Problem of Church
Props to Josh for linking to this post from Fr Stephen on Communion and Church. It’s called “the problem of Church”, referring to the various issues of who is in and who is out. I want to allow upfront that a) this my post probably goes way off topic as a reply to him; and, b) I’ve no doubt of the Orthodoxy of his post (meaning it is what the Church teaches).
Fr Stephen hits, in the course of one paragraph, with some of the problems I’ve had recently. I’ve split the ‘graph into two portions and noted the buttons they touch:
But there is such a thing as the historical Church. It can be identified with historical confidence. That the Eastern Orthodox Church is in direct succession of the Apostles and those whom they appointed is not a faith claim but a simple historical fact.
This is not a faith claim, says Fr S, but he makes three a priori assumptions, without which you must make this into a faith claim. (A) Jesus intended not to found a “movement” or “community” or “way” but a specific institution called the Church. (B) That the institution Jesus founded was always intended to be a monolithic and homogeneous institution. (B) That the history of this institution, as recounted by the Orthodox Church and/or the Roman Church is the true history and not just propaganda “written by the winners”.
Without making all three assumptions – and possibly others – you can not say, “a simple historical fact.” Depending on how you translate “ekklesia” and understand the meaning (and how you attempt to prove “this is what it ‘really’ means”) you can avoid the entire debate by saying, a la Brian McLaren et al, that Jesus never started an institution, but rather a way of life. (And then some Orthodox might say, ‘but we’re not an Institution but rather a way of life.’ to which I’ll say “codswallop.”)
This brings us to the second portion of Fr Stephen’s paragraph:
The same has to be granted to Roman Catholicism, although the Orthodox generally would offer the criticism that Rome has departed in some important ways from the Tradition they were given (but this becomes a matter of discussion and debate between Rome and the Orthodox which is not my purpose here). I’m sure Rome would return the favor.
Those “departed in some important ways…” are indeed important: but they are the proof that all of this – ALL of this – rests on a faith claim. You have to ask what is “direct succession of the Apostles” in a context that says either the Orthodox or the Roman Catholics (or possibly both) have this thing in a way that the Protestants do not. Is this “succession” Theological or Tactile? Neither can be proven without resorting to mythology and unverifiable folklore (ie St Andrew evangelising Byzantium? Thomas in India? St Luke painting Icons? the towel of Veronica? or the Image of Edessa? the multipl findings of the head of St John the Baptist? St Helena finding well-preserved wood, buried in the ground? All can only be accepted on faith… let’s be clear. And most all of them need to be at least bought in to in order to make the claim that any modern sect (other than Messianic Judaism) has anything at all to do theologically with the small Jewish sect that followed the Rabbi of Nazareth.
Further, even taking on the three Assumptions at the beginning of this post, one must make a clear statement that proves the claims of the Romans or Byzantines over the non-Chalcedonians, the Oriental Orthodox, the Nestorians, the Arians and the Gnostics (among others). All of these claim both Tactile and Theological succession, saying it is only politics that bring us to where we are today – and ancient, pagan Greco-Roman politics at that.
Nope… it’s a faith claim, pure and simple. I’m OK with it being a faith claim… but it’s not historical fact. It is at best only one possible reading of history based only on the assumptions listed.
Category: church geekery, orthoparadoxy, other paths, teh internets
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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Sigh,
Increasingly your definition of faith itself requires faith. Look back at your posts and see their evolution.
Another way to put it is that your statements that all truth statements are “faith” statements puts you in the connundrum that your definition itself is either not a “faith” statement, in which case you have disproven that all truth statements are “faith” statements, or that it is indeed a “faith” statement, in which case you have stated a double negative by making a “faith” statement on “faith”. And it is a double negative that is then easily ignorable since all you can claim then is that you have stated your opinion (at best).
Or to put it yet another way, your definition of “faith” and “truth” is akin to the question of whether God can create something which he cannot move. The supposed solution is that God is not omnipotent no matter what answer you choose. You have chosen to define “faith” and “truth” in such a way that you have supposedly made yourself invulnerable to any critiques, since all is “faith”. Your classic answer, regardless of the cogencies of anyone’s arguments with you has lately become, “that’s what you believe.” That is no answer, that is a slogan.
Language theorists long ago solved that puzzle by noticing and evaluating that there are a whole class of grammatical statements which can be fully read and understood, but which actually do not have a logical meaning. Another example is the question of what happens when the unstoppable force hits the immovable object. The question makes utter sense, but the connundrum is posed only by the definitions of immovable and unstoppable and the fact that they can be put grammatically in an understandable sentence. In other words, the sentence itself is a grammatical possibility only because of the inherent finiteness of definitions.
Your definition of all truth being “faith” is itself a grammatically possible statement, but ultimately it is self-contradictory and non-sensical in the language theorist definition of non-sensical.
I suppose everything is a faith statment if you want to define it so. May claims about “simple” historic truth, is that a general common-sense approach to history yields the following evidence…
But if someone wants to be contentious, so be it. I can’t convince I can only point to what I think is true and seems obvious.
Fr E – I had a whole paragraph drafted in this post about what you would do to it :-)
I can’t prove any of these claims so yes, increasing faith is required. I agree with you.
I can believe in these teachings recorded in these ancient texts (the preservation of which I know I owe to certain parties within the early Christian communities).
I can believe in Jesus’ existence, upon which some of the more important teachings are posited (which I can’t prove).
After that it gets tenuous.
But the existence of the various Churches (Rome and Orthodoxy), prior to about 250 CE, gets really hard to prove: there were Churches, yes. But as to them being The (o)rthodox (c)atholic Church – instead of a multitude of believers of different shapes and flavours – well…
In fact it is a simple statement of history that the second is true: there were a multitude of believers of different shapes and flavours. Other parties made minor changes here and there (unless you want to believe that St Luke was a painter…) St Thomas in India seems to have taught a slightly different religion than St Andrew in Byzantium. But everyone got a long rather well, kinda, until one party did get imperial favour.
Or else God appeared to the emperor.
Pass me Ocam’s razor…
Fr S – I tried to be clear that my post wasn’t really a response (and certainly not a complete one!) to your post: only a riff coming off that one portion of one paragraph as in those few words you had hit the middle of my struggle very well.
No attempt was made at being contentious: but point of fact you summed up my difficulties rather nicely. Those *are* the claims of Orthodoxy. I heard Fr Victor, zt”l, made them in a sermon as well (before I was Chrismated).
That’s exactly where I say, “Eh… I’m still not sure.”
I think the historical argument is indeed hard to make, because history, always, even yesterday, is always at a remove from us. Apart from the Gnostics I do not see as much diversity as you suggest historically. The Nag Hammadi stuff only confirmed what we already knew from Irenaeus. He wasn’t making his stuff up.
The Emperor issues are indeed problematic – though we had as much persecution (even after Constantine) from Emperors as not. They frequently meddled in the Church and caused many problems.
But I don’t see the evidence for a very pluriform early Church.
But, as I said, history is problematic.
LOL! Father, I like the comment about Nag Hammadi proving Irenaeus! Perhaps I’m phrasing my points wrongly, then – always possible – even traditional here – ask Fr E! Equally possible to read history wrong from my end.
But at least on Emperors… and Problematic History: We at least agree on a couple of points!