Orthodox Constructions of the West

First, apologies to readers and friends. Late last week I traveled to Annapolis to attend my brother's wedding. He even asked me to do the blessing at the reception on a rented yacht. Such an opportunity to feel useful was too good to pass up; and as the whole affair turned into a four-day family reunion, I barely even got the chance to look at the Internet. But today I've noticed something I've been meaning to comment on anyhow.

Just before I left New York for the wedding, a conference called “Orthodox Constructions of the West” took place at Fordham University (June 28-30). Although that is less than two miles from where I'm living at the moment, I was unable to attend: when one doesn't have a job, even registration fees become problematic! But several of my friends did, including Drs. William Tighe and Peter Gilbert, did. The only report I've seen on the conference so far is at the blog Eirenikon, where it's possible to discuss Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism without the combox descending into polemical recriminations. The Eirenikon post is the first of several announced installments, and consists mostly of notes by "good friend of the blog and frequent commenter, Michaël de Verteuil," a Canadian civil servant who's better informed on the general topic than most people and occasionally comments here too. He wrote mostly on the opening address by Fr. Robert Taft, SJ, whom he correctly says has "earned the right to say whatever he wants" at such an occasion. Please read the post and the ensuing combox.

I have just a few comments of my own. Of Robert Taft, I'm a big fan. He's almost always right. But as my friend Diane Kamer implies in the combox, realism, objectivity, and charity must prevail on both sides if substantive progress is to be made. On the Catholic side, the impetus for those qualifies definitely exists, because Rome is committed to attaining the reunion for which they are necessary. As I see it, though, the same cannot be said for the Orthodox. Some, especially among theologians and hierarchs, do have those qualities and do see the need to work tirelessly toward reunion. But they are not the majority. And even if the irenic minority prevailed at the hoity-toity level, there can be no reunion on the ground without a change of heart among Orthodox who are...well, on the ground.

As new reports on the conference come in, I'll have more to post.

The case of Brother Roger

Long ago, St. Augustine remarked: “There are some whom God has, whom the Church has not. And there are some whom the Church has, whom God has not…When we speak of within and without in relation to the Church, it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body . . . All who are within the heart are saved in the unity of the ark” (On Baptism 5). For reasons doubtless known more to the Holy Spirit than to me, I've been thinking a lot lately about that anomaly in the economy of salvation. It just is true that some non-Catholics are in fuller communion with the Catholic Church than some Catholics. That fact calls for theological explanation which not everybody can appreciate—and that fact in turn that is troubling enough, at least to me. But my friend Dr. Phil Blosser has brought to my attention a particular ecclesiological anomaly whose official explanation is even more troubling than the anomaly itself.

Calvinist pastor Roger Schutz, the de facto leader of Taizé who was murdered in 2005 by a deranged woman at a public ecumenical service, had previously been given the Eucharist by then-Cardinal Ratzinger and by Cardinal Kasper, who now serves as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. At long last, Kasper has explained that anomaly. Here's the gist of the explanation:

He denies that Fr. Schutz "formally" adhered to the Catholic Church. And much less did he abandon the Protestantism into which he was born. He affirms, instead, that he gradually "enriched" his faith with the pillars of the Catholic faith, particularly the role of Mary in salvation history, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the "the ministry of unity exercised by the bishop of Rome." In response to this, the Catholic Church allowed him to receive Eucharistic communion. According to Kasper, it is as if there had been an unwritten agreement between Schutz and the Church of Rome, "crossing certain confessional" and canonical limits.

That greatly puzzles me, Phil, and other orthodox Catholics who know and care about such things. If Brother Roger, without evincing any intention of becoming formally Catholic, could receive the Eucharist, then why not traditional Anglican clergy? Why not anybody who believes certain distinctively Catholic doctrines but who, for whatever reason, sees fit to remain formally non-Catholic? What happens to the RCIA? In what sense, beyond the merely empirical, does it remain a norm to reserve the Eucharist for those who are in full communion with the Church?

Since I often disagree with Cardinal Kasper, and certainly don't find him as good a theologian as the countryman of his who occupies the Chair of Peter, I'm not really interested in hearing his answers to such questions. I'm interested in hearing the Pope's. As Ratzinger he was, after all, directly implicated in the case of Brother Roger. Will we hear from the Pope about this? I don't know. Perhaps the answers are already latent in the Church's norms, and I just haven't thought hard enough to make them patent. But right now I can't think quite hard enough to manage that.

Can anybody offer something that isn't just a way of restating the problem?

This time, Fr. Behr

As many of my readers know, I have become a veteran of Catholic-Orthodox dialogue online. As the same readers know, such dialogue can and often does descend into a clash of polemical shibboleths. Internet culture, alas, makes that virtually inevitable. But given how sterile and ultimately boring such clashes are—whatever the initial excitement they offer some participants—I have striven consistently to eliminate or at least minimize them in my posts. As many of the combox discussions illustrate, success is not guaranteed. But with some justice, I still see my chief role as removing intellectual obstacles to mutual understanding and even concord. That is the role I seek to resume in what follows: a brief, entirely provisional critique of how Fr. John Behr, Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, rejects the notion of what John Henry Newman called "development of doctrine" (DD).

In my role, whereby I operate more on the conceptual than the practical level, I have come to believe that disagreement about DD—or, more precisely, about the question whether DD can be "authentic" from the standpoint of Tradition—is the biggest single obstacle to Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism on the conceptual as distinct from the practical level. I say so knowing full well that there are many factors at work in the historic schism and that the deeper ones have at least as much if not more to do with differences of "ethos," as the Ochlophobist is wont to put it, than with the highly technical, theological issues that have often preoccupied the academically inclined in both communions. Nevertheless, since I lack both the holiness of life and the worldly influence to do much else, I shall resume my little role in the dialogue by returning to the issue of DD.

When I last devoted a post to an Orthodox take on DD, I did so in response to several of my Orthodox readers who recommended an essay by Fr. Andrew Louth entitled "Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology?", written for the recent Pelikan festschrift. Unsurprisingly, Louth's answer was "no." But in my post, I analyzed Louth's arguments and concluded that he was conceding substantively what he was rejecting verbally—i.e., that authentic DD has occurred in a sense now recognized not only by the Catholic Church but, I maintain, by some Orthodox thinkers such as Pelikan himself. I had been prepared to reach such an odd conclusion by the blowback I had got, privately and publicly, from criticizing the well-known Orthodox pastor Fr. Patrick Reardon for rejecting DD. Eventually I felt obliged to concede that Reardon, and perhaps some other Orthodox thinkers, are willing to admit "authentic DD" in some meaty sense of that term. But I also had to recognize that other Orthodox thinkers, such as Louth and Behr, deny that they themselves do. In this respect, the dissensus within Orthodoxy reminds me of its dissensus on other matters, such as ecclesiology. But it is not for me to criticize Orthodoxy for such dissensus; after all, in the Catholic Church we have the Magisterium, which rightly exists to minimize doctrinal dissensus and does so de jure, but often does not de facto. My aim is far narrower and more useful: to criticize arguments against the possibility of authentic DD, so that the parties on all sides might become more able and willing to get clear with each other about what the fact of authentic DD actually consists in.

To that end, I am only going to criticize a brief argument that Behr gave in a talk entitled "Orthodoxy" given in Chapel Hill, NC a decade ago. I am well aware that, since then, Fr. Behr has thought and published much that is relevant; given my limited opportunities for study these days, I have only managed to savor his excellent The Way to Nicaea, vol. 1 of The Formation of Christian Theology (Crestwood: SVS Press, 2001). But I saw nothing in that book, and have heard nothing else leading me to suspect, that Behr would be willing to repudiate the essential structure of the argument he gave in his 1998 talk. And so I shall proceed on the assumption that that argument still reflects his view; after all, the text of his talk remains on the St. Vlad's website. But I remain open to correction from those more knowledgeable about him.

Here's the nub of Behr's argument (I have added the emphases):

If tradition is essentially the right interpretation of Scripture, then it cannot change -- and this means, it can neither grow nor develop. A tradition with a potential for growth ultimately undermines the Gospel itself -- it leaves open the possibility for further revelation, and therefore the Gospel would no longer be sure and certain. If our faith is one and the same as that of the apostles, then, as Irenaeus claimed, it is equally immune from improvement by articulate or speculative thinkers as well as from diminution by inarticulate believers (Against the Heresies, 1.10.2). We must take seriously the famous saying of St. Vincent of Lerins: "We must hold what has been believed everywhere, always and by all" (Commonitorium, 2).

From an Orthodox perspective, there simply is, therefore, no such thing as dogmatic development. What there is, of course, is ever new, more detailed and comprehensive explanations elaborated in defense of one and the same faith -- responding, each time, to a particular context, a particular controversy etc. But it is one and the same faith that has been believed from the beginning -- the continuity of the correct interpretation of Scripture. And for this reason, the Councils, as Fr. John Meyendorff pointed out [2], never formally endorsed any aspect of theology as dogma which is not a direct (and correct) interpretation of the history of God described in Scripture: only those aspects were defined as dogma which pertain directly to the Gospel. So, for instance, the only aspect pertaining to the Virgin Mary that was ever recognized as dogma is that she is Theotokos -- "Mother of God" -- for she gave birth to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ -- it is something which pertains to the Incarnation, rather than to Mary herself. Whilst individual theologians have speculated about other aspects concerning the Virgin herself, and her glorification, items not directly pertaining to the Gospel of Christ's work of salvation, such as the Assumption and the Immaculate conception, have never been held to have the status of dogma in the Orthodox Church.

Let me say at once that I appreciate Behr's concern in that. He is concerned above all to rule out substantive addition to that "tradition" which, after all, hands down to us whole and entire the deposit of faith "once given to the saints." Whichever communion we believe to be "the" Church, she may do no other. Such addition would entail the idea of "further revelation," so that "the Gospel would no longer be sure and certain"; but the Gospel must be sure and certain, because it is given definitively by God who can neither deceive nor be deceived, and as such forms the proximate (as distinct from the ultimate) object of the virtue of faith. With that understood, however, there are two confusions in Behr's argument that vitiate his conclusion against the idea of authentic DD.

The first is the claim that Tradition is essentially "the right interpretation of Scripture." To be sure, Tradition necessarily includes the right interpretation of Scripture; if it did not, then it would not be reliable for the purpose I've already acknowledged with Behr. Thus we may say that the right interpretation of Scripture is essential to Tradition—but only since there actually arose such a thing as the canon of Scripture recognized as such throughout the apostolic churches. Now during the Apostles' lifetime, "Scripture" was the Septuagint, and it was their essentially Christological approach to the Septuagint that distinguished the Apostles' interpretation from other Jewish ones. But Tradition, i.e. that which was handed down to them in and through Jesus Christ, did not consist merely in a right interpretation of the Septuagint. Tradition for the Apostles also, and decisively, included the person, words, life, passion, and resurrection of Jesus, all of which they experienced firsthand in the flesh (Paul being a special case); and it was in light of those that the Apostles interpreted the Septuagint as they did. At its core, then, Tradition was not just the right interpretation of the Septuagint; it was that set of revealed data in light of which the right interpretation of the Septuagint could be achieved.

Moreover, it took at least two generations after the Apostles for what we now call "the New Testament" to coalesce and be recognized as such, and several more generations for the NT canon to assume the precise content it has retained since. So, as Behr clearly recognizes, it was in light of a prior "rule of faith" that the Church was able to recognize what did and did not belong in the NT—and the NT expressed the rule of faith for interpreting the OT. That rule of faith was what had been handed down both to and from the Apostles—i.e., it was Tradition. Accordingly, although Tradition must include the right interpretation of Scripture—once it's clear, at any rate, what "Scripture" really is—Tradition must predate at least part of Scripture and provide at least some independent knowledge of that "Christ-event" which gives Scripture its true subject-matter. Even though the right interpretation of Scripture is "essential to" Tradition in the sense of being indispensable thereto, Tradition itself is larger than Scripture and even, in a primordial sense, supplies what Scripture is about. For that reason Tradition cannot be merely, or even primarily, the right interpretation of Scripture. Why this point is important for my main purpose will emerge after I address what I see as the second confusion in Behr's argument.

That confusion is between the material and the formal content of the deposit of faith. Materially, the deposit of faith may not and indeed cannot be augmented by any process whatsoever. Since it is in and by Christ, the Truth himself, that we are given the definitive revelation of God for us, there is nothing materially to add to what is revealed in and by Christ. But it does not thereby follow that there can be no formal elaboration of teaching thereon that develops over time. A good deal of that formal elaboration is what Behr acknowledges by claiming that "[w]hat there is, of course, is ever new, more detailed and comprehensive explanations elaborated in defense of one and the same faith -- responding, each time, to a particular context, a particular controversy etc." But as I have often argued before, that is precisely what authentic DD consists in. When it is claimed that there is such a thing as authentic development of doctrine, the term 'doctrine' means 'teaching', from the Latin doctrina. It is undeniable that there has been development in teaching over the centuries in the East as well as the West, if by "teaching" we mean the elaboration and transmission of true and normative statements about the content of divine revelation. Development of doctrine is a fact, and it remains a fact even though putative addition to that which doctrine is about—i.e., the deposit of faith—is neither desirable nor ultimately possible. The development of "dogma" is just the development of doctrine into formulations that the Church proposes to us with her full authority, such as the homousion. And so, pace Behr, there is such a thing as development of dogma—so long as we realize that such development adds nothing to the material content of the deposit of faith, but only formally elaborates that content in ways helpful within this or that historical context.

It might seem as though I could accomplish my main purpose by making that argument alone, without also criticizing Behr's claim that Tradition is "essentially the right interpretation of Scripture." But in fact, the juxtaposition of the two mistakes shows that Behr's argument is simply incoherent. For if Tradition were just "the right interpretation of Scripture," it would make no sense to deny that it could develop; for the human activity of "right interpretation" just does develop over time in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. That holds even assuming, as both Behr and I do, that the deposit of faith itself, which is what Scripture and Tradition together convey to us, does not develop. That does not of course mean that we have greater access than the Apostles and Father to the divine truth we understand by means of such activities as exegesis and doctrinal development. Indeed the Apostles saw the Truth directly, which few if any have done since. But it does means that, building on the foundations not only of the Apostles and Fathers but on holy and wise Christians after them, we develop "more detailed and comprehensive explanations" of the Faith and, sometimes, even correct received opinions that do not, in the final analysis, belong to the deposit of faith. I should have thought all that uncontroversial, but I have come to understand all too well why it is not.

So much for what I see as Behr's confusions. I should like to close by criticizing how Behr addresses a particular case of DD.

Behr cites the "continuity of the correct interpretation of Scripture"—the continuity of what he defines, inaccurately, as Tradition—as the "reason" for holding that the great ecumenical councils of the first millennium only "defined as dogma" things that "pertain directly to the Gospel." From this point of view, defining that Mary is Theotokos is legitimate dogmatizing whereas defining the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption as dogma are not. But this is to beg the question.

The upshot of distinctively Catholic Mariology is that Mary sums up in her person pre-eminently what every believer is called to be in lesser degree. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception tells us that Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, what each believer is at the moment of their baptism; the Assumption tells us that Mary, from time her earthly life ended, has enjoyed proleptically that fullness of resurrection which all the saved will enjoy on the Last Day. For those and other reasons, Mary is by far the most powerful intercessor on believers' behalf. Indeed, Mary is not only Mother of God but Mother of that Church which is the Mystical Body of her divine Son, in virtue of being one body with him in a unity of which Christian marriage is a sacramental sign. And that Church is necessary for salvation, even when the grace offered to the world in and through her works outside her visible boundaries. So if the economy of salvation really does include all the things about Mary that the Catholic Church teaches, then Mary is indeed "Mediatrix of all Graces"—although, for reasons I gave a few days ago, it would not be helpful now for Rome to dogmatize that doctrine. Yet, if the Catholic Marian doctrines are true, they tell Christians things which it is quite helpful for salvation to know.

Of course it is possible to be saved without such knowledge, just as it is possible for some people to be saved without ever having heard the Gospel. But to argue from that premise to the conclusion that the Catholic Marian dogmas do not belong to the deposit of faith would be like arguing that the doctrine of the necessity of baptism, which has long been taught in both East and West, does not so belong either. Such an argument would be obviously fallacious, and I don't believe Behr would make it. That's why he begs the question by simply assuming that the Catholic Marian dogmas do not "pertain directly to the Gospel."

If Behr had an adequate conception of what he purports to reject, he would not make the mistakes I have pointed out. What's needed on his part is more sympathetic understanding of what he claims to reject. But as I've implied above, if I have failed to heed that very advice in criticizing Behr as I have, I stand open to correction.

That little black spot

Most literate folk are familiar with the Yin-Yang symbol. I don't want to get into a discussion of what Yin and Yang really are, or are supposed to be; that is a topic for comparative religion, and Gagdad Bob is better qualified to handle it in a way I would respect. By way of introduction to my real topic, however, I note that when I first saw the symbol, I thought that it was intended to represent the relationship of good and evil in human beings. Thus, there's a little bit of good even in bad people (the little white spot) and a little bit of bad even in good people (the little black spot). I am told that such is a common misimpression among undergraduates. I am reminded of it by a post I've just read by a man who calls himself "janotec" and seems to be an Orthodox cleric, even perhaps a theologian.

The post appears at the blog "Second Terrace" and is entitled Orthodox theologians do not speak in tongues. It is an impassioned yet reasonably well-argued plea for Orthodox theologians to expound dogma more and worry less about meeting the so-called "challenges of the age." With one qualification, I wish that I had written that post myself as a plea to Catholic theologians, whom I am better positioned to address. The qualification is that I object to the following two sentences, which unfortunately appear near the beginning:

A long time ago, when Orthodoxy got too conservative (or seemed that way), relevant philosophers who "responded" to "contemporary challenges" forged a nominalism that made Grace a far less frightening thing, and intellectualized it into something less than a phenomenon. Too, the West could now take its ethics in spoonfuls, in casuistic legerdemain.

For me, that kind of thing is like the little black spot: a stain on what would otherwise be dazzling white. I want to explain why so as to contribute, in my own small way, to an eminently desirable goal: getting Orthodox and Catholics to preach the Gospel effectively in today's world not only with the abiding resources of the Great Tradition, but with better mutual understanding.

The problem with the above-quoted little passage is not that it is altogether false. It contains an important element of truth. The problem is that it rhetorically lumps in something of the bad with something of the good which may be found within the theologies of something called "the West"—a term of art which, in Eastern-Orthodox parlance, means that part of Christendom which, for well over a millennium, worshiped and theologized in Latin rather than Greek. (To Christians in such places as Armenia, Iraq, and India, of course, "the West" included Constantinople too. And John Bekkos, a medieval patriarch of Constantinople with strong "Western" leanings, at least got a hearing in the city for a while. Yet for reasons it would be counterproductive to explain, I don't want to stress that very much.) The resentments, misunderstandings, and rivalries go back to at least the time when Pope Damasus I (366-384) substituted the vernacular Latin for Greek in the Roman Mass and didn't even take note of the First Council of Constantinople (381), which produced what was eventually accepted everywhere as the ecumenical Creed. And for various reasons, the negativity gradually worsened over time, eventually causing the schism that persists to this day. For my present purpose, the two most relevant problems are the Catholic-scholastic idea of "created grace" and the Western development of moral theology at the same time in terms drawn from legal theory.

I start with the concept of created grace. There certainly were Catholic theologians in the later Middle Ages who were "nominalists," and it is certainly true that many of those nominalists treated the question of grace in more or less the way janotec criticizes. But not all scholastics were nominalists by any means. The via moderna of that period in Catholic theology, in my opinion, did tend to go wrong as janotec says; and that was a key precursor to Protestantism's essentially forensic account of justification. But some Catholic theologians were Franciscans and Thomists who were anything but followers of that path. Indeed, in the hands of those more traditionally-minded theologians, the very concept of "created grace" was intended largely to explain how justification and sanctification consisted in what we'd now call an "ontological" change in the human soul, in such wise that the soul could become a "partaker of the divine nature" without becoming God-by-nature. In that respect, use of the concept of created grace had the same goal as that of St. Gregory Palamas when he expatiated on the distinction between the divine "essence," which cannot be shared, and the divine "energies" or actions ad extra, which can and indeed must be shared if we are to have the life God destines us for—the "life eternal" otherwise known as theosis or "divinization." As I see it, the chief difference between the older, more robust Catholic theology postulating "created" grace, and the Palamite view that the divine energies are "uncreated" and thus God, is that the Catholics used the term grace not merely for its primary referent, which is indeed the Uncreated himself insofar as he communicates his life to us, but also for the instruments he uses to communicate his life to the human person, and especially for some of the effects of that communication within the human person.¹

The main problem arose when neo-scholasticism as a whole became preoccupied with classifying and analyzing the kinds of created grace so understood, in order to explain how our "correspondence" with grace causes "congruous merit" in the human soul. That went on to such an extent that people started forgetting about the primary referent of the term 'grace' and got into the habit of speaking of grace as though it could be located, divvied up, and distributed almost according to formula. That explains a way of speaking even today that has always grated on me. Catholics often speak of grace as if it were some sort of spiritual fuel, with differing levels of octane, that one can get more or less of depending on one's recourse to the "means"of grace, such as the sacraments and prayer. That's what accounts in part for why many Catholics seem to treat church as a spiritual gas station: a place where you pull up, pay up, tank up with grace, and pull out in time for brunch or the football game (depending on which scheduled Mass you got up in time for). When people receive the Eucharist with such an attitude, it does them a lot less good than it could and, in cases of unrepented serious sin, real harm. Catholicism really has needed to recover a more Eastern, relational sense of grace as God himself operative within the person, without thereby sacrificing use of the term 'grace' in the derivative senses already described, which are perfectly consistent with the primary referent of the term when properly contextualized and understood. That, in effect, is what various Catholic movements and theologians have been doing ever since the ressourcement that preceded and helped to guide Vatican II.

For a long time, though, the chief obstacle to bringing that to fruition in Catholic sacramental, ascetical, and mystical theology has been a tendency to legalism in moral theology. When one treats Christian morality primarily as a set of rules, one comes to think of progress in the Christian life primarily as progress in observing those rules. Salvation is then conceived primarily as a reward for such progress—i.e., for one's degree of merit—and the function of grace is seen primarily as that of enabling one to achieve such merit. The serious Christian will thus do what they can to get "all the graces" they can because, after all, one can never have enough fuel for a long journey in which one too often finds oneself traveling backwards. That is the grain of truth in the common Protestant view that Catholicism teaches salvation by "works" rather than by "grace." Many Catholics, and not just Catholics, have in fact run their spiritual lives as if that were so. It is a kind of spiritual immaturity that certain tendencies in late-medieval, neo-scholastic, and Counter-Reformation thought only encouraged. I have seen the results in many an older Catholic, even those in bitter rebellion against it. I've even seen it in some young "trad" Catholics.

But as a doctrinal matter, the common Protestant view is false. The Catholic Church does not teach that salvation can be earned, and many writers have taken great pains to show that. "Merit" is the fruit of grace, and when God crowns our merits he is crowning his own gifts. Theologically too, the Catholic tradition is much richer than legalism and much closer to the Orthodox. And many Catholics do get it. The reasons why also show that janotec's charge of "casuistic legerdemain," made from an Orthodox point of view, is mostly empty rhetoric.

The purpose of casuistry is to apply genuinely Christian norms to "hard cases" so that people have specific, well-thought-out helps to form their consciences for dealing with such cases. Casuistry need not be, and is not intended by the Church to be, a substitution of law for grace. It is not even intended as an exhaustive resolution of cases. The harder the case, the more its resolution is a matter of individual judgment—or, if you prefer, conscience. The norms governing casuistry are guideposts, not inspiration. To be sure, many people have ridden "the rules" too hard, as if external conformity to even the most technical of them were the primary measure of virtue. But that's not a problem with the rules in themselves. It's a problem with some people's own spiritual growth. And though I can't speak for all Catholics, I don't take my "ethics in spoonfuls." I have learned by hard experience that Christ often calls us to a level of discipleship beyond "the law," i.e. beyond that level of behavior which casuistry can often excuse. He never stops challenging us to reach greater spiritual maturity. And I have found plenty of room in Catholicism for that recognition. It is indeed Catholic saints who have helped me to attain that recognition. And that room is taken up every day by a myriad of saints-in-the-making who will never be canonized.

I just wish janotec and many other intelligent Orthodox could lay off the potshots at "the West" and join with Catholics in rediscovering the common ground that East and West have come to till differently. That little black spot would then get smaller and smaller, so that scandal would not be given to undergraduates and other innocents.

_____________________________
1. I have been influenced to adopt this view by, among other works, Cardinal Journet's The Meaning of Grace (1957), republished in 1997; and by Jeffrey D Finch, "Neo-Palamism, Divinizing Grace, and the Breach between East and West," in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Tradition, edited by Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008).

A note on the latest CDF Note

On my desktop, I keep a Notepad file listing theological topics in which I've promised readers I will post. Each is quite beefy enough for my more academically inclined readers to sink their teeth into, the latest being that ol' AIDS-condom thing. Even the Vatican has considerably delayed its long-anticipated magisterial document on that topic; I have it on good authority that that is because of sharp internal divisions which are about presentation as much as about substance. I find difficulties of almost the same degree, if not always of the same kind, about most of the topics in my list. But one topic about which it is relatively painless as well as useful to comment is evangelization, at a time in Church history when many Catholics seem to believe that evangelization and ecumenism are mutually incompatible. As is clearly its intent, the CDF's new Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization (SAE) rebuts that belief. So I want to draw attention here to how.

As Cardinal Levada and Archbishop Amato remind us in §3:

There is today...a growing confusion which leads many to leave the missionary command of the Lord unheard and ineffective (cf. Mt 28:19). Often it is maintained that any attempt to convince others on religious matters is a limitation of their freedom. From this perspective, it would only be legitimate to present one’s own ideas and to invite people to act according to their consciences, without aiming at their conversion to Christ and to the Catholic faith. It is enough, so they say, to help people to become more human or more faithful to their own religion; it is enough to build communities which strive for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity. Furthermore, some maintain that Christ should not be proclaimed to those who do not know him, nor should joining the Church be promoted, since it would also be possible to be saved without explicit knowledge of Christ and without formal incorporation in the Church.

The above-described problem is quite real among progs, many of whom believe that efforts to get people to become Catholics are "proselytism"—now a dirty word—and are thus immoral. Confusion about the matter has also spread among rank-and-file Catholics, many of whom have never had it explained to them what missionaries are for if religious freedom must be respected and non-Catholics can be saved. What the CDF does not point out, however, is the fact that trads blame Vatican II, and the corresponding ecumenical program pursued by the subsequent popes, for that state of affairs. They agree with the progs that Vatican II and the subsequent popes have left it unclear at best why we should bother encouraging people to become Catholics, the difference being that progs approve of that fact and the trads disapprove. Once again, the Left party and the Right party among the hermeneuts of discontinuity agree on the diagnosis but not on the prescription. On this topic, applying the hermeneutic of continuity that the Pope called for two years ago, and practices, is long overdue.

B16 no doubt intended that SAE be published when it was: only two weeks after Spe Salvi (SS). The point of SAE may thus been seen as explaining with greater precision why the Church must communicate to the world that "hope" which is described in SS. The two documents do the job together: SS offers more inspiration, SAE more explication. The latter makes very clear how encouraging people to become Catholics can and ought to be done consistently with their human freedom and dignity. But rather than merely summarize the document, which should be read in its entirety (13 pages, printed), I shall focus on the main point pressed by hermeneuts of discontinuity.

Recall first a key point I cited yesterday: what distinguishes Christianity from all other religions is that, through the Incarnation, it signifies God's search for man. So, if Christianity is true, then "man's search for God" should be a response to that divine initiative. But it is not easy to make such a response if the nature of the initiative is not clearly and fully proclaimed. With that in mind, consider SAE §7:

Although non-Christians can be saved through the grace which God bestows in “ways known to him”,[21] the Church cannot fail to recognize that such persons are lacking a tremendous benefit in this world: to know the true face of God and the friendship of Jesus Christ, God-with-us. Indeed “there is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him”.[22] The revelation of the fundamental truths[23] about God, about the human person and the world, is a great good for every human person, while living in darkness without the truths about ultimate questions is an evil and is often at the root of suffering and slavery which can at times be grievous. This is why Saint Paul does not hesitate to describe conversion to the Christian faith as liberation “from the power of darkness” and entrance into “the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of our sins” (Col 1:13-14). Therefore, fully belonging to Christ, who is the Truth, and entering the Church do not lessen human freedom, but rather exalt it and direct it towards its fulfilment, in a love that is freely given and which overflows with care for the good of all people. It is an inestimable benefit to live within the universal embrace of the friends of God which flows from communion in the life-giving flesh of his Son, to receive from him the certainty of forgiveness of sins and to live in the love that is born of faith. The Church wants everyone to share in these goods so that they may possess the fullness of truth and the fullness of the means of salvation, in order “to enter into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). (Emphasis added).

That is why (§9; emphasis added)

[t]he incorporation of new members into the Church is not the expansion of a power-group, but rather entrance into the network of friendship with Christ which connects heaven and earth, different continents and ages. It is entrance into the gift of communion with Christ, which is “new life” enlivened by charity and the commitment to justice. The Church is the instrument, “the seed and the beginning”[27] of the Kingdom of God; she is not a political utopia. She is already the presence of God in history and she carries in herself the true future, the definitive future in which God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28); she is a necessary presence, because only God can bring authentic peace and justice to the world. The Kingdom of God is not – as some maintain today – a generic reality above all religious experiences and traditions, to which they tend as a universal and indistinct communion of all those who seek God, but it is, before all else, a person with a name and a face: Jesus of Nazareth, the image of the unseen God.[28] Therefore, every free movement of the human heart towards God and towards his kingdom cannot but by its very nature lead to Christ and be oriented towards entrance into his Church, the efficacious sign of that Kingdom. The Church, therefore, is the bearer of the presence of God and thus the instrument of the true humanization of man and the world. The growth of the Church in history, which results from missionary activity, is at the service of the presence of God through his Kingdom: one cannot in fact “detach the Kingdom from the Church”.[29]

That well explains why encouraging people to be formally incorporated into the Church is a vital service of love to them. Along with other passages, it also helps to explain why forcing people to profess Catholicism, which has admittedly occurred at certain times in the Church's past, is incompatible with the true rationale for evangelization and conversion. We can debate with trads ad infinitum the question whether the Church was once right to insist that public heresy be accounted a civil crime and severely punished. But it cannot be seriously argued that forcing people to be Catholics gives them what makes incorporation into the Church a service of love to them. Nor can it be seriously argued, on the basis of developed Church teaching, that becoming Catholic gives "good people" nothing essential that they could not have got without being Catholic. The hermeneuts of discontinuity are therefore wrong. The one-two punch of SS and SAE shows why.

An ecumenical symposium about...the Blessed Virgin

One of the things I love about First Things is that Fr. Neuhaus and his staff show just how it is possible to actually have an ecumenical discussion of a topic such as the Blessed Virgin. This week, they're posting a series of five "preliminary papers" on the topic under the aegis of the "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" project.

On Monday, Edward T. Oakes, SJ led off with a characteristically provocative post about the Immaculate Conception, arguing that that event is the primary instance of salvation sola gratia. On Tuesday, J.I. Packer offered a solid exegesis of Luke on Jesus' early life, with a focus on Mary. Today, T.M. Moore, head of "a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic tradition," complains that "the liturgical formulas of the Celts" go too far in moving from "adoration" to "supplication" of Mary. The irony alone is worth the read. Cornelius Plantinga and Matthew Levering will round off the week.

On Friday I will post on the Oakes piece. My hunch is that the controversy over that one is as predictable as the content of the rest.

Getting perspective on ecumenism

Is all the negativity about ecumenism I've been sensing of late just myopic on my part? The Internet, whose discussion forums breed even more logomachy than they allow, can darken the vision and mood of almost anybody who spends much time on it. I see the temptation to succumb to that as an invitation to spiritual combat—or, if you prefer, to a form of ascesis that must occasion a deepening of prayer. Indeed, when it comes to ecumenism, the Internet negativity one senses can be surreal in a way that I've only encountered regularly before in reading transcripts of full-blown exorcisms.

Last week I noted the endorsement, by two of the most ecumenically-minded and intelligent bloggers I know, of the following remark: "Catholic-Protestant ecumenism is like a very odd dinner party where everyone sits around saying polite and edifying things while waiting for the other guest to die." Again: the men who said they found that remark dead-on are two of the most earnestly and intelligently ecumenical bloggers I know. And my experience with Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism this week hasn't done much to discredit that remark.

Owen White the Ochlophobist, e.g., says the following in the course of a long post that includes a thoughtful response to me: "I would love to see the RCC end, and the Pope of Rome and any who might follow him convert to Orthodoxy..." Of course he is hardly alone in that sentiment. And I do not take its expression by him as an intended insult; this, after all, is from a man who not only knows where I stand, but who has indicated before, sincerely and more than once, that he likes and respects me. I like and respect Owen too; yet even if it were true, I would not see fit to say to him, or indeed to any member of an Orthodox church, "I would love to see Orthodoxy end." Moreover, it isn't even true. Given how I see Orthodoxy from my Catholic standpoint, I don't want it to end. I want it to retain its form of liturgy, its spirituality, its dogmas, its patriarchates and synods. I just don't think those things are incompatible with what I believe, and neither does the Pope. Perhaps that means I'm not negative enough to be accounted as much more than deluded. The Internet can bring such judgments on those who are sincere about ecumenism without compromising what they profess as the truth.

I don't think it's just the cyberworld, though. Even Avery Cardinal Dulles, once a champion of Kasper-style ecumenism, has delivered a sobering assessment of contemporary ecumenism, in the form of piece in the current First Things entitled Saving Ecumenism from Itself. The reassessments are probably in order. Thus he says:

For some years now, I have felt that the method of convergence, which seeks to harmonize the doctrines of each ecclesial tradition on the basis of shared sources and methods, has nearly exhausted its potential. It has served well in the past and may still be useful, especially among groups that have hitherto been isolated from the conversation. But to surmount the remaining barriers we need a different method, one that invites a deeper conversion on the part of the churches themselves.

Fair enough. And some might think the method of "convergence" is what I've been trying, quixotically, to follow. But I no longer believe it possible to convince non-Catholic Christians en masse, by argument, that their distinctive affirmations and practices can be harmonized with Catholicism. I will continue to produce the arguments, of course. So far, my efforts seem to have influenced a few individuals here and there for the good. But no matter how sound the arguments may be, something more spiritual is required if ecumenism is to continue as a viable project for the Church.

Cardinal Dulles describes it thus: "I have therefore been urging an ecumenism of mutual enrichment by means of testimony. This proposal corresponds closely, I believe, with John Paul II’s idea of seeking the fullness of truth by means of an “exchange of gifts.” What he says more specifically about that method is encouraging to me, but that is only a point about myself. The larger and more important point is that Dulles no more than the Pope is willing to "give up," as so many online religious controversialists urge. And that's vitally important as a form of obedience to the Lord.

Ever the catholic, affable Catholic, Dulles goes on (emphasis added):

John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint expressed a desire to work with leaders and theologians of other churches in seeking ways for the Petrine office to be exercised such that it could be beneficial to them as well as to Catholics. These other churches and communities will have to consider the ways in which they could receive the primatial ministry of the bishop of Rome. A dialogue on this subject is already underway. For some communities, perhaps, the papacy will be the final piece by which to complete the jigsaw puzzle of Christian unity.

Each party will engage in ecumenical dialogue with its own presuppositions and convictions. As a Roman Catholic, I would make use of the methods by which my church derives its distinctive doctrines. I would also expect that any reunion to which Catholics can be a party would have to include as part of the settlement the Catholic dogmas, perhaps reinterpreted in ways that we do not now foresee. Other churches and ecclesial communities will have their own expectations. But all must be open to possible conversion. We must rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us, as Vatican II recommended, “without obstructing the ways of divine Providence and without prejudging the future inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”

That is quite an extraordinary reaffirmation of the hopefulness and optimism of Vatican II, which seems largely to have been lost by the grizzled veterans of ecumenism. Of course the "reinterpretation" of which Dulles speaks cannot be the sort of "development" that logically entails negation of anything previously taught with the Church's full authority. Indeed, Dulles himself is a master of the method of explaining changes in Church teaching in such a way as to show that development never entails negation of that level of teaching. I've learned a lot from him and have followed the method myself. It is not only an indispensable task of apologetics, of "defense" of the Faith, but also a prerequisite of honest ecumenism, at least for Catholics. But it still leaves open the possibility that doctrines taught with the Church's full authority, via either the ordinary or the extraordinary magisterium, are going to be used by the Spirit to mediate insights into the faith-once-delivered that we do not now generally enjoy. If that happens—and history suggests it does happen—then the prospects for ecumenism will be all the richer.

Orthodox (non?)-ecclesiology, continued

It appears that Owen White, the Ochlophobist, had been composing his latest, and characteristically lengthy, contribution to this topic even as I had been composing and posting mine of yesterday. That leaves me a bit embarassed for closing that post by criticizing a different and weaker argument of his that he had posted in my combox. Here, I want to address what I now see as his real—or, at least, more interesting—argument. For reasons of both charity and self-interest, I won't make this post nearly as long as his. So I just want to focus on what I see as the heart of the matter.

First, he writes (emphasis added; paragraph broken up):

The spiritual ascesis Mike wants from the Orthodox is one in which we refrain from our "rejectionism" of various sorts, and develop our ecclesiology to the point where we can accept the above statements of Vat I (and the other RCC dogmas we have problems with) and state that there is nothing false found in them. In other words, Mike, as a good and devout RC, thinks that spiritual ascesis for the Orthodox will lead Orthodox to accept Roman Catholic dogma. The "radical spiritual ascesis" that Rome must undertake is what? They already think that they formally embrace all that is authentically Orthodox. Thus what can be meant here other than posturing[?]

Rome will promise not to exercise certain powers she believes she has. Rome will make formal statements against abuses in her own liturgy (which as we know, will accomplish little). Rome may even remove the filioque from her recitation of the Creed, but I assure, you, dear reader, that she will not relent from her dogmatic commitment to the filioque (thus while the filioque remains formally true, in their dogma, it is not practiced for reasons of Christian charity - absurd!). Rome's work, her "radical spiritual ascesis" is to posture herself in any way which will foster reunion without relenting a single Roman dogma. This is what Benedict XVI, Mike, and conservative Catholics on the whole intend. But couching this intent in language which suggests that we will go on a great spiritual journey together, finding our hope in a mutual development is flattery of the first order.

What they want of us is that we state that Vat I and other Roman innovations are not false. Thus our "development" is to develop into those with Roman Catholic dogma while still retaining Byzantine Rites and nomenclature. This is indeed their own formal teaching. They state that we lack nothing save our affirmation of certain Roman dogmas. Thus this "progress" so often spoken of is the progress of Rome and Orthodoxy coming to see Orthodoxy accept Roman dogma.

For reasons I needn't elaborate, it is flattering of Owen to call the ecumenical approach favored by the Pope, and myself, as "flattery of the first order." But I'm afraid that, in my case—the only case of which I can confidently speak—a distinction must be made between what I hope for and what I think it reasonable to seek directly.

I hope for what Owen says I do, because I believe Catholicism to be true in a way that does not contradict the positive affirmations of Orthodoxy. But I don't think that the cause of unity will be advanced by Catholics trying to argue Orthodox into that view. Human beings don't work that way. The cause of unity will indeed be better advanced in more spiritual ways. Owen doesn't think much of the ways I believe the Catholic Church could undertake from her side, but that is neither here nor there. What I think it reasonable to seek directly from the Orthodox side is greater clarity about its own ecclesiology. If such clarity were forthcoming, that would not necessarily improve the prospects for unity; for all I know, it might worsen them; for if the Athonites turn out to speak for Orthodoxy, then the prospects for reunion, at least on the collective level, are dim indeed. If Athonite ecclesiology truly is the ecclesiology of Orthodoxy, then the only thing left for the Catholic Church to do is die. Of course, for all I know, Orthodox ecclesiology could develop along lines similar to that which is manifest in Vatican II's teaching for Catholics. That would hold out more favorable prospects for collective reunion. But none of that is particularly germane to Owen's critique either. Owen's position is not only that Orthodoxy now lacks the ecclesiological clarity I think it reasonable to seek; he holds, in effect, that there is no objective reason for Orthodoxy even to develop such clarity.

Thus:

I suppose someday I may write at length about Orthodox ecclesiology, but come to think of it I probably will not. Orthodoxy does not really have an ecclesiology in a formal, academic sense. Certain of our theologians, especially now Zizioulas, have written such, but in the end I think the Church takes such as suggested ways of conceiving things, not as theology proper (by theology proper I mean Orthodox theology proper - the manner in which we formally speak of Christ and what He has taught us, which takes place in the liturgy and its cosmic ripple effects). Zizioulas may help us grasp things ecclesial, but that grasp will remain provisional.... How do we define the Church? What are the categories? Blessed is the Kingdom.... my friend.

Mike wants "enough clarity about the meaning of the term ["the Church"] to give a clear, consensual, and consistent account of how the Roman and [Oriental Orthodox] communions relate to "the" Church, understood as the Eastern Orthodox communion."...

The Church, in a since, has no real need to know how those outside her relate to her - not because she is arrogantly triumphant, but because she is so dependent upon God's presence and grace herself that she has not the time or resources to devote to her relations with others. Her need is wholly for God. The widow of Nain has no defined relationships outside of her when her son is dead, she is nothing in this world. When her son is risen, her identity is connected to that of her risen son, or so her culture had it. When God hung dead on a tree, the icon of all reality, the triumph of the Church, what does it mean to be outside of Him who has died in obedience to the Father? God has died on a tree. What else means? Can anything else mean after that? There is only one meaningful relationship at that point, and it is Triune.

He is risen from the dead, and He proceeds to teach the pattern of the Cross in all things, on the road to Emmaus, telling of Jacob crossing his arms in the sign of the Cross as he blessed Ephraim and Manasseh, and on and on and on, the cruciform nature of the God who empties Himself in His saving of man. Christ taught the apostles, the apostles taught the fathers, the fathers teach the Church, the Church knows this hermeneutic of reality in her liturgy. Many Eastern Orthodox look at the Oriental Orthodox liturgy and think that the similarities suggest that we share the same hermeneutic, but this remains to be seen, and for it to be seen, literally seen (and heard, and touched, and felt, and smelled), the Oriental Orthodox would have to sing and pray and accept our prayers with regard to all 7 ecumenical councils as well as the prayers of the Church concerning Sts. Photius, and Gregory Palamas, and Mark of Ephesus. Most Orthodox do not look at the Roman Catholic liturgy and think that we share anything close to the same christocentric hermeneutic of reality.

The argument I can extract from that, to the extent there is an argument, is this: given how Christocentric and crucifiorm Eastern Orthodoxy is, there is no need or basis for EOs to get clearer about how "the" Church—understood as the EO communion—relates in the economy of salvation to other churches. If one becomes Christocentric and cruciform in the sort of way Eastern Orthodoxy is, then the notion that "the" Church would do well to commit herself to some doctrinal account of how she relates to other churches will melt into the irrelevance it deserves. Obversely, since the Roman liturgy just doesn't have that "christocentric hermeneutic of reality," it is quite understandable that the Catholics would, and do, go in for such a conceit. But the flattery motivated by such clarity is empty.

Frankly, I can't make any more of that argument than I could make of the argument of Owen's that I criticized yesterday. Catholicism too has its own tradition of cruciform spirituality; indeed, it could well be argued that Catholic piety and mysticism places more emphasis on the Cross, as distinct from the Resurrection, than Orthodoxy piety and mysticism does. When I attend Mass, virtually all I can think of Christ. He is constantly spoken of and celebrated; his Passion is made sacramentally present in the sacrifice of the Mass; his risen body is what I receive when I receive the sacred elements, so that I may be incorporated into both his Passion and his Resurrection. Such a liturgy, says Vatican II, is "the font and summit" of the Church's life. It is what enables the members of the Church to be transformed, individually and collectively, into Christ "for the world." If Owen does not find in that liturgy a sufficiently "christocentric hermeneutic of reality," that is because something extrinsic to the liturgy has prevented him from doing so. Like my solid bishop and like the Pope himself, I can assure him that it is there and that I experience it regularly. Yet we don't think it follows that there's no need for the kind of ecclesiological development that Vatican II exhibited. Indeed, and for reasons I've given already, the cause of that unity which is celebrated in the Eucharist could be promoted by such clarity.

I am getting the sense that theology is not the problem here. And I mean 'theology' not merely in the relatively academic sense that Catholics normally mean, but also in the more Orthodox sense, whereby theology is spirituality manifested through the intellect. I don't know what I'd call the problem, at least not at the moment. I can intuit it better than I can describe it. And I'm not motivated to describe it in words, because I cannot think of a charitable way to do so.

Orthodoxy on churches outside "the Church"

In my previous post about Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism, I identified what I consider a very important question that Orthodoxy needs to ponder for itself if ecumenical efforts are to bear long-term fruit. Thus:

As evinced by Vatican II's Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, as well as other pertinent documents since that council closed, the Catholic Church has undergone and fostered the development of ecclesiological doctrine in such a way as to give an account of how the EOs and OOs relate to "the Church," which is said to "subsist" in the Roman communion as a perduring whole...But something analogous does not seem to have occurred in Orthodoxy. We have Zizoulas' eucharistic ecclesiology, which dovetails somewhat with Ratzinger's theology of communio and has clearly influenced the Ravenna proceedings. But further progress in Orthodox ecclesiology is necessary if the process embodied by Ravenna is to continue. What direction could and should such progress take? That's the question that Orthodox like John need to consider.

What I'm calling for, in effect, is the sort of development in Orthodox ecclesiology that has occurred, within living memory, in Catholic ecclesiology. Any such development would, of course, assume that the Eastern-Orthodox communion is "the" Church, with the question being how other churches relate to her—just as the Catholic Church sees herself as "the" Church, with the question being how other churches relate to her. Even so, one should not assume that Orthodoxy as a whole will come to see non-Orthodox churches, especially the Catholic Church, in a way that would be a mirror image of how the Catholic Church has come to see non-Catholic churches, especially the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox communions. I know of nothing to rule out that happening, but expecting it to happen would be presumptuous. Yet I believe it can be safely said that if Orthodoxy did develop greater clarity about the ecclesial status of non-Orthodox bodies, especially the Catholic Church, then the possibilities of ecumenism would be more clearly understood on both sides. And clarity about that could only constitute progress—even if the possibilities thereby exhibited would not please everybody. Accordingly, I have invited thoughts from Orthodox readers along the lines I've called for. The purpose of this post is to describe and consider three responses.

The first two are not directly the thoughts of readers but are actually articles referenced by one of my Eastern-Catholic readers, Mary Lanser. One, from 1990 by Orthodox theologian Emmanuel Clapsis, is entitled "The Boundaries of the Church: An Orthodox Debate." If Clapsis' review of the history is substantially correct, then during the 1970s and 80s some Orthodox theologians were headed in the direction of seeing non-Orthodox ecclesial bodies in a way that would be tantamount to a mirror image of how the Catholic Church has come to see non-Catholic ecclesial bodies. Thus, on the assumption that the Eastern-Orthodox communion is "the" Church of Christ, the Roman communion would be seen as one of churches with apostolic succession, efficacious sacraments, and enough commonality with the Orthodox faith to count as genuine churches, as distinct from mere "ecclesial communities" (to use Rome's phrase for Protestant bodies) or religious organizations. Yet that line of thought, while still pursued in some Orthodox quarters, was not further developed. Unfortunately if understandably, it ran aground on the issue of oikonoumia, whose relevance is clear even though I lack space and time to explain it. Thus:

In 1976, on the recommendation of the secretariat for the preparation of the Holy and Great Synod, the first pre-synodal pan-Orthodox conference dropped the principle of economy from the list of the subjects of the coming Council of the Orthodox Church. It gave as explanation that the debate on this principle proved that the Orthodox Church had not reached a consensus on the concept of oikonomia that could permit a discussion without dangerous divisive consequences.[36] Unfortunately what they accomplished with this action was to postpone a major debate within the Orthodox Church about the ecclesiological stature of the other Christian churches. But one might also argue that this decision was wisely taken: the whole issue of ecumenicity was situated in the wrong context, that is, of discussing the principle of economy.

Clapsis concludes that, at the time he was writing, the only consensus reached was as follows:

While Orthodox theologians still maintain that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is fully revealed in the sacramental life of the Orthodox Church, they do not deny that God acts through other Christian churches for the salvation of the world. The Orthodox Church's canonical boundaries safeguards the truth of divine revelation as proclaimed and interpreted by the apostles and the Fathers of the Church. Its unique mission in the ecumenical movement is thus to be the main witness of catholicity of the Christian gospel.

Yet the theological cat had been let out of the bag. The broad ecumenism cut short by the ruling on oikonoumia came to be reflected in the text of the 1993 "Balamand Agreement"; see especially paragraphs 14 and 15. In his recent interactions with Pope Benedict, Patriarch Bartholomew seems to be taking that approach for granted.

But within Orthodoxy there has also been much negative reaction to Balamand-style ecumenism. The monks of Mt. Athos rejected BA with contumely, and there is even now quite a substantial "traditionalist" segment within Orthodoxy that sees Mt Athos as the keeper of the true flame of Orthodoxy. And so there is quite a number of Orthodox who see "ecumenism"—at least of the sort motivated by the ecclesiological premises of Balamand—as a heresy. A good summary of that attitude can be found in the second of the two articles Mary referenced: "Ecumenist Double Speak: The Ecclesiological Schizophrenia of the Orthodox Ecumenists" by Orthodox layman Patrick Barnes, webmaster of Orthodoxinfo.com.

I take that article seriously, as more than a mere polemical exercise, because it essentially summarizes Barnes' 2004 book The Non-Orthodox, which has been favorably reviewed in detail by a number of people—including Christopher Orr, an intelligent and well-educated Orthodox blogger with whom I have had combox interaction in the past, mainly at the old Pontifications blog. Having argued that Orthodox ecumenists are really "branch theorists"—in my own book too, a very serious charge—Barnes delivers the following as his last paragraph (emphasis added):

In conclusion, let us briefly sum up the Orthodox Church's teaching on the Church. Without question She believes that She is the Una Sancta of the Nicene Creed; that the Church is not and never has been divided; that the invisible portion of the Church is not at all the same as the Protestant idea of a "true invisible Church" but is, rather, the Heavenly Sphere of the Church, united without confusion to Her Earthly Sphere; that there is no unity whatsoever with heretical bodies; that the Holy Mysteries exist only within Her; and that without the Mystery of Baptism, the seal of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit through Chrismation, and the partaking of Christ’s Divine Body and Blood, a person is not joined to Christ or a member of His Church. In affirming this teaching of the Holy Fathers, we do not condemn heterodox Christians but leave them to the mercy of God and willingly share with them through evangelization our Holy Orthodox Faith. Such is the way of true ecumenism: speaking the truth in love, that repentance might follow in the One True Church.

Barnes holds that acknowledging the validity of any non-Orthodox sacraments, including Roman-Catholic baptism, is tantamount to the heresy of branch theory. Similarly, acknowledging any kind of unity with non-Orthodox churches, including the Catholic, is tantamount to the heresy of branch theory. Indeed there can be no partial membership in the Church: one is either in "full communion," partaking of the Mysteries, or one is no degree of communion at all. Accordingly, there could be no development of Orthodox ecclesiology that would yield a virtual mirror-image of what the Catholic Church now says about the Orthodox churches. The only justifiable goal of ecumenism would be to get non-Orthodox Christians to convert to Orthodoxy tout court.

Now for reasons I've given before, I do not and would not presume to identify either of the above-described positions as "the" Orthodox position. As far as I can tell from the outside, both Balamand-style ecclesiology and Athonite-style ecclesiology are acceptable opinions within Orthodoxy. The only proposition that seems to command some sort of consensus is that the Holy Spirit can and does operate outside the boundaries of the Orthodox Church—itself a proposition that must be held, if only because it must be confessed that the action of the Spirit outside "the" Church is what helps people into "the" Church, whatever the boundaries of the Church may be. Beyond that, however, there seems to be no agreement on whether such energeiae of the Spirit could suffice to incorporate some people into Christ even if they never become explicitly Orthodox. Therefore, there is no consensus within Orthodoxy on whether the Catholic Church in particular is a true church, with apostolic succession and valid sacraments, or is only a "religious organization" offering no genuine means of grace but only a perverted version of the truth—an organization within which the Spirit operates only with the aim of getting people out of it and into Orthodoxy.

That is the dissensus I'd like to see resolved. For if it is eventually resolved in either direction, we could all be clearer about the purposes and prospects of Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism. But the way some Orthodox seem to see it, the dissensus is irresolvable in principle. And that brings me to the third of the responses to my initial question that I'd like to consider.

In the combox to my previous post on Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism, Owen White the Ochlophobist writes:

Outside of the Church the Holy Spirit goes where He will, saves where he wills, grants grace where He wills. But it is not for the Church to formally declare what the Holy Spirit is doing outside of her, in places of such lack; it is only for her to know what the Holy Spirit does within her. She may conjecture what the Holy Spirit does outside of her, but it will remain just that - conjecture. The Bishop of Rome is the Bishop of Rome, a civic title as much as an ecclesial one. But he is not the Orthodox Bishop of Rome. The only final thing that Orthodox can say is just that, that the Bishop of Rome is not yet Orthodox.

If that is correct, then Orthodoxy cannot treat the question of the ecclesial status of any non-Orthodox body, and therefore of the Catholic Church, as anything more than one of "conjecture" and thus of opinion. Unlike what the Catholic Church articulated at Vatican II, there can be no "official," binding Orthodox answer to the question I'm interested in seeing answered. But if so, then the kinds of actions motivated by Balamand-style ecclesiology and Athonite-style ecclesiology, respectively, cannot be adequately warranted by those ecclesiologies. For if the true ecclesial status of non-Orthodox churches is only a matter of opinion, then neither the sort of ecumenism embodied by BA nor the sort of anti-ecumenism embodied by the Orthodox trads can be upheld with confidence. It all depends on whose "conjecture" is correct, and that is something which cannot be known.

Now for all I know, Owen's position might end up being the consensual Orthodox position. But if, in Orthodox terms, the question of the ecclesial status of the Catholic Church must remain a matter of opinion, then there could be no agreement in Orthodoxy about what, exactly, reunion with the Catholic Church would be reunion with. Any effort to get beyond that, to some more definitive answer, would be an illicit attempt to dogmatize what could only be theologoumenon. From that standpoint, discussion of reunion could only be discussion of when the Catholic Church would become Orthodox; for discussion of reunion on any other terms would be ruled out for assuming some-or-other answer that could only be a matter of opinion. Ironically, therefore, the practical attitude toward ecumenism entailed by Owen's relatively agnostic position ends up being pretty much the same as that of the more cocksure trads, such as Barnes.

But that is the end of the story only if Owen's argument for his position is sound. Is it?

Owen's argument depends on identifying non-Orthodox ecclesial bodies, precisely as non-Orthodox, as "lacking" something essential to being the true Church of Christ. Thus he says:

Evil, especially when we rightly understand it as the absence of good, is hard to define. We Orthodox understand other communions as lacking the fullness of faith, the True Faith of right believing Orthodox Christians, to use our tongue. But from an Orthodox perspective, such lacks can be hard to measure. It is hard to measure in terms of lack or absence.

Now Owen does go on to say that he "could list" the things that are lacking in the Catholic Church. But whether he does so or not, I find his entire line of argument puzzling. The consensual charge in Orthodoxy against Catholicism is that Rome has illicitly added to the deposit of faith in various ways so that, by embracing heresy in that fashion, she has departed from Orthodoxy. Rome thus "lacks" the faith only insofar as she has adulterated it by addition; in other words, the lack is like the spoiling of a dish by adding bad ingredients to the recipe. The use Owen makes of such an idea is, apparently, supposed to show what makes it impossible to say, as a matter of doctrine, whether the Roman communion (aka the Catholic Church) is a communio of true churches or only a facsimile thereof.

As a Catholic, I must confess to finding that line of argument incomprehensible. From the consensual Catholic point of view, the problem with Orthodoxy is not with what she affirms but with her denial of certain doctrines that the Catholic Church affirms. Hence, we see ourselves as having preserved and affirmed the same truths as Orthodoxy, differing with the Orthodox only in having made explicit, by doctrinal development, certain aspects of the faith-once-delivered to the saints that the Orthodox have hitherto failed to fully appreciate. From an Orthodox standpoint, it can be argued that such a stance involves a certain "lack," a lack of such a nature as to be immeasurable, only if the Roman "additions" are in fact logically incompatible with what is held in common, so that the "additions" actually entail negations of what is held in common. Some Orthodox have made arguments like that, and when I have occasion to I vigorously rebut them. But Owen has not. So, how he can reach his conclusion with the argument he does use is beyond me.

Of course there are other Orthodox around here who might be able to come up with a better argument than Owen has for his essentially agnostic position. But the more interesting question to me is whether that position, as opposed to those of the Balamandites and the Athonities, is the one that must be considered "the" Orthodox position.

Ravenna: the latest chapter in Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism

In my previous post I noted the recently growing, even prevailing skepticism about ecumenism. Given the weight of history, the clash of ideas, and especially the agonistic culture of the Internet, pessimism is easy. No doubt we will hear more, lots more, of it; it's become par for the course; indeed I expect to see some of it in the combox to this post. Nonetheless, be it noted now that some of the real work of Christian unity goes on with the blessing and encouragement of the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch. As a fruit thereof, we now have the statement on "Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity and Authority" issued by the Joint Catholic-Orthodox Commission ('ECCA' for short). Today I want to evaluate an intelligent reaction to that admittedly modest fruit, and add my own in response.

One of the regular readers of this blog is John of Ad Orientem, an ex-Catholic who converted to Orthodoxy. On the occasion of ECCA's issuance, he has commented here and here. Both of those posts refer to the combox of a post at Cathedra Unitatis consisting of the Zenit translation of the ECCA text. John contributes his reactions there and invite us to do the same for the sake of maintaining the discussion's "coherence." Now since I'm the only blogger writing about this topic whom John has so far cited by name, I'm assuming that he is inviting my contribution. I wanted to respect his request to confine contributions to CU's combox; but as usual, what I have to say even initially will end up being far too long for a combox. And so I shall say it here, hoping to broaden the discussion while maintaining its coherence.

The last time I wrote about Catholic-Orthodox ecumenism, I tried to get beyond the easy pessimism that usually manifests itself by pointing in despair to what most participants see as the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Vatican I. I sought to argue—more accurately: adumbrate an argument—that, from a Catholic standpoint, we could move forward right in the gorilla's face. The key is getting clarity from the Orthodox themselves about Orthodox ecclesiology. Having rejected Athonite rejectionism's implicit claim to speak for Orthodoxy, I asked:

What's the alternative? Well, there really is no clear alternative one can identify as essential to Orthodoxy, in such wise as to rule out the idea that the schism is one "within" the Church rather than a matter of one ancient church leaving the Church. And herein lies the ecclesiological hope, at least from the Catholic standpoint.

After a brief review of Catholic ecclesiology's view of the Eastern churches in schism with Rome, I concluded:

Try as I might and have, I have never been able to find anything in Orthodoxy that would rule out its eventually coming to see the schism as one within the Church, even on the premise that the Orthodox Church is the Church. Whether we're discussing the ecumenical councils of the first millennium as distinct from councils of disputed ecumenicity or merely local authority, or liturgical texts that are standard throughout Orthodoxy as distinct from those peculiar to this or that local tradition, I've never encountered anything which would begin to persuade me that Orthodoxy is committed to viewing the schism with Rome as something more than a dispute between two sectors of "the"Church whose differences arise more from historical and cultural exigencies than from irreformable doctrine. In other words, I can find nothing in Orthodoxy that would commit the Orthodox communion irrevocably to viewing Rome as anything worse than the primatial Orthodox church that's exercised her primacy imprudently for too long—any more than I can find anything in Catholicism committing the Catholic Church to viewing Orthodoxy as anything worse than a communion of local churches that, for a good while now, have got a few key issues wrong and thus have refused to maintain communion with the primatial see of the Church. So as far as I can tell, it remains possible, at least in principle, for Orthodoxy to reunite with Rome along the lines of the Ratzinger proposal of 1982, without abandoning the idea that the Orthodox Church is the Church. Rome would come to be viewed among the Orthodox churches as the first among Orthodox churches and, in that capacity, as having brought the rest along to recognizing that fullness of the truth which was the common patrimony all along.

Of course I had acknowledged from the outset that such is not how most Orthodox see the matter. They haven't seen the matter that way for centuries and, for the most part, don't seem disposed to now. Least of all can Western converts to Orthodoxy be expected to see it that way. But I was and am concerned with how the Orthodox as a whole "could, self-consistently, come to see" the matter, and I had been hoping for a creative reaction engaging that point. At the time, all I got even from John was more pointing to the gorilla—as if I didn't know what was still in the room. What arouses my interest now is that John is starting to do more than that.

I want to engage him specifically because he is one of the relatively few Orthodox online who, in my experience, is not only honest and intelligent—there are plenty of those—but relatively moderate about the matter at hand and willing to devote deep thought to it. He writes:

Rome claims two very key things. First that all of the Latin dogmas proclaimed post 1054 are correct, and secondly that the Orthodox Churches are true and particular churches that are a part of the One True Church, if imperfectly. In support of this they note (repeatedly) that we have never formally anathematized those doctrines. Assuming for the sake of discussion those two claims are correct then Rome should have nothing to fear from putting it all on the table. Let a true Great Council of The Church be convened and hammer it all out. The worst that happens is it fails and we are back to where we stand today (with a few dozen more schisms on the side). That might indeed be the result. I suspect it is quite likely. The odds against agreement are staggering. But maybe, just maybe, we would see a miracle. I think the possibility of living to see a concelebrated liturgy with all of the Orthodox Patriarchs and the Pope of Rome is worth the risk. But it really comes down to this; how confident is Rome of its position? Are they willing or even able to take such a leap? What say my Roman brothers and sisters, is restored communion worth such a risk?

I applaud John for even framing the issue that way. And I'm disposed to say that, from Rome's standpoint, of course it's "worth the risk." But such an observation is idle without noting a practical consideration. Even if, in their private conversations, Benedict and Bartholomew agree that such an undertaking would be worth the risk, could it occur at all given current attitudes in Orthodoxy?

The Russian Orthodox, after all, walked out of the Ravenna discussions, ostensibly because of a dispute with the EP about patriarchal jurisdiction over the Orthodox Church of Estonia. That sort of thing is predictable given the way Orthodoxy has operated for centuries now. And the Russians are the largest segment of Orthodoxy. So it is highly unlikely, as a practical matter, that Moscow as well as all the other patriarchates in schism with Rome would agree to attend such a council and consider its decrees binding on the whole Church—even if Rome and Constantinople called for it and held it. If so, then it doesn't much matter whether Rome considers the risk worth taking or not. As things now stand, it's not a risk that could actually be taken at all, no matter how interested Rome or Constantinople would be in taking it.

Of course, I've already implied that such an obstacle is more practical than theoretical. It's how things are but it's not, as I see things, how dogma requires them to be. In order to get off the dime, then, it behooves us to consider what the dogmatic commitments of each side would logically permit in the long term, as opposed to what human attitudes prevent now. And so it is to that I now turn, as the intellectual space where hope can reside.

The first step is to get clear about the use of the term 'ecumenical' for councils. In Rome's eyes, any council whose decrees are confirmed by the pope as binding for the whole Church binds the whole Church. In Catholic parlance, such a council is "ecumenical" in the strictly normative sense of the term: it binds the whole Church de jure even if, as a purely practical matter, not all the Church is involved in formulating its decrees and/or not all the Church "receives" those decrees, in the sense of accepting them. That is why the general councils of the West held since the schism of 1054 can be called "ecumenical" in Catholic terms, even though the true, particular churches called "Orthodox" do not accept them as such—and Rome is simply not going to revoke the dogmatic definitions of any such council. Even so, such usage of the term 'ecumenical' on Rome's part is logically consistent with how the Orthodox use the term "ecumenical" for councils.

In Orthodox terms, a given council counts as "ecumenical" only if the participating bishops represent the Church as a whole and its decrees are received by the Church as a whole. In that usage, the term "ecumenical" is primarily empirical rather than normative. It tells us what is, or would be, the case, and that is logically distinct from what ought to be the case, which is what Rome's usage ostensibly tells us. Now from Rome's standpoint a given council would count as ecumenical in the normative sense ('ecumenical-N') if, in fact, it counts as ecumenical in the empirical sense ('ecumenical-E'). For a council that would count as ecumenical-E, in both Catholic and Orthodox terms, would entail Rome's assent and ratification, which from Rome's standpoint would suffice to make it ecumenical-N. And even if the Orthodox faithful as a whole did not "receive" the decrees of such a council because of Rome's assent and ratification, such a council would in fact count as ecumenical in Orthodox terms, i.e. as ecumenical-E. By common consent, any council that is ecumenical-E would also be ecumenical-N.

Given as much, the question arises: given the dogmatic commitments of each side, would it be possible to hold a council that both sides could recognize as ecumenical-N? From Rome's standpoint, the answer is clearly yes. But from the Orthodox standpoint, the answer is not so clear. For one thing, who, in Orthodox terms, would have the authority to convoke and preside over such a council? Given what the new Ravenna document says about papal primacy—which isn't all that new and certainly is not ambitious—there is only one realistic candidate for such authority. We know who that candidate is. But the scope of authority claimed by the See of Rome is precisely that the rejection of which, on the part of the Orthodox, sustains the schism. So the question who has the authority to convoke and preside over such a council is not, in Orthodox terms, so easily answered.

Beyond that, there is this question: Even if such a council were held, just whose "reception" of its decrees would be necessary for it to count as ecumenical-E? Even in Orthodox terms, it doesn't necessarily have to be reception by all the churches Rome counts as "true, particular churches." After Ephesus, the Nestorians' rejection of its decrees formed a schism that has never been fully healed; after Chalcedon, the Monophysites' rejection of its decrees formed a schism that has never been fully healed. Such is the schism of the "Oriental" Orthodox with the "Eastern" Orthodox as well as with the Roman communion. Thus the decrees of the "ecumenical" councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon were not, in fact, "received" by those true, particular churches which are now called OOs; yet that hasn't stopped the EOs from considering Ephesus and Chalcedon ecumenical-E. To my mind, and for a long time, that raises the question what EOs mean by 'the Church' when they say that reception by "the Church" of its decrees is necessary for a given council to count as ecumenical.

Despite assiduous research and discussion, I have never been able to find an answer to that question that doesn't just raise further questions. And I would not be so presumptuous as to try to answer those question for EOs themselves. But I must say what I consider incontestable: the mere fact that such questions are genuine poses a challenge to Eastern Orthodoxy to develop further insight into such ecclesiological truth as materially resides already in the faith-once-delivered. Until Orthodoxy as a whole develops greater clarity about what it means by the phrase 'the Church'—meaning the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church affirmed in the common creed of East and West—there will be no clear basis for holding a general council that the Orthodox as well as Rome could clearly consider ecumenical. I don't mean clarity about the referent of the term; clearly, to be Eastern Orthodox is to believe that the true referent of the term is the Eastern Orthodox communion, and that's not what I'm asking about. I mean enough clarity about the meaning of the term to give a clear, consensual, and consistent account of how the Roman and OO communions relate to "the" Church, understood as the Eastern Orthodox communion.

As evinced by Vatican II's Lumen Gentium and Unitatis Redintegratio, as well as other pertinent documents since that council closed, the Catholic Church has undergone and fostered the development of ecclesiological doctrine in such a way as to give an account of how the EOs and OOs relate to "the Church," which is said to "subsist" in the Roman communion as a perduring whole. As a matter of fact, John's challenge to us Catholics makes use of that development. But something analogous does not seem to have occurred in Orthodoxy. We have Zizoulas' eucharistic ecclesiology, which dovetails somewhat with Ratzinger's theology of communio and has clearly influenced the Ravenna proceedings. But further progress in Orthodox ecclesiology is necessary if the process embodied by Ravenna is to continue. What direction could and should such progress take? That's the question that Orthodox like John need to consider.