This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

St. John Cassian: On Grace and Free Will

Update: John Hendryx, of the Monergism.com site I reference below, has opened up a discussion with me here. See below in the comments.

In the very first post in this soteriology diablog, along with contending that monergism was a heresy, I also claimed that the author of the site, John Hendryx, made a caricature of synergism, essentially creating a straw man which he can knock down and claim that "synergism" is a heresy and unbiblical. One of the clearest examples of this caricature of true synergism is his A Prayer That a Synergist Won't Pray.

The following prayer is indeed a caricature that no synergist would dare pray, but is what a synergist would pray if he were consistent in his theology:

"God, I give you glory for everything else, but not my faith ... This is the one thing that is my very own that I produced of my natural capacities. For this little bit the glory is mine. I made better use of Your offer of salvation than others did. While You deserve glory for all I have Lord, my faith was the one part that I contributed to the price of my redemption, apart from and independent of the action of Your Holy Spirit."

Which just goes to show that Mr. Hendryx has no clue whatsoever what true synergism is. But then he has his own heresy to establish. (He also has a complete misconstrual of synergism in his straw man chart, Two Views of Regeneration by John Hendryx.)

On the Monergism.com website is this quote by A. A. Hodge:

"The Semi-Pelagian doctrine taught by John Cassian (d. 440) admits that divine grace (assistance) is necessary to enable a sinner to return unto God and live, yet holds that, from the nature of the human will, man may first spontaneously, of himself, desire and attempt to choose and obey God. They deny the necessity of prevenient but admit the necessity of cooperative grace and conceive regeneration as the product of this cooperative grace." A.A. Hodge (The Semi-Pelagian Theology of John Cassian)

There is also this outrageous comment:

Eastern Orthodox will argue that Cassian was not a semi-pelagian (and fail to explain why not) but Cassian himself saw grace and freedom as parallel, grace always cooperating with the human will for man's salvation." (p. 56; cf. Phil. 2:12-13) He teaches that the grace of God always invites, precedes and helps our will, and whatever gain freedom of will may attain for its pious effect is not its own desert, but the gift of grace." (The Semi-Pelagian Theology of John Cassian)

I have decided to take up that challenge, to both show that St. John is not a semi-Pelagian, and that Mr. Hendryx completely mischaracterizes synergism. I will use St. John Cassian's Conferences, XIII (the third conference with Abba Chaeremon) to do so. But first some caveats. St. John is not a systematic writer, or a systematic theologian. If he is anything, he is an ascetical theologian. And the context in which he takes up this issue is that of Christian askesis. He also makes comments which, lifted out of the context of the thirteenth Conference as a whole, do seem to support the accusations of his critics. But those disclaimers notwithstanding, it is clear from the whole of the conference St. John is not a semi-Pelagian, nor is the synergism in his writings in any way accurately described by the comments cited above.

The other caveat that needs to be stated, is that the understanding of the role of human will and deliberation in the context of salvation and eschatology was given a much more rigorous and Christological framework in St. Maximus the Confessor in the sixth century, and sharpened yet again by St. Gregory Palamas in the thirteenth century. But to explore these issues are beyond the scope of this single post (which will itself be perhaps too extensive in its reach). So I will limit myself to St. John Cassian's words in the thirteenth Conference.

First, we need to clarify the terms Pelagianism, and then semi-Pelagianism. Pelagius and his followers essentially taught that there is no such thing as original sin. Adam's fall affected only himself. Human nature as created is good and able to will the good, and each person born is born with the same nature with which Adam was created. This meant that the will was entirely free, and that man, by his own effort could achieve spiritual advancement. It's important to remember that Pelagius was a monk, and that this doctrine, though heretical, came out of a context of spiritual askesis. Pelagius, heretic though he was, was intent on preserving moral responsibility before God. He rightly surmised that if all human nature had been affected by Adam's fall, that the freedom of the human will would be affected, which would diminish personal responsibility and therefore guilt.

St. Augustine, in combatting the error of Pelagius, emphasized the complete corruption of human nature, such that the will was not at all free and utterly reliant on God. This, obviously, led to certain other necessary conclusions: that each person through human nature inherited Adam's guilt, that God foreknew and therefore predestined all the elect, and that the elect had a specific number, and so forth. One should also keep in mind Augustine's background, especially as related in the Confessions. Augustine had definitely experienced his will as in bondage to his fallen nature, and God's work in his life seemed wholly outside his own cooperation.

In other words, both Pelagius and St. Augustine were monergists of a sort (though perhaps not in the modern sense): Pelagius in that the work of salvation was fundamentally human, with which God "cooperated;" St. Augustine that the work of salvation was fundamentally divine, within which the human will was moved to "cooperate."

The term, semi-Pelagian (which itself did not arise till the eighteenth century, and so was not applied to the controversy in antiquity), however, as applied to St. John Cassian, is just simply wrong and pejorative. St. John and other of his contemporaries recognized that both Pelagius and St. Augustine taught things that the Church Fathers themselves had not taught, but of the two, Pelagius was the heretic. No, if St. John and his contemporaries were "semi-" anything, they were semi-Augustinians. As we will see, St. John agrees with St. Augustine that all of human nature is fallen. Like St. Augustine, he recognizes that salvation is primarily (both temporally and providentially) God's work. The main difference between St. Augustine and St. John is to what extent the will is free to act on its own in cooperation with God's salvific work. (For the above, cf. the following articles: Semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism)

Having briefly clarified terms, we can now look at St. John's thirteenth Conference.

One of the primary texts from this conference that is taken out of context to make of St. John a semi-Pelagian is the following:

And so the manifold wisdom of God grants with manifold and inscrutable kindness salvation to men; and imparts to each one according to his capacity the grace of His bounty, so that He wills to grant His healing not according to the uniform power of His Majesty but according to the measure of the faith in which He finds each one, or as He Himself has imparted it to each one.(Conferences, XIII.15)

This is where monergists and those who attack St. John's supposed semi-Pelagianism gravitate. After all, where could it be more clear? God grants his grace according to the measure of the faith he finds in each person, right? We will, then God joins in and helps us. But we respond first.

But not so fast. To that text, we could juxtapose the following:

But let no one imagine that we have brought forward these instances to try to make out that the chief share in our salvation rests with our faith, according to the profane notion of some who attribute everything to free will and lay down that the grace of God is dispensed in accordance with the desert of each man: but we plainly assert our unconditional opinion that the grace of God is superabounding, and sometimes overflows the narrow limits of man's lack of faith. (Conferences, XIII.16)

Here St. John condemns precisely the criticism that monergists apply to him. But we must be careful here. St. John is expressly condemning Pelgianism here. But he is also asserting that the ultimate cause is God's grace, not man. Indeed, it is in fact that lack of a man's faith in which God's grace superabounds. What could be clearer here? St. John is not predicating God's grace on man's own faith.

This is merely an introduction to several more texts that we will consider. We will consider these texts under the rubrics of human nature, God's actions in salvation, man's actions in salvation, and how man and God both act in salvation.

The Nature of Man

Human nature is one of the great divides between monergists and synergists. Both monergists and synergists believe God is sovereign. Both monergists and synergists believe that salvation is accomplished by God and extended to us in grace. Both monergists and syngergists believe human nature is fallen. Where they disagree is on the extent of that fallenness.

This is why St. John is not a semi-Pelagian. Contra Pelagius, he believes human nature to be fallen, and every person has a fallen nature. While St. John is not clear, in a systematic way, as to what extent human nature is fallen, he is clear that human nature is fallen.

For we should not hold that God made man such that he can never will or be capable of what is good: or else He has not granted him a free will, if He has suffered him only to will or be capable of evil, but neither to will or be capable of what is good of himself. (Conferences, XIII.12)

Here St. John clearly asserts the freedom of the will to will the good. He expressly rejects the Augustinian notion of the complete bondage of the will. He bases his declaration on the biblical account of Adam:

And, in this case how will that first statement of the Lord made about men after the fall stand: "Behold, Adam is become as one of us, knowing good and evil?" For we cannot think that before, he was such as to be altogether ignorant of good. Otherwise we should have to admit that he was formed like some irrational and insensate beast: which is sufficiently absurd and altogether alien from the Catholic faith. Moreover as the wisest Solomon says: "God made man upright," i.e., always to enjoy the knowledge of good only, "But they have sought out many imaginations," for they came, as has been said, to know good and evil. Adam therefore after the fall conceived a knowledge of evil which he had not previously, but did not lose the knowledge of good which he had before.(Conferences, XIII.12, emphasis added)

In other words, Adam did, indeed, fall, but he did not fall so as to be incapable of knowing the good along with the evil he had not previously known from experience. Furthermore, this applies not only to Adam, but to his descendents through history as well.

Finally the Apostle's words very clearly show that mankind did not lose after the fall of Adam the knowledge of good: as he says: "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, though they have not the law, are a law to themselves, as they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to these, and their thoughts within them either accusing or else excusing them, in the day in which God shall judge the secrets of men." And with the same meaning the Lord rebukes by the prophet the unnatural but freely chosen blindness of the Jews, which they by their obstinacy brought upon themselves, saying: "Hear ye deaf, and ye blind, behold that you may see. Who is deaf but My servant? and blind, but he to whom I have sent My messengers?" And that no one might ascribe this blindness of theirs to nature instead of to their own will, elsewhere He says: "Bring forth the people that are blind and have eyes: that are deaf and have ears;" and again: "having eyes, but ye see not; and ears, but ye hear not." . . . (Conferences, XIII.12)

Note here, he is not just stating that we have a knowledge of good but are unable to do it. Indeed, we have both the knowledge and the freedom of will to do good things. He makes this clear by calling to mind David and his building of the Temple.

Wherefore we must take care not to refer all the merits of the saints to the Lord in such a way as to ascribe nothing but what is evil and perverse to human nature: in doing which we are confuted by the evidence of the most wise Solomon, or rather of the Lord Himself, Whose words these are; for when the building of the Temple was finished and he was praying, he spoke as follows: "And David my father would have built a house to the name of the Lord God of Israel: and the Lord said to David my father: Whereas thou hast thought in thine heart to build a house to My name, thou hast well done in having this same thing in thy mind. Nevertheless thou shall not build a house to My name." This thought then and this purpose of king David, are we to call it good and from God or bad and from man? For if that thought was good and from God, why did He by whom it was inspired refuse that it should be carried into effect? But if it is bad and from man, why is it praised by the Lord? It remains then that we must take it as good and from man. (Conferences, XIII.12, emphasis added)

But just because man can do good, does not mean that that good is efficacious to bring about our salvation or that it is meritorious in some way.

And in the same way we can take our own thoughts today. For it was not given only to David to think what is good of himself, nor is it denied to us naturally to think or imagine anything that is good. It cannot then be doubted that there are by nature some seeds of goodness in every soul implanted by the kindness of the Creator: but unless these are quickened by the assistance of God, they will not be able to attain to an increase of perfection, for, as the blessed Apostle says: "Neither is he that planteth anything nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase." But that freedom of the will is to some degree in a man's own power is very clearly taught in the book termed the Pastor [i. e., the Shepherd of Hermas], where two angels are said to be attached to each one of us, i.e., a good and a bad one, while it lies at a man's own option to choose which to follow. And therefore the will always remains free in man, and can either neglect or delight in the grace of God. For the Apostle would not have commanded saying: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," had he not known that it could be advanced or neglected by us. But that men might not fancy that they had no need of Divine aid for the work of Salvation, he subjoins: "For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do, of His good pleasure." And therefore he warns Timothy and says: "Neglect not the grace of God which is in thee;" and again: "For which cause I exhort thee to stir up the grace of God which is in thee." . . . (Conferences, XIII.12, emphasis added)

In other words, for St. John, human nature is fallen, but is still able to know and will the good, and indeed, even to do that which is good. In the text above, he implies that human striving does not accomplish personal salvation, though personal salvation does not happen apart from human striving. Those implications will be seen more clearly in the following texts.

Before we move on to those texts, we need to be clear. How it is that nature is both fallen and yet able to know and do the good is not spelled out by St. John. And given the questions which have arisen historically in the wake of the Pelagian controversy, St. John can be misread. Those later soteriological and Christological wrestlings clarified more than St. John does here, how it is that man is fallen yet able still to know and do the good. Indeed, St. John himself, in his other work, Institutes, beginning in Book V, gives a non-systematic answer, in that human nature has been "infected" with the passions. That is to say, human nature shares in death with Adam, and that mortal nature allows for a distortion of the human nature through the personal embrace of the passions. (The Fathers differ in whether the passions are distortions of human nature, or completely alien to human nature, but are agreed that they distort the nature God created.)

But one needs to keep in mind that the teaching St. John espoused was not rejected by the historic Church, but was the foundation for the later clarifications which came to fruition in St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Gregory Palamas. That teaching emphasized that any nature God creates is good and naturally wills the good. Thus, so long as our nature is human, there is, as St. John clearly understands, the capacity to know and to will the good that is God.

The Work of God in Salvation

So, what does God do, according to St. John, in salvation? Does he merely just jump start the will? Does he wait till the will inclines toward him? Does he thoroughly encompass the will such that beginning to end it is all God's work, and not that of the will? The answer that St. John will emphasize again and again is that salvation entails both divine and human action.

And therefore though in many things, indeed in everything, it can be shown that men always have need of God's help, and that human weakness cannot accomplish anything that has to do with salvation by itself alone, i.e., without the aid of God . . . . And all these matters, as we cannot desire them continuously without divine inspiration, so in no respect whatever can we perform them without His help. (Conferences, XIII.6)

What could be clearer that St. John does not teach that God merely adds his salvific work on top of the human will? It is first and last God's work. But it is also man's work. Unfortunately St. John's critics choose to focus on texts like the following out of their context:

And when His goodness sees in us even the very smallest spark of good will shining forth, which He Himself has struck as it were out of the hard flints of our hearts, He fans and fosters it and nurses it with His breath, as He "willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," for as He says, "it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish" . . . (Conferences, XIII.7)

But even this text, taken out of context, has to be misread in defiance of its prima facie statement: God sees the "very smallest spark of good will" but where did that will come from? "He Himself has struck as it were out of the hard flint of our hearts." That is to say, God, himself is the cause of the spark he looks for, and fans into flame.

But lest we think this is an anomaly in St. John's teaching, he says again:

. . . For the goodness and love of God, which He ever shows to mankind,-since it is overcome by no injuries so as to cease from caring for our salvation, or be driven from His first intention, as if vanquished by our iniquities,-could not be more fitly described by any comparison than the case of a man inflamed with most ardent love for a woman, who is consumed by a more burning passion for her, the more he sees that he is slighted and despised by her. The Divine protection then is inseparably present with us, and so great is the kindness of the Creator towards His creatures, that His Providence not only accompanies it, but actually constantly precedes it, as the prophet experienced and plainly confessed, saying: "My God will prevent me with His mercy." (Conferences, XIII.8, emphasis added)

Which precedes the following passage:

And when He sees in us some beginnings of a good will, He at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on towards salvation, increasing that which He Himself implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts. For He says "Before they cry, I will hear them: While they are still speaking I will hear them;" and again: "As soon as He hears the voice of thy crying, He will answer thee." And in His goodness, not only does He inspire us with holy desires, but actually creates occasions for life and opportunities for good results, and shows to those in error the direction of the way of salvation. (Conferences, XIII.8, emphasis added)

This last citation is again one of the many texts taken out of context to prove St. John was a semi-Pelagian. But again, even this passage shows that St. John does not attribute efficacious salvation to the human will.

And to prove that the cooperation of God's saving grace with the human will cannot include any merit on the part of man, or any ability to effect his own salvation, St. John writes:

And so the grace of God always co-operates with our will for its advantage, and in all things assists, protects, and defends it, in such a way as sometimes even to require and look for some efforts of good will from it that it may not appear to confer its gifts on one who is asleep or relaxed in sluggish ease, as it seeks opportunities to show that as the torpor of man's sluggishness is shaken off its bounty is not unreasonable, when it bestows it on account of some desire and efforts to gain it. And none the less does God's grace continue to be free grace while in return for some small and trivial efforts it bestows with priceless bounty such glory of immortality, and such gifts of eternal bliss. For because the faith of the thief on the cross came as the first thing, no one would say that therefore the blessed abode of Paradise was not promised to him as a free gift, nor could we hold that it was the penitence of King David's single word which he uttered: "I have sinned against the Lord," and not rather the mercy of God which removed those two grievous sins of his, so that it was vouchsafed to him to hear from the prophet Nathan: "The Lord also hath put away thine iniquity: thou shalt not die." The fact then that he added murder to adultery, was certainly due to free will: but that he was reproved by the prophet, this was the grace of Divine Compassion. Again it was his own doing that he was humbled and acknowledged his guilt; but that in a very short interval of time he was granted pardon for such sins, this was the gift of the merciful Lord. And what shall we say of this brief confession and of the incomparable infinity of Divine reward, when it is easy to see what the blessed Apostle, as he fixes his gaze on the greatness of future remuneration, announced on those countless persecutions of his? "for," says he, "our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," of which elsewhere he constantly affirms, saying that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us." However much then human weakness may strive, it cannot come up to the future reward, nor by its efforts so take off from Divine grace that it should not always remain a free gift. And therefore the aforesaid teacher of the Gentiles, though he bears his witness that he had obtained the grade of the Apostolate by the grace of God, saying: "By the grace of God I am what I am," yet also declares that he himself had corresponded to Divine Grace, where he says: "And His Grace in me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: and yet not I, but the Grace of God with me."For when he says: "I laboured," he shows the effort of his own will; when he says: "yet not I, but the grace of God," he points out the value of Divine protection; when he says: "with me," he affirms that it cooperates with him when he was not idle or careless, but working and making an effort. (Conferences, XIII.13, emphasis added)

Once again, St. John is not stating these things in such a systematic way as to allow us to demarcate off where God's work begins and ends and where man's work begins and ends. But that, as we are about to see, is precisely his point.

The Work of Man in Salvation

We are already clear that whatever man does in salvation is not efficacious nor meritorious in accomplishing that salvation.

. . . the blessed old man [i. e., Abbot Chaeremon] had by the addition of a single sentence broken down the claims of man's exertions, adding that man even though he strive with all his might for a good result, yet cannot become meter of what is good unless he has acquired it simply by the gift of Divine bounty and not by the efforts of his own toil.(Conferences, XIII.1)

But that man's work is unnecessary to salvation is flatly rejected by St. John as well.

. . . human pride should never try to put itself on a level with the grace of God or to intermingle itself with it, so as to fancy that its own efforts were the cause of Divine bounty, or to boast that a very plentiful crop of fruits was an answer to the merits of its own exertions. . . . the initiative not only of our actions but also of good thoughts comes from God, who inspires us with a good will to begin with, and supplies us with the opportunity of carrying out what we rightly desire: for "every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above, from the Father of lights," who both begins what is good . . . . (Conferences, XIII.3)

In part, the work of man in his own salvation is a testimony to God's saving grace itself. It is "necessary" in the sense that God has created man with free will and for man not to exercise that free will would be to resist God's will. Of course, as we have seen, St. John doesn't spell out the extent of man's fallen human nature.

The Work of God and Man in Salvation

What St. John is clear about is that salvation is a synergistic cooperation between God and man. Against those critics who would make him a semi-Pelagian, St. John writes:

And so these [i. e., free will and omnipotence or providence] are somehow mixed up and indiscriminately confused, so that among many persons, which depends on the other is involved in great questionings, i.e., does God have compassion upon us because we have shown the beginning of a good will, or does the beginning of a good will follow because God has had compassion upon us? For many believing each of these and asserting them more widely than is right are entangled in all kinds of opposite errors. For if we say that the beginning of free will is in our own power, what about Paul the persecutor, what about Matthew the publican, of whom the one was drawn to salvation while eager for bloodshed and the punishment of the innocent, the other for violence and rapine? But if we say that the beginning of our free will is always due to the inspiration of the grace of God, what about the faith of Zaccheus, or what are we to say of the goodness of the thief on the cross, who by their own desires brought violence to bear on the kingdom of heaven and so prevented the special leadings of their vocation? But if we attribute the performance of virtuous acts, and the execution of God's commands to our own will, how do we pray: "Strengthen, O God, what Thou hast wrought in us;" and "The work of our hands stablish Thou upon us?" . . . These two then; viz., the grace of God and free will seem opposed to each other, but really are in harmony, and we gather from the system of goodness that we ought to have both alike, lest if we withdraw one of them from man, we may seem to have broken the rule of the Church's faith: for when God sees us inclined to will what is good, He meets, guides, and strengthens us: for "At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee;" and: "Call upon Me," He says, "in the day of tribulation and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." And again, if He finds that we are unwilling or have grown cold, He stirs our hearts with salutary exhortations, by which a good will is either renewed or formed in us. (Conferences, XIII.11, emphasis added)

In other words, humanly, it is impossible to demarcate out where God's work in our personal salvation begins and ends, and where our personal human activity begins and ends.

Indeed, part of the reason it is so difficult to make such demarcations, is that God's work in human salvation is rich in variation, fitted to the person.

By those instances then which we have brought forward from the gospel records we can very clearly perceive that God brings salvation to mankind in diverse and innumerable methods and inscrutable ways, and that He stirs up the course of some, who are already wanting it, and thirsting for it, to greater zeal, while He forces some even against their will, and resisting. And that at one time He gives his assistance for the fulfilment of those things which he sees that we desire for our good, while at another time He puts into us the very beginnings of holy desire, and grants both the commencement of a good work and perseverance in it. Hence it comes that in our prayers we proclaim God as not only our Protector and Saviour, but actually as our Helper and Sponsor. For whereas He first calls us to Him, and while we are still ignorant and unwilling, draws us towards salvation, He is our Protector and Saviour, but whereas when we are already striving, He is wont to bring us help, and to receive and defend those who fly to Him for refuge, He is termed our Sponsor and Refuge. . . . Whoever then imagines that he can by human reason fathom the depths of that inconceivable abyss, will be trying to explain away the astonishment at that knowledge, at which that great and mighty teacher of the gentiles was awed. For if a man thinks that he can either conceive in his mind or discuss exhaustively the dispensation of God whereby He works salvation in men, he certainly impugns the truth of the Apostle's words and asserts with profane audacity that His judgments can be scrutinized, and His ways searched out. . . . (Conferences, XIII.17)

It is difficult, then, to articulate a single systematic outline by which we can explicate God's salvation of man and man's participation in that salvation. If we claim that faith must precede God's act, St. John pulls out the example of St. Paul. If we claim that God must act apart from human will, St. John pulls out the example of St. Zacchaeus. What St. John knows and states consistently is that God begins, continues, and ends our salvation, and we cooperate with that activity of God, according to the nature he has himself given to us.

Conclusion

As has been implied from above, monergism and Augustinianism and Pelagianism, rest on an understanding of human nature such that human nature and divine nature relate in terms of opposition. Human nature resists divine nature. St. John, however, affirms that which had been dogmatized at Chalcedon and III Constantinople: that human and divine nature were not a relation of opposition, but, via the Incarnation, were in synergistic cooperation. That is to say, human nature is not naturally opposed to God's nature, nor, given that Jesus had enhominized the divine nature, could human will be said to be naturally in bondage. If there is a bondage to the will, it is not due to human nature, but due to the hypostasis of human nature, that is to say, the person. St. Maximus will later clarify and distinguish the natural will from the gnomic will. But we need not trace St. Maximus' teachings here. It is enough to follow St. John in affirming the catholic faith, that all that God created, including human nature, is good, and that not even personal sin can erase or obliterate the goodness of what God created, even if it can deface and distort it.

Finally, lest we think that St. John's teaching is an aberration, an idiosyncratic formula, he himself concludes:

And therefore it is laid down by all the Catholic fathers who have taught perfection of heart not by empty disputes of words, but in deed and act, that the first stage in the Divine gift is for each man to be inflamed with the desire of everything that is good, but in such a way that the choice of free will is open to either side: and that the second stage in Divine grace is for the aforesaid practices of virtue to be able to be performed, but in such a way that the possibilities of the will are not destroyed: the third stage also belongs to the gifts of God, so that it may be held by the persistence of the goodness already acquired, and in such a way that the liberty may not be surrendered and experience bondage. For the God of all must be held to work in all, so as to incite, protect, and strengthen, but not to take away the freedom of the will which He Himself has once given. If however any more subtle inference of man's argumentation and reasoning seems opposed to this interpretation, it should be avoided rather than brought forward to the destruction of the faith (for we gain not faith from understanding, but understanding from faith, as it is written: "Except ye believe, ye will not understand") for how God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free will, cannot be fully grasped by the mind and reason of man. (Conferences, XIII.18)

And not only does St. John invoke the catholic and apostolic faith of the Church, he puts the final point to the proof that he is no semi-Pelagian. And that monergism, on its face, cannot be said to be the historic faith of the Church.

[Note: Please note that this post originally contained an egregious spelling error. I had originally used "meritricious," intending to convey "meritorious." I have changed the original word to meritorious in both instances. "Meretricious," by the way, means "Attracting attention in a vulgar manner," " Plausible but false or insincere; specious," and "Of or relating to prostitutes or prostitution." Clearly not at all what I meant to say. A little embarassing, but thanks to Chris Jones for privately pointing it out to me.]

My Branch of the Healy Family Tree

Last night I worked through the Healy family genealogy I came across yesterday. I was able to work out the direct line of descent from William to me. A call to Grandma Healy got some of the details surrounding Clifton Dwight and Clifton Arthur worked out. (I've left out the information related to my dad and myself.)

It's just amazing, this finding one's historical anchors. And as I looked through the genealogy, there's some very interesting stories interspersed, which I'll be sharing.

William Healy (b. c. 1613/d. Dec. 1683) married (14 Oct 1653) to Grace Butterice (3rd wife). They had only child, son Nathaniel.

Nathaniel Healy (b. c. 1658, christened 6 Feb 1657/1658, d. 2 June 1734) married (14 July 1681) to Rebecca Hagar (b. 29 Oct 1661/d. 6 Jan. 1733/1734). They had eleven children: Rebecca, Abigail, Nathaniel, Mary, Samuel, Ebenezer, Martha, Lydia, John, Joshua, and Rannah. (Joshua was tenth of eleven children)

Joshua Healy (b. 20 Jan 1700/1701/d. 25 Sept 1772) married (22 June 1722) to Sarah Davis. They had nine children: Sarah, Rebecca, Joshua, Joseph, Mary, Nathaniel, Samuel, and Ebenezer. (Nathaniel was seventh of nine children)

Nathaniel Healy (b. 3 Sept 1736/d. 5 Oct 1817) married (9 Sept 1756) to Abigail Cartur, and (11 Feb 1788) to Abigail Pepper. Nathaniel and Abigail had seven children: Rebeckah, Reuben, Nathaniel, Stephen, William, Sarah, Ezra, and Joshua. (William was fourth of seven children)

William Healy (b. 9 Aug 1764/d. 1 Oct 1850) married (10 June 1788) to Prudence Lyon (b. 1766/d. 9 July 1843 of consumption). They had ten children: William, Daniel Lyon, Hannah, Sally, Clarissa, Prudence, Priscilla, Abiel, Priscilla, Maria. (Daniel was second of ten children)

Daniel Lyon Healy (b. 26 Dec 1792, christened 5 Oct 1800, d. 14 May 1850) married (2 Feb 1817) to Triphena Kidder (b. 3 Oct 1791/d. 7 July 1861). They had seven children: William Kidder, Daniel Dwight, Chester Franklin, Abiel Lyon, Edwin, Henry, and Hezekiah. (Abiel Lyon was fourth of seven children)

Abiel Lyon Healy (b. 22 July 1822/d. 25 Feb 1894) married (2 Oct 1842) to Mary Adams (b. 26 Oct 1816/d. 25 May 1894). They had ten children: Sarah Tryphena, Mary Ellen, Clifton Dwight, Angeline Elizabeth, Austin Adams, William Lyon, Harriet Francis, Hezekiah Abiel, Clary May, and Ida Lelia. (Clifton Dwight was third of ten children)

Clifton Dwight Healy (b. 21 Jan 1848) married (10 Mar 1870) to Elizabeth Brooks Satterwait (b. 22 Jan 1849/d. 15 Mar 1885), and (11 Nov 1887) to Mary M. Van Valkenburg (b. 24 Sept 1855, divorced Mar 1901) and (24 Feb 1903) to Mary E. Gallup. Clifton and Elizabeth had seven children: William, Addie Ruth, Almie Elizabeth, Sydney Grace, Lucretia Mott, Frank Cyrus, and Clifton Arthur (Elizabeth died shortly after giving birth to Clifton Arthur). Clifton and Mary M. Van Valkenburg had three children: Roy Gardner, Vernie Eva, and Oris Dwight. (Clifton Arthur was the youngest of seven children.)

Clifton Arthur Healy (b. 9 Mar 1885) married (14 Feb 1910) to Cora Buell. They had six children: Beulah Dimple (b. 18 Feb 1911), Cora Olive (b. 12 June 1912, who died as a baby), Clifton Fitzroy, Carrie Evelyn, Carol Dale, and Bonnie Bess.

Clifton Fitzroy Healy (b. 9 Aug 1913/d. 10 Feb 1991) married ([Date/Month??] 1941 [year correct]) to Mabel Rosetta "Christine" Christie (b. 27 June 1920); Christine later remarried ([date??] Aug 1995[??]) to Wilbur Yelton ([birth/death??]). They had three children: Lavaun [middle name??], Clifton Howard, and Roger Fiztroy.

Clifton Howard Healy is my dad.

Healy Genealogy

Bored at work, I did a Google of "Clifton Healy" and came up with this INCREDIBLE page of Healy genealogy.

Why is it incredible you ask?

Scroll down to Generation no. 7, no. 54 "Children of Abiel Healy and Mary Adams," small Roman numeral iii--almost to the bottom of the page . . . which begins:

"CLIFTON DWIGHT HEALY b. January 21, 1848 in Cedar Co., Ia., m. ELIZABETH BROOKS SATTERWAIT 3/10/1870, who was b. 1/22/1849 in Muscatine Co., Ia. and d. 3/15/1885 in Eldorado, Kan.; m. 2nd MARY M. VAN VALKENBURG 11/11/1887, who was b. 9/24/1855; divorced 3/1901; m. 3rd MARY E. GALLUP 2/24/1903; Res. Eldorado, Kan. 1920; Kan. City, Mo. 1929."

As far as we have previously known, Clifton Dwight is the furthest back we can go in my own direct family descent in terms of how many Cliftons there were. A quick search on the page of the name "Clifton" shows that Clifton Dwight was indeed the first in this family tree. Which means that, as we have thought all my life, I am, indeed, the fifth Clifton (though not Clifton the Fifth).

If you read a little further into the paragraph of children, born-dates/death-dates, marriages, you'll come to:

"CLIFTON ARTHUR HEALY b. 3/9/1885, m. CORA BUELL 2/14/1910; Res. Latham, Kan. (Had; BEULAH DIMPLE HEALY b. 2/18/1911, CORA OLIVE HEALY b. 6/12/1912, CLIFTON FITZROY HEALY b. 8/9/1913)"

And Clifton Fitzroy is my own grandfather.

Here is a page describing the Healy family crest.

Now, if you trace all that back up to the top of the genealogy page, it seems that the Healy's have an ancestor in WILLIAM HEALY, b. about 1613; d. December 1683.

From the information linked to William's name, he seems to have been a, um, not very nice guy. Oh, heck. He was a real jerk. Married to five women, a wife beater.

"The formal complaint lodged on 30 July 1666 against William Healey of Cambridge for maltreating his wife came from her brother Samuel Green and her brother-in-law Thomas Langhorn. However, the most damning evidence came from two servants, Samuel Reynolds and Daniel Beckley.

On the 13th of Aprill William Healey sent us to Boston, but as before our departure he was chiding his wife we therfor went back to the house and saw sd. Healey beating and kicking her. On the 7th of May after all were a bed the child begann to crie and Healey told her to quiet the child but it continuing he bid her to lye further off or else he would stick his teeth down her throat and he struck her with his hand and she cried out, then he took her by the wrists and twisted her to pieces (as she afterwards said) so that she wore a plaister for two weeks and cried with the pain of it for two hours. Healey hearing us talking in bed made a bemoaning of himself as though she had beaten him and listening again he did not hear us and said to her Ah Wicked roan hast though not done houling yet & bid her cry aloud her God was asleep and bid her gett all her lyes in a bag together and present them to her God he would not hear her else. On 27th of May there was a falling out in bed and Daniel Beckley counted three blowes and she said Will you kill me then fove blows then eight. Next morning William Healey owned to Sam Reynolds that he had struck her four or five times. When Daniel Beckley was setting him over to Boston he admitted that he struck her but told him to say nothing, let her prove it. On the last of June a Saturday we were returning with Arthur from Boston when we heard a great noise from the house; we held still our oars and heard three blows and shee looking out at the window cryed for Gods sake help me he will kill me. William Healey said some of us had given her tobacco & now she was mad. His wife came from the chamber and vexed him and he caried her to the chamber and beat her. She spoke without any distemper. His constant dayly course was to curse att her & revile her & her friends, her generation as he called them beggars. He referred to her brothers Langhorn and Greene to their disgrace & all her generation were thieves and whoremasters. Concerning her he would say God had burnt out one of her eyes & drawn up one side of her mouth & he would quickly do the like to the other & make her a spectacle of his wrath. He oft twitt her in the teeth of her being a [church] member, saying the church saw nothing in her wherefore they received her in but that she made two or three fine kerchies...he would oft tell her of her being nailed to the door and threshold...she remonstrated with him saying he must answer for them [his sins] one day before God to which he replyed do you take Gods name in your mouth; you might as well take my arse in your mouth you prophane woman...him let him be brought forth and he would strip in the street...[they were] damned rogues and whores that know any evill by him and do not bring him forth.

Daniel Gookin and Thomas Danforth examined the couple together. The wife (whose first name we never discover from the records) substantiated the servants' testimony, adding some further details. her husband had also called her "lying slut" and had used "a wand the size of a good riding rod" to beat her. Healey admitted reproachful words and some violence, but it was "not to hurt her" or was merely "accidental blowes riseing from the bed." The incident heard from the boat on the last Saturday in June arose when "she put out her neck and said Come old Healey cutt off my head and he gave her a chuck under the chin & that was all. The wife says she desired she may never have a like chuck for it was to be seen many days after.

In a written statement to court, Healey pointed out that the servants evidence was "their apprehensions, not what they saw" and that noise and a clamorous woman tend to go together. He cited a statement by Beckley to "my mother Ives (wife of Miles Ives of Roxbury), that if his dame had nobody to scould at she would scould at the wall...If any words have passed from him in his passion, which are not according to godlinesse, he desires to be deeply humbled for them in the sight of God and men."

Healey's final counterthrust was to question the motives of his two servants, Reynolds "a loose and scandalous person," had been refused permission to marry Healey's daughter. Beckley, "a refractory servant," sought to "recompense his master for his correcting him for his miscarriages." Support for Healey's defense came from two sources. Reynolds was committed on 12 August 1667 for fathering a bastard on Healey's daughter and for going to his house "in a violent manner causing William Healey to cry out murther." John Guy, aged twenty-two, who had often worked at Healey's recounted verbal provocations.

We won morning were att brekfast and she having the child in her armes he cutt her a peece of cheese and asked her if she would have itt and she apon no other ocagion tooke it and threw it at him and bid him eate it himselfe for she did believe that he did gruge it to her and apon no other ocagion cald him Tom Tinker and ould Heiley and ould roge and said he was a murderer and had murdered three wifes already and would murder her; then his answere was to her was this; poor woman I am sory to see thee thus discomposed and desired the lord to give her grase and many times I have heard him say to her that if that she would but be quiet with him he would let her have any thing that she wanted and she should do nothing.

Not suprisingly the aged Elizabeth Green, the wife's mother, painted a rather different picture, "when her face was burnt he tooke upon him to dres her face, when her face was sore, and spoild it." She described "his carage and his childrens to her how she was slited and if anything was wasted or amis...she had done it...She hath not so much authority as to give her children any victuals but what she must ask his daughters for. If he was reproved, he threatened "he would leave [her] and now he hath spoild her he would divers times bid her get her to her friends." Finally in claiming the foresight of mothers-in-law through the ages, she referred to her unwillingness to give consent to the match and the promises the ardent Healey had made to quiet her apprehensions of her daughter's likely "discouragement in the family from himself or children."

Although, tantalizingly, the court's judgement on this case has not survived, the testimony gives us a remarkably vivid insight into family dynamics; generational conflict between an old husband of fifty-three and a wife twenty years younger; the mythic wicked stepmother here transformed into the isolated and pilloried intruder, the jeolousy of a church member of long standing for one of the recently elected saints; the reprisal powers of servants against stern masters; the baby as a source of conflict and bed as a battlefield - one of the few places available for private warfare.

The violent marriage came to an end in 1671 when the fourth Goodwife Healey seems to have died in childbirth. We know from other sources that Healey held the post of keeper of the prision in Cambridge during the 1670s and early 1680s. As such he was able legally to keep his flogging arm in trim as the official executor of corporal punishment. In 1674 his services were employed by Harvard College to give a public whipping to an undergraduate who had uttered blasphemous words concerning the Holy Ghose. In 1682 when he was sixty-nine, he was caught in the prison in the act of copulation with the already heavily pregnant Mary Lovell. For this, he was dismissed from his post, evicted from his house, and sentenced with a certian poetic justice to be whipped twenty stripes in April 1683. Six months later the flogged flogger flagged and died. He left an estate worth only six pounds." (Sex in Middlesex by Roger Thompson)

"Healey's age in 1666 was fifty-three, at most twenty-three years older than his wife. Previously he had been married to (1) Grace Ives, whose first child by him had been baptized in 1644; she had died in childbirth in 1649; (2) Mary, daughter of Rev. Nathaniel Rogers of Ipswich, married in 1650, died in 1653; (3) Grace Buttress, married 1653, who was dead by 1660. The Healey's had had three children since their marriage in 1661; Samuel born in Sept. 1662, Paul in April 1664, and Mary in Oct. 1665. She was in fact Phoebe, daughter of Bartholomew Green who had died in 1635 two years after his arrival in Cambridge. She must have been at least twenty-five when she married Healey on 15 June 1661.

No more children were baptized to them after 1665. On 8 April 1672, Thomas Langhorn was keeping Hannah Healey, born in 1671, and receiving five pounds from the town rate.

Healey's fifth marriage, in 1677, was to widow and school dame, Sarah Brown.

Excerpts from Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works

The Orthodox Christian Information Center, has a handful of excerpts from Hieromonk Damascene's biography of Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose, Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works.

Super-Correctness - Chapter 63
Pastoral Guidance - Chapter 84
Orthodoxy of the Heart - Chapter 86
Simplicity - Chapter 87
Converts - Chapter 88
Hope - Chapter 99

Soteriological Sidebar II: Nominal and Real Personhood

Most of Kevin's reply (Nature of Persons) to my soteriological sidebar on Trinitarian personhood is taken up with illustrating my seeming lack of either logic, consistency, or logical consistency. This may well be true of me, though I really don't think so, but the logic, consistency or logical consistency one exhibits must be true to one's subject matter. One cannot demand of "God talk" the sort of logical consistency that one demands of mathematical formulae, since God is not number. Nor can one demand of these discussions the sort of syllogistic one rightly expects of rationalist proofs. The Christian God is not the God of the philosophers, so, for example, absolute simplicity cannot be ascribed to him. Indeed, it is not so much a matter of logic per se, but more a matter of the premises with which one begins. Non-Christians may look at the conciliar dogma surrounding the person of Jesus Christ, that he was fully (or perfect) God and fully (or perfect) man, that he had two natures and two wills in one Person, and think "Illogical." But if one examines the arguments surrounding the reality of the Incarnation, one will see a thoroughgoing consistent logic being applied to the premises. In these discussions, I think, it is not so much a question of the logic as it is a question regarding the premises.

Be that as it may, very little of Kevin's post criticizing my account of Trinitarian personhood actually deals substantively with the content of my own post, and, more particularly, the problems his own Trinitarian statements give rise to. In fact, the problems continue in the instances that he spends discussing God's Person.

Kevin claims that I have misconstrued his claims.

Clifton goes on to describe his views of the Trinity as taken from Oration XXIX by Gregory of Nazianzus. I have no real disagreent with this Oration and am left wondering what it has to do with this discussion.. That is, until I remember that Clifton is accusing me of subsuming personhood into essence. But this is not the case.

Now I readily admit that I have taken Kevin to be committing this identification. But I have done so on the substance of his nature-personhood explication. He is claiming, and has claimed consistently, that persons are their natures. Indeed, he even went so far as to agree with my assertion that Personhood exceeds essence, but then apparently contradicted himself in saying that it was in the nature of the Trinitarian Persons to do so. So it is not clear to me which it is: Do the Persons exceed their essence; or are they subsumed within it since that is what their nature is, to exceed their nature? In other words, it seems that on this configuration, Kevin is promoting some sort of modalism. All that God is, is his nature, which just happens to be Persons, who themselves are identified with their nature.

Kevin tries to clear things up:

I suspect Clifton believes that it is because, in his own view, Person is prior to essence. I argue that neither is the case but that both are equally ultimate- which is not to say that they are absolutely identical.

By Person being prior to essence, I, of course, mean to assert the monarche of the Father. That it is the Father who is the single cause of the Godhead. The Father's priority is aetiological.

Now, insofar as Kevin describes God's Persons and essence as equally ultimate--that God is not a Person without essence, or an essence without Person--I have no quibbles with it. In fact, he even goes on to say that

persons and essence cannot be separated. When God begets the Son, he does so both as to his person and as to his divine nature. The one cannot exist without the other. And even if we see the Father, who is a Person, as the cause of the Godhead, he is not a Person who exists apart from his own nature. The Father does not exist prior to the divine essence, but begetting and procession are eternal. It is the nature of the Persons of the Trinity to be one God in which the relationships between the persons are expressed in terms of begetting and procession.

And once again, I find no disagreement with these statements prima facie. However, it is precisely here that the problem arises. None of my own claims separate out nature from Personhood. I'm fairly certain I've been explicit on that. But when Kevin writes that it is the nature of the Persons to be one God, and in context of his own claims, it comes too close to the subsumption of Personhood into essence. This is especially the case when the very relationships of the Persons are said to be expressed in this nature.

If what Kevin says, here, is true, we have an enhypostatizaton of the divine nature, but apparently because it is the nature of God's essence to enhypostize himself in a Trinity of Persons. The question, however, logically arises: Must God so enhypostatize his nature? On Kevin's terms, he must do so. But this radically abridges God's freedom. For if it is God's nature to enhypostatize that nature, he cannot but do so, else he is not true to his nature, and thus not God. Nor is it clear why it is that the enhypostatization of God is accomplished by himself in a Trinity of Persons. He might just as well have done so in a Bi-unity of Persons.

Let me be clear here. I am not denying that Kevin believes in the Trinity, nor that he believes in a Trinity of Persons, all fully God, one in essence, and so forth. Kevin's claims are explicitly Christian ones. Rather it is the logic of his construal of the divine essence and Personhood in terms of that essence, that I am criticizing. I think such a construal is dangerous to Kevin's own explicit Trinitarian beliefs. That is to say, if he follows the logic of his construal instead of the dogma on which his beliefs are based, he will come dangerously close to modalism.

Kevin goes on to demonstrate a misconstrual of my own claims.

Even though he is unbegotten and unproceeding, we cannot abstract the Person of the Father from the divine essence and claim that "Personhood exceeds the divine essence." The question is not one of "a God whose fundamental nature is one of essence." It is that the Persons of the Trinity all have the same divine nature, which, being coextensive with themselves, makes of them one God. This is not a matter of priority.

I said nothing about "abstracting" the Person of the Father from the divine essence. Nor is such abstraction the foundation of my claim that Trinitarian Personhood exceeds divine essence. Rather, my claim is based on the theological fact that God the Father begets the Son and sends forth the Holy Spirit. In terms of real, not merely abstract, cause the one Person of the Father is "exceeded" by the Three Persons of the Trinity, the unity of the Godhead is "exceeded" by the tri-unity of the Trinity. That is to say, the Persons of the Trinity are not merely the same stuff as the Father. They are real, unique and different Persons. Similarly, the tri-unity of the Persons is not merely the same unity of God's nature.

In terms of essence, yes, they all share the same essence. Or, rather, more correctly, each Person is fully and completely God. There is a real coinherence of the Persons of the Trinity. But for that coinherence to be real, they are not the same Person.

I take it that Kevin's intent is to preserve the unity of God, particularly as our discussion has been centered around willing, nature and persons. In fact, my basis for this assumption, are Kevin's own words:

Recall that my contention that God wills according to his nature is in keeping with the contention that all persons will according to their natures. Whether or not this is true is not immediately at issue; however, if I predicate this of all persons but deny it of God, then I have denied his personhood. It is not a matter of subsuming the Godhead into nature but of preserving any meaningful understanding of his Persons.

So Kevin is at pains to preserve the unity of God. But to preserve the unity of God based on God's essence is problematic, as I outlined in my previous sidebar (and to which problems Kevin has not yet given a reply). To recapitulate those points: If we predicate God's unity on his nature, or his essence, we tend toward modalistic conceptions of the Persons (i. e., we enhypostatize attributes, such as "Love," which enhypostatization logically fails to give rise to a third Person); or, we tend toward logically ascribing to God the absence of Personal freedom (i. e., all that God does is determined by his nature and thus necessary for him to do lest he cease being God, for example that God must create the world for it is his nature to do so).

But, as St. Gregory has shown, there is no need to preserve God's unity in terms of his essence. The unity of God is preserved in the monarche of the Father. His eternal act of begetting and sending forth is a sacrificial act of love which communicates his divinity, but which because it is a Personal act, is not merely the bequeathing of a nature, but a generation and procession of respective Persons. That is to say, the Son is not a Person in the sense that he receives the Father's personal nature, but because the act of God in begetting is an act of his Person, him who is begotten is a Person, but a Person who has fully the nature of the one begetting him. So, too, for the Spirit, in terms of the act of procession.

The aetiological priority of the Father in the Godhead is a much surer protection against modalism, than is the prioritization of the divine nature. Which is not to say that one cannot speak of the unity of God from the standpoint of essence. In fact, my quibbles with Kevin here have less to do with whether we speak about God's unity from the standpoint of the monarche of the Father, or from the standpoint of the divine essence. Either is appropriate in its own context.

But the problem comes from the identification of the Persons of the Trinity with the nature of the Godhead. And this is illustrated in Kevin's construals. I am not explicitly claiming Kevin's conception of the Trinity actually is modalistic. Rather, I am explicitly saying, given his construals, it can tend toward that. It is clear that in the context of our soteriological discussion he wants to construe this unity in terms of God's nature and will. But that unity is best perserved in the Persons whose operations enact that will, rather than in the nature of which that will is a faculty.

In this soteriological context, we should also speak of the energies of God, but it will have to be in a future post.

And Never the Twain Shall Meet: The Irredeemable Qualities of Darren's and Kevin's Soteriological Reflections

Since Perry, of the presently de-energized, soon to be re-energized, Energies of the Trinity blog, has thoroughly responded to Kevin's post, What to Do? (in the comments to Kevin's post), and done so better than could I, it would be redundant to address Kevin's reply in the sort of detail that has been my wont in previous encounters. First of all, Perry rightly shows the flaws of Kevin's construal of nature, will and person, and does so with more terminological rigor than I can presently muster (I am, after all a philosopher more than I am a theologian). Furthermore, I have already addressed the Trinitarian concerns in Kevin's post in my sidebar earlier in the week. And finally, Kevin ends up conceding most of the main points on which I base my argument, the principle of assumption, the assumption by Christ of a fallen nature (though there are some slight but significant differences on that), and so forth. But I will address Kevin's final paragraph, for it is there that his schema falls apart.

Darren's post, Jesus Christ and the Mark of Original Sin, construes human fallen nature (original sin) in ways that I think problematic, and so misconstrues some of my own assertions about human fallen nature. Darren's primary intent is to preserve both inherited guilt, an inherently sinful human nature, the assumptive principle, and the human nature of Christ without original sin (but able to sin). Unfortunately, Darren wants to have it too many ways, and his own attempts at synthesizing these elements leads to inescapable aporia. Yet, as Darren says, "Please consider this development of my own thought to be a work in progress." So hopefully our diablog will help him (and me, as well) in that process.

My primary reply to Darren is to reiterate my question: Where did Christ get such an unfallen, as-it-was-first-created nature? Is he saying that Mary's nature was similarly unfallen? Or did the Holy Spirit somehow fashion for Christ a body that was human, but one he did not get from Mary? If Christ did not get his humanity and human body from Mary, if it was specially created for him by the Holy Spirit, then Mary is little more than a conduit through which Christ comes down from heaven and into life as a man. Of course this understanding is explicitly condemned by the historic Church. But if Christ did, indeed, take his humanity from Mary, and if Mary was fallen, then the only sort of human nature Christ could have received was a fallen one. Otherwise, Mary herself had to be unfallen to be able to give Jesus his unfallen humanity and body. Darren even goes so far as to admit that Christ did not inherit original sin (as inherited guilt). But how could this be? If Mary had original sin, how did Christ not have original sin, since he took his humanity and human body from Mary? And if he did not have original sin, though Mary did, then we are not healed of original sin (and our guilt), and even Darren concedes this assumptive principle.

If both Kevin and Darren concede the assumptive principle--that whatever Christ did not assume he did not heal--and if original sin (as inherited guilt) is part of the human nature that requires healing, then I cannot see how it is that Christ could not assume it and yet we are healed of it. We can leave aside my explication of fallenness (as mortality and corruption, death and a predisposition to sin) and focus exclusively on what Darren and Kevin contend. According to their conception, human beings are born damned, because all human beings have original sin and are thus guilty of Adam's sin as well as recipients of its consequences. We can temporarily stipulate that the propensity (or, minimally, possibility) to sin was pre-fall and something God created in man. On the assumptive principle Jesus had to assume original sin/inherited guilt if humanity was to be healed of this original sin/inherited guilt. Yet this would make Jesus born under condemnation, which of course we must reject.

So we are stuck with a dilemma: either Jesus assumed original sin/inherited guilt or he did not. If he did, he is guilty (regardless of whether or not he committed his own sin) and condemned under Adam. He is sinful merely for having a human nature. But this is unacceptable. But if Jesus did not inherit original sin/inherited guilt, we are not healed of it. On these terms one must either reject original sin as inherited guilt or reject the assumptive principle.

Of course, Darren and Kevin both try to hold on to original sin as inherited guilt and the assumptive principle, so they are driven to an understanding of original sin as a "mere" forensic declaration that does not result in an ontological change in humanity. The only thing that changed, on this new view, is that all human beings were declared guilty on the basis of Adam's sin. Kevin claims that Reformed theology distinguishes in salvation two inseparable components: "Salvation has two distinct yet inseperable components: 1) the healing of corruption and 2) forensic declaration of righteousness." On this view, Christ assumes a human nature that was created mortal, and thus heals it, but needs not assume original sin, since this is merely a forensic reality.

But this only raises more problems than it solves. For if humans were created mortal one rightly asks what need there is for Christ to assume human nature. Human nature, on this argument, hasn't really changed (Kevin's assertion), it's only been rendered forensically guilty and therefore damned. If the original intent for humanity was mortality, and if Adam's original sin only caused a forensic change and not an ontological one, then logically the only remedy necessary is the change of a forensic declaration. Which then leads to the question: Why did Christ die? What is it about the forensic declaration that necessitates death? If the only thing that has happened is a forensic change, then only a forensic remedy is necessary. If Jesus lived a completely sinless life, then he can simply present his forensic blamelessness to God on our behalf and there is no need for his death.

Except of course if the forensic penalty demands death. But it's not clear why death must be tied to the forensic penalty (and only the forensic penalty). If God's infinite justice must be satisfied, clearly the God-man whose forensic righteousness must similarly be infinite, could have satisfied God's forensic justice through that infinite righteousness. On Kevin's view, there is still no necessary and logical tie between metaphysical and ontological death and forensic condemnation. A forensic declaration can be satisfied with another forensic declaration.

If we tie the necessity of Christ's death here to the mortality of human beings, we have a manifest injustice. God is demanding punishment for a state which he apparently intended for humans. But not only do we have God condemning human beings for something he intended from the beginning, but we also have God intending Christ to pay for a penalty God imposed aside from and prior to any human choice or guilt. If we accept that the forensic declaration is predicated on (at least one) human choice, we at least have a punishment predicated on personal will and action. But to distinguish morality from forensic declaration, and to have the one imposed aside from and prior to human will and act and the other imposed on the basis of human will and act, and then to insist that Christ pay for both is nonsensical. We have Christ both dying on behalf of humans for something God willed as their original creation as well as bearing a forensic responsibility for which death is not a commensurate penalty.

No, Darren and Kevin, if they want to satisfy their commitment to the assumptive principle and their definition of original sin as original guilt, I cannot see how they have more than two options. Either Christ is born with original sin, and therefore, under their terms, born guilty and condemned, or he is born without original sin and is put to death for something that is not an inherently sinful state, when a forensic declaration would have been sufficient.

The other problem tied to this is that under Darren's and Kevin's rubrics, we are our natures. Perry, as referred to above, correctly diagnoses the falsity of this position and its inherent problems. This is problematic on Kevin's view that all that is relevant here is the forensic declaration--for even though he claims that salvation is made up of two inseperable components, his proposed soteriology gives no basis for establishing the first--for we are not freed from our nature, even and especially if we are only forensically condemned. All justification accomplishes is that God works his will in us, in opposition to what we want, because we cannot even want justification and indeed are so naturally constituted as to always oppose God's will. That is to say, we always act in accordance with our nature, and being a human one it is always and only naturally opposed to the divine nature.

More to the point, on Kevin's construal, even if we are declared forensically righteous--on the basis of no faith we exercise but only on the predetermined will of God to give us the faith he requires--this effects no union between us and God. There can be no fellowship between natures of opposition, which must necessarily be the case between contingent nature (ours) and in se nature (God's), and under Kevin's construal our nature is irrelevant to our salvation anyway. But we are always and only the human nature we have been created to be, and can never in any way become the divine nature God always is. God might choose to make our natural immortal, but there is still no fellowship for all that. Our relationship to God is always and only a forensic standing.

Kevin closes his post with this:

It is predicated on ability and what can actually be done. The question is not, "Can man want to assist in his salvation?" but, "What can man do about it?" The magnitude of an offense is according to the majesty of the one offended. Even if, for the moment, we leave off the question of Adamic guilt, we are guilty of our own sins. We have offended an infinitely holy God. What could we possibly do to pay for this? Infinite offense demands infinite retribution. This can be settled in one of two ways: 1) In a short time upon the God-man, or 2) during an eternity in hell for everyone else. You want to work for your salvation? Fulfill option two first and then God might discuss it with you. On the other hand, when Christ has taken the full brunt of God's wrath, there is nothing more to be done. Salvation has been accomplished on our behalf. It would be unjust for God to require anything else. If we keep in mind both the gravity of sin and the holiness of God, then the attempt to have something to do with our own salvation is not just the innocent activity of a child trying to "help" his parents. It is yet another offense against the character of God and the work of Christ. Can it be forgiven? Of course. But such forgiveness will result in sanctification. The non-repentance evidenced by continuing in synergistic activities can only indicate that regeneration and justification have never taken place. Synergism and monergism are contradictory modes of salvation. One of them is heretical.

Kevin asserts that our infinite offense of God can either be satisfied by God himself (in a short time) or by us (in an eternity of retribution). But this is fundamentally false. The infinite offense against the divine nature cannot be satisfied by endless retribution of a human nature, for the natures are absolutely and qualitatively dissimilar. Endless suffering of human nature can never satisfy infinite offense of divine nature, simply because human nature can never--under the Reformed rubric--be divine nature. And yet it is divine nature that is offended. The only way that endless retribution could satisfy infinite divine offense is if what must be satsified is a certainly quality attributable to the divine nature, say divine wrath. But here we still cannot talk of a satisfaction in kind. All that can be satisfied is anger. God's wrath is palliated by endless human suffering. In fact, under the Reformed rubric, God is necessarily and absolutely simple, which means that God can have no parts. And that means that God's wrath is not a detachable quality one can extrapolate from the divine nature, but is, in fact, the divine nature itself. And we are back again to the impossibility of a radically, absolutely and completely different human nature being able to satisfy the divine nature.

Under Darren's and Kevin's Reformed paradigms, then, human beings are forever cut off from God--even when saved--because they can never be partakes of a nature to which their own, even when regenerate, is opposed. At best the relation is a forensic one, but the gulf remains. In fact, on the Reformed's own terms, the divine wrath, for offending which humans suffer endless retribution, can never be satisfied. We are caught with a soteriology that collapses in upon itself. For there can be no assumption by the divine of that which is constituted by original sin. And if the only remedy is a forensic one, the unbridgeable gulf between God and man, whether that of salvation or that of damnation, is insatiable.

Soteriological Sidebar: Trinitarian Personhood Contra Kevin's Essence of God

Kevin has offered up some soteriological cogitations in reply to my last post. I will reply to his post from the soteriological standpoint we've been pursuing later this week, and if possible, combine with it my reply to any forthcoming posts by Darren. But in Kevin's reply he refers to my descriptions of God's person vis a vis his nature as an “assertion of an impossible 'superessential personhood.'” There's other talk of “avoiding rational antinomies by fleeing rationality altogether” and of seeking “to escape such logical contradictions by asserting even more of them” and so forth. Kevin's after all, is not merely a rational God, but a God who happily conforms and confines himself to logical categories.

One is very tempted to be a bit snarky here and say that the Church has never known such a God, but, alas, that would be saying too little and too much, an assertion Kevin will likely find incomprehensible. It is saying too much in that while God cannot be confined or conformed to logical categories, since God is far beyond human knowing, God is, after all, the font of all truth, and as such does not actually commit logical fallacies or contradictions, nor can such be truthfully predicated of him (as long as the “him” we're speaking of is the Personal Trinity, but more on that in a moment). But it is saying too little because, while it is true that God cannot be conformed or confined to mere logical categories, in point of fact, God is, in his essence and his Person ultimately incomprehensible. That is to say, what can be known of God not only does not begin to adequately treat of God, but even that which is truly known itself exceeds the human ability to comprehend.

But with those provisos, we do know God in ways that are true and real, although partial and never fully comprehended by us. And since my soteriological reflections depend in large part on the Personhood of God, and of the Second Person of the Trinity, I thought it important to execute a sidebar here to clarify my own contentions and dispel Kevin's mischaracterization of those contentions as irrational and illogical.

Part of the difficulty is that Kevin and I come from two different traditions. He has accepted the Augustinian tradition, handed down through the Reformed theology he has espoused, while I accept the tradition of the Cappadocians which has come down through what is somewhat mistakenly called the Eastern Church.

One of the seminal texts on the Trinity, for Christians East and West, is St. Gregory the Theologian's first theological oration on the Son (Oration XXIX, the third theological oration), especially chapters 2-3. Here St. Gregory articulates what is the standard Orthodox understanding of God: the monarchical Trinity. That is to say, the Godhead receives its essence, its divinity, from the Person of the Father. From all eternity the Father begets the Son, and from all eternity, the Son is begotten of the Father. From all eternity the Father sends forth the Spirit, and from all eternity, the Spirit proceeds from the Father. That is to say, the Father is the single cause of the Godhead. We predicate of the Son a positive: from all eternity he is being begotten. We predicate of the Spirit a positive: from all eternity he is proceeds from the Father. The Son has his origin in the Father, as the Spirit has his origin in the Father. But when it comes to the Person of the Father, what we predicate of him is a negative: the Father himself is unoriginate, he is unbegotten, he does not proceed, and this from all eternity. But St. Gregory notes that in speaking of the Father as the Cause of the Trinity, we do not diminish the Son or the Spirit, for in this case temporal associations of cause and effect do not apply. The begetting of the Son and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit are from all eternity without end. There never was a time when such begetting or such proceeding has not happened, nor will there ever be a time. Here, if we may so speak, cause and effect are simultaneous. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are eternal; there never was a when when they were not, nor will there ever be. Furthermore, since the Father begets the Son in eternal generation without mediation, the Son is, in his Person, what the Father is, and since the Father sends forth the Spirit in eternal procession without mediation, the Spirit, is, in his Person, what the Father is. The unity of the Godhead is eternally preserved and guaranteed by the Father who is without beginning or end. And the plurality of the Godhead is eternally generated from the Father who eternally begets the Son, who is eternally begotten of the Father, and from the Father who eternally sends forth the Spirit, who is eternally proceeding from the Father. The Son is not the Father, because the Son is begotten and the Father is unbegotten. The Spirit is not the Father, because the Spirit proceeds and the Father does not. In the distinction of Persons there is no subordinationism as to essence, for the essence shared by all is that of the Father, and therefore is the same for all. Furthermore, the Father gives of himself in eternal love by begetting the Son eternally, and by sending forth the Spirit eternally. The Son and the Spirit each receive and reciprocate the Father's self-giving love, the Son by being begotten and the Spirit by proceeding. The unity of the Godhead preserves the Son and the Spirit from an essential subordinationism, while the plurality of the Persons preserves the self-sacrificial love.

I have spoken of this Trinitarian conception at some length because it is this Trinitarian doctrine that is the foundation for my contention that God is fundamentally a Person, and which Personhood exceeds the divine essence. The Father is the cause of the Godhead, and that cause is a Person. The divine essence is, indeed, predicated on unity, but this unity is surpassed by a tri-unity of Persons. That is to say, that God exists is predicated on a simple eternal fact: the Father begets the Son and sends forth the Spirit.

Christianity quite literally does not know what it means to speak of a God whose fundamental nature is one of essence. This god is the Plotinian god of essential necessity; who creates not out of a free act of love, but out of the essential necessity of an overflowing ousia. But with regard to the Trinitarian God, all that God is, even in his essence, insofar as he is, is Personal. One cannot speak of God's essence apart from the Person of the Father. We have never known God except as Father, which Father was revealed fully and completely (though not fully and completely comprehended by us) in the Son by the Spirit. This is not to say that we cannot speak about God except as Person. When we speak of God as one, we are speaking of God's essence. We do not worship three Gods, after all. But insofar as we can speak of God's essence, it is only from the standpoint of the revelation to us of the Father in the Son by the Holy Spirit. We do not read, “In the beginning was the One,” after all, but “In the beginning was the Word.” Nor do we read of the One, who is the “exact expression of his substance,” but we read of the Son who is the “radiance of his glory, and the exact expression of his nature.”

Thus, if Kevin wants to uphold his Augustinian scholasticism and the God about whom he claims “even if we always have God's persons in mind, we must either speak of them according to their nature or we must say nothing at all,” he may do so, but I may well be suspicious that he can know anything of God's nature a priori. And if he cannot, then he must indeed, remain silent.

That being said, then, it will become clear that the predication of superessential personhood to the Trinity is not only not the “assertion of an impossible” that Kevin claims, but is, indeed, a rationally, even logically, necessary assertion. Only one who would equate God's Person and essence could find this an impossibility. But such an identification of God's Person and essence is impossible in light of Trinitarian realities. That is to say, if God were his essence, there is nothing about God's essence that would demand a Trinity of Persons.

Think of how we speak of God's qualities. We, rightly I hasten to say, predicate of all the members of the Trinity the singular qualities we consider. So, when we say that God is omniscient, we predicate this quality of all Persons of the Trinity; so, too, for omnipotence, and omnipresence, and omnibenevolence, eternality, holiness, and so forth. But there is nothing in any of these shared qualities from which a Trinity of Persons necessarily arises—and if God is his essence, it is necessary for a Trinity of Persons to arise, insofar as we predicate of God a Trinity of Persons. In what way would holiness necessitate the eternal begetting of the Son, or the eternal procession of the Spirit?

Ah, you say, but the fundamental quality we predicate of God is love, and thus, love would necessitate the Trinity. On the contrary, it would not. It would necessitate at least a di-unity, with the Lover and the Beloved, but there would be nothing necessitating the enhypostatization of their love as a constitutive third person of the Godhead. The necessary enhypostatization predicated of such an essence, Love, would be satisfied with the Lover and Beloved. But there would be no need to further hypstosize the Love as yet another Beloved, and there would be no way to distinguish this third hypostasis from the other Beloved. (And this, it seems to me, is the unique failure of the filioque as a relation of opposition.)

But when we speak of the Trinity, essential unity is already predicated in the monarche of the Father. Starting, if you will, with the hypostases, or, more accurately, the hypostasis of the Father, preserves both the revelation of the Trinity to us--which we could never know by way of rational categories--and the essential unity necessitated by the revelation of the Father in the Son by the Spirit. And when we speak of the essential unity of the Godhead, which is preserved in the monarchy of the Father, this essential unity is superseded by the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit from all eternity in a tri-unity. Thus the essential unity becomes a superessential tri-unity by virtue of the Father's eternal free act of love in begetting the Son and sending forth the Spirit.

In my previous post, I noted that beginning from God's essential qualities rather than from the Trinitarian Persons, leads one to rational antinomies that ultimately collapse such a theology in upon itself. One ends up with irresoluble oppositions that deny of God one or more of those essential qualities and thus deny God his existence. To this Kevin replied, “In short, these antimonies lose their force if you define the terms according to what God has revealed about himself rather than according to some supposed universal standard.” Here Kevin, whether he realizes it or not, has conceded my argument, albeit in a roundabout way. For what has been revealed to us of God is his Trinitarian Person, not a list of essential qualities.

But if the Godhead is a Trinity of Persons, nothing we can predicate of God will be able to be limited to rational categories. That is to say, even to the degree that we can speak of God's essential qualities, qualities which, by definition would inhere in all three Persons of the Trinity by virtue of their consubstantiality, what we could say of God would be superseded by his Triune Person. If we speak of God's unity, we are already confronted with a suprarational tri-unity. If we speak of God's love, we are already confronted with eternal begetting and being begotten, with eternal proceeding and sending forth, which eternality cannot in any way be approximated by our reason without rational failure. Even our analogies of begetting and procession do not in any way make comprehensible the relations of Father and Son and Father and Spirit.

So for Kevin to object that “if we're left preserving inherent paradox or, even worse, avoiding rational antinomies by fleeing rationality altogether, then any chances of coherent discussion are pretty well shot. There's really nothing meaningful left to affirm,” he is merely objecting to a rational category that surely even he himself affirms, “God is greater than that which can be thought.”

But if God is a Person, then he cannot be known by way of rational categories. No syllogism will grant us knowledge of God. A Personal God cannot but be known through love. This is why the biblical, and Orthodox, understanding of the knowledge of God locates such realities in the heart. Even if one speaks of the instrumentality of the nous in knowing God, such a knowing, the prayerful theologians tell us, must "descend" into the heart. The God of rational categories is too near the god of the philosophers, too near the syllogistic god, and this god is not the Christian God.

Kevin's resistance to this essential principle of the Trinity—that God is beyond human comprehension—is clearly in evidence when he rejects my kataphatic and apophatic assertions by contending my saying “God is all-good” and “God is not all-good” are “logical contradictions.” Unfortunately, it appears that Kevin thinks we can take such concepts as “all-goodness” and comprehend them. For the only way that the phrases “God is all-good” and “God is not all-good” are contradictory is if, in fact, we a) comprehensively understand what it means to speak of God's “all-goodness” and that in so understanding b) we predicate the same meaning in both sentences. But, in fact, it is a fundamental principle of theology, at least in the historic Church, that whatever meaningful assertions we can make of God in light of his revelation to us in Christ by the Spirit, those assertions can never precisely encapsulate all that we could ever know of God and simultaneously would always be surpassed by the reality of who God is. Thus, if we can never fully know what it means to predicate of God that he is “all-good,” then we can never logically contradict ourself in claiming that God is “not all-good” since we can never know whether or not such terms as “all-good” have been used equivocally. In other words, the logical contradiction which Kevin charges me with depends on the fact that we have comprehended what “all-good” means with respect to God, and therefore are using “all-good” univocally in our seemingly opposite assertions.

Don't misunderstand. I'm sympathetic to Kevin's resistance to my claims here. After all, if we allow rational antinomies, even on the basis of legitimate theological realities, do we not simply set the stage for any snake-oil theologian to make truly contradictory or un-Christian claims about God and then wave off such problems with appeal to “apophatic truth”? I'm afraid that whether we allow them or not, the unprayerful theologians are already in our midst hawking their bitter wares.

Furthermore, though God is beyond our comprehension, though none of our terms used of God, even those which have proven to guard us against heresy, can exhaustively communicate God's Person to us, we can, and indeed, must speak meaningfully and truthfully of God. The Scriptures, the Ecumenical Councils, the Divine Liturgy, the writings of the Fathers are all testimony to the need for careful articulation of what we can know, in our limited way, of God.

But concern for theological truth can, itself, be misguided. Arius thought to preserve the dignity of the Father. Sabellius thought to preserve the unity of God. Barlaam thought to preserve God's transcendence. And though I think Kevin both genuine and careful in his own articulation and intent to preserve the sovereignty of God, and that it is meaningful so to speak of God, I do not think his subsuming of the Godhead into an essence or nature helpful, and it is potentially heretical.

How Human Was Jesus?

Well, as I said to Karl in the comments to my previous post replying to Darren, although it wasn't my intent to start a diablog, I could be tempted. As you can see, I've succumbed to the temptation. So, Darren has offered his most recent reply, Salvation and Christ's Human Will. (And Kevin has chimed in as well.)

At issue between us is the reality and role of human free will in salvation. I have argued that to properly understand this issue, we must look not to postlapsarian man but to the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, that in Christ is the true picture of humanity. Thus, if Christ, who had two natures and two wills (human and divine) in his one Person, the human will had to be operative and thus freely exercised so that it would be united with his divine will. I have contended that any understanding of Christ that diminishes his human will or prohibits its exercise is either outright monothelitism (an ancient Christological heresy) or a form of monothelitism and still heretical.

Darren has, for the most part, accepted this. But what he denies is that the human will of Jesus was like our human will. As I understand his contention, our human nature and will is fallen and therefore "sinfully depraved," and although Jesus was like us in all ways, he was not like us in sin, and therefore he could both want and will to do God's will, while we cannot. As Darren writes:

Christ has a perfect human nature, nature as originally intended and created by God for us. Jesus does not possess a sinful nature, and so is not totally depraved, and so his human will is not incompetent and is not in opposition to the divine will. Jesus is not precisely what we are, but rather is what we are to be.

One rightly asks where Jesus got that unfallen human nature, that nature as it was intended. For Mary was his mother, and I know that Darren believes Mary was fallen. But if Jesus took his humanity from Mary, then the humanity he took was a fallen one. Or does Darren posit that Mary, too, was unfallen? But then where did she get her unfallen nature?

In any case, he goes on to say in his conclusion:

I fully agree with the point that Clifton is trying to make here: Christ is not only our full revelation of who God is, but our full revelation of who man is! It is an amazing truth about the Incarnation, that Christ showed us ourselves as much as he showed us God.

It is a mistake, however, to argue from this truth that either 1) he was as we are; or 2) we are as he is. No, but as he is, we are to one day be. This is the great why of reconciliation.

Christology is formative of an eschatalogically aware anthropology. Christology is not synonymous with anthrology any more than there are no differances between Christ and the serial murderer.

So there are two questions, in terms of the discussion here is: How human was Jesus? Or what does it mean to say that Jesus was both fully God and fully man? For if Darren is right, then even if I am correct that Jesus is the archetype of humanity, it is immaterial in terms of the freedom of the will. He had it, but we don't. But if I'm right, if Jesus' human nature was a fallen human nature, save sin, then the exercise of his human will freely is not a reality limited only to the Incarnation, but is true of all humans as well. That is to say, if my argument holds, this gives one major support to the teaching of synergism in soteriology.

The other question is: What does it mean to be a person? Or are persons determined by their nature? For whether or not Jesus had an unfallen nature, then any discussion of his human willing is determined by his human nature (and also his divine willing by his divine nature). But if Jesus was determined by his natures, then he is not, proprely speaking, a Person, but an essence. So we are brought here to the Trinitarian understandings of personhood. (I should note here that though Kevin has offered a reply, I will not respond separately as my comments here will address the substance of his contention: that we will according to our nature.)

These topics are obviously too large to deal with exhaustively in a single post, so I can only offer what is hopefully a substantial outline, but an outline nonetheless.

One thing to which Darren takes objection is that I have asserted that Christ, in assuming our humanity, assumed fallen human nature, save without sin. But he finds this nonsensical.

I do not see any valuable definition of the term "fallen" apart from humankind's sinfulness, so I reject the suggestion that Jesus took on a fallen human nature or that he possessed a fallen human will. For what is it to be "fallen" but to be sinful and separated from God? Jesus Christ was neither. He took on a human nature and possessed a human will that are perfect, idealized to God's creative intent.

Kevin wants to assert that no actual change took place after Adams' sin.

The question of whether Jesus takes on a human nature as created or a human nature as fallen is moot because no change occurs in human nature as such after Adam sins. Original sin, which we all have as a result of Adam's sin, is a matter of forensic declaration due to union with our Federal Head. Period.

But what does Scripture say? (All emphases below added.)

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death passed to all men, because all sinned--(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of one man many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to the many. And the gift is not as by one having sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by the offense of the one man death reigned through the one man, much more those receiving the abundance of the grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For through the disobedience of the one man the many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of the One many shall be constituted righteous. (Romans 5:12-19)

For since by a man death came, also by a Man comes the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all will be made alive. . . .

. . . The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. Thus also it is written, "The first man Adam became a living soul;" the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, that which is spiritual is not first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. The first man was from earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. Like the man made of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And just as we have borne the image of the man made of dust, let us also bear the image of the heavenly Man. Now this I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor can corruption inherit incorruption. (1Co 15:21-22, 42-50)

So clearly a change took place in human nature as a result of Adam's sin. And that change resulted in death and corruption. Indeed, the consistent patristic witness on these texts is that the fallenness of human nature was precisely mortality and corruption, or what we might think of as death and a disposition to sin. That it to say, humans are born mortal and with an inherent tendency to sin. But they are not born guilty. Being human, even a fallen human, is not sinful. Human guilt, on the other hand, results exactly from each person's individual sinful acts. That is to say, what sins, in a human, is not his nature, but his person. In none of these texts is guilt attributed to humans on the basis of Adam's sin. The condemnation humanity received in Adam was death. The constitution they receive from Adam is not moral guilt, but mortal nature and an inborn tendency to sin.

This is illustrated in the patristic witness regarding the Virgin Mary. Mary, the Church teaches, was born mortal, but through synergistic grace, did not herself commit personal sin. Mary, however, still needed salvation, for she was born in mortality. Her human nature, which she gave to Jesus, was mortal. It is this mortal nature which died on the Cross and was raised by the divine nature in the Resurrection. And it is Christ's saving work which saved Mary from death and corruption.

The only way fallen human nature can be sinful is if one takes an Augustinian interpretation of these passages. But this, of course, begs the question as to the validity of the Augustinian interpretation. If this interpretation is incorrect, then the assertion that Jesus could not assume a fallen human nature cannot itself be substantiated.

In a moment I will return to the implications of Jesus assuming an unfallen human nature and what that means in terms of salvation. But to show how this patristic interpretation of Adam's original sin and human fallenness as mortality and not inherited guilt is consistent with the rest of Scripture, we need to revisit some Scriptures which speak of Jesus' sharing of our human nature. (All emphases below added.)

For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Hebrews 2:11)

Therefore since the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same things, in order that through death He might destroy the one having the power of death, that is, the devil, and that He might set free these, as many as by fear of death through all of their lives, were subject to bondage. For indeed He does not take hold of angels, but He does take hold of the seed of Abraham. Therefore He was obligated to become like His brothers in all respects, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, in order that He might make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that which He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted. (Hebrews 2:14-18)

Note especially this passage. Christ shared in the same things as humans, that he might destroy death by death, he was obligated to become like us in all respects, that he might make propritiation.

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but having been tempted in all respects in quite the same way as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Christ has been tempted in all ways like us. It is right to ask, if his human nature was unfallen, what temptations could he have faced that would have been like ours? How would an unfallen Person have been tempted to lust in all respects in the way a fallen person would? Yes, Christ was without sin, but having a fallen nature is not sinful.

Just as He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek"; who [Jesus], in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up both prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears to the One who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His fear of God, though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him . . . (Hebrews 5:6-9)

Clearly the divine in Jesus needed no perfection. So how could an unfallen human Person be perfected through obedience? Surely it was Jesus' fallen human nature that was perfected through his sinless obedience which included his submission to death and resurrection.

But listen to what St. Gregory of Nyssa has to say.

. . . He Who had determined once for all to share the nature of man must pass through all the peculiar conditions of that nature. Seeing, then, that the life of man is determined between two boundaries, had He, after having passed the one, not touched the other that follows, His proposed design would have remained only half fulfilled, from His not having touched that second condition of our nature. Perhaps, however, one who exactly understands the mystery would be justified rather in saying that, instead of the death occurring in consequence of the birth, the birth on the contrary was accepted by Him for the sake of the death; for He Who lives for ever did not sink down into the conditions of a bodily birth from any need to live, but to call us back from death to life. Since, then, there was needed a lifting up from death for the whole of our nature, He stretches forth a hand as it were to prostrate man, and stooping down to our dead corpse He came so far within the grasp of death as to touch a state of deadness, and then in His own body to bestow on our nature the principle of the resurrection, raising as He did by His power along with Himself the whole man. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 32)

God's condescension to us in Christ means that Christ himself partook of the fullness of our mortal (that is to say, fallen) nature, including death, so as to save us.

In Adam's fall, the image of God in which he and Eve had been created was defaced. It was stained with mortality and corruption. But it was not destroyed. (We will speak below on what is this image.) So Christ, being the true Image of God in fullness, was able to take the distorted human image and restore it. As St. Athansios writes:

What then was God to do? or what was to be done save the renewing of that which was in God’s image, so that by it men might once more be able to know Him? But how could this have come to pass save by the presence of the very Image of God, our Lord Jesus Christ? For by men’s means it was impossible, since they are but made after an image; nor by angels either, for not even they are (God’s) images. Whence the Word of God came in His own person, that, as He was the Image of the Father, He might be able to create afresh the man after the image.

But, again, it could not else have taken place had not death and corruption been done away. Whence He took, in natural fitness, a mortal body, that while death might in it be once for all done away, men made after His Image might once more be renewed. None other then was sufficient for this need, save the Image of the Father.

For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood: for, for the sake of his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it; in the same way also the most holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region to renew man once made in His likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the remission of sins; as He says Himself in the Gospels: “I came to find and to save the lost.” Whence He said to the Jews also: “Except a man be born again,” not meaning, as they thought, birth front woman, but speaking of the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God’s image. . . . Whence, naturally, willing to profit men, He sojourns here as man, taking to Himself a body like the others, and from things of earth, that is by the works of His body [He teaches them], so that they who would not know Him from His Providence and rule over all things, may even from the works done by His actual body know the Word of God which is in the body, and through Him the Father. (St. Athanasios, On the Incarnation, 13-14)

So, in other words, the ancient teaching is that we are all born fallen, subject to mortality, but we are not born guilty. That is, we are born with a fallen nature predisposed to sin. Our human nature was not originally created with this disposition. But it came into human nature via the sin of the Adam and Eve. But this fallen nature does not make of us guilty of Adam and Eve's sin, only the recipients of a fallen nature predisposed to sin. It is this same nature that Christ assumed when he became man. How could it be otherwise?

We may take our cue here from the Chalcedonian definition.

For it [the Christology of the Fathers] opposes those who would rend the mystery of the dispensation into a Duad of Sons; it repels from the sacred assembly those who dare to say that the Godhead of the Only Begotten is capable of suffering; it resists those who imagine a mixture or confusion of the two natures of Christ; it drives away those who fancy his form of a servant is of an heavenly or some substance other than that which was taken of us, and it anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before the union, conceiving that after the union there was only one.

Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us. (Definition of Chalcedon

Now, the “perfect” in manhood is often taken as perfection in the Hellenistic sense of human perfection (without blemish, weakness, etc.). But it is clear from the context here that the “perfect” means complete, full. Christ, that is to say, was fully human. Indeed, just as Christ is consubstantial with the Godhead, so he is consubstantial with us, apart from sin. Thus, in the incarnation, Christ took on fallen human nature, and perfected it and renewed it in the Resurrection.

This may, up to this point, seem a contentious rendering. Darren and I differ on some Scriptural interpretations. He can pull in some Augustinian interpreters in the West. I can pull in the Eastern Fathers.

But there is another essential point that I need to reiterate: that of “what is not assumed is not healed.” This is an unequivocal and consistent soteriological principle of the ancient Church. If human beings were to be saved from death and corruption and have their sins remitted, it was necessary that Christ become all that man is, excepting sin. If there is anything human that is to be saved, Christ must assume it, sin excepted. Therefore if our fallen human nature is to be restored to its archetype in the God-man, the God-man must assume fallen human nature. He must overcome death by death.

Here are the seminal patristic witnesses to this assumptive principle.

. . . the only true and stedfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book V, Preface)

For He was made man that we might be made God. (St. Athanasios the Great, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54)

. . . He was transfused throughout our nature, in order that our nature might by this transfusion of the Divine become itself divine, rescued as it was from death, and put beyond the reach of the caprice of the antagonist. For His return from death becomes to our mortal race the commencement of our return to the immortal life. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 25)

For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved. (St. Gregory the Theologian, Letter to Cledonius Against Apollinaris (CI))

For when he had come to be the God-man,
God came to an end as man, to honor me,
so that, by the very things he took on, he might restore,
and destroy sin's accusation utterly,
and, by dying, slaughter the slaughterer.
(St. Gregory the Theologian, "Against Apollinarious," lines 5-9 [carm., 1.1.10, 5-9], On God and Man, tr. by Peter Gilbert, SVS Press, 2001, p. 81)

What must be remembered here is that Christ saved us, as understood by these writers and the ancient Church, “so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:4). God became what we are that we might, by grace, become what He is. Our participation in God's divinity is a participation of the whole person, body and soul. But that participation then means that we must be healed of all that is death and corruption in us.

Thus, Christ had to take on fallen human nature if we are to be saved.

I have taken this effort to insist that Christ assumed a fallen, though not sinful, human nature because Darren wants to insist that Christ's human nature does not include fallenness. But then if so, we are not saved from the death and corruption which is part of our fallen state. Kevin wants to insist that there is no change in human nature, that it is all forensic, and that the death and corruption we experience are a result of God creating humans this way. But he must argue this in conflict with Scripture and the historic Church.

But we must ask a further question: What does it mean to be a person? Or are persons determined by their nature? Both Darren and Kevin want to assert that our will is bound up with our nature and that our nature then determines our will. So, though our will is free to do what it wills, what it wills is thoroughly determined by our nature.

However, I have been insisting that Christology, anthropology and soteriology cannot be separated from one another, and that Christology is the proper foundation of our anthropology. And if, as Scripture asserts, Christ became all the we are, save sin, then what we assert about man, apart from sin, we will be asserting about Christ necessarily. So if nature, irrespective of fallennes, as Darren and Kevin contend, is what determines our will, then we must also assert this of Christ. But if we assert of Christ that nature determines will, we must also assert this of the Trinity, since Christ is consubstantial with the Trinity as well.

In other words, the understanding of human volition vis a vis human nature is ultimately found in our understanding of the Holy Trinity, in whose image man was created, which image was defaced in man, and which defaced image Christ, as true Image of God, came to restore.

It is common, at least in the West since Augustinian scholasticism, to argue about God beginning with his essence or nature. But this is fundamentally mistaken. God is not an essence or a nature, but a Person, or, rather, a tri-unity of Persons. The East has always maintained that positive assertions about God can only and must begin from the standpoint of the full revelation of God in Christ. That is to say, what God is is forever hidden from our view. All that we can know of God is what has been revealed to us, and that revelation has always been a revelation of his triune Person.

But if God is a Person, or tri-unity of Persons, then Personhood must necessarily exceed nature. That is to say, God is not an essence, but is superessentially a Person. The seemingly contradictory statements, God is all-good and God is not all-good, are, in fact, both true when predicated of God as Person, because his Personhood so far exceeds our understanding of what essential goodness would mean of the Godhead that while we know of God's goodness through his consistent never-failing acts of love toward us, we cannot know, finally, what that goodness means. It is beyond all human grasp, fallen or completely regenerated.

To illustrate what I mean, it is helpful to take the argument from Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrhhonism, Book III. Sextus argues that we have no way of asserting positively that God exists, for everything that we can say about God ultimately results in antinomy. That is to say, if we predicate of God the natural and essential qualities of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence, we end in negating one or more of them. That is to say, if God is omnibenevolent, we would not suffer. But we do suffer. So if God is omnibenevolent, he cannot be omnipotent, for he would be able to eliminate our suffering. But if he is omnipotent and we suffer, then he cannot be omnibenevolent. Further, if God is omniscient he would have known that we would suffer. But we do suffer. Therefore if God is omniscient and knew that we would suffer he must not be omnipotent, or he would have stopped it, being omnibenevolent, or God is not omnibenevolent, since both knowing and being able to stop our suffering, he does not do so. But if God is not any of these qualities, or does not have them, he is not God.

Nor does it do any good to argue for the traditional theodicies that all things work together for good, or that our suffering is for our discipline, and so forth, because this, too, results in antinomies: the suffering of the innocent, the fallenness of creation (or God's intention to create it fallen), and so forth.

Rather, the ancient Church's insistence on approaching kataphatic theology from the starting point of the Persons of God perserves such theology from rational antinomies (at least antinomies that derive from the rational concepts themselves) and preserves the inherent paradox and mystery of the Trinity by asserting the Personal transcendence of what we might term God's nature.

Thus, insofar as God wills and acts, he does so as a Person and not as an essence. Rather, it is the Person who wills, not an essence. God's will, if we can speak of it in this way, is directed by his Person, not, as it were, by his essence.

And if Christ is the express image of God, then when Christ wills, he does so from the standpoint of his Person and not from some sort of nature, or natures. Kevin wants to caution my saying that Christ has two wills and two natures in one person because it

is dangerously close to the classic formulation of Nestorianism, "Two natures and two hypostases in one Person." The will is not distinct from but is a component of the nature.

But if I was unclear, then let us both resort to the definition of the faith of the Sixth Ecumenical Council and confess of Christ that he is:

one and the same Christ our Lord the only-begotten Son of two natures un-confusedly, unchangeably, inseparably indivisibly to be recognized, the peculiarities of neither nature being lost by the union but rather the proprieties of each nature being preserved, concurring in one Person and in one subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons but one and the same only-begotten Son of God, the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, according as the Prophets of old have taught us and as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath instructed us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers hath delivered to us; defining all this we likewise declare that in him are two naturalwills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was right that the flesh should be moved but subject to the divine will, according to the most wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of God the Word, so also the natural will of his flesh is called and is the proper will of God the Word, as he himself says: "I came down from heaven, not that I might do mine own will but the will of the Father which sent me!" where he calls his own will the will of his flesh, inasmuch as his flesh was also his own. For as his most holy and immaculate animated flesh was not destroyed because it was deified but continued in its own state and nature, so also his human will,although deified, was not suppressed, but was rather preserved according to the saying of Gregory Theologus: "His will [i.e., the Saviour's] is not contrary to God but altogether deified."

We glorify two natural operations indivisibly, immutably, inconfusedly, inseparably in the same our Lord Jesus Christ our true God, that is to say a divine operation and a human operation, according to the divine preacher Leo, who most distinctly asserts as follows: "For each form does in communion with the other what pertains properly to it, the Word, namely, doing that which pertains to the Word, and the flesh that which pertains to the flesh."

For we will not admit one natural operation in God and in the creature, as we will not exalt into the divine essence what is created, nor will we bring down the glory of the divine nature to the place suited to the creature.

We recognize the miracles and the sufferings as of one and the same [Person], but of one or of the other nature of which he is and in which he exists, as Cyril admirably says. Preserving therefore the inconfused- ness and indivisibility, we make briefly this whole confession, believing our Lord Jesus Christ to be one of the Trinity and after the incarnation our true God, we say that his two natures shone forth in his one subsistence in which he both performed the miracles and endured the sufferings through the whole of his economic conversation, and that not in appearance only but in very deed, and this by reason of the difference of nature which must be recognized in the same Person, for although joined together yet each nature wills and does the things proper to it and that indivisibly and inconfusedly. Wherefore we confess two wills and two operations, concurring most fitly in him for the salvation of the human race. (excerpted from The Definition of Faith of the Sixth Ecumenical Council)

And this is precisely what I am contending, that the exercise of Christ's wills, human and divine, was from his Person, not from either of his natures. The human will, that is to say, submitted to the divine will, because the one Person, Jesus Christ, so exercised that human will. Similarly, the human will was not supressed or subsumed under the divine will, because Christ the Person so exercised his divine will that the human will was free to submit to the divine will in all things.

But if Christ, the express image of God, exercised his will from his Person, and not from his nature, just as the Holy Trinity wills as tri-unity of Persons and not from a nature, then humans, too, must exercise their will from the self-transcendence inherent in Personhood derived from the Holy Trinity and revealed to us in Christ.

Only if the imago dei was obliterated in humans could it be said that the human will is not subject to personality but to nature. But if the imago dei is destroyed, we are not persons, but animals only, whose wills are necessarily bound by nature. Yet the imago dei is not destroyed but us, but merely defaced, and stained. That is to say, though we will from our person, that will is predisposed to corruption and death, as it is fallen as is our human nature. We sin, not because we must because our wills are bound to our nature, not because our nature is sinful per se, but because our person is subject to mortality and freely chooses to sin. That is to say, rather than transcending our nature, as we do as persons made imago dei, we freely choose to give way to it.

Christ, however, though having assumed a fallen nature, did not so sin, as his divine-human person transcended that fallen nature and deified it, ultimately healing it through his death, resurrection and ascension.

All this is not to say that forensic descriptions of our fallen state are illegitimate. For we are, indeed, declared to be and are guilty on the basis of our personal choice to sin. But dependence on a forensic description of our fallen state alone leads to irresoluble antinomies that ultimately affect our understanding of Christ and the Holy Trinity, and lead us away from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

I trust that my criticisms of Darren's and Kevin's assertions on particular points have shown this to be the case. Christ did assume a fallen human nature, else we are not saved. Adam's sin did effect a change in human nature and creation (cf. also Romans 8), and did not result in just a forensic declaration, else we have no participation in the divine, as St. Peter asserts.

But this post has grown far beyond my original intent and I summarily draw it to a close.

Father Joseph and the Prayer of St. Ephrem

Though I have no doubt that some of my Orthodox readers are aware of Fr. Joseph Hunneycutt's blog, Orthodixie ... Southern, Orthodox, Convert, Etc., others of my readers may not be. It's a great blog from an Orthodox priest and former Episcopalian. Quite possibly the best thing I've ever read from Father Joseph, is his post on the prayer of St. Ephrem, O Lord & Master of My Life ....

Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.

The Clarification of the Incarnation

I am a regular reader of Darren's Nicene Theology blog. And you should be, too. (It's bookmarked under my blog links, down the left-hand side of the main page here. If I'm not mistaken, Darren is from a Wesleyan background, though he will correct me if I'm wrong.) Yesterday he replied to my post on monergism, with his own post, God Saves His Enemies. It's not my intent to start another "me-and-Kevin"sort of diablog, but I thought it important to offer some clarifications, since my monergism post is not the most well-written example of blogging.

One example of that problematic writing is Darren's seeming misunderstanding that I am basing the charge of heresy with regard to monergism on the fact that synergism is the historic Church's understanding of soteriology. Of course, what each of us means by "historic Church" may be part of the reason he denies that either monergism or synergism has ever been the settled disposition of the Church. In any case, this is not a point about which I wish to argue, as it takes me from my main point with regard to monergism. So, in terms of my seemingly attributing heresy to monergism based on the consensus fidelium of the Church, he, rightly, claims this is question-begging, since, in fact, I did not prove that synergism is the faith of the Church.

In another related aside, I would also contend that St. Augustine is not the monergist that monergists claim. It is true that the Bishop of Hippo did, in his godly-intentioned fight against Pelagius, depart from the balance of the Church's soteriology (leading those who followed his line of thought in the West to such notions as inherited guilt, double predestination, and other departures from the Church's deposit of faith), but I am convinced that making of the saint a monergist is to extrapolate extracontextually from his anti-Pelagian works a meaning that he, himself, never intended. But once more, this is not an argument I will be making here, nor for which offering any further support.

Further, I also freely admit that my understanding of Reformation theology and Calvinism is pretty much limited to the infamous TULIP. I have based my understanding of monergism wholly on the website linked in my post criticizing monergism. I can understand presuppositions and premises and argue toward their logical conclusions. But it may be that Calvinism does not follow the logical progression I think is necessitated by its presuppositions.

All that being said, in point of fact, I do happen to believe that monergism is a heresy because, in part, it is not what the historic Church taught. But actually, my point of contention in the post was that monergism necessarily must come to the conclusion that Christ had only a divine will, which is monothelitism--or minimally, that his human will was not operative, which is at least a form of monothelitism--and monothelitism is a heresy. In other words, I contend that to properly understand human nature, including free will, and how human nature is redeemed, it is absolutely essential to start and end with the Incarnation. For it is precisely in the God-man, Jesus Christ, that we properly understand what it means to be human and therefore what it means to be saved. Christology is anthropology. Christology is soteriology.

First, I find it inconsistent that monergists claim that humans have free will, but that free will can do nothing with regard to any aspect of salvation. Darren writes:

In short, monergism describes the state of fallen humankind as incapable of actively participating in God's saving action. Men and women are dead in their sins (not merely weakened), and therefore unable to work for their salvation, or actively take hold of God's offer of salvation, or even prepare themselves to receive saving grace.

I will argue in a moment why we must start and end with Jesus, the God-man, when we discuss human nature and redemption. But let it be stipulated for now, in proleptic anticipation of the later argument, that monergism must be applied to the God-man if it is to apply to humans. Let us walk through the consequences of such a position.

If we apply monergism to Jesus, then, though Jesus' human will was "free," in reality it was completely unable to cooperate with the divine will. In fact, by this reasoning, it could only, by its very nature as fallen, be in opposition to the divine will. Yet, this division of wills in the Person of the God-man runs counter to Chalcedonian (and o/Orthodox) Christology, and is, in fact, heresy.

Thus it must be posited that, though ostensibly free, the human will of Jesus was not fallen (and Darren will do this below), it was just incompetent to cooperate with the divine will. But fallenness is the predication of monergist human volitional incapacity, so what sense does it make to say that Jesus' human will was unfallen but unable to cooperate? And furthermore, if Jesus' human will was unfallen, it did not need to be saved. But if his human will was not saved, then it was never assumed into his Person in the first place, and so neither is our human will saved. Nor can it ever be. But if human will can never be saved, then it can never be appropriated in the Kingdom. And thus, it can only follow that we do not have human will in any meaningful sense. But if Jesus did not assume a human will, then we have the monothelete heresy.

But perhaps monergists will posit that Jesus' human will was fallen but not opposed, indeed, could not have been opposed, to the divine will. But if the human will could only will the divine will, the only will essentially operative in the God-man was the divine will. But if only the divine will was essentially operative, then we will have to make sense of Matthew 26:39 and how it is that the Second Person of the Trinity could in any way will something different from the First Person of the Trinity, and what sense this would make of the unity of Father and Son Jesus reveals in his "high priestly prayer" (cf. John 17:21). And really, this position, though technically different from monothelitism in certain respects, is just another form of it.

Darren, though, does attempt to account for the freedom of the human will.

. . . the traditional Reformed position does not deny the existence of free will -- it merely denies that any exercise of the will can contribute to justification, the reconciliation of men and women to God and the initiation of the Christian life. We have the ability and the right to make our own choices, but in our fallen and sinful state remain incapable of initiating our reconciliation to God or of answering his call from our own ability. Just as my free will does not enable me to decide, "Today I shall walk on the moon," neither does it enable me to decide, "Today I shall be reconciled to God."

Total depravity is a necessary presupposition of monergism, but free will is not excluded. Rather, it is put in its proper anthropological context. As free will in no way implies omnipotence, we still rely wholly on God's act for us and our salvation.

It is here that Reformed theology, as Darren constructs it, falters and must ultimately fall. It predicates opposition between omnipotence and human free will.

Frankly, if this be so, then I cannot see how double predestination is not an inescapable and necessary conclusion. For if the saved can only be saved if God wills it, since they themselves can do nothing either to want or to receive salvation, and indeed, any notion of such free will denies God's omnipotence, then those who will be condemned must necessarily be condemned because God so wills it, for their willingness or unwillingness to be condemned is irrelevant. If Darren, or monergists in general, thinks the historic Church has taught double predestination, I'd like to see dogmatic evidence for it (and just to be fair, let's make it prior to the Schism).

But more to the point, if free will cannot be in opposition to omnipotence, in what sense can it meaningfully be called free? It can and must always only do that which God himself wills, which means that damned persons, even if they will their own damnation, do so not because they were ever meaningfully free to will such an end, but because God from before time willed that they would be damned. The Church has never known such a god.

In point of fact, the divine kenosis of Jesus, exemplified in Philippians 2:5ff shows us that omnipotence can, indeed, limit itself, that is to say, omnipotence is not more powerful than itself such that it must always be the case that God cannot refrain from using his omnipotence, and therefore must so work that human free will can never oppose his will. But by the very definition of omnipotence, God must be powerful enough to self-limit his power so as to allow for free will. In other words, humans do have free will, have it meaningfully, use that free will to oppose God's will, and God, in fact, wills for this to be the case and self-limits his omnipotence so that humans may so freely act.

If I may interject here and head off a potential criticism about whether "self-limiting omnipotence" itself has any meaning, let me state that I am arguing in terms that I don't fully accept. That is to say, in speaking of God, we are always ultimately brought to apophaticism, whether that be in speaking about his Triune Person, or the essence of the Trinity which all the Persons share. What has been revealed to us of God has to do with his Person. We know God as Father because Jesus the Son has revealed him so to us in the Holy Spirit. We are led to certain limited truths regarding God's "essence" on the basis of that revelation (i. e., how it is that these three Personal revelations--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--share a common nature), but even what we positively know of his Personal revelations to us finally collapse into silence as we pass beyond the limits of human reason.

Which is to say, in speaking of God's omnipotence, which is attributed to God's essence, we really are unable speak kataphatically, as though we could really know what we mean by his omnipotence, but must lay the emphasis of such declarations on apophasis. That is to say, God is, indeed, all-powerful, but in a way that must go beyond omnipotence, so that we can also say, without contradiction, that God is not all-powerful.

Thus the seeming contradiction of my assertion of self-limiting omnipotence is not in fact a contradiction, but an attempt to hold two truths together: what has been revealed to us is a God who acts as he wills, whom no one or nothing can hinder, and, being a Person, this God has chosen to limit himself since in the exercise of that power he is powerful enough, indeed, more than powerful enough, so to do (e. g., the Incarnation).

Furthermore, to return to my discussion of omnipotence and free will, if the human will cannot resist in any way the divine will, then we are back again to an understanding of the human will in Jesus being fundamentally inoperative, or at least such a concept has no real meaning.

But it has now come time to make good on the stipulation above. I must now argue for the fact that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega of human nature and only in him can we fully understand redemption.

First, let me note Darren's contention:

Of all human beings who have ever walked the Earth, Jesus Christ is, of course, the single exception to the rules of sin and depravity. He is thus a terrible example to envoke in this conversation, because Scripture has declared in no uncertain terms that he was born without sin. Human will is in bondage (and men and women therefore "totally depraved") strictly because of sin. But because sin is an acquired and not a created condition, Jesus was able to take on human nature yet remain sinless. Sin is not a fundamental part of who we are.

Just as we cannot consider a doctrine of salvation without reference to the Incarnation and the cross, so too can we not articulate a proper anthropology by assuming that, as the perfect man, Jesus was also the example par excellance of the depraved man. Christ's human will was fully human, and fully free of sinful depravity.

In responding to Darren, a fundamental tenet of the Church with regard to salvation must be that of the Incarnate assumption of all things human, apart from sin. This is articulated throughout the ancient Church, as exemplified in the following:

. . . the only true and stedfast Teacher, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, Book V, Preface)

For He was made man that we might be made God. (St. Athanasios the Great, On the Incarnation of the Word, 54)

. . . He was transfused throughout our nature, in order that our nature might by this transfusion of the Divine become itself divine, rescued as it was from death, and put beyond the reach of the caprice of the antagonist. For His return from death becomes to our mortal race the commencement of our return to the immortal life. (St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, 25)

For when he had come to be the God-man,
God came to an end as man, to honor me,
so that, by the very things he took on, he might restore,
and destroy sin's accusation utterly,
and, by dying, slaughter the slaughterer.
(St. Gregory the Theologian, "Against Apollinarious," lines 5-9 [carm., 1.1.10, 5-9], On God and Man, tr. by Peter Gilbert, SVS Press, 2001, p. 81)

In other words, the ancient principle of soteriology, predicated on the Church's understanding of the Person of Christ (a human nature and a divine nature and a human will and a divine will in one hypostasis as the Second Person of the Trinity), is that if it was not assumed in Christ's Person, then it cannot be saved, for Christ is the Alpha and Omega of God's saving work, the recapitulation in himself as the Second Adam of what it means to be human (cf. Romans 5:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:42-49; Hebrews 2:6-18, 4:15, 5:6-9). Christ, not Adam, is the archetype of humanity.

The biblical assertion is that Christ became like us in every way, save sin. It is clear that Christ's humanity was subject to exhaustion, hunger, temptation and so forth. Thus, the human nature Christ assumed was a fallen human nature, though that fallenness entailed no sin on Christ's part.

But if the human nature Christ assumed was fallen, so, too, was the will that Christ assumed. But if Christ's human will was fallen and yet he was without sin, then it is inescapable that a fallen human will can freely cooperate with the divine will.

So, to return to Darren's quote above, the implications of Darren's contention is that Christ must have been depraved (though not sinfully) since he took on human nature that was (sinfully) depraved, and this precisely illuminates the necessary point. But if depravity is sinful, then Jesus could not have taken on our depravity, which means we are not saved from our depravity.

At this point, it is not clear to me what the intent of "sinful depravity" means. On the one hand, if it means that by our own personal choices, humans put themselves in bondage to sin, and that that bondage to sin leads to consequential limits on human willing, I am not in substantive disagreement. Indeed, I do believe that the exercise of a free will in sin does ultimately lead to a condition in which an otherwise free human will cannot but will sin and cannot any longer repent or even want to repent. This I think is clear in Scripture.

But if by depravity is meant a condition of humanity such that humans are born into such bondage (i. e., based on an understanding of original sin as inherited guilt), then we are back to the principle that what is not assumed is not healed.

The problem with Reformed soteriology, insofar as I understand it and has Darren has explicated it, is that it starts its anthropology and soteriology with man. But the only revelation we have of man, and our only experience of him, is a fallen one. Even the few verses in Genesis which depict the prelapsarian state give us only the basic fundamentals recapitulated in Christ. But to predicate our anthropology or soteriology on a fallen archetype is to go wrong from the beginning. No, to fully understand humanity we must understand "God-humanity" insofar as it has been given us to grasp the truth of and about Christ.

I repeat: Christology is anthropology. Christology is soteriology.

In short, I think it fitting that we end with an appropriate text from the much-and-wrongly-maligned Saint John Cassian, which reiterates that if in Christ we have the full and complete union of human willing and divine willing, then we must also predicate the cooperation without contradiction of the human and divine willing in salvation by grace through faith:

And so these [i. e., free will and omnipotence or providence] are somehow mixed up and indiscriminately confused, so that among many persons, which depends on the other is involved in great questionings, i.e., does God have compassion upon us because we have shown the beginning of a good will, or does the beginning of a good will follow because God has had compassion upon us? For many believing each of these and asserting them more widely than is right are entangled in all kinds of opposite errors. For if we say that the beginning of free will is in our own power, what about Paul the persecutor, what about Matthew the publican, of whom the one was drawn to salvation while eager for bloodshed and the punishment of the innocent, the other for violence and rapine? But if we say that the beginning of our free will is always due to the inspiration of the grace of God, what about the faith of Zaccheus, or what are we to say of the goodness of the thief on the cross, who by their own desires brought violence to bear on the kingdom of heaven and so prevented the special leadings of their vocation? But if we attribute the performance of virtuous acts, and the execution of God's commands to our own will, how do we pray: "Strengthen, O God, what Thou hast wrought in us;" and "The work of our hands stablish Thou upon us?" We know that Balaam was brought to curse Israel, but we see that when he wished to curse he was not permitted to. Abimelech is preserved from touching Rebecca and so sinning against God. Joseph is sold by the envy of his brethren, in order to bring about the descent of the children of Israel into Egypt, and that while they were contemplating the death of their brother provision might be made for them against the famine to come: as Joseph shows when he makes himself known to his brethren and says: "Fear not, neither let it be grievous unto you that ye sold me into these parts: for for your salvation God sent me before you;" and below: "For God sent me before that ye might be preserved upon the earth and might have food whereby to live. Not by your design was I sent but by the will of God, who has made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house, and chief over all the land of Egypt." And when his brethren were alarmed after the death of his father, he removed their suspicions and terror by saying: "Fear not: Can ye resist the will of God? You imagined evil against me but God turned it into good, that He might exalt me, as ye see at the present time, that He might save much people." And that this was brought about providentially the blessed David likewise declared saying in the hundred and fourth Psalm: "And He called for a dearth upon the land: and brake all the staff of bread. He sent a man before them: Joseph was sold for a slave." These two then; viz., the grace of God and free will seem opposed to each other, but really are in harmony, and we gather from the system of goodness that we ought to have both alike, lest if we withdraw one of them from man, we may seem to have broken the rule of the Church's faith: for when God sees us inclined to will what is good, He meets, guides, and strengthens us: for "At the voice of thy cry, as soon as He shall hear, He will answer thee;" and: "Call upon Me," He says, "in the day of tribulation and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." And again, if He finds that we are unwilling or have grown cold, He stirs our hearts with salutary exhortations, by which a good will is either renewed or formed in us. (Conferences, XIII.11, emphasis added)

Lenten (Irish) Humor

In honor of my priest and fellow parishioners who celebrate their nameday/feastday today, I offer this bit of levity from here:

An Irishman moved into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walked into the pub and promptly ordered three beers. The bartender raised his eyebrows, but served the man three beers, which he drank quietly at a table, alone. The next evening the man again ordered and drank three beers at a time. Soon the entire town was whispering about the Man Who Orders Three Beers. Finally, a week later, the bartender broached the subject on behalf of the town. "I don't mean to be prying but folks around here are wonderin why you always order three beers and drink them alone?". "Tis a wee bit odd I would be supposin" the man replied. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America and the other went to Australia. We promised each other that we would always order two extra beers, whenever we would partake, as a way of keeping up the family bond." The bartender and the whole town were pleased with his answer and with the reverence for family and soon the Man Who Orders Three Beers became a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet. Then one day the man came in and ordered only two beers. The bartender served them with a heavy heart. This continued for the rest of the evening ... ordering only two beers. Word flew around the hamlet quickly. Prayers were offered for the soul of one of the brothers. The next day, the bartender said to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer our condolences to you for the death of your brother, you know - only two beers." The man pondered for a moment then replied, "You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

Faith, Free Will and Salvation: The Heresy of Monergism

According to this definition of Monergism:

Monergism (monergistic regeneration) is a redemptive blessing purchased by Christ for those the Father has given Him (1 Pet 1:3, John 6:37, 39). This grace works independently of any human cooperation and conveys that power into the fallen soul whereby the person who is to be saved is effectually enabled to respond to the gospel call (Acts 2:39, 1 Cor 1:2, 9, 24, Rom 8:30 John 1:13, Acts 13:48). It is that supernatural power of God alone whereby we are granted the spiritual ability and desire to comply with the conditions of the covenant of grace; that is, to apprehend the Redeemer by a living faith, to come up to the terms of salvation, to repent of idols and to love God and the Mediator supremely. The Holy Spirit, in quickening the soul, mercifully capacitates and inclines God's elect to the spiritual exercise of faith in Jesus Christ (John 6:44, 1 John 5:1). This instantaneous and intensely personal work of God is the means by which the Spirit brings us into living union with Him. . . .

To summarize, those dead in sin (Eph 2:1,5,8), play no part in their own new birth (Rom 3:11, 12; 8:7) and are just as passive as a new born physical baby in the regenerative act. However, once restored with a new sense and given spiritual understanding through Word and Spirit, the soul's new disposition immediately plays an active roll in conversion (repentance and faith). Thus, man does not cooperate in his regeneration but rather, infallibly responds in faith to the gospel as the Holy Spirit changes our hearts' disposition (John 3:6-8; 19-21). Faith is, therefore, not something produced by our unregenerated human nature. The fallen sinner has no moral ability or inclination to believe prior to the new birth. Instead, the Holy Spirit must open one's ears to the preaching of the gospel if one would desire to hear and believe.

The author is misleading when he claims, "this [i. e., monergism] been the historic teaching of the Church among its greatest theologians," for the names he gives are:

Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Luther (who considered this doctrine the heart of the Reformation), John Calvin, John Owen, the Puritans of the 17th century, Augustine, George Whitefield, and some contemporary pastors and theologians such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones, John Piper, Wayne Grudem, R.C. Sproul, D.A. Carson, Michael Horton, J.I. Packer, James Montgomery Boice, and signatories to the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.

In other words, by "historic church" he means only the church of the last five hundred years. (He also mischaracterizes St. John Cassian as a semi-Pelagian, which is just false.)

But in fact, the historic, biblical and orthodox belief of the Church about soteriology is one of synergism, which is exemplified in the following passages (though others could be mentioned), which the author himself avoids:

For by grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is working in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13)

What does it profit, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Is that kind of faith able to save him? if a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the necessary things of the body, what is the benefit? Thus also that faith, if it does not have works, is dead, being by itself. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by means of my works. You believe God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe--and they shudder! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by means of his works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called a friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by means of works, when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:14-26)

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and became partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powerful deeds of the age to come, and having fallen away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and hold Him up to contempt. For the earth which drinks the rain often coming upon it, and bears suitable vegetation for those on account of whom it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, of which the end is for burning. But we are persuaded concerning you, beloved, of better things and those pertaining to salvation, even though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. But we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, lest you become dull, but become imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:4-12)

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another for the stirring up of love and of good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves, just as is the custom for some, but exhorting one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. For if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery zeal being about to devour the adversaries. Anyone disregarding the law of Moses dies without compassions on the testimony of two or three witnesses. By how much worse punishment, do you think, will he be deemed worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, and has regarded as common the blood of the covenant, by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, "Vengeance is Mine; I will repay," says the Lord. And again, "The LORD will judge His people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! But remember the former days, in which after you were enlightened, you endured a great struggle of sufferings, in part being exposed publicly, both to reproaches and to afflictions, and in part having become partners of those treated in this way. For you sympathized with me in my chains, and you received the plunder of your possessions with joy, knowing that you have for yourselves a better and enduring possession in heaven. Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has a great recompense. For you have need of endurance, so that having done the will of God, you may receive the promise: "For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not delay. But the just shall live by faith, and if he withdraws, My soul has no pleasure in him." But we are not of those shrinking back to destruction, but of faith, to the saving of the soul. (Hebrews 10:23-39)

Unfortunately, the afore-cited monergist defines synergism as a strawman which he then knocks down:

Before defining monergism, we should start on more familiar ground to 21st century man by explaining the more familiar "synergism", which the majority of our churches teach today. Synergism is the doctrine that the act of being born again is achieved through a combination of human will and divine grace. (From Greek sunergos, working together : sun-, syn- + ergon, work). The Century Dictionary defines synergism as

"...the doctrine that there are two efficient agents in regeneration, namely the human will and the divine Spirit, which, in the strict sense of the term, cooperate. This theory accordingly holds that the soul has not lost in the fall all inclination toward holiness, nor all power to seek for it under the influence of ordinary motives."

In other words, synergists believe that faith itself, a principle standing independent and autonomous of God's action of grace, is something the natural man must add or contribute toward the price of his salvation. Unregenerate man, in this scheme, is left to his freewill and natural ability to believe or reject God. Synergists teach that God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation but that the [fallen, rebellious] human will must determine the final outcome. It does this by reaching down into an autonomous principle within in its fallen unrenewed nature in order to either produce a right thought or create a right volition toward God.

He then goes on to create this chart which similarly mischaracterizes synergism.

In point of fact, as the above Scriptural texts show, it is not a 50-50 proposition, that "God takes us halfway" but then we "add" the rest. In point of fact it is a 100-100 proposition, in which the human agent and God are united in total to one another. Monergism posits an either/or: either man is not fallen and can act to receive grace, or man is fallen and cannot act to receive grace. But according to the teaching of the historic Church, man is fallen and can act to receive grace. In other words, orthodoxy rejects the necessary presupposition of monergism that man is totally depraved not merely forensically but volitionally, and that such depravity excludes free will. But if one takes away that presupposition, monergism cannot go forward in its argument.

Furthermore, the principle of orthodox soteriology is based on the doctrine of the Incarnation and the condemnation of the belief of only one will (the divine will) in Christ at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, a heresy known as monothelitism.

As the Councils taught, Christ has two natures and two wills in one Person. For if Christ did not have both a human will and nature and a divine will and nature, the human will and nature could not be saved. But if Christ has assumed human nature and will, then the teaching that human will is not free is to assume that Christ's human will was not free, and that Christ, himself, in his human will could not act in concert with the will of God, except that only the divine will in himself is operative. But this is to teach heresy. For as Scripture clearly indicates, Jesus' two wills cooperated in the work of our redemption:

Therefore He was obligated to become like His brothers in all respects, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, in order that He might make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but having been tempted in all respects in quite the same way as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Just as He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek"; who [Jesus], in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up both prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears to the One who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His fear of God, though He was a Son, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him . . . (Hebrews 5:6-9)

Then Jesus said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death. Stay here and watch with Me." He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will." Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "What? Were you not strong enough to watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. Indeed the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, let Your will be done." (Matthew 26:38-42)

In other words, Jesus' human will was brought into conformity with the divine will, meaning human will was and is free to respond to God. Otherwise, any discussion of human volition, pre- or post-regeneration, is moot. Even if we posit that human will was in bondage up until the ministry of Christ (which creates all kinds of problems with regard to Old Testament saints), post-Resurrection the human will is free in the hypostasis of the Son (Cf. Romans 5:12-19)

(For an important theologian and his teaching on free will, divine Providence and salvation, cf. St. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Books II.24-III.1 [link starts at Bk II.24].)

In other words, monergists do two things: they separate out soteriology from Christology and effectively deny human free will of Christ, which is no different than teaching monothelitism, and thus espousing a heresy.

Scripture and Tradition: My Dia-Blog with Kevin Draws to an End

Kevin has offered the last word in this series of posts between us on Tradition and Scripture. He has conceded the infallibility of the Church, though he understands it differently than do I. Given his concession, it is tempting to take up the conversation anew. But it is a temptation I will resist. I thank him for his willingness to debate these matters in the strong way that he has, though with consummate respect and courtesy. As promised, I've linked to his reply, and it is the final link in the series which follows below.

No, You Do NOT Have a Right to Depart from the Tradition (Initial post by Clifton)
Inscripturated Apostolic Tradition (Initial response by Kevin)
My Reply to Kevin re: Tradition and Scripture (Clifton)
Response to Tradition and Scripture (Kevin)
My Account of Scripture and Tradition (Secondary post by Clifton reflecting on Scripture and Tradition in general)
Voiding the Word (Kevin's reply to "My Account of Scripture and Tradition")
Tradition and Scripture Continued: My Response to Kevin (Clifton's reply to Kevin's "Response to Tradition and Scripture")
A-Voiding the Word: My Response to Kevin's Other Post (Clifton's Reply to Kevin's "Voiding the Word")
Epistemological Comfort Blankets (Kevin's combined reply to the previous two replies by Clifton)
Hermeneutics and Infallibility, or, As Expected, the Impasse Has Quickly Been Reached: A Reply to Kevin (Clifton's reply to Kevin)
Vicious Interpretive Circles (Kevin's reply)
Vicious Interpretive Circles, Indeed! (A Final Reply to Kevin?) (Clifton again)
What We Have Here (Kevin's reply to the above post)
What Have We Here? (My Final Reply to Kevin. Period.)
Conceding Infallibility (Kevin's Final Reply)

Life in the Fast Lane

Great and Holy Lent starts for Orthodox during Vespers this Sunday. The traditional Lenten fast begins. Adam A. J. DeVille's article in the latest issue of Touchstone, Life in the Fast Lane, pretty much captures my feelings:

The prospect of no meat (let alone no dairy or anything else) made me almost want to weep. With Chesterton, I believe that “Catholicism is a thick steak, a frosted stout, and a good cigar,” and the idea of giving up any of those was almost unbearable even to think about.

I figured I was in for a fiendishly difficult time and would scarcely make it through the first few days before throwing up my hands in disgust at my weakness.

Don't misunderstand. My fasting rule, should Father choose to bless it, will not be so rigorous as the author's. Of course, with my wife being pregnant, Father has pretty much refused anything that would add to the normal struggles of her pregnancy. I don't need to go into the details, but it's very minor.

Still, that being said, the thought of doing anything that involves denying my body of its cravings is, well, perhaps not frightening, but just darn unwelcome. I regret to say, my body pretty much gets its way when it comes to drink and diet. Do I have "the munchies"? A quick trip to the vending machine for some chips or a candy bar is an almost automatic reflex. Do I want to grab a burrito for supper as I head out to teach class, instead of the more healthy meal sitting in my lunch sack on the seat beside me? It's as good as done.

I can understand why there is a strong tradition in the Church, exemplified by St. Theophan the Recluse, which views the passions as an alien contagion in the body. It seems as if these passions know that I'm going to be taking more notice of them, that I am going to be quite intentionally battling them and denying them their way. And, at the risk of sounding a little bit unhinged, it seems clear to me they don't like it one bit.

If I can continue in this somewhat mad way of speaking, I think my body is taking their side. Yesterday, I failed in the fasting I was supposed to have done. It was as though my body, sensing the battle that would be fought on its ground in the coming days, recoiled from the coming mortification, took sides with the enemy, and held my will captive. The indulgence lay bitter in my belly the whole afternoon.

I'm being a bit melodramatic, of course. The body did not hold my will captive, nor did my body turn traitorous against me. No, I freely chose to join the betrayal. I am the one who recoiled from the fight. It was my will that freely chose to shirk my discipline and obligation. It was my will that chose to believe the lie that the earthly food was more sustaining than the heavenly food of God's will.

There is a lesson to Lenten fasting:

For if one can give up food, which the body absolutely requires to stay alive, then one can certainly give up the attachment to the sensual passions—which, contrary to our world, one does not need to indulge to stay alive. (As Evelyn Waugh once wrote, “People today say you cannot be happy unless your sex life is happy. That makes about as much sense as saying you cannot be happy unless your golf life is happy. It’s not only nonsense, it’s mischievous nonsense.”)

What one needs to stay alive is Christ. May we receive the gift of fasting as a powerful practice that unites, purifies, and strengthens us as the Body of Christ, enabling us to live more and more in and for him. In our day more than ever, we need to undertake a recovery of fasting, purifying ourselves and the Church, and in the process receiving the gift of unending joy at Pascha, where we may sing—in the words of the paschal tropar so beloved by Eastern Christians: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!”

Where Is the Church? Part VI

Recapitulation

In the first part of this series of posts, I noted that all ecclesiologies essentially reduce to two opposing options: the Branch Model, in which the Church is comprised of all the various churches and groups, in a spiritual union; and the Exclusive Model in which a church or group claims to be the Church, visible and incarnate, as well as spiritual, in contradistinction to all the rest. I argued in that first part that of the two models, the Branch Model was fundamentally flawed and failed to substantiate its own claims. I contended that the Branch Model does not take seriously the incarnate nature of the Church, which the Church must have if it is Christ’s Body, but necessarily spiritualizes such union in a way that ultimately negates an incarnate and visible union. The Exclusive Model, on the other hand, fundamentally integrates both the spiritual and the incarnate realities of the unity of the Church, and thus is the proper model for ecclesiology. However, that does not mean that any exclusive claim to be the Church can be taken on its face. There must be standard, essential characteristics that distinguish the true Church from all others making the claim to be the Church.

In the next four parts in this series of posts (Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V), I one by one examined the four cardinal characteristics of the Church: unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity. These essential qualities are enumerated in the Nicene Creed, but lest I be thought to be question-begging, I turned to St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, with support from other New Testament Scriptures, to show that these qualities are, indeed, essential qualities of the Church, and, more importantly, how the New Testament defines those qualities. On some of those qualities, especially that of catholicity, I also drew in support from among the earliest Christian writings to show that my interpretation of these New Testament texts was in line with what the earliest Christians understood about these concepts.

If I have done my task well, I have argued for an understanding of the Church that necessitates a claim to exclusivity (there is only one visible body among all Christian churches and groups that can lay claim to the reality of being the Church) and confirmed from the New Testament what criteria one may have for discerning between competing claims. Furthermore, I have also further supported my contention that the Branch Model is a heresy, and we should look for a church or group that claims to be the visible, incarnate Body of Christ exclusive to all others.

So, taking these four characteristics in hand, let’s return to the two models and see how it is that the Branch Model is a heresy and the Exclusive Model fundamentally correct. We will then draw near to an answer to the question with which these posts have been concerned: Where is the Church?

Back to the Models

In addition to the failure to substantiate its own claims, the Branch Model fails to live up to the New Testament criteria for being the Church. As we have seen, the unity of the Church is both divine and human, spiritual and earthly, visible/incarnate and invisible. It encompasses all of the Church in the heavenlies, as well as the Church on earth. The Branch Model cannot offer this full unity, for the visible/incarnate reality of the Branch Model is that all the churches and groups it attempts to draw into its schema are divided from one another, and the divisions are not merely superficial but significant. The Branch Model fails on holiness, for we know this holiness must be an incarnate one, which necessitates a sacramental understanding of faith and salvation. And yet many churches and groups reject sacraments. The Branch Model fails on catholicity, because it cannot locate the fullness of the Church in any one local body, particularly if that local body rejects the Eucharistic Mystery. The Branch Model necessitates a view that individual congregations are only parts of a greater whole, and this is not the New Testament understanding of the local Church. Finally, the Branch Model fails on apostolicity not only because it is not possible to assign apostolicity to the full body of contrary and contradictory teachings that are claimed to be “apostolic,” but also because it cannot substantiate a tangible and lived connection between its members today and the historical men and women who were the first Pentecostal members of the Church; the embodied ways of life are impossible of all reconciling with the way of life handed down by the apostles.

The Exclusive Model, on the other hand, gives room for all these New Testament characteristics to be realized. The Exclusive Model more fully manifests unity in that it gives credence not just to the spiritual unity, but also recognizes that the spiritual unity must be incarnated in a particular body. The Exclusive Model also more fully manifests holiness in that it incarnates that holiness of the Church among a particular people, especially in the Eucharist. The Exclusive Model best manifest catholicity as it reveals the whole Church in the local Church as well as manifests its connection to the worldwide Churches. And the Exclusive Model more fully manifests apostolicity not only because it can claim apostolic doctrine, but because it can demonstrate an incarnate connection to the apostolic Church.

Discernment

But there are many churches that claim to be the Church, or the New Testament Church. My heritage churches, especially the a capella churches of Christ, claimed to have restored the New Testament Church in our day. The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the Church. The Orthodox Churches claim to be the Church Christ founded. Southern Baptists make their claim as to being the Church, and preaching an apostolic gospel of salvation by faith alone. How does one decide?

I submit that the only criteria that can be of any help are the ones we have examined in these posts.

If the Church is the Body of Christ, it must be one. If the Church is one, then there is only one real Church. Making this claim does not limit the grace and workings of God to the embodied Church. God sends the sunshine on the good and the wicked. The Spirit moves where he will. But it is to say that one may and must say, "Here is the Church." In our present schismatic reality, this point must be strongly pressed, though it be as strongly disbelieved. If the Church is the Body of Christ, it cannot be divided, since Christ is one, and the Trinity is one. The schisms we have witnessed in history and presently are not divisions within the one, indivisible Body of Christ, but divisions away from it. And that means that any church today claiming to be the Church must never have divided from the historic Church, the Church which can be traced historically, ontologically, if you will, back to the day of Pentecost.

If the Church which Christ founded is holy, this holiness will not merely be a juridical declaration, but will have incarnate reality. Christ, in assuming a body, sanctified the human body. Christ, in being baptized in the Jordan, sanctified all the waters of the world. Christ, in ascending bodily into heaven left a visible, incarnate Church in which bread is sanctified, wine is sanctified, water and oil is sanctified. That is to say, the Church has sacraments. Bread and wine become through the invocation of the Holy Spirit, the Body and Blood of Christ, just as through the Holy Spirit, the womb of a virgin in Nazareth became God's throne. Many Christians today reject this. They do so naively, to be sure, but in so doing they unwittingly but truly reject the Church Christ has given us.

If the Church is truly catholic, then it will not be a sum of all its parts, but will, in each local Church, contain the whole of Christ in the Eucharist and thus the whole of the Church as well. Thus, each bishop, who pastors each local Church, will be among brothers, and though some brothers may be graced with special dignity and honor, no one brother will rule over all, for all are shepherds who serve as undershepherds to our Chief Pastor and Bishop, Christ.

If the Church is the Body of Christ and apostolic, then it must be and proclaim the truth of Christ. That is to say, the genuineness of any group's claim to be the Church (or a part of the Church) rests significantly on whether or not it proclaims the truth of Christ, for Christ himself is the Truth, and departure from truth is a departure from Christ. Christ promised to lead the apostles, and the Church, into all truth. Part of that revelation, by Paul's own account, is both recorded in the documents that the Church has discerned to be the Scriptures and kept by way of the so-called "oral teachings" of the Apostles. It also, in concert with Christ's promises, includes those dogmatic decisions of the one, visible Church on matters of faith (for example, the ecumenical Councils). Thus, any group which teaches that which is contrary to Scripture or the ecumenical teachings of the Church, or denies those Scriptures and teachings, may rightly be doubted as to the veracity of its claim to be the Church, or part of the Church. Thus, for example, anyone who or any group which would deny the biblical and conciliar understandings of the person and work of Christ may invalidate, by their own mouths, their claims to be part of the Church. This would include, in part, the denial of Jesus' divinity and humanity, the Trinitarian understanding of God's being, the Virgin Birth, the bodily Resurrection, the unending rule of Christ, etc.

I well recognize that certain of my readers will reject these conclusions, but in so doing, they must reject what has been previously discussed, either that these are indeed the characteristics of the Church of Christ, or that the New Testament defines them in this way. And they are welcome to advance their own arguments as to what those characteristics should be and mean. I am doubtful, however, that a better case can be made. Not because I have argued it, but because it is, I believe, the ancient case and has stood the test of time.

A Personal Conclusion

You will note that throughout this argument I have refrained from making any definitive statement as to which church or group is the Church. I have made some comments exemplifying some of my points that may be seen to be critical of specific churches, but have not, for all that, definitively said, “These are not the Church,” or “These are the Church.” My intent has been to let the argument speak for itself, in particular my argument derived from the New Testament texts.

Those who've read my blog for more than a day, however, will know exactly my thoughts on the matter. They will know that I believe and am firmly convinced that the Orthodox Church is truly what She claims to be, the Church Christ founded in the New Testament which continues, as He promised, to this day. I hope it will now be seen that I do not make this claim, or rather, I do not affirm this claim lightly, or as a matter of mere personal preference. It is as a result of much study and prayer.

I recognize that this will likely offend my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. I do wish such a claim would not create the offense, but for that to happen, Rome and the Orthodox would have to reunite.

But I do, I feel, owe my Roman Catholic readers an explanation as to why I think Orthodoxy is the Church. Regrettably, due to the nature of this series of posts, as well as my blog in general, such an explanation must be brief. In short, I do not believe that the ancient Church ever taught the rule of one bishop over the entire Church. I can see no theological, biblical, historical or liturgical evidence that would support such a teaching. I recognize that abler men and women than me have defended this teaching, and I have read those arguments. But I am not convinced. Furthermore, I do not believe the ancient Church ever taught the doctrine of original sin as the Roman Catholic Church teaches it, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, based on that doctrine of original sin, or the infallibility of the Pope (I believe the infallibility belongs to the Church, not to a single bishop). These doctrines, particularly papal supremacy and infallibility, however, are not just theologoumena, but are absolutely required of every Catholic. This, I believe, is a distortion of the apostolic deposit, and a departure from the ancient faith of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Finally, I cannot accept the filioque. Though I know the filioque has been explained in such a way so as to make it consonant with ancient Trinitarian theology, I believe that some of the Trinitarian errors that have arisen, even if they have later been rejected, have arisen in part because of this unjustified addition to the Creed.

For these reasons, and in comparing what the Orthodox teach today with the ancient epitomes and creeds of the faith and the Scriptures, I believe that only Orthodox can legitimately claim to have kept the faith without addition or subtraction, whole and entire that was first given to the Apostles.

And that is why I am an “Orthodox wannabe,” patiently waiting and praying and working to enter the Orthodox Church with all my family.

The Fatherhood Chronicles LXV

Thank You, a Million Times, Thank You

Lord Jesus, who am I and what is my house that you would have such regard for me? I am nothing without you. My life is bookended by grace. You brought me into existence, you knit me together in my mother's womb. How could one who once did not exist do anything to deserve this gift of life? Yet you added to even this immeasurable grace, a home. What a wonder. A home. Love. Warmth. The embrace of my father. The gentle mercy of my mother. The sisters who love such an undeserving one as myself.

This storehouse of undeserved grace would have been enough, for it was given and received without merit. But many waters cannot quench your love, and so you called to me on my bed, just before sleep, when I was but a child. And through the loving family you gave to me, and the grace of my grandfather's ministry, you made me to partake of your Triune life. Even my child's sins would have been reason enough to take from me the life you had given. But your justice was clothed with mercy and you poured out on me grace upon grace.

Still, even as a child I learned to love sin, and having been showered with your love twice over, I turned from you. Yet through the long years your love for me did not dim. You called to me once more, and awakened again that love that I had let grow cold. Once again, it was through the prayers I made on my bed before sleep that we met, and your love fanned into flame my own. I knew then the bitterness of my love for sin, and your love strengthened my repentance.

I was but a teenager. What did I know of repentance? Yet you met me in that moment of choice, and in all such moments since, and strengthened that which I had not the strength on my own, double minded as I am, to do. I gave to you my will, and you joined it to your own. And oh, what grace that has been, for you have kept me ever close.

This, all this, would have been far too much, far too overwhelming. But you surely wanted to completely undo me in amazement at your grace. For you brought to me that woman you have ordained for my salvation, my wife, the mother of my children. If you had given her to me as my helpmeet, that would have been enough. But instead you gave me such a mercy that I cannot even speak of it. I am struck dumb in wonder. You showed me clearly what it is you do when you save a soul. From violation and cruelty you have drawn such a picture of beauty and grace in her life that I cannot but weep for the awe of it. It is a mystery too great, a wonder too stark, a grace so deep that it would be like grasping white hot fire to my bosom.

But dare I go on? The tears rise to my eyes. Once more, how can I say this, yet again, you showered your grace on me when I least expected it. You brought wisdom into my life . . . wisdom for such a fool as me! You made me a father. What is this grace? I do not understand it. I see my blue-eyed daughter dancing, turning circles, singing, kissing your cross, and embracing the icon of your mother . . . I see and I am struck dumb with the mercy of it all. I speak to her in the morning of your Gospel, “Good morning,” I say, “God loves you.” But what paltry speech that is for such a grace. And how it pales in comparison to the full-orbed symphony of the Gospel she preaches to me each day. I kiss her, I embrace her, and I know, just as I know from what you have done in her mother, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”

And, oh, what more can I tell? My life is adorned with a million graces, and yet you add one more. For in the womb of that mystery play of grace which you have given me, and give me each day, as a wife, dances another child. I am a father twice over when I never deserved it in the first place.

What fool would I be to tell you to stop, that I will be completely undone by any more grace? And yet what have I now but these tears? These liquid prayers rise like thank offerings, salted with the very being you gave me decades ago. So, here is my offering, pitiful in comparison to the wealth of your rich love. I have only a tear-filled heart full of thanks. You may have it. It is yours anyway.

What Have We Here? (My Final Reply to Kevin. Period.)

Kevin has given a reply to my last post in our exchange: What We Have Here. Much of that reply is rehash of what has gone before, so I will not deal with it as extensively as I have before. Indeed, once again Kevin's reply does not serve to advance the discussion any further, though it does serve to highlight even more our differences. For this reason, and due also to the encroachment of Great and Holy Lent, this will be my final response to Kevin. If he chooses to reply to this my final post, I will link to it on the main page of my blog, and allow him to have the last word. For my purposes, this is my last word on the matter between us.

(Note: A list of all the posts in this dia-blog to date, not including this one, follows at the end of this post.)

Kevin once again objects to my interpretation of his comments:

Clifton's latest response is largely filled with the claim that he had indeed substantively captured my argument and refuted it, even though I didn't, and still don't recognize this argument as put in his own words.

But this is all he has ever said about these things: that he doesn't recognize my purported interpretation. He says I've gotten his argument wrong. But it's not yet been demonstrated that I've in fact gotten him wrong or that the conclusions and implications I draw from his arguments are in fact themselves invalid. So, I maintain still that I have grasped Kevin's argument and drawn the proper valid inferences and conclusions. Kevin may not like the end result, but he can choose only from a few options: to keep his opinion in the face of the demonstration of its errors, revise his opinion to address the errors, or give up his opinion.

He next quibbles that I've misconstrued what connotations he intends by his use of tradition:

To the main point, though. Clifton concludes, "For the record we stand where we first did: Kevin arguing that (true) Tradition is nothing more than the propositional and inferential content of Scripture, and me arguing that Scripture is part of Tradition, the same in essence but different in material." For may part, this doesn't quite capture it. The fault could well be my own. I have said that the whole of tradition has been inscripturated; however, I did not mean to imply that it has been stripped of its life and is now nothing more than propositional and inferential content.

This is a diversion. I've never indicated that his understanding of tradition is void of life. But even if I had, the issue is whether his understanding of tradition is correct, true and valid. I have contended that it is not.

He next finally begins to address the main point of our extended dia-blog:

This discussion is limited to those who at least agree on the divine authority of Scripture (or, at a minimum, the "Protestant 66"). Within these parameters, those who add to this propositional base and those who do not are advocating contradictory claims. Furthermore, the burden of proof is on the one who wants to make the additions. Here is the place to bring up Clifton's refrain that one of my favorite fallacies is assuming that lack of proof for the other side consitutes proof for my own. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it constitutes proof of my own, since, any minute now, he could pull out all that proof that he's been saving back. But, until this happens, it does constitute excellent grounds to think that my position is the more reasonable option. Our positions (within the parameters described) are not merely contrary, such that only one of us might be right but both could be wrong. They are contradictory positions, such that one of us must be right and the other must be wrong. Add to this that the burden of proof is on his side and his own lack of proof is a bigger problem for his position than he seems willing to admit.

Here he claims to not be proving his argument through the purported absence of proof of my own argument, but in point of fact, when he demands a shifting of the burden of proof to me and that I must be the one to present proof that Tradition is legitimately larger than the inscripturated Tradition, he assumes his position by default. How does he put it? "I wouldn't go so far as to say that it constitutes proof of my own, since, any minute now, he could pull out all that proof that he's been saving back. But, until this happens, it does constitute excellent grounds to think that my position is the more reasonable option." But why should we assume that his position is the "more reasonable" one? That is exactly the point at issue. This begs the question, and despite his protestations it is a fallacy.

In the comments to the post to which I'm replying, he clarifies his "burden of proof" contention to one of his commenters who thinks the burden of proof is his:

As to the burden of proof, you're disagreement is begging the question. That he is "simply stating the ancient church's stance" and "has changed nothing" is what is in dispute. The debate is whether Holy Tradition, as understood by the Orthodox, really was a part of Christianity from the start. Our common ground will have to be found elsewhere. This is in Scripture. We both accept it is a rule of faith and practice, but I argue that it is the only binding rule. It may be that you are right about the church. However, burden of proof cannot be based upon what is in dispute, but upon what is not in dispute.

While it is true that Kevin and I agree on Scripture being a/the rule of faith and practice, what he wants to argue, "that Scripture is the only binding rule" is, indeed, in contention. I do not accept it. Just as he does not accept my argument regarding the Tradition. In other words, my contention is that Scripture is not the only binding rule. If what he is saying about burden of proof is going to be applied to my argument about the Tradition, then it must be applied to him as well. If he wants to reply that the Scripture itself makes this claim, then he can provide evidence for it.

As he sets up the examination of my views, he says (in a refrain familiar to our readers): "Not to worry, though, I can still assume the invalidity of expanded tradition based on the fact that he has not met that burden of proof." In point of fact, no, he cannot assume invalidity simply because the burden of proof hasn't been met. This is a logically fallacy. (I am mystified that he cannot see this.) The only valid and logical claim he can make is that I've not met the burden of proof. Or to say it more technically: if he can demonstrate the invalidity of my argument, he can say I have an invalid argument, that I haven't met the burden of proof. But he cannot assume that the claim itself is not true or that a valid argument cannot be made. And this, in fact, is what he is doing. It is convenient for him to do this, because he can then claim his opinion in correct. But that is an invalid and illogical claim. One ought not be fooled.

Think of it this way: We have been making two arguments both in parallel and in response to one another, he arguing for a view of inscripturated Tradition, me arguing for a view of Tradition in which Scripture is included. But these are two distinct arguments, they are not simply the positive and negative side of the same question. Therefore, he cannot claim "burden of proof." If they were truly the positive and negative sides of the argument, it would be me arguing that Tradition is authoritative alongside Scripture, and him arguing that there is only inscripturated Tradition. But my argument has never been that Tradition and Scripture are parallel authorities, but that the authority itself is the Tradition, one manifestation of which is the Scripture.

Furthermore, his intimation that I have not provided proof for my position is disingenuous. In point of fact, I have provided proof of my argument, itself limited to the very Scriptures he claims are the only legitimate form of the Tradition. That he disagrees with my interpretation of certain passages is evident. But primarily what he has done is gainsay my interpretations. And this is where the matter stands: we disagree on the proper understanding of the seminal texts undergirding our respective positions.

Kevin then goes on to rehash the different interpretations of Matthew 18:18-20, 1 Timothy 3:15, and John 16:13. With regard to Matthew 18, he says nothing new and again fails to address the promise of binding and loosing in matters of discipline that Christ gives to the Church and the infallible discernment necessary for such a promise to be realized. I'll leave it to our readers to determine who has the better read of this passage.

With regard to John 16:13, Kevin still attempts to make distinctions in Jesus' promise between the promise being one of the Apostles writing the Scriptures, and later followers interpreting them. He claims the infallibility adheres to the former and not to the latter. But this is a distinction unsupported by the text. Kevin has to limit what Jesus meant by "truth" here, because his argument demands it, but he cannot prove it. He can import his tendentious readings into the text, but this only begs the question, which is no proof. In point of fact, what Jesus promised was that the Holy Spirit would lead them into all truth. Kevin presumably knows his argument is weak here, so he does admit that the Holy Spirit goes on then to illumine the members of the Church to understand the Scriptures. But in so doing, he has simply confirmed the tenor of my reading of John 16:13. He's just gotten to it in a roundabout way. In other words, we once again disagree on the interpretation of John 16:13, but I'll leave it to our readers to determine whether it makes sense from the text itself to interpret it the way Kevin does or the way I do.

With regard to 1 Timothy 3, the only thing he adds is that for my interpretation of the Church's infallibility in this passage to be true, I must argue that the Church's infallibility is necessary. It's not clear what he means by this. For if the Church is, as he admits, a pillar and ground of the truth, then it is necessary that the Church be what Paul says She is. He further admits that this claim (the Church is a pillar and ground of the truth) is compatible with his own contention that the Holy Spirit and the inscripturated word are similarly infallible pillars and grounds of the truth. But he doesn't want to admit the reality of an infallible Church, so if we have the Holy Spirit and the inscripturated Tradition, there's no need, so he claims, for an infallible Church. But this only dances around the text. For if the Scripture is infallible, which he admits, and the Scripture calls the Church a pillar and ground of the truth, then it is necessary that the Church be that very thing. Where Kevin and I differ, then, is what it means for the Church to be a pillar and ground of the truth. I claim it means infallibility, for if the truth itself is upheld and founded upon the Church (in complete harmony with the Scripture and the Holy Spirit), then the Church cannot err, or fail in terms of the truth. Kevin hasn't addressed this claim from the infallible Scriptures. He's avoided it. He has to, because it is fatal to his argument. Whether our readers think Kevin or I have the better interpretation of 1 Timothy 3, I'll leave to them.

Though I have clearly stated that this issue is one of hermeneutics, Kevin wants to commit my argument to the terms of epistemology. Though I admit hermeneutics and epistemology are related, they are necessarily distinct. So I'm not persuaded it's a matter of epistemology. After all, neither of us is arguing as to whether knowledge is itself possible or impossible, rather, we are arguing as to whether any particular disputed interpretation of a given text can be trusted. This is not a matter of whether or not we can know anything at all, but how it is we can know the truth of the Scriptural texts. And that is a hermeneutical problem.

I should be clear: my argument on the Church's infallibility is based on the Scriptural texts and the proof of what the Church is and has been promised. I have not made the argument that since there is a need for authority in deciding between interpretations, therefore the Church must be infallible. Whether or not there is a need for such interpretive authority is beside the point of my argument. The question is whether Scripture predicates infallibility of the Church. I argue that it does. If my argument from Scripture is both valid and true, and if there is, indeed, a need for such an infallible interpreter, then the Church can fill that need. But whether or not the Church is infallible is not predicated upon the need. Or at least I have not done so in my argument.

So when Kevin replies to my uncovering of three of his red herrings--"But this is not a tu quoque [an logical fallacy]. The main reason is that Clifton has presented ecclesiastical interpretive infallibility as the answer to epistemological uncertainty. I am responding to his argument, not to Clifton himself, by denying this."--he is just simply incorrect. My argument is not that infallibility is an answer to the need of hermeneutic (and not epistemological) uncertainty. My argument is that infallibility is a quality of the Church. Period. Yet despite that I have clearly articulated this argument, Kevin still replies, "[G]iven that Clifton is the one who brought up the necessity of an infallible church for settling interpretive disputes, I find this point disingenuous." That may well be what he finds it, but in the face of my clear articulation of my argument, if he cannot substantiate that I am predicating infallibility on the need for settling hermeneutic uncertainty, he can call it disingenuous all he wants, but it will not refute the argument.

That being said, however, there is, in fact, such a need to guide interpreters through hermeneutical disputes. For if the matter of Scripture and Tradition does ultimately come to, as I contend, a problem of hermeneutics, then, as Kevin puts it,

How can one know what the Scripture means? . . . How does one know whose interpretation is authoritative?

As has been demonstrated in our exchange, the inescapable issue really becomes one of trust and authority. (And this is why, I think, Kevin keeps thinking that my argument is predicated on this need.) Kevin wants to claim that no matter how one states the question, it will always boil down to the decision of the individual interpreter: "The question of who to trust, whether it is one's own interpretation of Scripture or the interpretation of the group, including any and all churches, is still a matter of individual decision." And as he states again only sentences after that assertion: "[I]t is still up to the individual to indentify the infallible authority among competing claims."

Presumably Kevin thinks by this relativization to deflate my argument for the Church's infallibility. It seems that his argument is that instead of an infallible Church resolving interpretive differences, everything still boils down to the individual making the determination. But this relativization not only does not deflate my argument, it actually strengthens it.

First of all, Kevin has merely confirmed the conclusions I've traced from his argument, for if Christ did not, in fact, promise infallibility to His Church, then it ultimately makes little difference whether or not the Scriptures are infallible. For that claim itself (that Scripture is infallible) is a result not of an unequivocal, "Thus saith the Lord," book-chapter-verse, declarative statement in Scripture, but an inference--that is to say, an interpretation--made on the basis of other propositions one finds in Scripture. Indeed, in admitting from the start that Tradition is nothing more than the propositional and inferential content of Scripture, Kevin imports hermeneutics into his very definition of Tradition. This is the fundamental question-begging, and fallacious, nature of his account that I have been demonstrating from the beggining. His argument fails from the beginning because it is fundamentally circular.

Secondly, Kevin's relativization cannot escape its solipsism. If the scenario really is what he says it is, then not only do I, nor does anyone else, have any reason whatsoever to follow his interpretation, in the end, neither does he. It is another form of the cogito: "I interpret, therefore I am." I should be clear to note that he has, in an earlier post, admitted that in hermeneutical disputes one should submit to the interpretation of one's church's leaders. One would well ask why that should be the case, if in the end the individual interpreter is the final arbiter, but no sooner does one frame the question than Kevin adds that if one has a conviction that to obey one's leaders would be to disobey God, then one should disobey one's leaders. So, he does consistently finally return to the individual interpreter.

Thirdly, it appears that Kevin thinks that by denying the infallibility of the Church he has strengthened the case for the infallibility, and sole authority, of the Scriptures. But as is by now obvious, in reality he has only affirmed the practical infallibility of the individual interpreter. He resists this conclusion, indeed, he would likely deny it is a valid conclusion. But despite his denial, it is inevitable. An infallible Scripture will always, must always, be interpreted. If the Church is not an infallible authority, it will make no difference whether or not Kevin actually argues for an infallible interpreter, in the way he frames his argument the individual must necessarily function as though he were infallible. Not even Kevin can get around this, which he has shown here by explicitly resorting to it.

In actual fact, however, I dispute what Kevin contends. That an individual is always an interpreter when it comes to Scripture, and that an individual is called to discrimination and discernment of interpretive and authority claims, we may take as a given. But this does not necessarily end in hermeneutic uncertainty. As Kevin himself has concluded, it does boil down to trust. Indeed, I would contend that epistemology itself (as distinct from hermeneutics) ultimately comes down to faith, even if that is a faith in reason. Both Kevin and I would argue that our faith is placed in God's Spirit to lead us into all truth. The difference between us is that Kevin thinks the individual is finally and ultimately competent to be that conduit of truth, whereas I think the Church is that entity.

Kevin's final two paragraphs ask some questions as to the relation of the Church's infallibility and soteriology. As these paragraphs take us away from the argument proper, I will not address these in detail. I will only note briefly that the Orthodox understanding of salvation is predicated on the synergy expressed in Philippians 2:12-13, Ephesians 2:10, and James 2:17-26. I will also note that it is in that latter reference that the infallible text says: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone" (emphasis added).

Final Note: For all the posts in this discussion, cf. the following:

No, You Do NOT Have a Right to Depart from the Tradition (Initial post by Clifton)
Inscripturated Apostolic Tradition (Initial response by Kevin)
My Reply to Kevin re: Tradition and Scripture (Clifton)
Response to Tradition and Scripture (Kevin)
My Account of Scripture and Tradition (Secondary post by Clifton reflecting on Scripture and Tradition in general)
Voiding the Word (Kevin's reply to "My Account of Scripture and Tradition")
Tradition and Scripture Continued: My Response to Kevin (Clifton's reply to Kevin's "Response to Tradition and Scripture")
A-Voiding the Word: My Response to Kevin's Other Post (Clifton's Reply to Kevin's "Voiding the Word")
Epistemological Comfort Blankets (Kevin's combined reply to the previous two replies by Clifton)
Hermeneutics and Infallibility, or, As Expected, the Impasse Has Quickly Been Reached: A Reply to Kevin (Clifton's reply to Kevin)
Morphemics: Vicious Interpretive Circles (Kevin's reply)
Vicious Interpretive Circles, Indeed! (A Final Reply to Kevin?) (Clifton again)
What We Have Here (Kevin's penultimate [?] reply to the above post and that to which this post is a reply)

If Kevin replies to this post, I will link to it on the main page, and update this list of links to include both this reply and Kevin's last words, if any.

Where Is the Church? Part V

Apostolic

The apostolicity of the Church is fairly uncontroversial. Few Christians would deny that for the Church, however they conceive it, apostolicity is essential. The difficulty arises, however, in coming to terms with what that characteristic actually signifies. Is it primarily about doctrine? Is it primarily about historical episcopal continuity (i. e., apostolic succession)?

That a Church's apostolicity is predicated on unity with apostolic teaching is largely uncontroversial. From the very first entrance of the Church into history, we know that believers conscientiously aligned themselves with apostolic doctrine.

And they were persevering in the teaching of the apostles and in the communion, and in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. (Acts 2:42, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

Nor was this devotion to the apostles' teaching merely a matter of conveying the “spirit” of apostolic teaching. As though the apostolic teaching could be reduced to an essence which allowed for adherence to contradictory specific instantiations of that essence. As St. Paul warns the Corinthians:

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all be speaking the same thing, and that schisms may not be among you, but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same sentiment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

Not speaking the same thing or not having the same mind was tantamount to schism, schism itself being a result of not having the same mind. Their public witness, their professed teaching, needed to be consistent and in agreement with one another. And that teaching needed to be “speaking the same thing” as the apostles, and having the same mind as the apostles.

Note also the exhortation of St. Peter:

This second epistle, beloved, I now write to you, in which I stir up your sincere mind to be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior . . .” (2 Peter 3:1-2)

As St. Peter writes, we are to be mindful of the commands of the Apostles. After all, wasn't this the last charge Jesus left to his apostles?

And Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying, “All authority is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you; and behold, I am with you all the days until the completion of the age.” Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

But while being apostolic in teaching is fundamentally important, it is not the only thing which apostolicity conveys. Let us return to our fundamental texts in Ephesians.

So then ye are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God, who were built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom every building, being joined together, increaseth to a holy temple in the Lord, in Whom ye are also being built up together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

This is echoed in the Revelation given to St. John:

And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. (Revelation 21:14)

What does it mean for the Church to be built on the Apostles? It means, in part, imitation of their way of life. As St. Paul exhorted the Corinthians:

For if ye have myriads of tutors in Christ, yet ye have not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel. Therefore, I beseech you, keep on becoming imitators of me. On this account I sent to you Timothy, who is my child, beloved and faithful in the Lord, who shall remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Corinthians 4:15-17)

And to emphasize it again, he writes in the eleventh chapter, “Keep on becoming imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Note, too, that it wasn't just the imitation of one's spiritual father, or of the one who brought you to Christ, but also to imitate those deputed by him. Not only were the Corinthians to imitate Paul, the apostle, but St. Timothy, his personal representative and disciple (and bishop of Ephesus).

This, however, was not a unique dynamic between the Apostle and the Corinthians. St. Paul also has the same commendation for the Thessalonians:

For our Gospel did not come to be to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much fullness of assurance, even as ye know of what sort we were among you for your sake; and ye became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much afflictions with joy in the Holy Spirit, so that ye became examples to all those who believe in Macedonia and Achaia. (1 Thessalonians 1:5-7)

This imitation was one encompassing the words and way of life of St. Paul and his companions, “So then, brethren, be standing firm and holding fast the traditions which ye were taught, whether by word or by our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). That is to say, the things the Thessalonians imitated was the tradition which St. Paul handed down to them:

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw yourselves from every brother who walketh disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they received from us. For ye yourselves know how it is needful to imitate us for we led not a disorderly life among you. . . (2 Thessalonians 3:6-7)

So, we see that the apostolic quality of the Church is denoted not merely by the content of the apostolic teaching--which seems uncontroversial--but also by the way of life lived by the apostles. We must not only imitate what they taught, but how they lived. This brings us inescapably to the fact and reality of the Tradition, which itself embodies the way of life of the Apostles, as St. Paul himself indicates.

This way of life speaks not only to the content of our doctrine, it shapes the entire contours of our lives. As holiness and catholicity arise from the union of and with God, so, too, does apostolicity. As Christ prayed for the unity of his disciples with Himself and His Father, he prayed also for the unity of His Apostles and those who would believe on Him through their word (cf. John 17:20). Apostolicity, then, is another manifestation of the life of the Holy Trinity, and the love of God. If the early believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they devoted themselves also to their way of life, because that teaching and that way of life came from Him Who is our Life.

Since, like holiness and catholicity, this apostolic quality of the nature of the Church, in terms of our question, “Where is the Church?”, derives from the quality of unity, we can also see how it is that apostolicity must come from the life of the Church and the Holy Eucharist in which the wholeness of the Church's Life is contained. But if this apostolicity is Eucharistic, it is necessarily episcopally connected. And if this apostolicity is Eucharistic and episcopal, it will be historical. That is to say, an apostolic Church is not just a Church which has a connection of doctrinal teaching, but it is a Church that receives the way of life laid down by Christ in His Apostles through the historic connections she keeps to the Church that has come before her in the teaching and the way of life that is handed down Apostle to bishop, bishop to bishop, saint and martyr to their fellow believers. It is a tangible connection, not so much of canonical or juridical tactile ordinations (though that is certainly true of it), but a tangible connection in which the faith is taught personally and lived personally and handed down personally. One cannot make an apostolic Church from scratch. One cannot merely distill the New Testament essence and bottle it for oneself. One must receive the apostolic Church from those who themselves received it from others, on down the ages until Pentecost.

Apostolicity, then, is little more than another aspect of the earthly and heavenly reality of the Incarnation as given to, held by, and received from the historic Church.

Where Is the Church? Part IV

Catholic

It is true that the term "catholic" is not used in the New Testament, in contrast to our other three terms. The Church is explicitly called "one," and "holy," and is said to be founded on the apostles and devoted to their teachings. But we do not see a verse with the term "catholic" in it. That is not to say, however, that the concept of the Church's catholicity is not in Scripture. It is most definitely a New Testament quality of the Church as we will see.

Furthermore, catholicity is demanded from the fact of the Church's unity. As I traced in part III the characteristic of holiness from the Church's unity with the Godhead, so, too, will we trace the catholicity of the Church from that Trinitarian unity, and the wholeness obtaining in the particular. Catholicity has come to mean, for many, universality or the worldwide scope of the Church. As we trace the concept from the New Testament and one of its earliest expressions in St. Ignatios of Antioch, however, we will see that the original impetus of the word was not so much worldwide universality as completeness and wholeness.

First, let us start with the verses from the first chapter of Ephesians that will ground us in our understanding of this essential aspect of the Church.

And He put in subjection all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who filleth all things in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

The Church is the fullness of Christ, who Himself fills all things. Thus, wherever the Church is, the wholeness that is Chirst is there. If a particular Church is said to contain the fullness of Christ, it can by extension be said that a particular Church contains the wholeness of the Church, since Christ, Himself, fills the Church.

Now some may object that St. Paul is merely here referring to the universality of the the Church; i. e., that the fullness of Christ applies to the whole of the Church. We could point out that the Ephesian epistle is addressed to the Ephesian Church, but there is some textual question as to whether the ascription is original to the document, and some speculation as to whether Ephesians itself functioned as a circular letter. So let us turn our attention to the Colossian letter:

For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the divinity bodily, and ye are made full in Him, Who is the head of all principality and authority . . . (Colossians 2:9-10)

Once again we have the stress that in Jesus is the fullness of the Godhead. And here, the Apostle asserts that the Church in Colossae is "made full in Him." In other words, all of Christ dwells in the Church in Colossae, and if the Church contains the fullness of Christ, then the wholeness of the Church dwells in Colossae.

Compare also the following salutations to the Corinthians: "[T]o the Church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all those calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours" (1 Corinthians 1:2). "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the Church of God which is in Corinth, with all the saints who are in all Achaia" (2 Corinthians 1:1). In other greetings, he refers to the saints in a particular locale (Romans, Philippians, Colossians), or the Churches in a particular region (Galatia). He refers to the Church of the Thessalonians; as opposed to the Church of Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1).

But there is also the greetings of our Lord to the seven Churches of Asia Minor in the Revelation given to John:

• "To the angel of the Church in Ephesus . . ." (Revelation 2:1)
• "And to the angel of the Church in Smyrna . . ." (Revelation 2:8)
• "And to the angel of the Church in Pergamos . . ." (Revelation 2:12)
• "And to the angel of the Church in Thyatira . . ." (Revelation 2:18)
• "And to the ange of the Church in Sardis . . ." (Revelation 3:1)
• "And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia . . ." (Revelation 3:7)
• "And to the angel of the Church in Laodicea . . ." (Revelation 3:14)

The point being that just as in Christ is the fullness of the Godhead, just as the Father is the font of the Godhead, just as the Spirit is one in substance with the Godhead--that is to say, just as each Person of the Trinity is fully and completely God, so, too, each local Church, participating in this Trinitarian unity, is fully and completely the Church. Jesus is no less God than the Father or the Spirit; the Holy Spirit no less God than Jesus or the Father. Nor is it the case that adding the Three Persons together creates a sum greater than the particular Person. The fullness of the Godhead is manifest in the Trinity and in each Person of the Trinity.

So, too, is this the case of the Church and its characteristic of catholicity. This is not to deny the universal aspects of catholicity, for the whole Church does, of course, include all Churches of the world and the Church in the heavenlies. But understanding catholicity from the standpoint of universality can lead to an erroneous conclusion: that the universal Church is made up of parts, local congregations or dioceses, each in itself incomplete apart from the whole. This is not the New Testament teaching. Each local Church is the whole of the Church and at the same time is a part of the entire Body of Christ on earth and in heaven.

But lest one think this is an aberrant interpretation, it was also the earliest interpretation of the first century Christians. Take St. Ignatios of Antioch, for example, who died right at the beginning of the second century, so lived most of his life during the lifetimes of the Apostles. (Church tradition describes him as the child Jesus took up in his arms in Mark 9:35, and with St. Polycarp, was a disciple of the Apostle John. If Peter is counted as the first bishop of Antioch, St. Ignatios is the third, serving after Evodius.) Like St. Paul and our Lord, Ignatios greets the Church in a particular locale:

• "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia . . ." (Epistle to the Ephesians)
• "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the [Church] blessed in the grace of God the Father, in Jesus Christ our Saviour, in whom I salute the Church which is at Magnesia . . ." (Epistle to the Magnesians)
• "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the holy Church which is at Tralles, in Asia . . ." (Epistle to the Trallians)
• "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, which is at Philadelphia, in Asia . . ." (Epistle to the Philadelphians)
• "Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church of God the Father, and of the beloved Jesus Christ, which has through mercy obtained every kind of gift, which is filled with faith and love, and is deficient in no gift, most worthy of God, and adorned with holiness: the Church which is at Smyrna, in Asia . . ." (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans)

And as we've seen in Ephesians and Colossians, St. Ignatios also understands the fullness of the Church to dwell in a particular Church:

Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God. (St. Ignatios of Antioch, Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 4)

and

Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants: that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God. (St. Ignatios of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians, chapter 4)

Again, we know that the saint understands there to be one bishop in one locale, and therefore one Eucharist. This Eucharistic unity and the episcopal ministry founded on it is understood to be in the "one flesh of our Lord." Each Eucharist contains the fullness of Christ's divinity. It is not as though one could add up all the Eucharists around the world and get a full Christ. Each Eucharist is fully Christ, and nothing less. And again, where the fullness of Christ is, there is the whole Church.

The first epistle of Clement is a communication between two Churches: "The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God sojourning at Corinth," (1 Clement 1:1). The occasion of the writing is the sedition against the leaders of the Church in Corinth. St. Clement writes of the orderly transition from the Apostles to the bishops after them, and notes that,

We are of opinion, therefore, that those appointed by them, or afterwards by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole Church, and who have blamelessly served the flock of Christ in a humble, peaceable, and disinterested spirit, and have for a long time possessed the good opinion of all, cannot be justly dismissed from the ministry. (1 Clement 44)

Note here that the consent of the whole Church is predicated. But St. Clement does not mean the entire Church around the world, but rather the local Church which comprises the whole Church. And lest one think this is a tendentious reading taking "whole Church" in a way St. Clement did not intend, note his talk on the offering of the altar (using the offerings of the Old Covenant as a type and the Eucharist as the anti-type):

Not in every place, brethren, are the daily sacrifices offered, or the peace-offerings, or the sin-offerings and the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only. And even there they are not offered in any place, but only at the altar before the temple, that which is offered being first carefully examined by the high priest and the ministers already mentioned. Those, therefore, who do anything beyond that which is agreeable to His will, are punished with death. Ye see, brethren, that the greater the knowledge that has been vouchsafed to us, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed. (1 Clement 41)

Like St. Ignatios, there is one sacrifice and one altar for the whole Church. And yet, St. Clement well recognizes that there are many Christian altars on which the Eucharist is offered throughout the world. How can he compare the many altars of the New Covenant with the one altar in Jerusalem? Because the one altar of a local Church is the one altar of the whole Church.

Throughout all this discussion on catholicity, I have been stressing the wholeness of the Church in the local Church over against the worldwide extent of the Church. The Church has not denied this universal aspect, though it did develop later (some of the beginnings of which development can be seen in St. Cyprian of Carthage's The Unity of the Catholic Church, where, for St. Cyprian, "catholic" is used in the sense described above, and yet there are intimations of universality as well). My point is not to deny the notion of universality, but to combat the notion of the Church as the sum of its parts. It is manifestly not that.

After all, if the Church is one with the Godhead, then wherever the Church is, it is all there by way of the hypostatic union in Christ.

Septuagint Links

R. Grant Jones' Notes on the Septuagint is a wealth of information on the apostolic use of the Septuagint in the New Testament. Jones admits he is not a Septuagint specialist, but rather a person with a love for the subject. Many good links to other sites. Well-researched.

Joel Kalvesmaki's The Septuagint Online: Electronic Resources for the Study of the Septuagint and Old Greek Versions is a treasure trove of information and links to all facets of the Septuagint. Kalvesmaki is studying patristics and is well-versed in the subject.

Another fascinating essay on the Septuagint is Dr. Albert C. Sundberg, Jr.'s "The Old Testament of the Early Church" Revisited. Those who reject the apocrypha on the basis of the Hebrew canon will want to read this essay which demonstrates conclusively that the Jewish canon was fluid through the end of the first century, and included some of the works in the apocrypha. Heavily footnoted.

For Kevin and Others Who Reject Icons

Fr. John Whiteford has written an excellent apologetical work on icons: The Icon FAQ.

It's an essay thoroughly researched with many references linked online. Highly recommended.

It will be interesting to see if any present-day iconoclast wants to take on the arguments and the evidence presented there.

Correcting Modern Errors About the Nicene Creed

In the online article, "Do You Know Whom You Worship?", Dr. D. H. Williams, professor of patristics and historical theology at Baylor University, puts to rest a couple of erroneous understandings about the Nicene Creed.

The first is that notion, originally put forth by Walter Bauer, then, debunked, now resurrected by Bart Ehrman and others, that the struggle for orthodoxy in the fourth century was nothing more than imperial politics.

At the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, some Protestant historians regarded the Council of Nicaea and its creed with the same suspicion as they did the church of Rome. The esteemed German scholar Eduard Schwarz, for example, depicted the conflicts between pro-Nicene and "Arian" opponents as in reality a struggle for power within the church which was disguised as a theological dispute. The council's decisions represented a victory for those who wielded the most influence over the emperor. This meant too that the creed was an unfortunate capitulation of the church to imperial politics and an emblem of the new merger between the Roman empire and Christianity.

To this day, some churches and denominations see creeds, ancient or modern, as little more than legislated statements of power used for manipulating the faithful. Such a view is often built on the assumption that the church by the time of Nicaea had compromised its original biblical standards, replacing principles of Scripture with the authoritarianism of a new imperial and episcopal establishment.

While the council did involve interchurch politics with dissenting groups trying to obtain the emperor's ear, the Nicene Creed had its origin in the worshipping life of the church. A mere collective of bishops could not make for sound Christian doctrine. We are mistaken to cast the early bishops into the role of power brokers and political schemers, rather than the pastors and preachers that most of them were. Interpreting and proclaiming the true faith to their congregations was a major preoccupation with nearly every one of the early church theologians.

Likewise, creedal statements had to represent the common mind of the church or else they would not have been accepted and employed by the larger body of believing Christians. The vigilance of bishops in upholding and preserving Christian truth is exemplified in the opening words of the Council of Antioch (which met in the early months of 325) when it declared that its statement of faith was "the faith that was set forth by spiritual men … always formed and trained in the spirit by means of the holy writings of the inspired books." At the councils at Antioch and Nicaea, both of which formulated creeds, the concern was the same: articulating a theological vision that emerged from the church's faith. In effect, the creed was a statement ex corde ecclesiae—out of the heart of the church.

The second error Dr. Williams corrects, is that the Nicene Creed was an imposition of pagan philosophical terms on the mind of the Church.

The charge laid against Nicaea by later theologians that the creed was more the product of philosophical influence or "Hellenization" than of Scripture is misconstrued for two reasons. First, all Christian thinkers of the time—"orthodox" and "heretical"—were drawing on contemporary philosophical language in order to frame theological truths. Terms such as person, substance, essence, and many others all had a philosophical background that pre-dated Christianity but were borrowed permanently for Christian purposes. Where there was obvious conflict between the Bible and Greek philosophy, the Bible took precedent for even the most erudite Christians.

Second, one of the lessons learned during the "Arian controversy" was that in order to achieve doctrinal orthodoxy you cannot interpret the Bible from the Bible alone. The church needed a vocabulary and a conceptual framework that stemmed from the Bible but were also outside of the Bible. Sooner or later, some means of interpreting the scriptural text would be required.

Whatever else may be said of the ancient creeds, it cannot be denied that they were deliberately constructed to be the epitome of the biblical message. When instructing new converts, Augustine taught, "For whatever you hear in the Creed is contained in the inspired books of Holy Scripture" (Sermon 212. 2). It was the task of these creeds not merely to reproduce the Bible but to enable Christians to understand what the Bible, both Old and New Testament, means.

In the end, the Nicene Creed represented a large-scale attempt to answer the question, "Do you know whom you worship?" Christianity's central convictions that God is one and Christ is God had to be put into a cohesive statement that preserved the integrity of both. This was the burden of the fourth century. The Council of Nicaea responded with a creed that was new to church history and was not immediately accepted, but, as time would tell, it was crafted according to the intention of church tradition and biblical principles. As Charles Williams once said of the Christian faith encapsulated by the Nicene Creed, "It had become a Creed, and it remained a Gospel."

Where Is the Church? Part III

In the previous post (part II), I noted that, at least in terms of the question under consideration, “Where is the Church?” the essential characteristic of the Church is the manifestation of Her love in unity. From that unity, I argued (again in terms of this question), flowed the other cardinal characteristics of what it means to be the Church: holiness, catholicity and apostolicity.

Holy

I have been locating these characteristics in the book of Ephesians, lest anyone think the Nicene qualities are simply tendentiously asserted by myself. With that in mind, let us look at a seminal text in Ephesians denoting the holiness of the Church.

Husbands, be loving your own wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, in order that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her in the laver of the water with the word, that He might present her to Himself the glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things; but that she might be holy and unblemished. (Ephesians 5:25-27, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

This text is, of course, much debated in our modernist egalitarian society, but not for the characteristic it notes about the Church: that she is holy and unblemished. That is not to say, however, that the holiness of the Church itself is not questioned. Indeed, it is flatly rejected and denied by secular society, and, sadly, Christians as well. The New Testament, however, is adamant about this. Holiness is an essential quality if one would see the Lord. Writes the author of the Hebrews epistle, "Be pursuing peace with all, and sanctification [i. e., holiness], without which no one shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). No one can see God unless they are holy. The Church, then can have no part of God if She is not holy. Indeed, if She is one with Jesus as Jesus and the Father are one, if the unity of the Holy Trinity obtains in the Church, then She must be holy. And not just holy “one day,” or “when Jesus comes again,” but now, presently. Otherwise the Church Herself is not one with God now and presently, and thus, in effect does not exist. But that She exists is clearly asserted by Scripture and history, and the rest must necessarily follow. That the Church is presently, now, holy is attested to by St. Paul in Colossians:

And you, being once alienated and enemies in your mind, in wicked works, yet now did He reconcile in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and blameless and without reproach before Him-- . . . (Colossians 1:21-22)

And also in St. Peter's first epistle:

[Y]e also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. . . . But ye are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession,” that ye might “tell forth the virtues” of the One Who called you out of darkness into His wondrous light . . . (1 Peter 2:5, 9)

Note the present tenses of these declarations: “yet now did He reconcile,” “ye are a holy priesthood,” and so forth. Of course, many will ask, how does one reconcile the fact that the Church is holy, but her members commit sins? For many, this proposition is an either/or concept: either the Church is holy now, and Her members do not sin, or She isn't, and Her members do sin. But it will help our thinking to consider the words of the Apostle John:

And this is the message which we have heard from Him and we announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we should say we have communion with Him, and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have communion with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sins. If we should say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we be confessing our sins, faithful is He and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. If we should say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10)

That is to say, the reality is a both/and. Individual Church members do commit sins, and those sins are routinely confessed and remitted via the Blood of our Lord. But the Church Herself is blameless and holy. It is only a heretical reductionism that must insist on a split between the holiness of the Church and the repentant lives of Her members. Salvation is a process, theosis, and in God's mercy and wisdom not accomplished in an instant. Says St. Paul elsewhere, “[B]e working out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is the One Who energizeth in you both to will and to energize for the sake of His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). St. Irenaeus of Lyons may help us think about this:

But our opinion [doxa, also “teaching”] is in accordance with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in turn establishes our opinion. For we offer to Him His own, announcing consistently the fellowship and union of the flesh and Spirit. For as the bread, which is produced from the earth, when it receives the invocation of God, is no longer common bread, but the Eucharist, consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly; so also our bodies, when they receive the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity. (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies, 4.18.5)

Note St. Irenaeus' contention: we have two realities, the earthly and the heavenly. If the bread and wine can contain both an earthly reality and a heavenly one, so, too, our bodies, though corruptible and subject to death, on the basis of the Eucharist are no longer corruptible. This was asserted by St. Ignatios of Antioch in the previous post: the Eucharist is the medicine of divine immortality. (Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 20). We live in the time of the “now and not yet.” We are a holy priesthood, and we also must confess our sins and receive cleansing.

Website of Testimonials of Parents of Babies with Anencephaly

Via a link in Dawn Eden's latest post, come the Carrying to Term Pages, a website collecting testimonials of parents of children with anencephaly who carried their babies to term and loved them for the short life they had together.

I only read Emily's story. If you can read it and not weep . . . well, I couldn't. Pretty embarrassing at work, too.

Where Is the Church? Part II

In my former post, I reflected on the nature of ecclesiological models, and argued that there are only two such possible models, and that one of them, the Branch Model, is fundamentally flawed, incapable of providing a model that is in line with the reality of what the Church really is. In short, the Branch Model is a heresy. The only legitimate model of ecclesiology is the Exclusive Model; that is to say, an incarnate, visible church or group lays claim to being the Church. The mere claim, of course, does not authenticate itself. Rather, the claim itself must be based on what the essential characteristics of the Church actually are.

This is not the first time I've reflected on the question of what constitutes the Church of Christ. Most of my reflections on this topic took place in December 2002, and found expression in the following: Five Theses in Advent, The Church Is One and Visible, and another essay with the same title as this post, Where Is the Church?. What I will be saying here will not be essentially different from my previous reflections, though I do intend here to clarify and expand upon them.

The Essential Nature of the Church: Unity

A good a place to begin, as to the essential conditions necessary for a church or group to be the Church, is the Nicene Creed and its declaration of the Church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. But this may seem to beg the question, so let us start with Ephesians (and some related New Testament passages) where all these qualities are manifest.

One

The classic text in Ephesians on the unity of the Church comes from chapter four.

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, Who is over all, and through all, and in you all. But to each of us was given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ. Wherefore, He saith, "Having ascended on high, He led captivity captive," and "gave gifts to men." Now that He ascended, what it is except that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth? The One Who descended is the same also Who ascended above all of the heavens, in order that He might fill all things. And He gave some to be apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of ministering, to the building up of the body of the Christ, until we all might come to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ; in order that we may no longer be infants, tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about with every wind of teaching, by the sleight of men, in craftiness toward the systematizing of error; but speaking the truth in love, we might grow up into Him in all things who is the head-- the Christ; from Whom all the body, being joined and knit together by what every juncture supplieth, according to the energy of every single part in measure, maketh for itself the increase of the body, to the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:4-16, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

I have quoted this passage at length precisely because the discussion of the gifts of various ministries in the Church is bookended by the assertion of unity. These gifts both come from the nature of the Church as one Body and serve that one Body by uniting it in their ministries. But of course, the classical text for the unity of the Church is found in Jesus' own prayer.

"And I do not make request for these only, but also for those who shall believe on Me through their word; in order that all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world might believe that Thou didst send me forth. And the glory which Thou has given Me I have given them, in order that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one, and that the world may know that Thou didst send Me forth, and didst love them even as Thou dist love Me. Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold the glory, that which is Mine, which Thou gavest Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:20-24)

Here we see that the unity predicated of the Church is the unity of the Godhead Himself. It is the Trinitarian unity in which can be no division, no schism. It is a perfect unity, complete, without flaw. And I must stress this: It is the unity which inheres in the Church, by the Church's very participation hypostatically in Christ. Insofar as the Church is in Christ, she is graced with the unity that obtains in the Holy Trinity.

So this unity is not one of mere organization, administration or institution. It is, indeed, a charismatic, a pneumatic, unity. Since it is a unity that obtains by way of participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity, it is fundamentally real. It is actual, not potential. It does not need to be realized. It is.

Indeed, this unity is a Eucharistic unity.

The cup of blessing which we bless, it it not communion of the blood of the Christ? The bread which we break, is it not communion of the body of the Christ. For we who are many, are one bread, one body; for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:16-17)

The Church's unity is founded in Christ in the Holy Trinity, but if flows from the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist. This is entirely appropriate, for just as the God-given creaturely gifts of bread and wine are made by God's grace to partake of the very nature of divinity, so, too, are those who partake of the bread and wine brought into real and vital participation with that divinity, and are thus made one body in this Eucharistic act and promise.

It is from this Eucharistic Mystery enacted in and for and by the Church, that the Church realizes her unity and is realized in unity. It is from this Eucharistic unity that any sort of institutional or organizational unity obtains. "Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he entrusted it" St. Ignatios of Antioch wrote (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans, chapter 8), because the episcopacy is itself founded on the Eucharist. The Eucharistic Mystery is also the foundation of the Church's unity of mind. As St. Ignatios writes in his Epistle to the Ephesians, chapter 20, that "ye obey the bishop and the presbytery with an undivided mind, breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but which causes that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ." But this exhortation to unity of mind is not just a second century innovation, it is the very part of the apostolic deposit itself.

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all be speaking the same thing, and that schisms may not be among you, but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same sentiment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

The Church's unity is not only incarnated as a visible body united around the bishop, but that unity is also incarnated in oneness of mind, teaching the same doctrine, having the same belief.

There are perhaps a myriad of ways the Church lives the unity that is fully and completely hers. The love the members of the Body show for one another is, by all accounts, paramount. Indeed, I might rather have titled this section "The Essential Nature of the Church: Love" as Love is another name for Unity. In fact, Jesus' prayer for the unity of the Church, cited above, intertwines the divine love and divine unity which inheres in the Church and between the Church and the Godhead. But the stress on the unitive aspect of this divine love is what is in focus here, precisely because this manifestation of love as unity is a particular and essential aspect of the nature of the Church.

One could, of course, argue well and rightly that all of these four cardinal points (oneness, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity) are simply particular incarnations of the divine love that creates and sustains the Church. And one could also well and rightly argue that each of these cardinal points give rise to the rest: unity to holiness, apostolicity to catholicity, and so forth; all of these being bound essentially in love.

But in terms of the question this series of posts sets out to answer, the matter of unity is not only primary, and therefore from this standpoint, generative, but fundamentally essential. For in answering the question, "Where is the Church?" it is precisely the unity of the Church that substantiates the answer. All other answers that predicate holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity can be defended as giving rise to unity. This would not be wrong, but it would leave such answers more easily manipulable to claims that have no foundation in reality. For example, Protestants claim their particular churches or groups are apostolic because they are one with the apostles in doctrine. Leaving the authenticity of this claim aside, unity becomes the product of dogma, rather than its origin. And without this original and generative unity, one has no way to determine between competing claims of apostolicity.

Thus, at least in the terms of this question, unity is essential and fundamental.

The implications of this unity, however, will have to wait for a moment. We will return to what it means for this unity to be originated in the Holy Trinity, realized in the Eucharist, and expressed in the same mind, and what that means in terms of answering our question. But before we do that, we must turn to the remaining three characteristics of the Church as delineated from the Scriptures. And it is to holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity to which we now turn our attention.

Where Is the Church? Part I

Introduction

The first and primary life question that one must ask is "Who is the Christ?" But inescapably attendant upon that question is a second one, "Where is the Church?" For if one answers correctly the question of who Christ is, one will be led necessarily and directly to ask, "Where is His Church?" The two questions are inseparable. One cannot ask the first without asking the second. And one cannot be mistaken about the answer to the second without also being mistaken about the answer to the first. Which is to say, if we properly understand who Christ is, we are free to properly understand where the Church is. But if we are mistaken in where the Church is, we will also be mistaken in who Christ is. Ecclesiology is Christology.

In light of that, then, the question as to where the Church is is not an idle one. It is fundamentally important. So important, in fact, that our answer will either confirm a proper Christology or deform it. We might have Christ and keep Him, if we rightly understand His Church. But if we have Christ and do not rightly understand His Church, we are in very real danger of losing Him Whom we have once held.

Two Models

There are many ecclesiologies, many answers to the question, "Where is the Church?" But these ecclesiologies all contain one or another of two fundamental models. Either one has a "Branch Model" of ecclesiology, or one has an "Exclusive Model" of ecclesiology. The Branch Model essentially states that no one church or group is exclusively the Body of Christ, but that the Body of Christ is made up of the many branches or groups that all trace their lineage back to a common trunk. That trunk is variously thought of as the historic Church founded on Pentecost in Jerusalem, or the Apostolic Deposit given in the first century, or the common confession of Christ as Lord, or any number of variations on similar themes. The point however is that in the Branch Model all churches or groups share some common essence with all the others, so that despite the visible divisions and differences between groups, there is an invisible or supernatural reality that they all share in, which allows them to claim to be part of the Church of Christ.

The Exclusive Model essentially states that a particular church or group is, actually, the Body of Christ, and all other churches or groups are departures from it. The point of the Exclusive Model of ecclesiology is that the essence of the Church, even if invisible and supernatural, must have a visible body in which the Church is incarnate. If the Branch Model depends for its unity on an invisible and supernatural quality shared across and among all the various churches, the Exclusive Model locates that unity in a particular quality or set of qualities in this particular incarnate church or group. Other churches or groups may approximate this one, but only if they have that essential marker or all of those essential markers, that distinguishes this particular body from the rest, can they actually be said to be in unity with this body, and thus are, actually, the Body of Christ. What is that essential marker, or those essential qualities, varies depending upon the claims to exclusivity of the particular group under consideration. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, distinguishes its claims from other groups, at least in part, on the basis of what it says about the office of the bishop of Rome. Other groups, such as the Restoration Movement churches, distinguish their claims on the basis of a pure and simple body of New Testament doctrines and practices they distill from the Scriptures: if a church or group believes and practices these particular things, and neither takes away from them or adds to them, that church or group is the New Testament Church, the Body of Christ.

Now, let it be said that variations on these two models do exist. Indeed, in a sense, the Exclusive Model acknowledges the truth of the Branch Model that there is an invisible and supernatural reality to what it means for the Church to be what it is. And some churches and groups who fundamentally posit the Branch Model do seem to say things that sound awfully exclusive. But when one examines the fundamental tenets of various ecclesiologies, these really are the two and only two models by which ecclesiologies are shaped. That some groups do not hold purely to one or another model does not eliminate the fundamental shape of their particular ecclesiology, even if such impurities may result in radically misformed products. Moreover, some churches or groups dynamically migrate from one model to the other, and in the process of such migration hold confused and confusing variations and mutations of these two models. But again, these are the two templates from which all ecclesiologies are drawn.

The Theandric Principle

That being said, one should not suppose that each of these models are parallel to one another. That is to say, the failure of one model does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that the other model is correct. It may be the case that both models are incorrect, but for different reasons.

For example, if the Exclusive Model does not, in fact, substantiate the claim of a particular church or group to be the true Church, the failure or error is not necessarily because this particular church or group does not exhibit the Branch Model. The Exclusive Model may actually be the fundamentally correct model (and I will actually be arguing that it is), but the essential quality or qualities that a particular church or group claims grants it its status as the Church is, in fact, the wrong quality or qualities. For example, if the Roman Catholic Church claims that what makes it the Church is that it is in communion with, and submission to, the see of Peter (assuming that is, indeed, what Roman Catholicism claims) and that claim, in fact, is not really what makes a church or group the Church, then though Rome has claimed the right model, she has argued the wrong reason. On the other hand, if the Branch Model does not, in fact, substantiate the claim of a particular church or group to be the true Church, the failure or error will not necessarily be because this particular church or group claims an improper essence for all churches or groups, but rather, the Branch Model is, itself, fundamentally flawed, and no common essence could substantiate such an ecclesiology from this model. (And, indeed, this, too is what I will be arguing.)

Ultimately, if we are going to determine which of these two models is the model to at least be preferred, or is fundamentally the only proper model, we are going to have to establish this by virtue of a criterion or set of criteria. Here is where ecclesiology must conform to Christology. For if a church or group (or a plurality of them) is to claim status as the Body of Christ, they must share in the nature of who Christ is. As St. Peter says in his epistle:

Inasmuch as His divine power hath freely given to us all things for life and piety, through the full knowledge of Him Who called us by glory and virtue, by which He hath freely given to us the very great and precious promises, that through these ye might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by desire. (2 Peter 1:3-4, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent; emphasis added)

And as Jesus, Himself, prayed:

"And I do not make request for these only, but also for those who shall believe on Me through their word; in order that all may be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us, that the world might believe that Thou didst send me forth. And the glory which Thou has given Me I have given them, in order that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected into one, and that the world may know that Thou didst send Me forth, and didst love them even as Thou dist love Me. Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold the glory, that which is Mine, which Thou gavest Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:20-24; emphasis added)

Thus, the nature of the Church must take that nature from the paradigm of Christ. Christ is the incarnate God, the God-man, the Theandros, the perfect union--without confusion, change, separation or division--of the human and divine. Thus, if the Church is to partake of Christ's nature, she must exhibit this union of humanity and divinity. And the exhibition of this humanity and divinity must be demonstrated in a unity that is not just divine, but is also manifested humanly.

With this fundamental principle in mind, we can now turn to our models.

Examining the Models

If the Branch Model fails, it does not fail because of its good intentions or in its charity. That adherents to the Branch Model want to take seriously the unity of the Church is clear. That they also take seriously the dominical injunction to love one another as oneself, to not judge one another, is also clear. So if the Branch Model fails, it fails despite these noble and laudable intentions.

But fail it must, for the Branch Model does not ultimately allow for the full implications of the humanity of the Church. In an incipient Gnosticism, it says the visible divisions between churches and groups are neither substantial or real, what is real is the supernatural and invisible divine reality. Humanity is negated by virtue of the divine reality. But this is not the theandric union of Christ.

Furthermore, the Branch Model ends up in an infinite regress of reductionism and a final relativization of all truth claims. For the Branch Model necessarily includes groups whose beliefs fundamentally oppose one another: baptism is for the remission of sins and thus necessary for salvation versus baptism is merely a symbol and in no way necessary for salvation; or the Eucharist is merely a remembrance of Christ's Passion versus the Eucharist is mystically the Body and Blood of the Lord. By necessitating the inclusion of these contradictions, the Branch Model ultimately becomes an exercise in finding the lowest common denominator necessary to be able to extend to cover all those who claim the name of Christ. But this process ultimately relativizes truth claims by saying of these competing claims, "They don't matter. What matters is the divine reality which makes us one." But where does this relativization end? The Branch Model can give no answer without ultimately becoming exclusive in its claims. But once it has done that, it has shifted from its paradigm.

By its very nature, then, the Branch Model is a false ecclesiology. It cannot be remedied without destruction to its fundamental premise.

The Exclusive Model, on the other hand, can, and indeed, does, fulfill the requirements of the theandric union necessitated by Who Christ is. First, in locating the Church in a specific group it takes seriously the necessity for the Church to manifest the union of the human and divine. The Church must be incarnate, and that incarnation must obtain in a visible group. The Church is, as the Branch Model stresses, a divine and hidden reality, but it is also, and must also be, a human and visible one. The Exclusive Model takes seriously the divine unity, but it also takes seriously the concomitant human unity. Groups with competing claims cannot be unified. As St. Paul says:

Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all be speaking the same thing, and that schisms may not be among you, but that ye be perfected together in the same mind and in the same sentiment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

So, although the human unity is created by the divine unity, it is the manifestation of that divine unity: having one mind, doing the same things, sharing the same identity.

Now, the Exclusive Model of ecclesiology is the necessary condition for a church or group to actually be the Church of Christ, but it is not a sufficient condition. That is to say, a church or group may claim to be the Church, but offer as the foundation of its claim something that is actually not the essential foundation for being the Church of Christ. Simply because the Exclusive Model is the proper model for the ecclesiology which reflects the exclusivity of Jesus and the scandal of His particularity, it does not also follow that any predication of the essential content of that model will do. No, for a church or group to be the Church, it must not just conform itself to the form of exclusivity, but must also fill its claims with the necessary and essential matter that gives reality to such claims.

Not all who claim to be the Church of Christ are.

It is to those essential conditions that we will turn next.

My Favorite Gospel

And one of the Pharisees was asking Him that He would eat with him. And He entered into the house of the Pharisee, and reclined at table. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she found out that He was reclining at table in the house of the Pharisee, brought an alabaster flask of perfumed ointment, and she stood beside His feet behind Him, weeping; and she began to wet His feet with tears, and was wiping them off with the hairs of her head; and she was kissing His feet ardently and anointing them with the perfumed ointment. Now when the Pharisee who invited Him saw it, he spoke within himself, saying, "This One, if He were a prophet, would know who and of what sort the woman is who toucheth Him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to thee." And he saith, "Teacher, say it." "There were two debtors to a certain creditor: the one was owing five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. But when they had nothing to pay back the debt, he showed himself gracious to both. Say which of them then will love him more?" Simon answered and said, "I suppose that he, to whom he showed himself the more gracious." And He said to him, "Rightly thou didst judge." And He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house; water thou gavest Me not for My feet, but she with tears did wet My feet, and with the hairs of her head wiped them off. A kiss thou gavest Me not, but she from the time that I entered did not cease from ardently kissing My feet. With oil thou didst not anoint My head, but she anointed My feet with perfumed ointment. For which reason I say to thee, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." And He said to her, "Thy sins have been forgiven." And those reclining at table with Him began to say among themselves, "Who is this Who even forgiveth sin?" And He said to the woman, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go thy way in peace." (Luke 7:36-50, The Orthodox New Testament, © 2004 Holy Apostles Convent)

Funereal Thoughts

I don't know why, but I've been thinking about my funeral this morning. Don't misunderstand, I have no intimations that my death will be coming soon. Indeed, I specifically asked our guardian angels this morning, as I always do when I pray in the mornings, to protect me and my household from an unexpected death. And it's not because I'm feeling morose or sad or blue. As my friend Tripp can attest: I'm in a glorious mood today and vociferously demonstrated it as a passenger on the Tripp Hudgins Theological Short Bus. (See, Tripp, I was able to work that into a post!) No, I'm just thinking about my funeral. So here's what I want.

First of all, I hope to die in the Orthodox Church. Thus, I want my funeral to conform to the Orthodox service in all ways that are necessary and in whatever ways are appropriate to my status (as Orthodox or non-Orthodox) when I die. I want my funeral held in my home Orthodox parish (right now, All Saints Orthodox Church in Chicago), unless that would not be suitable, in which case any other appropriate location would suit me just fine, though it should be a church if possible. I would, in any case, like the Psalter prayed over my body prior to my burial.

At some suitable time, at the gravesite service if possible, I would like my family and friends to sing my favorite hymns over my body; namely, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "O Sacred Head Now Wounded" (enough verses of each to convey the full meanings of the hymns) and the Nunc Dimittis. I would also like read the Gospel passage with which I have always most identified, Luke 7:36-50.

With regard to the expenses surrounding my funeral, I first defer to the needs of my family and friends to express their grief and hope. But compatible with that I would prefer that the least expense possible be spent. If it is compatible with the law, a simple pine box with a simple cross on the lid is perfectly suitable for my body. It will make no difference in terms of the Resurrection. In any case, the least expense that is compatible with the law should be spent.

Ultimately, I would like to be buried next to my wife, so whatever conditions that necessitates should prevail. However, if at all possible, I would like to be buried in the cemetery in Augusta, Kansas. The soil of that place is as much a part of me as anything, and I wouldn't mind keeping the connection till Christ comes. But if it is not possible to be buried there, Haverhill cemetery near Haverhill, Kansas (east of Augusta) is down the road from one of the places I used to live, and that would be suitable as well.

If anyone is moved to give a memorial offering in my name, they can do so to their local church's budget for provision of food, shelter and clothing to the poor.

I would that my family and their needs be always remembered, and that prayers for me be offered till Christ comes.

No eulogy. Preach the Gospel.

In all things everything must be done as is fitting for the glory of our Lord.

Making Sense in Reverse

From Philip Yancey's "Global Suspense":

Jesus' final words at the end of Revelation are "I am coming soon," followed by an urgent, echoing prayer, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." That prayer remains unanswered in an era of history perilously suspended between his first appearance, as a baby in a manger, and his second, as the one with blazing eyes described in one of Revelation's many flash-forwards.

In the last days, said Peter, some will scoff at the prospects: "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." Peter himself believed that "the end of all things is near." After two millennia of waiting, scoffers rule the day.

In a German prison camp in World War II, unbeknownst to the guards, the Americans built a makeshift radio. One day news came that the German high command had surrendered, ending the war--a fact that, because of a communications breakdown, the German guards did not yet know. As word spread, a loud celebration broke out.

For three days, the prisoners were hardly recognizable. They sang, waved at guards, laughed at the German shepherd dogs, and shared jokes over meals. On the fourth day, they awoke to find that all the Germans had fled, leaving the gates unlocked. The time of waiting had come to an end.

And here is the question I ask myself: As we Christians face contemporary crises, why do we respond with such fear and anxiety? Why don't we, like the Allied prisoners, act on the Good News we say we believe? What is faith, after all, but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse?

Vicious Interpretive Circles, Indeed! (A Final Reply to Kevin?)

Kevin claims, in his reply "Vicious Interpretive Circles," that I've apparently been arguing with another Kevin and not him. This is just his nice way of saying I've been arguing the straw man. This would be a most embarrasing state of affairs, let me tell you. Vicious interpretive circles, indeed!

I say "would be" because I have to say, looking over Kevin's objections, it's not clear to me that I actually have set up another argument than his only to knock it down and leave his still standing. If I have put words in Kevin's mouth, they are only the implications of his own argument, or the necessary conclusions which he refuses to accept.

But that being said, let's take a look at the objections, and let's once again, as clearly as can be stated, identify the impasses.

Kevin first addresses my contention that he objects to icons because the Scripture does not explicitly command their veneration. No, he says, that's not at all why he objects to their veneration. Rather, it's because, he claims, they violate the Second Commandment. I hope Kevin will forgive the oversight on my part. When Kevin first mentions icons he does so in this way:

In affirming the sufficiency of Scripture, I am not denying the necessity of such secondary standards as creeds or confessions, or of preaching. In each case, however, these are examples of tradition justified from Scripture properly exegeted ( and where they are not, such as Nicea II, we are required to ignore them).

What does one get from this? That icons cannot be justified from the proper exegesis of Scripture, and on that basis, must be rejected. And through our discussion, Kevin nowhere makes it apparent that his objection is based on anything other than his own rejection of what he takes to be the improper biblical exegesis of Scripture by the Tradition. Consider, for example, the most explicit comments he makes on the matter:

Concerning icons- they're probably a lot older than the eighth century. As to your evidence of iconography in first century practice, please produce it. I would like something more substantial than the fact that the catacombs had pictures. Nevertheless, I must acknowledge that the practice came from somewhere. A likely source may be found in various Gentile converts who imported their cultural idol worship into the church. Moreover, I have a particularly hard time accepting iconography. Even if I did agree to the validity of extra-Biblical tradition, I could not see my way to making icons a part of it. Considering the predominance of Jews in the early church coupled with the post-exilic Jewish aversion to anything that even smelled like an idol, I would have expected historical evidence (preferably Scriptural) that this issue had been addressed to the satisfaction of the Jews. I have read some early material on the subject, it may have even been John of Damascus. As I recall, the argument was two-fold. One part appeared to the Platonic chain of being; the other argued that the incarnation had changed the terms whereby the Second Commandement, the one prohibiting graven images, was to be understood. While I believe this to be enough, technically, to take iconography out of the category of extra-Biblical tradition, it strikes me more as rationalization of a prior belief using Scripture rather than an example of sound exegesis. In light of such a specific prohibition, I want more than an argument that the incarnation may allow for iconography; I want the incarnation to require iconography.

Once again, his objection to icons is not said to be based explicitly on the Second Commandment, but on the fact that he doesn't buy St. John Damascene's exegesis of the Second Commandment. I don't see how I've misconstrued his actual words. But to the degree that he has clarified himself, I welcome his clarification.

I would also take the time to point out that what separates us is precisely the hermeneutic applied to the Scriptures. Kevin himself admits that the justification of icons, in part, on the basis of Scriptural exegesis takes icons out of the realm of extra-biblical tradition. So it's no longer a case of Scripture and Tradition in opposition, so much as it is a matter of hermeneutics. Kevin interprets the Scriptures differently from the historic Church. (Hint of foreshadowing: This will become a refrain.)

Kevin next objects to my characterization of his views of Scripture and its teaching on the Trinity. He writes:

Clifton puts more words in my mouth concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. I said, "Scripture clearly teaches it." I did not say that the inference from the Scriptures is "clear and unequivocal." This adds a connotation and spin to my position that I never intended. It makes it sound as though I believe that any individual with a Bible could just come to the correct and well formulated conclusion.

I'm not sure how "unequivocal" adds a "connotation and spin" to his position. After all, if something is clear, we should be able to get the message right? We would not be in doubt as to its intended meaning or meanings. There would be no equivocating on our part as to what the Scripture actually says. Still, Kevin thinks I'm conveying something in his words that he does not intend, so let his objection stand.

But I should note that Kevin does admit, or rather, strongly implies, that individuals will misinterpret the Scripture, even if its message is clear. Again: What separates us? A difference of interpretation.

Infallibility

Kevin next objects to what I have done with his exegesis of the passages formerly under consideration. Given that we are specifically dealing with biblical passages, it's fairly obvious that in all these disagreements, one of the things that will separate Kevin and me is hermeneutics. But, too, he claims I have mischaracterized his words and arguments, making up this other Kevin that is not him, so we need to address these matters.

For Matthew 18, he objects that I have taken the term "Scripture" in his exegesis of the passage and construed it to mean the canon of the Old and New Testaments. Here I hope Kevin will once again forgive my error. But I'm afraid that his objection is a bit surprising to me. After all, for Kevin, all the Apostolic Tradition is inscripturated, which means that even what Christ said to his Apostles in Matthew 18, even though it was not, when Christ was speaking, yet Scripture, necessarily would become so. I'm often at a loss here, for Kevin apparently means by Scripture both what actually is Scripture and what will also become Scripture. But if it will become Scripture, then doesn't it mean it isn't yet Scripture?

In any case, as it turns out, Kevin has a different exegesis of Matthew 18:

Still, the passage is not teaching that whatever the Church decides, without qualification, will automatically be in concert with the revelation of God. It is saying that when these decisions are in concert with the revelation of God, then they will reflect what is true in heaven. Something needs to be done with the phrase "in my name." The immediate context is of no help in defining the nature of the church. If it is true that the church is infallible, then the phrase functions as a description: the true church always acts in the name of Christ. If it is not true that the church is infallible, then the phrase functions as a qualifier: the church will be correct in its decisions only insofar as it has acted in the name of Christ. In short, the text itself does not address the issue of infallibility. Notions for or against must be imported into it.

Kevin's careful distinctions between descriptions and qualifiers, between "the true church always acts in the name of Christ" and "the church will be correct in its decisions only insofar as it has acted in the name of Christ" don't help his case at all. They do in fact, contrary to his assertion, "define the nature of the Church." More to the point, this is not only not a defeasor to infallilibilty, but only serves to strengthen the case that the true Church is, indeed, infallible. Kevin does not think so, of course, because Kevin does not think any such Church exists.

Kevin next objects to my limiting his understanding of what is taught and preached, in his exegesis of Ephesians 4, to the Scriptures. He claims that my objection is to the other Kevin. But let's put the Kevin's back-to-back with Kevin. Here's his original exegetical conclusion:

Paul's admonition to Timothy, the pastor at Ephesus, was, "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching" (II Timothy 2:2). Just prior to this, Paul had identified the Scripture as being sufficient unto these things, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitiable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteosness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work" (3:16,17). Back in Ephesians 4, these officers are given as gifts to the Church in order that they might "equip the saints for the work of the ministry" (v.12). They are to "attain to the unity of the faith" (v.13) and not be "carried about by every wind of doctrine" (v.14). The pastor accomplishes this through the faithful preaching of the Word. The result is that the Church, "speaking the truth in love" (v.15) will grow into maturity in Christ. And so the prayer of Christ is answered, "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17). Scripture, considered in the abstract as a collection of propositions, has no power. But this has nothing to do with sola scriptura. Scripture preached and lived is another matter altogether. "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12).

And here's his most recent conclusion:

Speaking the truth in love is not possible apart from those ministries whereby the Word is preached and taught. But it goes beyond this. It defines a life and a practice of love. It is informed by the content of Scripture, but not limited thereto (which would constitute a caricature of sola scriptura). In building one another up, the members of the church must also think in terms of those unique lives and circumstances that surround them. We interpret the comtemporary in accordance with the preaching of the Word. Now to his [i. e., mine] mantra that any mention or implication of Scripture must be limited to the OT. In II Peter 3:15, 16, Peter mentions Paul's letters and compares them to the "other Scriptures." That is, there were some NT letters that had already been recognized as Scripture. I believe that more can be inferred from this, but I'll leave it at a minimum. "Scripture" is used in Scipture to refer to more than OT Scripture. Furthermore, there is a difference between direct reference and implication. When Paul says in II Timothy 3:16 that "All Scripture is breathed out by God," the direct reference can only be to whatever had been written at the time. However, by implication it must include all Scripture that was to be written thereafter. Either that or anything from a later date is less important. There is no textual reason for me to limit "Scripture" or "Word" to the OT when Scripture itself does not do this.

And here's my original critique of his first set of exegetical comments:

Now he goes to great lengths, pulling in some passages from 2 Timothy, to show that this "Word" is nothing more nor less than the Scriptures. Once again, however, his eisegesis is manifest, for Paul could not have meant the Scriptures that we have today (Old and New Testaments), but could only have meant the Old Testament. Thus, if Kevin wants to import these extratextual meanings into the context of Ephesians, he is going to have to limit himself to only the body of the Old Testament writings. It's clear, however, that he does not want to do this but wants to anachronistically read "Protestant 66" into every instance of the word "Scriptures" or "Word" in the passages under consideration.

Maybe it's not so much that I am arguing with a different Kevin as that Kevin has a split personality.

Next, his objection that I took as part of his argument against my interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:15 something he only meant in jest is, embarrassingly, a valid one. On reflection, it is clear he meant the talk about noun genders as a jest, but I missed all the connections. More the worse for me. However, the remainder of my critique he acknowledges and lets stand my understanding of his exegesis. But what does he say about 1 Timothy 3:15?

The passage is not teaching that the Church stands alone in this regard. The truth is also anchored in the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in the infallible Word. There is no need for the Church to be infallible when it is in such company.

Here Kevin commits the logical fallacy of the false dilemma. He did it originally, too:

Assuming the presence of both the Holy Spirit and of Scripture (or, at the time, that tradtion which had yet to be inscripturated), there is no need to postulate infallibility for the Church in order for it to function in this regard.

In other words, for Kevin, either you have the Holy Spirit and the infallible Scripture or you have an infallible Church. If you have the first two (Spirit and Scripture) you don't need the second. But he never actually argues how it is that the Holy Spirit and an infallible Scripture are incompatible with an infallible Church. We're just told the latter is not necessary. This, however, is just simply gainsaying. It's not an argument. And since Kevin must invent a false dilemma to reach his interpretation he has not actually explained the passage as explained it away.

Kevin's objection to my characterization of his exegesis of John 16:13 is that my summation of his position is "close" but "significantly different." What is his summation of his position?

I take this text as referring to the receiving of tradition (which I believe is eventually inscripturated, thus the necessity of an infallible element). The process of which I spoke was in reference to the Church's interpretation of Scripture. One may attempt to argue that the distinction is not valid, but there is no contradiction.

But what did I actually say of Kevin's position?

If Kevin wants to argue that this progressivist interpretation was indeed fulfilled in the completion of the Scriptures, then it necessarily follows that the promise of the leading of the Holy Spirit into all truth is no longer in effect. . . . But if Kevin does indeed tie the promise of the Holy Spirit's leading to both the completion of the canon and the proper interpretation of it, he once again begs the question as to how to determine between interpretations.

So, apparently, I did have Kevin's (or both Kevins') argument right.

Let's look at Kevin's exegesis and see if it substantiates his argument.

As I've reflected further on the passage, it's grammar and it's meaning, I'm inclined to agree with Kevin's judgment that the verb for "to lead" here (hodegesei) is, indeed, a future indicative. In my original argument this grammatical point did not feature prominently (after all, I indicated it was ambiguous), and indeed, as I see on reflection, the weight of my argument lent itself more to the grammatical force of hodegesei as a future indicative. In point of fact, there is no dichotomy necessary between the future indicative voice in this subjunctive clause and the state of fulfillment and ongoing effect of the fulfillment. Given the indefinite temporal clause, in fact, one of the perfect indicatives could not be used, and the future indicative can function nicely in that role, though nothing of the future indicative necessitates a perfective understanding. That is to say, the future indicative does not necessitate the progressivist position I was arguing against, and, indeed, works better with my own position.

Be that as it may, the bulk of the argument centered on the audience and scope of the promise. What does Kevin assert about these things?

Now, I would say that the promise made in John 16:13 was not made to the Eleven as such, but as they represented the foundational offices of the church, which include both apostles and prophets. It extends to more than the Eleven, but it does not need to extend to the whole church. This promise concerns their role as the church's foundation. It is about the receiving and future inscripturation of tradition. While the Spirit does lead in other capacities, this verse does not address these and cannot be set in opposition to those passages that do.

The promise in John 16:13 applies to the formation of tradition, not to its subsequent interpretation. It need not be applied to anything beyond the foundational offices. I will agree that, in context, the truth refers to Jesus. But, just as we can go back to 14:6, we can also jump forward to 17:17 where the word is truth. John himself ties the two concepts together at the opening of his gospel, "In the beginning was the Word." There is a double referent. The Spirit will lead into the truth, which is Christ, who is fully revealed in the canons of Scripture. This verse was fulfilled in the completion of the Scriptures. But it does not follow that the Holy Spirit no longer leads into truth in other capacities. This would only be the case if this were the only passage from which such an activity could be inferred. Yet, even Clifton notes other passages that imply the leading of the Spirit as it relates to truth. But these were in reference to the members of the church. A verse about leading the foundation of the church into truth as it relates to the formation of tradition should not be confused with verses in which the members are led into truth as it relates to the interpretation of tradition.

In other words, the promise to lead the Apostles into all truth only means the completion of the biblical canon. But Kevin knows that the Holy Spirit has to illumine the understanding of the members of the Church as they read "all the truth" in the Scriptures, so he concedes my point that "leading into all truth" does actually involve more than inscripturation. He, however, without any warrant, asserts that the promise only applies to inscripturation. And then goes on to make another unwarranted distinction between the individual members of the Church and the Church as a whole. If the Holy Spirit can lead individual members into all truth, I see no reason to think He cannot do so with the entire Body. Kevin does, however. Though he gives no argument for why this must be the case. He merely asserts it.

Hermeneutics

Where the, at present, irresoluble matters come to a head, however, is in the final matter under consideration: hermeneutics. Kevin affirms that an infallible Scripture will always be interpreted by fallible interpreters. There's no help for it, really, so he says,

the people must study Scripture to see whether what was preached is so; the pastors must be under constant review of their peers; local churches must submit to larger bodies; confessions and creeds should be maintained. Authority does not imply that the one in authority is always right. Many disagreements between those in authority and those being led need to be resolved by submission. Nevertheless, it is also the case the Holy Spirit illumines the minds of individuals. We all stand under a dual authority: that of God and that of men and, forced into a decision, we ought always to obey God.

Ah, and there's the rub. What, really, is the voice of God in this scenario? Our interpretation of the Scriptures. That is to say, "God" here is always and only our interpretation of what we think is God. In other words, put baldly, we either obey the interpretations of others, or we obey our own interpretations. Kevin admits this, in fact:

Clifton states that the only way that I can know that some people are teaching heresy is because they do not agree with my interpretation. As stated, this is both true and painfully obvious. Knowledge is not possible unless it is filtered through individual interpretation. This is how we were created.

What Kevin fails to address is why anyone should take his views over mine, or his views over the historic Church's understanding?

Witness the disagreement over the Matthean, Johannine and Pauline texts above. I read the texts to affirm the Church's quality of infallibility. From that infallibility I then argue an authority to offer binding interpretation. I have demonstrated how my interpretation of these Scriptural texts is better and more consistent than Kevin's (which depends in every case on unwarranted eisegesis, or importation into the texts meanings they do not have). Kevin, of course, disagrees that his case is eisegesis but is, in his terminology, "Scripture properly exegeted."

Kevin argues that in these cases of irresoluble disagreement, we'll have to submit either to our leaders or to God. But why should we trust those in authority over us more than we do our own leading? Kevin can give no answer. How do we know when our leaders are usurping God's will? Again, all we can go on is our own leading. But whether we can ever know that our leading is indeed God's will he does not say.

Now Kevin pooh-pooh's this notion of actually knowing that one's interpretation is, indeed, true, by constructing a regressus ad infinitum of my assertion of the infalliblity of the Church.

Clifton asserts that only an infallible interpretor can settle disputes between intepretive options. There is a problem with this. The infallible interpretor is outside of the individual. Once it states its infallible interpretation, the relationship between this interpretation and the individual is the same as that which existed between the individual and the thing interpreted. The interpretation now needs to be interpreted. Add as large a regress of interpretation as you will, at some point, the individual will have to interpret what he has heard. And unless this final individual interpretation is also infallible, it begs the question of why a particular link in the interpretive chain had to be infallible. Whether my beliefs run contrary to what any other part of the church has ever said or whether, to the best of my ability, I follow the creeds and councils, it is, in the end, my interpretation that has decided the matter. Clifton is no different. He has chosen to follow Orthodoxy because, by his interpretation, it is the true religion. By his interpretation, infallibility is necessary. For each article of faith and practice in the Orthodox church, he chooses to agree with it because, by his interpretation, it is correct. Or if, failing to understand an article, he submits anyway, then, by his interpretation, this was the correct thing to do. In short, Clifton has not escaped the viscious interpretive circle either. He believes and practices all that he does because it agrees with his interpretation. The interpretive device that asks, "What does it mean to me?" such that objective truth is irrelevant, is, at all times, to be avoided. On the other hand, meaning is meaningless unless it means something to me.

Of course, Kevin's assertion that the Church's infallible interpretation must itself be interpreted, leading to infinite regress, is a red herring. It is a red herring because it is precisely the problem with his own account, so to point the finger and call "Thou art the man!" is simply to direct attention away from one's own self. It is also a red herring because the infallibility of the Church is not predicated upon the need for settling interpretive disputes, but is predicated upon the nature of what the Chuch is and the promises made by our Lord to the Church. It is finally a red herring because the operative function of infalliblity is not clarity of interpretation but of authority. Only an infallible authority can say, "This is the mind of Christ." But in point of fact, the Church has not settled every interpretive dispute, but has let stand the lack of clarity as to what is, for example, the meaning of the number of the beast in the Apocalypse, or what exactly was Paul's thorn in the flesh. Her infallibility, rather, is directed to the salvation of our souls. Where authoritative interpretations may be considered necessary for that, then the Church can, on the basis of her infallibility, make known the mind of Christ. Witness, for example, the infalliblity promised in Matthew 18. The whole point is to win back one's brother.

The trouble, however, is that Kevin's own infinite regress circles back on him. He need merely only replace the infallible Church with his own fallible self, or the fallible church leaders to whose authority we must submit when there is disagreement . . . er, unless our interpretation is such that we presume ourselves to be disobeying God by submitting to our leaders.

All of which to say is that Kevin offers no better alternative, and, despite his best efforts, has only come round to my own argument, except that he ultimately subsitutes himself as the fallible, but finally authoritative, interpreter.

And, in the end, when we come right down to it, does Kevin reject my interpretations of these biblical passages on demonstrable, reasonable, logical grounds? I have shown he does not. No, in the end, he rejects them for his subjectivist presuppositions. He has stated it baldly:

[T]he only way that I can know that some people are teaching heresy is because they do not agree with my interpretation. As stated, this is both true and painfully obvious. Knowledge is not possible unless it is filtered through individual interpretation. This is how we were created.

I leave you with Kevin, the fallible but ultimately and finally authoritative interpreter.

Conclusion

As it turns out, I haven't been arguing the straw man after all, but have substantively captured Kevin's argument and refuted it. That he doesn't like what I do with his argument is evident. But all he has done thus far is gainsay me. That is why I have quoted much more extensively from Kevin in this reply than previously, and also why I have been careful to show that my summations of his argument are both accurate and substantive.

As I noted in my formerly penultimate reply, we have reached an impasse. Regrettably, Kevin's response (linked in the first sentence of this post) to my formerly penultimate reply has done nothing to advance the argument any further. For the record we stand where we first did: Kevin arguing that (true) Tradition is nothing more than the propositional and inferential content of Scripture, and me arguing that Scripture is part of Tradition, the same in essence but different in material. We have clarified our positions, and examined each other's arguments. But we can go no further, unless Kevin wants to offer a whole new set of arguments. For myself, I am quite content with my own.

Kevin will doubtless disagree vociferously that I have substantively refuted his argument or that he needs to offer a new argument. He has certainly given me no reason to think that I should offer anything new myself. So here we sit, deadlocked.

But I trust this exercise has been useful to our readers, and if any of them have been moved to further interest in the substance of my argument, or, as I fervently hope, have been moved to accept my argument, I will have been repaid more than I deserve.

May the Lord bless us all, and pray for me, a sinner.

The Fatherhood Chronicles LXIV

Mismade Match Gone Right

Here's how it all began.

My cousin, Jennifer, was sharing an apartment in Joplin with three other young women, Barbara (who was dating Richard), Denise and Anna, who were both single. I was sharing an apartment in Lawrence with a high school classmate. My cousin knew I wasn't dating anyone at the time, but knew I was open to a serious relationship with the right person, so she contrived to have me come down to Joplin for the weekend in October 1992 to meet "her roommate." I knew of her two single roommates, but had never met either of them, and my cousin coyly arranged the proposed meeting as a blind date. She didn't tell me who it was she had in mind for me to meet.

As it turned out, Jennifer and Denise had together thought up the idea of having me come down to meet Denise, do some informal hanging out and maybe do dinner and a movie together. As Jennifer was dating my best friend from college at the time, Mike, I stayed with him, so it was a win-win all the way around for me. Spend time with my best friend and my cousin, meet this (to me) yet-to-be-known girl, and maybe hit it off with her.

Now this is important: I had no idea who it was that Jennifer had arranged for me to meet. And Anna had no idea that Jennifer was attempting to play matchmaker. And neither of us knew that Denise knew. Got it?

I arrived in Joplin in the late afternoon on a Friday and drove up to my cousin's apartment. The first person I met, going up to the door, was Anna who was on her way somewhere else. It will sound like a fabrication, I'm sure, but I swear to you, the very first thing I noticed about Anna was her blue eyes. Of course, being a normal young male, I was not long to notice and appreciate the rest of her. I introduced myself and in the ensuing few moments of conversation learned that this was one of Jenn's roommates, Anna, and, yes, Jenn was waiting on me.

As it turns out, Denise ended up having to work almost the entire weekend. Anna, however, didn't. So my cousin, Anna and I spent quite a bit of time together at the apartment. In fact, when my best friend had to work Saturday evening, it was Jenn, Anna, and another college friend, Michael, and I who went to see Steven Seagal's Under Siege. Through the whole weekend, from that first moment of attraction, I grew more and more smitten with Anna. So that by the time I left on Sunday to head back to Lawrence, I knew I wanted to get to know that beautiful, blue-eyed girl better.

It wasn't until two months later, after Anna and I had begun dating exclusively, that we found out the original setup had been for me to meet Denise. In fact, shortly after that first meeting, Anna had gone to Denise to ask her advice about dating me. Needless to say, there were some hurt feelings. But a testament to Denise's own maturity and godliness was her willingness to forgive the unintended slight that had been done. She graciously accepted Anna's invitation to be part of our wedding, and herself made sure Anna and I were invited to her own wedding shortly after ours.

The rest, as they say, is history.

A Paschal Liturgy Like No Other

Some of you may already have come across this article, as I did, via this entry on the Conciliar Press blog. When I finished the article, all I could do was allow the tears to come to my eyes and sign myself with the Cross. Whew.

The article begins by describing the conditions at Dachau and its inmates:

The Dachau concentration camp was opened in 1933 in a former gunpowder factory. The first prisoners interred there were political opponents of Adolf Hitler, who had become German chancellor that same year. During the twelve years of the camp's existence, over 200,000 prisoners were brought there. The majority of prisoners at Dachau were Christians, including Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox clergy and lay people.

Countless prisoners died at Dachau, and hundreds were forced to participate in the cruel medical experiments conducted by Dr. Sigmund Rascher. When prisoners arrived at the camp they were beaten, insulted, shorn of their hair, and had all their belongings taken from them. The SS guards could kill whenever they thought it was appropriate. Punishments included being hung on hooks for hours, high enough that heels did not touch the ground; being stretched on trestles; being whipped with soaked leather whips; and being placed in solitary confinement for days on end in rooms too small to lie down in.

Then the article uses the diary of one of the prisoners, Gleb Rahr, to describe the celebration of Pascha in 1945 at newly-liberated Dachau:

Naturally, I was ever cognizant of the fact that these momentous events were unfolding during Holy Week. But how could we mark it, other than through our silent, individual prayers? A fellow-prisoner and chief interpreter of the International Prisoner's Committee, Boris F., paid a visit to my typhus-infested barrack—“Block 27”—to inform me that efforts were underway in conjunction with the Yugoslav and Greek National Prisoner's Committees to arrange an Orthodox service for Easter day, May 6th.

There were Orthodox priests, deacons, and a group of monks from Mount Athos among the prisoners. But there were no vestments, no books whatsoever, no icons, no candles, no prosphoras, no wine. . . . Efforts to acquire all these items from the Russian church in Munich failed, as the Americans just could not locate anyone from that parish in the devastated city. Nevertheless, some of the problems could be solved. The approximately four hundred Catholic priests detained in Dachau had been allowed to remain together in one barrack and recite mass every morning before going to work. They offered us Orthodox the use of their prayer room in “Block 26,” which was just across the road from my own “block.”

The chapel was bare, save for a wooden table and a Czenstochowa icon of the Theotokos hanging on the wall above the table—an icon which had originated in Constantinople and was later brought to Belz in Galicia, where it was subsequently taken from the Orthodox by a Polish king. When the Russian Army drove Napoleon's troops from Czenstochowa, however, the abbot of the Czenstochowa Monastery gave a copy of the icon to czar Alexander I, who placed it in the Kazan Cathedral in Saint-Petersburg where it was venerated until the Bolshevik seizure of power. A creative solution to the problem of the vestments was also found. New linen towels were taken from the hospital of our former SS-guards. When sewn together lengthwise, two towels formed an epitrachilion and when sewn together at the ends they became an orarion. Red crosses, originally intended to be worn by the medical personnel of the SS guards, were put on the towel-vestments.

On Easter Sunday, May 6th (April 23rd according to the Church calendar)—which ominously fell that year on Saint George the Victory-Bearer's Day—Serbs, Greeks and Russians gathered at the Catholic priests’ barracks. Although Russians comprised about 40 percent of the Dachau inmates, only a few managed to attend the service. By that time “repatriation officers” of the special Smersh units had arrived in Dachau by American military planes, and begun the process of erecting new lines of barbed wire for the purpose of isolating Soviet citizens from the rest of the prisoners, which was the first step in preparing them for their eventual forced repatriation.

In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in 1945. Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon wore the make-shift “vestments” over their blue and gray-striped prisoner’s uniforms. Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavonic, and then back again to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras—everything was recited from memory. The Gospel—“In the beginning was the Word”—also from memory.

And finally, the Homily of Saint John Chrysostom—also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live. Saint John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well! Eighteen Orthodox priests and one deacon—most of whom were Serbs—participated in this unforgettable service. Like the sick man who had been lowered through the roof of a house and placed in front of the feet of Christ the Savior, the Greek Archimandrite Meletios was carried on a stretcher into the chapel, where he remained prostrate for the duration of the service.

Another of the prisoners, the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dionysios, recounts of that celebration:

In the open air, behind the shanty, the Orthodox gather together, Greeks and Serbs. In the center, both priests, the Serb and the Greek. They aren't wearing golden vestments. They don't even have cassocks. No tapers, no service books in their hands. But now they don't need external, material lights to hymn the joy. The souls of all are aflame, swimming in light.

Blessed is our God. My little paper-bound New Testament has come into its glory. We chant “Christ is Risen” many times, and its echo reverberates everywhere and sanctifies this place.

Hitler's Germany, the tragic symbol of the world without Christ, no longer exists. And the hymn of the life of faith was going up from all the souls; the life that proceeds buoyantly toward the Crucified One of the verdant hill of Stein.

Amen.

[Note: This entry was cross posted over at Blogodoxy. I make no apologies. It's that good.]

The Fatherhood Chronicles LXIII

For the First Time, Sofie Makes Peepee in the Potty

No, really, that title should be followed by fifteen exclamation points! As her full-time working Daddy, I've missed many of Sofie's "firsts." I missed her first time to roll over on her own. I missed her first time standing up without any help. I even missed her very first step (accomplished, I hasten to add, on the highly appropriate occasion of a story time at the Skokie Public Library). Now I was there when Sofie found her voice. That was pretty cool.

But you can't imagine how thrilled, happy, ecstatic and all those other adjectives I am that I got to be there the first time Sofie used her potty.

Now, understand, we've been in no real rush to potty train Sofie. We would like to have it accomplished by the time our next baby is born at the end of June. Sofie will be 23 months, or thereabouts, which would be about right. But we've been taking the gradual, just see what happens approach. We got the potty a couple of months ago, and just left it in the bathroom. From time to time we told Sofie, "This is where you make peepee, just like Mommy and Daddy do on the big people's potty." But it wasn't everyday. And soon Sofie got used to the idea that you sat on the potty.

Of course, the first few times she sat on it, she didn't like it. It didn't after all, have a flat seat, but this big hole that was a little uncomfortable to sit on. Then she was fascinated with taking the peepee-and-poopy-catching part out of the potty. Of course, once she found out the peepee-and-poopy-catching part fit her head nicely as a hat, she had to wear it as a hat. (All it had in it was dust bunnies and a stray hair fallen from Mommy or Daddy's head, so no biggie.) But then she took note that Mommy and Daddy sat on the big people's potty, so she started imitating us. Occasionally, when Daddy had important business to attend to, she would attend with him and bring her "baby" or one of her books in with her and sit (fully clothed) on the potty. Never for very long, but she was sort of getting the idea.

A few weeks ago we decided we would occasionally sit Sofie on her potty right before we put her in the bathtub for her bath. It seems without fail as soon as those little piggies touched the warm water, she would pee. So we thought, well, if she has to pee before bathtime, we might try sitting her on the potty and seeing if she'd go. We've not been very consistent with it, though since I usually give her her bath, I've tried to do it more often than not. Anytime we've sat her on the potty, we tell her that it's the place to make peepee. But we've never tried to get her to stay on the potty longer than she wants. Completely no pressure, no fighting, nothing negative.

So, tonight when I sat her on the potty, I figured she would sit there a few moments, like she normally does, then would want to get up into the tub, where she would likely pee when her feet got wet. But still I sat her on the potty and told her that his was where she made peepee. And then, what do you know, but sure 'nough, Sofie made peepee!

I cheered and clapped--in non-booming, non-scary supportive Daddy voice (hard to restrain myself, let me tell you)--and Sofie smiled and cheered and clapped, too. Momma came running with a bag of M&Ms; and gave Sofie a couple. We all clapped and cheered and Mommy and Daddy hugged Sofie some more. We told her how proud we were of her, and what a big girl she was. We then showed her what we did with the peepee: we put it in the big people's potty and flushed it, and then cleaned out her potty with water and a disinfectant cloth.

Mommy and Daddy are under no illusions that Sofie is potty-trained or even necessarily soon-to-be-so. But what an amazing first step! We are thrilled and happy. We know there will be advances and retreats, but Sofie's a smart little girl, and I think she'll soon put two-and-two together. And if we can teach her to pee before bathtime, hopefully the rest will come fairly quickly, even amidst the ups and downs.