"Subsists"

[TommyWommy]

How would you explain to a questioning Protestant the idea that the Church as a whole “subsists” within the Catholic Church?

I thought maybe a helpful analogy might be that of a tree. The “root” is Christ, the “trunk” is the Catholic Church, while anything else is a branch, or a leaf. To call the Catholic Church a “denomination,” then, is like calling the trunk of a tree a branch, which is incorrect. All life comes from the root and the trunk, which allows the rest to “subsist.”

Is this a reasonable analogy, or does it fall too short? Is there a better one?

Thanks.

 

[JoshuaNY]

I think the Orthodox church might have a problem with that statement.
I am a Lutheran so I have a problem with too. I beleive we all are united under the church catholic. Meaning the universal Church and not just the Roman Catholic Church.
But I may be your questioning protestant.

Oh sorry. I didnt realize this was in the apologetics section, or I would have kept my thoughts to myself.

 

[Samuel63]

This word “subsists” is not the greatest.

 

[StrawberryJam]

How would you explain to a questioning Protestant the idea that the Church as a whole “subsists” within the Catholic Church?

I thought maybe a helpful analogy might be that of a tree. The “root” is Christ, the “trunk” is the Catholic Church, while anything else is a branch, or a leaf. To call the Catholic Church a “denomination,” then, is like calling the trunk of a tree a branch, which is incorrect. All life comes from the root and the trunk, which allows the rest to “subsist.”

Is this a reasonable analogy, or does it fall too short? Is there a better one?

Thanks.

Your analogy works much better in an attempt to reach those who don’t have a grasp of the trinity.

The trinity can be explained much more easily with the whole roots, trunk, branches analogy.

Or the clover, whichever.

So, yes it does fall short.

If you are attempting to fight with someone over the meaning of church and Church, don’t use this.

 

[DianaCC]

No, “subsists in” just means “is”. There are two kinds of beings, substances and accidents. Substances exist in their own right, but accidents require a substance in which to exist. A ball is a substance, but the color red and the physical state of bouncing are accidents and cannot exist independently on their own but they can exist if they have a ball to exist in. Also, substances cannot exist in or through anything else, and so you can’t have, say, an anvil that has “ballness” the way an anvil can have hardness. Nor can substances be more or less what they are, or be what they are to various degress, like heaviness or firmness; something is either a ball or it is not, although a ball can be heavier or lighter, or firmer or softer, without ceasing to be a ball.

To say the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church is just to say that the state of being the Church of Christ is not some kind of quality or condition of this or that denomination, that can be had in various degrees, as if the sum total of Christian denominations somehow makes up the real Church with each denomination being a part of it but not the whole of it, or with different denominations being “more” the Church of Christ than another denomination is. Rather everything that *makes *the Church of Christ *the *Church of Christ is had by the Catholic Church, is had by no other, and cannot be in any other.

 

[TommyWommy]

No, “subsists in” just means “is”. There are two kinds of beings, substances and accidents. Substances exist in their own right, but accidents require a substance in which to exist. A ball is a substance, but the color red and the physical state of bouncing are accidents and cannot exist independently on their own but they can exist if they have a ball to exist in. Also, substances cannot exist in or through anything else, and so you can’t have, say, an anvil that has “ballness” the way an anvil can have hardness. Nor can substances be more or less what they are, or be what they are to various degress, like heaviness or firmness; something is either a ball or it is not, although a ball can be heavier or lighter, or firmer or softer, without ceasing to be a ball.

To say the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church is just to say that the state of being the Church of Christ is not some kind of quality or condition of this or that denomination, that can be had in various degrees, as if the sum total of Christian denominations somehow makes up the real Church with each denomination being a part of it but not the whole of it, or with different denominations being “more” the Church of Christ than another denomination is. Rather everything that *makes *the Church of Christ *the *Church of Christ is had by the Catholic Church, is had by no other, and cannot be in any other.

sub·sist (sb-sst)
v. sub·sist·ed, sub·sist·ing, sub·sists
v.intr.
1.
a. To exist; be.
b. To remain or continue in existence.
2. To maintain life; live: subsisted on one meal a day.
3. To be logically conceivable.
v.tr.
To maintain or support with provisions.

It seems I was going by the #2 meaning while you are going by the #1 meaning. It sheds a different light on it, I see. I was thinking more that the branches maintain their life by virtue of the trunk somehow delivering “sap.” But I see now what you mean.

Does this then mean that if a Protestant is Christian by virtue of baptism that he/she is actually a Catholic (not catholic) but unaware of it?

 

[TommyWommy]

This word “subsists” is not the greatest.

Just to clarify, I’m assuming you’re aware that I didn’t choose the word, that it’s from the CC(?) I’m trying to better understand why they picked that word.

 

[TommyWommy]

Your analogy works much better in an attempt to reach those who don’t have a grasp of the trinity.

The trinity can be explained much more easily with the whole roots, trunk, branches analogy.

Or the clover, whichever.

So, yes it does fall short.

If you are attempting to fight with someone over the meaning of church and Church, don’t use this.

Hmm…I never thought of that in terms of the Trinity. Anyway, I don’t want to “fight” anybody but I am trying to explain to them the difference between Church and church, as you said, and why it behooves them to come to Church.

 

[DianaCC]

It seems I was going by the #2 meaning while you are going by the #1 meaning. … Does this then mean that if a Protestant is Christian by virtue of baptism that he/she is actually a Catholic (not catholic) but unaware of it?

“This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as “the pillar and mainstay of the truth”. **This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, **which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.” - Vatican II, *Lumen Gentium *8.

That’s why I thought you meant #1.

And yes, all baptized persons are baptized Catholic, whether they know it or not.

 

[TommyWommy]

“This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as “the pillar and mainstay of the truth”. **This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, **which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.” - Vatican II, *Lumen Gentium *8.

That’s why I thought you meant #1.

And yes, all baptized persons are baptized Catholic, whether they know it or not.

Thank you for your clarity.

 

[FCEGM]

Just to clarify, I’m assuming you’re aware that I didn’t choose the word, that it’s from the CC(?) I’m trying to better understand why they picked that word.

Tommy, in Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, a collection of some writings by Pope Benedict before his election to the papacy, he addresses the choice of “subsists” by the Council fathers:

With the subsistit formula, Vatican II intended - in line with the Catholic tradition - to say something the exact opposite of “ecclesiological relativism”: there is a Church of Jesus Christ. He himself willed her existence, and ever since Pentecost the Holy Spirit is constantly creating her, despite all human failures, and preserves her in her substantial identity. . .

. . .The Council is trying to tell us that the Church of Jesus Christ may be encountered in this world as a concrete agent [emphasis in original] in the Catholic Church. . . .With the term subsistit, the Council was trying to express the particular quality of the Catholic Church and the fact that this quality cannot be multiplied: the Church exists as an active agent within historical reality, pgs. 147-148.

 

[TommyWommy]

Tommy, in Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith, a collection of some writings by Pope Benedict before his election to the papacy, he addresses the choice of “subsists” by the Council fathers:

Thank you. That sounds more like what DianaCC was talking about. I’m seeing more and more the weakness of my analogy.