I believe this can be done – and has in fact been accomplished very effectively within the world of conservative Protestant biblical scholarship. The BELIEVABILITY (or PLAUSIBILITY, if you wish) of the historical reliability of the Gospels paves the way for an act of faith in their ACTUAL historicity. For the historicity of the Gospels cannot be DISPROVEN, but neither can it be definitively proven.
“I will further note that the question Maclin posed is not similar to the problem of those who are invincibly ignorant. Under Michael’s notions, only scholars and those with leisure can attain to truth — perhaps.”
Scholars and those with leisure in the Church have an extremely heavy burden to fulfill: That of intellectually justifying the faith for those who do not have this leisure and learning, and the closely associated task of intellectually defending the faith against hostile attack. Historically, scholars and those with leisure of all particular Christian persuasions have done a far poorer job of this than is intrinsically possible, for the reasons I very briefly sketched in my post to Maclin above. Since the job they have done leaves so many intellectual gaps, I have had no choice but to try to fill those on my own – an admittedly arduous task.
And this is even true of those who are not ignorant of Christ; they can never be certain of the content of their belief, unless they are scholars. And, even then, they have to wonder whether their cultural environment and socialization are not clouding things.
“Under Michael’s system there is finally no cure for skepticism, there can be no assurance of the truth.”
That is not correct. The assurance of truth is ultimately very straightforward: It resides in the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, words, deeds, death, resurrection, and ascension. The highly plausible historicity thereof, combined with an act of faith that is therefore not merely a blind, fideistic leap, is sufficient for an objective, intellectually well-grounded Christian belief.
“Michael’s solution violates the message of Scripture, where the gospel is preached to the poor, lowly, and ignorant, who, Our Lord has said, can know the truth that sets them free.”
There are many who have the luxury of not intellectualizing their faith, a luxury I often wished I possessed. However, in the absence of shepherds who ARE intellectuals, these many can also easily be led astray. Sadly, as I have already said a number of times, the shepherds and intellectuals of all Christian faith traditions have failed in considerable measure with regard to their calling from God to preserve the intellectual integrity of the faith on behalf of the simple.
Christopher says much of what I would say about the accessibility of the faith to those without great intellect. Also that there seems to be a very powerful skepticism underlying your project, MtA. And while I share your commitment to the centrality of the authenticity of scripture, your emphasis on it seems to logically point in a sola scriptura direction.
Michael the Austrian,
And you have succeeded where others have failed?
And what if, at the end of the day, YOU are wrong? Recall St. Paul: “if even an angel from heaven preach to you a gospel which you have not received, let him be accursed.” You say the historial reliability of the gospels has been proven — but that doesn’t answer the question, “what is the Gospel and what does it entail?” If anyone is wrong about this he might end up, well, accursed.
Dear Maclin,
Maclin writes:
“Also that there seems to be a very powerful skepticism underlying your project, MtA.”
That is true, Maclin, but that is merely a result of having what some might regard as a recklessly open mind, but what I myself regard as simply an utterly principled commitment to objective truth – no matter how confusing certain elements of that objective truth may be. Eleven years ago, I was persuaded of the need to compare and contrast the relative merits of the claims on the part of Orthodoxy and Catholicism to be the True Church in a spirit of strict, dispassionate openness to objective truth. When I made that decision, I fully expected the Catholic faith that I had received from the cradle to be vindicated. However, I was astonished and dismayed to discover that the Orthodox case looked stronger and stronger, the more Church history one learned.
There is a significant element of betrayal in this that has led me to adopt a certain skepticism with regard to the intellect that is very difficult to reconcile with the trust that is inherent in faithful Christian belief and devotion. I readily admit that. However, the fault is ultimately not mine, but rather that of ecclesiastical heirarchs and intellectuals going back into the very remote history of Christendom who were unable to maintain a united and intellectually undistorted defense of Christian belief.
“And while I share your commitment to the centrality of the authenticity of scripture, your emphasis on it seems to logically point in a sola scriptura direction.”
I realize that what I have said about Scripture so far could lead one to this judgment. But I assure you that it is not true. The Church of the East is also a Church that affirms the importance of both Scripture AND Tradition as central components of a full Christian epistemology. As a result, when I read conservative Protestant writers on Scripture, while I am regularly awestruck by their intellectually sophisticated command of the Bible even down to the most obscure details, I also regularly lament in frustration their pervasive tendency to give short play to Tradition in their analyses.
Dear Christopher,
You ask:
“And you have succeeded where others have failed?”
I do not know the answer to this question for certain, Christopher. That is a painful reality that I have to live with on a daily basis. But I think the answer to that might just possibly be “yes.” I am always ready to open up the convictions that develop in my intellectual journey to the scrutiny of others for the purpose of testing them, and so far, they have not been disproven. I
t is also important to note that if the answer to the question you posed IS “yes,” then it is not because I am singularly brilliant or anything like that. There are many people much more intelligent and erudite than I who people the face of the globe today. But what I do think is singular about my intellectual journey, at least based on my experience in life so far
is my reckless openness to objective truth in all its forms. In particular, I am willing to embrace as true any objective truth without prejudiced disregard thereof on account of the source thereof. A genuine commitment to objective truth requires nothing less, I believe, despite the considerable risks and difficulties associated therewith. My fervent faith in Christ leads me to the hope that it will eventually become clear whether the answer to the question you posed is “yes” or “no.”
“And what if, at the end of the day, YOU are wrong? Recall St. Paul: “if even an angel from heaven preach to you a gospel which you have not received, let him be accursed.” ”
But it is precisely my contention (among other things) that in important respects the Catholic Church preaches a Gospel that has not been faithfully received from Christ and the apostles, but rather altered along the way. So my journey is perfectly in accord with what you have quoted from St. Paul, since I am earnestly trying to RECOVER the unblemished Gospel from underneath 1600 years or so of distorting accretion and overlay. I deeply believe that the doctrinal perspective of the Church of the East is the proper starting point from which to recover the Gospel originally preached by Christ, St. Paul, and the other Apostles.
“You say the historial reliability of the gospels has been proven — but that doesn’t answer the question, “what is the Gospel and what does it entail?” ”
I do not say that this reliability has been strictly proven, but merely that Protestants have paved the way for BELIEF in this historical reliability in a way that is compatible with the requirements of rationality. The Higher Biblical Criticism that is rampant in Catholicism destroys the compatibility of Christian belief and the requirements of rationality.
As to the question “what is the gospel and what does it entail,” it has been my experience that the Scriptures themselves go a very long way towards speaking for themselves on this point. The overall framework of Christian ethics espoused by Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount lays a very intelligible foundation, and is filled in in its details in very unambiguous ways by much of what St. Paul has to say.
I know what I have just said will again invite the charge that I am an adherent of “Sola Scriptura,” but I reject the charge. See my response above to Maclin for more on this.
“If anyone is wrong about this he might end up, well, accursed.”
That is not a concern that I have. I know, and God knows, that I have merely been attempting to seek out objective truth with
utmost sincerity of heart. I have many faults, but my heart is pure with regard to the pursuit of truth. We must walk with God believing that He loves us and is moved by sincerity of heart, even in the midst of confusion and possible error sincerely embraced.
I love God very much – with my entire mind, heart, and soul, as far as possible – and I KNOW His Love for me, and that He is walking with me along my intellectual journey every step of the way, even during those frequent moments when it feels like He is absent. (In accordance with His sovereign will, these moments when it feels like He is absent are perfectly balanced, according to the laws of grace, by those moments when one can distinctly sense His presence.)
I also think the fact that you would suggest, at least implicitly, that God is to be feared for his willingness to damn those in error, no matter what the cause thereof, is itself a bitter and long-lingering fruit of one of the forms of papal tyranny from the past that I spoke of earlier. I am referring to Bulls such as UNAM SANCTAM which make unconditional submission to the papacy an absolute requirement for salvation. This form of medieval papal tyranny is in the end a reprehensible use of papal authority to violently foster obedience through fear and terror. Though much mitigated over the past generation or so by Vatican II, it has left deep imprints on the Catholic mindset down to the present day.
The problem is that the source of these imprints in older doctrines has not been effaced by Vatican II, but merely covered up. But this covering up is itself not in accord with the requirements of objective truth, in accordance with which these older doctrines causing these imprints remain “on the books.”
Methinks what you say implies a vast assessment of your own intellect.
Not that I don’t appreciate the energy you have invested in what you call your intellectual journey.
May I ask how old you are?
Dear Daniel,
I am 37 years old. Might I ask why you want to know?
As to my own assessment of my own intellect, please note carefully what I said: I acknowledged that there are many people on the face of the planet whose intelligence greatly exceeds that of mine. I say this because it is objectively true.
I also will say something I didn’t say before, which is that there are people who are vastly more knowledgeable than I about many of the individual areas of inquiry that I have pursued over the years. (For example: Defending the various books of the bible against Higher Criticism, knowledge of what Orthodox Jews believe, knowledge of the contents of the Bible itself, detailed knowledge of Medieval Church history, detailed knowledge of the Eastern Christian understanding of such things as grace and the true nature of spiritual advancement, detailed knowledge of the contents of the Bible itself, detailed knowledge of the history of Biblical interpretation, etc. There are many other areas where I have limited knowledge as well compared to many others; these just occur to me off the top of my head as concrete examples).
What sets me apart, at least in the total experience of my life so far, is not my intelligence, but rather my ATTITUDE toward intellectual inquiry. I impose no A PRIORI limits whatsoever upon what sources or points of view I am willing to take seriously as sources of objective truth. Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, dispensationalist writers such as John Walvoord, Alexander Schemann, Henry Lea who wrote about the Catholic Inquisition, the partipants in the debates between Eastern and Oriental Orthodox during the 1960s and 1970s – all of these people had things to say that are profoundly and objectively true. And I am willing to recognize these truths for what they are, even if they are a source of confusion for me in the formation of my overall worldview.
By contrast, most Catholics are conditioned to cultivate an A PRIORI prejudice against the possibility that ANY of the figures and sources I have mentioned, as well as many others, could be the source of important objective truths. And the same is generally true also of most people with points of view other than the Catholic one (including, it might be parenthetically noted, of secular liberals who fancy themselves to be openminded, but who are upon closer inspection just as narrowly dogmatic in their secular liberalism as the most fanatically narrow religious partisans whom they love to decry).
Having said that with regard to how I view my own intellect, I would be grateful to learn of your reaction to some of the arguments I advanced in my earlier posts to you about the issues under dispute between us.
Michael the Austrian,
Since you place no a priori constraints on yourself, I suppose you are willing to reject Christ, if, in your mind, the evidence points in that direction.
I might add that no one of us knows himself as well as he might think he does. I fear you are a terribly self-deceived man.
Dear Christopher,
You write the following:
“Since you place no a priori constraints on yourself, I suppose you are willing to reject Christ, if, in your mind, the evidence points in that direction.”
But the evidence does NOT point in that direction. Faith in Jesus’ saving death and resurrection is historically attested to by the Gospels. The testimony given in these Gospels is of course also something that falls within the limits of what is objectively given, that I must therefore be attentive to. As I said before, belief in the historical veracity of these accounts is not demonstrably proven, but is in accord with right reason. I therefore have such belief both as a matter of sound intellect and as a matter of the will to believe. That is the basis for my faith in Christ, and in the salvation that He offers.
“I might add that no one of us knows himself as well as he might think he does. I fear you are a terribly self-deceived man.”
With all due respect, Christopher, I think I know myself far better than you do.
Of course, you do have everything I have written over the course of this thread as a possible basis for arriving at the judgment that I am self-deceived in some important way. But you have not appealed to any of that potential evidence to support your assertion, but have merely asserted this to be so in the complete absence of evidence or argument. As such, I do not assign any weight to your assertion. But this could change if you are able to point out to me anything I have said in these threads that reveals elements of self-deception on my part that I have overlooked, despite my best efforts.
However, I would also be interested in resuming our interrupted discussion regarding the papacy and tyranny. In a post from yesterday, you asserted that I have not addressed the arguments advanced in some of your posts on this topic. I would very much like to do so, however, and I would be very grateful if you could repost what I have overlooked so that we can resume that discussion.
In looking over what I just wrote to Christopher, I think it may be very important to clarify something:
What I SAID was this, which is ambiguous in a way that could easily be misunderstood as belittling of Christopher, which I did NOT intend:
“With all due respect, Christopher, I think I know myself far better than you do [i.e., than you know yourself].”
What I MEANT to say was this:
“With all due respect, Christopher, I think I know myself far better than you know me.”
Mr. Wenisch,
I did not say what you are, but what I fear you are. I still hold by my statement, that no one of us knows himself as well as he might think he does. This is based on experience, particularly of myself; marriage and family life have revealed to me just what an ass I am and what stupidity I’m capable of — beyond my wildest bachelor dreams. But maybe you don’t suffer from the same malady (not marriage, but self deception) that most of the rest of us do.
Wait a minute! Where did that “Michael Wenisch” come from??? My computer messed up! My anonymity is shot!!!
Well, all in all, I guess there is no great harm in that. But I do notice that I was addressed as “Mr. Wenisch” by Christopher Zehnder in his last post. I hope that I myself have not been taking any undue liberties in addressing people by their first names. I was simply acting in accordance with the conventions of today’s broader American culture in doing so. Please let me know if anyone would prefer to be addressed otherwise.
For my part, though, I prefer “Michael,” or “Michael the Austrian,” or “MtA.”
Christopher Zehnder,
We are, of course, all subject to self-deception in our fallen human condition. And I am very aware of the dangers of particular types thereof to which I am especially vulnerable, given the intellectually radical nature of my journey of faith.
I am also filled with hope, however. “With God, all things are possible.” We are called to live our lives in the fullness of the truth – in every sense of the term. “Living in the truth” has, in fact, sometimes even been identified with the virtue of humility by spiritual writers and saints.
I am a sinful man, and therefore no doubt beset by all manner of self-deception of which I am unaware, despite my diligent and strenuous efforts to purge myself of this scourge. But I firmly believe that when Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect,” He really means it. This is in fact the Biblical charter of the Universal Call to Holiness so boldly proclaimed by Vatican II.
The Divine grace to attain to this holiness, this perfection, is available to us all – if we are willing to walk the narrow, rocky way to life through which we make ourselves able to be transformed by it. I try to walk that rocky walk every day. I often, very often, feel like Sisyphus when I do so, which is fundamentally symptomatic of the fact that “By myself, I can do nothing.” “With God,” however, “All things are possible.”
With regard to the matter of overcoming self-deception, it is therefore my confident hope that, with the continually transforming effect of God’s grace, I will eventually approach the state of living perfectly in the truth. I say so not with confidence in myself, but with boundless confidence in the grace and mercy of God.
The possibility of aspiring to this is available to us all!!!
Dear Francesca,
I am now in the process of thoroughly reviewing all the controversies in which I have been engaged recently. In so doing, it has become clear to me that I have paid much less attention to what you said in your posts than theu intrinsically deserved. Please accept my apologies. I did not mean to slight you, and I hope to be able to give the points you made the attention they deserve sometime in the coming few days.
Dear Michael,
Are you related to Fritz Wenisch, Pia Crosby’s brother?
Dear Francesca,
Yes, I am. He is my father.
Do you and I possibly know one another personally?
Dear everyone,
I have stated on a number of occasions that the facts of church history, when known and properly understood in terms of their doctrinal significance, decisivly refute the papal claims advanced at Vatican I, when THOSE are properly understood. Over the years, I have found that a substantial obstacle to communicating this argument rests in the fact that most Catholics – even those who are self-consciously orthodox in their Catholicism, and intellectually principled in their commitment to and belief in transcendent truth claims – do not fully understand just what the dogmas of Vatican I are.
However, I think that these two lengthy threads have been very helpful in removing, or at least minimizing, that obstacle. Permit me, then, to address briefly the historical side of my position. I will do so only briefly in this post, by way of recommending two books that, in my opinion, present devastating refutations of the dogmatic papal claims advanced at Vatican I by means of a detailed examination thereof in light of the facts associated with various episodes in Church history:
Abbe Rene-Francois Guettee, THE PAPACY; ITS HISTORIC ORIGIN AND PRIMITIVE RELATIONS WITH THE EASTERN CHURCHES (New York: Cosmos Greek-American Printing Co., no date).
Edward Denny, PAPALISM, A TREATISE ON THE CLAIMS OF THE PAPACY AS SET FORTH IN THE ENCYCLICAL “SATIS COGNITUM” [issued by Leo XIII] (London: Rivingtons, 1912).
The first book is available in many academic libraries, as I have found over the years, rather to my surprise. The second is long out of print, and probably harder to obtain.
If anyone would like to pursue the historical aspect of this investigation further, by being duly attentive to the doctrinal significance of the facts objectively given in Church History, let me know. I can perhaps forward you portions of these books somehow via mail.
A careful examination of the contents of these books, and others of a similar character, is absolutely essential if the ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox is to rest on solid foundation of objective truth – both doctrinal and historical.
I thought you might be related when I saw your email address.
Just wondering, why didn’t you follow in your aunt Pia Crosby’s footsteps. She’s a 1978 TAC grad.
Dear Michael, I doubt if we know each other except if I saw you when you were a small boy. I knew the Crosbys in the early 1980s. I met your father at that time, maybe only once though, and I doubt if he had his family with him at the time.
Michael the Austrian wrote:
“I have found that a substantial obstacle to communicating this argument rests in the fact that most Catholics – even those who are self-consciously orthodox in their Catholicism, and intellectually principled in their commitment to and belief in transcendent truth claims – do not fully understand just what the dogmas of Vatican I are.
“However, I think that these two lengthy threads have been very helpful in removing, or at least minimizing, that obstacle.”
What obstacle? Mr. Wenisch, you insinuate that you have helped us papists clarify what we previously did not fully understand. What a splendid insinuation! What a lot of supercilious — well, you know, what I have mucked out of the goat pen and chicken coop on many an occasion.
If there be any obstacle, it is in your own mind. As I have said before, your posts make it abundantly clear that you little understand the full doctrine on papal infallibility and primacy. I would suggest you study the matter more deeply before you presume to set yourself up as magister.
Michael- I was just curious about the age thing; you are about how old I figured you were, as a very young man would not have had the time to do the research you have. And an older one might be expected to have more self doubt.
My comment about your assessment of your own intellect lies in the fact that if I had arrived at a place where hardly anyone else who had pursued the same quest had arrived, I would think I had probably gotten something wrong. And you are the only soul I have heard of who set out to find the true Church who didn’t end up Catholic or Orthodox, but Nestorian.
Dear Christopher Zehnder,
During my early posts about a week ago, it was quite clear that a considerable amount of disagreement existed among my various interlocutors regarding the exact dogmatically binding meaning content of papal primacy as defined at Vatican I. On the whole, both Francesca and Daniel were weakening the meaning thereof in a way that I subsequently argued entailed relativism. Maclin was unsure about where he stood on the matter, which is why he made the issue the subject of its own thread. Judging from the direction that the threads took as time went on, I think I had some measure of success in persuading these three individuals that Vatican I is significantly more potent in terms of its concentration of authority in the pope than perhaps they had originally thought.
As far as you yourself are concerned, it was clear early on that there was the least amount of disagreement between YOU YOURSELF and me regarding the binding meaning content of Vatican I. However, even you asserted at one point that the fullness of supreme papal authority which requires absolute submission refers only to governance of the Church, and not to the teaching of faith and morals. This is a crucial point, so I replied by highlighting those portions of the dogma that make it unmistakeable that the pope DOES ALSO have the fullness of supreme authority, requiring complete submission of will and intellect, in the teaching of faith and morals.
As such, I would maintain that I was not wrong in doing the following in my last post – even with reference to yourself:
“Mr. Wenisch, you insinuate that you have helped us papists clarify what we previously did not fully understand. What a splendid insinuation!”
From all of this, I think it is also fair to draw the following further conclusion as a matter of objective fact:
“However, I think that these two lengthy threads have been very helpful in removing, or at least minimizing, that obstacle [regarding a correct understanding of papal primacy].”
I can readily see why you find this conclusion to be emotionally provocative, but it does not in the least follow from that fact that I am being supercilious. In fact, I emphatically reject the charge. And certainly, advancing the charge does nothing to advance the cause of pursuing the truth.
Then, you state the following:
“As I have said before, your posts make it abundantly clear that you little understand the full doctrine on papal infallibility and primacy.”
In saying this, you may have in mind our unresolved dispute over whether the papal claims advanced at Vatican I are inherently tyrannical or not. That is a matter that I would still like to return to in future discussions with you (again, I invite you to repost those parts of your previous posts on the matter that I have so far failed to address adequately), but it is beside the point as far as anything that I said in my last post is concerned.
All that is necessary in order to appreciate the full force of the historically-based argumentation against papal primacy in the two books I cited are those elements of papal teaching that are rooted in the concentration of the fullness of all forms of supreme ecclesiastical authority in the pope by Vatican I. I believe that you and I are in complete agreement about that at the present juncture. In particular, the argumentation advanced in those books loses none of its force if one grants, for the sake of argument, that papal primacy is not inherently tyrannical, as you yourself have been maintaining.
You also write the following:
“I would suggest you study the matter more deeply before you presume to set yourself up as magister.”
Given that I have already studied the two books I cited closely, along with many other works of Church history which provide a broader historical context that merely serves to deepen the impact of the conclusions drawn in those two books, I think it is entirely accurate to say that I have ALREADY studied the matter in considerable depth. I encourage you to do so also, at the very least by giving the two books I have cited your earnest attention. As I say, we can make arrangements for me to send you photocopies of some or all of these books if you would like to do this.
Dear Daniel,
You write the following:
“And an older [person than myself] might be expected to have more self doubt.”
I assure you that I have poured an immense amount of energy over the past twelve years wrestling with self-doubts of every possible sort.
“My comment about your assessment of your own intellect lies in the fact that if I had arrived at a place where hardly anyone else who had pursued the same quest had arrived, I would think I had probably gotten something wrong.”
That is exactly why I avail myself of every opportunity to test my convictions against interlocutors who are knowledgeable and well-informed – whether they are Catholic Orthodox, Protestant, Assyrian, or secular. Over the years, I have done enough of this (mostly via email and blogging) to fill several boxes of files with the records of such discussions. I will add the present discussion to those files.
“And you are the only soul I have heard of who set out to find the true Church who didn’t end up Catholic or Orthodox, but Nestorian.”
In the end, this is due to a very simple reason: It never even occurs to most people to countenance the POSSIBILITY that the Church of the East might be the true Church. But given the fact that the Church of the East has existed in time and space for 2000 years just as fully as do the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, this A PRIORI exclusion of the Church of the East from any consideration, merely because it falls outside the limits of one’s own knowledge and experience, can in no way be justified.
Dear everyone,
I would also like to bring the discussion back full-circle to the matter which occasioned my very first post, in which I argued that much-overlooked dogmas of Vatican I (and others of the 14 Catholic ecumenical Councils not acknowledged as dogmatically binding by the Orthodox) preclude a genuine reunion between these two Churches, one that is fully rooted in objective truth.
I would like to add, and debate, the following, very important generalized qualification to that asseretion:
Unless the attitude of complete intellectual openness that I have adopted in my own life is widely adopted by serious Christians of all backgrounds and persuasions, no genuine reunions among separated Christian brethren that are based on objective truth will ever happen.
I write this well aware of the fact that the assertion of this proposition may prompt the kinds of remarks regarding my intellectual pride, self-deception, superciliousness, etc., that have already appeared from time to time on this thread. To forestall such remarks, allow me 1) to make the public confession that I am guilty of all of these things, since I am a sinful man; but also 2) to make the public declaration that I strive to the utmost in my life to battle these vices, as well as similar ones not yet mentioned.
MtA, I respect and appreciate the labor you’ve put into your search, and also the effort you’ve made here to persuade us. And I respect your intellectual integrity. But, speaking only for myself, it simply isn’t possible for me to start from zero and become expert in history and theology. I have too many other obligations. And I probably have more inclination, aptitude, and opportunity for such study than most people.
For these and other reasons, I simply don’t accept your premise that this is the way to go about discovering the true Church. It is a way of proceeding which might or might not bear fruit, depending on God’s grace and the individual soul. But I think the call of the Gospel works most often by other means.
So your historical and theological arguments are of limited import to me because I believe you’re fundamentally off-base. As I’ve mentioned before, it seems to me most fitting–I put it that way because I don’t think it’s a matter of airtight logic–that God would establish one visible authority, and that there would be many different modes by which one would come to assent to that authority, many of those accessible to persons with no formal education and no particular intellectual inclination. What those modes are is too big a topic for a blog post. In fact they go to the heart of what human consciousness is and how God’s grace operates, questions on which I’m not likely to have anything new to say.
I am still very interested in the original question about the papacy and in the question you pose about that. I would like to hear more from Daniel, for instance, about any ideas he may have about how this reconsideration of papal power would work out in practice, and how it could be reconciled with Vatican I. I don’t have any settled opinions on the matter myself, just a sense that there is a problem, and not a lot of free mental space in which to ponder them, so I don’t necessarily intend to say anything more.
Hello again,
Given the controversial and provocative nature of what I have asserted in my immediately previous post, I believe I was remiss in not attempting to offer a cogent argument for it. Here is my attempt at such an argument. It is an indirect argument which derives the conclusion that Christian ecumenism is impossible IN PRINCIPLE, if what I asserted in my previous post is denied. I earnestly invite all of you to offer the most penetrating critiques of it that you can, to help me determine whether it is sound or not:
If I am wrong in what I asserted in my previous post, then Christian Ecumenism is impossible in principle. For a process of genuine reunion on the basis of reconciling mutually incompatible doctrinal claims necessarily requires of AT LEAST ONE PARTY that they reexamine their own most cherished faith commitments with the attitude of radical intellectual openness that I have cultivated in my own life.
The logical force of this argument may be concretely illustrated with reference to the ecumenical dialogue taking place at the present between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Pope John Paul II was correct when he wrote in places like UT UNUM SINT of the “need for profound conversion” in connection with genuine ecumenical progress, a progress tending to lead to reunion on the basis of mutual adherence to Christian truth. However, he was INCORRECT to assume tacitly, as is clear from the broader context of what he wrote, that it was necessarily going to be SOMEONE ELSE (i.e., the Orthodox) who were going to be doing the profound converting.
This tacit assumption on the part of John Paul II also necessarily results in the fundamentally intractable character of the division between Catholics and Orthodox. For there is every reason to believe, both as a matter of principle and of empirical fact, that the Eastern Othodox also see THEIR faith, including those elements thereof that are logically incompatible with Catholicism, as something that is completely non-negotiable from the standpoint of religious psychology. (As a matter of religious psychology, he degree to which this is so tends to be – for Catholics and Orthodox alike, directly proportional to the degree to which one has a principled allegiance to the objectively orthodox tenets of one’s respective faith.) This being so, it is utterly unrealistic of the pope to assume that the “profound conversion” on the part of the Orthodox is possible even in principle. It is as little possible for the Orthodox as it was for Pope John Paul II himself. The dynamics of the psychology of religion preclude this just as much for orthodox Orthodox as it does for orthodox Catholics.
The only possible remedy to this impasse is for ecumenically-minded Christians who have a serious commitment to the objectivity of transcendent truth claims to recognize the truth of what I asserted in my previous post, and adopt it as their own fundamental attitude toward the ecumenical project:
“Unless the attitude of complete intellectual openness that I have adopted in my own life is widely adopted by serious Christians of all backgrounds and persuasions, no genuine reunions among separated Christian brethren that are based on objective truth will ever happen.”
However, he [John Paul II] was INCORRECT to assume tacitly, as is clear from the broader context of what he wrote, that it was necessarily going to be SOMEONE ELSE (i.e., the Orthodox) who were going to be doing the profound converting.
I think you seriously misread the pope here. I don’t think that was his intention at all. Maybe others can say something more specific on this point.
Also, I don’t think “most cherished faith commitment” is really what you intend to put on the table, or that others should put on the table. My most cherished faith commitments are outline in the creeds (personally I’m partial to the briefer one known as the Apostles’, partly because I learned it young and partly because I like its succinctness).
Dear Maclin,
Thank you very much for your cordial post. I would also like to express my gratitude to you for your magnanimity in permitting me to assert and argue for my contrarian positions on your blog, as you so graciously have done for the past week or so.
Once again, here are some thoughts in response to issues you touch on in your post:
“But, speaking only for myself, it simply isn’t possible for me to start from zero and become expert in history and theology. I have too many other obligations. And I probably have more inclination, aptitude, and opportunity for such study than most people.”
Your response illustrates that Christian ecumenism is not merely impossible as a matter of the laws of religious psychology on an individual level, but also as a matter of the laws of religious sociology on a corporate level. From a sociological standpoint, any nominally united community of faith is going to consist of the “few” who have the leisure and learning to intellectually defend the faith, and the “many” who must look to these few for guidance in their own faith with an attitude of trust, since they lack the necessary leisure and training to intellectually verify their faith on their own. I would say that all of us who post here are a part of that “few” – to one degree or another. Yet, even if we the “few” were ALL to adopt the intellectual openness that I have argued is necessary for ecumenism to succeed, how will that impact the “many,” who do not have the leisure and intellectual training to do so on their own? The trust that they necessarily invest in us, “the few”, will necessarily be betrayed, and they would lapse into utter confusion. To see what I mean, just imagine what would happen if Pope Benedict, the leading figure among the “few” in Catholicism, declared tomorrow that Vatican I was fundamentally guilty of dogmatic errors, and that he was converting to Orthodoxy. Due to sociological “facts on the ground” among the 1.2 billion or so “many” within Catholicism, utter chaos would ensue. A similarly chaotic result would inevitably attend a decision by a small coterie of heirarchs within Eastern Orthodoxy to EMBRACE papal claims.
“For these and other reasons, I simply don’t accept your premise that this is the way to go about discovering the true Church.”
But what exactly do you regard as unsound about my approach? I am simply dealing with what is objectively given in time and space, as far as Churches that have continuously existed for 2000 years is concerned. These include the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, and the Church of the East.
“So your historical and theological arguments are of limited import to me because I believe you’re fundamentally off-base.”
Why do you believe this? With all due respect, if you are going to assert that my arguments are off-base, then you need to offer counter-arguments by way of rebuttal. But this would involve serious study of the two books I mentioned earlier (most of the arguments I have to offer were not originally my own – which does not matter, since I believe they are sound regardless of their origin).
“As I’ve mentioned before, it seems to me most fitting–I put it that way because I don’t think it’s a matter of airtight logic–that God would establish one visible authority.”
But I have asserted my conviction that it can be definitively proven, as a matter of airtight logic – by carefully comparing Vatican I dogma, properly understood, with the facts of Church history – that God did NOT establish such an authority, and that the Eastern Christian Churches are much more correct in their understanding of the epistemology of Christian dogma than is the Catholic Church. I have even cited two books which I believe accomplish just that. For those who are interested in an objective knowledge of transcendent Christian truth claims above all else, what exactly is wrong with investigating whether the arguments advanced in these two books might not be sound?
“In fact they go to the heart of what human consciousness is and how God’s grace operates, questions on which I’m not likely to have anything new to say.”
I have something to say about this, however, if you will have the patience to indulge me. The intractable dilemma facing Christian ecumenism due to the laws of religious psychology illustrate one of the real reasons why heresy, and the divisions in the body of Christ resulting therefrom, are so dangerous and tragic. As a matter of the laws of religious psychology, the more God’s grace operates in an individual human consciousness to deepen the fervor of that soul’s faith in Christ, the more it is also the case that this same soul will come to have a correspondingly deepened emotional investment in whatever errors of doctrine that soul innocently inherits as part of how it receives this faith in Christ through its formation in the faith. This is as true for Eastern Orthodox, Dispensationalist Protestants, classical Calvinists, etc., as it is for faithful Roman Catholics. As such, there was very good reason why defenders of Christian orthodoxy throughout the ages fought against the encroachment of heresy with the zeal and apparent narrowness and intolerance that they did. It was to protect the union of the Church in faith against the intractably divisive effects of the working out of this law of religious psychology. Sadly, their efforts did not succeed in averting the Christian division we face today – divisions which will inevitably remain intractable, I fear, due to the laws of religious psychology and sociology that I am trying to articulate in these posts.
Dear Maclin,
Our posts are crossing each other’s in cyberspace. Here is my response to your latest post (by the way, how did you pull off that trick with the italics? I wish I had known about that long ago!):
“I think you seriously misread the pope here [when I assert that, for Pope John Paul II, it was necessarily going to be SOMEONE ELSE who needed to go through a profound conversion for ecumenism to succeed]. I don’t think that was his intention at all. Maybe others can say something more specific on this point.”
But I think I have convincingly argued that there exists an irreconcilable dogmatic contradiction between Catholicism and Orthodoxy with regard to papal dogma – as a bare minimum (and most likely with regard to other doctrines as well). As such, at least one party is going to have to acknowledge being in error with regard to a heretofore irrevocable commitment of their Christian faith, if union is to take place in the fullness of Christian truth. Such an acknowledgement can only happen on the basis of precisely the sort of “profound conversion” of which the pope speaks in his encyclical. But this is as much of a psychological impossibility for his Orthodox interlocutors as it was for him.
“Also, I don’t think ‘most cherished faith commitment’ is really what you intend to put on the table, or that others should put on the table.”
As a Catholic, Maclin, your own adherence to the dogmas of Vatican I may very well not be the MOST CHERISHED aspect of your own commitment to the Catholic faith. However, we are here again confronted with a basic law of religious psychology: Any profound commitment to a particular paradigm of religious belief is, as a matter of psychological necessity, a commitment to an ORGANIC WHOLE. It is therefore impossible to have a deep love for Christ as an intellectually principled Catholic without also having a fervent adherence to the conviction that Vatican I enunciated infallible Christian dogma. The fact that one’s deep love for Christ is directly proportional to one’s fervent adherence to the conviction that Vatican I enunciated infallible Christian dogma makes this fervent adherence psychologically irrevocable in direct proportion to the depth of one’s love for Christ. Even if reason were to point to the conclusion that faith in Christ DOES have an intellectually tenable basis, whereas belief in the infallible dogmas of Vatican I DOES NOT, no intellectually principled Catholic who also has a deep love for Christ could ever come to the point of recognizing this. Precisely the same law of religious psychology precludes Eastern Orthodox who fervently love Christ from ever EVEN INTELLECTUALLY ENTERTAINING the idea that the dogmas of Vatican I might be enunciations of true Christian doctrine.
The only way to escape this psychological trap is to adopt, as a act of faith, the radical intellectual openness that has characterized my own intellectual odyssey.
Mr. Wenisch,
I see it is pointless to discuss these matters with you. As you write, about my position:
“However, even you asserted at one point that the fullness of supreme papal authority which requires absolute submission refers only to governance of the Church, and not to the teaching of faith and morals. This is a crucial point, so I replied by highlighting those portions of the dogma that make it unmistakeable that the pope DOES ALSO have the fullness of supreme authority, requiring complete submission of will and intellect, in the teaching of faith and morals.”
You did not understand my posts on this. I argued that, in non-infallible teachings, the faithful may disagree with a particular pope. I argued that the faithful could judge a papal action as wrong and this did not contradict papal inviolability from judgement, because this referred to constituted authorities. I never denied that papal authority extends to teaching. In fact, I have asserted quite the opposite.
And I reassert: you do not understand Catholic teaching on papal authority. You might be able to expound on the history of the doctrine, at least from a particular perspective. But you do not understand what the Catholic Church actually teaches on papal authority.
You write: “again, I invite you to repost those parts of your previous posts on the matter that I have so far failed to address adequately.” I don’t recall your invitation to repost. I simply remember your saying you would go back and read what I wrote. So, go back and read it. I’m not going to take the time to search repost. How you missed what I wrote when we were ostensibly in engaged in a conversation is beyond me. If you were really engaged in the conversation, I don’t think you would have missed those posts.
It’s odd. It seems to me you have joined this discussion to undermine the belief of Catholics in papal supremacy. But, what you have done, I think, is solidify this belief, principally by the unbelievable temerity of your pretension to stand in judgment over 1,500 years of Church history. You alone have attained the pristine peaks of objectivity. You alone have succeeded where countless others have failed. How many others have thought the same thing about themselves, and how many have been wrong.
Dear Christopher Zehnder,
I admit that my last post directed to you was quite sharp both in tone and content. However, please know that I fundamentally desire to pursue the truth with regard to the issues that concern all of us on such a deep level of our being in a spirit of mutual concord and fraternal charity. And I strongly desire to restore and maintain such a spirit of concord and fraternal charity with you in particular, since you are obviously very acutely knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, and since you are also intellectually principled about what the Catholic faith says to a degree that exceeds that of many theologians and Catholic intellectuals who fancy themselves to be orthodox in their Catholicism, but dubiously so (Avery Dulles and Karl Rahner might be mentioned in this connection by way of unfavorable comparison with you, and also possibly Hans Urs von Balthasar). For both the reasons I just stated, I would place an especially high value on what you in particular might have to say in response to my reflections in recent posts about the laws of the psychology and sociology of religion, and how these possibly retard the forward progress of Christian ecumenism in a way that very few participants in the dialogue realize.
In order to do my share to help effect this restoration of mutual concord and fraternal charity, allow me first to address our dispute some time back about the authentic meaning of papal dogma. In connection with this matter, I stated in my last post that you had claimed that the “fullness of supreme papal authority … requires absolute submission only to the governance of the Church, and not to the teaching of faith and morals.” I will begin by reposting in full what you had previously said that I was basing this claim on (this is the final paragraph of your post from Nov. 17, 2006, at 2:06 pm):
“Are there situations where papal ruling authority may be justly resisted? Do the bishops and the faithful have any rights which the pope may not justly violate? Vatican I, as I see it, does not answer these questions; for though it and Latin tradition state that the pope is not subject to another’s judgement, I think, as I have stated before, that this refers to an authority of jurisdiction. In other words, there is no divinely constituted human authority to which the faithful may appeal juridicially above the pope. The council does not tell what the faithful are to do when the pope acts outside of justice; that is, when he acts tyranically.”
When you here asserted that “I think, as I have stated before, that this refers to an authority of JURISDICTION,” I understood this to mean that you were denying, by implication, that the pope’s not being subject to another’s judgment extends to the sphere of faith and morals. That is because I understood your use of the broad concept of “jurisdiction” to be a strict reference to the narrower concept of “Church governance.” This interpretation was due to the qualifying proposition immediately following this one, where you assert: “In other words, there is no divinely constituted human authority to which the faithful may appeal JURIDICALLY above the pope. Your use of the adverb “juridically” here led me to understand you to be referring only to “church governance,” narrowly understood, in the previous sentence when you used the term “authority of jurisdiction,” to the exclusion of “teaching authority in the area of faith and morals.” I can see now that I perhaps I didn’t read what you said with enough care, and I apologize if I misrepresented your position in my criticism of your understanding of Vatican I in my previous post. As necessary, I also retract any claim that my own understanding of Vatican I dogmas was at any time more accurate than your own.
As to your complaint that I have previously promised to carefully review what you had previously written (with particular reference to those aspects of our discussion about papal tyranny that I failed to adequately address, as well as those aspects of our discussion pertaining to the intrinsic nature of the way the Pope delegates his authority), I acknowledge also, with apologies, that I have failed to come through on this promise. Though it may take a few days to so, given travel plans I have for the Thanksgiving holiday, these are all intrinsically important matters, so I intend to return to them when I am able. Moreover, apart from this, I also owe it to you personally to honor the sincere efforts you have made to state your position by giving your arguments against my position their full due.
Having thus hopefully made an efficacious contribution towards restoring a spirit of good will and fraternal charity between us, I will reply to the final paragraph of what you have written in a separate post.
Dear Christopher Zehnder,
Allow me to preface my replies to the final paragraph in your last post that my points will be as forcefully stated as clarity of expression and argumentation requires. Despite the emotionally provocative element that this procedure inevitably entails, please know that it is not my intention to provoke you for provocation’s sake. I merely desire to pursue the truth in the company of individuals who share my high regard for it.
“It’s odd. It seems to me you have joined this discussion to undermine the belief of Catholics in papal supremacy.”
I do not deny that this is indeed so. However, I am not fundamentally motivated to do this by empty malice or vainglorious assertion of intellectual prowess and singularity of personal identity. Rather, I do so in the interests of pursuing objective truth, especially with regard to the transcendent claims of the Christian faith, and I do so also in the interests of doing my part to create a climate of radical intellectual openness within Christendom, especially among those who are serious about their faith. For only in this way can Christian ecumenism ever possibly arrive at true reunions among the separated brethren of various Churches and faith traditions.
“But, what you have done, I think, is solidify this belief, principally by the unbelievable temerity of your pretension to stand in judgment over 1,500 years of Church history.”
I ask you to please reserve judgment about both the intellectual merits of my position, and the moral temper with which I advance it, until you are fully acquainted with it in all its aspects and details. I cannot refrain from pointing out again that, as a minimum, becoming fully acquainted with my position would entail careful examination of the two treatises on Church History I mentioned previously that claim to definitively refute the papal dogmas of Vatican I.
I have already addressed various challenges that have been advanced regarding my motivations on quite a number of previous occasions. I have borne all these challenges with a spirit of good will, as well as an earnest attempt to be emotionally restrained in my responses – and also with a spirit of good humor insofar as this seemed to be dictated by prudence in individual circumstances. Until you are fully acquainted with the reasons why I believe what I believe, I ask that you simply take these declarations at face value as sincere expressions of the state of my own self-knowledge.
Moreover, though I have refrained from doing so now with a view to doing whatever was in my power to maintain an atmosphere of good will and intellectually fruitful discussion, I think the time has come to point out that these are all instances of the AD HOMINEM fallacy insofar as they relevantly claim to rebut the various arguments I have advanced regarding the papacy, ecumenism with the Orthodox, the objective basis of my own faith in the Church of the East, etc.
“You alone have attained the pristine peaks of objectivity. You alone have succeeded where countless others have failed. How many others have thought the same thing about themselves, and how many have been wrong.”
My claims are not quite as exalted as you suggest. I do not make an apodictic claim to be correct in everything I assert, and I strive always to remain as open as possible to being corrected with regard to erroneous beliefs I hold. I appeal to my immediately preceding post as testimony in support of this claim. And you will also recall, in this connection, an important intellectual concession I made to you some time ago with regard to the natural law matrix that was the universally understood context of Vatican I papal claims.
However, I DO claim that, in my limited experience of 37 years, I have never come across anyone who aspires to be a faithful Christian, but who is as radically intelletually open as I am. And I continue to claim that such radical intellectual openness among serious Christians must become widespread – notwithstanding powerful laws of religious psychology and sociology which militate against this – if there is to be any realistic hope of genuine progress in Christian ecumenism.
Dear Franklin R. Salazar,
Forgive for overlooking and even failing to acknowledge your brief post to me from quite some time ago. Did you attend St. Thomas Aquinas College at the same time that my Aunt Pia did?
Dear Christopher,
One other thing. You wrote as follows:
“I argued that, in non-infallible teachings, the faithful may disagree with a particular pope.”
And I have argued that since Vatican I concentrates the FULLNESS of supreme teaching authority, requiring absolute submission of assent and obedience, in the pope, what you say is only true insofar as the pope acts from his supreme authority to permit disagreements with him on the part of the faithful. Given that he alone possesses the fulnness of supreme authority, to which all others must submit, it also lies within his divinely bestowed powers to unilaterally rescind this permission to disagree with his teachings – even non-infallible ones – at any time.
Would you agree with this? If not, why not?
Mr. Wenisch,
As to your last post of 23 November, 6.46 a.m.: I have discussed this matter with you previously, as I have discussed other matters with you. You either have not answered my arguments or have skirted around them. I have even answered particular points you have raised, only to have you come back and say, “you have not yet answered my ponit as to such and such.” If you will not truly engage my arguments, I see no reason to continue discussing anything with you.
Honestly, sir, I don’t think you are interested in discussion but in promoting your particular point of view. Your mode seems to be to make a feint toward engaging objections, while merely repeating assertions that others have argued against ad nauseam. I, for one, find it extremely tedious and so, respectfully, bow out.
I would suggest to others that if any want to continue this conversation, we not allow Mr. Wenisch to railroad it in the interests of his proselytizing efforts. As he has admitted, he is here to undermine the Catholic faith, not engage in a discussion with Catholics.
To slightly rephrase the last paragraph, above.
As he has admitted, he is here to undermine the Catholic faith. He is not here to engage in a discussion with Catholics.
The first sentence expresses what Mr. Wenisch has actually admitted; the second, my surmise.
Dear Christopher Zehnder,
I think you fool yourself if you think that you yourself have not also fallen short over the course of our discussion for the shortcomings in communicating with you for which you chide me in exactly the same ways yourself.
In fact, I think it is objectively fair to regard your own shortcomings as a communicator as far more serious than my own. Over the course of the past week, you have repeatedly impugned my moral integrity and personal character in ways that were, quite frankly, very out of line. The fact of the matter is that your morally derogatory comments about me imply definite knowledge on your part of my own inner being that you most certainly do not possess. You are in fact COMPLETELY IGNORANT of my inner life. Until now, I have attempted to deal with this recurring problem of unfounded and unwarranted defamations of my character on your part with a spirit of restraint, magnanimity, and delicacy of expression in my ensuing replies, but I think the time has come to be more blunt on this point. I will do so by quoting directly applicable words of Our Lord, which speak to the moral aspect of your defamations of my character sufficiently on their own (Matt 7:1-5):
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Moreover, as I have pointed out to you before, your morally derogatory remarks and insinuations are all instances of the AD HOMINEM fallacy. They are directed at my person, and are therefore of no relevance whatsoever in advancing the debate with regard to the theological issues we have been discussing. It is completely beside the point, for example, for you to respond that the position I advance reveals temerity on my part when I assert that the Church of the East is as objectively given in time and space as the Catholic Church, and therefore just as viable a candidate as the latter to be the True Church. What in heaven’s name does the question of whether or not I am guilty of temerity have to do with the objective givenness of the Church of the East in time and space as a visible Church? These repeated AD HOMINEM attacks on your part have therefore done far more to retard intellectually fruitful discussion of the theological issues at stake than any errors in communication that I have committed.
I think I will also say that I have been the object of such morally and logically unwarranted AD HOMINEM attacks many, many times in the past. It has been my experience that they generally occur when my interlocutor is no longer able to support the position they are advocating against my own with rational argument based on relevant evidence. The resort to logically irrelevant AD HOMINEM attacks in such situations constitutes an emotionally convenient path of least resistance for someone who finds themselves in a very weak position from an intellectual standpoint. At some point, I will carefully review the record of our discussions to see whether this is also true in the present instance.
As for my own shortcomings in addressing your points, while I readily concede to them (do not forget that I have ALREADY specifically conceded and apologized for two of the most significant ones in my previous email), I think it is unrealistic and somewhat self-serving to suppose, as you implicitly do, that these were not bound to arise inevitably. There are a number of reasons for this inevitability: One has to do with the nature of blogging as a medium of communication. It is a mode of communication that inherently lends itself to people talking past one another, being misunderstood, having posts they make overlooked, etc. A second set of reasons has to do with the complexity and intricacy of the subject matter itself, which only adds further opportunity for one’s points and remarks being overlooked, misunderstood, etc. And a third reason has to do with the powerful and intense emotions that these discussions have evoked, owing to the enormous intrinsic importance of the points at issue, as well as their personal importance to the persons concerned, which also tends to diminish the effectiveness of human communication in various ways. All of these are factors which tend to diminish the full and complete communication of ideas – including of my own communication with you.
Over the course of the past week, despite these inevitable obstacles to effective communication, I have done my very best to keep the discussion fruitful, focused, and cordial, and I really think that I deserve more credit for my earnest attempts to do so that than you seem willing to give me. If you are not willing to give me that credit, then I claim it for myself, for it is the simple truth of the matter. I have made every effort to avoid problems of communication to begin with, and I have earnestly tried to remedy and make due redress for problems of communication that inevitably arose despite my best efforts, once they were brought to my attention. Any impartial review of the record will confirm this.
In conclusion, I do not really consider the shortcomings for which you chide me a good reason for you to end your participation in the present discussion. I will address the other reason you give for ending your participation in our discussion in a separate post.
Dear Christopher Zehnder,
Your other reason for wanting to discontinue your participation in the discussion with me is that I am attempting to “undermine” the Catholic faith of the participants. I would prefer to say that I am radically questioning this Catholic faith. Moreover, it is important to add that this is true PER ACCIDENS, not PER SE. What I am really trying to do PER SE is advance the cause of objective truth regarding transcendent Christian truth claims, based on an attitude of radical intellectual openness that I sincerely believe is utterly necessary in order to accurately discern these transcendent truth claims.
In a closely related vein, I am trying to do my own part in fostering an intellectual atmosphere among serious Christians that is genuinely conducive to Ecumenism. I do not know whether Ecumenism is as pressing a concern for you personally as it is for Daniel or Francesca, but I assure you that reunion among Christians will NEVER be possible as long as the complete unwillingness to place particular elements of one’s own faith tradition into fundamental question continues to broadly prevail among serious Christians. If Catholics are not willing to engage in such questioning, based on having a radical openness to objective truth even in its most confusing and disconcerting manifestations, then they can hardly expect Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical Christians, etc., to do so. For the underlying psychological dynamics that inevitably make such a process of fundamental questioning extremely painful for Catholics apply in the same measure to faithful Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical Christians, etc., as they do to faithful Catholics.
But I am fully cognizant of the tremendous emotional turmoil and pain that is entailed in such a process of radically questioning those elements of one’s own faith that irrevocably differ from that of those with whom one desires reunion. As such, I respect your refusal to engage in such radical questioning, along with your concomitant desire to terminate your participation in this discussion.
When a discussion arrives at the point of retrospective complaints and questioning of motives, it’s at or past the point of diminishing returns. It’s been interesting, but time to call a halt, I think.