...I believe the Church is the Body of Christ: one, visible and undivided. It is visible and undivided, not invisible and undivided, that’s a Protestant notion that saves anyone having to say hard things and hurt anyone else’s feelings; it is the result of a mechanistic, lowest common denominator Christianity that reduces belief to a handful of very weak statements and says everything else is optional. I don’t believe in the branch theory and I don’t believe in two lungs (again you need the ‘real’ church to be invisible for this) because if Christ was one physically visible, recognisable person then His Church must be the same. If not a single bone of His body was broken, not even in death, then it makes no sense to say that His body is broken now. As my spiritual father says: It is not true that we cannot know where the Church is not. ‘The Church’ is not beyond the boundaries of the Orthodox Church. What we cannot know is how an individual outside the church relates to it.Read the rest here.
Caution: This is not an ecumenical warm and fuzzy post. But it is pretty much on target.
My own view: I remain agnostic on the subject of Roman Catholic sacraments, but Protestants are pretty much beyond any reasonable connection to the Church. Here in N. America (as opposed to the majority of the established Orthodox churches) there is quite a bit of vocal support for recognizing RC sacraments most of which seems to at least implicitly involve accepting Augustine's understanding of the dualistic nature of the Church which has never been accepted by the Orthodox. My problem is that this is very hard to square with the historic teaching of the Church especially given the self understanding of both the Roman Church and the Orthodox. Both claim unequivocally that they are The Church spoken of in the Creed. And they hold the fullness of the faith. Now given that Rome has dogmatized quite a few things that we Orthodox are not on-board with this creates some serious issues.
Either Rome is right, in which case we Orthodox are at least schismatics and arguably heretics, or Rome is wrong. In which case they have been adding to the Deposit of the Faith and are teaching heresy. You can put all the feel good lipstick you want on this pig, but there it is. If we accept Rome's (and Augustine's) understanding of the nature of the Church and the sacraments we have taken a very large step towards admitting Rome is right. That's all well and fine if you believe that. But it is a position that I believe gravely undermines the claims of the Orthodox Church. It is also inconsistent with the more or less unanimously held opinion of every Orthodox saint over the last five centuries or so who has bothered to comment on the subject.
And yes, in Orthodoxy that's a problem.
37 comments:
My own opinion is the same as Margaret's.
It once was far more liberal, but that was a long time ago.
I am regularly disappointed when I see the late Pope's "two-lungs" remark treated as if it were a sort of Catholic branch theory. When the Pope said that the Church needs to breathe with both lungs, the two lungs mentioned were "Eastern & Western," not "Catholic & Orthodox."
FWIW, I thought the "invisible church" in Augustine was in City of God, not in his anti-donatist writings where he argues that it is the character of the office, not the person directly, which affected the consecration of the gifts. It seems to me that it was the later Protestants who conflated the two. Thus, I think that one can admit the validity of RC sacraments, using Augustine's more Orthodox approach against the donatists, without relying implicitly or explicitly on the errant "invisible church" metaphor.
This is important to note since your condemnation of Protestantism *also* seems to implicitly reference Augustine. I am here taking your statement "Protestants are pretty much beyond any reasonable connection to the Church" to mean "Protestant ordination lacks the distinctive charisma of the priestly office" that is Protestant ordinations are not the same nature as our ordinations. This seems to me essentially Augustinian.
In Orthodoxy, though, neither the character the office isn't valid either, except within the true faith.
Anastasia,
Are you saying that the on the ground faithful who partake of sacraments under heretics (which occured quite frequently when Constantinople was under either monophysite, monothelite, Nestorian, etc. patriarchs) do not partake truly of those mysteries because Orthodoxy does not believe that the character of the office is valid because it isn't in the true faith? I think this is a slippery slope. . .
@truthspirit--
Not to put words into Anatasia's (or Margaret's) mouth, but I think that what she is saying is that those who participate in the rites of the non-Orthodox have not partaken of the Holy Mysteries nor have they received sacraments--as a matter of definition. To the extent that such people--the on the ground faithful--receive grace, it is a result of God's mercy, and it is because God made Himself present in an extraordinary and ad hoc manner--not as a result of the rite. We can neither predict it, nor can we declare with any certainty that something happened in such circumstances. In contrast, when one partakes in Orthodox services, one can be sure of God's presence because one can be sure of Christ's promise the Holy Spirit is operative in His Church.
I think that this is what Margaret meant by "magical legalism." Her critique is that a theological system that includes the possibility of sacraments outside the Church necessarily reduces sacraments to magic because sacraments cease to be of the Church to builds up the Body of Church and instead become a thing that certain persons have the power to perform by virtue of a "valid ordination" and the following of a "form" and "matter" recipe.
Yes, truthspirit, that's what I am saying. Thank you, Han, for elucidating it so well.
Another way to put it would be that outside of the holy Orthodox Christian faith there is nothing recognizable to us as holy mysteries (sacraments). That does not mean people outside the Church are necessarily without Grace, without God. Even Saul of Tarsus, who persecuted the Church, was given great Grace.
With reference to the issue about the Grace of the Sacraments, the Orthodox Church is free to recognize such Grace if is in the best interest of believers. The recent talk of Metropolitan Hilarion seems to indicate that the Russian and the Greek Churches recognize the Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, but not of the Anglicans nor the Protestants. What you or I think is to miss the point of Orthodox Ecclesiology.
Anastasia/Han, I think you've missed a crucial subtlety by not understanding the context of Augustine's theology. He's not arguing that heretics have valid sacraments. The donatists were arguing that if a priest commits a major sin, confession is unable to restore him to the church. They also therefore held any consecrations that this priest celebrated as invalid. We, like Augustine, reject this. If a priest confesses his sin and is restored by the bishop to his office, his sacraments are valid. Note, no heresy here. St Augustine's theology also permits the donatists to return to the church with valid orders since, even though they were schismatics, the mark of their office remains. The Orthodox Church has used this same theology in healing the Moscow/ROCOR schism: since there was no major heresy, the charisma of the office was maintained and therefore their sacraments were valid.
My point above was simply this: Protestants do NOT maintain the character of the office, regardless of what heresies may or may not be present. In this, I think we agree.
With Rome the answer is far less clear. There are certainly theological issues involved. It is up to our Patriarchs to determine whether or not those issues as so severe as to erase the mark of their office. I should add here that I agree with Igumen Gregory that the Orthodox Church has consistently answered "no" to this question in all of her official statements. For instance, when the Patriarchs made the joint statement that if Rome repents of her errors that she will be returned to the "primus inter pares," this implicitly requires that the mark of Rome's office still remains. Take this with Igumen Gregory's reminder that Metr Hilarion consistently says that Rome's sacraments are valid (it has been said on multiple occasions). In short, we ought to be very careful about contradicting our hierarchy.
My point above is that in none of these debates is there ANY theology of "invisible church" which the Orthodox Church must reject out of hand. Further, that St Augustine himself does not use a theology of "invisible church" in context of restoring church schisms (it is this last point that makes St Augustine's theology on "invisible church," while awkward, not heresy).
Dear Fr. Gregory and Nathaniel,
I was not discussing whether Catholic sacraments could, potentially, at some future date when Rome repents, be recognized as valid. Of course they could and the pope could again be primus inter pares.
But that's all potential, theoretical. Today, as things stand in the real world, we are unable to recognize any of this. That's why we don't receive communion at a Catholic mass. That's why each bishop has to decide for himself how converts are to be received - because no church has officially come out and recognized Catholic sacraments.
Nor could any one of the Orthodox Churces do so unilaterally.
Protestants don't have apostolic succession, so with them, even the potential is missing.
Another point to mention, though, is that no one is a successor to any Apostle unless he holds the faith of the Apostles, even if there has been a continuity of physical laying on of hands.
Just to be abundantly clear: I believe John is unfairly attributing a Protestant reading of Augustine ("invisible/dualistic nature of the church") to Orthodox Christians who argue for the validity of Roman sacraments since:
1. this reading is mired in Protestant concerns foreign to (and rejected by) Orthodoxy
2. no Orthodox that I know who argues for the validity of Roman sacraments has ever used the "invisible" metaphor (not even DBH in "the Myth of Schism"; in fact, suggesting he is using "invisible" implicitly undermines his whole argument).
3. St Augustine himself doesn't use "invisible" in this way.
St Augstine, while admittedly teaching about an "invisible church," does not use this theology to restore Church schisms, but as a way to answer the pagan objection that since the secular Roman government has fallen that the Church is somehow rendered impotent. Thus one could, in one sense, replace invisible/visible with secular/sacerdotal.
...and even then, "successor to the apostles" is a problematic phrase, isn't it?
Anastasia,
I think we roughly agree. I'm only trying to help people realize that the language used by our Fathers and Patriarchs is far more subtle than what you are admitting to. A bishop does not have the ability to "retroactively validate" someone's office/sacraments. So while it is true that each bishop (or synod, as is the case for the EP/GOArch) decides for himself how a convert is to be received since there is no official teaching, I think we kid ourselves if we think that the official teaching that will eventually emerge will be anything other than "RC sacraments are valid."
I'm not sure what you mean by "unilaterally" since the EP receives RCs by chrismation in all of his archdioceses. This practice is the significant majority within Orthodoxy. One should note however that this DOES NOT admit that RC communion/ordination is valid since anyone can baptize according to our canons. What DOES admit RC ordination/eucharist is the practice of "vesting" a priestly convert.
Regarding "successor to the apostles," Metr Hilarion once said: "Peter and Paul are in Rome, that has to count for something." ;)
I'll readily grant you the subtlety bit, Nathaniel, and I for one see it as very wise.
I'll also grant that we don't need "invisible church" to interpret St. Augustine.
First, forgive me if this is a double post--Blogger gave me an error when I tried to post my original one.
If we eventually pronounce Roman Catholic sacraments to be "valid" we will have changed our minds on the Palamite controversy and will have adopted Scholasticism. It has been a long time since I have read St. Augustine (and even then it was in English translation), but I suspect that he did not write or think in terms of "validity." This idea is a Scholastic concept that, as Maragaret has observed, reduces sacraments to magic. It is magic because it reifies sacraments; positing that sacraments can have existence apart from the Church, Scholastic theology holds that so long as proper "form," "matter," "intention," and "minister" are present, one can compel God to give Himself in a sacrament regardless of whether or not the Church is involved (this is where "licit" and "illicit" come in). I do not know if St. Augustine had himself gone this far, so I am not sure if we can call it "Augustinian" per se, but it is certainly fair to call it "Scholastic." When we use such Scholastic terminology as "validity" we really ought to be mindful of what such terms mean within the Scholastic system. Careless usage can only lead to confusion--either in the sense that others cannot understand what we believe, or in the sense that we ouselves become muddled as to what we believe. I believe that we, as a Church, have rejected Scholastic sacramental theology. I believe that Orthodox theology holds that sacraments are of the Church and that they "work," and we can have confidence that they "work," not because certain required ingredients are present, but rather because the Holy Spirit is at work in the Church, and therefore the rites of the Church are efficacious through the activity of the same Holy spirit. Since there is but one Body of Christ, and since the one Body of Christ is the Church, and since the purpose of sacraments is to build up the one Body of Christ, there cannot, by definition, be sacraments outside the Church because that would mean that that God is building up something other than His one Body.
To be continued...
Continued...
Because sacraments are of and for the Church, rather than the Church being a vehicle for distributing sacraments, the Church need not necessarily be bound to the scramental scheme in fulfilling its mission. This is where economia comes in when receiving converts. I think that it is incorrect to think of economia as retroactivly "validating" a previously "invalid" extra-ecclesial sacrament, but rather we should think of it as a decision on the part of a heirarch to omit the usual performance of the Holy Mystery that would ordinarily be celebrated, trusting that, through God's promise that the Holy Spirit is active in His Church, this same Church will supply that grace that would normally be communicated through the Mystery (i.e. because God has promised to be present in His Church, God will be present for the convert received by economia in the same way He would be present had the convert been recived by akribeia). Theoretically, I suppose, a convert could be recieved by no rite whatsoever, although such an application of "economia" would certainly warrant the scare quotes and would resonably cause one to suspect that a church enganged in such practice to be heretical rather than Orthodox.
Undoubtedly, the current practice has been to apply the economic principle to Catholics more than to Protestants, probably for the unremarkable proposition that the former are less heretical than the latter. I do not presume to know what exactly Met. Hilarion is thinking. Furthermore, even though he has said things that could be construed as supporting a theory of "valid" sacraments outside the Church, he has also said, in no uncertain terms, that there are no such things, see e.g. http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/10/metropolitan-hilarion-on-recognition-of.html. I would not read too much into his quote about Ss. Peter and Paul. After all, the Jews are still here, notwithstanding the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. We therefore can reasonably hold that God maintains them and still has a plan for them. Why should He not similarly have a plan for the Latins, who hold and honor the trophies of His chief Apostles?
P.S. Sorry for the Grammar FAIL in my first post. I really ought to proofread before hitting the "publish comment" button.
Scholastic theology holds that so long as proper "form," "matter," "intention," and "minister" are present, one can compel God to give Himself in a sacrament regardless of whether or not the Church is involved (this is where "licit" and "illicit" come in).
Hm, that is a rather uncharitable reading of the Scholastics. Unless you can quote me a source using that "compel" language, it seems to me that it would be much more fair to phrase it thusly:
"Scholastic theology holds that God has promised that so long as proper 'form,' 'matter,' 'intention,' and 'minister' are present, God will grant that the sacraments thus confected will serve as a true channel of grace, quite regardless of whether the minister is or is not in perfect communion with His Church (this is where 'licit' and 'illicit' come in)."
No scholastic that I know is claiming that we can force God to do anything. We (I guess I count myself as a scholastic thinker) are simply trying to make sense of exactly what God has promised that He will do.
Han, again, well said.
gdelassu, is there any substantive difference between OTOH trying to compel God and OTOH believing God must (necessarily will) do something because He has promised to, and then calling God on His promise?
The question, for the Orthodox, is not whether the minister is in perfect communion with Christ's Church. The questions are whether we really do have a minister and whether he is in any kind of communion at all with Christ's Church. And those two questions, I suppose, are really one.
[I]s there any substantive difference between OTOH trying to compel God and OTOH believing God must (necessarily will) do something because He has promised to, and then calling God on His promise?
The question does not make a lot of sense to me. What exactly would it mean to "call God on His promise"? Is this really how you imagine we Catholics think? I can assure you we are not laboring under the illusion that God is a trained dog at the end of our leash. If you care to approach Catholicism with that understanding of our mentality as your prior assumption, you are simply setting yourself up to misunderstand what we think and say.
What I mean is, for us the whole issue is not one of some legal obligation God has contracted. Is it for you? I ask this (without asserting it) because very often that's how it sounds.
gdelassu,
Regarding the "compel" language, it is completely fair. Let's take the Eucharist as our example. If one holds that the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, then one must necessarily hold that He is present in any valid Mass, regardless of whether such Mass was licit. Perhaps this is not a problem if sacraments have some sort of existence apart from the Church, but if one accepts that the purpose of sacraments as such are not simply as a means of conveying grace (and therefore different from, say, private prayer), but rather the means by which persons become incorporated into the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church, one must ask whether God would actually will to trunsubstantiate the matter of an illicit Mass. Would it not be contrary to His purpose? Communion of the Real Body and Real Blood makes real the mystical communion one has with the Church and other Catholics, does it not? This is why the Roman Catholic Church does not practice open communion is it not? How then could God will to be present is this particular way in an illicit Mass? Therefore, a system that can accept the idea of valid but illicit must logically hold that God has been compelled to be present in such cases because His presence is achieved regardless of (perhaps even against) His will.
Similarly, as far as modifying Scholastic theology to say that sacraments do not work when the recipe is followed but rather because God promised that they would work when the recipe is followed, my question is: To whom did God make such a promise? Obviously the answer is: To the Church. Of course, this is not what He promised; the recipe itself is a product of medieval speculative theology. But even assuming arguendo that it was, such promise was to the Church, meaning that it makes sense to apply the recipe only to what is going on within the Church. Otherwise God's promise would not be a covenant that He would be our God and we His people, but more like a blank cheque wherein so long as the minister managed to get the ordination rite performed on him by the right people at some point, he would be granted the irrevocable power to bring God down onto the altar with certainty even if he were to oppose God's Church. Historically this sort of thing is not the sort of thing that God does. After all, He did promise the Holy Land to the Israelites, but He did so as a matter of covenant. After the Israelites abandoned God to follow their own counsels, God vacated the Temple and (moreover) scourged them with the Babylonians. God's promise is a relationship--not a negotiable instrument.
Guys, guys... Let's be charitable please. If the scholastic criteria were *prescriptive*, it would be magic. However, if it is *descriptive* it is pretty much the same as how we view it (i.e. "when Christ shows up, this is what it looks like"). Neither Catholic nor Orthodox believe that anyone can force God's hand. Let's not argue shades of absurdity here, especially in the presence of the deep mysteries of God in front of which we all stand in awe...
Nathaniel,
"Descriptive" is fine, but that doesn't mean that it is all a matter of taste, or that one is not more accurate than the other. My contention is that Scholastic sacramental theology is wrong, or in other words is a poor descriptor of what sacrament are because such theology results in situations where God's hand is forced. If it is axiomatic that such an event is impossible, then the theology cannot be correct. To use an analogy, a system that describes the movement of heavenly bodies in terms of perfect circles might be a way to account for such movement just as a system that describes the movement in terms of ellipses. Yet, we can see that as compared to the latter, the former makes no sense since it requires the positing of mini-orbits along the path of the perfectly circular orbit--mini orbits that make no scientific sense and can only exist as an abstraction to make observed phenomena conform to the idea of circular orbits. It is therefore a poor descriptor of what is going on out in space.
The term "charitable" should not be used as an excuse to pretend that real differences do not exist between Orthodox and Catholic theology (or perhaps even differences between acceptable opinions within Orthodoxy itself). There is no charity without truth. Nobody here has accused anyone of being a sinner for holding any particular opinion or thrown about any personal invective; rather we have all stated our claims and we have, to greater or lesser extent, supported such claims with reasoning. This is all that we can do.
It is folly to think that some final resolution the the question can be achieved in a combox thread, but it does nobody any favors nor advance the cause of any genuine ecumenism to refuse to acknowledge real difference or to evaluate which is true and which is false by reducing everything to an equally legitimate difference of opinion. For these sort of discussions to have any value, we must be willing to defend our positions with reason and to demonstrate why contrary positions are flawed. Otherwise, these discussions would be shallow as a debate over which ice cream flavor is better.
I'm frustrated, and indeed using the word charitable, precisely because the argument you are advancing is an old evangelical protestant and non-Christian/atheist argument against a caricature of both Catholic and Orthodox practice. That is that we can "force God's hand" into effecting the Eucharistic change. Your details are slightly different, but the essence of the argument is the same: create a caricature of their Eucharistic theology and reductio ad absurdum. The problem should be evident: it is a straw-man fallacy. I am not sure you recognize how easily the same straw-man can be made of our own practice.
There ARE real differences between RC and EO, which John can attest that I have argued many times (Vatican I and filioque; Immaculata is problematic), but the ones you've listed on Eucharistic theology are merely contrived caricatures. Charity, in the sense in which I used it means precisely that we speak the truth in love and not invent fake obstacles to union. It is precisely at this point that we ought to use our tradition as a guide: if a bishop hasn't brought up the issue in the last 1200 years, it probably isn't an obstacle unless it is a new development. There have been several critiques in history of RC Eucharistic theology, most around the use of azymes, but I am not aware of a single Orthodox episcopal critique of RC theologies of validity in spite of Orthodox being clearly aware of such.
Nathaniel,
Now I am getting annoyed. The fact that you dislike what I write does not make it a "caricature." It is simply a fact that the Roman Catholic Church takes the position that there can be such a thing as a "valid" but "illicit" sacrament, and furthermore that "illicit" is not simply a term that applies to Catholic priests in good standing who happen to violate rubrics in the celebration of the sacraments, but also validly ordained priests who are not in communion with Rome. Therefore, the Roman Catholic Church takes the position that there can be sacraments outside the Church. Is this caricature? Is any of this inaccurate?
Now, what are the consequences of taking this position if one takes seriously? Nothing, if taken by itself. However, the Roman Catholic Church has also (1)taken the position that there is but a single visible Church, which it identifies with itself (see CCC 816), and (2) taken the position that "[t]he purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the Body of Christ and, finally, to give worship to God" (CCC 1123). If one takes seriously these two points in thinking about the notion that there can be valid sacraments outside the Church, one of several conclusions can be drawn:
(1) "[B]uild up the Body of Christ" is merely a secondary purpose of sacraments whereas "sanctify man" is the primary purpose. If this is so, then an extra-ecclesial sacrament is unremarkable since the building up of the Church is not the primary purpose of the sacraments. The problem with this theory, however is that it is contrary to CCC 1118, which states that the sacraments are by and for the Church.
OR
To be continued...
Continued...
OR
(2) One can be both "in" and "out of" the Church simultaneously. I think that this is where a lot of modern Catholic ecclesiology is going. We see it in attempts to nuance the whole "subsist in" language or in the heretofore unknown distinction between "churches" and "ecclesial communities." This new ecclesiology sidesteps the valid but illicit issue because it implicitly rejects the idea that there can be sacraments outside the Church. Rather, taking its cue from the part of CCC 1118 that states, "sacraments make the Church," this eccelsiology means that a community that has valid sacraments are in some way "in" the Church, notwithstanding schism, or, logically, heresy. There are two problems with this, however. First, this sacramental ecclesiology is based upon circular reasoning. Because it essentially teaches that a community is "in the Church" if it has valid sacraments, and that these sacraments are valid because the community is in the Church. The other problem is that because it posits the possibility of true "Church" out of communion, either as a matter of organization or as a matter of belief with the one true visible Roman Catholic Church in which this true Church "subsists," we are left with either some form of branch theory--a very respectable Anglican ecclesiology (but not traditionally Catholic), or theology in which there is one true visible Church that is but part of a larger true invisible Church--a possibly respectable Evangelical ecclesiology (but again not traditionally Catholic).
OR
(3) "Valid" but "illicit" sacraments outside the Church exist because the Church causes them to exist. The problem with this is that it means that this "cause" was a sort of big bang--the Church performed a valid ordination at some point, and thereafter valid sacraments can be subsequently effected, further input of the Church unnecessary. This is what Margaret described as "magical legalism." It means that God's hand is forced. If one refuses to accept this but nevertheless holds that the Church is causing the validity of illicit sacraments, then one is left with the even more distressing conclusion that God is a schizophrenic who predictably and consistently effects sacraments outside His own Church even though this is contrary to the purpose of sacraments of "build[ing] up the Body of Christ."
OR
(4) The idea that there can be sacraments outside the Church is simply incorrect.
To be continued...
Continued...
If anyone thinks that any of these four possibilities is a result of caricature rather than the application of reason published Roman Catholic teachings, I would like to hear the reasons why my reasoning is flawed. If anyone has an additional possibility that can explain why the idea of sacraments outside the Church is not problematic if one takes both Catholic ecclesiology and sacramental theology seriously, other than the logically-flawed argument from authority ("Because the Church teaches it") or the cop-out pious non-explanation ("It's a mystery"), I would like to hear it. I have posted several comments setting forth reasons why I think that Roman Catholic theology on this point is simply wrong, and at a length. I have yet to hear a reasoned defense of the same. I have been provided with no demonstration that my arguments fail to withstand logical scrutiny; thus far I have only met with conclusory dismissals of my argument, unsupported by evidence, and accusations that I am motivated by either lack of charity or a love of schism.
Finally, with regard to the supposed non-existence of an episcopal critique of this idea of extra-ecclesial "validity," I would again direct you to the link I put in an earlier post. If checks the link and reads what Met. Hilarion had to say, one will clearly find that he not only denies the possibility of sacraments outside the Church, but he is even willing to adopt Met. Vladimir's characterization of them as "graceless actions."
If your view is correct, why is it just now coming to light? Why were the 15th century writers who had the scruples to condemn the RCC for shaving silent on this issue? It is precisely because our historical practice in this regard roughly admits as much. If there are no sacraments outside of the Orthodox communion, than how were the Arians received back into communion with only a confession of faith? This historical complexity has existed in nearly every council up until our modern day. The philosophical simplicity and consistency of your position aside, it would condemn our saints who, possessing the apostolic charism, admitted the former iconoclasts back into communion by confession of faith alone. Further, I think your logic faulty as it hinges on the conflation of different meanings of the word "Church," one which is unable to take in the complexity of the nearly widespread inter-communion of Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Syrians (to list just one example). One must further point out that the very method of reasoning you are using to condemn Scholasticism is precisely that form of reasoning that is a product of Scholasticism.
Without putting anyone present in this category, I have become extremely weary of the "blogger contra mundi" who in his own brilliance is able to find hundreds of heresies present in the RCC that no bishop or saint of our church has ever found. Again, present company excluded, this is just the same re-occurring rigorism found in the Donatists and Novationists. This obsession with the errors of another is soul-destroying.
Oh and BTW, the "caricature" statement was in reference to the fact that you want the criteria for a valid Eucharist to be prescriptive, that is that you could line up all the ducks so that you could force God's hand in a Eucharistic consecration. It is not in reference to your critique of valid but illicit.
Nathaniel,
Even though you have declined to address my questions that I asked in my former three-part post, I will address the points you have raised in your most recent one.
As for your charge that I have not sufficiently appreciated the nuance of "Church," I would direct your attention to my point (2) in my former post. This "nuanced" ecclesiology is a novelty dating back to the middle of the last Century only. Heretofore, nobody--neither the Catholics, nor the Orthodox, nor the Monophysites nor the Nestorians adopted such the idea that there could be "Church" in any real sense outside the Church they each identified with their own. The fact of unofficial intercommunion was seen as an abuse--reluctantly tolerated (not approved) only in situations where a common enemy (i.e. the Muslims) posed a threat to all Christians in the area. This has never, until very recently, been argued as a basis for believing that there was some "Church" that was more encompassing than the visible boundaries of the Church (except by the branch theory Anglicans)--most likely because such a theology would necessarily result in either a Branch Theory or an Invisible Church ecclesiology.
To be continued...
Continued...
As for the differing forms of receiving converts (assuming that we are talking about people who were never part of the Church--not people who at one time were, then fell away, then came back [such people should be received by Confession and Communion]), please see my earlier post about economia. While it is not altogether unreasonable to look to the method of convert reception in determining what the Church believes about the rites of heretics or schismatics, there is at least one big problem with it--namely the fact that converts are abandoning their former heresies and joining the Church. As I wrote above, the application of economia in receiving converts is a hierarch's decision to forgo normal rites for the purpose of making it emotionally easier for the convert to join the Church. As I wrote above, because sacraments are for the Church, rather than the Church for the sacraments, the Church has the ability to not administer them under this economic principle. It is understood that in joining the Church via some form of economia, the convert receives whatever he would have received had he be joined to the Church through the normal sacramental rite via the principle of akribeia. This is not, then the recognition of the "validity" of some extra-ecclesial sacrament--and again, I would direct your attention to the interview with Met. Hilarion that I linked to before, where he clearly asserts that the application of economia to the reception of converts is not a recognition of the validity of sacraments outside the Church.
When we look at the early Church Fathers on this point, we can see, for example, in the the 7th Canon of the 2nd Ecumenical Council that certain heretics (Arians, Macedonians, Novatianists, Tetradites and Appolinarians) were to be received by Chirsmation, whereas others (Eunomians, Montanists and Sabellians) were to be received by Baptism. Later, in the 95th Canon of the 6th Ecumenical Council, this list was expanded, and we find that Manicheans, Marcionites and the followers of Paul of Samosata were to be received by Baptism whereas Nestorians and Monophysites were to be received by Confession. I find it interesting that the Montanists are included with the Eunomians and the Sabellians. The 7th Canon briefly states why the Eunomians need to be Baptized (because they only used only a single immersion in their baptisms) and why the Sabellians needed to be Baptized (because the taught that the Father and the Son are the same person), so it seems the the principle here is the degree of Trinitarianess of the heresy. The problem, then, becomes apparent--the Montanists are included in those to be received by Baptism even though they were Trinitarian. This is why I do not think that the practice of the early Church in dealing with the reception of heretics is compelling evidence for the idea that there was a belief in the "validity" of heretical Baptism. While the Baptism of former non-Triniatrian Eunomians (non-Trinitarian because of the single, not threefold, immersion) and Sabellians could bee seen evidence that the early Church believed that some "lack of form" invalidated their rites, the fact that the Trinitarian Montanists are grouped with them suggests that the rational was something else. Furthermore, the fact that Monophysites and Nestorians were to be received by Confession--not even Chrismation, but Confession, suggests that the operative principle here is the degree of heresy. Therefore, in evaluating the historical evidence, it seems to me that in setting forth categories of who needs to be Baptized vs. Chrismated vs Confessed is an attempt to put forth standard guidelines of how what would later be called economia would be applied, rather than rely upon possibly contradictory ad hoc applications.
The Montanasts were baptized because they held to a Sabellian triadology (see Jerome's Epistle 41) and thus, like the Eunomians and the Sabellians, their theology distorted the form of the act since the form depends on an appropriate exposition of the three persons ("in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit"). Thus, trinitarian heretics have invalid baptisms, while christological heretics have valid ones. Perhaps an argument could be made for the invalidity of RC baptisms could be made on the point of the filioque. However, I think this an uphill battle considering we have no official synodal condemnation of the filioque, only declarations that it is a violation of the canons and thus inappropriate. All condemnations of the filioque as heresy have been private interpretations.
Your argument from economia cannot hold for one reason: there are some circumstances where a bishop cannot grant economia. He cannot receive a Hindu by chrismation. He cannot receive a Protestant minister by vesting. Can you give a single example where the form, matter or intention was missing from the original act and a bishop (or better, a synod) granted economia?
I agree, the "nuanced" ecclesiology is a newer phenomenon (at least as explicitly stated). This does not make it heretical however, otherwise homoousias is by necessity heretical. Further, and I must state this part emphatically, the only people who are adopting Branch Theory or Invisible Church Theory are Anglicans and Protestants, respectively. I have in fact consistently argued against them in this exchange (but perhaps I can state for the record: they are heresy). There is no necessary decline from a nuanced ecclesiology to either of these theories, this is a slippery slope fallacy.
All I have argued is this: subtlety. Our history is complex, and in analyzing the theology and practices of our tradition a very subtle ecclesiology emerges. We thus ought to be careful not to step beyond what our bishops have consistently taught. Perhaps we ought to call this ecumenical sobriety. The extremes of both unconditional acceptance and unlimited condemnations arise from the stirring of the passions. What we need in this process is apatheia. We must not ignore the warnings of our fathers, nor may we run ahead of them.
Nathaniel,
Regarding the Montanists and their condemnation, while it is true that the Roman branch of Montanists were Sabellians, there were no Roman legates or Western bishops at the 2nd Ecumenical Council. In the East, what we largely find are condemnations for the sorts of things that the Montanists are known for, i.e. false prophecy. While one can make an argument that, despite the absence of any Western representatives to the Council, the Council Fathers lumped the Montanists in with the Eunomians and Sabellians based upon stuff that they might have heard of going on out West, I find it curious that in the 7th Canon, the particular heresies of the Eunomians and the Sabellians are described, those of the Montanists are not. I think it more likely, then, that the actions of Constantinople with regard to the Montanists were a ratification of the earlier Synod of Iconium, which condemned Montanism for teaching the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, notwithstanding the traditional Baptismal formula. Of course, the Synod of Iconium also held that all heretics, no matter the heresy, needed to be Baptized. I am not sure how a teaching about the incarnation of the Spirit is qualitatively different from the non-Incarnation of the Son, but yet we see that Arians are to be Chrismated, not Baptized. Around this time, other accusations against the Montanists in the East included child murder and Cybele-style prophecy, so I think the reasonable interpretation of Canon VII is that the Montanists' error was not so much a defect in their Baptism, but that they had become some strange mystery cult that could not be regarded as Christian.
To be continued...
Continued...
Regarding economia, I think you are misunderstanding economia. No bishop would asked the form-matter-intention questions that you posed in applying economia because those are not the categories we use in thinking about the question. The question is rather, "How close to Orthodoxy was the convert's former heresy?" The closer it is to Orthodoxy, the greater the appropriateness of applying economia. But there is no rule setting forth how it is to be applied--it is at the discretion of the bishop. Should a bishop try to apply economia to a clearly inappropriate situation (like your Hindu hypothetical), it would not be the "invalid" or "illicit" application of economia, it would simply mean that the bishop is a heretic, and if some would-be covert were to still join with him, that same covert would not have joined the Church.
You can continue to insist that this new "nuanced" Ecclesiology is distinguishable from Branch Theory, but you have yet to show how it is. Merely saying that it is does not, or insisting without any rational that there is "no necessary decline," does not make the argument subtle, it just makes it unreasoned. For my money, I think that this new ecclesiology is motivated by an unwillingness to backtrack on thinking in categories of valid vs. licit. It think that this problem arose when the Roman Catholics discovered in the middle of the last century that for a millennium, their sacramental theology became distorted by Scholasticism and that, for all practical purposes, they simply forgot that the purpose of sacraments are to build up the Church. It was only because sacraments were seen primarily, if not (for all practical purposes) exclusively, as instruments of sanctification that the Roman Catholics now have this problem. I am not distorting the historical record here. The very existence of votive Masses, private Masses, heck, even Low Mass demonstrate that the by the medieval period, sacraments had become a thing that the Church dispensed out for individual sanctification, not the means by which a group of Christians became the Church. We see this as late as the 20th Century where the Baltimore Catechism talks about sacraments as "a visible sign of invisible grace." Only in the middle of the 20th Century do we see the Catholics remembering that at one time, their sacramental theology was not so skewed. Yet, by refusing to re-think the whole valid-licit framework that is predicated on the individual sanctification theory of sacraments, now that Catholic sacramental theology is becoming more orthodox, the problems become apparent, and these problems cannot be reasonably resolved by developing an ecclesiology that posits true "Church" that is not within the boundaries of the visible Church while arbitrarily declaring that this is not Branch Theory. This approach of developing anew ecclesiology to solve theological problems caused by past theological distortions seems to me to be nothing more than Hegalian dialectic. It will only create problems and further distortions. There is the truth, and there is falsehood. There is no new true theological sythesis that arises out of the interplay between thesis and antithesis.
A better theory would be to identify the Church with the apostolic tradition, thereby allowing for the possibility of schisms between local Churches so long as the unity of faith is maintained--except that this would require a backtracking on Vatican I.
Just one more suggestion--
The Roman Catholics really ought to at least scale back, if they are unwilling to totally abandon, their reliance on Scholastic categories in sacramental theology. Why would this be so hard? Putting the Summa next to the Bible as a reference at Trent notwithstanding, is the form-matter-minister-intention framework, or the valid-licit distinction a matter of faith, or is it simply an intellectual construct designed to make sense of tradition? Simply abandon the current Roman pretense that Sacramental Theology is a branch of natural science, and take the more modest Orthodox view that there are no true sacraments outside the Church, and that one cannot know with any certainty what is going on in extra-ecclesial rites. Retain the Scholastic theology as one method of understanding what is going on inside the Church, while remembering that the tradition and the rites come first, and that the Scholastic explanations are, as Nathaniel put it, "descriptive" and therefore should not be the basis or justification for changing the rites while maintaining "validity."
I don't have a lot of time to reply, so I'll be brief and only respond to the first part (I'll try to get to the other parts a bit later, I mostly agree with you). You're reading the canon like this: Eunomians, Montanists, and Sabellians ... who are beyond the pale. Unfortunately this is not the wording of the canon. The canon says:
1. "Eunomians, who are baptized with only one immersion"
2. "Montanists ... and Sabellians, who teach the identity of Father and Son"
Thus, the canon explains explicitly why the Montanists are baptized: they teach the same as the Sabellians. The demonstration in this canon is clearly to show *why* the baptisms are defective. In the first case, they only do one immersion. In the second, the lack of distinction between the Father and Son render the triune immersion meaningless.
I am in no way saying that the valid-illicit categories that appear later are at play here in the minds of the authors, only that such seems to me a fair (but incomplete) description of the mechanism used by these fathers in making this distinction.
We also have the difficulty of not knowing when/where this canon was written. Most canon scholars hold that this canon is either completely spurious, or that it was modified after the council to include the Sabbatians.
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