Holy Orders and the Sacrificial Priesthood

Tim Troutman has just published an article at Called To Communion. The article is titled "Holy Orders and the Sacrificial Priesthood." He writes:

At the heart of the separation of Catholics and Protestants lies a disagreement about the ecclesial hierarchy. Who are the rightful shepherds of Christ’s flock? This article will examine the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the sacrificial priesthood, and in doing so, will lay the foundation for our subsequent discussion on the critical issue of apostolic succession. We will argue for the following four claims. The hierarchical difference between the clergy and the laity was ordained by God and is supported by the Biblical data. The distinction between presbyters and bishops existed from apostolic times and was intended by Christ. Christian ministers are ordained into a visible priesthood that is distinct from the general priesthood of all believers. Finally, Holy Orders is a sacrament.

(continue reading)

Apostolicity and the Ecumenical Challenge

"The Sacrament of Ordination"
Nicolas Poussin (1636-40)
(click on the painting for a larger image)

Today is the seventh day of the week of prayer for Christian unity. It is also the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, who brought 72,000 Calvinists back into the Catholic Church. Recently I came across Michael Spencer's post titled "Spiritual Depression and the Search for the One True Church", and it prompted the following reflection.

The greatest challenge to the goal of reconciling Protestants and Catholics in full unity is not coming to an agreement regarding whether charity is merely coexistent with justifying faith (Turretin) or whether charity is that which makes faith to be living faith, and thus to be justifying faith (Trent). (See here.) I suspect that only a very small percentage of contemporary Christians has even thought about that question. Many Protestants, I suppose, if they didn't know the source, probably would be open if not sympathetic to Pope Benedict's recent talk on justification. In my opinion the greatest challenge for reuniting Protestants and Catholics has to do, rather, with reconciling two very different ecclesial paradigms that differ on the question of whether or not Christ founded His Church with a perpetual hierarchy in unbroken succession from the Apostles.

In the ecclesial paradigm of contemporary Evangelicalism, the Church Christ founded is something spiritual, and faith in Christ is a sufficient condition for full membership in Christ's Church. Of course Christians are called not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together (Hebrews 10:25), and so some local organized congregation or regional organization (i.e. denomination) is practically useful if not necessary. But these are all merely man-made organizations. That is why, in the Evangelical mind, it is fine to initiate and form entirely *autonomous* congregations of all different sorts and styles, even in the same town. The Church is the invisible spiritual entity to which true believers are invisibly joined by the Holy Spirit, regardless of any organizational or institutional affiliation. We can see this ecclesial paradigm in the consumeristic way evangelicals determine which congregation or denomination to join, and in the way they decide for themselves which doctrines are essential and which are non-essential.

We can see this paradigm implicit in the common notion that it is more important to join an imperfect denomination than to continue searching for a 'perfect church'. The notion of finding "the Church that Christ founded" is typically not even on the conceptual radar, precisely because the Evangelical ecclesial paradigm does not recognize that Christ established and endowed His Church with a perpetual hierarchy of leadership in succession from the Apostles. But, it was to this perpetual hierarchy that the Holy Spirit, speaking through the inspired author of Hebrews, commanded us to submit and obey (Heb 13:17) -- not to those whom we have accumulated to ourselves who teach according to our own interpretation of Scripture (2 Tim 4:3).

When the Apostle Matthew records Jesus saying to Peter in Matt 16:18, "upon this rock I will build My Church", and then saying, in Matt 18:17, "tell it to the Church", and "listen to the Church", the most natural way of understanding these passages is that the term 'ekklesia' ('Church') is being used in the same way in all three places. And it is clear in the Matthew 18 passages that 'ekklesia' there refers to the visible Church, not a merely spiritual entity. That implies that Matt 16:18 is also referring to the visible Church. This is the one, holy, catholic (i.e universal) and apostolic (i.e. hierarchically organized in succession from the Apostles) Church.

When we look at the transition in the early Church from Apostolic to post-Apostolic leadership in the first century, we find a very different ecclesial paradigm from that of contemporary Evangelicalism. We see apostolicity understood as an apostolic authorization to hold ecclesial authority, to speak and teach in Christ's name, and with His authorization. Ecclesial authority could not come from non-authority; it could come only from those having authority from the Apostles.

This conception of ecclesial authority carries with it a very different ecclesiology, because to be a member in full communion with the Church thus requires being in full communion with this perpetual hierarchy. To be in full communion with Christ's Church, it is not enough simply to believe in Christ and love Christ. I discussed apostolicity in more detail here and here. Only in rediscovering what apostolicity meant in the early Church as taught in the fathers can Evangelicals and Catholics come to share the same ecclesial paradigm by which we can be truly united.

The early Reformers had a more accurate understanding of the visibility of the Church than do contemporary Evangelicals. Consider the following quotation from Keith Mathison (a Protestant):

Unlike modern Evangelicalism, the classical Protestant Reformers held to a high view of the Church. When the Reformers confessed extra ecclesiam nulla salus, which means "there is no salvation outside the Church," they were not referring to the invisible Church of all the elect. Such a statement would be tantamount to saying that outside of salvation there is no salvation. It would be a truism. The Reformers were referring to the visible Church… The Church is the pillar and ground, the interpreter, teacher, and proclaimer of God’s Word… The Church has authority because Christ gave the Church authority. The Christian who rejects the authority of the Church rejects the authority of the One who sent her (Luke 10:16). (Keith A. Mathison, The Shape of Sola Scriptura, pp. 268, 269.)(H/T: David Waltz)

Or consider what Scott Clark (a Protestant professor at Westminster Seminary in California) says about connectionalism in his ecclesiology article. There he writes, "It is often assumed in the American Church that the New Testament Churches were independent of one another and autonomous, that is, subject to no one's authority but their own. In fact this is less a New Covenant picture than an amalgam of the historic Anabaptist view of the Church with traditional American self reliance." Clark's article implies that the visible catholic Church that Christ founded consists of local congregations *networked* together and subordinate to the decisions of general assemblies such as in Acts 15.

It is to that visible catholic Church that the promises of Christ to the Church refer. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the visible catholic Church (Matt 16:18). Christ will be with the visible catholic Church to the end of the age (Matt 28:20). The Holy Spirit will guide the visible catholic Church into all truth (John 16:13). Whatever the visible catholic Church binds on earth will be bound in heaven (Matt 16:19, 18:19). The visible catholic Church is the pillar and ground of truth (1 Tim 3:15). These promises would be superfluous and unhelpful if intended only for the set of all the elect.

So when asked "Which is the visible catholic Church that Christ founded?", we should at least be able to refer to the network of congregations constituting the visible catholic Church. If we're left scratching our heads, then there are only three possibilities: either Christ's promises didn't apply to the visible catholic Church (and the visible catholic Church simply faded out of existence at some point in history), or Christ didn't found a visible catholic Church, or it is *we* who have lost sight of the visible catholic Church. In Evangelicalism, there is no such thing (conceptually) as a visible catholic Church. In confessional Protestantism there is at least a familiarity with the concept of the visible catholic Church, but the question "Which is the visible catholic Church that Christ founded?" nevertheless leads to the scratching of heads. Few are willing to say that it is their own denomination.

The offense that some Protestants took to Responsa ad quaestiones in July of 2007 is due precisely to their unfamiliarity with what it means that Christ founded one, visible catholic Church. The visibility of the Church is entailed by what the Church has believed and taught from the beginning about apostolicity as ecclesial authority derived in succession from the Apostles through the laying on of hands by those having that authority. (Reducing apostolicity to formal agreement with the Apostles' doctrine therefore vitiates the grounds for ecclesial visibility.) It should be no surprise that if we want to reunite all Christians, we have to be united together in Christ's Church. And further it should be no surprise that if we are going to find and be united in Christ's Church, we have to dig deeply into her four marks as repeated in the Creed: Credo in ... unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.

St. Francis de Sales, focusing on apostolicity, wrote the following to the Protestants of Geneva:

"First, then, your ministers had not the conditions required for the position which they sought to maintain, and the enterprise which they undertook. ... The office they claimed was that of ambassadors of Jesus Christ our Lord; the affair they undertook was to declare a formal divorce between Our Lord and the ancient Church his Spouse; to arrange and conclude by words of present consent, as lawful procurators, a second and new marriage with this young madam, of better grace, said they, and more seemly than the other. ... To be legates and ambassadors they should have been sent, they should have had letters of credit from him whom they boasted of being sent by. ... Tell me, what business had you to hear them and believe them without having any assurance of their commission and of the approval of Our Lord, whose legates they called themselves? In a word, you have no justification for having quitted that ancient Church in which you were baptized, on the faith of preachers who had no legitimate mission from the Master.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us, that we would all be one in the visible catholic Church that Christ founded.

Rick Phillips on Apostolic Succession

Rick Phillips

Last year I responded here to Rick Phillips' article "Beckwith, Trueman and the Holy Spirit". This past April, Rick wrote "An Apostolic Church". That article opens with a discussion of apostolic succession. Rick writes:

Apostolic Succession. When the qualifications of an apostle are considered, it is readily apparent that the idea of "apostolic succession" is a contradiction in terms. According to Acts 1:21, an apostle must have been in the company of Christ and the disciples during the years of his ministry on earth (Paul being an exception to this), an eye-witness to the resurrection, and a receive a specific, public calling to the office in the Church. it is impossible for anyone to meet these qualifications today. Moreover, when we consider that the redemptive-historic function of the apostles was to lay the foundation for the building of the church (see #3 below and Eph. 2:20), we also see the uniqueness of the office. I claim no expertise in building construction, but friends of mine who do assure me that only one foundation is laid. Afterwards one builds on the foundation already laid, which removes the function of the apostolate after the foundation-laying age.

What is striking to me here is the very first line. Rick seemingly attempts to refute the doctrine of apostolic succession by claiming that it is self-contradictory, since Apostles had to be witnesses of Christ's life and ministry. But the Catholic doctrine concerning apostolic succession does not mean that the episcopal successors of the Apostles are themselves Apostles. The Catholic doctrine concerning apostolic succession is that the Apostles handed on their authority and the stewardship of their teaching to their successors (i.e. the bishops) through the laying on of their hands, and that this handing on of the Apostles' authority and teaching stewardship was commanded by the Apostles to be a permanent practice in the Church, from each generation of bishops to the next. It is these bishops who have the authority to tell us what apostolic succession is, and how the Apostles passed on their teaching and authority. We do not have to choose between the following two options: either the Apostles ordained Apostles as successors, or the Apostles did not pass on their ecclesial authority to the bishops whom they ordained. That's a false dilemma. Of course it is true, as Rick notes, that the office of Apostle was unique, in just the way he says. But that doesn't entail that the bishops whom the Apostles ordained did not receive the ecclesial authority of the Apostles, or that there is no apostolic succession in that sense. The Church has always believed in apostolic succession, from the first century. That is what is meant by the term 'apostolic' in the line of the Creed: "I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church". I have discussed apostolic succession in more detail here, here, and here.

Pope Benedict on The Gift of 'Communion'

The Octave of Church Unity begins tomorrow (January 18). (Help spread the word!) With preparation for the Octave in mind, I wish to reflect on "Communion as a key to Church Unity". On March 29, 2006, Pope Benedict gave an address titled: "The Gift of 'Communion'". In it, he helps us understand the nature of the gospel, and how it relates to the unity of the Church.

The summary article says this:

The Bishop of Rome dedicated much of his [talk] to explain that "communion" consists in participation in the life of the Trinitarian God, "which must unite disciples among themselves." This life of communion with God and among ourselves is the very object of the proclamation of the Gospel, the object of conversion to Christianity," noted the Holy Father.

For most of my life, I thought of the gospel almost strictly in propositional terms, that is, as some set or other of propositions. There were Evangelical versions like the Four Spiritual Laws, or like the ones the televangelists would sometimes summarize at the end of their programs. There were more sophisticated Calvinistic versions you could learn in Evangelism Explosion workshops where you could practice your summary and delivery of the gospel. What I did not understand is that the gospel that the Church offers to the world is participation in the communal Life and Love of the Trinity, descended from heaven in the incarnate Christ, and received by us through His Mystical Body, the Church. It is precisely for this reason that the gospel cannot be reduced to a set of propositions. The communal Life and Love shared between the three Persons of the Trinity is not a set of propositions. Nor is Christ Himself. Nor is His Church. Because the gospel is Christ Himself (Who cannot be separated from the eternal communal Life and Love He shares directly with the Father and the Spirit), and because Christ became incarnate, therefore the gospel must be incarnate. To treat the gospel as a mere set of propositions to be believed is thus to gnosticize (i.e. de-materialize) the gospel, and in that performative manner to deny the incarnation.

But what is the incarnate gospel? It is "communio", that Life and Love of the Trinitarian communion of Persons, become incarnate in the Person of Christ, and still incarnate in His Mystical Body, the Church. The Church is, through its union with the incarnate Christ, the incarnation of the Communion and Life of the Trinity. The communio in which we participate and which we share with other baptized believers is a divine Communion. That entails that it was not created, but is eternal. The Life of the Church is uncreated, for it is the Life of the Trinity. Of course the human persons participating in the Church's Communion were created. But the Communion in which we participate with fellow believers is itself eternal, because it is the eternal Communion of the Trinity, come down from heaven in the Word made flesh, and then communicated to us through the Spirit working through the sacraments of the Church. So although our entrance into eternal Life has a beginning, when we were incorporated into the Body of Christ at our baptism, our eternal Life itself has no beginning. We bring persons to the gospel by bringing them into that divine Communion and that Life into which we ourselves have been reborn through baptism. The love we have for each other, and the life we share together, is a real participation, through our union with Christ in His Mystical Body the Church, in that eternal Love and Life which is the communio of the Trinity. This is the "life, had more abundantly" our Lord Jesus talked about (St. John 10:10), and that He came to give us. When we share the Eucharist, Love enters us, and we enter Love. The Life we enjoy together is that very Love shared between us. In this way, our communio with each other in the Church is Life in the Eucharist.

What does this have to do with the unity of the Church? The Love in which we participate is a communal oneness of divine Persons. We see this oneness reflected in the love between a lover and his beloved. A true lover seeks the deepest, most intimate possible union with the beloved. In a seeming paradox, he desires to be one in being with the beloved, but at the same time he also wishes to deepen the community they share between them. And yet community requires plurality of some sort. For this reason, his love is (naturally) insatiable, for his desires are in tension with each other, given his ontological relation to his beloved as a distinct being. But what the [merely] human lover desires, the Persons of the Trinity have with each other. They are one in being, and yet they are distinct in personhood. Here the Lover and Beloved are truly one in being, and for that very reason have perfect community. The Trintarian communio in which we participate is not content with anything less than ontological unity. "A body you have prepared for Me" (Hebrews 10:5) refers not only to the incarnation, in which the Son [ontologically] became man [without ceasing to be God], but also to the marriage supper of the Lamb, the ontological union of Christ and His Bride, wherein, in a reflection of and participation of the Trinitarian communio, genuine ontological unity is not incompatible with plurality.

Those Christians who are content with the present divisions among us have not understood how intense and perfect is this Love into which we communally have been embraced. It is the Love of a Bridegroom that relentlessly seeks perfect unity with the Beloved, not just as individuals, but as a community. It is for the sake of love that we are to settle for nothing less than perfect unity with one another: unity in doctrine, unity in worship, and unity in government. St. Paul writes, "Now I exhort you brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and there be no divisions among you, but you [plural] be made complete (i.e. perfect) in the same mind and in the same judgment." (1 Corinthians 1:10) The danger in claiming that it is Christ who divides His Church into factions is that such a claim serves to excuse the evil of our present disunity, and make such evil appear acceptable, by failing to distinguish between Christ's capacity to bring good out of evil human acts on the one hand, and Christ Himself doing evil, in mutilating His Bride by dividing her into pieces. Even the sons of Israel were appalled when the [less than wholly virtuous] Levite cut the corpse of his concubine into twelve pieces. (Judges 19:29-30) How much more should we not speak evil of Christ in attributing to Him (rather than to our own sinful hearts) the divisions that separate us from one another?

Another implication of communio for Church unity has to do with the distinction between communio and congregatio. David Schindler discusses this distinction briefly here. Schindler says:

The notion of the Church as "communio" thus contrasts with the notion of the Church as "congregatio." While "communio" emphasizes the nature of the Church as a gift from God, established "from above," "congregatio" indicates a community that comes to be "from below," by virtue of the decision of the individual wills of the community, in the manner of a democratic body. ... The communion of persons that makes up the Church is an icon of the divine Trinitarian communion of Persons. The life of the Church is drawn intrinsically from the life of God, in and through Christ and the promise of his abiding, vivifying presence in the Church. The Church springs from the bosom of the Trinity, from the life of divine love, revealed in and through Christ by means of the loving obedience of Mary's fiat.

The sacramental nature of the gospel as a participation in the divine Life of the Trinity through the incarnate Christ is what makes congregatio the ecclesial equivalent of the Tower of Babel. Congregatio is defined by bottom-up (democratically grounded) authority, which is the only alternative to sacramental magisterial authority. Congregatio thus treats the gospel as something formal (i.e. de-materialized), so that the Church can be reproduced by anybody anywhere, so long as one knows the message. Treating the gospel as something formal is what necessarily makes congregatio a kind of gnosticism, because necessarily we relate to form by way of knowing. And knowledge is the root meaning of the word 'gnosticism', which came to mean (in the first two centuries after Christ), most simply, "salvation by knowledge".

Communio, by contrast, is a handing on of the communal Life of the Trinity made incarnate in Christ. That is why communio is necessarily sacramental, because it is incarnate. Just as the flame of a candle is reproduced in other candles only by physical continuity, so likewise the Life of the incarnate Christ in the Church is spread sacramentally, through the handing on of that incarnate Life from the Apostles, to the bishops whom by the laying on of their hands they ordained to succeed them, and then to those whom they ordained, down to the present day. That is why Church unity depends on valid sacramental authority, because it is not just any life that we share; it is the one Life that was given to us in the incarnate Christ. Thus because congregatio lacks valid ordination (i.e. lacks sacramental magisterial authority), there is no ground for believing that those in congregatio are participating in the Life of the incarnate Christ. St. Paul's question, "How shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:15) makes no sense to the congregatio. The Apostles were not obsessed with control. Rather, they understood that preaching [keruxwsin] the gospel was more than delivering a message; it was handing on sacramentally the very Life of Christ, which no one can give who has not first received. And ordination is precisely the reception of the power to hand on sacramentally the Life of Christ. For these reasons, understanding the gospel in terms of communio helps us understand how sacramental magisterial authority is essential not only for the Life of the Church but also for the unity of the Church.

Christ Jesus, please bring all Christians into the unity which You share with the Father and the Son. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Archbishop Burke: Unity, Holiness and Apostolicity

Today at the noon Mass at the Saint Louis Cathedral Basilica I was sitting almost directly under the elevated lectern where Archbishop Burke gave the homily for the Feast of All Souls. (All the concelebrating priests were sitting where I usually sit.)

Listening to him brought to mind the way in which both Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Burke make true unity with Protestants more possible. According to some Protestants, ecclesiastical discipline is a mark of the Church. Where discipline is lacking, they claim, the Church is not present. There is truth to that. For Catholics, discipline is included in this line from the Creed: "We believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church". Without at least the willingness to discipline, how could it be said that the Church is holy? A Protestant friend of mine not too long ago asked me about holiness as a mark. Where is holiness in the Catholic Church, he asked. When we see clear cases of wickedness, and discipline seems to be lacking, how can we say that the Catholic Church is the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church"? I had similar thoughts both before becoming Catholic, and, even after.

But I have discovered that there is holiness in the Catholic Church. It tends not to make headlines, while cases of egregious depravity surely do. In fact, holy people tend either to annoy the media (imagine how the contemporary press would cover John the Baptist), or be entirely ignored by the media. Holy people do not seek media attention; they prefer secluded places for prayer and humble service. And so from the outside they are mostly invisible. From the inside, they are all over the place. And in some places the concentration of holiness is astounding. Last year, for example, I visited a convent in Nashville and was deeply affected by the obvious holiness of the sisters there. Last weekend I spent two days in the company of a nun-in-the-making. In her presence the verse that kept coming to my mind was John 1:47, "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." In talking with her I was talking to an adult with a graduate level education but who had the innocence and goodness and purity of a little child. Every Monday an elderly sister comes to RCIA. I am not sure I have ever met a more Christ-like person in my life. Her every thought is for others, even though she is probably at least in her eighties, if not older. Kindness pours out of her. Her eyes gleam with joy and gratitude. When I watch her, I think, "That's what I want to be like when I reach that age." Last night I was talking with my wife about people we know who could become saints. The first person she suggested was Archbishop Burke. I agree.

I'm not sure the secular media has yet said much positive about Archbishop Burke. But he is not seeking their praise anyway; he is seeking to please the Lord. He has recently been in the news for writing this article, which provoked responses like this from Ed Peters and this from the Catholic News Agency and "Bishop Would Deny Communion to Giuliani" from the AP. To Protestants who take their faith seriously, Archbishop Burke is someone they can respect for his principled position with respect to the Church's responsibility to safeguard the holiness of the Eucharist. Archbishop Burke's orthodoxy makes 'cafeteria Catholics' uneasy, but in a certain way it challenges biblically-minded Protestants in the St. Louis archdiocese to justify remaining in a state of protest. Abortion? Check. Human embryonic stem cell research? Check. Human cloning? Check. Same-sex 'marriage'? Check. Liturgical propriety? Check. Personal holiness? Check. Love for Christ? Check. Love for Scripture? Check. Willing to discipline? Check. Humble? Check. For these reasons a Biblically-minded Protestant layman or pastor shares much common ground with Archbishop Burke, and can find very much to respect in Archbishop Burke. A person of his character and disposition and principle is a person with whom Biblically-minded Protestant pastors can enter into dialogue. The gulf between theological liberals and evangelicals is far greater than the theological differences between orthodox Catholics and Biblically-minded Protestants.

When the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released its "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church" in July of this year, Archbishop Burke wrote a very helpful summary that can be found here. In it we see the concern of both the Holy See and Archbishop Burke to safeguard apostolicity. These concerns for holiness and apostolicity provide a good place to begin ecumenical dialogue.

Today I noticed in the news that Pope Benedict is seeking to promote dialogue with non-Catholic Christians. The four marks of the Church are not unrelated to each other; they each depend on the other. That is why the concern for the holiness and apostolicity of the Church as shown both by Pope Benedict and by Archbishop Burke open the door for genuine ecumenical dialogue with those not in full communion with the Catholic Church. To my Protestant brothers and sisters in the Saint Louis archdiocese, let me ask you prayerfully to consider entering into dialogue with Archbishop Burke concerning the unity of the Church in this archdiocese. We can be one again, but first we have to realize that we should be one and are not now one. Once we grasp that, we should be wearing out each other's doorsteps in our commitment to dialogue until unity is recovered. Our hearts are filled with the passion of Christ's sacred heart, revealed in His most intimate prayer: that we would all be one, even as He and the Father are one. (John 17:21,22)

On the authority of creeds and confessions formulated by those without sacramental magisterial authority

Consider the creeds and confessions formulated by persons without sacramental magisterial authority. The practice of treating such creeds and confessions as authoritative raises a particular dilemma. I will use the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) as an example, but the same dilemma arises for any of them. If a person grounds his belief that the WCF is authoritative on its agreement with his own interpretation of Scripture, then it would be arbitrary for him to treat as less authoritative than the WCF any text or sermon that agrees fully with his own interpretation of Scripture, ceteris paribus. (See the combox discussion of this post.) But why think that agreement with one's own interpretation of Scripture makes something authoritative in the first place?

Here's the dilemma. If each individual has equal interpretive authority, then the very notion that one's own interpretation of Scripture is authoritative for all other persons violates Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." The maxim, "All others should submit to my interpretation of Scripture", if universalized [i.e. made a maxim that each person could live by], would make hash of the notions of authority and submission. Each person's interpretation would be authoritative for all others, thus entailing that no person's interpretation would be authoritative for others. That would be individualism. So in order to hold the WCF to be authoritative on the grounds that it agrees with one's own interpretation of Scripture, one must hide from others why one thinks it to be authoritative, for as soon as one reveals that the grounds for its 'authority' is that it agrees with one's own interpretation of Scripture, it is by that very fact shown to have no authority.

But if some people have more interpretive authority than others, then on what grounds do they have more ecclesial/interpretive authority? If the answer is that their interpretation of Scripture agrees with one's own interpretation of Scripture, then again the illusion of authority is exposed. Excepting an appeal to academic authority (see the link above), the only remaining grounds for ecclesial/interpretive authority is sacramental (i.e. the handing on of apostolic authority from the Apostles to their successors the bishops through the laying on of hands), as I have argued here.

So, either such creeds and confessions have no authority, or only those creeds and confessions have authority that were formulated by those having sacramental magisterial authority. Either way, it seems, creeds and confessions formulated by those without sacramental magisterial authority have no authority.

UPDATE: Here's the argument in syllogistic form:

1. Either each individual has equal interpretive authority or not.

2. If each individual has equal interpretive authority, then any creed or confession has authority only insofar as one shares the interpretation of those who wrote it.

3. If any creed or confession has authority only insofar as one shares the interpretation of those who wrote it, then no creed or confession has any actual authority and individualism is true.

4. If each individual has equal interpretive authority, then no creed or confession has any actual authority and individualism is true. (From 2 and 3)

5. If it is not true that each individual has equal interpretive authority, then the individual(s) with the highest interpretive authority acquire their interpretive authority either from academia or from the apostles through sacramental succession.

6. But the highest interpretive authority cannot be acquired from academia (as argued in the combox here).

7. If it is not true that each individual has equal interpretive authority, then the highest interpretive authority is acquired from the apostles through sacramental succession. (From 5 and 6)

8. Either no creed or confession has any authority and individualism is true, or the highest interpretive authority is acquired from the apostles through sacramental succession. (From 1, 4, and 7)

9. If the highest interpretive authority is acquired from the apostles through sacramental succession, then any creed or confession written by those not having sacramental authority from the apostles has no actual ecclesial authority.

10. Either no creed or confession has any authority and individualism is true, or any creed or confession written by those not having sacramental authority from the apostles has no actual ecclesial authority. (From 8 and 9)

11. If no creed or confession has any authority, then any creed or confession written by those not having sacramental authority from the apostles has no actual ecclesial authority.

12. Any creed or confession written by those not having sacramental authority from the apostles has no actual ecclesial authority. (from 10 and 11)

The Seduction of Presumed Authority

I have written frequently here on sacramental magisterial authority. Now I wish to look at the privation of sacramental magisterial authority.

In a post titled "The Priesthood of All Believers – Part 2" Jeff Myers first offers a quotation from Lesslie Newbigin which I have discussed here. In the comments of that post Jeff writes:

The pastor's words come with more authority because Christ through his church has given the pastor the authority to read and preach the Word in the congregation. Not everyone in the assembly has been given this authority. The very fact that some men have "hands laid" on them means that they have delegated authority (1 Tim 4.14; 5.22; 2 Tim 1.6; Heb 1.10). That's not all it means. But it does entail that. ... God has given men authority. It's delegated authority. It's only to be used ministerially, that is "in Christ's stead." Even so, it's real authority. Paul tells pastor Titus to "declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15). ... Christ has all authority and he shares his authority, he delegates his authority to men.

I agree with that. But the question I wish to consider here is this: Does it matter who lays hands on the ordinand?

The Catholic Church, for almost 2,000 years, has said yes. Valid ordination requires at least two things: (1) that at least one of the persons laying hands on the ordinand is a bishop (if not an apostle), and (2) that the bishop himself was ordained either by an apostle or by a bishop in a sacramental succession of bishops that extends back to an apostle.

Protestants, however, denied both criteria. (Anglicans, some Methodists, and a few Lutheran communities in Europe retained the episcopacy.) First, on the basis of sola scriptura, Protestants rejected the distinction between bishops and elders, primarily because they did not find the distinction explicit in Scripture. Second, they rejected the sacramentality of ordination, redefining 'apostolic succession' from its Catholic conception as "the handing on of apostolic preaching and authority from the Apostles to their successors the bishops through the laying on of hands, as a permanent office in the Church" (CCC 77) to "agreement with the doctrine of the Apostles". (I have discussed the Protestant conception of 'apostolic succession' in "Protestantism and Sacramental Authority", and the Catholic conception in these other posts.)

What does it matter who is right about ordination? It matters because any person can claim that Christ has given him authority. Any group of people can claim to speak for Christ or speak for the Church. Any group of people can claim to act on behalf of Christ in giving Christ's authority to an ordinand. Anyone can claim to have the Apostles' teaching. The sacramentality of ordination helps guards the unity and doctrinal purity of the Church. In order to preach in the name of Christ, one must be sent by the legitimate authorities of the Church, i.e. those in sacramental succession from the apostles, just as the apostles could not send themselves but could only be sent by Christ. (cf. Acts 15:24; Romans 10:15; 2 Cor 5:20) The growth and expansion of the Church was always organically derived from and organically connected to the Apostles. Because the Church is a Body, it must grow as a Body, with magisterial authority derived from magisterial authority, not by gnostic montanism. The Life of Christ flows sacramentally from Christ to the Apostles, and flows sacramentally from the Apostles to the bishops and from the bishops to the whole Church, through each successive generation. In the same way, the authority of Christ develops and extends itself in the same organic manner over time, as the Body grows. The sacramentality of ordination grounds Tertullian's response to the heretics. Protestants had to change the definition of 'apostolic succession' from something essentially sacramental (inherently material, organic and temporal), to something entirely formal (in the Platonic sense) in order to justify being separate from the Catholic Church.

Does it matter who lays hands on the ordinand? Yes. Because if ecclesial authority is not derived from the one laying on hands, then anyone can 'ordain' anyone, and ordination is just "presumed authority", in actuality nothing more than permission from a group of persons to speak to them. No one then has actual authority. But if ecclesial authority is derived from the one laying on hands, and the one laying on hands has no authority to give, then again the ordinand has only presumed authority, not actual authority. So actual ecclesial authority can be acquired in ordination only if the one laying on hands has the authority to give. But the same truth applies to the one laying on hands; he can have acquired actual ecclesial authority at his ordination only if the one who laid hands on him had the authority to give. And this shows that either no one has actual ecclesial authority, or only those ordained in sacramental succession from the apostles have actual ecclesial authority.

Did St. Ignatius bishop of Antioch have presumed authority? St. Irenaeus bishop of Lyon? St. Cyprian bishop of Carthage? St. Augustine bishop of Hippo? St. Gregory the Great? If they had actual ecclesial authority and not presumed authority, then why think that their sacramental successors have only presumed authority?

And the question for the Protestant pastor is: Who sent you, and what authority did they have to send you? Where did they derive their authority? If their authority did not derive by sacramental succession from the apostles, then why think that they had any authority to give when they laid hands on you? Regarding the early Protestants, they could not have derived ecclesial authority from the Catholic Church, for they said of her that she was apostate, otherwise they would not have been justified in leaving her. But if they conceded that an apostate Church had the authority to ordain, then they should have submitted to that authority, because the one who ordains has greater authority than the one ordained. So either they had only presumed authority and/or they rejected their rightful authorities.

The alternative to painting a magisterial target around our interpretive arrow

Recently in the combox of this post, I referred to the inherent individualism and disunity in the practice I described as painting one's magisterial target around one's interpretive arrow. By "painting one's magisterial target around one's interpretive arrow" I mean the practice of choosing and grounding magisterial [i.e. human ecclesial] authority based on their agreement with one's own interpretation of Scripture.

The common rejoinder to this observation is that there is no alternative. The Protestant typically conceives of the Catholic as someone who, like the Protestant, picked a denomination and a magisterium based (at best) on the Catholic's own interpretation of Scripture. (See my posts: "Two Paradigms" and "Ecclesial Consumerism vs. Ecclesial Unity".)

But there is an alternative. We are not limited to choosing a magisterium based on their agreement with our interpretation of Scripture. There is another possibility. That possibility is that there is such a thing as sacramental magisterial authority. (See my post titled "Sacramentally grounded magisterium vs. individualism".) The authority had by sacramental magisterial authorities is not grounded in their agreement with our own interpretation of Scripture. Rather, our interpretation of Scripture is subject to their authority. Sacramental magisterial authority is discovered by its sacramentality, i.e. by its sacramental succession from the Apostles, not (as such) by its agreement with our interpretation of Scripture. (I have discussed sacramental succession here and here and here.)

Apostolicity in Acts 15

Ἐπειδὴ ἠκούσαμεν ὅτι τινὲς ἐξ ἡμῶν [ἐξελθόντες] ἐτάραξαν ὑμᾶς λόγοις ἀνασκευάζοντες τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν οἷς οὐ διεστειλάμεθα
(Acts 15:24)

Literal translation: "Since we have heard that some out of us having gone out disturbed you with words, unsettling your souls, to whom we gave no mandate/order/command."

NAB: "Since we have heard that some of our number who went out without any mandate from us have upset you with their teachings and disturbed your peace of mind."

Recently I discussed [here] the significance of St. Paul's statement: "And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10:15) for understanding apostolicity. Here I wish to discuss a statement written by the Apostles and elders at the council of Jerusalem around 50 AD, and recorded by St. Luke in Acts 15:24.

If apostolic succession were merely doctrinal, then why did these disturbers need a mandate from the Apostles? Why is their lack of an Apostolic mandate even mentioned? The Apostles and elders should simply have said only that the doctrine of the disturbers was not the Apostles' doctrine. But the Apostles and elders do not say that. Instead they provide a mandate to Paul and Barnabas, Silas and Judas called Barsabbas. The "letter" mentioned in verse 23 is the authentication or proof that these men have the necessary mandate from the Apostles to teach and preach in their name, as official legates / ambassadors of the Apostles.

But if Paul and Barnabas needed an Apostolic mandate, and if the Apostles and elders show that because the disturbers mentioned in Acts 15:24 do not have an Apostolic mandate they [i.e. those disturbers] should not be listened to, then from whom did Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin receive a mandate? Or should we believe that the need for a Church mandate in order to preach and teach in the name of the Church ceased with the death of the last apostle?

Apostolicity and Montanistic Gnosticism

I wrote some thoughts here on 'apostolicity' and Montanistic Gnosticism, drawing from the teaching of the fathers on the meaning of 'apostolicity', and quoting from St. Francis de Sales regarding the application of 'apostolicity' to the original Protestant ministers.

Sacramental Apostolic Succession and Ecumenical Unity

One of the fundamental causes of the divisions between Christians is individualism. True unity is impossible where each person thinks of himself as his own ultimate ecclesial authority. Moreover, as I argued here, any non-sacramental grounding of ecclesial authority is intrinsically individualistic. Therefore true unity is impossible where Christians believe that the essence of the grounding of ecclesial authority is non-sacramental. The reunion of all Christians depends upon recognizing that sacramentality is the true grounding of ecclesial authority.

I have argued here that the Montanist, Novatian and Donatist schisms erred precisely in failing to recognize sacramentality as the true grounding of ecclesial authority. I have also argued here that Protestantism does not have sacramentally grounded ecclesial authority; Luther and Calvin redefined 'apostolic succession' as formal agreement with the Apostles, rejecting the Catholic doctrine that Apostolic succession is essentially sacramental.

I noticed that Sean Michael Lucas has recently stated that apostolic succession is essentially doctrinal, not sacramental. He writes, "For Protestants, the means for unity is also apostolic succession, but it is a succession of commitment to the apostolic message and mission."

Defining "apostolic succession" as fundamentally non-sacramental entails individualism. And individualism is intrinsically opposed to unity. So Lucas has adopted as a means to unity a position that is intrinsically opposed to unity. The question that those holding a doctrinally-grounded conception of ecclesial authority overlook is: Whose determination of doctrinal apostolicity is authoritative? Without sacramentality, the answer is ultimately either "My own" or "No one's" (which is functionally equivalent to "My own"). In other words, wherever sacramentality is not recognized as the essence of apostolic succession, we are left with individualism.

Lucas adds: "As the authority of Word and Spirit continues to be observed in Protestant churches, we manifest the unity of Christ's church even in the midst of our denominational groupings."

Lucas seems to think that the present state of denominational fragmentation in Protestantism manifests the sort of unity Christ desires for His followers, simply because Protestants "observe the authority of Word and Spirit". It would seem then that for Lucas, schism does not detract from the unity of the Church so long as the schismatic parties continue to "observe the authority of Word and Spirit". But the claim to be "observing the authority of Word and Spirit" would apply to all the early heresies, as St. Vincent of Lerins points out. If the Protestant denominations are truly "observing the authority of Word and Spirit", then why are the Word and Spirit saying so many incompatible things, that the various Protestant denominations cannot be united into one denomination? Should we believe that the Word and Spirit are contradicting themselves, or should we believe that some people are misinterpreting the Word and misunderstanding the Spirit?

The unity that Christ desires His followers to have is not merely the shared desire to follow the Word and the Spirit. Even tritheists could affirm that sort of ecclesial unity. Christ desires that His followers be one, even as He and the Father are one. And the Father and the Son are one in Being, not merely in desire, and not merely in intention. Christ therefore desires that His followers be fully incorporated into one Body, as I have argued here and here. If God hates divorce, man separating what God has joined together, then how much more does God hate schism, when men rend His Bride? We must not delude ourselves into calling evil "good", or division "unity". When we start to allow ourselves to see the fragmented state of Protestantism for what it is, instead of pretending that it manifests the unity of Christ's Church, then like Cindy Beck and Kristine Franklin, we start to see the necessity of sacramentally grounded ecclesial authority, and the path to true unity, i.e. being fully incorporated into one Body.