But do you say that knowing exactly what the Orthodox object to? The idea that doctrine (meaning the way we transmit the faith of the Fathers in words) changes over time is not foreign to Orthodoxy, because the Orthodox have historically had an implicit understanding of the limits of human language and knowledge. What the Orthodox reject is the creation of new teachings which have no epistemological justification.
But everyone rejects that. The only question is whether in fact the “new teachings” of Rome fall into this category, and how one decides disagreements on the point.
In other words, when we use words to describe what is believed, we run into the question: ‘how is this particular description of what we know justifiable?’ In allowing for a certain flexibility in how we describe what is believed, however, there is an inherent danger that we will allow systematic thinking (the how it is described) to replace what is believed. The use of systematic thought to resolve and collapse rather than simply to describe the fundamental antinomies of the Christian faith is in fact a form of idolatry as it allows human ideas to supplant God, limiting His infinite and unknowable being, and has been the root of every heresy, excluding those which are based in factual errors (like the Montanists, gnostics, adoptionists, etc.).
Yes, and I think this is a very strong Orthodox criticism. I think the best Catholic defense is that the “systematic” language is still expressing an apophatic truth. So, for instance, the Immaculate Conception is denying that Our Lady had original sin in the Augustinian sense. It may in fact be a pointer to the limitation of the form of words involved in the Augustinian definition of original sin! Papal infallibility is denying a juridical form of conciliarism that reduces the Church to a kind of constitutional monarchy in which the Holy Spirit can only work through a certain process of decision-making.
If you ask of every “new teaching” what it is denying, the teachings become more defensible and less incompatible with Orthodox teaching. Once you grant that the West accepts the fundamentally apophatic nature of doctrine (which I think it clearly does, contrary to the common Orthodox assumption), I think a lot of difficulties disappear.
Now with that in mind, the question is two fold: why did the fathers teach what they did on the subject, and is the current teaching of the Catholic Church consistent with this? I would say that Augustinian and Cyprianic ecclesiology are attempting to explain the same set of observations. The first is that both systems must account for the affirmation that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Neither system contradicts this fact. The second is that those in schism were received in varying ways. This is the biggest objective criticism of Augustinian ecclesiology, that it does not manage to take this into account. The third is that sometimes schismatic clergy are received as clergy without being reordained, which I suppose could be considered a strong point of Augustinian ecclesiology over Cyprianic ecclesiology.
But when we examine the modern development upon Augustine’s ecclesiology ecclesiology, we see that it still fails to explain the second point, but what is worse, it comes dangerously close to compromising that there is no salvation outside of the Church and that the Church is One, two fundamental doctrines of the Church.
I don’t see this, but perhaps we just differ on the implications of coming “dangerously close” to a heresy.
I would actually say that every orthodox teaching comes “dangerously close” to a heresy, and the desire not to be “dangerously close” to a heresy is in fact one of the chief causes of heresy (the Arians didn’t want to be “dangerously close” to Sabellianism, for instance).
Furthermore, it cannot safeguard against indifferentism like classical Augustinian or Cyprianic ecclesiology can.
I don’t see this.
In asserting that those outside of the Church have gravely compromised their salvation, there is no mistaking that the Church can be the only Ark of Salvation. Far from allowing compassion to trump doctrine, the Orthodox approach prevents doctrine from circumscribing God, by asserting that it is not being God’s power to save these people if he so wills. I would venture that this new development upon Augustinian ecclesiology, far from being a good thing, is something that allows for compassion to modify doctrine, and for a systematic way of thinking to limit the power and sovereignty of God.
An interesting point. But I’d say rather that it accounts for reality.
We agree, I think, that no one is in principle outside the compassion of God. So neither of us would conclude necessarily that a person who died as an atheist went to hell. Am I right about that?
Granting that, the Orthodox position as you describe it puts the devout Protestant or RC in the same position as the atheist. It’s not about who goes to heaven or hell. It’s about having a doctrine that actually accounts for the differences between various kinds of people who are outside the Church, all of whom in principle may be saved by God’s compassion outside the visible extent of covenantal grace.
Essentially, the Orthodox position says that non-Orthodox don’t have a real covenant with God. That means that they have, in Tertullian’s terms, no “right” to the Scriptures and that their sacraments are meaningless. If they are saved they are saved in the same way that a heathen or an atheist may be saved.
As a person who is at this point neither Catholic nor Orthodox, I can only say that there’s no way I could believe that. It would make nonsense of everything that points me
toward Catholicism and/or Orthodoxy.
I cannot in good conscience be Protestant because I believe that what is real and good and covenantal in Protestantism points me toward the unity of the Church. That’s the only real reason I’d become either Catholic or Orthodox.
The Orthodox position–and the traditionalist Catholic position, for that matter–cuts off the very reason that makes me take the claims of these Churches seriously in the first place. It’s therefore a non-starter.
Now maybe that just makes me a hard-hearted heretic or something. But that’s the way it is.
Edwin
For what? The fact this may have been a misunderstanding may be true however, we are viewing factual histroy not assumption.