My last post was probably a digression, but nonetheless an interesting one on analogy of being, etc. However I think this post gets more close to the differences between C and P.
P's and C's agree that all authority is apostolic authority, which is granted through Jesus by the Spirit. This merely means that for something to be authoritative, it must be in connection with Jesus' disciples in some way.
I think P's believe that this apostolic authority is limited to the canonical books of Scripture (I'm not sure abt. Epsicopalians, Lutherans, etc.).
C's believe that God arranged it so that there is a living, bodily, apostolic authority that is represented in the Magisterium and in the unwritten customs and traditions that are in the church. Now, the Magisterium only excercises this authority in a definitive, doctrinal way, every once in a while. I think my Catholic friends have told me that this has happened maybe twice in the past 100 years or so? Another of my Catholic friends, mentioned to me that it is important to distinguish between doctrine and disicipline. So, for example disciplines can be changed, such as unmarried clergy. Doctrine cannot be changed, but our understanding of it does develop.
My questions about this situation are:
1. Does this question of authority just come down to a faith commitment rather than intellectual argument?
2. P's claim that the final authority rests with Scripture seems problematic since they must be interpreted. How is there a way around this?
3. What is the relationship of the church community to the authority of Scripture for P's?
4. C's often say that it makes sense that God would arrange for there to be a guarrantee of the continuation of the faith by popes. But isn't that just deciding from a human point of view what would be appropriate for God to do?
5. Someone once told me, there are two ways of looking at it: either you are your own Magisterium (Protestant) or you place yourself under the Magisterium (Catholic). Are these the only two options?
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16 comments:
Nick Zinos! I'm very glad to see your presence made here. I will allow others to comment on your thoughts and mine while I take in what you have written. I hope all is well with your family.
tim
Here's a quicky. I disagree that P's think the issue of authority fundamentally revolves around apostolic authority. I think that P's would importantly distinguish and begin with divine authority. This may seem like a silly redundancy but for me it points to what you may be missing in this whole discussion: What God gives he gives continually and personally--i'm not pushing for some 'i'm my own authority thing'--my point is that C's see God's grace as something infused, something which completes nature instead of renewing it. So in the area of authority they can easily push on from age to age with God's infused grace with the capability of building a body of reps. who's decision IS the Word of God. P's constantly refer back to Scrip. as the sole authority as a way of really trying to articulate the necessity of God's presence and freedom. Yes Scripture must be interpreted but essentially (although most P's may not comprehend this) this is human interpretation and not straight equivocated with God's own self proclaimed Word.
I'm not entirely sure I follow Nick's comments. It's one thing to say that the gospel doesn't exist outside of the church (Irenaeus) and another to say that it doesn't exist outside of a bishop. One of Augustine's points against the Donatists was that ecclesial powers exist not simply because of apostolic succession but because of God's grace.
EZE,
Just a point of clarification. I said this in my original post: "P's and C's agree that all authority is apostolic authority, which is granted through Jesus by the Spirit." I think this is what you were talking about with the divine authority thing. I don't think that is a main difference between C's and P's. Both believe that everything (grace, authority) comes from God. But how God does this might be different? What do you think?
Timmy,
I don't feel like you are getting what I'm driving at at all. I'm not sure how to say it any differently--i'll keep thinking. Catholicdude, I'm not sure you get any of the conversation. I'll leave your post to Balthacalvin. Sorry to be so grumpy...
I'm not quite sure the word "Magesterium" is the best one when dealing with the issue of Protestants because there are the "magesterial reformers" and the "radical reformers."
As a Mennonite by birth, you should know this better than anyone, Tim :)
I suggest you look at fellow-Mennonite Stanley Hauerwas' book "Unleashing Scripture: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America" where he argues that the Scriptures need to be read in communities and not by individuals for the sake of indviduality.
Personally, I kinda like the idea of a witness that was handed down for many reasons, it's just that I'd try to emphasize that it is a communities witness and not just that of some spiritual elite.
Nick,
If I understand you correctly, you are saying that from earliest times, the hallmark of orthodoxy was direct contact with the apostles through sucession. Not only that, but the hallmark of heresy is a teaching whose authority is private/individual interpretation.
But, I question your idea (as did EZE)that an apostolic link that exists exclusively in the bishop. I wish you would explain that a little more, because it sounds to me like the bishop becomes the church in your view that all the authority the church has, is in the bishop.
Can you clarify that for me?
EZE,
Let me try another stab at understanding what you are saying. Are you saying that P's (at their best), have sort of an unmediated relationship to God that only happens because he is willing by sheer grace to do this? Do you feel like C's domesticate and administrate this sheer grace too much?
So in a way you are saying that P's don't put their own private interpretations as authoritative. In fact they keep submitting their ideas to Scripture over and over to avoid setting up human teaching as binding?
Wow, so actually, it is the C's who are putting human interpretation (in the form of Christian tradition and the Pacacy) ahead of Scripture?
Is that accurate in your eyes?
tim
Blorge,
Well, I would want to distinguish ever so subtley between Magisterial (meaning connected with the state) and Magisterium (the office of the Pope and his bishops). I use Magisterium because most Catholics I know use that word to describe the way things work for them.
I have definitely been meaning to read more Hauerwas, although actually he was never Mennonite. He was Methodist and just went Episcopal. He things Mennonites aren't high churchly, liturgically minded enough I think.
I too think that the communal way of reading Scripture is definitely a better solution to biblical interpretation than individual interpretations. But, I have yet to find a satisfying way Protestants can pull this off without splitting into a million denominations. If you could explain how reading a text in a community has authority I would like to hear it, because I am having trouble understanding that.
Aha, thanks for the distinction between the magestrate and the magesterium. I still don't buy that the church should be supported by (and thus beholden to)the state.
As to his denomination, I'd have to argue that he is still more mennonite than anglican in several ways, but that may be due to the large room within Anglican thought (although not as large as within Cs). I use Anglican rather than Episcopalian for several reasons, the least of which is that he dedicated his last book to Archbishop Rowan Williams. (Performing the Faith: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Non-Violence).
I really want to read that Bonhoeffer book. I think it would be really good.
BEWARE:
There are no references to Bonhoeffer after page 67. It's not really about him, but about practicing Christianity and non-violence. The title and dust jacket are a bit misleading. That being said, I found the other chapters interesting as well, especially the his interaction with John Millbank.
I think this conversation has come to a nice climax, for my agenda anyway, in the yods last response to me and Nick Z's post right above this. Yod, at their best I think P's would never want to say they have anything unmediated from God and that is the whole point. God continually gives himself to us freely and wholly, yet not directly. You may say to yourself, "um eze you seem to be supporting Nick Z's point. That's why we hold to apostolic succession and the magisterium," but on the contraire. The point the Catholic Church makes (in a P's opinion) by supporting ideas like the church doesn't exist outside the bishops etc. is not a mediation of God's grace through his apostles but a direct possession of it. In C. thought the bishop etc. is important because he possesses God's grace and becomes the one to distribute it. But God's grace is nothing other than God's giving of his own self, to possess this within one's self is, well...
P's would say that God continually gives himself, but he gives himself through Jesus Christ whom no one can possess, yet can be united with through the Holy Spirit. The mediating is GOD's mediating not the thing being used to mediate. There is nothing innate in a bishop, or bread and wine, or water that unites us to God. What God gives HE continually and always gives in and above these other things. P's speak of mediation because they want to emphasize that God cannot be possessed by humans, C's speak of mediation as a way of establishing the giveness of grace which is not actually mediation but a direct connection to God. When one confusses the mediation of grace the theological view becomes misdirected. Even though one may begin by talking about God's initiative grace and Christ etc. the theological point quickly becomes the bishop or the water...
Your second point though Yod "that P's don't put their own private interpretations as authoritative. In fact they keep submitting their ideas to Scripture over and over to avoid setting up human teaching as binding?" is dead on. That's some solid junk right there!
Finally--and some what of a reiteration here--I think that Nick Z's post just above is the perfect example of what it looks like to emphasize infused righteousness or a possessive grace over a dynamic or relational grace. When the C's say they begin with grace as you continually attempt to point out they mean that God perfects their human nature; its like a top up, he gives the extra needed to fill in the lacking bits and away they go. This reasoning leads directly to thoughts like: "The Church is tied directly to the Apostolic Succession. Christ says to his disciples, "Whoever listens to you, listens to me" - this applies not only to the twelve, but those who take their place after death."
I always thought that the church was tied to Christ, and when one listens he is not hearing my spirit, but the Spirit of Christ. If Nick's post doesn't bother you (no offense Nick I'm sure we'd be friends if we knew each other and either way I'd still have to bust this out) for several reasons then maybe you are on your way to becoming a C. If it does then perhaps you understand me better than you think!
Or maybe Hans Urs is the perfect theological combination of both C. tradition and focus on dynamic grace, and so you need to start talking about the essential theyod issues like: why you don't like the idea of a Pope and the C. conception of sacraments. But then again in both cases I think we are probably going to be back in the same conversation about the nature of grace. But then again again I've been up for about 504 hours straight in the past three weeks and if you really want to stop talking about the nature of grace you can just pretend that I'm losing my mind.
To Nick and Balthacalvin,
First I'd like to say that all of my posts have been directed to what I feel was a highly significant foundational statement in the first sentances of T's original post: "P's and C's agree that all authority is apostolic authority, which is granted through Jesus by the Spirit. This merely means that for something to be authoritative, it must be in connection with Jesus' disciples in some way."
And so I don't think my posts miss Nick's points at all. I may be talking over what he wants to emphasize, but I think what he is saying has tons of latent theologizing. I have attempted to give a theological interpretation of what I consider the nature of authority to boil down to. Yes Nick presented what he calls the "historical" facts, but if you guys think that his rendition of what authority has been/is for the C. Church isn't theologically loaded then I guess my posts will continue to remain goofy. I know I've been pushing hard on one particular point and it might seem irrelevant to what you guys think the nature of authority revolves around, but I feel that I am pushing for what was a significant detail of what the Reformers were all about in relation to this topic. For something to be authoritative it can only ever be so because it is connected to Jesus Christ himself. This is the nature of authority--not just its beginning or guiding principle, but its entire existence.
Wow. You guys have all given me so much to think about. I have to go read some David Hart and Robert Jenson right now, but I'm thinking about all that you have to say. I get the feeling that if we could break this down into smaller pieces, questions, that might help all of us understand things a little better. But, I'm not sure how to do that yet. If you have any ideas let me know, but hopefully I will post something later tonight or tomorrow.
Baltha to the C,
My love runs deep for you. I've already begun drinking the pints now that we'll share this summer--which leads me to a definite shout of "Spite the..."
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