Newman on the Development of the Papacy

In chapter 4 of his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, John Henry Cardinal Newman takes up the issue of papal supremacy. Surprisingly, Newman argues that the papal office of Peter "would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiatical matters became the cause of ascertaining it." The universal jurisdiction of the first pope, in Newman's words, "slept." It was a "mysterious privilege, which was not understood, as an unfulfilled prophecy."

When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred. It is not a greater difficulty that St. Ignatius does not write to the Asian Greeks about Popes, than that St. Paul does not write to the Corinthians about Bishops. And it is a less difficulty that the Papal supremacy was not formally acknowledged in the second century, than that there was no formal acknowledgment on the part of the Church of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity till the fourth. No doctrine is defined till it is violated.

Far from being a universal body characterized by communion with the bishop of Rome, the early church was more decentralized, as Newman's citation of Barrow shows:

The state of the most primitive Church did not well admit such an universal sovereignty. For that did consist of small bodies incoherently situated, and scattered about in very distant places, and consequently unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be governed by one head....

In fact, it was the exaltation of the church from the status of an illicit and persecuted religion to one of prominence and favor that precipitated the rise of the papacy:

If the Imperial Power checked the development of Councils, it availed also for keeping back the power of the Papacy. The Creed, the Canon, in like manner, both remained undefined. The Creed, the Canon, the Papacy, Ecumenical Councils, all began to form, as soon as the Empire relaxed its tyrannous oppression of the Church. And as it was natural that her monarchical power should display itself when the Empire became Christian, so was it natural also that further developments of that power should take place when that Empire fell.

This seems to coincide with Lampe's thesis in From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries that

The fractionation in Rome favored a collegial presbyterial system of governance and prevented for a long time, until the second half of the second century, the development of a monarchical episcopacy in the city.... Before the second half of the second century there was in Rome no monarchical episcopacy for the circles mutually bound in fellowship.

Some important questions arise (but are not begged) from Newman's position on the development of the papacy, not the least of which is: Is the view that the papacy developed consistent with Vatican I's statement that "We therefore teach and declare that, according to the testimony of the Gospel, the primacy of jurisdiction over the universal Church of God was immediately and directly promised and given to blessed Peter the Apostle by Christ the Lord" (a dogma that is called "a clear doctrine of Holy Scripture as it has been ever understood by the Catholic Church")?

Discuss....

Newman on the Development of Christian Doctrine History

Anyone even remotely interested in historical theology will be familiar with John Henry Cardinal Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, originally published in 1845. Newman’s overall thesis is that when it comes to just about any system of thought, the growth and development of its ideas are to be expected, and Christianity is no exception.

Newman argues in Section III that the doctrines of the (Catholic) faith are "members of one family, and suggestive, or correlative, or confirmatory, or illustrative of each other." He writes:

… the very scale on which they have been made, their high antiquity yet present promise, their gradual formation yet precision, their harmonious order, dispose the imagination most forcibly towards the belief that a teaching so consistent with itself, so well balanced, so young and so old, not obsolete after so many centuries, but vigorous and progressive still, is the very development contemplated in the Divine Scheme.

He then goes on to insist that these doctrines, when understood aright, necessarily hang together.

One furnishes evidence to another, and all to each of them; if this is proved, that becomes probable; if this and that are both probable, but for different reasons, each adds to the other its own probability. The Incarnation is the antecedent of the doctrine of Mediation, and the archetype both of the Sacramental principle and of the merits of Saints. From the doctrine of Mediation follow the Atonement, the Mass, the merits of Martyrs and Saints, their invocation and cultus. From the Sacramental principle come the Sacraments properly so called; the unity of the Church, and the Holy See as its type and centre; the authority of Councils; the sanctity of rites; the veneration of holy places, shrines, images, vessels, furniture, and vestments. Of the Sacraments, Baptism is developed into Confirmation on the one hand; into Penance, Purgatory, and Indulgences on the other; and the Eucharist into the Real Presence, adoration of the Host, Resurrection of the body, and the virtue of relics. Again, the doctrine of the Sacraments leads to the doctrine of Justification; Justification to that of Original Sin; Original Sin to the merit of Celibacy. Nor do these separate developments stand independent of each other, but by cross relations they are connected, and grow together while they grow from one….

You must accept the whole or reject the whole; attenuation does but enfeeble, and amputation mutilate. It is trifling to receive all but something which is as integral as any other portion; and, on the other hand, it is a solemn thing to accept any part, for, before you know where you are, you may be carried on by a stern logical necessity to accept the whole.

Now, it is undoubtedly true that each doctrine of the Christian faith has certain implications and tends toward certain conclusions. For someone like Newman, then, to seek to postulate an idea like papal infallibility he would certainly ground it in prior-held notions about divine revelation and the Church as pillar and ground of the truth. So although I may disagree with many of Newman’s conclusions, I still can recognize how he arrived at them.

But what happens when the proposed development falls not only into the category of doctrine, but also of history?

Take, for example, the bodily assumption of Mary. It’s one thing to say that the doctrine of her being whisked up to heaven is a logical corollary of the doctrine that she was immaculately conceived. But it takes a lot more, umm, gumption to dogmatically insist that, as a matter of historical record, Mary in fact floated up into the sky and was received into glory (especially when some 1,800 years had transpired between this historical event and its being pronounced as church dogma).

Now, I’ve not studied this matter in any depth, so it may very well be the case that loads of people were standing around watching her fly off into space who then recorded the miraculous event in their journals (which is certainly what one would expect to have happened if they saw such a thing: the news of the event would immediately spread like wildfire). But on the other hand, if the first person to have borne testimony to Mary’s bodily assumption was not an actual contemporary of the Blessed Mother’s, but lived, say, a few generations later, then would not the most plausible explanation be that we are dealing with a legend and not an actual historical event?

I mean, if Jesus’ resurrection—a remarkable occurrence if there ever was one—went completely unnoticed by every single person who knew him, but then was spoken about a century or two later, we would be suspicious, wouldn’t we? Or take a more contemporary example: If someone writes a biography of Ronald Reagan next year that claims that the former president received an extra terrestrial visitor to the White House in broad daylight in the presence of the entire press corps, wouldn’t we wonder why no one has heard if such an event before? Or, if the event happened in secret (explaining why it wasn’t reported at the time), then our first question would be, "How did this author uniquely come by this information if he wasn’t there?"

My point, you ask? If Rome’s claim is that she only elucidates the initial apostolic deposit of faith but never expands its content, then it would follow that if the apostle John’s next door neighbor asked daily how Mary was doing, at some point he would have received the reply, "Great! She was bodily received into glory a couple hours ago, haven't you heard?"

But if Mary was taken into heaven as an actual historical event, and if John didn’t himself know about it, then it would seem that he wasn’t exactly keeping the close eye on her that her Son asked him to.

A Kinder, Gentler Generation of Bishops?

I just came across this quote from the fifth-century bishop of Ruspe, St. Fulgentius:

Firmly hold and never doubt that every baptized person outside of the Catholic Church cannot share in eternal life, if before the end of his life he does not return and is incorporated into the Church.... Not only pagans but also all Jews, all heretics and schismatics who finish this life outside of the Catholic Church will go into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels (On Faith, To Peter, 37, 38).

I realize that the writings of the fathers are not on par with the Catholic Church's de fide pronouncements or anything, but I would be curious to hear how these sentiments (which are shared by many other fathers) square with the post-Vatican 2 business about the universal Church "subsisting" in the Church of Rome and we Protestants being only "separated brethren" who may still be saved, even though we're Presbyterians.

.

Has the Catholic Church lost the gall to condemn me?

Apostles and Early Fathers: Who Were the Real Morons?

Since Mark Shea's book By What Authority? founds its way into the conversation, I thought I'd clear up what I believe his point to have been, as well as put forth a question to him (or to anyone who feels like trying to answer it).

Shea draws his readers' attention to the way that evangelicals respond to the work of the Jesus Seminar, saying that evangelicalism is certainly correct in highlighting the absurdity of the idea that Jesus, whose knowledge and insight could penetrate into the very souls of men, was nonetheless so shortsighted that he couldn't seem to choose any disciples who would be able to correctly remember a single thing he said. In other words, how likely is it that, nine minutes after our Lord's death, his disciples would both immediately forget everything he really said and did, and invent a bunch of stuff he never said or did?

(This reminds me of the wisdom of Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, who insisted that "Jesus needed his disciples like he needed a hole in the head." When challenged with the claim that if you reject the disciples you reject Jesus, Caulfield explained that Jesus picked his dicsiples at random since he didn't have the time to screen them properly, being busy and all.)

Now Shea's argument becomes challenging when he turns to Protestantism's response to Rome. The Protestant, Shea insists, commits the very same fallacy that the proponent of the Jesus Seminar does, only we push it back a generation. So we (rightly) deny the likelihood that the original twelve apostles completely messed up Jesus' teachings, but we also (wrongly) insist that the first generation of post-apostolic fathers misunderstood the apostles' teachings. We roll our eyes at the claim that John invented the idea that the Logos was God, while we nonetheless maintain that Ignatius delibererately inflated the authority of the bishop, or that Irenaeus concocted the theory of apostolic succession as a means to ensure orthodoxy. Thus we dismiss early church teachings on prayers for the dead, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, or veneration of Mary by insisting that the church fathers simply went astray pretty soon after the original twelve died.

The question to my Catholic readers is this: Does not Paul himself marvel at how quickly the churches of Galatia perverted the gospel they received from apostolic messengers? Is it indeed a given that the teachings of the early fathers were apostolic simply because they were in close chronological proximity to the apostles?

Arrested Development?

One of the most interesting and challenging arguments used by Catholics to defend doctrines that Protestants consider pure novelties is the argument from the devel-opment of doctrine, which states that though the initial deposit of the faith was given intact to the apostles and from the apostles to the first generation of bishops, the church’s understanding of the deposit develops over time, usually as a result of controversy or heresy.

There are a couple examples that are commonly used by Catholics to demonstrate their point. One is the canon of Scripture. Though by the year 90 AD (or thereabouts) the final book of the New Testament had been written, it took the church a good number of years to arrive at this conclusion. Likewise with the doctrine of the Trinity or the hypostatic union of the two natures in the one Person of Christ. The fact that these doctrines were not formally propounded until the fourth- and fifth centuries does not in any way diminish their validity. Therefore, insists the Catholic, just because the dogmas of papal infallibility or the assumption of the blessed virgin Mary were not formulated until the nineteenth century does not mean we should balk at them. If the Trinity had taken another thousand years to state officially, would it be any less true?

Now on the one hand this makes a lot of sense. I mean, a case could certainly be made that the church of Acts 2 would barely have recognized the church of Acts 15 if it had been given a crystal ball. Elders? Deacons? Gentiles? What happened to our simple movement, how did it get so complex?

But on the other hand, I fail to see how certain dogmas can honestly be said to be developments in the church’s understanding of the original deposit of faith, and when I hear Catholics insist that they would never think of adding anything to what God has revealed in his Word, I just scratch my head. Take the sale of indulgences as one example (does that one count as dogma?), or take as another the immaculate conception and assumption of Mary. Sure, I’ve read the arguments and heard the logic behind these teachings, and though they are unpersuasive they are certainly plausible. But insisting that they are actually biblical, well, that’s another issue.

What am I missing?

Let Them Eat Cake!

I like cake. But the thing is, I like to eat it, too.

Because of this tendency, I often shy away from arguments against Catholicism that take as their launching point the various abuses and aberrations of the church throughout the centuries, as if the Protestant's only problem with Rome is the occasionally opulent pope or abused altar boy. In other words, a robust Reformed argument against Rome would focus not only on what it became, but also on how it began.

If all we focus on are the incidentals, then is not this a tacit admission not only that the solution to Rome is not Protestantism but reformed Catholicism, but also that our entire ecclesiology is a convention arising post hoc, a reaction to biblical Christianity gone awry instead of a return biblical Christianity itself? Don't miss the import of what I'm saying: if we focus solely upon Rome's abuses, we are surrendering not only all exegesis, but also conceding that Jesus did in fact intend to found a visible church characterized by apostolic succession and Petrine primacy, but once that church messed things up, we came along with a bunch of new ideas about invisible churches and Sola Scriptura.

To put it bluntly, Protestants need to argue for Protestantism, not just against Catholicism, and we need to do it from Scripture, as if (gasp!) Jesus actually intended something akin to Reformed ecclesiology all along. Why would we be comfortable with anything less? I mean, what are we, Protestants or simply non-Catholics?

So let's not shoot ourselves in the foot by just settling for cake. Let's go the next step and demand to eat it, too.

Men at Work: Cool Band, Bad Theology

Continuing our look at Louis Bouyer’s The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, we now turn specifically to the “negative principles” that, the author argues, constituted the Church’s real problems with the Reformation and precipitated her rejection of it.

Bouyer insists that sola gratia, sola fide (salvation by grace alone through faith alone) is perfectly within the pale of Catholic orthodoxy, and it is only when the Reformers waxed polemical that they got all negative and carried away.

The affirmation of sola fide is not content with excluding works in the Jewish sense or works done before faith is received or works done by the believer apart from the agency of faith in grace or even apart from this as the unique means giving man power to do good works. The Catholic faith could not do otherwise than take all these exclusions as its own and ratify them. [But] Luther, and Protestantism after him… declared that all possible and imaginable works are harmful, that faith itself has not to produce them for salvation, cannot, should not, do so.

Bouyer goes on to wonder at the fact that Protestants “attack the scholastic idea of faith ‘informed’ by charity, contrasted with faith without charity as living faith to dead.”

Setting aside for the moment Bouyer’s characterization of Protestantism as arguing that faith not only need not but indeed should not produce good works for salvation (a statement that is false on its face), I would like to offer a brief exegetical rebuttal to Bouyer’s claim that the Protestant Reformers went overboard on their negative statements about works.

According to Bouyer, there are four senses in which the Catholic may agree that works do not contribute to man’s acceptance by God. First, he admits Catholics agree with Protestants that “works in the Jewish sense” are inadmissible. I assume he means what some theologians call “Jewish boundary markers,” those works of the law such as circumcision and dietary restrictions that divided Jews from Gentiles. Second, Bouyer lists “works done before faith is received,” by which he most likely means the good deeds done by the unregenerate pagan before he is converted. Third are “works done by the believer apart from the agency of faith in grace.” I guess what Bouyer is referring to here are the Christian’s attempts to please God in the arm of the flesh. And the last kind of works that the Catholic would agree are useless for pleasing God is works “apart from this [Option 3] as the unique means giving man power to do good works.” I have no idea what Bouyer is talking about here.

So here’s my question: Which type of works was Peter referring to when he insisted at the Jerusalem council that Gentiles need not be circumcised since such practice would “place upon them a burden that neither we nor our fathers could bear?”

The option that seems most obvious at first is #1 (works in the Jewish sense), since the whole debate in Acts 15 was over Jewish boundary markers. But not so fast. If the Judaizers of Peter’s and Paul’s day were so meticulous about adhering to circumcision and dietary laws—even going above and beyond by fasting twice a week (Luke 18:12)—then how can Peter call these works an unbearable burden? They kept them, didn’t they? So what was the problem?

Paul says something similar in Gal. 3:10ff, arguing that the Galatians should not submit to circumcision for the specific reason that “all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.” Now this curse is obviously not solely due to failing to keep the Jewish ceremonies since, as we have seen, the Jews kept them scrupulously (I mean, how circumcised can a man be?). And the “works” Paul is referring to cannot be works done apart from faith or before receiving grace since he is holding up his own kinsman as his foil, arguing that even faithful, circumcised, ham-shunning Jews are under God’s curse.

The only answer that seems to make any sense of these passages is that circumcision binds a man to the entire law (Gal. 5:3) and that failure on just one point is tantamount to failure on all (Epistle of Straw 2:10). In fact, Paul says as much in the verse under consideration, quoting Lev. 18:5 to the effect that the Israelites were bound to perform “all things written in the Book of the Law.” That's the kind of works that curse: not the Jewish kind, the ceremonial kind, the prideful kind, or the faithless kind. All kinds.

The conclusion of all this, therefore, is that even faithful Christians, if they bring works of any kind into the justification equation (even ceremonial boundary markers), thereby bind themselves to a law whose only function this side of the fall is to curse, accuse and condemn.

Better, in my view, to affirm what Trent anathematizes, namely, that whatever good works we perform are but results of grace received and in no way contribute to God’s acceptance of us.

If I’m wrong, please show me how.

Which of the Seven Dwarfs Best Sums Up Protestantism?

Lutheran-turned-Catholic Louis Bouyer argues in his The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism that the expulsion of the Protestant Reformers from the Catholic Church was in no way a response to the "positive principles" of the Reformation such as Sola Gratia and the emphasis on divine sovereignty (principles which, according to Bouyer, had "the power to rejuvenate and restore traditional Christianity"). Instead, the Reformers were tossed out for "something else," namely, the unnecessary negative principles that were also insisted upon but were, Bouyer maintains, "so far from following from the principles already examined or from being necessarily implied by them or even useful or expedient."

The question that must be pondered, according to Bouyer, is not "If the positive principles of the Reformation are perfectly consistent with Catholic tradition, then why did the Church reject them?" but rather, "What was present in the Reformation that forced the Church to reject it despite its clearly orthodox positive principles?"

Before we look at the specific examples Bouyer cites, I'd like to examine his general claim. Is there a "mysterious fatality" resident within Protestantism that inevitably moves its adherents to attach a "negative significance" to its positive principles?

It's a good question.

Just answering the challenge in general terms, it seems necessary to insist that if A is true, then non-A must be equally false. That being said, however, is it absolutely necessary to say that if, say, the Bible is uniquely authoritative then the Church has no real authority beyond that which I attribute to it? Or is it inevitable that if salvation is a sovereign work of divine grace alone, and that works play no role in disposing God towards the sinner, that therefore all works are eliminated from the salvation equation altogether?

I guess what Bouyer is asking is, "Why do Protestants have to be so grumpy all the time?"

Could Luther and Leo Have Ironed Things Out Over a Few Pints?

In his book The Spirit and Forms of Protest-antism, French Lutheran-minister-turned-Catholic Louis Bouyer argues that Protestantism, positively considered, is completely consistent with Catholic tradition both ancient and modern. He writes concerning sola gratia:

... this assertion, taken in its essence as we have sought to define it, is a genuine-ly Christian one and fully in accord, of course, with Catholic tradition properly understood.... Luther's basic intuition, on which Protestantism continuously draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being difficult to reconcile with Catholic tradition or inconsistent with the teaching of the apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching and is in the most direct line of that tradition.

Bouyer even goes as far as to say:

Protestantism, reduced to what Protestants regard as its essence, was under no necessity to embody itself in schism and heresy. On the contrary, by the very logic of its nature, it should have initiated in the Church itself a powerful movement of regeneration.... Unfortunately, that is not what happened, though the blame, in any case, does not lie exclusively with the basic principle of the Reformation.

Bouyer goes on to argue that Protestantism's central principles such as divine sovereignty, the unique authority of Scripture, and salvation by grace alone are not fallacious in what they affirm, only in what they deny (which things, he argues, are unnecessary and incidental to the heart of the Reformation).

This line of argument seems to be along the same lines as the sentiments of the late Richard John Neuhaus, who insisted that when he abandoned Wittenberg for Rome he relinquished nothing of what he formerly believed, but instead just picked up a bunch of extra stuff.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this, because I find it incredibly interesting (not to mention baffling and suspicious) that former Lutheran clergymen like Bouyer and Neuhaus would say such things. My initial reaction is to dismiss such sentiments as indicative of their never really having understood their own tradition, but I am also aware of how much of an ass that makes me look.

So what gives? Did Luther and the pope just need a heart-to-heart over a few ales in order to smooth things over?

Cogito, Ergo Sum [Protestant]?

On his blog Pontifications, Fr. Kimel puts forth a kind of Van Tilian, presuppostional defense of the papacy, building his case on the argument of Cardinal Manning, whom Kimel quotes at length:

The doctrines of the Church in all ages are primitive. It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine. How can we know what antiquity was except through the Church? No individual, no number of individuals can go back through eighteen hundred years to reach the doctrines of antiquity. We may say with the woman of Samaria, “Sir, the well is deep, and thou hast nothing to draw with.” No individual mind now has contact with the revelation of Pentecost, except through the Church. Historical evidence and biblical criticism are human after all, and amount at most to no more than opinion, probability, human judgment, human tradition.

In the same way that a Reformed presuppositionalist would argue that it is a subtle display of rationalism to demand evidence for God's existence or the veracity of Scripture, so Kimel, echoing Manning, is insisting that it is also rationalism to insist that the Catholic Church's claims about its papal authority be historically proven.

The reason why such evidence is demanded, Kimel admits, is that the pope is the very icon of scandal and offense in the eyes of many.

I grant Manning’s point, yet still it seems appropriate to ask for evidences to support the Church’s teaching on the papacy. The Pope is, after all, is the rock upon which so many stumble. Even Paul VI conceded that “the pope—and we know this well—is without doubt the most serious obstacle on the ecumenical road.” The pope hypostatsizes the skandalon that is the Catholic Church.

I must admit, this argument is clever (if not a bit too convenient as well), for it puts Protestants in the unenviable position of having to sift through the historical data on the church and weigh it in the balances, all the while disassociating it from the testimony of the very church it is seeking to understand. Better, Catholics would argue, to simply believe the Church on its own authority than to subject it to the bar of human reason and inquiry.

In a word, apply all the stuff Van Til said about Scripture to the Catholic Church, and voila!, all our problems will be solved.

What do you think? Clever or convenient?

Bono, Luther, and the Seeds of Modernity

I’ve been on a bit of a ‘90s U2 kick of late (possibly due to the scheduled release of No Line on the Horizon in March, which has been compared to Achtung Baby), and so I’m (re)reading Bill Flanagan’s U2 at the End of the World. The author has been a close friend of the band’s since the early ‘80s and was given permission to follow them around during their ZooTv tour (’92-’93) and basically be privy to every show, every party, every conversation, and every recording session. Not a bad job this Flanagan fellow has.

Anyway, I read this passage the other night that I found interesting:

Bono is quick to admit that many of his ideas are instinctive, not intellectual—he does not have the time to be rigorous in researching or testing them. One of the theories that gets him into great arguments is that he believes that modernism started with Luther, with the Reformation, with the dismantling of the iconography of the culture and insistence on simplicity and function…. Bono is convinced that all this stripping down and directness goes back to the Protestant impulse, back to Luther, and that the modernists made the great mistake of taking on the antireligion of the existentialists and lost that thread. (It’s one of the wonders of Bono’s considerable intellect that he can construct a unified field theory of all his interests—even when they have nothing to do with each other.)

Now I know that my Catholic readers will jump on this and say, “See? Even Bono realizes that the seeds of modern man’s supposed autonomy are to be found in the Reformation with its individualistic doctrine of Sola Scriptura.” And it may very well be the case that when you mix together Sola Scriptura, anti-authoritarianism, and Descartes, you may not exactly like what you get as a result. Still, I can’t help but wonder how we are to avoid some degree of individualism, whether our home is Geneva, Saddleback, or Rome. We are all evaluating some body of data, whether it is Scripture or the early church fathers (or both), and coming to some conclusion or another about what they have to tell us.

So maybe evangelicals should stop dismissing Presbyterians for our refusal to let the Bible speak for itself; and maybe Presbyterians should soften our self-congratulatory tone when slapping ourselves on the back because of how well we avoid the individualism of the Bible-only, Anabaptist evangelicals out there; and maybe Catholics should stop looking down their noses at all of us and admit that they employ the same private judgment to determine that the Magisterium replaces private judgment as we do when we determine that the Bible speaks clearly enough on its core teachings that even children can understand its basic message.

Talk Amongst Yourselves, I'll Give You a Topic: The "Great Awakening" - It Was Neither Great, Nor an Awakening. Discuss....

In his book Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray contends that due to the Calvinistic flavor of the First Great Awakening and the Pelagian flavor of the Second Great Awakening, the former is to be considered a legitimate work of the Spirit while the latter was largely spurious and manmade. Scott Clark, on the other hand, argues in Recovering the Reformed Confession that “both awakenings were species of the same genus, the QIRE [or, the quest for illegitimate religious experience].” He continues:

… it is sometimes said and even more frequently assumed that confessional Reformed theology, piety, and practice need to be augmented with the piety and evangelical fervor of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century revivals. In such a marriage, however, classical Reformed theology and piety are unequally yoked.

In fact, Clark’s contention is that it was not soteriological issues at all that caused Murray to bind together the good revivalist to the exclusion of the bad ones, but “a common heightened personal experience of the divine presence.”

Judged, however, by confessional Reformed theology, piety, and practice, it is more difficult to see [revivals] as models for our theology, piety, and practice. Rather, taken individually or as a whole, the revivals represent a subjectivism that is alien to the Reformed confession.

Let me be clear about the fact that I agree with Clark wholeheartedly (due in no small part to all the yelling at me he did while I was his student). Still, I can remember back to the days when I was an ardent Banner of Truth guy, and the objection I would have raised would go something like this: According to whose standard of “legitimacy” should one’s quest for religious experience be judged? In other words, Clark’s QIRE label can easily sound as if any quest for a level of religious experience that exceeds Clark’s is excessive and illegitimate.

Of course, Clark’s response will be that it is not his standard that he is commending, but that of our Reformed confessions and catechisms. But pro-revival Reformed theologians like Murray or the Old Princetonians subscribed to the same standards that we do, and their definition of revival as an extraordinary degree of blessing upon the ordinary means of grace would seem to comport just fine with the experimental language of the Westminster Standards (not to mention that of Paul).

So the question is, how do we avoid combating the subjectivity of revivalism with an equally subjective standard of our own?

Determining the Degree of our Debt to the Dead

"Confessional Reformed folk have always had a deep appreciation for the fathers and the medieval theologians," writes R. Scott Clark in his Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice. "It was the Anabaptists, not the Reformed, who sought to do theology without reference to the past." Clark writes:

The Reformed orthodox demonstrated a remarkable catholicity of spirit and knowledge and drew upon the entire Christian tradition to formulate their theology. If we are to follow the classic Reformed pattern, we too must become scholars of the fathers and even of the medieval theologians, who established much of the Christian theological vocabulary and the intellectual categories in which both the Reformers and the post-Refomation theologians did their work.

Indeed, argues Clark, it is indicative of a "Reformed Narcissism" to ignore or dismiss our debt to the past. Yet this debt to the dead notwithstanding, there is a "gulf fixed" between us and such luminaries as Anselm, Aquinas, Lombard, Bradwardine, Gregory of Rimini, Staupitz, and Wycliffe: The Protestant Reformation.

Though we embrace many of the same doctrines as our medieval forebears, we also embrace the conviction that sinners are justified only on the ground of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received through faith alone, a theological insight learned from Luther, Calvin, and Reformed orthodoxy, not from the fathers or the medieval theologians (emphasis added).

I can hear a couple objections echoing from the Papist Peanut Gallery that I would like to raise and discuss. First, is Protestant soteriology really a "genuine theological novum" as McGrath is often quoted as saying and as Clark seems to concede? Secondly (and more profoundly), is the Protestant penchant for picking and choosing which bits of the fathers' teachings we embrace (accepting the Trinity but denying historical apostolicity, for example) not an example of the very Naricissim that we decry in evangelicalism?

In short, how ought we confessional Protestants to determine the degree of our debt to the dead?

Reformers, Romans, and Radicals

In his chapter on apostolicity in People and Place, Michael Horton seeks to demonstrate that the locus of ecclesiastical authority is not centered in one person or office, but that "both [Peter and Paul] subjected themselves jointly to the broader assembly [in Acts 15]," and that "if the apostles themselves were corrected by the Word, through mutual admonition, then surely the ordinary ministry can assume no greater authority." Horton then cites Calvin as pointing out that Paul, in his list of officer-gifts given to the church by the risen Christ, mysteriously leaves out the (supposedly) most important one of all:

If he knew a primacy which had a fixed residence, was it not his duty, for the benefit of the whole church, to exhibit one ministerial head placed over all the members, under whose goverment we are collected into one body?

Horton's larger aim to to demonstrate that a covenantal ecclesiology is a via media between a hierarchical model of apostolicity rooted in historical succession on the one hand, and a democratic model based on private revelations or inner experiences on the other.

In fact, argues Horton, the Reformers' argument in the sixteenth century was that both Rome and the Radical Anabaptists appealed to the ongoing revelatory ministry of the Spirit, they just diffeed in whether his voice was to be sought in the Magisterium or in the heart of every sincere believer.

The church is not, properly speaking, the magisterium or the ministerium, but the whole body. Yet as the Pastoral Epistles elaborate, the transferable aspects of the extraordinary apostolic vocation have been entrusted to the ordinary offices of pastors and elders. So we must avoid a legalism that subverts the unique authority of Christ and his Word by addition as well as an antinomian spirit of subtraction.

My question for my Catholic friends, then, is: If you can argue that there is no difference in principle between the Reformers and the Radicals since both reject the magisterium, can we not argue the opposite, namely, that due to their rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture, there is little difference in principle between the Radicals and Rome?

Developments, Novelties, or Good and Necessary Consequences?

A couple Sunday evenings ago a church member asked a question about covenant theology: “How long has this stuff been around, anyway?” This got me thinking about the issue of the development of doctrine (you know, that topic that comes up approximately 14 seconds into any dialogue with a Catholic brother or sister).

In a nutshell, doctrinal development refers to the phenomenon of some teaching—such as the Immaculate Conception or the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of Christ—that is affirmed by the church but doesn’t exactly jump off the pages of Scripture and smack you in the face.

Back in August, William G. Witt posted on his blog some thoughts concerning the development of doctrine, arguing for what he calls “Development 1” and “Development 2”:

Development 1 adds nothing to the original content of faith, but rather brings out its necessary implications…. There is another kind of development, however, which I will call “Development 2.” Development 2 is genuinely new development that is not simply the necessary articulation of what is said explicitly in the Scriptures.

Examples of Development 1 include the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity or, to return to my church member above, Reformed covenant theology. All the evidence to put these doctrines together can be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Bible. Doctrines that would fall into the category of Development 2, according to Witt, would be something like the Immaculate Conception (the teaching that Mary was born without original sin). It is a genuine novelty, Witt says, an “entirely new development.”

Now it certainly appears (to this Protestant at least) that there is a real and perhaps categorical difference between a doctrine like the deity of Christ and something like the dogma of papal infallibility. Once formulated, loads of evidence can be adduced for the former, while the evidence for the latter is rather slim (though not altogether non-existent). Some questions that are worth pondering, then, are (1) How would this model account for the church’s decision in Acts 15 to not insist on Gentile circumcision? (2) Whose job is it to determine whether the evidence for a doctrine is explicit, implicit, or non-existent? (3) What should the Protestant do when a Mormon sees less evidence for the Trinity than the rest of us do? Or if a Catholic sees more evidence than we do for the assumption of Mary?

(And I can’t believe I even have to say this, but No, I’m not asking these questions because, gee whiz, I’ve just never thought about these issues before. Just facilitating a little dialogue, people, that’s what blogs are for.)

Apostolicam Ecclesiam: Tertullian vs. Turretin on the Church's Apostolicity

This will be the last post on the marks of the church, the fourth of which is apostolicity. After this, I will probably wrap things up with some closing remarks and analysis. Representing the Catholic side in this discussion will be Tertullian, writing at the end of the second century (The Prescription of Heretics, Ch. 32), and defending the Reformed position will be seventeenth-century theologian Francis Turretin (Institutes of Elenctis Theology, 18.13).

Here's Tertullian:

"But if there be any (heresies) which are bold enough to plant themselves in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [that first bishop of theirs] shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men, -- a man, moreover, who continued stedfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter. In exactly the same way the other churches likewise exhibit (their several worthies), whom, as having been appointed to their episcopal places by apostles, they regard as transmitters of the apostolic seed. Let the heretics contrive something of the same kind."

And now here is Turretin:

"Falsely do our opponents maintain that the newness of our religion is gathered from the newness of those who profess it, such as Waldo, Wycliffe, Hus, Luther and others. They were not its authors, but only 'heralds and restorers,' who proposed no other doctrine than the prophetic and apostolic. It is one thing to purge an ancient doctrine of its corruption and recall men to it; another to devise a new doctrine not as yet delivered and propose it for belief. The former, not the latter, was done by the Reformers. They gave nothing of their own, but delivered what they had received from Christ. Hence the religion is not to be ascribed to them, but to Christ, who had taught it in his word."

A couple things should be pointed out. First, Tertullian does not ignore doctrine in favor of succession, but goes on and argues that the heretics' doctrine, "after comparison with that of the apostles, will declare, by its own diversity and contrariety, that it had for its author neither an apostle nor an apostolic man...." Secondly, the nature of Turretin's position is interesting because he is not simply arguing that the Reformed view is the most biblical, but that it is also the one that was represented in the early church. The claim, in other words, is quite demonstrable or falsifiable by an appeal to evidence (assuming, of course, that we are able to wade through the historical record with a measure of objectivity, but I digress).

So whose historical claim is right?

Catholicam Ecclesiam: Cyril vs. Turretin on the Church's Catholicity

According to the Nicene Creed, the third mark of the church is its “catholicity” (“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church”). Defending the Catholic position in this post will be Cyril of Jerusalem (Catacheses, No. 18:23; 17:14, c. 347 A.D.), and rebutting that position from the Protestant perspective will be Francis Turretin (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Eighteenth Topic, Thirteenth Question, c. 1685).

First, Cyril of Jerusalem:

“The Church is called Catholic or universal because it has spread throughout the entire world, from one end of the earth to the other. Again, it is called Catholic because it teaches fully and unfailingly all the doctrines which ought to be brought to men’s knowledge, whether concerned with visible or invisible things, with the realities of heaven or the things of earth. Another reason for the name Catholic is that the Church brings under religious obedience all classes of men, rulers and subjects, learned and unlettered. Finally, it deserves the title Catholic because it heals and cures unrestrictedly every type of sin that can be committed in soul or in body, and because it possesses within itself every kind of virtue that can be named, whether exercised in actions or in words or in some kind of spiritual charism.

“And if ever you are sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord’s House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all.”

And Francis Turretin:

“If to be called catholic is a mark of the church, this arises from God; but the Scripture is entirely silent about it. Or it arises from opponents; but they are not our judges. Or it arises from their own people; but what right have they to assume for a mark the name which they ascribe to themselves, since heretics are accustomed to set up in front of themselves specious names? … If the fathers formerly distinguished the orthodox from heretics by the name catholic, they did this… on account of the catholic and orthodox doctrine that they held…. Cyril teaches that ‘the church is called Catholic because it teaches fully and unfailingly all the doctrines which ought to be brought to men’s knowledge.’”

The issue here is not whether a church's catholicity is a matter of doctrine or not (for it surely is). The issue, rather, is whether it is by a church's doctrine alone that such a determination is to be made, or whether other factors, like pedigree and universality, are to be taken into account.

Well...?

Sanctam Ecclesiam: Clement vs. Calvin on the Church’s Holiness

The four marks of the church, according to the Nicene Creed, are its unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity (“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church”). As we continue to take our discussion of Catholicism and Protestantism ad fontes (back to the sources), we turn in this post from the church’s unity to her holiness. Representing the Catholic position will be Clement of Alexandria (Stromateis, c. 210 A.D.), and representing the Protestants will be John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.1.17, 1559).

"There is one true Church, the really ancient Church into which are enrolled those who are righteous [holy] according to Gods ordinance.... In essence, in idea, in origin, in preeminence we say that the ancient Catholic Church is the only Church. The Church brings together [the faithful] by the will of the one God through the one Lord, into the unity of the one faith...."

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Since Clement basically combines all four marks without giving much attention to that of holiness, I will supplement him with the entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"When the Church points to sanctity as one of her notes, it is manifest that what is meant is a sanctity of such a kind as excludes the supposition of any natural origin. The holiness which marks the Church should correspond to the holiness of its Founder, of the Spirit Who dwells within it, of the graces bestowed upon it. A quality such as this may well serve to distinguish the true Church from counterfeits. It is not without reason that the Church of Rome claims to be holy in this sense. Her holiness appears in the doctrine which she teaches, in the worship she offers to God, in the fruits which she brings forth."

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And now Calvin:

"Because they also allege that the church is not without basis called holy, it is fitting to examine in what holiness it excels lest, if we are not willing to admit a church unless it be perfect in every respect, we leave no church at all.… The Lord is daily at work in smoothing out wrinkles and cleansing spots. From this it follows that the church's holiness is not yet complete. The church is holy, then, in the sense that it is daily advancing and is not yet perfect: it makes progress from day to day but has not yet reached its goal of holiness…. And although there are oftentimes few evidences of this sort of sanctification among men, still we must hold that from the creation of the world there was no time when the Lord did not have his church; and even until the consummation of the age, there will be no time when he will not have it. For even though the whole human race has from the very beginning been corrupted and vitiated by Adam's sin, from this polluted mass, as it were, He ever sanctifies certain vessels unto honor."

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In Calvin’s view, it seems, the holiness of the church is seen in the holiness of her members, while Clement’s position is that the church’s holiness is manifested in her doctrine and ancient pedigree.

OK, opine away....

Unam Ecclesiam: Irenaeus vs. Turretin on the Church's Unity

The four marks of the church, according to Catholicism, are found in the Nicene Creed, which says, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” What follows are two statements concerning the first of these marks, one from the second century (representing Catholicism) and the other from the seventeenth century (representing Protestantism).

"For [the Church] is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account are we bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the thing pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? ... Now all these [heretics] are of much later date than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the Churches… since they are blind to the truth, and deviate from the [right] way, they will walk in various roads; and therefore the footsteps of their doctrine are scattered here and there without agreement or connection. But the path of those belonging to the Church circumscribes the whole world, as possessing the sure tradition from the apostles, and gives unto us to see that the faith of all is one and the same…." Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 4; Book 5, Chapter 20

"Among the attributes of the church, the first is unity, which flows from its nature. For since it is a holy society and a mystical body, embracing all the elect united in the bond of the same spirit, faith, and love with each other and with Christ, it must necessarily have a certain unity by which all its members may be mutually joined together…. Here we do not treat of its visible unity and as to its external state… we do not treat of an accidental unity either of place or time or rites or age… but we treat of an essential unity, which remains the same in various places as well as at various times, by which believers worship the same God, recognize the same Savior, have the same faith, are animated with the same spirit, and are members of the same body." Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Eighteenth Topic, Fifth Question, I-III.

Four points have been raised in the comments by Andrew McCallum concerning how we should read the early fathers. First, it is just as erroneous for the Catholic to insist that “If Protestants would just read the fathers they’d become Catholic” as it is for Protestants to insist that “If Catholics would just read the Bible they’d become Protestant.” The fathers must be read with an eye both to their philosophical and cultural milieu and their interpretive framework.

Secondly, we need to address the fact that, to the Protestant, it seems like the fathers are interpreted by Catholics anachronistically from the standpoint of contemporary Catholic dogma. In the light of the Catholic being bound by his Church’s interpretation of the fathers, how can reading them lead to anything but a fait accompli?

Thirdly, we need to discuss what exactly the fathers believed about their own authority. Did Clement or Polycarp believe they were writing with infallible authority? To the Protestant it appears that the Catholic Church’s insistence that the fathers, as interpreted by the Church, are infallible is a classic example of begging the question. Whether or not the fathers expected to be read as infallible is precisely the issue to be proven or disproven, not taken as an a priori.

Lastly, the Catholic must demonstrate that his position is in fact falsifiable. Is it possible that the Catholic claim to authority can turn out to be wrong? And if so, how would we know?

That said, please weigh in on these two representative statements about the church’s unity, keeping in mind these larger interpretive issues.

Clement and Augustine on Apostolic Succession

As I have hinted at, I plan to begin a series on the early church fathers. Since I am no patristics scholar, my approach will be to reproduce a couple of relevant quotations per post, perhaps make a comment or two myself, and then let the real action take place in the comments box. What I'm looking for are arguments for or against the view that (1) The present day Catholic Church faithfully embodies the post-apostolic church, or (2) The Reformers recovered the doctrines and practices of the post-apostolic church which had been lost or obscured during the Middle Ages.

Leading off, then, is Clement of Rome:

"The Apostles received the gospel for us from the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus, the Christ, was sent from God. Thus Christ is from God and the Apostles from Christ. In both instances the orderly procedure depends on God's will. And so the Apostles after receiving their orders and being fully convinced by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and assured by God's Word went out in the confidence of the Holy Spirit to preach the Good News that God's Kingdom was about to come. They preached in country and city and appointed their first converts after testing them by the Spirit to be bishops and deacons of future believers." Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 42, c. 96 AD.

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Secondly we have Augustine of Hippo:

"For in the Catholic Church, not to speak of the purest wisdom... there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house." Against the Epistle of Manichaeus Called Fundamental, Chapter 4, c. 397.

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Off you go, then....