Angels trapped in stinkin' flesh

A recent post titled "Off-Duty Megachurches" on Christianity Today's blog, led me to Joe Johnson's Mega Churches gallery (at the link, click on "projects", and then click on "Mega Churches"). The photos are, in a way, spiritually nauseating. So I wrote some thoughts on the underlying problem, here.

Unity, my way

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes "grey town" as a place that is constantly expanding at its outskirts as people perpetually try to get farther away from each other, unable to get along with each other, and wanting to be lord of their own domain. That desire for autonomy continually divides and separates the citizens of 'grey town' from each other. I think it plays a similar role here on earth, even among Christians.

Responding to Catholic claims that we cannot have unity without a "uniform teaching authority", Michael Spencer writes:

I agree with your basic contention that we need the boundaries of unity and authority in order to talk about the "Christian faith." Millions of people reading their favorite verses to one another won't produce unity. If Protestantism has demonstrated anything, it's that.

But what kind of unity? Many of us believe that a kind of "creedal minimalism" brings the necessary unity to Christianity. The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds provide this minimum coverage, and the leadership of local churches (or geographic/denominational structures) use it for the purposes of mission, definition and discipline.

In other words, we don't believe that the infallible teaching authority of a completely hierarchical church defining every detail of Christian faith and mining tradition for further dogma is the necessary expression of unity. All the unity we need is available through the processes of a fallible church.

Earlier this year I presented some problems with the notion of a 'mere Christianity'. (Yes, here we have Lewis vs. Lewis.) If the "fallible church" to which Michael refers is the 'invisible Church', then how the invisible Church is supposed to provide the means for unity is never spelled out by anyone. Michael agrees that if Protestantism has demonstrated anything, it is that millions of people reading the Bible are not going to come to unity by doing so. But if Protestantism has demonstrated that, then hasn't it also demonstrated the failure of the "invisible Church" to unify Christians? Yet if by "fallible Church" Michael is referring to some set of embodied human persons, then what is it, exactly, that makes persons to be members of that set, and how does Michael know this, and who gets to determine the sufficient conditions for membership in this set, and why do they and not other people get to determine these conditions? There is no circumventing the authority problem, behind which lies the fundamental reason for our present disunity. We are either submitting to God-ordained authority, or submitting to a pseudo-authority whom we mistakenly think to be a God-ordained authority, or we are taking authority to ourselves, even in the very act of constructing the conditions upon which all Christians should be unified.

"But I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad." (1 Kings 22:8)

The fundamental problem with heresy is not the content of belief, but the basis of that belief. The content problem [i.e. having false beliefs] is derivative and per accidens. That's why persons born into heresies are not ipso facto guilty of heresy. Gnosticism misconstrues the fundamental problem with heresy as merely propositional. Hence the gnostic life consists in an unending series of theology readings aimed at honing one's orthodoxy (whether toward maximized specificity or specified minimization). But the beginning of wisdom is not a proposition per se; it is a disposition of the will toward God. (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 9:10) If the devil were entirely orthodox in what he believed, but had come to believe these orthodox truths not through faith and trust in God, but through his own prideful efforts, would he be less estranged from God than he is now? With respect to the basis of the content of the faith, the 'mere Christianity' mentality is no different from any other form of Protestantism. The individual remains the final arbiter of what should be believed, and in this way the notion of a 'mere Christianity' remains intrinsically disposed to perpetual fragmentation. If the ecclesial authority says that more (or less) needs to be believed than we think needs to be believed, then we simply reject that authority, move farther out, and find authorities saying pretty much what we think, more or less, needs to be believed. Unity by 'mere Christianity' is still "unity, my way". But it is precisely the "my way" that is the root cause of disunity.

"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires." (2 Timothy 4:3)

The resolution of the divisions between Christians does not consist in finding a lowest-common denominator or minimal content of Christianity around which we can all agree. That is because the fundamental source of the disunity between Christians is not the intellect; it is the will. Though lack of knowledge is a factor in perpetuating divison, lack of knowledge is not the ultimate source of our divisions. The fundamental cause of the disunity between the devil and God is the devil's will; it is his sin of pride. And likewise pride was the fundamental cause of the division between Adam and God. The antidote to our present disunity is the exact opposite of pride; it is humility. And this involves submitting to Christ by submitting to the shepherd He has placed over His flock (St. John 10:16). It has never ceased to be true that "He who listens to you listens to Me; he who rejects you rejects Me". (St. Luke 10:16) It wasn't some magical effect of having seen Christ that made this true of the Apostles; it was authorization to speak on behalf of Christ, the same authorization later given by the Apostles to their episcopal successors to speak on their behalf. Apart from submission to the authority had by apostolic succession, the only remaining option is the disunity of "millions of people reading their favorite verses to one another". We can either dip in the muddy Jordan seven times with Naaman and be healed, or we can go back to the rivers of Damascus and wash in a manner of our own choosing. The former is the only way to true unity. The latter is the multifarious way of sinful man, the way of perpetual division and ever-widening separation found in "grey town". Milton's Satan says "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n", and this self-exalting disorientation of the will is intrinsically related to Sartre's "hell is other people"; it is precisely this that keeps extending the limits of 'grey town'.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7)

By contrast, love turns us back around, toward unity, away from pride, away from self-exaltation, and away from division. Love does not sacrifice truth; it labors to share truth with one's neighbor, and listens to receive truth from one's neighbor, in order to be truly one with one's neighbor. That's why love is catholic, and not provincial or sectarian; love seeks to evangelize the whole world, and it listens humbly to the whole world. Love is the perfection of truth, the adequatio of person to person. And humility is bound up in love, as demonstrated in Christ's humbling of Himself in love. Love therefore is what brings us back from the outskirts of grey town, to our knees in humility before Christ and His Body, so that we may be incorporated into this one Body, with one faith, having the same Spirit, and under one hierarchy. Love draws us to dance together.

The Wedding Dance
Marten Van Cleve (1527-1581)

Church Made-To-Order

Someone recently asked Scot McKnight why he is still an Evangelical and not Catholic or Orthodox. He posted his reply, titled "Why I am not a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox". He offers seven reasons, which I discuss below. His words are italicized.

Here is his first reason: [UPDATE:: He doesn't intend this first point as a reason not to be Catholic.]

First, I’ve never been tempted to become either Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. Never.

Whether or not one should become Catholic does not depend on whether one has been "tempted" to become Catholic, but rather on whether the Catholic Church is the Church Christ founded. Scot's first reason for not becoming Catholic seems to suggest a form of ecclesial consumerism that makes the question "Why haven't you become Catholic?" equivalent to "Why haven't you tried Häagen-Dazs ice cream?" Remaining in schism from the Church that Christ founded is not justified by pointing out that one hasn't been "tempted" to be reconciled with her. So his first reason for not becoming Catholic is not a good reason.

His second reason involves four distinct points which I consider individually.

But I think the RCC and EO render authority in the ecclesia instead of in Scripture and in Spirit to make Scripture clear.

One of the ideas implicit in Scot's statement here is that we must choose between Church as authority and Scripture as authority, and between Church as interpreter of Scripture and Spirit as interpreter of Scripture. This suggests a form of monocausalism that presents us with false dilemmas, and an ecclesial docetism that separates the Spirit from the Church. This monocausalism does not seem to conceive the possibility of Scripture and Church as both having authority, in different respects. And this ecclesial docetism does not recognize that the Spirit works *through* the Church's magisterium to make Scripture clear, as the Spirit worked through Philip the deacon to make Scripture clear to the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). Implicit in Scot's comment here is the notion that the Spirit 'floats free' of matter, that is, operates apart from matter, and thus does not come to us principally through the Church and through her sacraments. This is the anti-sacramental implication of montanistic gnosticism.

Now here’s my point: both the RCC and the EO have captured the Spirit in the Church so that Church too often has become Authority.

I'm not sure what it means for the Church to "become Authority", since the Church is the Body of Christ, and "Authority" is a quality had by a being, not a thing in its own right. But here too, Scot treats the Catholic Church as somehow restricting the Spirit. (That's what he means, I take it, by "captured the Spirit".) The Catholic Church does not claim to have captured or restricted the Spirit. Catholics recognize that the Spirit does what He pleases, being God. But the Catholic Church believes and teaches that Christ gave His disciples the Spirit as a gift, and promised that His Spirit would work *through the Church*, particularly through her sacraments. Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and since the Church is the Body of Christ, we should therefore expect to find the Spirit in the Church, expect to receive the Spirit through the Church, and expect the Spirit to work through the Church. Nor does the Catholic Church believe that she became authority; the Catholic Church believes that the incarnate Christ Himself gave authority to her when He gave authority to the Apostles (including the keys of the kingdom to Peter -- cf. Matthew 16:19), and the Apostles subsequently transmitted this authority to their episcopal successors in an unbroken sacramental succession.

So far as the church partakes in that Spirit, it has an authoritative message; so far as it doesn’t, it loses its authority.

According to Scot's position, apparently, it is up to each man, woman and child to decide when and if and to what degree the Church is 'partaking in the Spirit', such that if anyone feels that the Church is not sufficiently partaking of the Spirit, he can dismiss her teaching as non-authoritative. Again, this is montanistic gnosticism. This montanistic gnosticism makes schism seem justified, since according to this position the Spirit floats free from matter, and therefore this position presumes that the Spirit is fully available to us apart from the institution and hierarchy of the Church. Every heresy in the history of the Church could have been self-justified in this way, since the heretics could have simply said, "Well, in this case, it seems to us that the Church is not sufficiently partaking of the Spirit, and therefore her condemnation of our position is not authoritative. In fact, we have the fullness of the Spirit, and so we now declare that we are the Church." This notion separates the Spirit of Christ from the Body of Christ, and in this way falls into ecclesial docetism.

RCCs and EOs talk about Church; Protestants talk about Scripture. It is their emphasis that I like ..."

The Catholic Church claims to be the Church that Christ founded. The question "Why are you still an Evangelical and not a Catholic?" is not the sort of question to which 'like' has any place in a reply. Such a reply suggests a failure to understand what the Catholic Church claims about herself, for the same reason that "dislike Him" is not a fourth option in the Lord, Liar, Lunatic trilemma. The question is simply not about us, our likes and dislikes; it is about the identity of this 2000 year-old institution claiming to be the Church that Christ founded. Schism is not justified by likes or dislikes, let alone liking or disliking an "emphasis". Again, this seems to be more evidence of ecclesial consumerism that itself reveals no awareness of the fundamental difference between the Catholic conception of the Church as the institution Christ founded and the Evangelical conception of the Church as a religious activity or phenomenon that can be made-to-order to suit our personal likes and dislikes, itching our ears and gratifying our other senses as well. (Scot is a signer of the Evangelical Manifesto, which I reviewed here.) Scot is treating the Catholic Church as if she is just one more option-of-choice among the denominational smorgasbord our many schisms have now spread before us religious consumers. He is thus viewing the Catholic Church through Evangelical lenses, as if there is no such thing as the Catholic Church. But that's simply to fail to see the Catholic Church. In order to see the Catholic Church, one has to step out [at least mentally] from the Evangelical paradigm. So his second reason is in that respect question-begging; it assumes the truth of Evangelicalism.

His third reason is this:

for each of these communions [RC & EO] the Tradition becomes massively authoritative and, in my view, each of these communions has become un-reformable.

'Massive' in itself is not a flaw. Scot would need to show us the standard by which to measure how authoritative Tradition should be, and then show how in the Catholic Church, Tradition goes beyond that standard. He hasn't done that here; he has simply asserted that Tradition has "massive" authority, and then assumed that this is a fault. His position also implicitly assumes but does not substantiate the notion that schism is justified if the Church is "un-reformable". That the Church needs so much reform as to justify being in schism from her is also something he assumes but does not support.

They read the Bible through Tradition and I believe in reading the Bible with Tradition.

Ironically, part of the Tradition is to read the Bible *through* Tradition. Reading the Bible "with Tradition" is not part of the Tradition.

time proves that some of what we all know today to be interpretive truth can be wrong in a century. Look at the Church’s backpedaling today on Galileo.

Surely Scot knows that the Catholic Church believes and teaches that infallibility does not apply to everything the Catholic Church does, including her handling of the Galileo case. Infallibility has to do with the Church's dogmas, and these dogmas have to do with faith and morals. But again, Scot does not show how the Church's fallibility in other areas justifies being in schism from her.

His fourth reason is this:

Fourth, I believe in the guidance of the Spirit in the Church, both in theological articulation (Nicea, for example) and in revival (the Reformation, for example).

Catholics also believe that the Spirit guides the Church into all truth. But we don't separate Spirit from matter; we treat the Church herself as a sacrament, where matter and Spirit are joined together. Scot apparently does not do that; he seems to treat the Spirit as free-floating apart from matter. He follows the Council of Nicea, but apparently rejects the Council of Trent. When you separate Spirit from matter, "what the Spirit is doing" amounts to whatever the burning in your bosom tells you the Spirit is doing, and then similarly "the Church" amounts to whoever agrees (or mostly agrees) with you and your interpretation of Scripture and with what you think are the minimal essentials of the faith. That is the unavoidable implication of montanistic gnosticism.

The minute, however, one begins to think that a given moment in the Church or its articulation was timeless truth rather than truthful timeliness one falls prey to elevating Tradition too high.

Too high according to what standard? Without a standard, this charge is groundless. I can't help but wonder if he thinks his very claim here is a "timeless truth" or only a "temporary truth" [as if there could be such a thing]. If it is not a timeless truth, then perhaps it is time to put such dogmatic skepticism behind us, so that we can recover the dogmas of the faith.

I check interpretation against these; but that does not mean I don’t think fresh light emerges or that something could be improved or modified.

The Catholic Church agrees. The Catholic Church rejects two opposite errors. One error is the notion that there is no development of doctrine, no increase in understanding, and no leading into greater truth by the Spirit. The other error is the notion that nothing at all has been irrevocably established as true, and that everything is open to future rejection and falsification. Both of those errors involve an implicit rejection of the Holy Spirit's continuing activity in leading the Church into all truth. Both errors are therefore forms of ecclesial deism. Scott wants present openness to the Spirit, but in rejecting "timeless truths" he implies that the Spirit hasn't gotten us any closer to truth than we were 2,000 years ago, since we don't know anything for sure now, not even that we have gotten closer to truth. But if over the last 2,000 years the Spirit hasn't gotten us any closer to the truth, then why should we believe that the Spirit is suddenly going to start doing something now? The two errors are in this way related, because they are both a manifestation of ecclesial deism.

His fifth reason is this:

Fifth, what this means — if you are still with me — is that I believe in ongoing discernment of what the Spirit is saying to the Church, and I believe this discernment is a function of church leaders and churches in communion with one another. Discernment for the day is different than infallible teaching for all time. Therein lies a major difference.

The Catholic Church also believes in discerning what the Spirit is saying to the Church, so that's not a point of disagreement between Scot and the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church also believes that this discernment [of what the Spirit is saying to the Church] is a function of church leaders and churches in communion with one another. So that's not a point of disagreement between Scott and the Catholic Church. And Catholics can agree as well that "discernment for the day" is different than infallible teaching for all time. But Scot has not shown that the two are mutually exclusive. Does he think that "discernment for the day" is incompatible with "infallible teaching for all time"? If so, why? If, for example, we know infallibly for all time that Christ is one Person with two natures, does that prevent "discernment for the day"? If so, then how so? But if not, then Scot has presented us with a false dilemma, namely, that we must choose between "infallible teaching for all time" and "discernment for the day".

His sixth reason is this:

neither communion [Catholic and Orthodox], regardless of what it says in theology or in catechesis, preaches the new birth clearly enough nor does either institutionalize the need for personal decision enough

That may very well be true, but that in itself does not show that remaining in schism from the Church that Christ founded is justified when the Church doesn't preach the new birth clearly enough or institutionalize the need for personal decision enough.

Once a month I get a letter from someone who asks me to talk them out of converting to Rome or to Constantinople (et al), and one thing I say to each of them is this: In three generations it is quite likely that your great grandchildren will be “in” the Church but will not experience the new birth.

What is yet to be shown is that remaining in schism is justified because of what is "quite likely" to happen to one's great-grandchildren. Scot's reason here entails that not being in schism is not part of the faith, because his position treats teaching one's children (performatively at least) that being in schism from the Church Christ founded is perfectly fine, so long as you think the Church isn't sufficiently following the Spirit. Scot's reason here thus performatively removes from the faith the prohibition against schism. It denies the unam [μίαν] in that line of the Creed that reads, "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church". The unity of the Church is part of the faith. Therefore we cannot sacrifice the unity of the Church and at the same time hold on to the faith. If we sacrifice the faith by denying any part of the Creed, then we don't have to wait three generations to see our great-grandchildren deprived of faith; we ourselves have already sacrificed it.

Furthermore, how Scot calculates the likelihood that great-grandchildren of Catholics will not "experience the new birth", and determines that this likelihood is greater than the likelihood that the great-grandchildren of emergentists (a movement which Scott supports) will even know anything about Christianity, he does not say or show. He just asserts. But since Scot is an Anabaptist, I wonder whether he has already denied that line of the Creed that says "one baptism for the forgiveness of sins". If not, then he will recognize that Catholic babies "experience the new birth" when they are baptized. I don't see any reason why we should think that in three generations Catholics won't be baptizing their children, when Catholics have been doing this since the first century. The "Emergent Church" has been around for about ten years. The Catholic Church has been around for 2,000 years; somebody has been keeping the faith.

His seventh reason is this:

Seventh: I’m unapologetically an evangelical Protestant because I think this is a more faithful shaping of the doctrines of the Bible.

Scot is essentially saying here that he is a Protestant because he believes in sola scriptura, and thus that he is his own highest interpretive authority, since his interpretation of Scripture has more authority than that of the magisterium of the Catholic Church. What is missing here is a defense of sola scriptura and a refutation of the Catholic case against sola scriptura. Otherwise, Scot is merely describing his own position, not showing why his position is true and that of the Catholic Church is false.

Finally, he writes this:

Are there other reasons? Of course … like assurance of salvation, the worrisome compulsion to attend mass, women in ministry, like the significance of lay giftedness, less (not more) authority in the local pastor and more authority in the Spirit, justification by faith, hierarchical power structures that create endless red tape, too much Mary, and I could go on.

It sounds like he thinks of Christianity as a made-to-order religion where we get to order it up just exactly to our own liking. Do you want assurance? How much assurance do you want? Ok, here's a denomination that will offer you just what you want, as much assurance as you possibly want. Tired of the obligation to go to mass? Take a look at this attractive alternative. It is a no-guilt Church; you are free to come when you want, and stay home when you feel otherwise. In fact, we'll meet in the evenings in a bar if that's what you'd like. Are you a woman and feeling excluded from pastoral roles? We have just the solution for you. Here's an array of denominations that offer you the full range of ministerial opportunities to fulfill your deepest ministerial aspirations. That ecclesial consumerism, however, turns things exactly upside-down, creating Church in our image, rather than conforming ourselves to the Church that Christ founded, and in doing so conforming to the image of Christ. In that post (on ecclesial consumerism) I examined the worship advertisements in the St. Louis newspaper, and drew the following conclusion:

One thing that clearly stands out is that these religious organizations are trying to fill niches in demand. Through a kind of free market process, they are reflections of what people want. Just as we can get a personalized custom-made teddy bear at the local mall, we can get a religious experience on Sunday morning that is custom-made to fit our particular religious appetites, preferences, interpretations, expectations, beliefs, etc. We can worship in an organization that is made in our own image, and in that way we can worship a god of our own making.

Earlier this year I wrote, "Unity is achieved not when we all make 'Church' in our own image (i.e. in the image of our own interpretation), but when we all conform to her image." And elsewhere, "Unity as one of the four marks of the Church ("one, holy, catholic and apostolic") and as the most intimate expression of the desire of our Savior's sacred heart revealed in St. John 17, requires being incorporated into something greater than a structure made in our own image, or the image of our own interpretation." In order to achieve this unity, we have to break out of ecclesial consumerism, and the montanistic gnosticism and ecclesial docetism that underlie it.

Dodos, Passenger Pigeons, Schisms

In a benighted time long, long ago, in a Church history far, far away, there were schisms. Then, a little less than five hundred years ago, schisms became extinct. All schisms turned into branches, all sects into denominations, all factions into traditions, all divisions into diversity, all heresies into adiaphora. All was brought into unity, simply by redefining the terms.

Whereas before, the word 'Church' meant the Catholic Church in union with the successor of the Apostle Peter to whom Christ gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the term 'Church' was redefined to refer to an invisible entity into which all believers are perfectly joined no matter to which visible institution (if any) they presently belong. This redefinition eliminates the very possibility of schism. So the term 'schism' is rarely used now, and when it is used, its new definition refers only to a divide within a congregation. And if the congregational divide becomes permanent, then it ceases to be a schism and automatically becomes a branch, enhancing the magnificent diversity of the new invisible entity known as the 'Church'. While Scripture forbids schism, our redefinitions have made these Scriptural prohibitions moot, especially since we can just allow our congregational splits to turn into delightful branches.

Of course we Christians disagree about all kinds of theological claims; about the only thing we all agree on is "Jesus". But that's all St. Paul had in mind when he said that there is "one faith". (Ephesians 4:5) And it is true that Protestants cannot receive the Eucharist in Catholic or Orthodox Churches, and Orthodox and Catholics cannot receive communion in Protestant services. But that's no worry, because we're still one as an *invisible Body*, at least in a mystical sense. That's all that St. Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 10:17. And it is true that we're divided into myriads of distinct and autonomous religious institutions, most all of them founded in the last five-hundred years. But true unity has nothing to do with matter and the visible. True unity is spiritual. Regardless of how divided we are in the physical and material world, we're all truly one in the spiritual world, because we're all perfectly joined to that invisible Body of Christ, which is spiritual, not material. That's all St. Paul meant in speaking of the Church as the "Body of Christ" in Romans 12:5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, and Ephesians 3:5, 4:4, 5:23. That the Church is an invisible entity, not a visible, hierarchically organized material body, was part of the enlightenment revealed to us by Martin Luther.

Peacemakers, go home. There is no need for you and your old-fashioned sectarianism. We already have peace and true unity.

The Church and the Second Century Gnostics

Marcion displaying his canon

We saw already in our discussion of St. Polycarp how the Apostle John, around the age of ninety (between 97 and 101 AD), had fled from the bath-house in Ephesus when he learned that Cerinthus was inside it, saying, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." (Adv haer. 3.3.4) We have also seen St. Polycarp's opposition to Marcion, when in about the year 154 AD they happened to meet in Rome. Marcion asked St. Polycarp, "Do you know me?" (Notice that Marcion's focus is on himself, and his own fame.) St. Polycarp, not one to mince words at the age of eighty-five, and not having attended Dale Carnegie, replied, "I do know you, the first-born of Satan."

Who were these persons: Cerinthus, Marcion, Valentinus, Cerdo, etc.? They were gnostics who were trying to infiltrate the Church. We know little about Cerinthus. He was a contemporary of the Apostle John, and was said to have come to Ephesus from Egypt, and if not a Jew then at least circumcised. Cerdo and Valentinus arrived in Rome during the time that St. Hyginus was bishop of Rome (136 - 140 AD). Marcion arrived in Rome around 140 AD. Valentinus was from Egypt. Cerdo was from Syria. Marcion was from Pontus. Why did they come to Rome? Because they understood (as Simon the Sorcerer had understood) that this was the place most efficiently to spread their beliefs. All three of these who came to Rome sought to become the bishop of Rome, in order to take control of the Church.

Cerdo at one point confessed his errors to the church at Rome, and was readmitted into the Church. But, at some point later (we don't know when) he was excommunicated by the church at Rome.

We know more about the case of Marcion. Marcion's father was a bishop of Sinope in Pontus. Marcion was born around 110 AD, and was made a bishop (but not the diocesan bishop) in his home town. He was eventually expelled from his own church by his father, when he committed a grave sin with a virgin. He traveled to Rome, arriving sometime around 140 AD, probably to attempt to ascend to the bishop's seat when St. Hyginus vacated it. In 140 AD, however, St. Pius I (said to be the brother of Hermas who wrote "Shepherd of Hermas") was elected to take St. Hyginus's place as bishop of the church at Rome; he served as bishop until about 155 AD. In 144 AD Marcion was excommunicated from the church at Rome by St. Pius I. Marcion then started his own 'church', with its own bishops, priests, and deacons. This 'church' spread far and wide and endured, apparently, even into the Middle Ages. (cf. C.E. 'Marcionites') Marcion died around 160 AD. St. Justin Martyr, who died around 165 AD, refers in at least one place to Marcion as still living. Tertullian's work "Against Marcion" explains and refutes Marcion's teachings.

When it was time to elect a successor to St. Pius I (about 155 AD), it seems that Valentinus tried to win this election. Tertullian tells us this:

[BOQ] Valentinus had expected to become a bishop, because he was an able man both in genius and eloquence. Being indignant, however, that another obtained the dignity by reason of a claim which confessorship had given him, he broke with the church of the true faith. Just like those (restless) spirits which, when roused by ambition, are usually inflamed with the desire of revenge, he applied himself with all his might to exterminate the truth; and finding the clue of a certain old opinion, he marked out a path for himself with the subtlety of a serpent.[EOQ] (Against the Valentinians, 4)

Valentinus failed to attain the episcopal chair at Rome, and instead St. Anicetus was selected as bishop of Rome. It seems that about this time Valentinus was excommunicated by the church at Rome, whereupon he went to Cyprus and died around 160-161.

What did the gnostics teach? Among other things, they taught that Christ did not have a real body, and did not suffer. (They were, in this respect, docetic.) We can already see in the epistles of St. John the direct rejection of gnosticism. (1 John 4:2; 2 John 1:7) Cerinthus's Christology was as follows:

[BOQ] Cerinthus distinguished between Jesus and Christ. Jesus was mere man, though eminent in holiness. He suffered and died and was raised from the dead, or, as some say Cerinthus taught, He will be raised from the dead at the Last Day and all men will rise with Him. At the moment of baptism, Christ or the Holy Ghost was sent by the Highest God, and dwelt in Jesus teaching Him, what not even the angels knew, the Unknown God. This union between Jesus and Christ continues till the Passion, when Jesus suffers alone and Christ returns to heaven.[EOQ] ('Cerinthus' in the Catholic Encylopedia)

Gnosticism separates matter and spirit, human and divine. In this way, it denies the *incarnation*. That is significant for multiple reasons, about which I have written in "The Gnostic Roots of Heresy". We saw already in St. Ignatius (Ep. ad. Smyrnaeans, 7) that the docetists abstained from (or only minimally received) the Eucharist, precisely because for them, as docetists, the Eucharist could not truly be the Body and Blood of Christ. But here I want to point out one very important *ecclesial* implication of gnosticism.

One Ecclesial Implication

If Christ did not have an actual material body, then the Church per se, i.e. the Body of Christ, cannot be visible. If the gnostics were right, then the Church per se is only spiritual and invisible, and that visible thing that is falsely called the Church is merely an earthly, human-made political body, just as the physical body of Jesus the son of Mary was (according to the gnostics who admitted that there was a human Jesus) *merely* human. The dualism implicit in the gnostic denial of the true incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ has as an implication a two-fold denial: it denies the divine character of the one visible Church, and it denies the visible character of the [one and very same] divine Church. Without the hypostatic union of the human and the divine, there is no visible divine body, and thus no visible divine Mystical Body, i.e. no visible Church. And if there is no visible Church, then there is no Church discipline. Marcion can start his own 'church', and make his own canon. If there is no visible Church, then the true knowledge is known 'spiritually', not by means of matter or a physical succession of bishops, not through the visible Church. If there is no visible Church, then how do we know which books are inspired? Spiritually, by a burning in our bosom, an internal witness with our spirit. If there is no visible Church, then how do we know who has the true interpretation of these books? Again, by an internal spiritual witness that this is their true and self-evident meaning. How do we know that we have salvation? Again, by an internal spiritual witness. The ecclesial implication of gnosticism's denial of the hypostatic union is the individualism of some form of Montanism.

To take on flesh in a true union (not just in appearance or in an extrinsic manner) is to bind oneself to the particular, to the here and now, in space and time. But the particular is known in a different way than is that which is spiritual, invisible, and universal. What is entirely spiritual cannot be known by the senses. It must be known apart from the senses. Hence gnosticism entails that Christ is known internally in the subjectivity of one's own heart, not through matter, and thus not through one's senses, and definitely not through a material and temporal succession of sweaty, smelly, sinful men. But the incarnation entails something altogether different. Because of the incarnation, Christ is known to us through His material body, through His physical acts in particular places and times. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." (St. John 14:9) We come to God through His Body and Blood, not bypassing them. (St. John 6) Since Christ is embodied and visible in His particularity in space and time, so too the Church, as His Body, is visible in its particularity in space and time. As we come to Christ through union with that *matter* which flowed from the side of His physical body on the cross, so likewise we come to Christ through sacramental union with that same matter that pours forth daily from the side of His Body, the Church, in the Eucharist. The Church per se must be particular and visible in space and time because it is the Body of Christ, and because in taking on a body in His incarnation Christ was truly and permanently united with matter in all its particularity and visibility.

Marriage and "spiritual unity"

Imagine that you were having serious marital troubles. Your spouse never came home, and when he did, he slept on the couch. He refused to touch you, to speak to you, or eat with you, or sleep with you. So, you decide to go to a marriage counselor. You tell the counselor your situation and the counselor's response is something like this:

I know it seems to you like you are divided, but actually you are perfectly united, because your union is spiritual. Your marriage is a spiritual thing, and spiritually you are in perfect unity, no matter what your physical bodies are doing.

How would you respond to this? I expect that most of us would find another marriage counselor. Even if we could not put our finger exactly on the problem, we would know that in some fundamental way, this counselor was deeply mistaken. (I discussed this in more detail in my post titled "Sex, Dualism and Ecclesial Unity".)

And yet, this marriage counselor's position, as applied to the state of Christian disunity, is a rather common position among Evangelicals. Here's what it looks like when applied to the state of Christian disunity:

I know it seems that Christians are divided, but actually Christians are all perfectly united, because our union is spiritual, in Christ. The Church is a spiritual thing, and spiritually we are in perfect unity, even if physically we are all divided into various denominations, and we cannot share the Lord's Supper together, and we disagree on all kinds of doctrines. It would be nice if we were all institutionally and doctrinally united, as an expression of that perfect spiritual unity we all already have. But the thing to keep in mind is that we are all one in Christ, no matter how divided we are in doctrine or worship or government; so long as we love Jesus, we are all perfectly united in Christ.

Call that the "spiritual unity" position. Although we would recognize the problem if it were applied to our marriage, no one bats an eye when it is applied to the divisions between Christians. Why?

I think I have an idea why. A few years ago, someone whom I know and love told me that the Pope is the Antichrist. I was not yet a Catholic but already in the process of becoming a Catholic. I already believed that Christ had given to St. Peter the keys of the kingdom, and that as the episcopal successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI had received those keys, and was therefore the visible head of Christ's Church. It was clear to me in that moment that one of us was *deeply* deceived. Either I had come to believe that someone [who was actually the Antichrist] was the visible head of the Church, or my interlocutor had come to believe that someone [who was actually the visible head of Christ's Church] was the Antichrist. (Logically there is a third option, but I'm speaking here from our two perspectives.)

If Pope Benedict XVI is not the visible head of the Church, then it is bad strategy on Satan's part to deceive people into following Pope Benedict, since Pope Benedict clearly loves Jesus, and is encouraging people everywhere to follow Christ and turn away from sin and the works of the devil. But if Pope Benedict XVI is the visible head of the Church, then what would be Satan's most masterful trick to keep Christians from following Pope Benedict? Obviously, to deceive people into believing that Pope Benedict is the Antichrist! The Jews accused Jesus of having a demon (John 10:20; cf. Luke 11:15), and since Jesus tells us that the servant is not greater than his master, in the same ways that they persecuted Jesus they will persecute the true shepherds of His Church (John 15:20). And so we should fully expect that the true shepherds of Christ's Church will be treated as either having a demon or being in the service of the devil. Satan's masterful deception is to trick Christians into turning against their own true shepherds, just as Satan deceived the Jews into turning against their own true Messiah.

With that in mind, consider again the "spiritual unity" position. If Satan wanted to divide Christians and prevent their reconciliation and reunion, what would be his most effective deception? It would be to divide Christians into all kinds of schisms and then to deceive them into believing that they are not divided, but perfectly united. "You are not really divided. You are spiritually united." They would forget the word 'schism', and lose any conception of what it would mean. Or they would treat it as something entirely spiritual (See my "Schism from a gnostic point of view".) They would use euphemisms like 'branches' to describe their schisms, but they would be unable to provide any principled distinction between a branch and a schism. When you asked them the following question: "If you *were* in schism, how would your situation be different than it is right now?", you would get puzzled looks, blank expressions, and silent responses.

We recognize the deception of the "spiritually united" position when it is applied to marriage. But Satan has worked so much deception among us that we're entranced, lulled into the numbness of ecumenical lethargy by the sweet thought that we are all already perfectly united in Christ. What trick does Satan use here? He uses one of the first tricks he used against the early Church: gnosticism. This gnosticism rejects and devalues the material, and treats salvation as something entirely spiritual, though conceding that the spiritual may have some material expressions. The antidote to gnosticism is the incarnation; our Savior is the God-man Christ Jesus. He is both spirit and matter. Thus our salvation is not merely spiritual, just as a marriage between a husband and wife is not merely a spiritual relationship. We are material beings, and thus to be truly one we must be united in some sense materially, and not just spiritually. That entails that to be truly one we need to be institutionally one. Furthermore, if we are divided about which doctrines are true and essential, then we are not perfectly *spiritually* united, for spiritual unity is not just about love. Love and truth go together, as intellect and will go together. We cannot have one without the other. And so we cannot have agreement in will (i.e. shared love) if we do not have agreement in intellect, about what is true.

Like Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, let's stamp out the enchanting smoke, burning our feet in the process if necessary, and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, wake up from this gnostic deception, and with hearts burning with love for Christ's precious Body let us vigorously pursue reconciliation and reunion, however difficult and time-consuming the process may be.

Now is the time. Do you sense it? Is it not the love of Christ compelling us to seek reconciliation with our brothers and sisters long estranged from us? This is what the Holy Spirit is doing in our time, even as evil goes from bad to worse. (2 Tim 3:13) The Holy Spirit is placing in our hearts the same love that leaves its gift at the altar and first goes and is reconciled with our brother. (Matthew 5:24) The same love that seeks out the lost sheep (Luke 15:4) is the same love that does not rest while division and schism separate brother from brother, sister from sister. Let us prepare the way for the return of our King; let us labor to make His bride ready. (Revelation 19:7) The time for reconciliation is now, not for some heroic future generation of peacemakers. We can be that generation, with the help of God.

Christianity: Relationship or Religion?

Answer: Both.

To treat it as a religion and not a relationship is to fall into Pharisaism, going through rituals without either understanding or believing what it is that they signify. To treat Christianity as a relationship and not a religion is to fall into gnosticism, i.e. to disregard the sacraments and the Church that Christ founded, by which we receive grace and into which we, as material beings, are incorporated.

Protestants seem more liable to the gnostic error, as Jonathan discusses here. Sherry Waddell points out here that a fair number of Catholics tend toward to Pharisaism.

Imagine if we were united, and had the benefit of each other's gifts.

Schism from a gnostic point of view

Schism, from a gnostic point of view, is essentially internal, i.e. psychological, a spiritual discord. From a gnostic point of view, schism may be made manifest in external separation, but in such cases that external separation is a mere *manifestation* of the schism, not the schism itself, which is internal. Hence, from the gnostic point of view, in the event of "external", visible or institutional divisions and separations where there is no internal malice or hatred or animosity, and the separating parties both desire the well-being of the other parties, the resulting divisions are not schisms. From the gnostic point of view, the unity is retained and preserved, because from the gnostic point of view unity is (essentially) spiritual, i.e. internal.

To see that such a view is gnostic, apply it to marriage. As long as the husband and wife separate amicably and without any animosity or 'loss of love', and wish the other spouse well, it is not a schism. The really important thing is that they continue to 'love each other' in their hearts, no matter whether they live in separate cities and/or take on paramours. "I don't love you any less; I simply want to live on my own, and try out other partners" is the growing gnostic lie in our culture's conception of spousal love. (See my "Sex, Dualism, and Ecclesial Unity".)

When 'schism' is defined as "a breach of charity", and 'charity' is understood in this gnostic way, then the formation of the various denominations is not considered to be schism, so long as the various separating parties wished each other well in the process of separation. That is how someone could recently say to me (with all sincerity) that the 44 Reformed denominations in the US are not schisms because in the historical separations of these denominations from each other, there was no "breach of charity".

Schisms *do* necessarily involve a breach of charity, but a breach of charity *properly understood*, not the gnostic conception of charity. There is necessarily a breach of charity between spouses who separate and don't wish or seek to be together any more, even if they have no animosity or dislike toward each other, and even if they continue to wish each other well. Charity is by its very nature unitive; and humans are essentially embodied beings. Therefore charity among humans necessarily and essentially involves the pursuit of embodied unity, not merely spiritual (internal) unity. We seek to be physically with those we love, sharing a table, a celebration, an evening, an event, a walk, a book, a film, etc. Charity among *human beings* seeks unified *embodied* communal life with the beloved. Charity in a human context necessarily seeks to be, in some sense, one body, not merely one spirit. (Eph 4:4) And that is why dividing into 44 denominations (i.e. 44 bodies) *is* a breach of charity, even if there were only smiles and good feelings and well-wishing throughout the process.

In order to heal our schisms, we must first recognize them for what they are. And in order to do that, we need to see charity for what it truly is, and that requires abandoning the gnosticism that now pervades our culture.

Lord Jesus, please unite us truly to Yourself, and to each other.

Gnostic quote of the day

"But I don't feel like just because I don't go to church I'm going to hell. I can have my own relationship with God without going to church every week."

From this article in today's St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Antidote: Here.

What Is the True Church? Part 1

Francis A. Schaeffer

In the Fall of 1997, the Francis Schaeffer Institute at Covenant Theological Seminary sponsored a lecture series titled "What Is the True Church?". The Anglican position was presented by J.I. Packer. The Reformed view was presented by Douglas Kelly. The Orthodox position was presented by Nicholas Triantafilou. The Lutheran position was presented by Roger Pitellko. And the Catholic position was presented by Richard John Neuhaus. The audio of these talks can be downloaded for free here (requires sign in, which is free).

I was present at these talks; I was in my fourth year of seminary at the time. I remember coming away from this lecture series wondering what was the most fundamental reason that these men disagreed with each other. At that time, I did not understand what the *fundamental* underlying reason for the disagreement was, though I think I have a better understanding of it now, and I have been trying to write about it here on Principium Unitatis over the past year. In particular, I remember listening to Fr. Neuhaus' talk and thinking the following: Here is a man who obviously loves Christ, a man learned in Scripture, theology and Church history. How could he possibly not understand that Scripture teaches what we [Presbyterians] believe? He is not the sort of person (in his character) to distort Scripture deliberately. Nor is he an anti-intellectual who is unaware of all that our great Reformed scholars have written in defense of Reformed theology. Why did he become Catholic, instead of becoming Presbyterian? How could he possibly know all that he knows, and be a genuine truth-loving person, and still leave Protestantism, for the Catholic Church, of all things!? Why couldn't the highly-skilled exegetes on our faculty at Covenant (and at Concordia) simply take him aside and show him from the Hebrew and Greek that his interpretations of Scripture were clearly wrong?

It was only later that I read Fr. Neuhaus' article "How I Became the Catholic I Was". But at that time (i.e. 1997), I could not see or even conceive of the Catholic paradigm, about which I wrote last year (see here). I did not even know there was such a thing. I could see theology only from a Protestant point of view, and from that point of view, Fr. Neuhaus' Catholic position was obviously and seriously flawed. For that reason, Fr. Neuhaus' move to Catholicism was a mystery to me; I simply couldn't make sense of it. So I did what I did with all those other things that didn't make sense to me theologically -- I put it in a mental closet and closed the door. But the door wouldn't stay closed, and the closet kept accumulating more and more "does-not-compute"s.

What I did not understand then, but understand much better now, is that what divides Christians are meta-level disagreements. (See my recent comment on meta-level questions here.) So often, when we try to resolve that which divides us, we fail to recognize and address the meta-level points of disagreement. But given Tertullian's admonition, it does not seem appropriate to enter into a debate about first-order questions without first considering the meta-level questions. When a person is operating within a paradigm, and trying to resolve a disagreement with another person who is operating within a different paradigm, the discussion will make no headway toward agreement until they first recognize that they are each operating in a distinct paradigm, and then learn each other's paradigms, and then compare each other's paradigms on the basis of common ground, not question-begging claims.

Here I want to compare the Reformed answer to "What is the True Church?" with the Catholic answer to that question, and then point out the meta-level differences, that is, the underlying differences that account for the differences between the Reformed and Catholic answers to this question. I will do this in two parts. Part 1 will focus on the difference between the Reformed and Catholic conceptions of the marks of the Church. Part 2 will focus on the meta-level differences that lie behind these conceptual differences.

I was taking notes on Douglas Kelly's comments on the four marks of the Church as given in the Creed: Unam, Sanctum, Catholicam, et Apostolicam Ecclesiam, i.e. the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. As I was doing so, I noticed that Kelly's conceptions of "one" and "apostolic" were formalized, that is, de-materialized. When I say "de-materialized" I am referring to matter in the sense of "form and matter". A de-materialized conception of the gospel, for example, reduces it to a message (see here). A de-materialized conception of the Church is a kind of gnosticism, as I argued here. When I noticed that Kelly's conceptions of "one" and "apostolic" were de-materialized, I wondered if the same was true of his conceptions of "holy" and "catholic". Those turned out to be de-materialized as well. Then I looked at paragraph 881 in the Catholic Catechism, which reads:

"This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic." These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other, indicate essential features of the Church and her mission. The Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, makes his Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities." (my emphasis)

If these four marks are "inseparably linked to each other", then it is no coincidence that all four of Kelly's conceptions of the marks of the Church are de-materialized in comparison to the Catholic conceptions of the marks of the Church. To de-materialize one of the marks is necessarily, it seems, to de-materialize them all. And de-materializing our conceptions of the marks of the Church means that we lose sight of the Church as a "visible sacrament" of the unity that come to mankind through Christ. (Lumen Gentium 9)

Unam:
The Catholic understanding of the unity of the Church is that the Church is visibly one, because the Church is the *Body* of Christ. Notice that this is not merely a formal (i.e. doctrinal unity), or an abstract unity, or an immaterial unity. The Church is one hierarchically organized body, one institution. It is not a mere collection or plurality of individuals or groups. That would still be, in actuality, a plurality only treated conceptually as if it were a unity. Nor is the Church merely one in belief and practice. The Church is one in being; it is one visible body or institution.

The Reformed conception of the unity of the Church, on the other hand, is de-materialized in that the Church's unity is thought to be fundamentally spiritual, immaterial, and invisible. In the Reformed conception, unity is an invisible mark of the invisible Church. According to this conception, it would be good if we visibly manifested that invisible unity we all already have in Christ, but visible unity is not an essential mark of the Church. I have said much about this recently here, here, here, and here.

Sanctum:
The Catholic understanding of the holiness of the Church is that the Church is actually holy. This does not mean that her members on earth have perfect holiness, or that they all have the same degree of holiness, or even that the majority are exceptionally holy; in fact we are all still sinners. Nor does it mean that in their good deeds pagans and heretics can never outshine Catholics. But it does mean that the Church stands apart from the world in her godly practice and sanctification; she testifies by the manner of her life and witness to the righteousness of God, the dignity of human life, the goodness of creation, the future judgment and the life of the world to come. Her members on earth have a "real though imperfect" holiness (CCC 825), especially insofar as they receive the life of Christ through the means of grace in the sacraments. Moreover, the canonized saints are examples to us of the sanctifying transformative power of the Holy Spirit working in and through the Church. Through the continuous use of the sacraments and prayer, we are truly and actually transformed into virtuous people.

The common Reformed conception of holiness by contrast, is formalized and de-materialized. According to this conception, our holiness is essentially something imputed to us, a legal declaration in which Christ's righteousness is credited to our account, covering us from God's wrath, but not transforming us into persons to whom God could honestly say, "Well done good and faithful servant." All our deeds are as filthy rags. So the Church and the believer are treated by God *as if* holy, as if as holy as Christ, but not transformed so as to be actually holy. (I have explained all this in more detail here. To qualify, I'm speaking of the common contemporary Reformed conception of the gospel, not Calvin's own position.)

Catholicam:
The term means "universal", and as a mark of the Church it means "what is according to the totality", or "in keeping with the whole". (CCC 830) The Catholic conception of the term "Catholicam" is organic and narrative. The Church extends to wherever Christ is, wherever Christ offers Himself in preaching and sacrament, to every nation in the world. But this extends back in time, as an organic narrative, to the very birth of the Church on Pentecost. In that way, the Church is catholic insofar as she encompasses all that has been believed and practiced by the whole Church from the beginning of her history, through her organic development, to the present.

The Reformed conception of "catholic" is de-materialized in two ways. First, it tends to lay aside the time period from the fifth century to the 16th century as a great apostasy. I have called this notion "ecclesial deism", and explained it in more detail here. Second, Reformed denominations are provincial and regional by their very nature. They take names like "Presbyterian Church United States of America", or "Reformed Church of America" or "Presbyterian Church in America". How can anything with the name USA in it be the "catholic" Church? When PCUSA missionaries go to other countries in Africa and Asia, their converts become members of the PCUSA. There is no universal Presbyterian or Reformed Church whose members gather from all over the world for general assembly. The upcoming merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches with the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches shows an awareness of the need for catholicity. But I have argued here that to attempt to achieve catholicity by forming a new institution is to try to do the impossible, i.e. to re-found the Church. The only way to achieve true catholicity is to return to the one institution that Christ Himself founded on the Apostles.

As for the objection that the "Roman Catholic Church" has the word 'Roman' in it, and is therefore provincial, the word 'Roman' is not in the name of the Catholic Church -- see the title of the Catechism at right. The name "Roman Catholic Church" was a term coined by Protestants.

Apostolicam:
The Catholic conception of apostolicity as a mark of the Church is sacramental in nature. The Church is apostolic in that it was built on the foundation of the Apostles, often literally on their bones. (See here.) That Church is apostolic whose ministers were formally authorized and sent by those who were authorized and sent [in a line of unbroken succession] by the Apostles, preserving full communion with the episcopal successor of the Apostle Peter. Those whom the Apostles authorized and sent preserve the Apostles 'teaching and doctrine.

The Reformed conception of apostolicity, by contrast, is de-materialized in that it does not include sacramental succession from the Apostles, i.e. a succession of authorizations by the laying on of hands, extending all the way to the present day from the Apostles themselves. Rather, the Reformed conception of apostolicity is entirely formal (in the form and matter sense of 'form'), for it is defined as the Apostles' doctrine. This is why the Reformed communities posited two (or three) marks of the Church: (1) the right preaching of the Word, the proper administration of the sacraments, and (3) ecclesiastical discipline. But this only begs the question: Who has the authoritative determination of what is "right preaching of the Word" and "proper administration of the sacraments"? The common Reformed answer is: "The Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures." But if we ask, "And who has the authoritative determination of what the Holy Spirit is speaking through the Scriptures?", we get some answer like "the people of God". And if we ask, "And who are the 'people of God'?", we generally get some answer like, those who have right preaching of the Word and proper administration of the sacraments. At that point we have simply moved around in a circle. That is why removing the matter from the conception of apostolicity entails both individualism and its necessary byproduct, ecclesial fragmentation, as I argued here and here. For more on apostolicity see my response to Sean Lucas here, my comments on apostolicity and Montanistic Gnosticism here, and my comments on the implications for apostolicity from Acts 15 and Romans 10 here.)

Branches or Schisms? Part II

UPDATE: See the updated version of this post by clicking here.

This is a follow-up of my previous post titled "Branches or Schisms?". In my paper "The Gnostic Roots of Heresy", I argued that what lies behind the notion that the Church per se is invisible [visible only in that embodied believers are visible], is a gnosticism that eschews matter and is in that way in conflict with Christ's incarnation. This gnosticism treats the Body of Christ as something in itself invisible/spiritual, having no unified organizational structure. (See my post titled "Christ founded a visible Church".) It eliminates unity as a mark of the Church, either by making unity only a '*contingent* mark of the Church', or by treating unity as a 'necessary but *invisible* mark of an *invisible* Church'.

Recently I saw a diagram that is based on this gnostic notion that the Church per se is invisible. I found it on the web site "request.org", which describes itself as "A free website for teaching about Christianity in Religious Education." The diagram can be found on request.org's page explaining denominations. Here is a small version of the diagram: (Click on the diagram to see a larger version.)

Diagram 1

I want to point out two things about the above diagram. First, notice that the 'trunk' of this 'tree' takes a strange bend to the right, in the lower-middle of the diagram. The person who made the diagram determined that there must be no 'branch' that is the continuation of the 'trunk'. He or she thus assumed that the Church has no principium unitatis (i.e. principle of unity) such that the Church necessarily retains her unity through every possible schism. The assumption that the Church has no principium unitatis is itself based on a deeper assumption, namely, that the Church per se is invisible/spiritual, and therefore that her essential unity is at an invisible/spiritual level. Her visible unity is not essential to her being. That idea is quite similar to claiming that the integrity of a living body is not essential to its being, as though a living body's being blown into thousands of pieces by a powerful bomb does not detract from the existence of that body. Only if the Church is itself invisible (i.e. spiritual, immaterial) would the Church continue to exist after the disintegration of her visible unity. Hence the diagram above presumes that the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church itself, is invisible/immaterial, and in that way the diagram is in conflict with the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ.

The second thing to notice about Diagram 1 is that it shows there to be a single 'trunk' at least up to 1054 (I say "at least" because it is drawn such that the 'trunk' appears to continue into the 16th century). But Diagram 1 does not show what the 'tree' looks like through the first millennium. And that hides the challenge to the gnostic assumption that went into the making of Diagram 1. During the first millennium, the 'tree' looks something like this: (click on the diagram below for a larger version)

Diagram 2

This raises serious questions about the veracity of Diagram 1. If all those sects of the first millennium were separations from the Church (and Diagram 1 clearly assumes that to be the case, since it shows the Church to be visibly *one* just prior to 1054), then why should we think that at some point (either following 1054 or during the 16th century) there is no continuing 'trunk', and that therefore these divisions of the second half of the second millennium are all equally authentic 'branchings within' the Church? What is it that makes separations of the first millennium *schisms* and *heresies*, but makes separations of the second millennium mere *branchings within* the Church? Whose determination about whether something is a mere "branch of the Church" or a "schism from the Church" is authoritative? Is it for each person to decide for himself? If so, then if the Ebionites were to construct a diagram of the Church they could begin the branching in 63 AD, and call themselves an authentic branch of the Church.

It looks like the person who made Diagram 1 simply decided that all the divisions of the first millennium were "separations from the Church", while the divisions of the second millennium were "separations within the Church". But on what basis did he or she make this decision? On the basis of some shared "mere Christianity" of the second millennium? Why then couldn't the extension of "mere Christianity" include all these sects of the first millennium? Who gets to determine the extension of "mere Christianity"? How is it not arbitrary that, for example, the Baptists, are thought to be included within "mere Christianity" while the Monophysites are not? The Pentecostals are, but the Montanists are not? And so on. The answer cannot be "Well the Baptists and Pentecostals share my general interpretation of Scripture", because any Monophysite could say the same thing about fellow Monophysites. It is naive to assume that heretics and schismatics don't appeal to Scripture to justify their positions: see here and here. What counts as "mere Christianity" therefore cannot be based on what people defend using Scripture. Unless the Protestant wishes to allow "mere Christianity" to extend to all these divisions of the first millennium, he will need some non-arbitrary, non-stipulative way of limiting the extension of "mere Christianity" to what Protestants have in common with Catholics and Orthodox. But it seems to me that that is precisely what he does not have.

Both the Catholics and the Orthodox agree that the trunk of this 'tree' did not end in 1054. (The Catholic Church claims it continues with her; the Orthodox claim it continues with them.) So the Protestant who wishes to conceive of all the Protestant denominations as branches of the Church, must either claim:

(1) That the separation of the Catholics and the Orthodox was the first "branching within" the Church, OR

(2) That the Church continued with the Orthodox, the Pope being in schism from the Church, OR

(3) The Church continued with the Pope, the Orthodox being in schism from the Church.

If the Protestant claims that (1) is true, then he must explain why the Catholic-Orthodox split is a mere "branching within" (i.e.does not involve a schism from the Church) when every other split in the prior history of the Church involved a "schism from" the Church and the preservation of the unity of the Church. He will need to show the principled difference between a "branching within" and a "schism from", and the basis for determining, in any division, whether it is a 'branching within' or a 'schism from', and, if it is a 'schism from', which of the separating groups is the continuation of the Church Christ founded, and why. [Remember, both Orthodox and Catholics reject (1); accepting (1) is a modern Protestant notion.] But the Protestant cannot (while remaining Protestant) accept (2), because (2) implies that Protestantism is no better than a "branching within a schism from" the Church, and therefore that Protestants should become Orthodox in order to be reconciled to the Church. But if the Protestant accepts (3), then if the diagram doesn't include the Reformation it looks something like this: (click on the diagram for a larger version)

Diagram 3

But if the Protestant accepts Diagram 3, he is going to have a very difficult time justifying Diagram 1 over something like Diagram 4: (click on the diagram for a larger version)

Diagram 4

Nor will he likely wish to claim that some particular Protestant denomination is the 'trunk', i.e. the institution Christ founded. So there seem to be three choices for the Protestant: (1) a gnosticism that treats the Church itself as invisible, and thus allows all the divisions of the first two millennia (or any arbitrary subset of them) to be "branches within" the Church, (2) Orthodoxy, or (3) Catholicism.

"That they may be one"

"Adoration of the Trinity"
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Today's Gospel reading includes some of the verses that serve as the Scriptural reason for this blog:

Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed saying:
"I pray not only for these,
but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
so that they may all be one,
as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
that they also may be in us,
that the world may believe that you sent me.
And I have given them the glory you gave me,
so that they may be one, as we are one,
I in them and you in me,
that they may be brought to perfection as one,
that the world may know that you sent me,
and that you loved them even as you loved me.
Father, they are your gift to me.
I wish that where I am they also may be with me,
that they may see my glory that you gave me,
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Righteous Father, the world also does not know you,
but I know you, and they know that you sent me.
I made known to them your name and I will make it known,
that the love with which you loved me
may be in them and I in them." (John 17: 20-26)

Last year I had a conversation with a Protestant concerning the interpretation of one word in this passage. But to explain this conversation, I'll need to give some background.

The early Church knew that Christ is divine, that Christ is not God the Father, that the Holy Spirit is divine, that the Holy Spirit is neither God the Father nor Christ, and that there are not many Gods but only one God. But the early Church did not initially have the philosophical tools to explain how these various truths are compatible. Faced with the challenges from skeptics and philosophers, and especially from Greek philosophy, the Church fathers acquired philosophical tools to explain that Christ and the Father [and the Holy Spirit] are homoousious [the same in substance or being], not the same in hypostasis [Person]. We see this language already in the first Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325, from which (with some additions from the Second Ecumenical Council) we get the Nicene Creed. In this way, the Church took these philosophical tools and used them in the making of Catholic dogma, through the Ecumenical Councils. The notions of substance and person in explication of the Christian teaching about the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit have since been part of the infallible dogma of the Church.

Now, fast forward fifteen hundred years. Bound up with the [Protestant] notion of sola scriptura is a denial of the infallibility of any Church council or papal decree. Sola scriptura thus entails that any line of any creed or conciliar or papal decree could be false. Hence the Protestant conception of sola scriptura calls into question the Church's dogmatic conclusions resulting from her appropriation of philosophical concepts to explain the coherence of her theological claims about the relation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The result is that beliefs such as Sabellianism or even tritheism are 'heresies' only if the individual Protestant interlocutor concludes that these beliefs are contrary to his interpretation of Scripture.

The term 'heresy', which in Catholic theology is defined in relation to the authoritative determinations of the Church, in a sola scriptura context can only ultimately be defined in relation to the individual's interpretation of Scripture; see here. To see that, one need only ask the Protestant who denies being a biblicist the grounds on which he determines which councils and creeds are authoritative. It soon becomes clear that he determines whether or not they or any part of them are 'authoritative' by seeing whether or not they agree with his own interpretation of Scripture. He is therefore actually a biblicist, though he typically acts and treats himself as though he is not [see here, for example]. The self-described biblicist/fundamentalist is thus more self-aware than the Protestant who denies being a biblicist.

The particular conversation I mentioned above concerned the meaning of the word 'one' in the verses of today's Gospel reading, wherein Christ says that He and the Father are one. My interlocutor, coming from a sola scriptura point of view, did not recognize the authority of the Creed and thus the truth of homoouious. He was suspicious of any philosophy used in theology, and especially suspicious of Greek philosophy. His position regarding the Trinity was a form of "social trinitarianism" in which the three Persons are one not in substance or being, but in love. (This is a form of tritheism, although my interlocutor would not have described his position with that term.)

When Jesus prays (in John 17) that all who believe in Him would be one just as He and the Father are one, a tritheist interprets these verses very differently than the Catholic Church understands them. A tritheist interprets these verses to mean that Jesus simply wants us all to love each other; our unity is to be an interpersonal unity. The tritheist does not interpret these verses to mean that Christ wants us all to be in any sense ontologically one (i.e. one in being), because of course Christ would not ask that we be more unified with each other than He is with the Father. The Catholic Church believes, of course, that Christ wants all believers to love one another. But because the Catholic Church understands the unity of the divine Persons of the Trinity as not only interpersonal but also ontological (e.g. homoouious), the Church understands that Christ is praying in John 17 that all believers also be incorporated into one Body, the Church, whose Head is Christ. So the difficulty here in talking with a biblicist about the ecclesial implications of this passage in John 17 is that the Church's appeal to these verses as a support for Christ's desire for institutional unity among all believers depends upon a Catholic understanding of the Trinity, which itself is grounded in a Catholic understanding of the authority of Ecumenical Councils. This seems to put the defender of Catholicism in a position of circularity viz-a-viz the biblicist.

How then do we (Catholics) reason with the biblicist with the aim of coming to theological agreement and ecumenical unity? It seems to me that we cannot do so within the framework of his biblicism. (See Tertullian's statement regarding ecclesial authority and interpretation.) We have to turn our attention to his biblicism itself, such that he comes to see that his denial of Church authority is the error underlying his disagreement concerning what sort of unity Christ is praying for in John 17. But the movement from biblicism to an acceptance of Church authority is not simply a matter of following the movement from the premises to the conclusion of a deductive argument; it is rather a kind of paradigm shift. (See my post titled "Two Paradigms".) So the conversation with a biblicist about such a matter requires the patience and humility of learning to look at all the available evidence (including the evidence from the early Church and the fathers) from within these two different paradigms, and thus helping our biblicist interlocutors come to see this evidence from within the Catholic paradigm.

Underlying biblicism is a form of doubt, a distrust. It is in fact a distrust of Christ, though it is typically expressed and consciously experienced and understood as only a form of distrust in men and the Church as institution. (Even though it is a distrust of Christ, it is not culpable insofar as it is the result of invincible ignorance.) This distrust/doubt is itself made possible by a kind of gnosticism that separates matter from form, Body from Spirit, and the Church from Christ her invisible Head. (See my post titled "Sex, Dualism and Ecclesial Unity"; see also my paper on the gnostic roots of heresy.) This gnostic separation of matter from form allows its holder to presume to trust the spiritual while rejecting the material. It thus allows the biblicist to claim to trust the invisible Christ while rejecting His visible Body, to claim to be a member of the "invisible Church" while eschewing the visible institution Christ founded. It claims to want the spiritual Jesus, not the incarnate Jesus, to want the living Spirit, not a "dead institution". (Sound familiar?) The reality and permanence of Christ's incarnation means that Christ and His Body can never be separated, that to trust in Christ is to trust in His Body the Church, to love Christ is to love His Body. (See here and here.) The gnostic division of matter and form (embracing form while rejecting matter) is what sets up the ecclesial deism that underlies both Mormonism and Protestantism, as I have argued here.

In my next post, I'm going to write about love and ecclesial unity. But here I have tried to show that in order to talk with the biblicist about the ecumenical implications of John 17, we have to step back and help our interlocutor come to see outside the biblicist paradigm, helping him to see all the evidence from the Catholic paradigm. When one looks at all the evidence from both paradigms, the experience of moving from the biblicist to the Catholic paradigm is like the experience of peering into a dim room when someone turns on the light. The Catholic paradigm includes and incorporates all that is true in the biblicist paradigm, but explains so much more, including why the biblicist paradigm is so incomplete. But the same is not true when moving from the Catholic paradigm to the biblicist paradigm. So the ecumenical dialogue should be something like a kitchen table conversation in which we are seeking to help each other see the evidence from our respective paradigms. The standard mistake in ecumenical dialogue is to start debating a text or doctrine without taking into account our paradigm [meta-level] differences. We end up simply talking past each other, and misunderstanding each other and sometimes getting frustrated, because we are not focused on the fundamental *perspectival* and *methodological* differences that stand under and behind our more proximate and apparent differences in Scripture interpretation and doctrine.

In accord with the intention of Christ's sacred heart exposed in this high priestly prayer, may the Holy Spirit work through us to make us all one, as Christ and the Father are one, by incorporating us all fully into Christ's Body, the Church.