How does an infallible Magisterium cause such quandaries for itself?

I intend to get back to David Waltz vs. Peter Lampe, Lord willing, I really I do, but I ran across this opportunity to provoke the kind of cognitive dissonance that only “The Catholic Champion” could deny without a thought, with just a wave of his mighty hand.

“Da Champ” has decided to comment on my recent blogpost, Vatican II vs Trent on “Holy Orders”. I had posted this from Kilmartin:

In Trent’s Decree on Holy Orders, Canon 6 states that there is in the Church “a hierarchy instituted by divine ordination, which consists of bishops, presbyters and ministers.” While this teaching conforms to the idea of existence of such offices from the beginning of the Church, it does not harmonize with the historical facts. The Second Vatican Council’s Lumen Gentium [28] offers a more realistic view based on a more secure historical consciousness and exegesis of Scripture. Here we read “Thus the divinely instituted ecclesiastical ministry is exercised in different degrees by those who even from ancient times (ab antiquo) have been called bishops, priests, and deacons.” Hence in no way does Vatican II affirm that the priesthood was instituted at the Last Supper in the sense understood by Trent (pg 378).

Da poor Champ, he doesn’t like Kilmartin. He says:

Unfortunately the Church hierarchy has been rather lax in formally condemning individual theologians who have dissenting opinions, who then publish them all over the internet to be consumed by those seeking information on a particular theological subject. … Further down in the article Kilmartin also attacks the scholastic definition given by the Church at Trent concerning Transubstantiation.

Lord willing, I’ll get to that, too, Champ. Meanwhile, in discussing this work yesterday with Raymond, it came up that Vatican II had caused all kinds of problems for understanding Vatican I. I was recalling a work I had read some time ago: Michael J. Buckley, S.J., “Papal Primacy and the Episcopate: towards a relational understanding,” New York: Crossroad Herder, © 1998, from the “Ut Unum Sint” series. I’m wondering if Buckley is one of Da Champ’s favorites? Ratzinger certainly likes him. From the Acknowledgements:

As this book goes to press, its author should pause over the gratitude he owes to others, a debt he would gladly pay:

To Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his gracious invitation to participate in the symposium sponsored by the Congregation on the “primacy of the successor of Peter”;

To Archbishop Tarcissio Bertone, S.D.B., secretary to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for his unfailing kindness and facilitation of the symposium in innumerable details;

To my colleagues in the department of theology at Boston College for their discussion of an earlier draft of the monograph that is now this small book;

To Joseph Komonochak, Peter Hunnermann, and Clifford Kossel, S.J., for their review of the several drafts of the document and their suggestions for its betterment.

To the members of the doctoral seminar at Boston College on primacy and episcopate for the analysis, interpretation, and arguments that occupied many hours of the Wednesday afternoons of the fall of 1996;

To Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., and Michael Himes for their insightful and collaborative direction of this doctrinal seminar that provided the context in which this book was written;

And above all, to my two generous research assistants, Joseph Curran and Brian Hughes, for their hours of scholarly digging in libraries together with their unflagging, competent help in the completion of this work.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, “what, pray tell, is the fruit of this love-fest?”

Certainly you recognize some of the names. Ratzinger, Sullivan, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Yes, we’re all one big happy family.

Here’s what Buckley has said, what Ratzinger asked for, was improved upon by the colleagues at Boston College, and completed with the generous, unflagging, competent help of the research assistants.

The development from Pastor aeternus to Lumen Gentium, from speaking of the bishops as the episcopate to speaking of the bishops as “a college...or a college of bishops” (collegium ... seu corpus episcoporum), is far more considerable than a simple semantic shift. “Episcopate” is somewhat more abstract than “college of bishops,” and it fails to express the dynamic relationship of the bishops among themselves… (pg 77).

Just wait until you’ve got to take into account a millennium’s-worth of Orthodox (and Oriental) bishops who have been slighted.

By no means is that the only problem which the college of bishops initially poses. Lumen Gentium, no. 22, did not include in its description of the Episcopal college the local churches of which the bishops were shepherds and representatives. If one fails to place this section within the context of Lumen Gentium no. 23, one would have an understanding of the college of bishops without the simultaneous and explicit recognition of the communion of churches, indeed, without mention of local churches at all. The perspective would remain that of a universalist ecclesiology, and the college of bishops would read as if it were primarily a governing board of the whole Church (80).

Then there are the vital relationship between the bishop and the local church within which he is to represent the leadership and the sanctifying presence of Christ (81) … and the Apostolic Tradition which insists that the bishop is to be chosen by all of the people and that this selection is to be approved by the assembled [local] bishops and elders (86). Buckley writes, in summary:

Two questions arise in this context. Whether the present settlement actually detracts from the full vigor of the episcopate and whether papal restoration of ancient legislation on the selection of bishops and their stability within their sees could contribute significantly to the strengthening of the episcopate and the local churches today. Could the apostolic See further effectively its responsibilities simply by restoring what has been taken [or, what the papacy has usurped for itself] over the centuries? This would be to retrieve in a very different way that papal leadership whose bent was the strength and freedom of the local church. Neither problem is an easy one to resolve, but both merit serious study and each touches upon both components of this essay (94).

So, Champ, it appears that not only has the divinely instituted hierarchy “been rather lax in formally condemning individual theologians who have dissenting opinions,” in “stopping those modernists who recreate history to deny the definitive teachings of the Catholic Church,” of squelching those with “modernist opinions who contradict her at every turn.” It appears as if they are inviting them to write these things.

But Champ, I’ll make this easy for you. I’ll give you an exit, one that preserves the integrity of both hierarchy and theologians: blame it on the research assistants.

What must the church salvage from her tradition and what must she, if the need arises, discard?

While searching the library for another title, I came across The Essential Pope Benedict XVI: His Central Writings and Speeches. (It's a popular level work, at least judging from the content and reviews I've read so far.) Thumbing through the collection of documents brought me to an interview (from 1996) on the resolution of the contentious "canon of issues" (i.e., women's ordination, contraception, celibacy, the remarriage of divorced persons). One set of question and answer was particularly interesting inasmuch as it relates a certain conception of unity based on a gradation in the importance of beliefs (emphasis in original):

[Peter Seewald] Everything revolves again and again on this point: what must the church salvage from her tradition and what must she, if the need arises, discard? How is this question decided? Is there a list with two columns? On the right: always valid; on the left: capable of renewal?

[Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger] No, it's obviously not that simple. But there are various degrees of importance in the tradition. It was once customary in theology to speak of degrees of certitude, and that was not so wrong. Many say that we have to go back to that. The term hierarchy of truths does seem to point in this direction, namely, that not everything has the same weight, that there are, so to speak, essentials, for example, the great conciliar decisions or what is stated in the Creed. These things are the Way and as such are vital to the church's existence; they belong to her inner identity. And then there are ramifications that are connected with these essentials and certainly belong to the whole tree but that are not all of the same importance. The identity of the church has clear distinguishing marks, so that it is not rigid but the identity of something living, which remains true to itself in the midst of development. (The Essential Pope Benedict XVI [New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2003], 128-129)

A Legitimate Distinction

A distinction between essentials and non-essentials has, of course, been a staple of Protestant apologetic discourse. I'm not aware of any notable Catholic apologists who deny this distinction, but such a denial is common enough on discussion boards and blogs (a recent example may be found here here). If reasoning with those who deny the distinction seems fruitless, then perhaps the current Pope's articulation will be sufficient to convince such dissenters of its legitimacy.

The Whole Tree

The fact that we speak in such metaphors ("whole tree") when discussing essentials undergirds that the identification of these, being at its core an ontological project, is no simple task for any religious community. The learned Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges the complexity of the issue within the Roman Catholic community. And as experience shows (or will show, if you have yet to attempt it yourself), the task of absolutely delimiting these essentials is challenging; a precise periphery proves evasive. Catholic apologists should expect, then, to see some measure of difficulty on the part of Protestants to articulate a highly precise account of the essentials of Protestantism.

What should be acceptable to all is a general account. To extend Ratzinger's metaphor, we perceive the tree of our tradition and we know the trunk is essential to its identity. Let us also say that the boughs are essentials, but the twigs are non-essential. Any attempt to analyze the entire tree will encounter borderline cases where it is difficult to tell when a bough is a twig and when a twig is a bough. The existence of such borderline cases does not invalidate the clear identification of the trunk, nor of clear cases of boughs and twigs.

Each and every disagreement over the nature of the essentials does not count against the overall project of seeking essentials. It is not enough to simply note that one Protestant here disagrees with another Protestant there as to the exact list of essentials. This unreasonably bypasses the clear essentials that do unite Protestant groups; that one part of a project is difficult or unresolvable does not render the whole difficult or unresolvable.

Additionally, such an appeal is easily overturned with a similar comparison between what one Catholic here claims as the essentials and what one Catholic there otherwise claims as the essentials. If disagreement at the periphery disqualifies any and every attempt to identify essentials, then every religious community must be agnostic as to their nature.

What would be of significance is if Protestants could not even provide a general account. Here, of course, we run into that critical issue of defining our terms--just what is meant by Protestant will greatly affect the outcome of any potential critique along these lines. But I leave it to our theological opponents, should they so desire it, to fill out the rest of the argument.

Ratzinger on the “real evil in the dispute between the east and west”

Doing some research for some future postings on the topic of “Apostolic Succession,” I came across this little gem from Ratzinger’s work, “God’s Word: Scripture-Tradition-Office”:

“The concealing of the old theological idea of the sedes apostolica, which was after all from the outset a part of the Church’s understanding of herself [NOT!], by the idea of the five patriarchates must be regarded as the real evil in the dispute between East and West, an evil that also had its effect upon the West, inasmuch as—despite the retention of the concept of the sedes apostolic—a largely administrative and patriarchal concept of the importance of the Roman See developed that could hardly help any outsider to have a clear grasp of the real essence of the Roman claim, as distinct from any other claims”(pg 35).

So, not only was the concept of the “five Patriarchates” a real evil in itself for challenging Roman claims—it caused Rome to exaggerate its own claims, making it hard for any outsider to have a clear grasp of the real essence of the Roman claim.

I have recently noted the avoidance of responsibility for one’s actions as just simply a juvenile, adolescent trait. This of course is only one trait that is typical of the ongoing Roman mindset.

Ratzinger’s self-admitted reliance on the “Liberal” “historical-critical” method of Biblical interpretation, Part 2

For J. Gresham Machen, a professor of New Testament at Princeton during the first part of the 20th century, “The Bible is primarily a record of events”.

The Bible contains a record of something that happened. What that something is is told us in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Jesus of Nazareth was not a product of the world, but a Savior come from outside the world. His birth was a mystery. His life was a life of perfect purity, of awful righteousness, and of gracious, sovereign power. His death was no mere holy martyrdom, but a sacrifice for the sins of the world. His resurrection was not an aspiration in the hearts of his disciples, but a mighty act of God. He is alive, and present at this hour to help us if we will turn to him. He is more than one of the sons of men; he is in mysterious union with the eternal God.” (“History and Faith,” first published in the “Princeton Theological Review 13” (1915), pgs 337-351, and cited here in D.G. Hart, “J. Gresham Machen, Selected Shorter Writings”, Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, ©2004)

I just wanted to keep that in mind as we move forward. In my last post, I showed, in Pope Ratzinger’s own words, that not only his own “exegetical” method, but that of Roman Catholic exegesis in general, relied heavily on the liberal “historical critical” method of Biblical interpretation.

It’s true that as Ratzinger said, “the debate about method has moved on, both inside and outside the Catholic Church.” I have previously shown precisely how this “debate” has moved on, in the form of a confluence of methods which enabled modern conservative Evangelical exegetes to retain:

Ladd’s commitment to the historical study of the New Testament, [which emphasizes] an openness to its theological truth. He sees his task as fundamentally a descriptive one, focusing on what the text “meant.” But since he accepts the Bible as the record of the acts of God for the redemption of the world, he therefore accepts the normative character of the New Testament witness and its ongoing relevance for humanity today, i.e., the importance of what it “means.” Ladd thus refuses to regard New Testament theology as merely the history of early Christian experience. Ladd employs the historical-critical method, but in a modified form that allows him to remain open to the possibility of the transcendent and thus enables him to do justice to the content of the materials being studied

Consider the definite nature of the language in this paragraph above: the Bible is “the record of the acts of God for the redemption of the world,” and the “normative character of the New Testament witness”.

Now consider the conditional, almost shadowy way that Ratzinger, however, must characterize his own method in what follows:

I would like to sketch at least the broad outlines of the methodology, drawn from these documents [linked at the end of my last post], that has guided me in writing this book. The first point is that the historical critical method—specifically because of the intrinsic nature of theology and faith-is and remains an indispensable dimension of exegetical work. For it is of the very essence of biblical faith to be about real historical events. It does not tell stories symbolizing suprahistorical truths, but is based on history, history that took place here on earth. The factum historicum (historical fact) is not an interchangeable symbolic cipher for biblical faith, but the foundation on which it stands: Et incarnates est—when we say these words, we acknowledge God’s actual entry into real history.

Look at how Ratzinger weasels his way through a message that he wants to sound like what Machen said above, but there are many hedges.

So for Ratzinger, the Bible is not “a record of historical events,” as Machen said. It only about historical events. At this point, we are one step removed from Machen. But Ratzinger posits something further.

If we push this history aside, Christian faith as such disappears and is recast as some other religion. So if history, if facticity in this sense, is an essential dimension of the Christian faith, then faith must expose itself to the historical method—indeed, faith itself demands this. I have already mentioned the conciliar Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum); it makes the same point quite explicitly in paragraph 12 and goes on to list some concrete elements of method that have to be kept in mind when interpreting Scripture. The Pontifical Biblical Commission’s document on the interpretation of Holy Scripture develops the same idea much more amply in the chapter entitled “Methods and Approaches for Interpretation.”

The historical-critical method—let me repeat—is an indispensable tool, given the structure of the Christian faith. But we need to add two points. This method is a fundamental dimension of exegesis, but it does not exhaust the interpretive task for someone who sees the biblical writings as a single corpus of Holy Scripture inspired by God. We will have to return to this point at greater length in a moment.

For the time being, it is important—and this is a second point—to recognize the limits of the historical-critical method itself. For someone who considers himself directly addressed by the Bible today, the method’s first limit is that by its very nature it has to leave the biblical word in the past. It is a historical method, and that means that it investigates the then-current context of events in which the texts originated. It attempts to identify and to understand the past—as it was in itself—with the greatest possible precision, in order then to find out what the author could have said and intended to say in the context of the mentality and events of the time. To the extent that it remains true to itself, the historical method not only has to investigate the biblical word as a thing of the past, but also has to let it remain in the past. It can glimpse points of contact with the present and it can try to apply the biblical word to the present; the one thing it cannot do is make it into something present today—that would be overstepping its bounds. Its very precision in interpreting the reality of the past is both its strength and its limit.

Here, it’s important to call your attention to another distinction. For Ladd, “He sees his task as fundamentally a descriptive one, focusing on what the text “meant.” [And this is consistent with the historical-critical method, as Ratzinger described it here.] But since [Ladd] accepts the Bible as the record of the acts of God for the redemption of the world, he therefore accepts the normative character of the New Testament witness and its ongoing relevance for humanity today, i.e., the importance of what it “means” today.

On the other hand, Ratzinger denies that the text, in its historical context means anything for us today. He very clearly separates “what the text meant” from “what the text means.”

* * *
Just to step aside for a second, I want to bring up some comments that Nick has been making; most recently, Nick has been making comments on this topic that show that he really has not got the foggiest interaction with what real “biblical scholarship” entails, and he shows his total unfamiliarity with this world in some comments he’s made:

The sad truth of the last few decades is that "scholars" of the liberal and historical-critical camp generate lots of endorsements because they're part of a ring of elites in academia and publishing. (It's a fallacy to think that because someone is a scholar that they're automatically right or should be given consideration.) If someone like Lampe denies the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals and even says they contain blatant historical errors, then he's not a "conservative." He could be right in other departments or with other arguments, but that's case by case, and doesn't change the fact a rejection of Biblical inerrancy can never place a person in the "conservative" category.

From a Scriptural point of view, I don't see how I can trust someone who already admits the historical events in some parts of Scripture are wrong, because that just raises the question: how do you know these other historical events are right?

Note how Nick’s disavowal of “the liberal and historical-critical camp” is totally at odds with what Ratzinger has been saying in this introduction. He’s correct, to point out that we need to check things on a “case by case” basis. And as I’ve said, it is instructive to see just how little Lampe refers to the Scriptures in his primary work on the Church at Rome; rather, as I’ve said, his work is a vast compendium of all the primary sources that can be gleaned from that period.

Nick also said:

At most your argument would amount to saying B16 is operating from a liberal MO.

But isn’t this bad enough? We’ve established that Ratzinger is “liberal”. But not only that, but he, personally, and the whole Roman Catholic Church has adopted “the historical critical method.” Nick also said:

What's probably the most astonishing about all this is that I'm the one championing total Biblical inerrancy and inspiration as a non-negotiable for good, conservative Biblical exposition...while John has to take a more low-key approach to save face for his buddy Lampe (in order to keep him 'credible' enough to bash Catholics).

Nick is making a category error here. He really has no idea what “inerrancy” is, he seems just to like saying the word. Lampe is incredibly credible, apart from any efforts of my own. His influence will continue. Nick’s disjointed statements here, however, provide yet another example of what Matthew Schultz has been saying for a long time. There is no value engaging with the opinions of individuals such as Nick.

And one more thing. Nobody is “bashing” Catholics. The Roman Church has largely re-calibrated its emphasis on the papacy over the last 50 years. No one can deny that. I’ve had Roman Catholics tell me that this is just plain out of the goodness of their hearts, out of a desire for “ecumenism”.

Instead, for a thousand years, the papacy has been like Leo DiCaprio in “Titanic” – standing on the bow of the ship, arms extended, proclaiming “I’m the King of the World!”

It is the papacy that has bashed the church of Christ. The papacy is as grotesque a distortion of Christianity as I can imagine; and given that such a posture was purchased at the cost of the forgeries and lies that went into it, the schism with the Greek speaking church, the abused trust of those who may have been good people who followed that wolf in sheep’s clothing; the briberies, the wars, the mass murders to achieve such domination.

It’s no small thing to unearth the historical details of how such a misshapen monster came to be.

Ratzinger’s self-admitted reliance on the “Liberal” “historical-critical” method of Biblical interpretation, Part 1

Turretinfan notes “at least one Roman apologist was giving my friend, John Bugay, some grief because Mr. Bugay was citing the work of Peter Lampe. It was alleged that Peter Lampe is a ‘liberal’ because he denies the inerrancy of Scripture on historical points. Whether or not that is true, I wonder if that Roman apologist would be willing to aim his ‘liberal’ label-maker at Joseph Ratzinger, who appears to deny the historical accuracy of the gospels, and in particular that of Matthew in this selection from his forth-coming book…”

First, I'd like to thank Turretinfan for picking up on this.

Second, Pope Ratzinger/Benedict actually gives a thorough explication of his treatment of Scripture in his 2007 work Jesus of Nazareth, which was actually published after he was elected pope. I’ll let him state his view of “inerrancy,” so to speak, and see if the Roman Catholic who then rejects Peter Lampe also rejects Ratzinger/Benedict’s view of the Scriptures:

“… in the 1950s … the gap between the “historical Jesus” and “the Christ of faith” grew wider and the two visibly fell apart.

This is clearly an allusion to Rudolph Bultmann and his influence. Bultmann, who is probably one of the ultimate “liberal” “historical-critical” exegetes, is known for having made this distinction. At some level, it has become incumbent on virtually every New Testament scholar to interact with Bultmann’s ideas and methods.

But what can faith in Jesus as the Christ possibly mean, in Jesus as the Son of the living God, if the man Jesus was so completely different from the picture that the Evangelists painted of him and that the Church, on the evidence of the Gospels, takes as the basis of her preaching?

As historical-critical scholarship advanced, it led to finer and finer distinctions between layers of tradition in the Gospels, beneath the real object of faith—the figure [Gestalt] of Jesus—became increasingly obscured and blurred. At the same time, though, the reconstructions of this Jesus (who could only be discovered by going behind the traditions and sources used by the Evangelists) became more and more incompatible with one another: at one end of the spectrum, Jesus was the anti-Roman revolutionary working—though finally failing—to overthrow the ruling powers; at the other end, he was the meek moral teacher who approves everything and unaccountably comes to grief. If you read a number of these reconstructions one after the other, you see at once that far from uncovering an icon that has become obscured over time, they are much more like photographs of their authors and the ideals they hold. All these attempts have produced a common result: the impression that we have very little certain knowledge of Jesus and that only at a later stage did faith in his divinity shape the image we have of him.

So, modern “liberal” scholarship had looked for ways to suggest that the notion of Christ’s “divinity” “somehow developed” within that first generation of the church. But in contrast to this, many times now, I’ve cited Craig Blomberg to the effect that, both conservatives and atheists now agree that “the Resurrection probably was reported in the same year that it happened” So what the Blomberg example shows is that this belief in the divinity of Christ did not “develop,” but that it was the very thing the Apostles preached from the beginning.

Not only is this type of agreement a one-time occurrence, but now, because of the way that conservative scholars now interact with “liberal” biblical exegesis, this type of agreement an inevitable result. Many more examples could be cited, but this is the very thing that Ratzinger/Benedict seems to be eager to assert: Christ’s divinity was known and assumed at the time of the resurrection. See also my series of posts on The Heresy of Orthodoxy”.

So far, Ratzinger and I are on the same page. Ratzinger now comes to the description of his own book.

Rudolf Schnackenburg was probably the most prominent Catholic exegete writing in German during the second half of the twentieth century. It is clear that toward the end of his life, this crisis surrounding the faith made a profound impression on him. In view of the inadequacy of all the portrayals of the “historical” Jesus offered by recent exegesis, he strove to produce one last great work: Jesus in the Gospels: A Biblical Christology. The book is intended to help believing Christians “who today have been made insecure by scientific research and critical discussion, so that they may hold fast to faith in the person of Jesus Christ as the bringer of salvation and Savior of the world” (p. x). At the end of the book, Schnackenburg sums up the result of a lifetime of scholarship: “a reliable view of the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth through scientific effort with historical-critical methods can only inadequately be achieved (p. 316); “the efforts of scientific exegesis to examine these traditions and trace them back to what is historically credible” draw us “into a continual discussion of tradition and redaction history that never comes to rest” (p. 318).

His own account of the figure of Jesus suffers from a certain unresolved tension because of the constraints of the method he feels bound to use, despite its inadequacies. Schnackenburg shows us the Gospels’ image of Christ, but he considers it to be the product of manifold layers of tradition, through which the “real” Jesus can only be glimpsed from afar. He writes: “The historical ground is presupposed but is superseded in the faith-view of the evangelists” (p. 321). Now, no one doubts that; what remains unclear is how far the “historical ground” actually extends. That said, Schnackenburg does clearly throw into relief the decisive point, which he regards as a genuinely historical insight: Jesus’ relatedness to God and his closeness to God (p. 322). “Without anchoring in God, the person of Jesus remains shadowy, unreal, and unexplainable” (p. 322).

This is also the point around which I will construct my own book….

Keep in mind that the writer that Ratzinger is not only citing, but “constructing his own book around,” a person who is “THE leading Catholic exegete” writing in German. Schnackenburg’s doubts are not the doubts of some off-in-the-woods kind of scholar. He was THE LEADING CATHOLIC EXEGETE” of his time. So thus we see, in his own words, Ratzinger who as he writes, is a pope, describe his own work on “Jesus of Nazareth” as being constructed on a point at which he must consciously “anchor in God” the person of Jesus, lest he become “shadowy, unreal, and unexplainable.”

To digress here, where is the former Roman Catholic certainty, the certainty of, say, a Pius XII, who wrote not of a “shadowy, unreal, and unexplainable” Mary, but of a Mary whose [mythical] “Assumption” was the firmest of all anchor-points of the Roman Catholic faith – the mere “calling into doubt” of which would not only indicate that a person has “fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith,” but which would also “incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul”.

But I digress. Oh, and by the way, keep in mind the liberal axiom of “the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man” as you continue to read Ratzinger/Benedict’s words here.

[My book] sees Jesus in light of his communion with the Father, which is the true center of his personality; without it, we cannot understand him at all, and it is from this center that he makes himself present to us still today.

To be sure, in the particular contours of my own presentation of Jesus I make a determined effort to go beyond Schnackenburg. The problem with Schnackenburg’s account of the relationship between New Testament traditions and historical events stands out very clearly for me when he writes that the Gospels “want, as it were, to clothe with flesh the mysterious son of God who appeared on earth” (p. 322). I would like to say in response that they did not need to “clothe him with flesh,” because he had already truly taken flesh. Of course, the question remains: can this flesh be accessed through the dense jungle of traditions?

Schnackenburg tells us in the foreword to his book that he feels indebted to the historical-critical method, which had been in use in Catholic theology ever since the door was opened for it by the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1943 (p. ix). This encyclical was an important milestone for Catholic exegesis. Since then, though, the debate about method has moved on, both inside and outside the Catholic Church. There have been significant new methodological discoveries—both in terms of strictly historical work and in terms of the interplay between theology and historical method in scriptural interpretation. Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, made a decisive step forward. In addition, two documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission communicate important insights that have matured in the course of debates among exegetes: The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Vatican City, 1993) and The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (Vatican City, 2001).

I’ll pause here because there’s much more to come from Ratzinger. But I’d like to point out a couple of things.

Those Roman Catholics who want to accuse me of “inconsistency” and even “denying the inerrancy of Scripture” have got their heads in the sand when it comes, not only to the world of “biblical exegesis,” but especially what Roman Catholics are doing in this area. Those who want to deny that Raymond Brown, for example, had any legitimacy [in their minds, at least] have no idea of the role that he played, and the central role that his method played in shaping what their own Pope Ratzinger is saying right here.

Brown’s conclusions: that the “sacerdotal” priesthood was a development of the second century; that the monoepiscopacy was an uneven development throughout the second century (around 110 in the east, 150 in Rome); that the papacy itself was a fourth-century development—these conclusions are the only possible conclusions that come near to Roman Catholic teaching. (And I would largely agree with much of this).

Those who try to teach, as the Called to Communion folks, that Christ made Peter the first “pope,” that there was, from the beginning, a “succession” of “bishops,” and that there was a sacerdotal priesthood in place from the beginning, are merely living in a world of make believe.

“TheDen” and Ratzinger vs Louis Berkhof on Union with Christ

In comments on my previous post, “The Den” said,

I think the misconceptions that you and John have with Ratzinger’s writings really delineates the chasm between Protestant and Catholic thought. I “think” (Ratzinger's thinking is above mine) I can explain it but it would take A LOT of time and it would require you to understand it from a Catholic mindset.

I have to confess, I’ve been fascinated with what “TheDen” has to say, because he is what I’d call a real, genuine Roman Catholic, as opposed to the epistemologically metastasized variation of Roman Catholic, known generically as a “Catholic apologist” that we frequently encounter here.

I responded by saying, “‘TheDen’, I would be interested in knowing what you know about ‘the Catholic mindset’ that I didn’t grow up with. And he graciously followed up with a brief explanation, which has given us an opportunity not to pick on “TheDen,” but to begin to systematically think about the many differences between Roman Catholicism and Reformed doctrine and theology.

“TheDen” said:

Alright...here goes.

In Catholic thought, we are united to Christ. We become one with Him per John 15. How does this happen? It happens through our obedience to Him. We no longer follow our will but rather we follow Christ. It’s no longer I--it’s now Christ. And then, per Galatians, it’s “no longer I who live but rather Christ who lives inside me.” In essence, we become Christ but only in obedience to Him. We are united to Him and He nourishes us and in doing His will, we spread forth His message. (emphasis added).

I just want to focus on this one point for now. (I’ll refer you to the discussion thread for “TheDen”’s further explication of “the Catholic mindset.” I’d like to give “TheDen” (or any other Roman Catholic) an opportunity to defend this particular item from the CCC or Denzinger or the Bible (if they can find it), but I wanted to point this out. This is exactly the mindset I grew up with. And it is illustrative of one reason why I came to the conclusion that I could not remain as a Roman Catholic.

The Reformed doctrine of “Union with Christ” was prevalent in Calvin’s Institutes, and it has undergirded Reformed thinking on salvation ever since. In the traditional order of “systematic theology,” Soteriology, or the doctrine of Salvation, is not the first thing to be discussed. Prior to Soteriology, it is most important to discuss Revelation, the Doctrine of God, the Works of God, Anthropology (that is, the Doctrine of Man in relation to God), the Doctrine of Christ, and the person and work of Christ. And I don’t want to criticize TheDen for a knowledge or lack of knowledge of systematic theology. But what I do want to point out is that his thinking is fairly characteristic of “a good Catholic”. It is, I think, a result of faulty Roman Catholic understandings of things like Revelation, the doctrine of God (Pseudo-Dionysius, for example), the Doctrine of Man (the donum superadditum, for example, and on and on).

At this point, “TheDen” was complaining that the song “Good Morning Starshine” had gotten stuck in his head. So as a public service to “TheDen”, I’ll provide another song that will stick inside his head, with the hope of moving that one out. A warning to my Reformed brethren: this is a point at which “the Catholic mindset” – very bad Roman Catholic theology -- has reached into popular culture, in the popular song “Last Kiss,” written by Wayne Cochran in 1962, and performed a number of times over the last 50 years, most recently here by Pearl Jam.

Oh where oh were could my baby be
The lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I've got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world

Not to spend too much time on that sort of thing, but it’s just to say, I guess, that is why theology matters and precisely why it matters on so many fronts.

We’ve had so many Roman Catholics come here and talk about “the Church” (meaning “the Roman Catholic Church, founded by Christ, constituted and organized in the world as a society, [which] subsists in the [Roman] Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him”), as “the ongoing Incarnation of Christ” or for short, “The Church = Christ”, that I thought it would be best to provide a Reformed and thoroughly biblical explanation of what “Union with Christ” actually means.

It seems as if Roman Catholics like to throw this out to Protestants as if to say, “our Church is better than your church.” But this is not at all the case. We do not have to work for “Union with Christ”; it is a gift of God, established (as in Ephesians 1:4, for example) “from before the foundation of the world”. In “the Catholic mindset,” this union “happens through our obedience to Him.” In Reformed theology, “those who will be saved were not even contemplated [apart from union with Christ] by the Father in the ultimate counsel of his predestinating love … —they were chosen in Christ. As far back as we can go in tracing salvation to its fountain, we find ‘union with Christ’; it is not something tacked on; it is there from the outset.” (Robert Reymond, “Systematic Theology,” Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishing, ©1998, pgs 736-737, citing John Murray, “Redemption—Accomplished and Applied, 162).

Here is Berkhof’s exposition:

Calvin repeatedly expresses the idea that the sinner cannot share in the saving benefits of Christ’s redemptive work, unless he be in union with Him, and thus emphasizes a very important truth. As Adam was the representative head of the old humanity, so Christ is the representative head of the new humanity. All blessings of the covenant of grace flow from Him who is the Mediator of the covenant. Even the very first blessing of the saving grace of God which we receive already presupposes a union with the Person of the Mediator…. Every spiritual blessing which believers receive flows to them out of Christ. Hence Jesus in speaking of the coming Paraklete could say unto his disciples: “He shall glorify me; for He shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you,” (John 16:14). Subjectively, the union between Christ and believers is effected by the Holy Spirit in a mysterious and supernatural way, and for that reason is generally designated as the unio mystica or mystical union.

(The Ford Lewis Battles translation of The Institutes notes that “Calvin nowhere teaches “the absorption of the pious mystic into the sphere of the divine being,” (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, ©1960, Vol 1, pg 737, 3.11.20, n.20) as we’ve seen Ratzinger do, on multiple occasions.)

Reformed theology … deals with the union of believers with Christ theologically, and as such … employs the term “mystical union” in a broad sense as a designation not only of the subjective union of Christ and believers, but also of the union that lies back of it, that is basic to it, and of which it is only the culminating expression, namely, the federal union of Christ and those who are His in the counsel of redemption, the mystical union ideally established in that eternal counsel [within the Trinity, in eternity past], and the union as it is objectively effected in the incarnation and the redemptive work of Christ.

1. The Federal Union of Christ with Those Whom the Father has Given Him, in the Counsel of Redemption.
In the counsel of [redemption], Christ voluntarily took upon Himself to be the Head and Surety of the elect, destined to constitute the new humanity, and as such to establish their righteousness before God by paying the penalty for their sin and by rendering perfect obedience to the law and thus securing their everlasting life. In that eternal covenant the sin of His people was imputed to Christ, and His righteousness was imputed to them. This imputation of the righteousness of Christ to His people is sometimes represented as a justification from eternity. It is certainly the eternal basis of our justification by faith, and is the ground on which we receive all spiritual blessings and the gift of life eternal. And this being so, it is basic to the whole of soteriology, and even to the first states in the aplicationof the work of redemption, such as regeneration and internal calling.

2. The union of life ideally established in the Counsel of Redemption.
In the case of the first Adam there was not only a federal, but also a natural and organic union between him and his descendants. There was the tie of a common life between him and all his progeny, and this made it possible that the blessings of the covenant of works, if these had eventuated, could have been passed on to the whole organism of mankind in an organic way. A somewhat similar situation obtained in the case of the last Adam as the representative Head of the covenant of redemption. Like the first Adam, He did not represent a conglomeration of disjointed individuals, but a body of men and women who were to derive their life from Him, to be united by spiritual ties, and thus to form a spiritual organism. Ideally this body, which is the Church, was already formed in the covenant of redemption, and formed in union with Christ, and this union made it possible that all the blessings merited by Christ could be passed on to those whom He represented in an organic way. They were conceived of as a glorious body, a new humanity, sharing the life of Jesus Christ. It was in virtue of that union, as it was realized in the course of history, that Christ could say: “Behold, I and the children whom God hath given me,” (Heb. 2:13).

3. The union of life objectively realized in Christ.
In virtue of the legal or representative union [“forensic” union, through “imputation”] established in the covenant of redemption Christ became incarnate as the substitute for His people, to merit all the blessings of salvation for them. Since His children were sharers in flesh and blood, “He also in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” (Heb 2:1-15). He could merit salvation for them just because He already stood in relation to them as their Surety and Mediator, their Head and Substitute. The whole Church was included in Him as her Head. In an objective sense she was crudified with Christ, she died with Him, she arose in Him from the dead, and was made to sit with Him in the heavenly places. All the blessings of saving grace lie ready for the Church in Christ; man can add nothing to them; and they now only await their subjective application by the operation of the Holy Spirit, which is also merited by Christ and is sure of progressive realization [sanctification] in the course of history.

4. The union of life subjectively realized by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
The work of Christ was not finished when He has merited salvation for His people and had obtained actual possession of the blessings of salvation. In the Counsel of Redemption He took it upon Himself to put all His people in possession of all these blessings, and He does this through the operation of the Holy Spirit, who takes all things out of Christ, and gives them unto us. [Note that Christ does not further empower “the Church” to hand “possession of blessings” to people. This is a direct mediation by the Holy Spirit, and in fact, Tertullian, in Prescription against Heresies, 28, refers specifically to the Holy Spirit as “The Vicar of Christ”.] We should not conceive of the subjective realization of the mystical union in the Church atomistically, as if it were effected by bringing now this and then that individual sinner to Christ. It should be seen from the point of view of Christ. Objectively, the whole Church is in Him, and is born out of Him as the Head. It is not a mechanism, in which the parts precede the whole, but an organism, in which the whole is prior to the parts. The parts come forth out of Christ through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and then continue in living relationship with Him. Jesus calls attention to this organic relationship when he says: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing,” (John 15:5). In view of what was said, it is quite evident that it is not correct to say that the mystical union is the fruit of man’s believing acceptance of Christ, as if faith were not one of the blessings of the covenant which flow unto us from the fullness of Christ, but a condition which man must meet partly or wholly in his own strength, in order to enter into a living relationship with Jesus Christ. Faith is first of all a gift of God, and as such a part of the treasures that are hidden in Christ. It enables us to appropriate on our part what is given unto us in Christ, and it enter ever increasingly into conscious enjoyment of the blessed union with Christ, which is the source of all our spiritual riches. (Berkhof, “Systematic Theology,” pg 447-449).

So Ratzinger and “TheDen” get it precisely backwards.

Green Baggins in discussion with Roman Catholics

There are some good discussions at Green Baggins; they have begun a review of the Robert Sungenis work, Not By Scripture Alone.

Subsequent posts include:

Sungenis's Preface
A Blueprint for Order
Some Presuppositions and Rules for Protestant/Catholic discussions on GB

Key to these discussions is the way that Rome understands the word "church," and the subtle way it defines itself as "church" while it simultaneously excludes Protestants from being "church".

The key document is the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, and section 8, which contains this definition:

Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy [Roman] Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body.

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". [Note the abuse of 1 Tim 3:15 as a proof-text here]. This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the [Roman] Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure.

The key word from that selection is the word subsists in, which is a change from prior documents, which expressed that "this [Roman Catholic] Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, is the Roman Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him ..." It actually went further than that. The language surrounding "the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him" is a scale-back of the language of Vatican I.

But what Rome seems to give, in terms of "good will towards Protestants" with one hand, it takes back with the other. While some theologians understood the word "subsists" as allowing for other Ratzinger, it has been noted that Ratzinger sees the word "subsists in" as meaning "integral existence as a complete, self-contained subject."

See the Avery Dulles article in the February 2006 issue of "First Things," From Ratzinger to Benedict.

It is Ratzinger who is behind the documents that prohibits addressing Protestant churches as "churches," but rather, calls them "ecclesial communities."

Please note this well:

Catholic ecumenism might seem, at first sight, somewhat paradoxical. The Second Vatican Council used the phrase “subsistit in” in order to try to harmonise two doctrinal affirmations: on the one hand, that despite all the divisions between Christians the Church of Christ continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand that numerous elements of sanctification and truth do exist outwith the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church whether in the particular Churches or in the ecclesial Communities that are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the same Decree of Vatican II on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio introduced the term fullness (unitatis/catholicitatis) specifically to help better understand this somewhat paradoxical situation. Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, “nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her.”

From the document: "COMMENTARY ON THE DOCUMENT 'RESPONSES TO SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE DOCTRINE ON THE CHURCH'"

This is the attitude that we are dealing with when you speak with the more informed Roman Catholics here. Some of the luddites merely echo these sentiments in their own bad way.

Good Morning Pope Starshine, part 2

Why do popes write the things they do? It stands to reason that you don’t work all your life to grow up and be pope, just to say things and have them be ignored. No, you want to be pope so you can command obedience!

Pius XII, himself a pope (who knew the difference between an ex cathedra pronouncement and an ordinary one, because he had done both, only our fusion into unity with him, makes us bearers of the promise.” (33) This goes far beyond the Protestant notion of Union with Christ. That union is accomplished through the Holy Spirit – and the New Man.

But fast forward to July 2009, in an address in Aosta, Italy, Benedict again, as pope, cites Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and his pantheistic vision, far beyond what was said in “Introduction to Christianity” and claims that “the cosmos becomes a living host”:

“Let Your Church offer herself to You as a living and holy sacrifice”. This request, addressed to God, is made also to ourselves. It is a reference to two passages from the Letter to the Romans. We ourselves, with our whole being, must be adoration and sacrifice, and by transforming our world, give it back to God. The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin: in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host. And let us pray the Lord to help us become priests in this sense, to aid in the transformation of the world, in adoration of God, beginning with ourselves.

In other words, “we are the world.”

Paul’s letters frequently follow the pattern of theology --> application, and his letter to the Romans follows this same pattern. Here is the citation of the selection that the pope is quoting:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Schreiner, in his commentary, does not see pantheism in this text. “Paul is not merely saying that [these] sacrifices are spiritual in nature. His point is that it is eminently reasonable, given the mercies of God, for believers to dedicate themselves wholly to God.” (Commentary on Romans, 644-645). “The worship described does not relate to public assemblies but to the yielding of one’s whole life to God in the concrete reality of everyday existence.”

I’ve written about this, too, in a post entitled The Real Body of Christ.

Here, Ratzinger openly embraces the Platonic concept of “body” and rejects Scriptural meaning as he openly states, “Communion means the fusion of existences. Just as in the taking of nourishment the body assimilates foreign matter to itself, and is thereby enabled to live, in the same way my “I” is “assimilated” to that of Jesus, it is made similar to him in an exchange that increasingly breaks through the lines of division.”

Now, it could not be more clear, in analyzing the texts of Paul’s letters, that this is in no way what he is talking about. But the Roman self-infatuation, in its desires to perpetuate its grandiose claims about itself, effectively repeats the promise of Satan: “You will be like God.”

I’ll refer you to that link for more about this topic, but for now, it should be enough to provide a biblical picture of our future:

See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they were saying:

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!”

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

It will be time for Lewis’s “Great Dance”. No pantheism allowed.

“Good Morning Starshine, the Pope says hello”; or, the continuing saga of the Development of Roman Doctrine

C.S. Lewis said that he could never become a Roman Catholic, not because of what they believe today, but because the “viva vox” setup means that you can never quite know what you’ll get to “receive with docility” in the future.

You might have guessed from my rather lighthearted title, that this is going to be a kind of silly post. But before we get into the thicket of Ratzinger’s writings, I'd like to establish the mood for you.

Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below

David Waltz has noted that my comment that Pope Benedict XVI is functionally a pantheist is somehow “silliness”. Maybe David is right. Maybe I was just being too kind, and that was silly. Some further reading gives me the sense that Ratzinger is pretty much a full-blown pantheist.

Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song

One of the first places to look regarding Ratzinger’s beliefs [that is, his own personal beliefs, which may vary from “official” Church teaching, and yet which he seems to hold in some other non-official compartment of his brain] is in his first book, “Introduction to Christianity”. By the time he wrote this in 1969, at about age 42, he was already a world-leading theologian [and I would say that by age 42, your life and worldview are pretty well firmly established]; having been the “chief theological advisor [at Vatican II] for the Archbishop of Cologne, Cardinal Joseph Frings”. This work itself is advertised as Ratzinger’s “remarkable elucidation of the Apostle’s Creed” and “an excellent, modern interpretation of the foundations of Christianity” (from the back cover).

In the section “Christology and the Doctrine of Redemption,” Ratzinger outlines Anselm’s “Cur Deus Homo” but then says that “the perfectly logical divine-cum-human legal system erected by Anselm distorts the perspectives and with its rigid logic can make the image of God appear in a sinister light….For the time being it will suffice to say that things immediately look different when, in place of the division of Jesus into work and person, it becomes clear that with Jesus Christ it is not a question of a piece of work separate from himself, of a feat which God must demand because he himself is under an obligation to the concept of order; that with him it is not a question … of having humanity, but of being human. And how different things look further on when one picks up the Pauline key, which teaches us to understand Christ as the “last man” – the final man, who takes man into his future, which consists of his being not just man but one with God.”

Well, that’s one way of looking at Anselm’s theology. And one might have some hope that if this pope is quoting and explicating Paul’s theology, there may be some good hope indeed.

Gliddy gloop gloopy
Nibby nobby nooby
La la la lo lo
Sabba sibby sabba
Nooby abba dabba
Le le lo lo
dooby ooby walla
dooby abba dabba
Early morning singing song

But rather than turning to Paul, Ratzinger turns to the writings of (at the time, under official condemnation) Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [pronounced “shar-dan”].

We have now reached the point at which we can try to summarize what we mean when we confess, “I believe in Jesus Christ, only begotten son our Lord”. After all that has gone before we shall dare to say first: Christian faith believes in Jesus as the exemplary man (this is probably the best way to translate accurately the above-mentioned Pauline concept of the “Last Adam”).(175)

...If Jesus is the exemplary man, in whom the true figure of man, God’s intention for him, comes fully to light, then he cannot be destined to be merely an absolute exception, a curiosity, in which God demonstrates to us just what is possible. His existence concerns all mankind. The New Testament makes this perceptible by calling him an “Adam”; in the Bible this word expresses the unity of the whole creature “man”, so that one can speak of the biblical idea of a “corporate personality” [emphasis added]. So if Jesus is called “Adam” this implies that he is intended to gather the whole creature “Adam” in himself. But this means that the reality which Paul calls, in a way that is largely incomprehensible to us today, the “body of Christ” is an intrinsic postulate of this existence, which cannot remain an exception but must “draw to itself” the whole of mankind (cf John 12:32).(176)

It must be regarded as an important service of Teilhard de Chardin’s that he re-thought these ideas from the angle of the modern view of the world and, in spite of a not entirely unobjectionable tendency towards the biological approach, nevertheless on the whole grasped them correctly and in any case made them accessible once again. Let us listen to his own words: the human monad [monad being Ratzinger’s word; Teilhard de Chardin’s words are in “quotes”] “can only be absolutely itself by ceasing to be alone”. In the background is the idea that in the cosmos, alongside the two orders or classes of the infinitely small and the infinitely big, there is a third order, which determines the real drift of evolution, namely the order of the infinitely complex. It is the real goal of the ascending powers of growth or becoming; it reaches a first peak in the genesis of living things and then continues to advance to those highly complex creations which give the cosmos a new centre: [emphasis added] “Imperceptible and accidental as the position which they hold may be in the history of the heavenly bodies, in the last analysis the planets are nothing less than the vital points of the universe. It is through them that the axis now runs, on them henceforth concentrated the main effort of an evolution aiming principally at the production of large molecules.”

The examination of the world by the dynamic criterion of complexity thus signifies “a complete inversion of values. A reversal of the perspective.”

But let us return to man. He is so far the maximum in complexity. But even he as a mere man-monad cannot represent an end; his growth itself demands a further advance in complexity: “At the same time as he represents an individual centred on himself (that is, a ‘person’), does not Man also represent an element in relation to some new and higher synthesis?” That is to say, man is indeed on the one hand already an end that can no longer be reversed, no longer be melted down again; yet in the juxtaposition of individual men he is not yet at the goal but shows himself to be an element, as it were, that longs for a whole which will embrace it without destroying it. Let us look at a further text, in order to see in what direction such ideas lead: “Contrary to the appearances still accepted by Physics, the Great Stability is not below – in the infra-elemental – but above – in the ultra-synthetic.”

So it must be discovered that “If things hold and hold together, it is only by virtue of ‘complexification’, from the top”. I think we are confronted here with a crucial statement; at this point the dynamic view of the world destroys the positivistic conception, so near to all of us, that stability is located only in the “mass”, in hard material. That the world is in the last resort put together and held together “from above” here becomes evident in a way that is particularly striking because we are so little accustomed to it.

This leads to a further passage in Teilhard de Chardin which it is worth quoting in order to give at least some indication here, by means of a few fragmentary excerpts, of his general outlook. (177-178)

Now, I apologize that I am being a bit long-winded with this citation. But we are all about context here. In this selection on “Christology and Soteriology,” Ratzinger is not only giving a big introduction to Teilhard de Chardin, but he is explicating him and is in some way attributing this explication to Paul. Ratzinger does not want you to miss this point he is about to make.

Unfortunately, I’ll have to pause here because this post is already long enough. We should keep in mind two things. Even though Ratzinger wrote this in 1969, he took pains to reiterate the principle at later times, one notably in his 1991 work "Called to Communion": "Throug baptism, answers Paul, we are inserted into Christ and united with him as a single subject; no longer many alongside one another, but "only one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:16; 26-29). Only Christ's self-identification with us, onlyour fusion into unity with him, makes us bearers of the promise." (33)

In my next installment, I’ll get into the really “pantheistic” stuff.

The Pantheism of Roman Catholicism

C.S. Lewis noted some time ago that in the end, only Christianity stood against pantheism.

Well, our friend Viisaus posted a whole bunch of items yesterday in the comments that illustrated the influence that pantheism has in the Roman church:

Viisaus said...

"David, one of the things I have noticed in my reading of Ratzinger is that he is functionally a pantheist. This is the unity that he desires. That is, we all get "fused" into God -- I believe that is the term he used in Called to Communion."


It seems that these Sedevacantists agree - rejecters of Vatican II can often provide best evidence for modern RC apostasy:

http://traditioninaction.org/ProgressivistDoc/A_120_RatzTeilhardl.html
(citing Ratzinger's words last year):

Benedict XVI praises the cosmic liturgy of Teilhard de Chardin

"The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of Teilhard de Chardin: in the end we shall achieve a true cosmic liturgy, where the cosmos becomes a living host."

2:21 AM, October 28, 2010


Viisaus said...

A sharp-eyed critic like Isaac Taylor foresaw the coming of Vatican II spirit already back in 1849. He was able to predict how the RCC would eventually respond to the modernist challenge: by pantheistic pandering.

Taylor noticed how the Newmanian doctrine of development had an inherently "evolutionist" flavor, and could even foresee the rise of pantheist Jesuits like Teilhard de Chardin:

http://www.archive.org/details/loyolajesuitism00taylgoog

"Loyola & Jesuitism in Its Rudiments"
pp. 372-374

"It would be by no means difficult to sketch the outlines of a New Faith, well adapted to the prevailing notions and habits of Continental communities. Such a faith would retain everything belonging to Romanism that is sensuous and imaginative; — everything of costume and of ceremonial that does not offend good taste, or draw upon itseif sarcasm: it would retain, moreover, a shadowy, though not a dogmatic, orthodoxy: it might perhaps permit a Nicene profession to be "sung," but would never allow it to be "said."

The lately-divulged doctrine of "Development" would seem as if it had been now announced as the requisite preliminary to such a relinquishment of ancient practices and principles as we are supposing to be probable. It is manifest that if "the Church" be endowed with a creative or re-creative vital energy, enabling and authorizing it, from age to age, to evolve what is new in belief or in worship, or to bring to light what had previously slumbered in darkness; if, for example, the Church of the ninth Century ought to be thought of as an authentic product of the church of the third, although marked by new features — then this same vital force — this power of adaptation, may, as ages roll on, and as human reason ripens, show its energies in the mode of absorption or retrenchment. During the ninth Century the Church put forth a verdant top, darkening all the skies; but in the nineteenth century the tree may call in its sap from its luxuriant head, while it strikes its roots far in to a new soil.

If, in this age of reason, certain dogmas or modes of worship may seem to have fulfilled their intention, and to have become encumbrances, rather than aids, why may not the inherent "Development" power rescind, withdraw, remove, such adjuncts? It is not easy to see what difficulty, either logical or theoretic, stands in the way to prevent the Church's faculty of development from now shifting its position, and acting as a faculty of abrogation. Once it put its right hand forth to bring from its treasury things new: henceforward it will be pulling its left hand from its bosom, to withdraw these worn and faded articles from their places. In a rude age the Church — always wise in her day — became flagrantly polytheistic: in a philosophic, or rather a scientific age, the same Church, equally wise, will become pantheistic.

This is the very result that might seem highly probable, as consequent upon a well-calculated endeavor to reinstate spiritual power throughout Europe, by means of an alliance between that scientific pantheism which, at this time, is the prevalent belief of the continental nations, and the Church, professing its faculty of adaptation to the changing aspects of the world. Let the Church absorb or abrogate what, although held to be true and good, as related to an age long gone by, is now felt to be redundant, and which will not amalgamate with the present scientific temper of mankind. Nothing would be needed beyond that which such a faculty of adaptation might supply, for compiling a creed, and for instituting a worship, well adapted to the taste and propensities of the European Continental nations.

If an enterprise of this sort were seriously thought of, the Jesuit body might consider itself to be peculiarly qualified for attempting the task."

2:50 AM, October 28, 2010


Viisaus said...

One really does not even need to dig very deep to see the brazen pantheistic-evolutionist attitudes of the modern Vatican:

http://www.christorchaos.com/RevealingHisInnerTeilhardYetAgain.htm

"Though offered only in passing, and doubtless subject to overinterpretation, Benedict's line nevertheless triggered headlines in the Italian press about a possible "rehabilitation" of Teilhard, sometimes referred to as the "Catholic Darwin." That reading seemed especially tempting since, as a consummate theologian, Benedict is aware of the controversy that swirls around Teilhard, and would thus grasp the likely impact of a positive papal reference.

At the very least, the line seemed to offer a blessing for exploration of the late Jesuit's ideas. That impression appeared to be confirmed by the Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, who said afterward, "By now, no one would dream of saying that [Teilhard] is a heterodox author who shouldn't be studied.""

4:18 AM, October 28,

I'd like to say, Viisaus, thanks for what you add here.

Follow-up: Ratzinger says "Resurrection Merely Symbolic"

Following up on the "Ratzinger-used-to-believe-the-Resurrection-was-symbolic" post (one wonders what this meant for his understanding of "real presence" in the Eucharist), the individual who brought this to my attention was Matthew Vogan, who contacted me via Puritanboard.

It seems as if Ratzinger, at some later time, modified that view. What's less clear to me is, what was his motivation? As a scholar (a "leading Catholic scholar") even at that time, he would have come to that belief ("the resurrection is merely symbolic") only as the result of a long and thoughtful process. To have decided to have changed this view merely because he was moving up the ecclesiastical ladder, seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Matthew wrote this article describing all of this. And he points to what most people would consider to be a fundamental kind of dishonesty (although there is an "official" way to be deceptive that falls within the limits of Official Roman law, and Ratzinger, being a "leading Catholic scholar," knows all the tricks):

How then may the current Pope continue to deny such a statement of the Church’s official teaching? It can be done only by the Jesuitical distinction that he makes between his official and private views (despite the fact that his books are all marketed with 'Pope Benedict XVI' more prominently displayed than his real name). Despite the seemingly-binding nature of the new Catechism, some point to the fact that it was not prepared by a full Council and are able to take some refuge in Ratzinger’s comments that the Catechism seeks to leave debated questions as open as possible.

At this point, the footnote continues:

Joseph A Komonchak, 'The authority of the Catechism', in Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church: traditional themes and contemporary issues, ed. Berard L Marthaler, Paulist Press, 1994, pp 18-31). In Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian issued by Ratzinger in 1990, there are complicated qualifications as to when and how views differing from official doctrine can be proposed: for example, 'witholding assent' is distinguished from 'dissent'.

I'm wondering again, at all of our "inconsistency detectors" out there, if this doesn't seem just a bit beyond inconsistent?

[Beyond this is the whole area of thought behind the papacy that allows that a pope can be as wicked as is humanly possible, just so long as he does not issue an ex-cathedra heretical teaching -- or at least, one that cannot be explained away. Does this not seem to our "inconsistency-detectors" out there, just a little bit inconsistent, if not hypocritical and outlandish and beyond belief?]

Just mull this over for a bit. I'm closing comments on this thread because I'm headed out of town for the weekend, and I won't really have much time or access to respond to comments. But I wanted to throw this out there for those of you who are interested.

Called to Confusion

This is for Catholic Nick, who said:

When someone puts their stakes on one horse, they need to stick with that horse. One cannot selectively cite a scholar, especially if the scholar is liberal and you are conservative ...

In his work, "Called to Communion," Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger enthusiastically quoted Joachim Jeremias, the German Lutheran theologian and professor of New Testament studies, from his work "New Testament Theology":

"We must reduce the whole question quite sharply to a single point: the sole meaning of the entire activity of Jesus is the gathering of the eschatological people of God." (22)

Ratzinger, of course, is bound by Catholic doctrine to hold to the hierarchical structure of the Roman Church: "Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. (Lumen Gentium 8)

But what Ratzinger fails to report is that for Jeremias, "the people of God" has a meaning that's quite different from what Ratzinger intends:

"Now there is no question that if by ekklesia we understand an organization of the kind that developed in a later period, it would be an anachronism to ascribe to Jesus the intention of founding an ekklesia. But that would be to misunderstand the meaning of ekklesia …" When Jesus said, "I will build my church," Jeremias says that "it is more appropriate to translate ekklesia 'people of God' than 'church'."

Jeremias expands on Jesus's "favorite of all the images for the new people of God is the comparison of the community of salvation with the eschatological family of God." "God is the father (Matt 23:9), Jesus the master of the house, his followers the other occupants (Matt 10:25). The older women who hear his word are his mothers, the men and youths his brothers (Mark 3:34)."

This, of course, is the "house church" movement in a nutshell, so clearly articulated by the "critical scholar" Peter Lampe.

Does Ratzinger call people to communion with the hierarchical Roman Church? Or with Jeremias's version of the "people of God"?

If one thing is clear about Romanism's view of God's revelation, it's that it isn't clear

Here's a worthy read: Ratzinger, Material Sufficiency?

Ratzinger:
And [Geiselmann] further concludes that consequently even a Catholic theologian can argue the material sufficiency of Scripture and can also, as a Catholic, hold the opinion that Holy Scripture transmits a material sola scriptura thoroughly acceptable even for a Catholic—indeed, he believes he can show that this has much the stronger tradition in its favor and that the Council of Trent, likewise, intended to point us in this direction.

The Romanist theologian does indeed argue this or that. For all their talk about certainty, when it comes right down to the essential nature of God's revelation, it all becomes a bit foggy in Romanism. Ironically, this ambiguity speaks loudly and clearly to how far the sect of Romanism has strayed from the truth, in that, it can't even consistently explain the nature of revelation. Depending on which Romanist one is in conversation with, one will get different explanations on the interaction of Tradition and Scripture, as well as the meaning of Tradition. If one thing is clear about Romanism's view of God's revelation, it's that it isn't clear.

Does Romanism, by and large, care? No, I don't think so. Even her most zealous self-appointed apologists have balked about doing in-person debates on the nature and meaning of Tradition. Sure, they've jumped all over sola scriptura over the years, but when Tradition is mentioned, they back away as fast as possible. This has happened time after time in Dr. White's debates with Roman apologists. It would be interesting to listen back to these debates as a whole, and isolate each Roman apologist's response and definition of Tradition. They can tear down that which they despise, but they can't (or won't) provide a meaningful explanation as to what their position is. They won't subject themselves to the same scrutiny that they go after sola scriptura with.