This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Two Different Churches?

In our discussions thus far, it seems that there have been two different churches posited: on the one hand, an invisible Church that has very little, or perhaps even nothing at all, to do with any sort of visible entity called the institutional Church; and on the other a Church that by very nature of its incarnate being as the Body of Christ has as much to do with institutional Church as it does with some notion of the mystical Body of Christ. Granted, these are poorly expressed, but it seems to me that this is a summary of the differences.

The invisible Church, then, is primarily a Church of experience. Since there are no institutional forms by which one may recognize this Church, one is left to discern it by one's own judgment. Some posit that this discernment can only come from Scripture, though a Scripture interpreted by individuals, since there can be no single institution which speaks authoritatively as the Church. Others posit, in what seems to be a logical conclusion from the initial thesis of the invisible Church, that not even Scripture is normative, or at least it is normative only through our experience of it. In the end, it doesn't seem to me that either of these two positions are different in outcome, though they differ in starting point.

The visible Church, the Church which is the Body of Christ incarnate in the institutions of the Church, then, is also a Church of experience, but rather than human experience, it is an instance of the experience of the hypostatic union of the Church with Christ, and thus a participation in the energies of the Trinity. As a result of this participation, the Church exerts the authority of Christ: the keys of the kingdom of heaven, to bind and to loose. This authority is expressed in the single Tradition of the Church, which brings forth the Scriptures, the dogmas and doctrines of the Church, and its Divine Liturgy.

Now I'm sure it will be argued that my descripton of the position of the invisible Church does not of itself leave out this same participation in Christ. And indeed, I cannot speak dogmatically that it does not. The Spirit blows where he wills. God's grace is not limited to the Church. However, it's not clear to me how proponents of the invisible Church can adequately claim this participation--I should be clear, in terms of argument alone--since the basis of this participation is located, not in the Church which is the fullness of Christ, but in their personal experience. The response may well be: but our experience is in the Church, just an invisbile one. To which my reply is: how could you know, except by personal experience? One may, however, quite well know that one is participating in an incarnate Church since its institutions and graces are experienced sensibly and visibly (though not only sensibly and visibly).

This, it seems to me, is the great divide in the positions set forth so far. But I may well have made some huge errors of understanding in these descriptions.