Oscar Romero: "We are Ministers, not Messiahs"

via friend Cindy Hoover, Covenant missionary/pediatrician in Mexico

A Future Not Our Own: In memory of Oscar Romero (1917–1980) borrowed from today's Lenten Journey posted by Missy Lawson

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of
saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession
brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives include everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one
day will grow. We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not
messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

From Xavarian Missionaries

A Conference I wish I could go to

The Analogy of Being:
Invention of the Anti-Christ or the Wisdom of God?

A Theological Symposium

Date: April 4—6, 2008

Place: Pope John Paul II
Cultural Center
3900 Harewood Road, NE
Washington, DC 20017

Synopsis of the Conference

Is there any ‘natural’ knowledge of God available to the human person, apart from Christian revelation, or is all knowledge of God given to human beings uniquely in Christ? Is Christianity irrevocably wed to the classical metaphysical tradition, or can God’s nature and character be rethought in distinctly modern ways, based upon a renewed reading of Scripture? What relationship or likeness, if any, exists between created nature and the grace of God? Does Christian theology presuppose a natural philosophical ‘capacity’ for knowledge of God in the human person?

All of these fundamental theological questions are situated at the heart of the famous 20th century debate between Erich Przywara S.J. and Karl Barth, and were treated in Przywara’s famous work Analogia Entis. These topics were also revisited by Hans Urs von Balthasar in his ecumenical landmark, The Theology of Karl Barth. On the occasion of a forthcoming English translation of Analogia Entis by John Betz and David Bentley Hart, this symposium will invite contemporary theologians indebted to Aquinas, Przywara, Barth and Balthasar to discuss these issues. Is the theological concept of the ‘analogy of being’ in fact an ‘invention of the anti-Christ’ as Karl Barth suggested, or is it a truth about creation revelatory of the wisdom of God?

NOTES to SELF: On Maritain and Gilson

"A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson, edited by Peter A. Redpath

"Gilson and Maritain: Battle Over the Beautiful," by Francesca Murphy
p. 103-104

"Maritain, as a convert, who began by seeing the need for reason and worked his way from there to faith, and Gilson, as a cradle-catholic, who experienced faith as a given, were at tempermental antipodes from one another.

The differences between them were more than psychological. Gilson created a philosophy for theology. Maritain developed a philosophy grown into fruition in the shelter of his spiritual life, but not intended to be the direct and inseparable expression of his Christian belief. Gilson positions his starting point in faith, or theology, Maritain in philosophy. Gilson's philosophy is intended to illuminate his theology. Maritain's philosophy is intended to explain experiences universally accessible to all rational human beings, regardless of their religion.

...I have no doubt that we have an equal need of Maritain's philosophical and Gilson's theological apologetic. In the years to come, Gilson will serve as a reminder that, as Augustine knew, cultural conservativism is not enough: it is not even a beginning.

Fr. Norris Clarke: 1915-2008

I have just learned that Fr. Norris Clarke died in June. His impressive vitae is still available here. Anyone who knows me, or who reads my blog, will quickly figure out that I have been greatly influenced by Fr. Clarke's The One and the Many: A Contemporary Thomistic Metaphysics. Praise God for his life and work.

Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in æternum,
quia pius es.
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;
et lux perpetua luceat eis ;
cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.

Continuity or discontinuity? Defoliation or Weeding?

I've discovered a deep, challenging, humorous and scholarly blog by Tim Enloe entitled Societas Christiana: Adventures in Medieval Protestantism. I really appreciate his historical expertise and am grateful that he is "carrying on his education in public" because I'm eager to learn from him.

To whet your appetite...

What was the Reformation

Protestant apologetics against Catholicism seem in our day to be dominated by the assumption that arguing from historical and theological discontinuity is simply “the” Protestant way of doing things. Many of the “top names” in Protestant apologetics tell a story about the 16th century reformation which I believe gives away the store to the Catholics–who are, if nothing else, unembarassed by the history of the Church and claim it all as their own. By contrast, the typical Protestant story about Church history is founded upon embarassment–embarassment about the “dirtiness” of the pre-Protestant era Church, and a concomitant willingness to embrace all manner of arguments which seek to distance the Protestant reformation itself, and we as its heirs, from the majority of what had come before. I believe that this way of looking at the Protestant reformation is the historiographical equivalent of the very much un-reformational theological approach to the Scriptures which takes the distinction between Old and New Testaments and hardens it into a division across which very little can transfer and even less is really “relevant” to our lives today. In this post I would like to tell a different story about the Protestant reformation, a story not driven by the assumptions of perfectionism to embrace discontinuity and cut ourselves off from the bulk of God’s dealings with His saints in history.....


...No indeed, the Protestant reformers were not Moderns in the sense that the Evangelical Modernists think they were. On the contrary, the reformers thought like Medievals, they acted like Medievals, and they need to be analyzed as Medievals. This means sometimes they challenge us, their self-proclaimed heirs, in ways that make us extremely uncomfortable....

Defoliation or Weeding: Some Problems With the Radical Vision of “Reform

....Nevertheless, is there not a vast difference between weeding the garden (helping it to thrive) and defoliating it (preventing it from thriving)? The history of Radical reforming movements more easily lends itself to the defoliation metaphor than to the weeding one. Some Anabaptist groups dumped everything that had been handed down to them from previous generations and reformulated the Faith from scratch on the basis (they claimed) of “the Bible Alone.” Rationalists such as Michael Servetus eliminated the doctrine of the Trinity and sought a Faith that was so pure it was no longer even Christian. Centuries later, groups from the Campbellites to the Mormons severed themselves from all existing churches on the pretext that they were all “corrupt.” Their answer to the “corruption”? Restarting the Faith from scratch, in its pristine, pure, root form (as they, unaccountable to anyone outside of their own generation, understood that).

Parallel groups can be found in abundance today, not only in backward Fundamentalist sects but in many Evangelical groups as well. The citation above, from a major Evangelical advocate of the Radical program, reveals a concepts of “reform” more akin to defoliation than weeding. For all the appeals to Christ and the Apostles VS. “tradition,” the polemic against “tradition” seems often shallow and forced because of the assumption that “tradition” is all of a piece and always to be suspected of trying to sneak in while no one is looking and “make the Word of God of none effect.”

In reality, “tradition” in the New Testament is not quite so simple an affair. Sometimes it is something added to what has been written, something done in contradiction to the written Word by people who nevertheless represent the written Word correctly and who are to be obeyed on that score (Mt. 23:2). Other times “tradition” seems to be verbal teaching purporting to give the sense of the written Word but actually entirely distortive of it (Mark 7:13). Still other times Christ Himself enjoins actions which appear to be contradictory to the written Word, but which actually correctly give the sense of it, even apart from its “plain” meaning (Mt. 12:1-8). “Tradition” is not automatically a suspect category.

In other words, Christ did not command His followers to spend their lives frantically looking for creeping error and always trying to restore things to an original, pristine, undeveloped condition so that said errors would not become a “great tradition” that, just because it is a “great tradition,” makes Scripture of none effect. On the contrary, Christ did not command suspicion of tradition as a mere category of thought and life. Whatever one may think of the content of Paul’s “traditions” in 2 Thess. 2:15, the fact that he positively speaks of things handed down and enjoins obedience to them runs contrary to the Radical’s ingrained habit of instantly suspecting anything which he himself does not see when he “compares it with Scripture.” Indeed, it may be that this entire way of thinking is itself a “great tradition” and an instance of an error that has crept in and failed to be recognized by those who most deeply believe themselves qualified and able to recognize such.

In conclusion, then, the Radical manifesto cited above is untrue to the Scriptures. Watching out for error does not automatically entail defoliating the plant of “tradition.” There is more going on in the New Testament polemic against bad traditions than the defoliation metaphor can handle. This is the fundamental problem with the radical mode of reform. Digging ruthlessly for the root it carelessly uproots the fruit. Nobly seeking reformation it ignobly produces deformation. Chasing hard after purity, it at last grasps only sterility.

Islamic Apologetics: "The Truth About Jesus"

Abdur-Raheem Green, an apologist for Islam, is an entertaining, engaging speaker who deserves our attention. We should listen to him carefully and be prepared to give a reason for the hope that is within us.



From YouTube:

Born in Dar-es-salaam in Tanzania to British parents, Abdur-Raheem Green's father (born in England), Gavin Green, was a colonial administrator in the then extant British Empire. At an early age he moved back to the UK with his parents. His mother is of original Polish origin.

At the age of 10 he attended a Roman Catholic Monastic boarding school at Gilling Castle and then went onto Ampleforth College and went on to study history in the London University. However, he left his education unfinished in an effort to devote himself to Islamic works.

He became dissatisfied with Christianity at the age of 8, with it not making sense to him.

Green researched and practiced many religions, including Buddhism (for 3 years) before embracing Islam.

Whilst in Britain his father got a job in 1976 working for Barclays Bank International and was subsequently sent to Cairo, Egypt, to set up a branch of the Bank there.

His study of the Noble Qur'an immediately attracted him to Islam and he embraced Islam in 1988. He has been a Daw'ah practitioner in Britain since then.

Green now works in the London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre as the Visits and English Dawa Co-ordinator.

Green is seen akin to lecturers such as Dr. Zakir Naik, Dr. Bilal Philips, Khalid Yasin and Yvonne Ridley, doing many lectures on Islam worldwide and also in London's famous Hyde Park, Speakers Corner.

TOWARDS A RESPONSE TO GREEN:

1) Truth = "something we can reason and establish to be a fact;" which doesn't contradict itself. For Islam, THE word of God cannot have any contradictions. The Bible cannot be THE word of God, and an account inspired by God but written by men. "Truth is a matter of facts; faith may or may not lead you to the truth."

TOWARDS A RESPONSE 1:
Islam (as Green presents it) seems to take language to be univocal, not analogous. Why must this be the case? If language is analogous, there can be such things as paradoxes. Paradoxes are NOT contradictions. They are admissions that there are things which we do not (yet) understand, but which are not nonsense. In a zeal to give a transcendent God all glory, Islam actually vaults human reason above divine reason, by limiting truth exclusively to a quality of propositions, instead of understanding it as a quality of being. (For more about "the truth of all things," read sections 31-35 here, in "The Two Sides of the Coin that is Truth," a section in Josef Pieper: an Anthology.)

Facts are not separable from faith. See the work of Alvin Plantinga and others regarding Reformed Epistemology

2) God doesn't need a son. He doesn't need to kill any son to forgive us: the "atonement" would be the greatest of all crimes.

TOWARDS A REPONSE 2:
Read C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity and the pietists. God's killing his son would certainly would be a cosmic crime if eradicating of sin was simply a matter of avenging His wrath. But what if we need someone to be the perfect "link" between God and us, who willingly offered Himself as "bait" in order to trap Satan? There are many other theories of atonement besides the substitutionary model.

3) Protestants had a noble and correct aim: they were right to reject the paganism and corruption of Catholicism, and seek "the Jesus of History." They rejected the worship of the mythological- theological Jesus, Mary, saints, and sacraments, but they failed to be consistent and follow things to their logical end. The Jesus of history is different from the Jesus of theology. Christianity is a paganism, not a monotheistic religion.

TOWARDS A RESPONSE 3:
Read C. Stephen Evans, The Historical Christ and the Jesus of History .

Liberal Protestantism errs in separating Christ's divinity from his humanity because it holds the modernist skepticism about the supernatural. Liberal Protestantism takes the physical as its exclusive default (witness the historical-critical method and demythologizing.) Islam errs in separating Christ's divinity from his humanity because it takes the transcendent as its exclusive default, and understands God purely in terms of His will. volu. (Voluntarism is fundamentally non-physical.)

Both liberal protestants and Moslems are "either/or" people. Only Christians (Catholics, Orthodox, some Protestants) are able to be "both-and" people, and do justice to the complexity of what is real, and our God-given ability to know it.

4) It is a contradiction to believe that Jesus Christ is both God and man. (45:45) What defines a human being is different from what defines a God.

TOWARDS A RESPONSE 4:
Steve Evans does a thorough job of responding to the charge that the incarnation is logically impossible in chapter 6 of The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith, mentioned above.

See also Thomas V. Morris, The Logic of God Incarnate.

5) The canon grew up alongside the church. This does not establish truth.

TOWARDS A RESONSE 5:
Again, this assumes a very narrow definition of truth, one which gives primacy to ratio and not to intellectus. (Look here ) Furthermore, is this any more problematic than the situation Islam presents: in itself, the Koran may be true and inerrant, but how does a mere mortal sort out what is true? Do the Sunnis or Shi'as have the correct interpretation? Which clergyman is right? Bottom line: we can't avoid appeal to the Holy Spirit, whether it is in overseeing the establishment of the canon, or in assisting our understanding of that canon.

6) God cannot do anything. He can't do something stupid/contradictory. He can't make square circles, yet this is what Christians believe!

TOWARDS A RESPONSE 6:
Yes, there are some muddle headed Christians who do believe God can do contradictory things. But again, C. S. Lewis offers a clarity in The Problem of Pain: "Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God." (One of my most popular entries in this blog concerns this very issue. Read it here).

Tempests blowing at Notre Dame

What a mess at our alma mater!

Notre Dame has invited President Barak Obama to deliver this year's commencement address. He will be the ninth U.S president to have been awarded an honorary degree from ND, and the sixth to have been a commencement speaker.

The problem is that Father Jenkins, ND's president, apparantly forgot the 2004 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops statement, “Catholics in Political Life”:

“The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”

Several bishops have decided to press the issue. (See this article for more on the controversy.)

Meanwhile, Mary Ann Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School , and former ambassador to the Vatican, has decided to decline the Laetare Medal which was to have been awarded her at that same ceremony. Below is Glendon's letter explaining her reasons for bowing out.

From my perspective, now that ND has invited him, it would be extremely rude to un-invite the president, as some alumni are demanding. On the other hand, commencement was probably not the best of all venues for inviting Obama to Notre Dame. Notre Dame has struggled for a long time to figure out its identity. It desperately wishes to be accepted as a major American university, and subconsciously prove today's No-Nothings to be wrong. Sadly, sometimes this need seems to overshadow its unique position as THE premiere Catholic university in America.

Ah, but therein lies the rub: What does it mean to be Catholic? Until that is understood, it will be impossible to figure out what it means to be American Catholic.

So I pray that the day described in Psalm 85 will soon come:

Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him,
that glory may dwell in our land.
Lovingkindness and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth springs from the earth,
And righteousness looks down from heaven.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

April 27, 2009
The Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
PresidentUniversity of Notre Dame

Dear Father Jenkins,
When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame's Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame's most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.
First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree.

This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops' express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles" and that such persons "should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions." That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution's freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that "talking points" issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

"President Obama won't be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal."

"We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about."

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame's decision--in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops--to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church's position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops' guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame's example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.
In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,
Mary Ann Glendon

Analogy of Being or Analogy of Faith? Both, Please!

I've discovered a fascinating blog, Millinerd, and highly recommend perusing Mathhew J. Milliner's musings. Milliner is a graduate of Wheaton and the Princeton Theological Seminary, and is now pursuing his doctorate in art history at Princeton.

Last Thursday night at Free Range, I gave my spiel about premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism. There wasn't time to go into detail, but I tried to suggest that one way of understanding premodernism is that it affirms the analogy of being, whereas the other periods do not. Tonight I stumbled on Milliner's blog entry that provides further support for this idea. I reproduce it in its entirety below, and encourage you to check this fellow out for yourself. He's a both-and kind of guy, without being wishy-washy.

Who's Afraid of the Analogia Entis?
Saturday, December 16, 2006

For those wondering what the analogia entis is (the "analogy of being"), allow me to explain in a way that probably won't satisfy full-time theologians (whom I respectfully don't intend to satisfy), but hopefully will satisfy newcomers to the term: It is the notion that the very being (entis) of the created world offers an analogy by which we can (in a very limited way) comprehend God. For example, if you've looked at a sunset and wondered that perhaps God is similarly beautiful, you've intuitively employed what theologians call the analogia entis.

This way of thinking is well expressed in contemporary idiom in addresses like this, but because of its heyday in the Medieval world, the analogia entis is best articulated by Medieval theologians such as Bonaventure: (continue...)

"All created things of the sensible world lead the mind of the contemplator and wise man to eternal God... They are the shades, the resonances, the pictures of that efficient, exemplifying, and ordering art; they are the tracks, simulacra, and spectacles; they are divinely given signs set before us for the purpose of seeing God. They are exemplifications set before our still unrefined and sense-oriented minds, so that by the sensible things which they see they might be transferred to the intelligible which they cannot see, as if by signs to the signified" (Itinerarium mentis ad Deum, 2.11, as quoted p. 165).

For those pleased by the preceding passage, it may surprise you that the analogia entis comes under severe Protestant attack. Why? Because of the dangers of abuse.

The 20th century Protestant theologian Karl Barth, in an overstatement that recalls Luther's remarks on the Mass below, called the analogia entis the "invention of the antichrist"(x). I imagine he did so because of its potential to obscure the mediating role that belongs to Christ alone. Instead Barth proposed the analogia fidei, (the "analogy of faith"), meaning the only link between ourselves and God is one of faith in Christ, recalling of course the Reformation's sola fide. In so doing, Barth burned all bridges but one, remembering that there is "one mediator" and "one foundation."

And in this Barth was right.

But consider the words of Pope Benedict in his recent Regensburg address, which, were they paying attention might have upset world Barthians as much as Muslims:

"The faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason, there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf" (9/12/06).

Benedict, speaking for the largest Christian tradition on the globe, makes three essential moves that when properly understood reasonably alleviates the fear of abusing the analogy of being:

1. First, he recalls the words of the Fourth Lateran Council ("maior dissimulitudo in tanta similitudine"), explaining that the church has for quite some time been on record saying that the world's dissimilarity to God is somewhat greater than the similarity to God. Woops - did I say somewhat? I misquoted. Let me start again: He said "unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness." This is, after all, a fallen world. Anyone therefore fearing that the analogia entis obscures God's transcendence, or leaves no room for apophatic (negative) theology, needs to run by Benedict's statement again.

2. Secondly, in words that could be addressed directly to postmodern reductionists, Benedict shows that the analogia entis is important because it's easy to overdose on negative theology (a danger especially near to wounded ex-evangelicals on a positivist hangover who just discovered that negative theology exists). Benedict says that "God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism," by which I take him to mean that the analogia entis safeguards us from the dangers of mysticism and subjectivism, thereby indirectly securing the essential benefits of both.

3. Finally, and most importantly, Benedict explains that the analogia entis is related to the logos - the ordering principle by which God created all that is. And this logos is none other than the Logos, Jesus Christ. The reason the analogy of being makes sense, even after God has definitively revealed himself in Jesus Christ, is because Christ is the one "through whom all things were made" and in whom "all things hold together."Therefore to contemplate an analogy between the being of the created world and the being of God is, properly understood, not something done independently of the Logos, Jesus Christ.

So, who'll it be? Bonaventure, Barth or Benedict? I'll take 'em all, the Barthian insight being wonderfully framed by the wider perspectives of Bonaventure and Benedict. All shed important light on an enormous truth. What cannot be accepted is Barth's (or Luther's) hyperbolic desertions of large swaths of the tradition. Just as Protestant condemnations of the Mass cannot reasonably be sustained in light of the Catholic Church's emphatic clarification (see pt. 1367) that the Mass is not a repeated sacrifice (which was the basis of the original protest), so Protestant condemnations of the analogia entis cannot in my judgment be sustained in light of Benedict's qualifications without running on the fumes of anti-Catholic prejudice (of which there is plenty).

For a more heavyweight discussion of this issue, consider how Hans Urs von Balthasar (p. 163) suggested that he could subsume Barth's analogia fidei into the Catholic analogia entis, or how David Bentley Hart (see p. 242) playfully turns the tables on Barth (a move which was debated at a recent session covered here and here), but as stated above, that may be more interesting to full-time theologians.

The matter is not whether there is more than one mediator or more than one foundation, but just how big that mediator and foundation is. The question is not which of the two analogies is true. They both are (with priority, I would submit, going to the analogia fidei). The question is in which can we afford to neglect. The answer is neither.

Richard John Neuhaus is with the Lord

Nearly a month ago, we lost Cardinal Avery Dulles. Today, we lost Father Richard John Neuhaus, who was considered by Time magazine to be one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals."

From the National Catholic Reporter:
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, a leading voice of Catholic conservatism in America, and one of those rare theologians and spiritual leaders whose influence vastly exceeded the boundaries of their religious community, has died at 72.

Neuhaus slipped away Jan. 8, shortly before 10 o’clock Eastern time. He never recovered from the weakness that sent him to the hospital the day after Christmas, caused by a series of side effects from the cancer he was suffering. (continued here.)

Whereas Dulles was raised a Presbyterian, and converted to Catholicism in 1940, Neuhaus was raised as a Missouri Synod Lutheran, and converted to Catholicism in 1990. He tells his story here.

Like Dulles, Neuhaus was an articulate and formidable thinker. While I did not always fully agree with his economic theory, I had great respect for his ethical and theological positions. I am an avid reader of First Things and a strong supporter of Evangelicals and Catholics Together. I have often used articles from First Things in my philosophy classes, agreeing with his friend George Weigel's assessment that "he [Neuhaus] had the rare ability of letting his own high intellectual and literary energy level energize others."

Both Avery Dulles and Richard John Neuhaus were able to build bridges with Protestants and motivated them to understand and counter the "Culture of Death." Christ's kingdom was richer because of these men. Now, while they behold the Lord face to face, we are left to continue the work that they so faithfully performed, and to continue to pray the Lord's prayer of John 17:

17"Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

18"As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.

19"For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

20"I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;

21that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.


Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis.

The Pope's Preacher

Imagine preaching to the Pope. That is what Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa does. He is preacher of the Pontifical Household, and here is an excerpt from his homily, a meditationfor the third Sunday in Advent, wherein he discusses the idea of Christ's prexistence (cf. Galatians 4, 4-7; Wisdom 9:10, 17;1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15-16;1 Corinthians 10:4; Philippians 2:6-7).

"Despite these passages, it must be admitted that in Paul preexistence and incarnation are truths that are still germinating; they have not yet been fully formulated. The reason for this is that the center of interest and the starting point of everything for St. Paul is the paschal mystery, that is, the work, more than the person of the Savior. This is in contrast to St. John, for whom the starting point and the epicenter of attention is precisely the Son's preexistence and incarnation

We have here two different "ways" or routes in the discovery of who Jesus Christ is. One, that of Paul, begins from humanity to reach divinity, from the flesh to reach the Spirit, from the history of Christ to arrive at the preexistence of Christ. The other, that of John, follows the inverse path: It begins from the Word's divinity to arrive at affirming his humanity, from his existence in eternity to descend to his existence in time. Paul's approach makes the resurrection the hinge of the two phases, and John's sees the passage as turning on the incarnation.

These two approaches consolidated in the epoch that followed and gave rise to two models or archetypes and finally to two Christological schools: the Antiochene school influenced by Paul and the Alexandrian school influenced by John. Neither group was aware of choosing between Paul and John; each takes itself to include both. That is undoubtedly true; but it is a fact that the two influences are visible and distinguishable, like two rivers that merge together but are nevertheless identifiable by the different color of their waters.

This difference is reflected, for example, in the different way in which the two schools interpret Christ's kenosis in Philippians 2. From the 2nd and 3rd centuries, even down to modern exegesis, two different readings can be delineated. According to the Alexandrian school the initial subject of the hymn is the Son of God preexistent in the form of God. In this case the kenosis, or "pouring out," would consist in the incarnation, in becoming man. According to the Antiochene school, the sole subject of the hymn, from beginning to end, is the historical Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. In this case the kenosis would consist in the abasement inherent in his becoming a slave, in submitting himself to the passion and death.

The difference between the two schools is not that some follow Paul and others John, but that some interpret John in the light Paul and others Paul in the light of John. The difference is the framework or background perspective that is adopted for illustrating the mystery of Christ. It can be said that the main lines of the Church's dogma and theology have formed in the confrontation of these two schools, which continue to have an impact today.

(See more of Father Cantalamessa's sermons here or check out his site here. )

This difference in perspective is fascinating, considering the discussions surrounding an entry I posted last year, "Understanding Nominalism, Part 1" and discussions resulting from the recent upsurge in enrollment of Reformed students at EBC. a Pentecostal institution. Fr. Cantalamessa has this wise word concerning those sorts of discussions:

3. Beyond the Reformation and Counter-Reformation

I believe it is time to go beyond the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. What is at stake at the start of the third millennium is no longer the same as at the beginning of the second millennium, when at the heart of Western Christianity the separation took place between Catholics and Protestants.

To give but one example, the problem is no longer that of Luther and of how to liberate man from the sense of guilt that oppresses him, but how to give again to man the true meaning of sin which has been totally lost. What sense does it make to continue to discuss how "justification of the godless comes about," when man is convinced of not having need of any justification and says with pride: "I accuse myself today and I alone can absolve myself, I the man"?[1]

I believe that all the age-old discussions between Catholics and Protestants about faith and works have ended up by making us lose sight of the main point of the Pauline message, often shifting attention from Christ to doctrines on Christ, in practice, from Christ to men. That which the Apostle is anxious above all to affirm in Romans 3 is not that we are justified by faith, but that we are justified by faith in Christ; it is not so much that we are justified by grace, but that we are justified by the grace of Christ. The accent is on Christ, more than on faith and grace.

After having two preceding chapters of the Letter presenting humanity in its universal state of sin and perdition, the Apostle has the incredible courage to proclaim that this situation has now radically changed "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus," "by one man's obedience" (Romans 3:24; 5:19). The affirmation that this salvation is received by faith, and not by works, is most important, but it comes in the second place, not in the first. The error has been committed of reducing to a school problem, in the interior of Christianity, what for the Apostle was an affirmation of a more vast, cosmic and universal event.

This message of the Apostle on the centrality of Christ is of great importance today. Many factors have lead in fact to put his person in parenthesis today. Christ does not come into question in any of the three liveliest dialogues taking place today between the Church and the world. Not in the dialogue between faith and philosophy, because philosophy is concerned with metaphysical concepts; not of historical reality as is the person of Jesus of Nazareth; not in the dialogue with science, with which one can only discuss the existence or nonexistence of a creator God, of a project of evolution; not, finally, in the interreligious dialogue, where we are concerned with that which religions can do together, in the name of God, for the good of humanity.

Asked about what they believe in, few even among believers answered: I believe that Christ died for my sins and has risen for my justification. And few answered: I believe in the existence of God, in life after death. Yet for Paul, as for the whole of the New Testament, faith that saves is only faith in the death and resurrection of Christ: "if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved" (Romans 10:9).

I am grateful to Internet Monk for introducing me to Fr. Cantalamessa's sermons and look forward to reading them regularly.

Requiscat in Pace

Cardinal Avery Dulles died today. He was 90 years old. The grandson of a Presbyterian minister, he was the son of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who served under the Eisenhower administration.

I read his Models of the Church while at Notre Dame, and had the privilege of hearing him speak here in Eugene shortly after we arrived.

One can get a sample of the breadth of his mind and spirit by simply browsing the articles he wrote for the journal First Things.

He impressed me as a wise, gentle, and godly man. Indeed, whenever I picture the apostle John at the end of his life, I think of Avery Dulles. Long ago Etienne Gilson wrote an essay, "The Intelligence in the Service of Christ the King." Avery Dulles lived out that service.

>Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;
et lux perpetua luceat eis ;
cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.

Why Catholicism makes Protestantism Tick

apropos a recent post by Scot McKnight about Thomas Howard, I reproduce this essay by Mark Brumley.


Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation

Mark Brumley

http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features/mbrumley_bouyer1_nov04.asp

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it.

Here's what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan's expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.

Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is "Come out from among them" and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.

Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God "raised up" Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work–for Protestantism's principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.

From Bouyer's conclusion we can infer at least two things. First, Protestantism can't be all wrong, otherwise how could the Catholic Church bring about the "full flowering of the principles of the Reformation"? Second, left to itself, Protestantism will go astray and be untrue to some of its central principles. It's these two points, as Bouyer articulates them, I would like to consider here.

One thing should be said up-front: although a convert from French Protestantism, Bouyer is no anti-Protestant polemicist. His Spirit and Forms of Protestantism was written a half-century ago, a decade before Vatican II's decree on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio, yet it avoids the bitter anti-Protestantism that sometimes afflicted pre-conciliar Catholic works on Protestantism. That's one reason the book remains useful, even after decades of post-conciliar ecumenism.

In that regard, Bouyer's brief introduction is worth quoting in full:

"This book is a personal witness, a plain account of the way in which a Protestant came to feel himself obliged in conscience to give his adherence to the Catholic Church. No sentiment of revulsion turned him from the religion fostered in him by a Protestant upbringing followed by several years in the ministry. The fact is, he has never rejected it. It was his desire to explore its depths, its full scope, that led him, step by step, to a genuinely spiritual movement stemming from the teachings of the Gospel, and Protestantism as an institution, or rather complexus of institutions, hostile to one another as well as to the Catholic Church. The study of this conflict brought him to detect the fatal error which drove the spiritual movement of Protestantism out of the one Church. He saw the necessity of returning to that Church, not in order to reject any of the positive Christian elements of his religious life, but to enable them, at last, to develop without hindrance.

"The writer, who carved out his way step by step, or rather, saw it opening before his eyes, hopes now to help along those who are still where he started. In addition, he would like to show those he has rejoined how a little more understanding of the others, above all a greater fidelity to their own gift, could help their ‘separated brethren' to receive it in their turn. In this hope he offers his book to all who wish to be faithful to the truth, first, to the Word of God, but also to the truth of men as they are, not as our prejudices and habits impel us to see them."

Bouyer, then, addresses both Protestants and Catholics. To the Protestants, he says, in effect, "It is fidelity to our Protestant principles, properly understood, that has led me into the Catholic Church." To the Catholics, he says, "Protestantism isn't as antithetical to the Catholic Faith as you suppose. It has positive principles, as well as negative ones. Its positive principles, properly understood, belong to the Catholic Tradition, which we Catholics can see if we approach Protestantism with a bit of understanding and openness."

The Reformation was Right

Bouyer's argument is that the Reformation's main principle was essentially Catholic: "Luther's basic intuition, on which Protestantism continuously draws for its abiding vitality, so far from being hard to reconcile with Catholic tradition, or inconsistent with the teaching of the Apostles, was a return to the clearest elements of their teaching, and in the most direct line of that tradition."

1. Sola Gratia. What was the Reformation's main principle? Not, as many Catholics and even some Protestants think, "private judgment" in religion. According to Bouyer, "the true fundamental principle of Protestantism is the gratuitousness of salvation"–sola gratia. He writes, "In the view of Luther, as well as of all those faithful to his essential teaching, man without grace can, strictly speaking, do nothing of the slightest value for salvation. He can neither dispose himself for it, nor work for it in any independent fashion. Even his acceptance of grace is the work of grace. To Luther and his authentic followers, justifying faith . . . is quite certainly, the first and most fundamental grace."

Bouyer then shows how, contrary to what many Protestants and some Catholics think, salvation sola gratia is also Catholic teaching. He underscores the point to any Catholics who might think otherwise:

"If, then, any Catholic–and there would seem to be many such these days–whose first impulse is to reject the idea that man, without grace, can do nothing towards his salvation, that he cannot even accept the grace offered except by a previous grace, that the very faith which acknowledges the need of grace is a purely gratuitous gift, he would do well to attend closely to the texts we are about to quote."

In other words, "Listen up, Catholics!"

Bouyer quotes, at length, from the Second Council of Orange (529), the teaching of which was confirmed by Pope Boniface II as de fide or part of the Church's faith. The Council asserted that salvation is the work of God's grace and that even the beginning of faith or the consent to saving grace is itself the result of grace. By our natural powers, we can neither think as we ought nor choose any good pertaining to salvation. We can only do so by the illumination and impulse of the Holy Spirit.

Nor is it merely that man is limited in doing good. The Council affirmed that, as a result of the Fall, man is inclined to will evil. His freedom is gravely impaired and can only be repaired by God's grace. Following a number of biblical quotations, the Council states, "[W]e are obliged, in the mercy of God, to preach and believe that, through sin of the first man, the free will is so weakened and warped, that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought, or believe in God, or do good for the sake of God, unless moved, previously, by the grace of the divine mercy . . . . Our salvation requires that we assert and believe that, in every good work we do, it is not we who have the initiative, aided, subsequently, by the mercy of God, but that he begins by inspiring faith and love towards him, without any prior merit of ours."

The Council of Trent, writes Bouyer, repeated that teaching, ruling out "a parallel action on the part of God and man, a sort of ‘synergism', where man contributes, in the work of salvation, something, however slight, independent of grace." Even where Trent insists that man is not saved passively, notes Bouyer, it doesn't assert some independent, human contribution to salvation. Man freely cooperates in salvation, but his free cooperation is itself the result of grace. Precisely how this is so is mysterious, and the Church has not settled on a particular theological explanation. But that it is so, insist Bouyer, is Catholic teaching. Thus, concludes Bouyer, "the Catholic not only may, but must in virtue of his own faith, give a full and unreserved adherence to the sola gratia, understood in the positive sense we have seen upheld by Protestants."

2. Sola Fide: So much for sola gratia. But what about the other half of the Reformation principle regarding salvation, the claim that justification by grace comes through faith alone (sola fide)?

According to Bouyer, the main thrust of the doctrine of sola fide was to affirm that justification was wholly the work of God and to deny any positive human contribution apart from grace. Faith was understood as man's grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-completed response to God's saving initiative in Jesus Christ. What the Reformation initially sought to affirm, says Bouyer, was that such a response is purely God's gift to man, with man contributing nothing of his own to receive salvation.

In other words, it isn't as if God does his part and man cooperates by doing his part, even if that part is minuscule. The Reformation insisted that God does his part, which includes enabling and moving man to receive salvation in Christ. Man's "part" is to believe, properly understood, but faith too is the work of God, so man contributes nothing positively of his own. As Bouyer points out, this central concern of the Reformation also happened to be defined Catholic teaching, reaffirmed by the Council of Trent.

In a sense, the Reformation debate was over the nature of saving faith, not over whether faith saves. St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine and the patristic understanding of faith and salvation, said that saving faith was faith "formed by charity." In other words, saving faith involves at least the beginnings of the love of God. In this way, Catholics could speak of "justification by grace alone, through faith alone," if the "alone" was meant to distinguish the gift of God (faith) from any purely human contribution apart from grace; but not if "alone" was meant to offset faith from grace-enabled, grace-inspired, grace-accomplished love of God or charity.

For Catholic theologians of the time, the term "faith" was generally used in the highly refined sense of the gracious work of God in us by which we assent to God's Word on the authority of God who reveals. In this sense, faith is distinct from entrusting oneself to God in hope and love, though obviously faith is, in a way, naturally ordered to doing so: God gives man faith so that man can entrust himself to God in hope and love. But faith, understood as mere assent (albeit graced assent), is only the beginning of salvation. It needs to be "informed" or completed by charity, also the work of grace.

Luther and his followers, though, rejected the Catholic view that "saving faith" was "faith formed by charity" and therefore not "faith alone", where "faith" is understood as mere assent to God's Word, apart from trust and love. In large part, this was due to a misunderstanding by Luther. "We must not be misled on this point," writes Bouyer, "by Luther's later assertions opposed to the fides caritate formata [faith informed by charity]. His object in disowning this formula was to reject the idea that faith justified man only if there were added to it a love proceeding from a natural disposition, not coming as a gift of God, the whole being the gift of God." Yet Luther's view of faith, contents Bouyer, seems to imply an element of love, at least in the sense of a total self-commitment to God. And, of course, this love must be both the response to God's loving initiative and the effect of that initiative by which man is enabled and moved to respond. But once again, this is Catholic doctrine, for the charity that "informs" faith so that it becomes saving faith is not a natural disposition, but is as much the work of God as the assent of faith.

Thus, Bouyer's point is that the doctrine of justification by faith alone (sola fide) was initially seen by the Reformers as a way of upholding justification by grace alone (sola gratia), which is also a fundamental Catholic truth. Only later, as a result of controversy, did the Reformers insist on identifying justification by faith alone with a negative principle that denied any form of cooperation, even grace-enabled cooperation.

3. Sola Scriptura: Melanchthon, the colleague of Luther, called justification sola gratia, sola fide the "Material Principle" of the Reformation. But there was also the Formal Principle, the doctrine of sola Scriptura or what Bouyer calls the sovereign authority of Scripture. What of that?

Here, too, says Bouyer, the Reformation’s core positive principle is correct. The Word of God, rather than a human word, must govern the life of the Christian and of the Church. And the Word of God is found in a unique and supreme form in the Bible, the inspired Word of God. The inspiration of the Bible means that God is the primary author of Scripture. Since we can say that about no other writing or formal expression of the Church’s Faith, not even conciliar or papal definitions of faith, the Bible alone is the Word of God in this sense and therefore it possesses a unique authority.

Yet the supremacy of the Bible does not imply an opposition between it and the authority of the Church or Tradition, as certain negative principles adopted by the Reformers implied. Furthermore, the biblical spirituality of Protestantism, properly understood, is in keeping with the best traditions of Catholic spirituality, especially those of the Fathers and the great medieval theologians. Through Scripture, God speaks to us today, offering a living Word to guide our lives in Christ.

Thus, writes Bouyer, "the supreme authority of Scripture, taken in its positive sense, as gradually drawn out and systematized by Protestants themselves, far from setting the Church and Protestantism in opposition, should be the best possible warrant for their return to understanding and unity."

The Reformation was Wrong

Where does this leave us? If the Reformation was right about sola gratia and sola Scriptura, its two key principles, how was it wrong? Bouyer holds that only the positive elements of these Reformation principles are correct.

Unfortunately, these principles were unnecessarily linked by the Reformers to certain negative elements, which the Catholic Church had to reject. Here we consider two of those elements: 1) the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the nature of justifying faith and 2) the authority of the Bible.

1. Extrinsic Justification. Regarding justification by grace alone, it was the doctrine of extrinsic justification and the rejection of the Catholic view of faith formed by charity as "saving faith." Bouyer writes, "The further Luther advanced in his conflict with other theologians, then with Rome, then with the whole of contemporary Catholicism and finally with the Catholicism of every age, the more closely we see him identifying affirmation about sola gratia with a particular theory, known as extrinsic justification."

Extrinsic justification is the idea that justification occurs outside of man, rather than within him. Catholicism, as we have seen, holds that justification is by grace alone. In that sense, it originates outside of man, with God’s grace. But, according to Catholic teaching, God justifies man by effecting a change within him, by making him just or righteous, not merely by saying he is just or righteous or treating him as if he were. Justification imparts the righteousness of Christ to man, transforming him by grace into a child of God.

The Reformation view was different. The Reformers, like the Catholic Church, insisted that justification is by grace and therefore originates outside of man, with God. But they also insisted that when God justifies man, man is not changed but merely declared just or righteous. God treats man as if he were just or righteous, imputing to man the righteousness of Christ, rather than imparting it to him.

The Reformers held this view for two reasons. First, because they came to think it necessary in order to uphold the gratuitousness of justification. Second, because they thought the Bible taught it. On both points, argues Bouyer, the Reformers were mistaken. There is neither a logical nor a biblical reason why God cannot effect a change in man without undercutting justification by grace alone. Whatever righteousness comes to be in man as a result of justification is a gift, as much any other gift God bestows on man. Nor does the Bible’s treatment of "imputed" righteousness imply that justification is not imparted. On these points, the Reformers were simply wrong:

"Without the least doubt, grace, for St. Paul, however freely given, involves what he calls ‘the new creation’, the appearance in us of a ‘new man’, created in justice and holiness. So far from suppressing the efforts of man, or making them a matter of indifference, or at least irrelevant to salvation, he himself tells us to ‘work out your salvation with fear and trembling’, at the very moment when he affirms that ‘. . . knowing that it is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish.’ These two expressions say better than any other that all is grace in our salvation, but at the same time grace is not opposed to human acts and endeavor in order to attain salvation, but arouses them and exacts their performance."

Calvin, notes Bouyer, tried to circumvent the biblical problems of the extrinsic justification theory by positing a systematic distinction between justification, which puts us in right relation to God but which, on the Protestant view, doesn’t involve a change in man; and sanctification, which transforms us. Yet, argues Bouyer, this systematic distinction isn’t biblical. In the Bible, justification and sanctification–as many modern Protestant exegetes admit–are two different terms for the same process. Both occur by grace through faith and both involve a faith "informed by charity" or completed by love. As Bouyer contends, faith in the Pauline sense, "supposes the total abandonment of man to the gift of God"–which amounts to love of God. He argues that it is absurd to think that the man justified by faith, who calls God "Abba, Father," doesn’t love God or doesn’t have to love him in order to be justified.

2. Sola Scriptura vs. Church and Tradition. Bouyer also sees a negative principle that the Reformation unnecessarily associated with sola Scriptura or the sovereignty of the Bible. Yes, the Bible alone is the Word of God in the sense that only the Bible is divinely inspired. And yes the Bible’s authority is supreme in the sense that neither the Church nor the Church’s Tradition "trumps" Scripture. But that doesn’t mean that the Word of God in an authoritative form is found only in the Bible, for the Word of God can be communicated in a non-inspired, yet authoritative form as well. Nor does it mean that there can be no authoritative interpreter of the Bible (the Magisterium) or authoritative interpretation of biblical doctrine (Tradition). Repudiation of the Church’s authority and Tradition simply doesn’t follow from the premise of Scripture’s supremacy as the inspired Word of God. Furthermore, the Tradition and authority of the Church are required to determine the canon of the Bible.

Luther and Calvin did not follow the Radical Reformation in rejecting any role for Church authority or Tradition altogether. But they radically truncated such a role. Furthermore, they provided no means by which the Church, as a community of believers, could determine when the Bible was being authentically interpreted or who within the community had the right to make such a determination for the community. In this way, they ultimately undercut the supremacy of the Bible, for they provided no means by which the supreme authority of the Bible could, in fact, be exercised in the Church as a whole. The Bible’s authority extended only so far as the individual believer’s interpretation of it allowed.

The Catholic Church and Reformation Principles

As we have seen, Bouyer argues for the Reformation’s "positive principles" and against its "negative principles." But how did what was right from one point of view in the Reformation go so wrong from another point of view? Bouyer argues that the under the influence of decadent scholasticism, mainly Nominalism, the Reformers unnecessarily inserted the negative elements into their ideas along with the positive principles. "Brought up on these lines of thought, identified with them so closely they could not see beyond them," he writes, "the Reformers could only systematize their very valuable insights in a vitiated framework."

The irony is profound. The Reformation sought to recover "genuine Christianity" by hacking through what it regarded as the vast overgrowth of medieval theology. Yet to do so, the Reformers wielded swords forged in the fires of the worst of medieval theology–the decadent scholasticism of Nominalism.

The negative principles of the Reformation necessarily led the Catholic Church to reject the movement–though not, in fact, its fundamental positive principles, which were essentially Catholic. Eventually, argues Bouyer, through a complex historical process, these negative elements ate away at the positive principles as well. The result was liberal Protestantism, which wound up affirming the very things Protestantism set out to deny (man’s ability to save himself) and denying things Protestantism began by affirming (sola gratia).

Bouyer contends that the only way to safeguard the positive principles of the Reformation is through the Catholic Church. For only in the Catholic Church are the positive principles the Reformation affirmed found without the negative elements the Reformers mistakenly affixed to them. But how to bring this about?

Bouyer says that both Protestants and Catholics have responsibilities here. Protestants must investigate their roots and consider whether the negative elements of the Reformation, such as extrinsic justification and the rejection of a definitive Church teaching authority and Tradition, are necessary to uphold the positive principles of sola gratia and the supremacy of Scripture. If not, then how is continued separation from the Catholic Church justified? Furthermore, if, as Bouyer contends, the negative elements of the Reformation were drawn from a decadent theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages and not Christian antiquity, then it is the Catholic Church that has upheld the true faith and has maintained a balance regarding the positive principles of the Reformation that Protestantism lacks. In this way, the Catholic Church is needed for Protestantism to live up to its own positive principles.

Catholics have responsibilities as well. One major responsibility is to be sure they have fully embraced their own Church’s teaching on the gratuitousness of salvation and the supremacy of the Bible. As Bouyer writes, "Catholics are in fact too prone to forget that, if the Church bears within herself, and cannot ever lose, the fullness of Gospel truth, its members, at any given time and place, are always in need of a renewed effort to apprehend this truth really and not just, as Newman would say, ‘notionally’." "To Catholics, lukewarm and unaware of their responsibilities," he adds, the Reformation, properly understood, "recalls the existence of many of their own treasures which they overlook."

Only if Catholics are fully Catholic–which includes fully embracing the positive principles of the Reformation that Bouyer insists are essentially Catholic–can they "legitimately aspire to show and prepare their separated brethren the way to a return which would be for them not a denial but a fulfillment."

Today, as in the sixteenth century, the burden rests with us Catholics. We must live, by God’s abundant grace, up to our high calling in Christ Jesus. And in this way, show our Protestant brethren that their own positive principles are properly expressed only in the Catholic Church.


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Related IgnatiusInsight.com Articles:

• Has The Reformation Ended? An Interview with Dr. Mark Noll

• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 1 Interview with Dr. Brad Harper

• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 2 Interview with Dr. Brad Harper

• Thomas Howard and the Kindly Light IgnatiusInsight.com

• Objections, Obstacles, Acceptance: An Interview with J. Budziszewski IgnatiusInsight.com

• Thomas Howard on the Meaning of Tradition IgnatiusInsight.com

• Surprised by Conversion: The Patterns of Faith Peter E. Martin

• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation Geoffrey Saint-Clair

• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy Martha Rasmussen

Rehabilitating Luther

From The Times March 6, 2008

That Martin Luther? He wasn’t so bad, says Pope

Richard Owen in Rome

Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices.

Pope Benedict will issue his findings on Luther (1483-1546) in September after discussing him at his annual seminar of 40 fellow theologians — known as the Ratzinger Schülerkreis — at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence. According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help to promote ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. It is also designed to counteract the impact of July's papal statement describing the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as defective and “not proper Churches”.

The move to re-evaluate Luther is part of a drive to soften Pope Benedict's image as an arch conservative hardliner as he approaches the third anniversary of his election next month. This week it emerged that the Vatican is planning to erect a statue of Galileo, who also faced a heresy trial, to mark the 400th anniversary next year of his discovery of the telescope.

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The Pope has also reached out to the Muslim world to mend fences after his 2006 speech at Regensburg University in which he appeared to describe Islam as inherently violent and irrational. This week Muslim scholars and Vatican officials met at the pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue in Rome to begin laying the groundwork for a meeting between the Pope and leading Muslims, also expected to be held at Castelgandolfo.

Cardinal Kasper said: “We have much to learn from Luther, beginning with the importance he attached to the word of God.” It was time for a “more positive” view of Luther, whose reforms had aroused papal ire at the time but could now be seen as having “anticipated aspects of reform which the Church has adopted over time”.

The Castelgandolfo seminar will in part focus on the question of apostolic succession, through which the apostles passed on the authority they received from Jesus to the first bishops. After the Reformation Protestants took the view that “succession” referred only to God's Word and not to church hierarchies but some German scholars have suggested Luther himself did not intend this.

Luther challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the sole source of religious authority and made it accessible to ordinary people by translating it into the vernacular. He became convinced that the Church had lost sight of the “central truths of Christianity”, and was appalled on a visit to Rome in 1510 by the power, wealth and corruption of the papacy.

In 1517 he protested publicly against the sale of papal indulgences for the remission of sins in his “95 Theses”, nailing a copy to the door of a Wittenberg church. Some theologians argue that Luther did not intend to confront the papacy “in a doctrinaire way” but only to raise legitimate questions - a view Pope Benedict apparently shares.

Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X, who dismissed him initially as “a drunken German who will change his mind when sober”.

BOUYER 1: Grace as objective/Faith as subjective

I've begun reading Bouyer:

These two expressions ["salvation by grace" and "justification by faith"]...do not indicate two distinct principles, but two aspects of the same principle--the objective aspect being the gift of God; and the subjective the appropriation of the gift by man. Nonetheless, the two aspects are not the same: though we may not separate them entirely, we have to study each in turn. Clearly, it is the first, objective aspect that determines the second; so we begin with the study of the gratutious nature of salvation. A later investigation into the part played in Protestantism by the faith through which salvation is appropriated will, moreover, bring to our notice a marked tendency, running through the whole course of Protestant history, to a separation, in effect, of "grace" and "faith." In principle, however, they are intimately united, and it is quite certain that faith derives its content from grace, and not vice versa. (Louis Bouyer, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, p. 33-34)

Beth:

Hmm. So is this one way of understanding the differences between Catholics and Protestants? Do Catholics see "salvation by grace" and "justification by faith" as two sides of the same coin, while Protestants see them as two different coins?

The old medieval motto was "distinguish in order to unite." Is there a corresponding "motto" for Protestantism? "Separate in order to purify?"

Why the need for separation? Or should the question instead be, why the need to unite? How do ones' metaphysical presuppostions color even the way the question is framed?

Hmmm. I'll have to read on.

Josef Pieper's Three Things to Remember

1. Things are TRUE because they are real.

2. Things can be KNOWN because they are created.

3. Things are UNFATHOMABLE (mysterious) because they are created.

(selections 33-35, from Josef Pieper: An Anthology (Forward by Hans Urs von Balthasar) San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989.)

Keith Drury, "Why I like Catholics"

(via Brad)
I couldn't agree more with Drury!

Thanks, Keith, for verbalizing all the things that I've felt for over 40 years. My Dad was Catholic and my mom was Southern Baptist; they married before Vatican II and they each loved their church and attended faithfully. We kids were brought up Baptist.

I have fond memories of mealtimes reminisicent of Acts 2, where simultaneously the Lord was beseeched: "Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ, Our Lord, Amen” and "Come Lord Jesus Be our Guest May our daily food be blest Amen." No wonder I grew up to be Evangelical Covenant. I thank God to have experienced the best of both worlds.

"Here are seven things I like about you:

1." I appreciate how you preserved Christianity

....Thanks for keeping the Christian torch burning for all those years, even if it flickered at times. We Protestants have been around only half that long and frankly, the torch were carrying today is flickering too.... "

2. "I like how you stand firm

... You don’t set church policy by taking a poll or having a vote of “the people,” pandering to the common denominator of the masses’ desires..."

3. "I like how politically balanced your pope is

...We Protestants always seem to wind up on one side or the other politically. Your pope scolds conservatives and liberals alike..."

4. "I like how you emphasize the Lord’s Supper

...Many Protestants treat Communion like it is a pain in the rear and something to get over with quickly so we can fill up the service with our own words. You Catholics really take this Sacrament seriously and I admire that..."

5. "I like how you kneel in worship

....When I was a kid we “holiness people” were always kneeling in worship too, but we don’t do that anymore since we moved to the suburbs...."

6. "I like how you emphasize confession

...You’ve kept the idea of sin and confession in your worship all the time we Protestants have been manufacturing a sinless religion which has no sins at all to confess or we lightly dismiss our daily habitual sins through “spiritual breathing.” I respect how you treat sin seriously..."

7. "I like your confidence

...We Protestants are always running around like the church is about to go out of existence if we don’t hurry up and adapt to the culture. You guys don’t seem to worry about being “kewl.” Your cardinals wear those pointy hats and bright red get-ups and march around like you are the kewlest folk of all and it is the world that is out of touch. I admire you for ignoring the world and having confidence in the supremacy of Christ’s church over the world’s styles and values. You guys even act like sooner or later all we Protestants will realize you’ve been right all along and we’ll all come home into the mother church. That’s confidence!"

What do I desire?

Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.

I Kings 3

5 At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, "Ask for whatever you want me to give you."
6 Solomon answered, "You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.
7 "Now, O LORD my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. 8 Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. 9 So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?"
10 The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. 11 So God said to him, "Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, 12 I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. 13 Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both riches and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. 14 And if you walk in my ways and obey my statutes and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life." 15 Then Solomon awoke—and he realized it had been a dream.

From G.K. Chesteron's St Thomas Aquinas, the Dumb Ox, Chapter 5; http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/aquinas.html#chap5

But probably the most representative revelation of this side of his life may be found in the celebrated story of the miracle of the crucifix; when in the stillness of the church of St. Dominic in Naples, a voice spoke from the carven Christ, and told the kneeling Friar that he had written rightly, and offered him the choice of a reward among all the things of the world.

Not all, I think, have appreciated the point of this particular story as applied to this particular saint. It is an old story, in so far as it is simply the offer made to a devotee of solitude or simplicity, of the pick of all the prizes of life. The hermit, true or false, the fakir, the fanatic or the cynic, Stylites on his column or Diogenes in his tub, can all be pictured as tempted by the powers of the earth, of the air or of the heavens, with the offer of the best of everything; and replying that they want nothing. In the Greek cynic or stoic it really meant the mere negative; that he wanted nothing. In the Oriental mystic or fanatic, it sometimes meant a sort of positive negative; that he wanted Nothing; that Nothing was really what he wanted. Sometimes it expressed a noble independence, and the twin virtues of antiquity, the love of liberty and the hatred of luxury. Sometimes it only expressed a self-sufficiency that is the very opposite of sanctity. But even the stories of real saints, of this sort, do not quite cover the case of St. Thomas. He was not a person who wanted nothing; and he was a person who was enormously interested in everything. His answer is not so inevitable or simple as some may suppose. As compared with many other saints, and many other philosophers, he was avid in his acceptance of Things; in his hunger and thirst for Things. It was his special spiritual thesis that there really are things; and not only the Thing; that the Many existed as well as the One. I do not mean things to eat or drink or wear, though he never denied to these their place in the noble hierarchy of Being; but rather things to think about, and especially things to prove, to experience and to know. Nobody supposes that Thomas Aquinas, when offered by God his choice among all the gifts of God, would ask for a thousand pounds, or the Crown of Sicily, or a present of rare Greek wine. But he might have asked for things that he really wanted: and he was a man who could want things; as he wanted the lost manuscript of St. Chrysostom. He might have asked for the solution of an old difficulty; or the secret of a new science; or a flash of the inconceivable intuitive mind of the angels, or any one of a thousand things that would really have satisfied his broad and virile appetite for the very vastness and variety of the universe. The point is that for him, when the voice spoke from between the outstretched arms of the Crucified, those arms were truly opened wide, and opening most gloriously the gates of all the worlds; they were arms pointing to the east and to the west, to the ends of the earth and the very extremes of existence. They were truly spread out with a gesture of omnipotent generosity; the Creator himself offering Creation itself; with all its millionfold mystery of separate beings, and the triumphal chorus of the creatures. That is the blazing background of multitudinous Being that gives the particular strength, and even a sort of surprise, to the answer of St. Thomas, when he lifted at last his head and spoke with, and for, that almost blasphemous audacity which is one with the humility of his religion; "I will have Thyself."

Or, to add the crowning and crushing irony to this story, so uniquely Christian for those who can really understand it, there are some who feel that the audacity is softened by insisting that he said, "Only Thyself."

What do I desire?

Lord, help me to desire You.