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.

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?

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.)

Would a Nicene Creed With Any Other Copyright Date Smell As Orthodox?

The "God-Fearin' Fiddler" has asked a series of provocative questions over at his blog, Army of Martyrs. The topic is the development of doctrine, and the Council of Nicaea's doctrine of the Trinity is being used as paradigmatic of the phenomenon as a whole.

The first point The Fiddler makes concerns the doctrine of the Trinity itself, and why we believe it. We do not believe it, he argues, because it is clearly taught in Scripture or because the post-apostolic fathers held to it uniformly (for it isn't, and they didn't). We believe it because the church lent to it her living and authoritative voice.

The Fiddler goes on to ask whether we would still believe in the Trinity if the Council of Nicaea had not been called until a few hundred years after it actually was convened. What about a thousand years later?

Building on point #2, the question arises: If the church can legitimately and authoritatively formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in 325, why can't it, with equal legitimacy and authority, formulate the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854? If there is an historical point after which all conciliar decrees become non-binding, when is it, and who determines it?

The Fiddler quotes N.T. Wright to the effect that if the doctrine of the Trinity hadn't developed organically, the church would have had to invent it in order to combat the Arian heresy. If that is the case, who's to say that the same rationale couldn't have been in play in order for the church to combat the errors of Protestantism at Trent?

Lastly, we are told that we do not have the right nor the luxury of picking and choosing with which ecumenical councils, and with which decrees of those councils, we choose to agree and submit ourselves. We either respect tradition or we do not, meaning that if some of the ecumenical councils are authoritative then they all are, and if one of them isn't, then none of them are.

Now the Reformed response to all this is to insist that we adhere and submit to the ecumenical councils insofar as their decrees are in accord with Scripture (the latter of which is ultimately authoritative, while the former are only penultimately so). But whose interpretation of Scripture? And if we believe them because they're biblical, then why not just read the Bible and save ourselves the hassle?

In short, must Nicaea bow down before me?