Unfortunately, the academic settings in which I've learned theology have two tendencies: intellectualization and compartmentalization. By intellectualization I mean the separation of theology from the rest of life. Theology becomes a subject to study, which said subject too frequently remains between the covers of books, or within classroom and library walls. By compartmentalization I mean that one "theological subject" rarely is fully integrated with another. Incarnation is viewed through the lense of atonement, but not through the lense of ecclesiology; pneumatology is viewed in terms of sanctification and the charismatic gifts but rarely through ascetical theology. Ecclesiology is often enough tied with pneumatology, but is frequently left out of marital askesis. And so it goes.
But in reading the Church Fathers, and, more particularly, in reading "Eastern" Christian theologians, it is increasingly clear that the West (and perhaps more specifically modern Christian academia) suffers from an analysis that discovers important details but at the cost of the patient's life.
Take for instance these three issues: the enfleshment of God in Christ, the establishment of the Church, and the relationship between husbands and wives in the Christian home. These have nothing to do with one another, right? Or, if they do, it's only very generally, and under the catchall heading "Christian theology." Think again.
The Incarnation is not only important for soteriological reasons--God has to become human if humans are to be saved from the consequences of sin and their sins--but it is also critical for understanding the Church. If the God-Man, Jesus, had to be both God and a flesh and blood human being, then, the Church, if it is his Body, must also be both divine (participate in the divine nature as Peter says) and human. That, of course, means the Church must be a visible entity--since humans are visible beings. But more to the point, if the Person of Jesus is the indivisble union (without separation, confusion, change or division) of God and Man, then the Church must be indivisibly one as well. One God-Man--one Body of Christ; one visible Church.
But the Church wasn't just established because a bunch of middle eastern Jews got together and said, "We've got to continue this Jesus thing." The Church was founded in the action of the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit is the visible unity of the Church kept. The Spirit continually guides the divine-human unity of the Church into all Truth. The Spirit unites individuals to the Church. The Church itself is the fullness of Christ, and it is in Christ in whom the Godhead dwells bodily. The Church is a divine-human institution/organism, brought forth and preserved by the Spirit.
And by Looking at the Incarnation, as well as the Body of Christ, the Church, we see the Trinity. The Father spoke at Christ's baptism; the Spirit descended on him as a dove. The Spirit unites humanity to the Incarnation of Christ, giving birth to the Church, and that Church, by its hypostatic union with Christ, accomplished by the Spirit, participates in the energies of God the Father. Trinity.
How does the Incarnation and the Church relate to the home? In that marriage is an emblem of the great mystery of the Church, the home, then, becomes a "little Church" and the relations of the husband and wife in the Christian home, "iconize" the relations of the Trinity.
God the Father is clearly the "source," in terms of atemporal (eternal) cause, of the Godhead. Scriptures teach that the Father begets the Son, and "processes" the Spirit. The Father and the Son are the same in nature (and thus equal in dignity and majesty), though they are distinguished in Person. The Son does not beget. The Son is eternally begotten. Only the Father begets. The Father is not begotten. Yet, Father and Son, though distinguished in Person, share in the same essence. That is to say, by way of illustration, they share in this act of begetting. It is eternally the same act: Father-begets-Son-is-begotten-of-Father. They share in the dignity and majesty of the divine begetting. But they are not the same in terms of Persons: because the Father is always one to beget, and the Son is always him who is begotten. Similarly for the Spirit. Father and Spirit share in the same essence: procession. But they are distinguished in that the Spirit is always "processed" from the Father; the Father always "processes" the Spirit.
Notice the harmony here. This is the monarchical Trinity (monarch: literally, one source), and because it is Christian it is the patriarchal Trinity (patriarch: literally, Father [is] source). Notice that there is not diminishment of Persons; all are equal, all share in the same essence. But this shared essence does not cancel out the distinction of Persons.
These Trinitarian relations, then, are the forms in which husband and wife are to relate. Husband and wife share the same essence (that of being "mankind" in biblical terms, or of being "human" in modern accepted usage), but that sameness does not negate distinction: husbands and wives have different obligations. So, Paul states the same mutual submission is to occur between husbands and wives. But that sameness does not mean the submission is not to be distinguished. Wives are to submit to the husband as to the Lord. Husbands, on the other hand, are to give their lives for their wives to present them to God in holiness. Just as the Church submits to Christ, so wives are to submit to husbands. Just as Christ was crucified to make the Church holy and pure, husbands are to die to themselves for the purpose of an ever-more holy and pure wife. In other places, Paul more concretely traces out this sameness-with-distinction. Husbands are "at the mercy" of their wives' sexual needs; as too are wives to their husbands'. Neither is to deprive the other--except for prayer, and only then for a limited time--of sexual relations. But Peter indicates that wives are to beautify themselves with holy lives, as did Sarah, and other saints. Men are not called to attend to a concern over fashion, but are rather called to attend to how they show respect and honor to their wives, because their relationship with their wives has direct bearing on their prayer lives. Distinction. But no less equality.
So here we are talking about the daily matters of husband and wife relationships, yet we have had to do so within an understanding of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Church. One can't study marriage apart from these other great "theological subjects." Similarly, one cannot understand the Trinity without a prayerfully living a marriage in conformity with God's will and his being as Trinity.
It's seamless, folks. That's why in the debates over the last decades as to liturgical language, Bible translations, women in ordained leadership, human sexuality, and abortion--to name some of the prominent ones--we've ended with chaos and schism. We have compartmentalized out sexuality from abortion from the birth of Christ by the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Virgin Mary. We have separated language from God-talk/liturgy and thus have lost our way in terms of sexuality. Christian marriage/divorce rates are the same as the non-Christian population because we've talked marriage without talking Cross-Resurrection-Ascension-Pentecost.
Someone else (I think Dorothy Sayers, or probably G K Chesterton) has said, "The Dogma is the Life." Oh, surely I'm not living the seamless life. I've got more than thirty years of bad habits to unchoose. The Dogma is the Life.
Indeed it is.
Posted by Clifton at July 3, 2003 01:05 PM | TrackBack