Commenting on John 10:48-50, St. Cyril of Alexandria gives us insight into the patristic understanding of final judgment:

48 The word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day.

They will be self-condemned therefore, He says, who refuse to hear Him and do not accept the saving faith. For He that came to illumine, came not in order to judge, but to save. He therefore that disobeys and thereby subjects himself to the greatest miseries, let him blame himself as justly punished.” For I am not the cause thereof, Who desire to save those that are going to fall into judgment, and Who came for this end. For he that makes a law punishing the disobedient, makes it not for the sake of punishing them that transgress it, but in order that they that hear may take heed of it and be safe. I therefore, having come to save, charge you to believe, and not to despise My words; inasmuch as the present is a time of salvation, not of judgment. For in the day of judgment, the word that called you to salvation will bring the penalties of disobedience upon you. And of what nature was the word that I spake?“

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 12:48

A number of things are interesting in this section of Cyril’s exegesis.  There is a constant emphasis on self-condemnation (“self-condemned”, “subjects himself to the greatest miseries”, “blame himself as justly punished”).  The language used to describe the judgment is passive, in a certain sense (“fall into judgment”, “came not in order to judge”).  Christ is described as coming into the world not to judge it, but to illumine it.  Notice the explicit denial that the motivation for instituting a punishment would be retributive.  Instead, laws imposing punishment bring safety; they are geared toward salvation.  It is also noteworthy that the punishment of eschatological judgment is inflicted by the word that Christ spoke.  This word is said to “bring the penalties of disobedience upon you.”  What word is this?  The word that called us to salvation.  The same divine power by which humanity is vivified and called to life from the dead (the word of the Gospel, the word which contains the power of Christ’s incarnate economy) is the word that brings the penalties of disobedience upon us.  St. Cyril goes on to explain the further nature of this wor as follows:

S. John xii. 49, 50. For I spake not from Myself; but the Father Which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life eternal: the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.

He reminds the people of the Jews of the things that had been aforetime proclaimed concerning Him by Moses, and by this means skilfully rebukes them; and, exposing the impiety that was in them, He clearly proves that they were caring nothing for having insolently outraged even the Law itself, although it was believed to have been given from God. For what God said concerning Christ by Moses is well known to all men, but still I will quote it because of the necessity of perceiving the exact idea; I will raise them up a Prophet from the midst of His brethren, like unto thee; that is to say, a lawgiver, and a mediator between God and men: and I will put My word in His mouth, and He shall speak unto them according as I may command Him; and the man who will not hearken to whatsoever the Prophet may speak in My Name, I will take vengeance on him. At one and the same time therefore our Lord Jesus the Christ censures the boastful temper of the Jewish people, displayed in their fighting even against God the Father; and, by saying that He has received a commandment from the Father and speaks not of Himself, clearly proves that He Himself is the Prophet fore-announced by the Law and heralded by the voice of God the Father from ages long before. And in a way He calls to their remembrance, although their minds were sluggish in comprehending it, that if they refused to be persuaded by the words that came from Him, they would certainly fall a prey to inevitable punishment, and would endure all that God had said. For they who transgress the Divine commandment of God the Father, and thrust away from themselves the life-giving word of God our Saviour Christ, shall surely be cast down into most utter misery, and shall remain without any part in the life that comes from Him; with good reason hearing that which was spoken by the voice of the prophet: O earth, earth, hear, O hear the word of the Lord. Behold, I bring evils upon this people, as the fruit of their turning away, because they obeyed not My Law, and ye rejected My word. For we shall find that the Jews were liable to a twofold accusation: for they failed to honour the Law itself, although it was generally held dear and accounted an object of reverence, in that they refused to believe on Him Whom the Law proclaimed; and they turned a deaf ear to the words of our Saviour Christ, although He announced openly that He was certainly the Prophet spoken of in the oracles of the Law, when He declared that it was from God the Father that He was supplied with His words.

We see here that judgment comes from thrusting away the “life-giving word of God our Saviour Christ”.  The result of this thrusting-away is being “cast down into utter misery” and remaining without any participation in the life that comes from Christ.

In two recent posts on separate blogs, Catz and David Nilsen both responded to my arguments concerning private judgment and church authority.  They articulated similar positions, trying to present an alternative to either (a) the idea that believers are entitled to an unqualified private judgment, or (b) the idea that the Church has inherent authority.  In this post, I will argue that their responses are unsatisfactory because they (1) ultimately affirm that private judgment is the final word in doctrine, (2) fail to correctly distinguish “inherent” from “underived”, and (3) falsely charge Catholic Christians with the use of private judgment.

(A note of encouragement to the reader: this post is fairly short–by my standards, at least–but has long footnotes.  Do not be alarmed by the size of the scroll bar, because roughly half the space in this post is occupied by footnotes.)

(1) The Inescapability of Private Judgment

In the case of both Catz and David’s responses there is an indirect answer to my question “is the Church capable of making an interpretive decision that can be inherently binding on your conscience?” This question creates a dilemma that can be given a yes or no answer.  If you say “yes, the Church’s interpretive decisions can bind our consciences”, (which means you deny private judgment) it will be difficult to deny that Catholic (universal, common) beliefs such as apostolic succession, the trifold ministry, baptismal regeneration, the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, etc. are doctrines you are obligated to accept. Because the Fathers taught a different doctrine of justification from the Reformers, Catz and David would be obligated to agree that the Reformation was a mistake (at least on some level with respect to doctrine).  Lastly, denying the infallibility of the Church would be difficult.[1] Protestantism seems hard to maintain if the Church has intrinsic authority.

On the other hand, if they say “no, the Church’s interpretive decisions cannot bind the believer’s conscience” (to affirm private judgment) it is hard to see what kind of authority the Church has.  After all, it seems that authority just *is* the normative ability to bind consciences to believe and do certain things. To say the Church can’t make any inherently conscience-binding decisions is then to say the Church lacks authority. This seems to imply precisely the kind of individualism that Protestants are sometimes accused of.  Even if one agreed with the teachings of the Fathers, it would be coincidentally out of private judgment—not because they are special as Christian teachers.[2] Furthermore, it is hard to make this view fit with the biblical picture of Church leadership (see Church Authority Argument 3, linked in footnote 2).[3]

Instead of accepting this dilemma, David and Catz try to propose a third alternative.  However, it seems their view reduces to a simple affirmation of the right of private judgment and a denial that the Church can bind our consciences.  To see this, consider their responses.

David seems to be saying that Lutheran and Reformed Protestants ascribe some degree of conscience-binding power to their confessions.[4]  But what kind of obligation does a Protestant Creed put on a conscience?  The obligation is conditional upon voluntary membership: if you are part of this denomination, then you must believe this creed.  And on what basis are you supposed to join that denomination?  Is it because the denomination teaches with inherent authority the doctrines binding on the consciences of all Christians?  No; rather, you should join the denomination if its teachings reflect your own, independently-arrived at beliefs about what is biblical doctrine.

This kind of authority seems thin because someone in disagreement is not bound to agree with his or her church, and submit his private judgment, based on the decision to join and stay in his or her church.  Instead, if an individual’s private judgment leads to conclusions contrary to his church’s teachings, the individual is entitled to leave and join a different denomination.  The decision to join a denomination (and stay) is based off of private judgment—deciding you think this denomination’s beliefs are well-argued and probably true; the obligation to believe a denomination’s teachings is based off of the decision to join that denomination (not the authoritative quality of the teaching); consequently, the obligation to believe a denomination’s teachings is based off of private judgment.  So David implies that believers ultimately have the right of private judgment.

David tries to argue that my dilemma is a false one.  He suggests that a person may become an authority as a result of being accurate.  He gives this example:

For example, a doctor is not inherently authoritative in medical matters because he is still human and can err in his diagnoses. However, his medical training makes him far more accurate at diagnosing, and with that accuracy comes a degree of authority over others who lack such training. We would be far wiser to accept the medical advice of a doctor over that of an accountant. This is not merely because the doctor is more accurate at diagnosing medical problems than the accountant, but because that accuracy grants the word of the doctor a level of authority that the accountant’s does not have.

David’s point is that there is a kind of normativity introduced by the accuracy of a professional’s judgments.  The more accurate a practicioner of medicine is, the more binding his medical judgments are.  Though David says this, I can see nothing about the fact that we should accept the diagnosis of a doctor over an accountant that seems to imply a doctor has any real authority.  The wisdom of the decision to trust a doctor can easily be explained as following an expert—someone who has a higher probability of being correct in a specific field.[5]

It does not follow from the fact that the doctor’s decisions are accurate that therefore they are authoritative. The idea that accuracy produces authority conflates two kinds of normativity.  The accuracy of a doctor does not lead to him or her having “the power to bind human consciences to believe and do certain things” in medical matters.  Instead, the skill of a doctor is evidence that his decisions are *more likely to be correct*. In fact, for any given doctor A, another doctor B with better medical abilities is to be trusted more (all other things being equal).  The latter’s decisions could trump the decisions of the former.  If doctor A says “don’t pay attention to him; believe my decision is correct because I am the one making the decision” we would not be right to say “okay, what you say I will obey” but should rather insist “who do you think you are to tell me what to do?”[6]

It is very important to consider the fact that if doctor A can produce a better argument for his medical decision than doctor B, we should side with doctor A, even if doctor B is more experienced.  This shows that what matters is persuasion—the ability of the doctor to offer convincing reasons to agree with him.  It is not a matter of authority—the power to bind human consciences to believe and do things.  If it were, then the argument’s force would be weaker when we stacked it up against the decision of the more experienced doctor; but it isn’t.

David then goes on to say that “if a person truly believes that his church is accurate in its interpretation of Scripture, then he ought to give her the benefit of the doubt”.  Of course if you think your church is accurate (it teaches the truth), then you should agree with what it teaches (because you think what it teaches is true).  But this is no different from the use of private judgment.  Rather, it seems to concede that private judgment is the criteria for whether we should agree with what our church teaches.  Disagreement based on private judgment should then lead one to either “find another church or continue to study and seek council from their elders.”  This shows that even if the humility of laity leads to relatively few incidents where they have to seriously disagree with their church, their church’s teachings are believed by the individual based on the private judgment of their conscience.

Now looking to Catz’s responses we notice that she says the following:

In my view, private judgment is being used as a tool. If I were to see that the Church practice was at odds with Scripture, I would be using my “private judgment” to make this call. This does not mean I am correct or am not bound by true authority in any way. It is simply one of several tools used in personal decision (something that is not used exclusively by Protestants).

This seems to implicitly deny the normativity of the Church’s decisions.  Nothing about the fact that “the Church said x” is a reason to believe “x”.  Rather, I can tell whenever the church is making a doctrinal claim I am obligated to believe based solely on whether or not this doctrine has good arguments for it.  A conscience is bound to believe a view when a person finds good arguments for a view. I am only obligated to agree with a church on a given subject if I have independent reasons to accept as Scriptural the doctrines taught by that church.

The fact that Catz can speak of using private judgment to measure the present church up against the final authority shows that she does not think the church is in a better position to bind her conscience with respect to what to believe about biblical teaching than she is.[7]  She thinks that this does not imply she is “the authority”.  But how is her conscience being bound here?  By the arguments she finds persuasive, or by the normativity of the recognized judgments of another person or group?  It is hard to see how she is not the final judge with respect to which doctrinal formulations (interpretations) ought to be believed.

Thus both Catz and David agree that at the end of the day, the private judgment of a believer is capable of overriding the decisions of any leader or council.  The church’s judgments are not inherently normative; they cannot bind our consciences (unless we can be persuaded of them on independent grounds, other than “the church said it”).

(2) Inherent and Underived

Both David and Catz say that the church’s authority is not inherent, and must be derived from Scripture.[8] David and Catz assume that if the Church has inherent authority, it must be underived authority.  But this is not so.  Rather, the Church’s authority could be inherent and derived.[9] On this view, to say that the Church’s authority is derived, therefore, means that the inherent fact of the Church having authority is given from God.  To say that the Church’s authority is inherent means that, given the fact that the authority has been put in it by God, its decisions are conscience-binding on the people that are under its authority regardless of extrinsic factors such as their private assent or independent acceptance of the teachings given in those decisions.[10] [11]

To say the Church’s authority is extrinsic (instead of inherent and intrinsic) is to say that its actual teachings have normative significance when those teachings meet certain external-to-the-authoritative-person/group conditions.  David enunciates those conditions as follows:

This authority is a derivative authority, then, because it derives from the degree of accuracy that the church body has in interpreting Scripture (which means, of course, that the authority ultimately derives from Scripture).

But who is the one who decides if the Church is accurate in its interpretation of Scripture?  Apparently, the believer is always in a position to check the interpretive decisions of the Church and see if they fit with Scripture or not.  This implies the Church’s interpretive decisions do not, in and of themselves (intrinsically, by derived authority from God) serve as reasons for accepting the doctrines taught.  They serve as reasons to accept the teaching when one already accepts it (for independent reasons) as biblical (which is just to say they do not serve *as a reason to accept the teaching itself*).

To recycle the above example of the child who is told to take out the trash (from footnote 11), if the child’s parents have inherent authority, then the fact that they said “do y” is itself a reason (with some force, though not infallible force—see footnote 11) to do the action y.  What happens if we deny these parents have inherent authority?  Then “do y” becomes a reason for action *only if external conditions are met*; it becomes extrinsically authoritative.  In other words, the parental decision will only have normative force if the child independently agrees and wants to do the action.  The child could say “no, dad, I don’t feel like taking the trash out”.  If the dad said, “why don’t you respect my authority and do it?” the child could then say “I am not persuaded that I should follow your advice for some reason other than the fact that you said so.  Until my own reasons for acting become strong enough to make it necessary for me to take the trash out, I am not bound by your authority.”  It seems doubtful that this can really be called “authority”.  Similarly, a Protestant who says concerning the ancient teachings of the Church “I’m not yet persuaded on exegetical grounds to submit to their authority”, simply does not seem to consider the Church to be an authority at all.  Thus it is hard to see how anything other than intrinsic authority is real authority.[12]

(3) Do Catholic Christians use Private Judgment?

Catz and David charge Catholics (Orthodox, Roman, and Anglo-Catholic) with the use of private judgment in their decisions about which Church to join.[13] Both David and Catz are correct in that we of course choose which Church to follow.  How is this not private judgment?  The answer is this: choosing whether to be Roman Catholic or Orthodox requires that, once we have identified a body that is inherently authoritative, we submit to its judgments.  The process of identifying where authority is requires accuracy.  We must ask “what does the Church look like in the New Testament?”[14] and try to find a Church that fits these criteria.  If we accept that the Church has authority we must also ask “what did the ancient consensus of the Church have to say about x?”  These inquiries can lead to conclusions such as “the New Testament Church seemed to have a tri-fold ministry” or “the ancient Church taught the doctrine of papal infallibility”.  Under these conditions, we may be able to identify one (or more) of the three communions in question as “the Church”.  But once this authority is picked out accurately, we submit to the teachings and judgments of that authority.  This submission is based on the fact that the Church has the power to bind our consciences to believe and do certain things.

Protestants, on the other hand, when deliberating between denominations, do not identify a body and submit to it on the basis of the fact that they identify it as having inherent authority.  Rather, they decide to join if the teachings of that denomination agree with their own private judgment.  No organization has a claim to making inherently normative judgments about what we ought to do or believe.  But they can make accurate judgments.  And when a person can come to agree with what a given church teaches, he or she can join it.[15]  So if we apply the definition of “private judgment” to Protestant decisions to join a denomination, we see it fits.  If we apply it to Catholic Christians, we see that it does not fit at all.[16]

In a previous post, I discussed what I call “insanity conditions”—conditions where a leader is not acting in his or her capacity as leader, and consequently cannot make normative judgments.  The follower must, of course, discern when this is happening and identify correctly if the leader meets these “insanity conditions”.[17]

Catz responded with the following:

This statement is remarkable. The child or churchgoer can actually use their private judgment to decide whether or not the significant other is insane or not and by consequence whether or not he or she should obey the parent. Does this mean authority is ultimately located in the child or churchgoer? Does this idea defy either’s “intrinsic” authority?

The problem with Catz’s assessment is that this is not a use of private judgment.  In fact, it was specifically worded to distinguish my position from that of private judgment.  For it is not a denial that the Church’s interpretive decisions are conscience-binding on us.  Rather it is an affirmation that we must recognize when the Church is actually exercising authority.  Once we have recognized when the Church is exercising authority, we become obligated to agree.  Furthermore, the conditions for identifying someone as in a condition of insanity are not “when my private judgment disagrees with the person in question”.  In order to maintain the idea that the Church has authority the condition for insanity cannot be “when the Church disagrees with my private judgment.”  Actually, the conditions I am thinking of are when a hierarch is either blatantly disagreeing with the teachings of the Church (for instance, teaching Arianism or Nestorianism) or is in gross moral error (practicing adultery or embezzling funds).  Then their judgments are not normative, for they fail to act in their capacity as leaders.

Now, regardless of the application of the criteria for insanity to individual leaders, I think there are no conditions under which the Church as a whole can be insane.  This is because I believe in the indefectibility of the Catholic (whole, complete) Church.  Christ promises that the gates of death will not prevail against the Church (Matthew 16:18).  Whatever happens with any given member of Christ’s body, the whole remains intact, in full incorruptibility and integrity.  It consequently cannot fail to teach the Gospel; there are no conditions under which the entire Church can go insane and fail to have Christ’s divine power energizing it to be deathless and infallible.[18][19]

Conclusion

In this post, I argued the following.

(1) David and Catz both deny that the interpretive decisions of some Christians have the inherent authority to bind our consciences to believe and do certain things.  Their positions reduce to a denial that the interpretive decisions of hierarchs have any more normative significance than the decisions of private individuals.  It is hard to see how this is not individualistic and a very counter-intuitive way of reading the biblical text (even by their own standard of private judgment—see Church Authority, Argument 3).  There are other problems that come from this understanding of authority; but that will have to be discussed in later posts on infallibility and the canon of Scripture.

(2) It is possible for something to have intrinsic authority in a derivative way.  Furthermore, someone or something can be intrinsically authoritative without being infallible. If the authority of the Church is not intrinsic, it is hard to see how it amounts to real authority.  After all, extrinsic authority basically means “a church’s decision has authority when it fits with my private judgment”.

(3) Non-Protestant Christians do not use private judgment when trying to decide whether to be Roman or Orthodox.  After all, when they realize that a specific communion is the Church, they recognize the conscience-binding power of the teachings of that communion.  Once the Church and its teachings have been identified, we ought to submit.  Protestants, however, must be privately persuaded of doctrine their church teaches in order to submit to it.  The conclusion “this is the church” can only be drawn if one has privately judged that church’s doctrine to be correct. And the conclusion “this is the church” does not entail “I am conscience-bound to accept all of its teachings”.  Exercising one’s intellectual abilities and trying to be accurate in identifying authorities is not the same as using private judgment.

Endnotes:

[1] The beliefs listed as “Catholic” are so widely attested in the Fathers and frequently stated in Ecumenical councils that it would be difficult to see how they could avoid concluding that these constitute part of the Church’s authoritative teaching—a teaching they would be conscience-bound to accept. Concerning infallibility, if the private judgment of an individual could not overturn the judgment of the Church as a whole, this would be tantamount to saying the Church as a whole has ultimate, unqualified, conscience-binding authority.  It seems this would only be possible if the Church as a whole were incapable of error.  Consequently, the Church as a whole would be infallible.

[2] This is similar to an occasion where a child that does not submit to its parent’s authority happens to want what his parents want.  The child is not really deferring to his parents or giving them the respect they deserve; he is just agreeing out of coincidence.  If we said “no” to a parental instruction, we would be acting somewhat individualistically.  If we just so happened to agree, and said “yes” then we wouldn’t really be treating them like a parent in this instance.  After all, we would not be willing to defer to their judgment because *they are our parents*. For more on the definition of authority see this post: http://wellofquestions.wordpress.com/2008/12/30/accuracy-authority-and-the-visibility-of-the-church/ .

[3] Concerning David’s interpretation of my views about Protestantism at the beginning of his post, he is largely correct.  But I would qualify it as follows: I actually do not think most Protestants could consistently claim to believe in “that which has been affirmed everywhere, at all times, by all” or “universality, antiquity, and consent” (the canon of St. Vincent of Lerins).  For if they did, they would believe in things like apostolic succession, the trifold ministry, baptismal regeneration, the physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and the patristic doctrine of justification.

[4] David says:

Lutheran and Reformed denominations subscribe to creeds and confessions that all professing members must affirm. This is not because the creeds and confessions are believed to be infallible or on equal ground with the Bible. Rather, they are seen as binding because they were produced by official synods (or councils) of the church and are believed to accurately reflect what the Bible teaches.

So individual members are obligated to believe in their church’s creeds. Ministers swear an oath to uphold their denomination’s teachings, which obligates them to not teach contrary to their denomination’s doctrinal statement, and to inform their synod if they become unable to do so.

[5] A doctor has certain skills (capacities developed through practice) that make him or her a more reliable decision-maker in medicine than other people.  If he or she is reliable, that means he or she tends to be right more often.  If a doctor tends to be right more often than someone that lacks the developed medical skills, then there is a much higher probability that any given decision made by the doctor versus an accountant will lead to health.  Because a doctor is more accurate, he or she ought to be trusted.

[6] One might reply that doctor A simply does not have as much authority as doctor B, because doctor B is more accurate than doctor A.  But again, it is not the fact that doctor B has a power of judgment that is intrinsically more normative than that of doctor A that makes us side with doctor B.  Hence the legitimacy of “who do you think you are, commanding me what to do?”

[7] Catz says:

in the context of this discussion, it seems the use of one’s private judgment does not make the person reasoning the authority but rather one using a gift from God. It also reveals what he is measuring the present church up against to be the final authority and the others derivative.

[8] Something that is inherent is “intrinsic to; within; grounded inside of (as distinct from outside of)”.  Something derived is “coming from elsewhere; caused; not self-existent”.

[9] We have many inherent, derived properties.  Think of my property “having an intellect”.  This is something I have; it is one of my constitutive qualities, something that is within me.  So it is inherent/intrinsic.  But it is also derived.  God caused it, after all.  The fact that it is inherent just means it is not something that is true of me in some purely external way (like where I’m located) that does not depend on my intrinsic qualities.

[10] To give an example, if someone is joining the Roman Catholic Church, then he or she is obligated to agree with its teachings whether he or she likes it or not.  If they previously had, based on private judgment, disagreement with some teaching of the Church z, they would be bound to agree with the Church in virtue of the fact that it authoritatively teaches z.  Their obligation to agree with the Church concerning z would not be based on whether or not their own private judgment could be persuaded into accepting arguments for z.  So the Church’s authority would not be based on external conditions (such as whether my private judgment agrees with them).

[11] An inherently authoritative person or group is not necessarily infallible.  Our parents are inherently authoritative, but not infallible.  When my parents tell me to do some action x, the fact that they said “do x” has normative significance, totally apart from whether I feel like doing x or privately judge x to be the most intelligent action to do.  The fact they said “do x” is *in itself* a reason (of some strength) to do x.  But it is not an overriding, unqualified reason to do x.  Some reasons for action are stronger than others.  For instance, a strong reason not to obey my parents when they say “take out the trash” would be if I knew that there was a murder roaming the neighborhood.  My parents’ command may have some significance, but it isn’t infallible in its normativity.  It doesn’t bind the conscience without qualification, and when there are overriding reasons to disobey, a parent’s judgment can be overturned.  It is still inherently normative though, because the fact that it supplies a reason for action is not dependent on my own private judgment.

[12] To clarify the sense in which the Church derives its authority from Scripture, it includes minimally this: that the Scriptures are the infallible rule that the Church must apply as a source of doctrinal content.  However, the Church’s authority is also derived from the fact that Christ has commissioned it.  Notice that none of this implies that the Church’s authority derives from Scripture only when the Church gets its interpretation in line with the private judgment of the individual.  This would be to deny that the Church’s authority is intrinsic.

[13] David writes:

If it is argued that the individual still has greater authority than the church because he or she can choose which church to follow and submit to in the first place, I would simply point out that the same is true for those who choose to follow either Rome or Constantinople.

Catz says:

Again we see the judgment of the individual come into play. He first recognizes the Church is indeed sane- considers the appeal made by the Church to what always has been believed by the Christian community and decides “yes, they do appear to be functioning in their proper roles and exercising their God-given authority.” This does not seem so unlike the route the Reformers took except they reached a different conclusion. They recognized that the Church was not living in accordance with Scripture or what the Christian community believed at all times. At least, this is what they claim to have done.

[14] Saying we must look at what the New Testament teaches about the Church may seem to affirm private judgment.  After all, isn’t the believer going off of what seems true to him or her from Scripture?  Surely this is not being done in submission to a particular Church hierarchy, right?  While this is true, it does not entail that no decisions of any hierarch or council are authoritative.  It just means that prior to accepting any particular authority, the most we can do is trust in the accuracy of our own inferences from Scripture.  This is a reliable guide to which kind of church to identify as the Church.  But it is just reliable–it is not infallible.  Its decisions can be trumped by an authority that can bind the conscience.  It should also be noted that because the structure of the primitive, post-apostolic Church plays a role in the identification of the Church for someone who is already committed to Catholic Christianity, there is an extent to which the normativity of the judgments of hierarchs will play a role even prior to the acceptance of a particular authority.

[15] Notice a crucial difference in terms of the decision-making process in these two cases (the Protestant deciding between denominations vs. the person trying to decide whether to be Orthodox or Roman).  For the person trying to decide whether or not to be Orthodox or Roman, the identification of a body as “the Church” will entail that one submits his or her private judgment and accepts the theological teachings of that Church’s hierarchy to the best of one’s ability to understand them.  For the person trying to decide between Protestant denominations, he or she will have to be persuaded to accept a given church’s teaching not on the basis of the fact that “this is the Church, and it says x is true” but on the basis of the fact that he or she can agree with the accuracy of the Church’s inferences to doctrinal positions.  When one agrees that there is a visible Church with inherent authority, but has not yet decided which Church’s decisions to consider normatively significant, one will obviously not be in submission to the decisions and teachings of one of those hierarchies.  But once one identifies an institution as the visible Church, he or she must submit to the decisions of that hierarchy.

[16] To experiment, let us take the definition of private judgment, and see if it applies to someone who is deliberating about whether or not to be Orthodox, Roman, or Anglo-Catholic:

Private judgment: A believer’s conscience cannot be bound by the inherent authority of the interpretive and doctrinal decisions of other Christians.

Does this condition apply to Protestantism?  Yes, at David and Catz’s admission.  Does this condition apply to Orthodox, Roman Catholicism, and Anglo-Catholicism, as they say?  Do we deny that the inherent authority of the interpretive decisions of other Christians can bind our consciences to believe certain things?  No.  Again, once one identifies an institution as the visible Church, he or she must submit to the decisions of that hierarchy.  This is because one has accurately recognized the location of genuine authority.  This is not private judgment, because there is inherent authority in the Church’s decisions that can bind your conscience.  As a consequence, once a person has identified the Church as the visible, hierarchical, sacramental institutuion, perpetuated through Apostolic succession and having the infallible power to bind human consciences to believe and do certain things, he or she cannot “check” the Church’s actual teachings up against Scripture.  Rather his or her understanding of what Scripture teaches will be limited by the conscience-binding power of the Church’s decisions.

[17] I wrote: “The cases in which it is legitimate to disregard the normative force of what our parents say are when they are obviously being prevented from acting *as parents*. We can describe these as cases of “insanity”, which means severe malfunction of a person that clearly prevents them from properly using the powers vested in them by nature (such as with our biological parents) or grace (as with our spiritual parents).”

[18] Catz goes on to write: “If it is at all possible one be permitted to judge a parent or church to be insane why can’t one make a judgment call about either not aligning with Scripture? If both Sola Scriptura and Prima Scripture believe Scripture is sufficiently clear, then it seems the individual checking the Church’s claims against the final authority (Scripture) as well as what other Christians in those early years believed, could use the tools of reason and judgment to identify a counterfeit form of Church authority or rightly identify the Church’s interpretation as clearly in error.”

In response, first, if the decisions of early Christians after the New Testament have no inherent authority, then they cannot be used to identify a counterfeit form of Church authority.  Only the application of private judgment to the teachings of the New Testament could do so.  For further responses, see my comment #23 on “Church Authority, Argument 4”

[19] Catz raises an additional issue:

Your use of “private judgment” as a technical term indicating the absence of intrinsic Church authority (and the implications you also give) maybe is too misleading of a statement and I am not sure it even is a Protestant technical term (?). In fact, most protestants (a good number who are Reformed and informed) have never heard of the doctrine of “private judgment” though they understand the concept I am putting forward. Maybe an explanation on why you chose to make this a technical term would help.

I chose to make it a technical term because there is a specific concept I am trying to pick out.  The concept (1) “no interpretive decisions by any Church hierarchs can bind a believer’s conscience” is a different concept from (2) “believing accurately; believing in accordance with how strong the evidence is for a proposition”.  Idea (1) is different from idea (2), and importantly so.  Thus it is best to distinguish how we label them in our language.

To see how different these concepts are, consider what happens when I say “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” to someone, versus when Jesus says the same thing to someone.  In the first case, if the person I’m talking to knows who I am, they could legitimately say “that’s nice” (if they’re not familiar with the beatitudes) or “yep, that’s what the Bible says” (if they are familiar).  But in the second case, if they know who Jesus is, they ought to say “Yes Lord, your word is true.”  What is the difference between these two situations?  Both utterances are true; yes, it really is true that the poor in spirit are blessed.  I even have good reasons to accept the truth of the beatitudes; so I am being accurate.  But when I say it, there is nothing inherently conscience-binding about *the fact that I said it*.  No one is obligated to believe it based on the fact that they heard me say it and understood who I am and what I meant.  I could argue for it all day long (and present an excellent case for this being true) and still nothing about *the fact that I said it* would bind a person’s conscience to accept it.  When Jesus says it, things are different.  The fact that it was Him who said the phrase obligates us to believe what He said.  This is not because we come to agree with the inferences He makes that lead him to believe and utter this.  Rather, it is because He, as a speaker, has a kind of quality to his words that obligates us to believe and do what He says.  He is an authority, I am not.  I may be accurate, by my words are not inherently authoritative.

The term “private judgment” was used in Anglican-Protestant-Catholic debates as evidenced by Newman’s “On the Use of Private Judgment” and “On the Abuse of Private Judgment” in his Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church.

In this post, I (1) distinguish Prima Scriptura and Sola Scriptura as distinct doctrines about Scripture and tradition; (2) argue that, given Orthodoxy’s theological approach, it is consistent to claim both “Scripture is the sole source of doctrine” and “it is Orthodox doctrine that icons are a necessary part of the Church”; (3) answer objections to the Orthodox teaching that icons are necessary; and (4) argue that in order to show that the Fathers believed Sola Scriptura, a Protestant would have to argue that the Fathers taught the doctrine of private judgment (which they do not).

(1) Prima Scriptura and Sola Scriptura

I was recently asked by Catz to answer this rather interesting question:

Can you tell me where icons are upheld in Scripture to the same degree as the 7th council does? Even going so far as declaring anathema those who do not venerate icons? Where in Scripture is the veneration of icons (in the Eastern Orthodox sense) required?

This question might seem irrelevant. After all, Orthodoxy has oral tradition; why can’t oral tradition be where we get icons (and their necessity) from? Well, the Orthodox understanding of doctrine requires that the content of all Christian doctrine be contained in Scripture. Nothing in oral tradition is not also in Scripture; as Fr. John Behr says, echoing and summarizing Saint Irenaeus, “Tradition is Scripture, rightly interpreted.” This is a view called “Prima Scriptura”. The Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura would state that Scripture is the ultimate authoritative rule of Christian teaching; and this Prima Scriptura agrees with. Sola Scriptura also says that some particularly important Christian doctrines are clear (perspicuous) in Scripture; and Prima Scriptura agrees. Of course Sola Scriptura says that the Bible is the only infallible rule of faith and practice that provides the source of Christian doctrine; and (this may come as a shock to some) Prima Scriptura, the Orthodox position, agrees.  Both Sola and Prima Scriptura hold to the sole supremacy (final authority as a rule), perspicuity (clarity, in some sections), and material sufficiency (inclusion of all the content of Christian doctrine) of Scripture.

The difference is this: Prima Scriptura denies that all interpretations of Scripture are equally authoritative. There are some interpretations, in fact, that are inherently more authoritative than others. In Orthodoxy, this means that the consensus of the Church’s teachers across time and space about how to interpret some doctrine is inherently authoritative (and in fact infallible).[1]  Thus we are conscience-bound to agree with the Church’s interpretive decisions. On the other hand, Sola Scriptura includes the doctrine of private judgment. This means that the position of Sola Scriptura denies that a believer’s conscience can be bound by the inherent authority of the interpretive/doctrinal decisions of other Christians.  No interpretation of any Church Fathers, Popes, etc. can be conscience-binding.[2]

(2) The Compatibility of Prima Scriptura and the Necessity of Icons

So because they think all doctrine is contained in Scripture, the Orthodox must believe that icons are mandated by the teaching of Scripture.  But how can this be?  Surely the New Testament does not explicitly teach that icons are necessary; nor are icons emphasized as an aspect of worship.  In Sola Scriptura, a doctrine must be clearly and distinctly taught in order for belief in it to be mandated, or for it to be included in a creed or confession.  But this is not necessarily so for us. We are fine with complicated exegesis that goes beyond the historical grammatical method to bring out what is implicit in the text, or that theologically synthesizes the parts of Scripture that are not explicitly connected.

The Church’s basis for accepting the necessity of icons is not grounded, then, in some explicit statement in Scripture.  It is grounded in the content of the concepts taught in Scripture, but this does not mean that we can use the historical sense of the text of Scripture, and make a an inference that is persuasive to everyone about the necessity of icons. Here is an explanation for how the Church makes its decision to recognize and then authoritatively teach that the New Testament mandates the experience of icons:

1. The Church looks at the permissibility of icons in the OT, the Christologically-informed continuity between OT and NT, the image-person relationship in Scripture, the permissibility of veneration, the deification of flesh and all matter in Christ’s economy, and possible cases of NT iconography. This shows that icons of Christ and the saints are permissible, even preferable.

2. The Church also considers the necessity of preaching the Gospel—preaching and manifesting the Lordship of Christ. One aspect of this is the verbal articulation of the revealed Word of God. But Christianity is not just the revelation of the Word of God; it is also a revelation of the Image of God. Just as there is a need for preaching the Word, there is a need to show the Image of God. Apart from icons of Christ and his saints, this cannot be done. This shows that icons of Christ and the saints are necessary.

3. The Church’s interpretive decision also considers the necessity of liturgical worship in the NT, and the necessity of icons in the liturgy of the OT, and the Christologically-informed continuity between OT and NT liturgy. The Church teaches that this continuity entails the necessity of icons in the NT. This shows that icons of Christ and his saints are necessary.

(3) Objections to the Teaching that Icons are Necessary

It may be objected that these are not persuasive arguments. Why think that the image of God can’t be manifested apart from icons? Why think that the continuity between OT and NT liturgy requires a preservation of the necessity of icons *specifically*–why not think it requires preserving some other aspect of OT worship instead, or that it is an area of OT worship that doesn’t get carried over (like animal sacrifice)? Granted the historical-grammatical method and the other principles of Protestant exegesis do not lead us to accept the Church’s conclusions. But that’s not the issue. The question is one of internal consistency in the Orthodox view of doctrine. Can we consistently maintain that Scripture is materially sufficient, and still believe that the 7th Council is infallible divine doctrine? At first it seems the answer is no: Scripture does not explicitly mandate iconography.  Given a Protestant exegetical method, we might not be able to say the NT explicitly mandates iconography. But given an Orthodox exegetical method, we can say this. There is biblical support, in the relevant sense, for the necessity of iconography in the NT. The fact that the normativity of the Church’s inference cannot be tracked by historical-grammatical concerns and the explicit teachings of the New Testament does not show that the New Testament does not teach the necessity of icons, unless the historical-grammatical method is the sole valid way of interpreting Scripture, and the Church’s judgments are not normative.  The initial objection was that Orthodoxy was not internally consistent. But the above 3 points show that it is internally consistent; the implausibility of the Church’s interpretation of the New Testament in the eyes of Protestants does not mean the New Testament does not teach such things. So the objection does not go through against the idea that the Orthodox can teach that icons are mandated by the New Testament.

In response, the objector may point out that this is not a good argument for Orthodoxy, or for accepting the Orthodox view of authority. But it is not intended to be an argument for Orthodoxy. It is just an undercutting defeater for the argument against Orthodoxy’s view of authority and its view of icons, based on an alleged internal inconsistency. Orthodoxy should be accepted on other grounds, not its ability to provide a certain kind of exegetical argument, persuasive to Protestants, that icons are needed. If we have reasons to accept Orthodoxy, this will constitute a reason to accept our exegetical method, and thus a reason to accept the necessity of icons (and the compatibility of the necessity of icons with the material sufficiency of Scripture).

Finally, it might be pointed out that there is something implausible about the way the Orthodox are using Scripture here. Is it really legitimate to exegete out something so peculiar and non-explicit from the text? But this does not seem all that different from the way the NT writers use the OT. Most messianic prophecies don’t seem to be explicit in the OT text either. But this is not problematic so long as we are not bound by a strict historical-grammatical method.

So it seems that, upon careful consideration, Orthodoxy can consistently maintain both Prima Scriptura and the necessity of iconography.

(4) The Fathers on Prima Scriptura

Given the distinctions in section (1) above, it seems like the usual Protestant arguments that some of the Fathers believed in Sola Scriptura need to be supplemented.  It does not demonstrate anything that supports Protestantism (as opposed to Orthodoxy) to show that the Fathers thought Scripture to have sole supremacy, perspicuity, and material sufficiency.  What must be demonstrated is that the Fathers taught the doctrine of private judgment.  If the Fathers thought that some interpretations of Christian doctrine were more inherently normative than others, then this would preclude the possibility that they taught Sola Scriptura.  Many of the Fathers cited in these discussions say very high things about the Bible.  But these affirmations amount to only *necessary* conditions for them to actually teach Sola Scriptura.  To show that the sufficient conditions obtain, it must be argued that the Fathers taught the right of private judgment.  You catch the same Fathers saying things that deny Sola Scriptura such as

1. That Scripture must be understood through the rule of faith (implying that the Rule of Faith has intrinsic authority and is necessary to understand the Bible properly);

2. That the Rule of Faith (or other oral tradition) is unrevisable because it is transmitted from the Apostles, and/or the Creed is unrevisable (and because only the teachings of God are beyond the possibility of being revised and overturned by human judgment, the Creed is therefore infallible);

3. That the Ecumenical Councils are unrevisible, or infallible, or that to deny them is to deny the teachings of God;

4. That the Church teaches us the formal canon of the Old and New Testaments (implying that the divinely-authoritative Christian doctrine about what the Old and New Testaments are can be found in the Church’s decision that recognized the canon as divine teaching, and publicly compiled it to be received and believed);

5. That we are conscience-bound to believe what has been believed everywhere, at all times, by all Christians, and that to deny this is heretical (implying a divinely-authoritative quality to the consensus of the Fathers);

6. That some hierarchs’ judgments are more normative than the judgments of laity (implying they have intrinsic authority);

These ideas all imply (or just state) the infallible, intrinsic, binding authority of the Church’s doctrine, by denying private judgment.  Given the abundance of texts that deny private judgment in the Fathers (which can be produced if anyone would like examples), it seems much more plausible to think they taught Prima Scriptura, rather than Sola Scriptura.  It seems to be a positive affirmation, taught by the Fathers, that the Church is infallible when it actually interprets the Bible.  Thus, the Fathers do not seem to provide support for the Protestant understanding of Scripture as a strand within ancient Christian tradition.

Footnotes:

[1] For the distinction between inherent and relative authority, see here, in section (2) on the inherent authority of our parents.

[2] It might seem that the Orthodox view would deny that there is infallible oral tradition; after all, as stated above, everything is contained in Scripture already, so what else could oral tradition add to the mix?  But this assumes tradition supplements the content of Scripture with additional content–that in order for oral tradition to supplement Scripture, it must do so by adding some concept or proposition not already taught in Scripture.  Instead, oral tradition supplements Scripture by giving an authoritative reformulation (interpretation) of the ideas already taught in Scripture.  This authoritative interpretation is contained in the Rule of Faith and other teachings, which are handed down from the Apostles orally.  The Rule of Faith, of course, is a summary of basic Christian teaching about God, Christ, and the Spirit.  It doesn’t teach anything that is not in the Bible.  It is very biblical, in fact, in all that it says.  But it also states biblical doctrine in a different way than how the Bible states it.  The content is the same, the form is different.  That’s how all interpretations are–they are re-articulations (different ways of expressing) ofthe content (ideas and concepts) a text says.

“What we see, therefore, is a strangely disjointed history.  These modern, secularist assumptions, which are questioned and brought into doubt more and more, certainly pervade much if not all the radical death of God theologies of the 1960’s.  The question, which becomes the central question that this volume seeks to address, is the following:  How do we get from the post-Christian, post-Holocaust, and largely secular death of God theologies of the 1960’s to the postmodern return of religion? Put otherwise, what happens when we move from the early claim that deconstruction is the hermeneutic of the death of God to the subsequent effort at deconstructing the death of God?  What happens when the critical linking of the death of God with deconstruction comes full circle? And finally, how is it that this question of the return of religion is transmitted not by theologians and/or religious leaders but by and through philosophers and cultural theorists who heretofore had little or no expressed interest in religious or theological questions?”

–After the Death of God, John D. Caputo, Gianni Vatitimo, ed. Jeffrey W. Robbins p. 12-13.

Romans 8:28 is usually translated roughly as follows:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (KJV)

An often overlooked fact about this passage is the absence of the word “his” in the Greek. The passage can be read as talking about human free choice, so that we are “called according to our purpose/choice”. As Ben Witherington points out in his Romans commentary (pg 227), the pronoun “his” (referring to God) is inserted by translators and interpreters for various reasons. For one thing, the subject of the sentence is God. For another, because the sentence talks about God’s working and calling, and the next sentence about predestination, it is natural to see this as expressing the same concept (God’s purpose saves us). But the first consideration is not an overriding reason to think that the actor must be God. “Those who love God” are also actors (who perform the activity of love) in the sentence. With respect to the second argument, “working together for good with” could be seen as including human beings’ effort and cooperation in God’s plan, “those who love God” refers to human agency, and “those whom He foreknew” in the next sentence is a reference to God’s knowledge of how creatures will act in the future. Our contextual reasons for thinking that it is God’s purpose are just as good as our reasons for thinking that it is human purposing (free choice). The majority of the Fathers are clear:

To be called according to God’s purpose is to be called according to the will. But is this the will of the one who calls or the will of those who are called? Naturally, every impulse which leads to righteousness comes from God the Father. Christ himself once said: “No one can come to me unless the Father draws him.” Nevertheless it is not wrong to say that some are called according to God’s purpose and according to their own intentions as well.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Explanation of the Letter to the Romans. Migne PG 74 col. 828 (cited in Oden Ancient Christian Commentaries on Scripture, Romans, pg. 226)

Wherefore, children, let us hold fast our discipline, and let us not be careless. For in it the Lord is our fellow-worker, as it is written, “to all that choose the good, God worketh with them for good.”

St. Athanasius, Life of Anthony, 19

Now consider, he means, from the calling, for instance, what I have just said. Why then did He not from the first call all? or why not Paul himself as soon as the rest? Does it not seem that the deferring was harmful? But it was still by the event shown to be for the best. The purpose he here mentions, however, that he might not ascribe everything to the calling; since in this way both Greeks and Jews would be sure to cavil. For if the calling alone were sufficient, how came it that all were not saved? Hence he says, that it is not the calling alone, but the purpose of those called too, that works the salvation. For the calling was not forced upon them, nor compulsory. All then were called, but all did not obey the call.

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Letter to the Romans, Homily 15.

Thus far there has been an inscription of your names, and a call to service, and torches of the bridal train, and a longing for heavenly citizenship, and a good purpose, and hope attendant thereon. For he lieth not who said, that to them that love God all things work together for good. God is lavish in beneficence, yet He waits for each man’s genuine will: therefore the Apostle added and said, to them that are called according to a purpose . The honesty of purpose makes thee called: for if thy body be here but not thy mind, it profiteth thee nothing.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Procatechesis

Though on purely exegetical grounds the text doesn’t demand either interpretation, if we accept the interpretations of the Fathers as normative, we should understand this text as teaching that we are called according to both God’s purpose and our purpose.

Dear Readers,

I wish it were not needful that I draw your attention to the recently implemented comment policy, but a recent string of provocative comments seems to make this necessary. Please, have a quick look at the comment policy. If you feel that your comment will be at odds with our policy, save us the trouble of reading and deleting it.

To the few of our readers who were targeted by these comments, I apologize on behalf of the Well of Questions. We do our best to cut this kind of thing off at the nub, but we are, of course, still only human. Please, bear with us as we work to implement our new comment policy and make this a good place for all people to converse.

Mournfully,
Ø

The following is a summary of a paper I wrote defending Athanasius’ view of the necessity of the incarnation. I argued that given certain definitions of God, humanity, and annihilation, it is not possible for God to save humanity from the post-mortem annihilation of the soul unless Christ becomes incarnate.

In his On the Incarnation, Saint Athanasius explains that part of the fallen human condition is the possibility that every human being will be annihilated. He writes:

because death and corruption were gaining ever firmer hold on them, the human race was in process of destruction. Man, who was created in God’s image and in his possession of reason reflected the very Word Himself, was disappearing… The law of death, which followed from the Transgression, prevailed upon us, and from it there was no escape… it was [monstrous] that beings which once shared the nature of the Word should perish and turn back again into non-existence through corruption. [1]

The issue here is not just that the physical body of man can die; this wouldn’t be adequate for the non-existence of humanity to be an actual threat. For given the soul’s ability to survive bodily death, a human being is not in danger of annihilation in virtue of physical death.  Athanasius is thus worried about the degeneration of the soul. How can the permanent existence of human nature be secured in the face of its inescapable corruption and impending annihilation? The solution to the problem is the incarnation of the divine Word into human nature, resulting in the immortality of human nature:

Naturally also, through this union of the immortal Son of God with our human nature, all men were clothed with incorruption in the promise of the resurrection. For the solidarity of mankind is such that, by virtue of the Word’s indwelling a single human body, the corruption which goes with death has lost its power over all… He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled, and the corruption of death, which formerly held us in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death. [2]

The idea here seems to be that Christ is united to all men through indwelling human nature. His taking-on human nature has made it impossible for human nature to corrupt. If Athanasius were talking about the impossibility of physical death, or the impossibility of the corruption of a person’s character, then this would be obviously false; people still die and do evil stuff post-Incarnation. Instead, he is talking about the fact that human nature’s permanent existence has been secured, in the continual survival of the soul postmortem.

A problem with this account is this: why couldn’t God just save us by willing that we persist in existence? Is God not powerful enough to do this? Athanasius has an answer to this objection. He points out that

the corruption which had set in was not external to the body but established within it. The need, therefore, was that life should cleave to it in corruption’s place, so that, just as death was brought into being in the body, life also might be engendered in it… if death was within the body, woven into its very substance and dominating it as though completely one with it, the need was for Life to be woven into it instead, so that the body by thus enduing itself with life might cast corruption off… the Savior assumed a body for Himself, in order that the body, being interwoven as it were with life, should no longer remain a mortal thing, in thrall to death, but as endued with immortality and risen from death, should thenceforth remain immortal. [3]

In order for us to be saved from annihilation, life must be intrinsic to us. And the only way for life to be intrinsic to us post-fall is for God to be incarnate. Hence the incarnation is needed to save us from annihilation.

But why couldn’t God just will to make his immortality internal to us without becoming incarnate? Surely grace entered into humanity pre-Incarnation in various ways. There was the image of God, which was a divine gift. Post-fall we still see human beings (the prophets for instance) indwelt by the Holy Spirit (in some sense at least). What makes the incarnation special? What makes it necessary for humanity to avoid annihilation and attain the grace of eternal life?

To defend Athanasius’ account, I will invoke specific assumptions about (1) God, (2) humanity, and (3) annihilation.

(1) The divine persons of the Trinity are the sources of life. From the divine essence, the divine energies are manifested through the divine persons of the Trinity. The Father uses his essential powers in certain ways. He therefore chooses how to manifest divine activities (energies) such as “being immortal”, “being loving”, “being just”, etc. Furthermore, only God is the source of life, because only God is the source of his uncreated activities.  The Son and the Spirit also uniquely choose how to act.

(2) A human soul is a part of the essence of a human being (the other part is the body). The soul is a set of powers such as “being able to think”, and “being able to desire”, etc. These powers can do various activities, or energies, such as “thinking” and “desiring”. These powers exist by participation in the logos of human nature. The logos of humanity is a divine energy that gives teleology to human nature, gives it the power to act and fulfill its telos, and causes it to tend to move towards its telos. When a human person uses free will, he or she can either correctly or incorrectly use his or her powers.

Lets also assume that Christ is united to everyone’s human nature in his incarnation; he has a univeralized human nature. Christ sums up all of humanity in himself, and thus all of humanity appropriates whatever benefits accrue to Christ’s human nature. (Granted, what this means is mysterious; it will have to be brought up in the comments or in another post).

(3) Here is an account of how annihilation might happen. In the event that human nature is misused, it corrupts. It therefore participates to a lesser degree in the logos of human nature to the extent that it is corrupted. Insofar as it participates less in the logos of human nature, the soul loses some of its natural power (for it has this power by participation in the logos of humanity). Apart from personal sin, each person’s human nature also inherits a tendency to corrupt. This amounts to a tendency toward impotence, the loss of power.

What would happen if the soul lost all of its power, by completely ceasing to partake of the logos of humanity? It wouldn’t be able to act. The intellect wouldn’t be able to perform the action of “thinking”, because there would be no intellect. The appetite wouldn’t be around to perform the action “desiring”. In fact, the soul’s loss of all power would seem to entail that it ceased to exist. As Saint Gregory Palamas says, an essence without energies has no real existence. So the risk of annihilation is grounded in this: human nature is losing its power to act, and when it loses this power completely, it becomes inactive, and therefore ceases to exist.

The combination of an inherited tendency toward corruption and the personal misuse of human nature both make the annihilation of the unaided human soul inevitable. If God tried to further supply individual people’s human natures with active power, this wouldn’t work, because human persons could still reject this offer of grace. What is needed, then, is that the connection between the logos of human nature and the powers of human nature be made permanent. The powers of human nature need to be fixed in their participation in the logos of humanity.

Given the above definitions, let us see what implications can be drawn.

If a divine person became intrinsic to human nature, then the source of life would become intrinsic to human nature; after all, the persons of the Trinity are the sources of life. Given that the source of life would be intrinsic to human nature, the divine actions can originate from within humanity. Thus, God’s action of “being immortal” becomes actual within human nature. So if God becomes incarnate, then immortality originates from within humanity. Even if we grant that the divine energies could be intrinsic to humanity prior to the incarnation, it is not possible for the source of the divine energies to be intrinsic to humanity unless God is incarnate.

Thus, as long as the Son of God remains incarnate, God’s immortality will continue to be intrinsic to everyone’s human nature. And if no created thing can dissolve the incarnation, then God’s immortality is permanently intrinsic to humanity. Thus, human nature cannot fail to participate in immortality, and therefore cannot fail to have its logos, along with the power that comes from participating in its logos. Humanity is therefore permanently able to act, and therefore incapable of being annihilated because of the incarnation.

Because God is the only source of immortality, and the source of immortality must be internal to humanity to ensure its continual existence, it is not metaphysically possible for human nature to be saved from annihilation without the incarnation. This follows from the stated doctrines of God, of humanity, and of annihilation. Our account raises a variety of questions: if the incarnation saves us from annihilation, what do Christ’s death and resurrection do? Why is the body not made immortal by the incarnation? If all human nature is saved, is it possible for there to be people that go to hell? In what sense do human beings still inherit corruption if their nature is incapable of annihilation? If the soul is incorruptible, why do some humans have morally corrupt character? What does it mean for Christ to have a universalized human nature, and how is this possible? Later posts will have to explore possible answers to these questions. However, it is not insignificant that a theological framework can be provided which (without compromising God’s omnipotence) entails Athanasius’ teaching that only the Incarnation can make life cleave to human nature and save it from non-being.

References:

[1] Athanasius, On the Incarnation, (New York: Macmillan, 1946), 32.

[2] Ibid., 35

[3] Ibid., 80

“We have killed him–you and I.”[1]

There is little in Nietzsche’s vast oeuvres that has been discussed more than this aphorism. I spend the effort of writing this, now, because of the confusion this oft-quoted passage has caused. Will I be saying anything groundbreaking? Earth-shattering? No, no–only reporting what I have heard said. If repetition bores you to tears, spare yourself the pain of reading any further.

(more…)

In a previous post, Krause presented us with a quotation that seemed to show, in language all too plain, that Aquinas conflates person and essence in God. A commenter, however, felt that it was unfair to summarize Aquinas’s position as a conflation, especially without calling into account other relevant portions of the Summa Theologica. So, in the interest of fairness and ease of access, I present our readers with the portions suggested by the aforementioned commenter.

First, Summa Theologica 1, Q28, a2:

Whether relation in God is the same as His essence?

Objection 1: It would seem that the divine relation is not the same as the divine essence. For Augustine says (De Trin. v) that “not all that is said of God is said of His substance, for we say some things relatively, as Father in respect of the Son: but such things do not refer to the substance.” Therefore the relation is not the divine essence.

Objection 2: Further, Augustine says (De Trin. vii) that, “every relative expression is something besides the relation expressed, as master is a man, and slave is a man.” Therefore, if relations exist in God, there must be something else besides relation in God. This can only be His essence. Therefore essence differs from relation.

Objection 3: Further, the essence of relation is the being referred to another, as the Philosopher says (Praedic. v). So if relation is the divine essence, it follows that the divine essence is essentially itself a relation to something else; whereas this is repugnant to the perfection of the divine essence, which is supremely absolute and self-subsisting (Q[3], A[4]). Therefore relation is not the divine essence.

On the contrary, Everything which is not the divine essence is a creature. But relation really belongs to God; and if it is not the divine essence, it is a creature; and it cannot claim the adoration of latria; contrary to what is sung in the Preface: “Let us adore the distinction of the Persons, and the equality of their Majesty.”

I answer that, It is reported that Gilbert de la Porree erred on this point, but revoked his error later at the council of Rheims. For he said that the divine relations are assistant, or externally affixed.

To perceive the error here expressed, we must consider that in each of the nine genera of accidents there are two points for remark. One is the nature belonging to each one of them considered as an accident; which commonly applies to each of them as inherent in a subject, for the essence of an accident is to inhere. The other point of remark is the proper nature of each one of these genera. In the genera, apart from that of “relation,” as in quantity and quality, even the true idea of the genus itself is derived from a respect to the subject; for quantity is called the measure of substance, and quality is the disposition of substance. But the true idea of relation is not taken from its respect to that in which it is, but from its respect to something outside. So if we consider even in creatures, relations formally as such, in that aspect they are said to be “assistant,” and not intrinsically affixed, for, in this way, they signify a respect which affects a thing related and tends from that thing to something else; whereas, if relation is considered as an accident, it inheres in a subject, and has an accidental existence in it. Gilbert de la Porree considered relation in the former mode only.

Now whatever has an accidental existence in creatures, when considered as transferred to God, has a substantial existence; for there is no accident in God; since all in Him is His essence. So, in so far as relation has an accidental existence in creatures, relation really existing in God has the existence of the divine essence in no way distinct therefrom. But in so far as relation implies respect to something else, no respect to the essence is signified, but rather to its opposite term.

Thus it is manifest that relation really existing in God is really the same as His essence and only differs in its mode of intelligibility; as in relation is meant that regard to its opposite which is not expressed in the name of essence. Thus it is clear that in God relation and essence do not differ from each other, but are one and the same.

Reply to Objection 1: These words of Augustine do not imply that paternity or any other relation which is in God is not in its very being the same as the divine essence; but that it is not predicated under the mode of substance, as existing in Him to Whom it is applied; but as a relation. So there are said to be two predicaments only in God, since other predicaments import habitude to that of which they are spoken, both in their generic and in their specific nature; but nothing that exists in God can have any relation to that wherein it exists or of whom it is spoken, except the relation of identity; and this by reason of God’s supreme simplicity.

Reply to Objection 2: As the relation which exists in creatures involves not only a regard to another, but also something absolute, so the same applies to God, yet not in the same way. What is contained in the creature above and beyond what is contained in the meaning of relation, is something else besides that relation; whereas in God there is no distinction, but both are one and the same; and this is not perfectly expressed by the word “relation,” as if it were comprehended in the ordinary meaning of that term. For it was above explained (Q[13], A[2]), in treating of the divine names, that more is contained in the perfection of the divine essence than can be signified by any name. Hence it does not follow that there exists in God anything besides relation in reality; but only in the various names imposed by us.

Reply to Objection 3: If the divine perfection contained only what is signified by relative names, it would follow that it is imperfect, being thus related to something else; as in the same way, if nothing more were contained in it than what is signified by the word “wisdom,” it would not in that case be a subsistence. But as the perfection of the divine essence is greater than can be included in any name, it does not follow, if a relative term or any other name applied to God signify something imperfect, that the divine essence is in any way imperfect; for the divine essence comprehends within itself the perfection of every genus (Q[4], A[2]).

The next section is from 1, Q39, a1:

Whether in God the essence is the same as the person?

Objection 1: It would seem that in God the essence is not the same as person. For whenever essence is the same as person or “suppositum,” there can be only one “suppositum” of one nature, as is clear in the case of all separate substances. For in those things which are really one and the same, one cannot be multiplied apart from the other. But in God there is one essence and three persons, as is clear from what is above expounded (Q[28], A[3]; Q[30], A[2]). Therefore essence is not the same as person.

Objection 2: Further, simultaneous affirmation and negation of the same things in the same respect cannot be true. But affirmation and negation are true of essence and of person. For person is distinct, whereas essence is not. Therefore person and essence are not the same.

Objection 3: Further, nothing can be subject to itself. But person is subject to essence; whence it is called “suppositum” or “hypostasis.” Therefore person is not the same as essence.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Trin. vi, 7): “When we say the person of the Father we mean nothing else but the substance of the Father.”

I answer that, The truth of this question is quite clear if we consider the divine simplicity. For it was shown above (Q[3], A[3]) that the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as “suppositum,” which in intellectual substances is nothing else than person. But a difficulty seems to arise from the fact that while the divine persons are multiplied, the essence nevertheless retains its unity. And because, as Boethius says (De Trin. i), “relation multiplies the Trinity of persons,” some have thought that in God essence and person differ, forasmuch as they held the relations to be “adjacent”; considering only in the relations the idea of “reference to another,” and not the relations as realities. But as it was shown above (Q[28], A[2]) in creatures relations are accidental, whereas in God they are the divine essence itself. Thence it follows that in God essence is not really distinct from person; and yet that the persons are really distinguished from each other. For person, as above stated (Q[29], A[4]), signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.

Reply to Objection 1: There cannot be a distinction of “suppositum” in creatures by means of relations, but only by essential principles; because in creatures relations are not subsistent. But in God relations are subsistent, and so by reason of the opposition between them they distinguish the “supposita”; and yet the essence is not distinguished, because the relations themselves are not distinguished from each other so far as they are identified with the essence.

Reply to Objection 2: As essence and person in God differ in our way of thinking, it follows that something can be denied of the one and affirmed of the other; and therefore, when we suppose the one, we need not suppose the other.

Reply to Objection 3: Divine things are named by us after the way of created things, as above explained (Q[13], AA[1],3). And since created natures are individualized by matter which is the subject of the specific nature, it follows that individuals are called “subjects,” “supposita,” or “hypostases.” So the divine persons are named “supposita” or “hypostases,” but not as if there really existed any real “supposition” or “subjection.”

At face value, these two sections seem to tell us that in God (1) relation is the same as essence and (2) essence is the same as person. This seems to support the interpretation provided by Krause–namely, that Aquinas conflates person and Essence in God.

Thoughts?

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Note: Quotations from the Summa Theologica are taken from the edition available from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.