Argue The Forest, Not The Trees

I blogged here that I could no longer confess the doctrine of sola Scriptura, leaving me in a sort of spiritual no-man's-land. That sentiment has not changed since September 1, 2007, but it has not clearly progressed either.

Marian angst (I use this as a term of art; let me know if you're not sure what I mean) is a recurring problem. At times it feels critically acute, and at other times the sensation is minimal. I believe that it is probably a proxy feeling for overall anxiety over subscribing to a belief that the (i.e., "a", or "one") Church holds infallible interpretive authority over Divine Revelation. Therefore, and because of the formality of its decrees, this feeling is most acute vis-à-vis the Catholic Church, even where the Orthodox Churches may articulate Marian doctrines with stronger emotive language.

So while I have toed the line of entering the Catholic Church for some time, this recurring angst makes me think I need to step back and try as well as possible to objectively recapitulate and reconsider what I believe to be the constitution of Christ's Church. While I realize that I am incapable of objectively viewing the church, I'd like to try all the same. By “objective”, I will mean “expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations” (Merriam-Webster).

I think that I tried something similar here, where I asked five questions related to authority that I hoped were fair and not loaded to lead to a certain conclusion. Here I will try to describe the analytical steps I think I need to pursue, without using the form of question and answer. There’s an old law school trick to writing I’ll use: Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion. I’ll try that here.

To be clear, I don’t mean to discuss issues like whether the Catholics are wrong for 'violating' the “call no man father” verse, or the Orthodox are wrong because they had a Sultan select their hierarch, or the Protestants are wrong for excluding the apocrypha/deuterocanon. My experience is that for every such argument, there is some reply, and for most, there is an able reply. I do mean to discuss the overall analytical framework I think I need to use when considering ecumenicism, and how those facts and arguments should fit within the framework.

ISSUE:

I'd like to consider whether the claims by any one of the major branches of Christianity are objectively superior to the others (I realize this is an idealist approach).

First, I assume that anyone engaged in this discussion, like me, believes and so assumes that Christ is True and not false. From there I assume that each candidate Church model sees at its core a mission to preserve and transmit the Gospel-Truth (i.e., Logos or Word). Other functions of the Church (e.g., sacramental, communal) flow from the substance of the Gospel-Truth that the Church has preserved and transmitted. In this way, the candidates, indeed all of Christianity, aims to bear Witness to the world of the Messiah’s coming. Church, in my expression “candidate Church model” simply means God's people, however additionally defined by the particular candidates (in other words, I don’t mean to load that expression with lots of biased meaning).

So assuming that Christ is True, and that the candidates, as witnesses, all preserve and transmit His Truth, the discussion instantly turns to authority. By what authority does a candidate articulate and develop the Gospel-Truth? Disputes of authority have also been the catalysts of all schism within Christianity, so it’s a natural focal point.

A recent discussion helped me to see three major authority views or camps within Christianity: Papalism, Conciliarism and Biblicism. Each understands the Church's place in transmitting and safeguarding the Logos differently, and each has a different conclusion as to what the primary and subordinate principles of the Logos are. I suppose I could add "Individualist" to these three, which would look approximately like this, "whatever I understand to be true about Jesus from my feelings and from whatever I accept to be true from this book the Bible." I'm not going to add that though.

The nature and essence of the Logos is the fundamental question for the Church; to understand the nature and essence one must understand the Church, to understand the Church, one must see the Church as either Papalist, Conciliarist, or Biblicist (that is, one must have a view of authority). So my issue becomes which of these three camps has the objectively superior claim as preservationist, propagator, and articulator of the Logos.

The Biblicist believes that all authority for the Church is contained within the Bible. The Logos was exclusively preserved within its written contents, and it has been propagated through the ages. In our culture, while Biblicist groups are diverse in outward appearance, they share this view of authority – the Logos is co-extensive with the contents of the Protestant Bible. The Baptists and those that describe themselves as "fundamentalist", many branches of Reformed, Lutheran and other traditional denominations that call themselves "Evangelical", and perhaps Charismatic groups would fall within this camp.

The Conciliarist believes that authority for the Church is contained within ecclesial councils. The Logos has been preserved and propagated within the Bible and articulated by authoritative councils. I have learned of a Protestant group that considers itself conciliarist, but the traditional Anglicans and the Orthodox are also in this camp. They would add that the Logos is preserved and propagated within the Church proper, the Bible representing only a part of this Gospel-Truth. [Note: in an attempt to remain objective, I accept the candidates’ claims as true, so I accept the traditional Anglican position that they are not protestant.]

I am only newly aware of the protestant conciliarist position, known as the "magisterial protestant". This camp believes that the councils of the church, while not the source of all authority, still have real authority. These reformers perceive the state, at least classically, as playing some role in empowering these authorities and enforcing their authority. These reformers seek to turn back to the fundamental roots of the Reformation, and seek to subscribe to its traditional confessions, depending on where one lives (see here for some subscribers to this position). I'm still learning about this view, so I should not try to explain it further. But suffice it to say that the Bible is not the source of all authority to the magisterial protestant conciliarist, but is the source of ultimate authority. Only the Bible is infallible, and all articulation of the Logos will be measured by the authorities (and not the laity) against the Bible.

The Orthodox and the traditional Anglicans are within the Conciliarist camp, and have an older claim to its essence. They are both distinct from the magisterial protestants by their subscription to Apostolic Succession, that is, the belief that their Bishops have ties by succession of ordination back to the Apostles. [Note, again, I accept the traditional Anglican position as true for these purposes.] The authority of the Church and its evangelization and articulation of the Logos subsist within the Church itself. I have only recently begun making myself smart on the Anglo-Catholic view that their ties to the Apostles extend through the days of Henry VIII, so I will stop here (see here for a subscriber to this position). I don't mean to minimize distinctions between traditional Anglicans and the Orthodox (and that would be an absurd undertaking), but only leave it hear because if I tried to go on, I might paint the traditional Anglican position in an unfair light.

Finally, the Papalists (and, as I've learned, this is not the same as the derogatory use of the term "Papist"), who are not just Latin Rite (Roman) Catholics, but also their Eastern rites, believe that the Pope is not only first in honor among Bishops in council, but has actual authority over the other Bishops. Under this view too, authority exists within the Church, but binding dogmatic articulations of the Logos can flow from councils and the Pope alike.

RULE:

By what standard can I objectively judge which candidate is the right witness to and articulation of the Gospel-Truth in the 21st century? I must use reason and faith, which includes prayer, to do so. The Scriptures cannot be an independent standard by which to reach the right conclusion because 1) not all 'candidate' churches believe in the same canon of Scripture, and 2) their interpretation or articulation is part of the very essence of this dispute (i.e., what is the "Truth" handed down through the ages from Christ, assuming He is True). The Scriptures could be used, however, as a measure of the internal integrity of each candidate's claims. E.g., if a book identified by Church X as canonical and infallible says "Blessed are the poor", and that candidate church teaches, "Blessed are the Healthy and Wealthy", we find evidence that Church X is not teaching the Truth of Christ. But ultimately this would only be evidence that must be judged by reason because of competing interpretations and hermeneutic methods. I guess I have no better rule, then, than reason (which gauges the internal integrity of each belief system) informed by faith (which relies on prayer).

ANALYSIS:

I have (personally) ruled out the Biblicist position, as I stated in my post rejecting the validity of the Biblicist view of sola Scriptura cited above. The position lacks internal integrity, as it commands that all authority flows from the Bible alone, yet the Bible does not articulate a Bible alone position, nor is it self-identifying, in terms of its canon. Indeed, a multitude of rationales have been used to justify the existing Protestant canon. I withhold personal judgment on whether the magisterial protestant means something different by “sola Scriptura” than does the Biblicist, and whether his view of authority would allow the creation of canon. I believe that the majority view in my denomination (the PCA) is Biblicist, though there seems to be strong (and perhaps growing) resistance to this position (that is, there are factions of magisterial reformers who recognize the need for other authority, albeit fallible).

I started with the Biblicist position because it could be easily removed from my table. This is my no-man’s land: Church ≠ Biblicism, therefore Church = Conciliarism or Papalism. From here we come to real contention at every turn. I analyze the remaining candidates by first asking whether the Church’s own authority is fallible or infallible. The infallible camp consists of the Orthodox and Catholics, and the fallible camp consists of traditional Anglicans and magisterial Protestants.

I am surprised to find that, so long after I started my meager efforts at discerning the proper constitution of Christ’s Church, I am not certain that it has to be infallible. One of the earliest ‘shoes to drop’ for me was coming to see that a fallible church fallibly identifying a canon of scripture and a doctrine about its infallibility had serious problems of logic. And yet I read the earnestness of certain members of these camps, and can’t help but think that I might just be missing a deeper truth to their views. I still hold out some shred of hope, that the Holy Spirit could work within and preserve even a fallible Church. After all, early particular churches fell into grave error (e.g., the Church at Corinth), as did the Apostle Peter (as Protestants are fond of observing).

Taking a Newman-like view of doctrinal development may be fruitful in this context. The true principles of the fallible-camp candidates should come to light over time, as their theorems are put to practice and bear (or fail to bear) fruit. This method of thinking speaks somewhat against the magisterial protestant, who holds a model of church in his head, but can point to its existence nowhere (and its failure everywhere). The Anglican too is plagued by failures from within his camp.

But I need to consider and pray more about this before ruling out the fallible camp. I still don’t understand how the magisterial protestant differs from the Biblicist in essence, and I have only recently come to think I should give the traditional Anglican claim to Apostolic Succession more consideration. Perhaps their take that there was real, but fallible authority makes more sense than I give it credit. They would say that the authorities are the only ones who should correct error, not the laity (although in the magisterial protestant view, if the authorities become entirely corrupt, the faithful laity are free to, indeed called to assume the reigns and Reform).

On the infallible side of the house, the analysis necessary to make a rational conclusion between the claims of the Orthodox and the Catholics is a real head-splitter. I see two main ways to resolve this quest.

First, one could accede to the hemisphere in which God has them. If you’re in the West, just stay with the Western Church. However, this makes relative the fundamental differences that exist between the candidates’ view of authority, and the doctrinal views that have flowed therefrom over the last millennium plus. In other words, you would be saying that it doesn’t really matter to God that the filioque was added; what matters is that we participate with the representation of the Church that is native to our own land. Further, the geographical East-West distinction may be more notional than real. The Papalist camp does have a real presence (pardon the pun) in the East, and the Orthodox churches in the states are working hard to move beyond being mere immigrant churches, such that their presence as Western churches is real too (see this excellent post discussing how Orthodoxy in America is becoming “native”). So, while I don’t find a homesteading view all that compelling, I respect it, and I hear its advocacy often. The six-of-one-half-dozen-of-the-other crowd can point to impressive similarities between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, but similarity is only plain when seen relative to the Protestantism.

Second, one can immerse one’s self in history. This effort overwhelms me. I have read and read and read the primary sources (the Eastern and Western Fathers) as well as secondary sources (books on church history, particularly describing both ‘halves’ of the Church). I feel like I only barely understand what happened after the early persecution ended, and what happened after the first millennia rolled into the second. I suppose that coupled with prayer and faith, applying reason to a deep study of history could give one the knowledge of which infallible-camp Church has the claim of Truth in its evangelization and articulation of the Logos. The temptation to resolve this difficult and time-consuming method of analysis by leaning on the homesteading view should be carefully avoided.

The fundamental dispute between Orthodoxy and Catholicism is about authority, so if I rule out fallible conciliar churches, I would be forced to decide between the infallilble conciliar model for church, and the infallibile papal model. The factual arguments in favor of each are too much for me to get into here, but I will note that arguments of Biblical and Patristic support for Papalism are persuasive, as are arguments about the meaning of the Council of Jerusalem recorded in Acts 15 and early church conciliar practice.

Finally, reason needs to turn its eyes to the doctrines of these churches. If Catholic or Orthodox Marian dogmas and doctrines, for example, conflict with one’s use of reason, informed by faith, it could provide an independent basis for looking elsewhere. This has been the premise behind my view that if all logic councils against a sola Scriptura view, but I believe that all alternative groups practice idolatry (let’s say), I must have been mistaken about sola Scriptura.

CONCLUSION:

While my attempt at objectively viewing the church has not yielded any clear winners (and if it did, I’d probably be further away from objectivity than I hope), it has taught me something. Those deeply entrenched and self-assured of the rightness of their own position ought to be well equipped to explain themselves. We should realize that each of our trench-warfare debate points (like whether we can call any man father, whether praying to saints is right or wrong, etc.) fits in a larger debate about what the Church is and is meant to be. For the sake of unity, we must try to see the forest through the trees.

[This is the best I can do with the time I have, and I realize that this is a paltry effort. I am going to keep this document at least for my own personal reference, and will update and correct my use of terms, analysis and conclusions as problems are pointed out to me. So I would appreciate constructive input if for no other reason than my own benefit.]