Philologus,

I want to commend you for making an important distinction. I agree that Catholicism provides the structural means for the realization of true doctrinal unity as well as sacramental unity. I’d even go so far as to say that once you’re received into the Church (as I was Easter 2008) we’ll be in a place of complete doctrinal agreement with one another through the submission we have in common to the Magisterium of Church; that is, both of us will be submitting ourselves to ALL the teachings of the Church. So you and I will be in a state of true doctrinal agreement. We can both go directly to the Catechism to see exactly what it is that we believe. However, I teach with a guy who’s been Catholic for many years. He’s old enough to be my dad. And he’s on the pastoral council at his parish. This man flatly denies any possibility of any pope making an infallible proclamation. He also claims that the Catholic Church isn’t the one Church established by Christ. Sure, this confuses me. And to be honest, he’s hardly Catholic in SOME ways. But I am glad that this man is still, to some degree, in a state of submission to the Church. Thanks again for bringing up that point.

I think you are misreading me. What I am saying is that it is not the case that we should agree about absolute every belief. We seem to agree in this particular belief, because in your latest comment you say “all doctrinal beliefs”. What is a ‘doctrinal’ belief? Which beliefs are ‘doctrinal’? Presumably not beliefs about soft drinks, baseball teams, or chariot races, right? If you agree that beliefs about soft drinks, baseball teams, and chariot races are not included, then you agree with what the point I was trying to get across in my last post.

You also talk about the propositional content of the Christian faith. I believe that there is such a content and I want to, as you say, “find out what it is and try to get everyone on the same page.” If that’s your endeavor, I support it. However, there are big questions being raised here. One of them, the question I was adverting to in my previous comment, is, which truths constitute the propositional content of the Christian faith? Surely not ALL truths are part of the content of the faith, and that is the point I was trying to make. There is, somewhat ironically, some disagreement about which points we are trying to establish agreement on! Saying that we are trying to establish agreement on “all doctrinal beliefs” might be the beginning of an answer to that question, but it is only the beginning – you still have to clarify which beliefs are and aren’t ‘doctrinal.’ All I was trying to claim is that this is in itself a substantive issue that we should pay attention to.

Why do you hope we all agree that there is not a need for complete uniformity of all beliefs?

You’ve simply shrugged off my scriptural references, assuming that they can’t refer to a uniformity of all doctrinal beliefs: I’m wrong because I must be wrong. Am I missing part of your argument? Of course my post wasn’t directed towards the kinds of questions you raised in your rhetorical questions, but that doesn’t mean my contention is invalid. Does the Christian faith have a propositional content or doesn’t it? If the former, why are you determined to make sure that we don’t find out what it is and try to get everyone on the same page? If it’s because it seems hopeless, I agree that it seems hopeless from the side of the Tiber I’m soon to leave behind. Protestantism has no coherent structure to even begin to answer the question, so I can understand why it would seem hopeless to you, but Catholic ecclesiology accounts for the preservation of the faith once delivered to the saints. If you don’t want everyone to be unified in belief for some other reason, what on earth could it be? I’ve been in Protestant churches long enough to realize how harmful and destructive are the disagreements you don’t seem to consider “essential.”

We are here using “the essentials” as an abbreviation for the WCF’s phrase, “those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation.” So, first, there is a sense in which more things than that are essential to the Christian faith. For instance, the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to the Christian faith (any system of beliefs that does not include it would not be a form of Christian theology), but it is not, in my view, necessary for salvation. (Certainly UNDERSTANDING that doctrine is not necessary for salvation, or we’d all be doomed.) Second, there may be things which are inessential, but nevertheless extremely important, and there are certainly things which are inessential but beneficial. We should strive to know God as much as possible, and the Scripture is certainly not ‘superfluous’ to that task. In reducing ‘the essentials’ I am simply saying that very little knowledge or understanding is necessary for salvation. In fact, as I understand it, the RCC holds that NO knowledge or understanding is necessary, since infants are saved as soon as they are baptized. So the RCC teaches that you don’t need to know ANY of the things in Scripture (or indeed anything at all) in order to be saved, but this doesn’t render the Scripture superfluous.

I am not going to dispute your claim about sacramental unity. I agree that the observance of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist is necessary to the Church’s identity (so that, for instance, although the Salvation Army is theologically similar to other Protestant groups, I would not consider them a legitimate Christian church because they do not observe the sacraments). See my discussion of the necessary aspects of an ecclesiology. I don’t have a detailed view about the exact nature of the sacramental unity the Church experiences.

As for the visible/material nature of the Church, I agree that we are commanded to do what Victorinus would not do, namely, to be part of the visible manifestation of the Church on earth. This manifestation takes the form of specific local gatherings. Furthermore, we are commanded to submit to specific Christian leaders, and those leaders are commanded to exercise discipline over us. One of the problems created by the institutional disunity of the Church today is the weakening of these disciplinary measures: people just go find another church. The problem is worsened by the fact that most Protestant churches don’t see it as a problem or try to do anything about it (in fact, they usually don’t practice discipline at all). This is bad.

Philologus,

I know your post isn’t addressed to me, but I have to ask: is it ok if Christians disagree about what baseball team to root for? About what political candidate to vote for? About whether Coke tastes better than Pepsi?

We all agree that there is a need for doctrinal unity, but I hope we also all agree that there is NOT a need for complete uniformity of ALL beliefs. The question is, what beliefs must we agree on? Perhaps you will answer, beliefs having to do with God; since we philosophers sit around constructing nitpicky counterexamples all day, I will respond by asking, what about the belief that God created a world in which Coke tastes better than Pepsi?

When the NT says that the Christians were “one in heart and mind,” what beliefs did they agree on? Did they agree on who was going to win tomorrow’s chariot race?

The aim of unity is a valuable one and most Protestants don’t value it nearly enough, so I can appreciate what you are getting at. I don’t mean to poke fun; I’m just trying to clarify the issue for all of us.

You said, “I’m simply suggesting that our understanding of what Christ and the Apostles meant when they called for our unity must be understood in some way apart from common doctrinal assent.”

This is, I think, an unintentional capitulation to the Protestant politically-correct tendency to assume that since nobody agrees, it must be meant to be that way. According to Luke, the first Christians in Jerusalem were “one in heart and mind,” and Paul exhorted the Corinthians to “agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” It seems impossible to us today, but it’s the standard we’re meant to strive for. We have the deposit of faith, so the problem is merely one of assent. It’s not that we don’t know what it is that everyone should believe. Anyway, if I’ve misread you I apologize, and if I’m off the mark here I hope that one of the more knowledgeable contributors will correct me. This is my take on it as someone who is on his way to being received into the Church.

Thanks for sharing these thoughts. I know you’re engaged in dialogue with Tom and I don’t want to detract from that. But you’re touching on some issues about which I’m very sensitive, and which influenced my own journey to that most unexpected of places (considering where I was coming from): Catholicism

1st of all, it still seems to me that your view on the essentials basically renders nearly every jot and tittle of the Holy Scriptures basically superfluous.

And about my comments concerning “universal doctrinal agreement”… I’m simply suggesting that our understanding of what Christ and the Apostles meant when they called for our unity must be understood in some way apart from common doctrinal assent. That’s why I was appealing to the unifying role played by that Sacrament of sacraments: Holy Communion. Sacramental unity, being a real participation in Christ’s Body and Blood is indeed a perfect unity- which is precisely what we’re called to. On the other hand, as you’ve acknowledged, philosophical/theological/doctrinal unity (though I’d suggest Catholicism does indeed provide a framework for its hypothetical achievement) is ever-elusive. How, then, can we realize the type of unity to which we’re called? Through Sacrament.

And finally, yes, it does sorta seem right to me that even the most isolated people can (and are) touched by the divine hand and given some knowledge of God (Romans 1). However, though you’re claiming that the Church is primarily constituted through some form of spiritual/unseen unity, such “reductionism” in the “essentials” of Christianity, to me seems to all but completely do away with the Church. The Church has to have “teeth,” does it not? Matthew 18′s prescriptions for Church discipline don’t stop short of demanding that Church isn’t either more or less spiritual than it is physical. The Church must be both/and. Check out St. Augustine’s Confessions, Book 8 ch.2 for a discussion of the great orator Victorinus and his change of mind concerning this very topic (that is, if you’re not already familiar with it). And again, thanks for the interaction!

On your second comment, there is obviously no guarantee of universal doctrinal agreement; if there were, there would BE universal doctrinal agreement, but of course there isn’t. I believe (and I think I speak for most Protestants in this) that the unity of the Church is fundamentally a spiritual reality. It is our job to live and act in such a way as to manifest this reality to the world. We are not doing our job. However, agreement on EVERY doctrine ought not to be a condition of unity. I don’t necessarily see doctrinal disagreement (on inessentials) as a serious problem, but I do see disunity of all sorts as a problem. Doctrinal disagreement on inessentials is a problem insofar as it means that someone is believing falsely, but that is part of the condition of human beings on earth. We believe falsely about all sorts of things. It is also a problem insofar as it divides the Church, but if the disagreements are truly inessential then the problem is not that we disagree but that we are dividing as a result.

I suppose that wasn’t a very straightforward answer to your question. The long and short of it is that there are many different ways in which we can grow to greater unity, to more clearly manifest the reality of the Church’s spiritual unity.

I’m really enjoying your comments here. I wanted to join in the conversation briefly with two things (But please don’t allow me to sidetrack your conversation with Tom or Andrew). It seems to me that Scripture wouldn’t even be required for a person to come up with the few “necessary things” you’ve identified. Self-awareness, righteous guilt, and logical reasoning could get someone pretty close to your “necessary things,” couldn’t they (assuming divine grace is involved)? If those are the utterly necessary things, is the rest of Scripture, in some way superfluous?

Also, you said:

So the claim that even “the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of” the necessary things does not amount to the claim that there will be universal agreement on them.

If universal doctrinal agreement can’t be guaranteed within your framework of thinking (or can it?), to what kind of unity are believers called (John 17:20-23)? Sure, Catholicism can’t guarantee universal doctrinal agreement, either. However, sacramental unity, realized through shared communion (which diminishes all other points of disagreement within the Body) seems to provide a means by which doctrinal confusion can coexist with true Eucharistic/Sacramental unity. Catholicism cannot solve the perennial problem of doctrinal disagreement. But it can provide a larger sacramental context in which true Christian unity can be realized through Eucharistic communion- the Source and Summit of Catholic Christianity. If not through such a tangible symbol of unity, how could we ever realize the unity to which St. Paul called us in 1st Corinthians 1:10, for example?

The identification of ‘necessary things’ is of course contentious. I don’t think anyone claims that everyone identifies them infallibly. For one trivial example, there will be disagreement because some people are insincere in their interpretive claims. There may also be other reasons for disagreement: people may not have made “due use of ordinary means” (i.e. they may not have investigated the matter closely enough), or their view may be obscured as a result of their spiritual state. So the claim that even “the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of” the necessary things does not amount to the claim that there will be universal agreement on them. Furthermore, it is compatible with the WCF doctrine that sincere, Spirit-led believers may not be able to identify which of their conclusions are necessary, provided that the necessary things are among their conclusions.

Having said that, I would say that the ‘necessary things’ are something like the following: (1) that man is in need of salvation; (2) that God alone can save; (3) that God commands those who wish to be saved to repent, place their faith in Christ, and do good works. I take the ‘necessary things’ to be this broad/vague, because I think that extreme theological confusion is compatible with salvation; faith precedes understanding. This is why, for instance, I don’t attempt to specify which of the commands in (3) is actually necessary to salvation, but only state that God commands all of them. That’s just my own opinion of the matter.

As to your second point, precisely what I was trying to say is that my general claim is compatible with something like the RCC view of the teaching Magisterium. However, what I want to emphasize is that even if, as you say, “it is precisely in virtue of their office that the Bishops possess ‘supernatural expertise’” it is nevertheless not simply in virtue of their office that they are to be believed. The reason for this is that authoritativeness cannot be delegated. IF something like the RCC doctrine is correct, then the bishops ought to be believed not simply in virtue of their office, but in virtue of the divine gifting which God has associated with that office. I think this is an extremely important distinction which is often lost in these discussions. I think the reason it looks like a non sequitur to you is that this claim is not a polemic against the RCC view, but merely an attempt to clarify the matter under discussion.

Once we have made this clarification, we can see that there are at least two distinct questions under dispute: (1) how far is the ordinary believer able (by natural or supernatural means) to interpret the Scripture? (2) who, if anyone, has God gifted with extraordinary interpretive ability?

Just a quick question, and then I’ll duck out.

It is your contention that “the necessary things” can be “understood by all” [without an authoritative interpreter].

Could you tell us what are “the necessary things” [these things being, by definition, easy to understand]?

I can tell you what are “the necessary things,” if you want me to. Sadly, I suspect that we would not cite the same things.

Sorry, one more thing. You wrote:

Perhaps God chooses to miraculously endow those who hold certain offices with supernatural expertise. Even if this is true, it is because of their expertise that these people are to be believed, and not simply in virtue of their office.

This looks like a euphemistic way of describing the teaching Magisterium, except that you fail to recognize the possibility that it is precisely in virtue of their office that the Bishops possess “supernatural expertise.” So your “even if this is true…” is a non sequitur.