Links

Also, sorry for the all the embedded links…almost all of the quotes are from the NewAdvent website, as copying and pasting them was easier than typing out all the quoted passages from my five volume Summa set. I thought I had reformatted the text to prevent the links from appearing in the post, but it didn’t work. If anyone knows how to do that, I would really love to know…

My Hope for the Next Few Posts

I sincerely hope that the first installment of my series on the Eucharist does not come across as a mere assemblage of quotes from Aquinas. If that is how it comes across, I apologize to my readers. My intent in reviewing Aquinas first is only to show the huge amount of common ground that exists between Protestants and Roman Catholics in the areas of Scripture, Grace, and Faith. St. Thomas Aquinas is the most revered teacher in Roman Catholicism. If it can be shown that some of his own views were compatible with those of Luther and Calvin, that would go a long way toward reaching common ground on the sacraments, and thus the Eucharist. I ask my readers to bear with me as I review these themes, as the discussion on the sacraments ought to be interesting for all.

 

Thank you.

Life Up Your Hearts, Part 1 - Scripture

One of my favorite parts of the Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy is when the priest exhorts the faithful in song and chant to “lift up your hearts,” to which the faithful reply “it is fitting and right.” It is in that sacred, venerable, and holy rite, the very sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, that all baptized Christians gather together in unity of worship in “spirit and in truth.” This unity of the mystical Body of Christ, the Church, lies at the heart of the rationale for its institution:

“Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix): "It is impossible to keep men together in one religious denomination, whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or sacraments." But it is necessary for salvation that men be united together in the name of the one true religion. Therefore sacraments are necessary for man's salvation.”^[1]

It is truly an ironic and tragic thing that the sacrament of Communion was the primary cause of division in the Western Church during the Reformation, not only between the Protestants and Rome but also among the Protestants themselves. This division in Christendom, in turn, was the direct cause of secularism, as Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg explains:

“The distinction between the religious and the secular changed again as a result of the sixteenth-century Reformation or, more precisely, as a result of the religious wars that followed the breakup of the medieval Church. When in a number of countries no religious party could successfully impose its faith upon the entire society, the unity of the social order had to be based on a foundation other than religion. Moreover, religious conflict had proved to be destructive of the social order. In the second half of the seventeenth century, therefore, thoughtful people decided that, if social peace was to be restored, religion and the controversies associated with religion would have to be bracketed. In that decision was the birth of modern secular culture. It would in time lead to secularism and a culture that is properly described as secularist. In earlier centuries, the bracketing of religion would have been unimaginable. Even in the sixteenth century, Reformers and Catholics alike assumed that religious unity was indispensable to the unity of society. Although they emphasized the decisive importance of the individual conscience in matters of faith, neither Luther nor Calvin conceived of the possibility of religious toleration.”^[2]

The dissolution of the institutional Church was thus direct cause of the undermining of its own credibility, and yet, such credibility had up to that time been seen as necessary for the maintenance of social order:

“The older assumption that the unity of society requires the unity of religion was not unsupported by good reasons. If citizens are to obey the law and respect the authority of civil government, they must believe that it is morally right to do so, that they are not simply submitting to the caprice of those in power. If power is to be deemed legitimate, it must be exercised in the name of some authority that is beyond human arbitrariness and manipulation. Religion obliged and constrained those in power as well as those over whom power is exercised. In such an order, the subject and the ruler sense that they are united in their responsibility to an authority that is above both.”^[3]

So, if ordinary, everyday life in the body politic cannot be built upon the foundation of religion, why should the public culture place any confidence in the Church(es) when it comes to matters of the soul? What we are dealing with in the division of Christendom is a very grave situation, one which has existed since the Reformation. In these next few posts, I would like to explore some of the issues that have served to perpetuate this division, and offer a few suggestions of my own on how the situation might be improved.

This series of posts is ultimately about the Eucharist and the divisions in Christendom that have resulted from controversies surrounding it. The Protestant Reformers, both on the Continent and in England, went to great lengths to demonstrate that they were in continuity with the Church of the early Fathers and Council. While this was certainly praiseworthy, one wonders why they did not also strive to do the same with the medieval Church. Perhaps it was because the medieval Church contained many superstitions. But today’s Church is no different, nor was the Reformation-era Church. American Christianity today is filled with superstitious practices that have no basis in either Scripture or Church tradition, though this is often not recognized. “Revivalism,” the “prosperity Gospel,” and using random Scripture passages as means of divination, to name a few, are some of the superstitious practices and beliefs prevalent among us today at which the medievals would have scoffed. So, whenever we moderns evaluate medieval Christianity, it is important that we do so humbly and with charity, because God will not be any more lenient with us than with them. That being said, there are many myths about medieval theology and doctrine commonly believed by many Protestants that are simply not true. Therefore, since medieval Christianity was the immediate context for the genesis and maturation of both Protestantism and Tridentine Catholicism, I will employ the writings of the medieval Church’s greatest teacher, St. Thomas Aquinas to illuminate the common ground shared today by Protestants and Roman Catholics. Since the three main subjects of contention during the Reformation were the Scriptures, grace, and faith, I will explore those three areas before going on to the sacraments.

Aquinas began his greatest exposition of Christian teaching, the Summa Theologiae, with the acknowledgment that man is in desperate need of God’s help:

“It was necessary for man's salvation that there should be a knowledge revealed by God besides philosophical science built up by human reason. Firstly, indeed, because man is directed to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason: "The eye hath not seen, O God, besides Thee, what things Thou hast prepared for them that wait for Thee" (Isaiah 64:4). But the end must first be known by men who are to direct their thoughts and actions to the end. Hence it was necessary for the salvation of man that certain truths which exceed human reason should be made known to him by divine revelation. Even as regards those truths about God which human reason could have discovered, it was necessary that man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth about God such as reason could discover, would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors. Whereas man's whole salvation, which is in God, depends upon the knowledge of this truth. Therefore, in order that the salvation of men might be brought about more fitly and more surely, it was necessary that they should be taught divine truths by divine revelation. It was therefore necessary that besides philosophical science built up by reason, there should be a sacred science learned through revelation.”^[4]

As the whole of human nature is the object of God’s redemptive activity – what the Fathers commonly called the “economy of salvation” – God demands not only right action from us but also right belief, a belief that is not only a trust in his saving power, but one that also consists in holding to certain definite propositions about him. One cannot be a Christian and believe that God is tree, for example, and part of the task of the theologian is to “separate the wheat from the tares” in theology and arrive at a sound understanding of God’s nature, his existence as Trinity, and his action in the world on our behalf. The next logical question to ask, then, is in what this divine revelation of which Aquinas speaks, consists. According to this venerable representative of the medieval Church, the Scriptures are the sole, ultimately authoritative source of Christian teaching:

“Faith and unbelief have the same object since they are opposed to one another. Now unbelief can be about all things contained in Holy Writ, for whichever one of them a man denies, he is considered an unbeliever. Therefore faith also is about all things contained in Holy Writ.^[5] For all things contained in Holy Writ are matters of faith.^[6] We ought not to say about God anything which is not found in Holy Scripture either explicitly or implicitly.”^[7]

Everything, then, that we need to know for our salvation, is contained in Holy Scripture. And it is intended for anyone and everyone to read. However, this does not rule out the use of metaphor, figure, or poetry therein:

“It is befitting Holy Writ to put forward divine and spiritual truths by means of comparisons with material things. For God provides for everything according to the capacity of its nature. Now it is natural to man to attain to intellectual truths through sensible objects, because all our knowledge originates from sense. Hence in Holy Writ, spiritual truths are fittingly taught under the likeness of material things. This is what Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. i): "We cannot be enlightened by the divine rays except they be hidden within the covering of many sacred veils." It is also befitting Holy Writ, which is proposed to all without distinction of persons — "To the wise and to the unwise I am a debtor" (Romans 1:14) — that spiritual truths be expounded by means of figures taken from corporeal things, in order that thereby even the simple who are unable by themselves to grasp intellectual things may be able to understand it.”^[8]

But if the Scriptures can contain divinely inspired metaphor and symbolism, how are we to determine what the meaning of Scripure is? For Aquinas, the meaning of Scripture is always determined by what he calls the literal sense:

“The author of Holy Writ is God, in whose power it is to signify His meaning, not by words only (as man also can do), but also by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property, that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore that first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. Now this spiritual sense has a threefold division. For as the Apostle says (Hebrews 10:1) the Old Law is a figure of the New Law, and Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. i) "the New Law itself is a figure of future glory." Again, in the New Law, whatever our Head has done is a type of what we ought to do. Therefore, so far as the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. Since the literal sense is that which the author intends, and since the author of Holy Writ is God, Who by one act comprehends all things by His intellect, it is not unfitting, as Augustine says (Confess. xii), if, even according to the literal sense, one word in Holy Writ should have several senses.”^[9]

Aquinas goes on to tell us that “all of the senses” of Scripture are “founded on one,” the literal sense, the sense intended by the author. Furthermore, he assures us that “nothing perishes on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense.”^[10] If the Scriptures are to be interpreted according to the literal sense (which is not exactly the same thing that has been meant in modern times), then what is the purpose of the creeds? Do the creeds add anything to the faith? To this, Aquinas answers a resounding No:

“The truth of faith is contained in Holy Writ, diffusely, under various modes of expression, and sometimes obscurely, so that, in order to gather the truth of faith from Holy Writ, one needs long study and practice, which are unattainable by all those who require to know the truth of faith, many of whom have no time for study, being busy with other affairs. And so it was necessary to gather together a clear summary from the sayings of Holy Writ, to be proposed to the belief of all. This indeed was no addition to Holy Writ, but something taken from it.”^[11]

The function of the creeds, then, is not to “add” anything to Scriptures, but rather to provide an easier means for those who do not have the time for “long study and practice,” to come to the knowledge of the faith. The truth expressed in the creeds is the literal sense of the words taken from Scripture, if not always the words employed by the Scriptures. This is because:

“The parabolical sense is contained in the literal, for by words things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense. When Scripture speaks of God's arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely operative power. Hence it is plain that nothing false can ever underlie the literal sense of Holy Writ.”^[12]

So, if Christ in the Scripture says, “I and the Father are one”^[13], or if St. John tells us that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”^[14], or if St. Paul tells us that Christ was “in the form of God,” and “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father”^[15], it is no addition to the literal sense of these texts for the Nicene Creed to assert that Christ is “of one substance (homoousios) with the Father,” nor for that expression to be just as authoritative as the words of Scripture itself, since the sense expressed by both is the same, namely, that Christ possesses equal Deity with the Father.

But if the literal sense of Scripture contains this meaning already, why were the creeds necessary? Aquinas tells us that they were necessary to combat new errors, not to proclaim new truth:

“A new edition of the symbol [i.e., the Creed] becomes necessary in order to set aside the errors that may arise.^[16] The truth of faith is sufficiently explicit in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. But since, according to 2 Peter 3:16, some men are so evil-minded as to pervert the apostolic teaching and other doctrines and Scriptures to their own destruction, it was necessary as time went on to express the faith more explicitly against the errors which arose.”^[17]

So it would seem that Aquinas had no objection to the Church drawing up new confessions of faith as the times demanded. In saying this, however, he believed that the authority to do so lay with the Church hierarchy, and with the Pope at its apex, for “private individuals have no business to decide matters of faith.”^[18] In other words, it is not for individuals or the general public to make decisions regarding “new errors,” but rather for the duly constituted ministry of the Church, and for the authoritative bodies in which they assemble. Likewise, private individuals may come to have as thorough a knowledge of traffic laws as any government official, but whenever a dispute arises regarding a traffic violation, it is not up to “private individuals” to decide the case – for that would produce anarchy – but rather it is up to the duly constituted authorities to do so. What Aquinas is saying here may seem like a foreign concept to many American Christians, but it is one which we use in virtually every other area of our lives all the time. And it would make sense for the Church to work this way, since God ordained both Church and State as instruments of his power and grace. This understanding is no different from that professed by the Church of England:

“The Church hath power to decree Rites or Ceremonies, and authority in Controversies of Faith: and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God's Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation.^[19] Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”^[20]

I do not believe that Aquinas would have found anything objectionable in Article 20 above. Its statement about not expounding “one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another,” is very much in line with what Aquinas has to say about the “literal sense” of the Scriptures. The statement in Article 6 that “whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby” cannot be made a requirement for salvation also seems to echo what Aquinas said about not saying anything about God that is “not found in Holy Scripture either explicitly or implicitly.”

It would thus seem that Aquinas would have been in considerable agreement with much of what the Reformers had to say about the Scriptures. There are two warnings of caution here. First, Aquinas believed that the official structure of the Church was ordained by Christ and continued after him with the apostles and their successors. He would not have been amicable toward any movement that sought to tear down the hierarchical edifice of the Church. It is debatable whether Aquinas ever held to any notion of papal infallibility. I am inclined to think that he did not, given that papal infallibility found its first supporters among the Franciscans rather than the Dominicans, but that is just my opinion, and I am willing to be content with the scholars debating that subject until some consensus is reached. It has been generally conceded in the scholarly world today, that what we now call the episcopate went through a process of development in the early Church and was not the immediate creation of the apostles. This would seem to create a problem for the theory of apostolic succession if that theory is solely dependent upon a traceable lineage of episcopal ordinations. However, this does not mean that the institution of the episcopate is illegitimate, any more than the Department of Homeland Security or FBI is illegitimate simply because these agencies weren’t in existence when George Washington was President. The various Orders in the Church have a similar relation to the original ministry founded by Christ that the Creeds have to the text of Scripture: both are legitimate – and, if legitimate, authoritative – expressions of the other. Second, even though the Scriptures may be the sole, ultimate, authoritative source of Christian doctrine and practice, this in no way rules out the use of the Fathers as means of coming to a greater understanding of them:

“[Sacred] Doctrine is especially based upon arguments from authority, inasmuch as its principles are obtained by revelation: thus we ought to believe on the authority of those to whom the revelation has been made. Nor does this take away from the dignity of this doctrine, for although the argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest, yet the argument from authority based on divine revelation is the strongest. But sacred doctrine makes use even of human reason, not, indeed, to prove faith (for thereby the merit of faith would come to an end), but to make clear other things that are put forward in this doctrine. Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity. Hence the Apostle says: "Bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). Hence sacred doctrine makes use also of the authority of philosophers in those questions in which they were able to know the truth by natural reason, as Paul quotes a saying of Aratus: "As some also of your own poets said: For we are also His offspring" (Acts 17:28). Nevertheless, sacred doctrine makes use of these authorities as extrinsic and probable arguments; but properly uses the authority of the canonical Scriptures as an incontrovertible proof, and the authority of the doctors of the Church as one that may properly be used, yet merely as probable. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets who wrote the canonical books, and not on the revelations (if any such there are) made to other doctors. Hence Augustine says (Epis. ad Hieron. xix, 1): "Only those books of Scripture which are called canonical have I learned to hold in such honor as to believe their authors have not erred in any way in writing them. But other authors I so read as not to deem everything in their works to be true, merely on account of their having so thought and written, whatever may have been their holiness and learning."”^[21]

Furthermore, if the Creeds are indeed expressive of the literal sense of the Scriptural teaching, and if the purpose of biblical exegesis is to come to an understanding of that literal sense so that one learn to recognize the errors from the truth, then this means that the Bible cannot be employed for the purpose of either ignoring or refusing to acknowledge the authority of whatever has been promulgated in Christendom in 1900+ years since the last apostle died. The Scriptures can indeed by used to exclude new “errors that may arise,” but they cannot be used to build up a new church “from scratch,” so to speak, as if no other one existed. This is because Christ gave the Gospel to be delivered by his apostles and ministers everywhere and at all times until his coming. If a church willfully ignores the history of Christendom, and does not claim to teach that very Gospel which has been proclaimed everywhere and by all, then such would make it very doubtful whether it is really a “church” at all.

---

^[1] Aquinas, ST IIIa Q. 61, art. 1, sed contra

^[2] Wolfhart Pannenberg, How to Think about Secularism.

^[3] Wolfhart Pannenberg, How to Think about Secularism.

^[4] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 1, resp.

^[5] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 1, obj. 2

^[6] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 6, obj. 1

^[7] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 36, art. 2, ad 1

^[8] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 9, resp.

^[9] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 10, resp.

^[10] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 10, ad 1

^[11] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 9, ad 1

^[12] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 10, ad 3

^[13] John 10:30

^[14] John 1:1

^[15] Phil. 2:6, 10-11

^[16] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 10, resp

^[17] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 10, ad 1

^[18] Aquinas, ST IIaIIae Q. 1, art. 10, ad 2

^[19] The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, Art. 20

^[20] The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, Art. 6

^[21] Aquinas, ST Ia Q. 1, art. 8, ad 2

The Next Few Posts

I am currently working on the doctrine of the Eucharist. In dealing with this doctrine there are essentially two options: to follow the "confessional" path, or the "ecumenical" path. The problem with the confessional path is that if one goes with the Reformed, one's understanding of the Eucharistic presence of Christ will be nebulous and undefined. Declaring it to be a "spiritual presence" or a "presence through the Spirit," or saying that the presence is "not carnal," does not help to distance the Reformed position from that of either the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics, since these groups deny that the Body and Blood of Christ in the elements have any extension. On the other hand, the Lutheran theory as it stands is untenable as a result of the doctrine of ubiquity. Therefore, I will be studying the Thirty Nine Articles and their relation to the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions, and their reaction in turn to the prevalent Roman Catholic teaching at the time, in the hope of discovering a genuine "Anglican" position on the subject, that is not in turn merely the position of the Low Church, Broad Church, High Church, or Anglo-Catholic parties. This project may turn out to be a complete failure, but I'm hoping that the study will be fruitful.

Taking a Break from Calvin

Having plowed through a significant portion of the Institutes, I have decided to take a break for a while and return to studying Aquinas as my main author, for the time being. As much as I wanted to discover a clear, consistent thinker in Calvin, I am afraid that the errors in his exposition of Christian teaching (some of which are quite glaring), as well as the imprecision of his theological thought, make him unsuitable as a lens through which Anglican doctrine and practice might be rightly interpreted. I am however, hoping to return to his writing at some point in the near future, in order to give his whole work a fair hearing.

Calvin and the Autotheanites: Orthodoxy or Confusion?

B.B. Warfield once said, "It was, therefore, a very great service to Christian theology which Calvin rendered when he firmly asserted for the second and third persons of the Trinity their autotheotes" (Calvin's Doctrine of the Trinity). It is of course well known that Calvin had his doubts about the traditional doctrine of the "eternal generation" of the Son, part and parcel of the Church's treasury of trinitarian terminology ever since the Council of Nicea. The idea itself goes back even further than that, to Origen of Alexandria. It is equally well known that Calvin's language on the subject sparked controversy, not only with Peter Caroli, Michael Servetus, and the Italian Antitrinitarians, but also with Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and even other Reformed Protestants. Now Calvin did not deny that the Son was begotten of the Father:

"We, therefore, again conclude, that the Word was eternally begotten by God, and dwelt with him from everlasting. In this way, his true essence, his eternity, and divinity, are established" (Inst. I.13.8).

What Calvin did deny was that this generation involved a communication of the divine essence from the Father to the Son:

"At one time they teach that the Father is the beginning of the Son, at another they assert that the Son has both divinity and essence from himself, and therefore is one beginning with the Father. The cause of this discrepancy is well and clearly explained by Augustine, when he says, "Christ, as to himself, is called God, as to the Father he is called Son." And again, "The Father, as to himself, is called God, as to the Son he is called Father. He who, as to the Son, is called Father, is not Son; and he who, as to himself, is called Father, and he who, as to himself, is called Son, is the same God." Therefore, when we speak of the Son simply, without reference to the Father, we truly and properly affirm that he is of himself, and, accordingly, call him the only beginning; but when we denote the relation which he bears to the Father, we correctly make the Father the beginning of the Son" (Inst. I.13.19)..."For certain restless spirits, unwilling to share the disgrace and obloquy of the impiety of Servetus, have confessed that there were indeed three Persons, but added, as a reason, that the Father, who alone is truly and properly God, transfused his Divinity into the Son and Spirit when he formed them. Nor do they refrain from expressing themselves in such shocking terms as these: that the Father is essentially distinguished from the Son and Spirit by this; that he is the only essentiator. Their first pretext for this is, that Christ is uniformly called the Son of God. From this they infer, that there is no proper God but the Father. But they forget, that although the name of God is common also to the Son, yet it is sometimes, by way of excellence, ascribed to the Father, as being the source and principle of Divinity; and this is done in order to mark the simple unity of essence. They object, that if the Son is truly God, he must be deemed the Son of a person: which is absurd. I answer, that both are true; namely, that he is the Son of God, because he is the Word, begotten of the Father before all ages; (for we are not now speaking of the Person of the Mediator), and yet, that for the purpose of explanation, regard must be had to the Person, so that the name God may not be understood in its absolute sense, but as equivalent to Father. For if we hold that there is no other God than the Father this rank is clearly denied to the Son...Whosoever says that the Son was essentiated by the Father, denies his self-existence" (Inst. I.13.23).

It would seem unlikely from this and other passages in Calvin's Institutes that he would be sympathetic with modern attempts to revive the Nicene emphasis on the so-called "monarchy of the Father." In any case, Calvin's attempt to do justice to the homoousion of the Nicene Creed is technically correct, but in practice applying autotheos to the Son without making use of the more sophisticated vocabulary of the medieval era is apt to produce confusion and raise more questions than it answers. This is, in fact, exactly what happened in the trinitarian controversies during the Reformation. By making use of the (rational) distinction between what is "common" and "proper" in the Godhead, Calvin is avoiding the pitfalls of both Arianism and Sabellianism. Calvin's final contribution to the problem occurs in the last section of his chapter on the Trinity:

"At the same time, studying the edification of the Church, I have thought it better not to touch on various topics, which could have yielded little profit, while they must have needlessly burdened and fatigued the reader. For instance, what avails it to discuss, as Lombard does at length (lib. 1 dist. 9), Whether or not the Father always generates? This idea of continual generation becomes an absurd fiction from the moment it is seen, that from eternity there were three persons in one God" (Inst. I.13.29).

Despite Calvin's forceful emphasis on the reality of the trinitarian relations (viz., paternity, filiation, & spiration), it is most decidedly unclear what an eternal generation that is, (1) not communicative of the divine essence, (2) not "continual," and (3) yet, nonetheless, a true begetting, actually connotes. Indeed, to remove the eternal generation of the Son as the basis for his possession of the per se subsistent divine essence would seem to rob the doctrine of any objective content. Later Reformed teachers, like Turretin, recognized this and sought to correct the ambiguity inherent in Calvin's teaching:

"Although the Son is from the Father, nevertheless he may be called God-of-himself (autotheos), not with respect to his person, but essence; not relatively as Son (for thus he is from the Father), but absolutely as God inasmuch as he has the divine essence existing from itself and not divided or produced from another essence (but not as having that essence from himself). So the Son is God from himself although not the Son from himself" (Institutes, I.xxviii.40).

The key issue, of course, is how to reconcile the Son's aseity with his eternal origination from the Father. The answer may lie, not before Calvin, but rather behind him, in the Late Middle Ages. In my opinion, the finest example to date of rigorous, coherent trinitarian theology, is that of John Duns Scotus. According to Richard Cross's exposition of Scotus's approach,

"[T]he essence is that by which each person exists, and is God...And this essence has, in itself, per se existence" (Duns Scotus on God, p. 178).

So the essence, and not the acts of generation or spiration, is the one and only explanation for the (necessary) existence of each divine person. Nevertheless,

"[T]here is an order in these three in having the nature, and for this reason the essence is related by primacy to the first of those ordered things, such that, just as the essence would be of itself firstly in the three [persons] if it were in them without order (and this as much by the primacy of equality as by the primacy of immediacy), so now it is of itself in the three by the primacy of equality, but not [by the primacy] of immediacy, but it is in the first of them [by the primacy of immediacy], and in virtue of this is in the others, to which it is communicated by the first" (Scotus, Ord. 1.28.3, nn. 69 and 100; cf. Cross, p. 180).

So, in each of the divine persons, the divine essence is the per se subsistence that explains their independent existence. The divine essence is perfect in itself and does not - indeed cannot - need anything added to it in order to perfect or complete its existence. So the divine essence in the Son is the explanation for the Son's existence. And the reason why the eternal production of the Son by the Father does not contradict the Son's aseity is because production in God - according to Scotus - takes place without mutation and without a substrate. This type of production does not bring anything into existence that was not already in existence, nor does it require anything outside of itself in order to be effective. I see nothing incoherent in this account of the matter. It may be difficult to imagine, but it wouldn't be genuine trinitarian theology if imagining it were easy.

Charles Hodge on Apostolic Succession

Many admit that there is a supernatural power of the Spirit attending the Word and sacraments, but they hold that the Spirit is confined to these channels of communication; that He works in them and by them but never without them. On this subject Romanists hold that Christ gave the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. They transmitted the gift to their successors the bishops. Bishops in the laying on of hands in ordination communicate the grace of orders to the priests. In virtue of this grace the priests have supernatural power to render the sacraments the channels of grace to those who submit to their ministrations. Those, therefore, who are in the Romish Church, and those only, are, through the sacraments, made partakers of the Holy Spirit. All others, whether adults or infants, perish because they are not partakers of those ordinances through which alone the saving influences of the Spirit are communicated. This also is the doctrine held by those called Anglicans in the Church of England.

The Lutheran Church rejected with great earnestness the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, the Grace of Orders, and the Priesthood of the Christian Ministry as held by the Church of Rome. Lutherans, however, taught not only that there is "a mystical union" between the Spirit and the Word, as we have already seen, so that all saving effects are produced by the power inherent in the Word itself, and that the Spirit does not operate on the hearts of men without the Word, but also that there is an objective supernatural power in the sacraments themselves, so that they 665are, under all ordinary circumstances, the necessary means of salvation.

The Reformed, while they teach that, so far as adults are concerned, the knowledge of the Gospel is necessary to salvation, yet hold that the operations of the Holy Spirit are confined neither to the Word nor to the sacraments. He works when and where He sees fit, as in the times of the Old Testament and during the Apostolic age his extraordinary gifts were not conveyed through the medium of the truth, so neither now are the gifts for ecclesiastical office, nor is the regeneration of infants, effected by any such instrumentality. The saving efficacy of the Word and sacraments where they take effect, is not due to "any virtue in them; . . . . but only" to "the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them."

The great concern that Hodge shows for the acknowledgment of the role of the Spirit in the economy of salvation is one that can be traced all the way back to Calvin himself. It is very intriguing that the founder of a tradition not often associated with the Holy Spirit should have allotted so much emphasis on Him in his work.

Calvin’s View of Apostolic Succession in the Roman Catholic Church

Last night, while reading Bk. IV of Calvin's Institutes, I came across a rather curious passage (italicized below) that I'm hoping those more familiar with Calvin can illuminate for me:

 

"But by what arguments do they prove their possession of the true Church? They appeal to ancient records which formerly existed in Italy, France, and Spain, pretending to derive their origin from those holy men who, by sound doctrine, founded and raised up churches, confirmed the doctrine, and reared the edifice of the Church with their blood; they pretend that the Church thus consecrated by spiritual gifts and the blood of martyrs was preserved from destruction by a perpetual succession of bishops. They dwell on the importance which Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Augustine, and others, attached to this succession. How frivolous and plainly ludicrous these allegations are, I will enable any, who will for a little consider the matter with me, to understand without any difficulty. I would also exhort our opponents to give their serious attention, if I had any hope of being able to benefit them by instruction; but since they have laid aside all regard to truth, and make it their only aim to prosecute their own ends in whatever way they can, I will only make a few observations by which good men and lovers of truth may disentangle themselves from their quibbles. First, I ask them why they do not quote Africa, and Egypt, and all Asia, just because in all those regions there was a cessation of that sacred succession, by the aid of which they vaunt of having continued churches. They therefore fall back on the assertion, that they have the true Church, because ever since it began to exist it was never destitute of bishops, because they succeeded each other in an unbroken series. But what if I bring Greece before them? Therefore, I again ask them, Why they say that the Church perished among the Greeks, among whom there never was any interruption in the succession of bishops – a succession, in their opinion, the only guardian and preserver of the Church? They make the Greeks schismatics. Why? Do not those who revolt from Christ much more deserve to lose it? It follows, therefore, that the pretence of succession is vain, if posterity do not retain the truth of Christ, which was handed down to them by their fathers, safe and uncorrupted, and continue in it (Inst. Bk IV, Ch. 2, Sec. 2)."

 

It is easy to see what Calvin is trying to say here vis-à-vis Rome. Rome's assumption – according to Calvin – is "If a church possesses an unbroken succession of bishops going back to the apostles, then that church is the true Church." Notwithstanding the general consensus that now exists among scholars regarding the post-apostolic origin of the episcopate, Calvin is arguing that Rome's position is incoherent if it affirms apostolic succession of both itself and the Greek (Orthodox) Church, but retains the title of "one true Church" for itself alone. We can debate the cogency of his arguments against the "apostolicity" mentioned in the Creed being made equivalent to apostolic succession in the Order of Bishops, and I'm sure that there are powerful arguments and counter-arguments on both sides. What I want to focus on here is what Calvin said just prior to that. First, who are the churches of "Africa, and Egypt, and all Asia?" One would assume he is referring to the Nestorians and the Monophysites, although the ambiguity of "all Asia" might lead one to interpret him as referring to Asia Minor, which is where the See of Constantinople was located. This is probably not what he meant, given that just a few sentences later he affirms that the Greeks have maintained an unbroken succession just like the Romans. But a further problem emerges: the Monophysites and the Nestorians maintained apostolic succession and episcopal ordination, just as the Greeks did, at least as far as I know. Why does Calvin think they lost the succession? Second, when Calvin says, after mentioning these churches that "they vaunt of having continued churches," who is the "they" in the statement referring to: Rome, or the churches of Egypt, Africa, and Asia? Third, why does Calvin need to mention these churches to make his point? I don't see how it helps his argument, and in any case he makes his point sufficiently clear by referencing the Greeks. I have tried searching through the rest of the Institutes, various church historians, and various websites with public domain secondary source material, with no success. If anyone who has a familiarity with both Calvin and early Church history would like to offer any insight on these three questions – but most importantly the first – I would be very grateful.

Of Mullahs and Men

There are so many things that can be said about the topic of democracy in the Middle East. What I want to address here, as briefly as possible, is the sheer insanity with which the latest election news coming out of Iran has been treated by some local talk show hosts. First, the word "democracy" is not terribly easy to define. Is mere representative government a democracy? Or does a government have to be directly participatory to be truly democratic? Does it have to have a constitution, or can it merely rely on the common law? Not even under the broadest of definitions can the U.S. be said to be a "democracy," and yet the word gets thrown around all the time as if that was what we in fact are. Second, "democracy," however it is defined, does not necessarily lead to an increase in liberty. There are examples in history of democracies behaving tyrannically just as there are examples in history of monarchies behaving tyrannically. Liberal philosophy in the tradition of Aristotle and Machiavelli holds that a blending of the democratic, monarchic, and aristocratic elements into a single whole - called a "republic" - is the best form of government and the one most likely to preserve, encourage, and protect, liberty. Now, the argument put forth by certain local talk show hosts, that the Iranian protesters in the aftermath of the apparently rigged election earlier this month have in fact drawn their inspiration from the new Iraqi government, is utter nonsense. Iran has been trying to achieve governmental reforms in a democratic direction for decades, not just for the past two weeks. The history of these reforms frequently included efforts by the U.S. government to subvert those reforms, in order to keep more favorable regimes in power, like the Shah. The result of these American interventions into internal Iranian affairs was the Revolution of 1979. Now, I'm not one of those guys that tries to blame everything that's wrong in the world on the U.S. But the case of Iran is a clear and unmistakable instance of persistent meddling in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation by the U.S. blowing up right in its own face. The Middle East has a long history - and a long memory - of colonialism by Western nations. In many cases, the same nation that was once our overlord was theirs as well: Great Britain. And the British were far more brutal to the Arabs and the Persians than they ever were to the American colonists. We were ruled by a monarchy; the Middle East on the other hand was frequently ruled by ostensibly "democratic" nations. So, one would think that, given our own tradition of hatred for imperialism and monarchical government, we would be a little more understanding of the basic hostility toward the West that is commonly felt in the Middle East. The idea that the Iranians are "inspired" by the example of Iraq is about on the same level as saying that Americans will suddenly wake up and want a monarchy, if only the British would invade Mexico and establish one there. Rubbish!

More Notes on the Lutheran Confessions...

As I mentioned in a previous post, what surprised me a little about Luther was that "justification by faith" for him had nothing to do with modern American, evangelical notions of how one "gets saved." For Luther it was entirely an act of God, mediated through the Word and Sacraments, and had nothing to do with any kind of "decision theology." The latter came into existence for the first time in America with the notion that there had to be a "baptism of the Spirit" that was separate from sacramental water baptism. This peculiar view was rejected not only by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but also by the vast majority of Protestantism (Barth discusses this in his Church Dogmatics).

I don't disagree with everything Luther said on salvation. I just think his system as a whole is incoherent. I think he was right to continue to recognize the salvific role of the sacraments which the Church had always held, and to distance himself from the notion that justification occurs in a single moment, especially in a psychological state. But his notions of the Fall and Original Sin were more problematic.

The merit system that had become part-and-parcel of medieval penitential practice, whereby the Church is, metaphorically, the "treasurer" of a "heavenly bank" containing the infinite merits of Christ and the merits of the saints, which could be applied to the "accounts" of individual penitents, was, no doubt, a rather inventive deviation from the understanding held by the early Church and the Fathers, but I wonder if Luther's overall reaction to it sacrificed much more than it needed to. The Orthodox, for example, have always believed in a form of purgatory, have always practiced auricular confession, and have always held to the early Church's belief that Christ forgives sins through the means established in the Church. But the Orthodox never held to any understanding of "merit" because they have also never believed that the purpose of the crucifixion was a "penal substitution" of Christ for us on account of our sins, but rather that the purpose of the crucifixion was to cleanse mortal human nature by making "Death" face a perfect human nature in Christ that not subject to the power of death. In Eastern theology, the work of the crucifixion is incomplete without the resurrection, whereas typically in Western Christianity, the crucifixion tends to be understood as a stand-alone event that is effective all by itself. The East never had this view. If the West had held to the same view as the East on the subject of the crucifixion, one wonders how the various conflicts which led to the Reformation might have turned out.