ECT on Mary

If you have not already read the latest statement from Evangelicals and Catholics Together, you should. The topic is Mary. Most ecumenical statements are pretty bland and predictable. We’re all familiar with the conciliatory nuances involved with statements on soteriology or ecclesiology. But when it comes to mariology, it’s pretty hard to nuance “conceived without sin” or “bodily assumed into heaven.” So, we have the Evangelicals saying, more or less, “Nope, not gonna go there. What Bible are you reading?” Actually, they did a very admirable job of accommodating, albeit minimally, certain intentions enshrined in the Catholic position. For example:

Evangelicals find unnecessary and unbiblical the notion that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception. Still, we affirm much of what this teaching is intended to convey—that Mary was the object of God’s gracious election in Christ; that she was uniquely prepared to become the mother of our Lord; that she is an extraordinary model of the call to discipleship and the life of holiness; that her assent to the purpose of the Lord was itself the result of God’s unmerited favor toward her—an example of sola gratia; and that she should be honored and called “blessed one” in all places and by all generations.

The entirety of the Evangelical response is marked by a deep understanding of both the history and the theology behind the Catholic position. Thus, they rightly note the apocryphal sources as varying tradents, as well as the pious intentions in the trajectories which yielded the dogmatic formulas. I was very impressed. I would really like to know who was the principal writer for the Evangelical response — perhaps Professor John Woodbridge (TEDS) and/or Professor Kevin Vanhoozer (Wheaton), signers of the statement.

The Catholic portion of the statement was also well done. Of particular interest, the Catholic position makes it clear from the beginning that they are working with a “progressive revelation” of sorts (of course, they would never say “progressive revelation”). Thus, we read:

The Bible is the foundation of all Catholic teaching. Catholics also believe, in accordance with Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to teach the Church all things (John 14:16), that, under the influence of the Spirit, the gospel of grace is more fully and completely understood. Thus the Catholic Church believes that in its listening to, praying with, and reflecting on the truth of Holy Scripture, the Spirit is active as a divine guide, leading to a rich and comprehensive consideration of God’s Word. The Spirit leads the Church to see the full implications of the gospel through the teaching of the early Fathers, through ecumenical councils, through prayer and liturgy, through the lives of the saints, and through the study of theologians. All of these help the Church to see more clearly the profound meaning of Christ’s message and the extraordinary role of his mother, Mary, in the history of salvation.

The key word here is “implications.” St. Thomas and others would say, “fittingness.” The bridge between fittingness and knowledge is the Roman Catholic magisterium. That’s the divide between Evangelicals and Catholics.

Gothic art and the inclusion of ugly

There are a lot of dubious interpretations of Gothic art. Victor Hugo’s Romanticist anti-clericalism is one example, and it is a popular one among those more inclined to view religion from its populist-sociological angle, which tends to forget dogmas and doctrinal trends. As such, the gospel commission of the Church is less important than discerning the human yearnings projected by the community.

However, those who are more inclined toward extolling the value of theology and the work of the Church, in forming piety and artistic expression, will appreciate Roland Recht’s interpretation of Gothic art, in his volume, Believing and Seeing: The Art of Gothic Cathedrals (U. Chicago, 2008). The following excerpt is from the final, concluding chapter. The last paragraph reminds me of Flannery O’Connor.

[The focus on structural form] does not do justice to three other factors that complement and reinforce each other, without which no “Gothic” art would ever have seen the light of day: the way the sacrament of the Eucharist developed; the mysticism of the Passion inaugurated by St. Bernard of Clairvaux and extended in the practices initiated by St. Francis; and the new standing of the visual arts in a society where the written word surrendered its dominant position to them. The result was necessarily a rethinking of architectural language. The mysticism of the Passion, thanks to the renewal of modes of figurative expression, acquired an ever more elaborate mode of representation, and thanks to architecture it acquired a space entirely governed by the “eucharistic perspective.”

“Gothic” art is first and foremost an abundance of visual images that make architecture their support. But the architecture itself is treated as an image; it solicits attention continually, one form pointing to another in accordance with a play of relationships, never allowing the human eye to rest. Never were forms so numerous or so complex, giving the visible shapes to the teachings of Scripture, with pride of place taken by the Incarnation and its final, tragic act, the Passion — which allowed evil, cruelty, hatred, and suffering to enter the artistic representation. Everything that Neoplatonism had dismissed from the definition of beauty thus found a place in the story of salvation. Christ is God, “but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” as we read in the Epistle to the Philippians.

…

St. Augustine wrought a revolution in the classical art of oratory by rejecting the hierarchical classification of the three modi, or genera, of discourse, handed down from Cicero and deemed to correspond to, respectively, sublime, intermediate, and lowly subjects. This distinction has no relevance, St. Augustine argued, to spiritual subjects concerning the salvation of mankind. In the Christian view, nothing is low or despicable; everything has its place in the overall plan of salvation. Similarly, the comical, the obscene, the ugly occupy a position equal to that of the beautiful. Thus ugly is not the diametrical opposite of the beautiful, which means that it is possible for the devil to adopt the lineaments of divine beauty. If the truth of the Scriptures remains inaccessible to many, it is not because their style is too lofty but because the truth is lodged in the most profound depths of the text, where greatness and littleness mingle. It is humility that will show us the only path of access to this truth.

pp. 308-309

Internal Correctives in Catholic Apologetics…finally!

The blessed souls at Pugio Fidei, a Catholic apologetics website, have posted a thoughtful and extensive list of bad arguments used by Catholic apologists (HT: James White).

I have the utmost respect for Catholic theology. But, there is a world of difference between, on the one hand, Möhler, Rahner, and Ratzinger, and, on the other hand, the staff of Catholic Answers and all the e-pologists, who shall remain nameless. Many of us would like to extend the list at Pugio Fidei, but this is a good start. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the moral acumen of most current Catholic apologists, but maybe the next generation will start caring more about truth and basic facts, instead of just winning as many converts as possible and keeping financially afloat.

St Teresa on prayer

Teresa has a nice realist take on prayer. Perfection, or a high motivation thereto, is not a prerequisite for prayer. The love of God is not even a prerequisite for prayer. Prayer can achieve these ends, but prayer is first and foremost undertaken as an ignorant sinner.

And anyone who has not begun to pray, I beg, for love of the Lord, not to miss so great a blessing. There is no place here for fear, but only for desire. For, even if a person fails to make progress, or to strive after perfection, so that he may merit the consolations and favours given to the perfect by God, yet he will gradually gain [through prayer] a knowledge of the road to Heaven. And if he perseveres, I hope in the mercy of God, Whom no one has ever taken for a Friend without being rewarded; and mental prayer, in my view, is nothing but friendly intercourse, and frequent solitary converse, with Him Who we know loves us. If love is to be true and friendship lasting, certain conditions are necessary: on the Lord’s side we know these cannot fail, but our nature is vicious, sensual and ungrateful. You cannot therefore succeed in loving Him as much as He loves you, because it is not in your nature to do so. If, then, you do not yet love Him, you will realize [through prayer] how much it means to you to have His friendship and how much He loves you, and you will gladly endure the troubles which arise from being so much with One Who is so different from you.

St Teresa of Avila, The Life of the Holy Mother Teresa of Jesus, The Complete Works, vol. 1 (Burns & Oates, 2002), trans. E. Allison Peers, p. 50.

Baptism and Fulfillment

In browsing through old issues of the Princeton Theological Review, I came across this article from 1905 by T. F. Fotheringham, “The Doctrine of Baptism in Holy Scripture and the Westminster Standards.” Fotheringham’s thesis is that the dominant understanding of baptism in Presbyterian circles of his day is wrong (nothing’s changed). Baptism for infants and for adults must have the same meaning, he argues. The language of scripture is clear that baptism is about fulfillment, thus infant baptism cannot merely indicate promise (OT category). It’s an interesting read.

In other words, he realizes what Baptists and Catholics have been saying all along: baptism indicates union with Christ, adoption by the Father, and sealing by the Holy Spirit.

Humility

“You cannot learn humility from books. You learn it by accepting humiliations.”

Bl. Teresa of Calcutta

Tradition and Reality

If you want to observe a highly interesting discussion on the Catholic conception of Tradition, go here. The 19th-20th century development in Catholic theology from a more, as they say, “static,” to “dynamic” (or “open”) view of Tradition is significant for all Christians to understand, because we are all (whether Evangelical, Catholic, or Orthodox) in the same boat in needing to re-situate our dogmas in the contemporary historical and scientific setting. The Catholic Church has, on the whole, done a better job than anyone else, steering a course between historical positivism and biblical positivism, respecting both the evidences of nature and the miracle of revelation.

Thus, in the discussion, linked above, between Arturo and Jonathan et al., I believe Jonathan is right. I don’t see how “slippery slope” accusations are helpful. It is true that Jonathan etc. are applying a kernel-husk method to protology, but does this necessarily extend, to be consistent, to christology? Not when the historical is constitutive of the dogma, and this is where the debate centers. Is the historicity of the Edenic Fall necessary for an orthodox understanding of creation, evil, and moral responsibility? Those who deny the historicity here are not inconsistent to also argue that the historicity of Christ’s bodily resurrection is necessary for an orthodox understanding of creation, justification, and reconciliation. Those who think otherwise cannot simply point-out that the apostles and most early fathers taught a Creationist protology, as if the apostolic deposit of faith contains its own inherent restrictions against a different scientific and historical setting. After all, we do allow different philosophical and semantic settings. If you believe that Tradition, for it to have any meaning, must not allow such paradigm shifts, you must argue why this is the case. That’s what I’m not seeing from the opposition. In fact, the Catholic Church especially should find such development to be unproblematic. For example, all Catholics allow for a rather extensive openness in the Tradition to accommodate the social and ecclesial situations that, in Catholic perspective, require the universal jurisdiction and infallibility of the pope (or the seven sacraments, or Mary’s sinlessness from conception, etc.). Since this is the case, why not polygenesis in human protology? I don’t see any rules restricting this development, which seems rather in line with how the Catholic Church has developed in the past.

Blondel on “Tradition” pt. 2

In the previous post, we see Blondel attacking Tradition understood as, basically, all that the apostles taught that did not happen to make it into the canon. Of course, it is not hard to understand why Catholics would have this impression with statements like this from Trent, fourth session: “seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand.” For Blondel, the apostolic deposit of faith is not a static datum, which the Tridentine decree seems to indicate; instead, it is the apostolic faith itself, alive in the Church in all ages. As such, it is a sure guide, through the appropriate given media, for the Church in her discernment of doctrine. With this understanding, Tradition does not serve to distill the apostolic faith as explicitly taught by the apostles; instead, it is the continuing explication and application of this faith in all of the variant human contingencies that constitute the life of the Church in the world. At least, that is how I would summarize what Blondel is doing. Here are some of his own words:

Contrary to the vulgar notion, but in conformity with the constant practice of the Church, we must say that Tradition is not a simple substitute for a written teaching. It has a different purpose; it does not proceed solely from it and it does not end by becoming identified with it. It preserves not so much the intellectual aspect of the past as its living reality. Even where we have the Scriptures, it always has something to add, and what passes little by little into writing and definitions is derived from it. It relies, no doubt, on texts, but at the same time it relies primarily on something else, on an experience always in act which enables it to remain in some respects master of the texts instead of being strictly subservient to them. In brief, whenever the testimony of Tradition has to be invoked to resolve one of the crises of growth in the spiritual life of Christians, it presents the conscious mind with elements previously expressed, systematized or reflected upon. This power of conservation and preservation also instructs and initiates. Turned lovingly towards the past where its treasure lies, it moves towards the future, where it conquers and illuminates. It has a humble sense of faithfully recovering even what it thus discovers. It does not have to innovate because it possesses its God and its all; but it has always to teach something new because it transforms what is implicit and ‘enjoyed’ into something explicit and known. …

However paradoxical it may sound, one can therefore maintain that Tradition anticipates and illumines the future and is disposed to do so by the effort which it makes to remain faithful to the past. It is the guardian of the initial gift in so far as this has not been entirely formulated nor even expressly understood, although it is always fully possessed and employed; it frees us from the very Scriptures on which it never ceases to rely with devout respect: it helps us reach the real Christ whom no literary portrait could exhaust or replace, without being confined to the texts. Thus the Gospel itself appears as part of the deposit, not as the whole deposit, for, however divine the text, we cannot legitimately rest all dogma and all faith on that alone. Something in the Church escapes scientific examination; and it is the Church which, without rejecting or neglecting the contributions of exegesis and of history, nevertheless controls them, because in the very tradition which constitutes her, she possesses another means of knowing her author, of participating in his life, of linking facts to dogma, and of justifying both the capital and the interest of her teaching.

Maurice Blondel, The Letter on Apologetics & History and Dogma (Eerdmans 1994), pp. 267-269.

Blondel on “Tradition”

Maurice Blondel (1861-1949) was a French philosopher whose work anticipated the transcendental Thomists (e.g., Rahner) of a subsequent generation, the generation of Vatican II. His work in theology (at least, “History and Dogma”), however, reminds me of the ressourcement influenced theologians, like de Lubac and von Balthasar. A kinship with Congar can also easily be detected. This is the finest statement I’ve read (in my limited reading) of the contemporary Catholic position on Tradition — at least, I assume this is basically the majority position, but I’m sure that self-styled “traditionalists” are not big fans.

The usual idea evoked by the word Tradition is that of a transmission, principally by word of mouth, of historical facts, received truths, accepted teachings, hallowed practices and ancient customs. Is that, however, the whole content, is it even, where Catholicism is concerned, the essential content of the notion?

If that were so, there would be grounds for thinking that it would not resist analysis; and this would perhaps explain why the authority of Tradition is invoked over difficulties of detail, when precise or apposite arguments are not available. For in fact if it simply reports de ore in aurem what the first audiences did not write down, if it simply answers to a need for the esoteric or to a ‘discipline of the secret’, if even today its object is to teach us what the texts could have transmitted to us, simply supplementing the lacunae, their laconic form, and their failure to mention the commonest customs of the time, which are the least noticed, then how can one fail to see  how little usefulness it has? The interval of time which separates us from the sources, the inventive inaccuracy of popular recollection, the growing tendency of humanity to put down in writing all its reminiscences and all fine shades of meaning, the uprootedness of modern life with its consequent loss of continuity, the habit of committing everything to black and white (a sort of paper memory), surely all this results in the progressive erosion of traditions and the exhaustion of Tradition itself?

…those who cling to this point of view and speak of Tradition with the greatest respect and the greatest detail, always seem subject to a double presupposition: tradition only reports things explicitly said, expressly prescribed or deliberately performed by men in whom we are interested only for their conscious ideas, and in the form in which they themselves expressed them; it furnishes nothing which cannot or could not be translated into written language, nothing which is not directly and integrally convertible into intellectual expression: so that as we complete our collection of all that former centuries, even without noticing it, confided to memory — rather like students of folklore noting down folk-songs — Tradition, it would seem, becomes superfluous, and recedes before the progress of reflective analysis, written codification and scientific co-ordination.

Now these consequences are manifestly contrary to the spirit which inspires the Church, to the esteem in which she holds Tradition, and to the permanent and unchanging confidence which she places in it. …One only has to reflect for a moment on the role played by Tradition in the Church to see that it includes something altogether different from the transmission of the spoken word or of ancient custom. And, to state at once the full extent of the thesis I want to justify, I would say that Tradition’s powers of conservation are equaled by its powers of conquest: that it discovers and formulates truths on which the past lived, though unable as yet to evaluate or define them explicitly, that it enriches our intellectual patrimony by putting the total deposit little by little into currency and making it bear fruit.

“History and Dogma,” in The Letter on Apologetics and History and Dogma (Eerdmans 1994), pp. 265-267.

I will soon post bits from his positive statement on Tradition.

What is “Apostolic”?

If you are interested in the issue of doctrinal development, and, specifically, the Catholic understanding of apostolic criteria, then I recommend the discussion being had on the blog, Fides Quaerens Intellectum. In particular, see this post by Kepha on the historicity of the bodily assumption of Mary. The comment section is quite lengthy but with some good thoughts, especially from Tim Enloe, Peter Escalante, and others. Kepha has a good summary of the discussion (the Catholic points and counter-points) here:

Ecclesiology and Epistemology

And, lastly, here is a list of links to the most important posts related to the subject (we’ve been going over this from many different angles for several months now):

Ecclesiology and Epistemology, pt. 2

I do not know of anywhere else on the web currently where the Catholic side is taken as respectfully and seriously along with Protestant objections forthrightly displayed.