Papacy Roundup
Aug 2nd, 2012 | By David Anders | Category: Blog PostsThere has been a great deal of discussion at CTC about the rational superiority of the Catholic interpretive paradigm  over the Protestant interpretive paradigm. As Michael Liccione, and others, have pointed out, Protestantism has no principled way to differentiate dogma from theological opinion – no coherent way even to identify the contours of Christian doctrine – that does not reduce to question begging or subjectivism. Catholicism, by contrast, posits an objective way to draw such distinctions.
St. Gregory the Great [AD 540 – 604]
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1797)
But the logic and coherence of a system does not make it true. It is also important to recognize that there are objective, biblical, and historical grounds for finding the Catholic claims credible. (Whereas the biblical and historical case for Protestantism is weak and contradictory.)Â Catholics refer to these evidences collectively as The Motives of Credibilty. This evidence is not sufficient to compel the assent of faith. (It wouldn’t be faith, then, it would be knowledge.) But it is sufficient to show that the assent of faith (aided by divine grace) is rational.
We have treated some of this evidence – especially for the divine foundation of the Church and Papacy – before. What follows is a brief roundup of some of those articles.
Christ founded a visible Church and Magisterium
- That Christ founded a visible Church
- That Christ founded holy orders and established a sacrificial priesthood
- That Christ established a Magisterium in the Church
- St. Ignatius of Antioch on the Church
- St. John Chrysostom on the Priesthood
The Papacy in Scripture and History:
- That Peter is the Rock of Matthew 16:18
- That the New Testament ascribes Primacy to Peter
- The witness of history on Petrine/Roman Primacy
- St. Vincent of Lerins on the Magisterium
- St. Optatus on Schism and the Bishop of Rome
- St. Cyprian on the Unity of the Church
The witness of history against key Protestant doctrines
- The witness of history against Sola Fide
- The witness of history against “primitivism” and the claim to have “recovered” the Gospel.
- The witness of history on baptismal regeneration
- St. Augustine on Law and Grace
- St. Clement of Rome on soteriology and ecclesiology
Philosophy and the Papacy
David,
“no coherent way even to identify the contours of Christian doctrine”
>>>Have you ever read Samuel Rutherford’s Free Disputation or Due Right of Presbyteries? Those books speak to those exact issues in detail.
Hi all,
This is a great website with some excellent articles.
I’d like to ask, though, when the CTC team will be addressing these two issues: (1) the IP by which Catholicism is to be demonstrated correct vis-Ă -vis Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, and (2) the evidence from the early Church for the dogmas promulgated at Vatican I–universal ordinary jurisdiction and papal infallibility. Until Catholic apologists can offer a compelling case in these areas, the course of my journey toward and within Eastern Orthodoxy will remain unaltered.
It is so vital that these two matters be addressed because for them to remain outstanding on a Catholic-Calvinist discussion site leaves all Protestants seeking the Church founded by Christ to wander in the dark. “Protestants are maddeningly divided,” they will concede. “But so are the apostolic Churches,” these Protestants will point out: “simply to a far lesser degree.” They will then conclude in bafflement, “So, where do we go from here?”
Trebor135,
I think the section “The Papacy in Scripture and History” would provide a good base for understanding how we view the papacy and why we think Rome is the guarantor of orthodoxy, even if the articles were not written specifically with Eastern/Oriental Orthodox objections in mind. I would like more interaction with Eastern arguments on this subject, though, especially from an Eastern Catholic point of view. Peace to you on your journey. :)
IC XC NIKA
Garrison
I also want to see the Eastern Orthodox perspective on these things.
A functioning authority paradigm in Christianity must defend the apostolic faith in a way that reflects the living authority of the living Christ, who taught with authority and not like the Pharisees and scribes.
Such an authority paradigm demonstrates development (coming to new true conclusions on the basis of existing true premises) and adaptation (giving answers to previously unanticipated questions in a fashion that accords with the existing understanding of the apostolic faith and expands that understanding in new ways which, themselves, offer fruitful premises for further, later expansion). All this will happen without reversing or denying any previously-asserted aspect of the apostolic faith.
The result of this will always be that the believer who practices submission to the correct authority will be able, even without benefit of literacy or a theology degree, to know what Christianity is, what it is obligatory that he must believe (or deny), and what behaviors are glorifying to God (or the converse), especially with regard to God, salvation, the Church, the Christian life, and our eternal destiny.
What I’ve just described is a set of job requirements for the Christian authority paradigm. They are logically required if one is to hold that Christianity is knowable.
Now, Protestant notions of authority do not fulfill the requirements; but what about the Eastern Orthodox paradigm(s)?
It seems to me that the Eastern Orthodox lack a mechanism by which they can respond to new questions in matters of faith and morals. The stored-up wisdom of the apostolic tradition is sufficient to come to relatively safe conclusions for a thousand years or so after their separation from the chair of Peter, but increasingly the ability to develop and respond to fresh inquiry in an authoritative (rather than speculative) way seems absent. Theirs, so far as I can see, is an authority paradigm which cannot provide answers for the questions believers need answered if the Lord tarries for another fifty thousand, or five hundred thousand, years (and reconciliation with Rome does not occur in that time).
The Catholic paradigm, so far as I can see, can. The papacy may be headquartered in Alpha Centauri by then, but provided the Apostolic Succession is unbroken, there’s no particular reason that should matter. “Rome” will still be able to speak and have the matter be settled, even if by then we’re saying that “Gliese 581 g” has spoken, and the matter is settled.
That said, the Eastern paradigm has this attraction: It has not made bold, striking, authoritative, controversial dogmatic statements recently enough to seem recent to our perceptions of time.
This gifts any prospective Orthodox apologist with an easier burden: He may need to defend recent doctrinal assertions, but only ones which have such a long and uniform pedigree in Christianity that they seem very defensible (for no other kind would be made), and they will not have been asserted as a firm, authoritative, “de fide” settling of a disputed matter.
Meanwhile, any doctrinal assertions which seemed radical and bold at the time they were first asserted were made so long before our era that they feel distant and ancient to us. The boldness of the early church councils’ condemnations or affirmations, which to their hearers seemed to rule out perfectly respectable notions and advance others whose evidentiary basis was not obviously superior, is hard for us to feel.
We forget, as a consequence, what early Church authority felt like. It’s hard for us to walk a mile in the moccasins of a well-meaning, scholarly Christian who just found out that his favorite Christological formulation was judged heretical. He surely had arguments which seemed dispositive to him. At the very least he felt that the evidence was inconclusive and that his view was supported by that evidence just as well as the view eventually pronounced by the Church. He thus felt justified in thinking that, at worst, the Church could not possibly rule out either view, but must continue to allow both as speculative realms in theology.
Then, the hammer fell. Our unintended heretic no doubt felt that the Church’s pronouncement was a bolt from the blue: How had they come to the conclusion which ruled him wrong? Did they have evidence he hadn’t considered? No? Then, if they were operating from the same evidence as he, whence came this sudden certainty, sufficient to make bold assertions, sufficient to require either his obedience or his casting out? How could they know? Hadn’t earlier generations speculated along the same lines, or even wilder lines, than he? Wasn’t this a matter which all sides agreed was not explicitly spelled out in Scripture? How could they know? Or did they know, after all? Were they just making stuff up, pretending to know what they could not?
That is surely what it felt like to fall afoul of a living Church authority. That is probably what it felt like to be a Jewish Christian who assumed that Gentiles must be circumcised first, and then suddenly read the decision from the Jerusalem proto-council in Acts 15, and fall over in shock.
I relate all this because I suspect living under the Eastern Orthodox authority never feels that way, and never can. And of course the church-shopping practitioner of sola scriptura will not feel that way. But the Catholic can, and does. (I can testify, to my chagrin.)
So it seems to me that the Eastern Orthodox authority paradigm, for all the glories in that tradition, and for all the faithfulness and holiness which comes from a valid episcopacy and succession and sacraments, doesn’t quite meet the requisite job requirements for the authority paradigm of Jesus’ Church.
But I want to know the Eastern perspective, and its counter-arguments. I am ignorant of vast swaths of it, and would like to fill in the gaps.
“I think the section ‘The Papacy in Scripture and History’ would provide a good base for understanding how we view the papacy and why we think Rome is the guarantor of orthodoxy, even if the articles were not written specifically with Eastern/Oriental Orthodox objections in mind.”
Thanks for pointing me to those links. The debate from exegesis over the referent of “this rock” in Matthew 16:18 is a red herring, in my view, because it takes attention away from the real elephant in the room: the Vatican I dogmas. The other five essays, from what I can tell, do nothing to show the purportedly solid foundation in Tradition of universal ordinary jurisdiction and papal infallibility either. In order for the extensive citation of such Fathers as St. Cyprian of Carthage and Vincent of Lerins to demonstrate the Catholic position, it is crucial that Eastern and Oriental Orthodox objections be taken into account. All three communions regard such writings (for the Eastern Orthodox up to the eighth-tenth centuries, for the Oriental Orthodox up to the mid-fifth century) as part of their heritage, and will thus be able to proffer their own well-thought-out interpretations of most or all passages brought forward in defense of the Catholic papacy.
“I would like more interaction with Eastern arguments on this subject, though, especially from an Eastern Catholic point of view.”
I would like to see such as well.
Here are some resources, Latin/Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, that may be of interest:
1) this debate on “papal primacy” between Joseph Suaiden (an Eastern Orthodox convert from Catholicism) and Jerry Daffer (a Catholic convert from Evangelical Protestantism);
2) the writings of James Likoudis (a Greek Orthodox convert to Catholicism) and the responses and other work by Joseph Suaiden;
3) the book “The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church” edited by Fr. John Meyendorff;
4) the essay “The Vatican Dogma” by Sergius Bulgakov (a generally ecumenically-minded Eastern Orthodox scholar); and
5) the site of Dr. Anthony Dragani (an Eastern Catholic).
(If the link to the Bulgakov piece fails to load properly, one may do a Google search for “The Vatican Dogma” and read the Cached version from Google.)
“Peace to you on your journey. :)”
Thanks–same to you. :)
“I also want to see the Eastern Orthodox perspective on these things.”
Indeed. Taking this approach is so important because otherwise we limit ourselves to the false dichotomy of Catholicism versus Protestantism, at the cost of ignoring a perspective just as worthy of consideration found in Eastern Orthodoxy.
“A functioning authority paradigm in Christianity must defend the apostolic faith in a way that reflects the living authority of the living Christ, who taught with authority and not like the Pharisees and scribes.”
Why? Jewish public revelation occurred during the times of the prophets, and its contents were passed down by one generation of Jewish parents, teachers, et al after another. Likewise, Christian public revelation occurred during the time of Christ and the apostles, and its contents were passed down by one generation of Christian parents, teachers, et al after another. When prophets and Christ/apostles were not walking the earth, it was evident that God did not intend for public revelation to be received by his people.
“Such an authority paradigm demonstrates development (coming to new true conclusions on the basis of existing true premises) and adaptation (giving answers to previously unanticipated questions in a fashion that accords with the existing understanding of the apostolic faith and expands that understanding in new ways which, themselves, offer fruitful premises for further, later expansion). All this will happen without reversing or denying any previously-asserted aspect of the apostolic faith.”
I am genuinely awaiting with anticipation the CTC treatise which seeks to demonstrate conclusively that Newmanian development of doctrine occurred during the first millennium with resulting dogmas that are deemed essential even by Eastern Orthodoxy.
“The result of this will always be that the believer who practices submission to the correct authority will be able, even without benefit of literacy or a theology degree, to know what Christianity is, what it is obligatory that he must believe (or deny), and what behaviors are glorifying to God (or the converse), especially with regard to God, salvation, the Church, the Christian life, and our eternal destiny.”
The problem is how to find that authority. Which is why it would be so helpful for the CTC team to address the issue of how the Catholic framework is (ostensibly) superior to the Eastern Orthodox equivalent.
“What Iâve just described is a set of job requirements for the Christian authority paradigm. They are logically required if one is to hold that Christianity is knowable.”
For something to be “logically required” does not mean that it is really there.
“Now, Protestant notions of authority do not fulfill the requirements; but what about the Eastern Orthodox paradigm(s)?”
Good question.
“It seems to me that the Eastern Orthodox lack a mechanism by which they can respond to new questions in matters of faith and morals. The stored-up wisdom of the apostolic tradition is sufficient to come to relatively safe conclusions for a thousand years or so after their separation from the chair of Peter, but increasingly the ability to develop and respond to fresh inquiry in an authoritative (rather than speculative) way seems absent. Theirs, so far as I can see, is an authority paradigm which cannot provide answers for the questions believers need answered if the Lord tarries for another fifty thousand, or five hundred thousand, years (and reconciliation with Rome does not occur in that time).”
What kinds of “new questions” do you see arising which Eastern Orthodoxy may perhaps or will likely not be able to settle “in an authoritative (rather than speculative) way”?
“The Catholic paradigm, so far as I can see, can. The papacy may be headquartered in Alpha Centauri by then, but provided the Apostolic Succession is unbroken, thereâs no particular reason that should matter. ‘Rome’ will still be able to speak and have the matter be settled, even if by then weâre saying that ‘Gliese 581 g’ has spoken, and the matter is settled.”
I see where you’re coming from.
“That said, the Eastern paradigm has this attraction: It has not made bold, striking, authoritative, controversial dogmatic statements recently enough to seem recent to our perceptions of time.
“This gifts any prospective Orthodox apologist with an easier burden: He may need to defend recent doctrinal assertions, but only ones which have such a long and uniform pedigree in Christianity that they seem very defensible (for no other kind would be made), and they will not have been asserted as a firm, authoritative, ‘de fide’ settling of a disputed matter.”
This has occurred to me as I have been pondering the prospect of becoming an Eastern Orthodox. I have felt relieved that I will not have to defend to interested Protestant friends and acquaintances such controversial doctrines as universal ordinary jurisdiction, papal infallibility, and indulgences.
“Meanwhile, any doctrinal assertions which seemed radical and bold at the time they were first asserted were made so long before our era that they feel distant and ancient to us. The boldness of the early church councilsâ condemnations or affirmations, which to their hearers seemed to rule out perfectly respectable notions and advance others whose evidentiary basis was not obviously superior, is hard for us to feel.
“We forget, as a consequence, what early Church authority felt like. Itâs hard for us to walk a mile in the moccasins of a well-meaning, scholarly Christian who just found out that his favorite Christological formulation was judged heretical. He surely had arguments which seemed dispositive to him. At the very least he felt that the evidence was inconclusive and that his view was supported by that evidence just as well as the view eventually pronounced by the Church. He thus felt justified in thinking that, at worst, the Church could not possibly rule out either view, but must continue to allow both as speculative realms in theology.
“Then, the hammer fell. Our unintended heretic no doubt felt that the Churchâs pronouncement was a bolt from the blue: How had they come to the conclusion which ruled him wrong? Did they have evidence he hadnât considered? No? Then, if they were operating from the same evidence as he, whence came this sudden certainty, sufficient to make bold assertions, sufficient to require either his obedience or his casting out? How could they know? Hadnât earlier generations speculated along the same lines, or even wilder lines, than he? Wasnât this a matter which all sides agreed was not explicitly spelled out in Scripture? How could they know? Or did they know, after all? Were they just making stuff up, pretending to know what they could not?
“That is surely what it felt like to fall afoul of a living Church authority. That is probably what it felt like to be a Jewish Christian who assumed that Gentiles must be circumcised first, and then suddenly read the decision from the Jerusalem proto-council in Acts 15, and fall over in shock.”
All of this is very much worth meditating upon. But the papal dogmas promulgated at Vatican I can’t reasonably be placed on the same level of abstract christological notions, for they pertain to the very structure of the Church as lived out in history. The visible community of Christ was able to come out of its suppressed state after the legalization of Christianity in AD 313; if the Church functioned along Eastern Orthodox lines rather than along Catholic lines prior to the Great Schism, the Eastern Orthodox charges against the Catholic papal dogmas as unwarranted innovation seem to have the ring of unassailable truth to them.
“I relate all this because I suspect living under the Eastern Orthodox authority never feels that way, and never can.”
It seems that way to me too. :)
“And of course the church-shopping practitioner of sola scriptura will not feel that way. But the Catholic can, and does. (I can testify, to my chagrin.)”
Understood.
“So it seems to me that the Eastern Orthodox authority paradigm, for all the glories in that tradition, and for all the faithfulness and holiness which comes from a valid episcopacy and succession and sacraments, doesnât quite meet the requisite job requirements for the authority paradigm of Jesusâ Church.”
You are correct if Newmanian development of doctrine is in fact an integral element of Christ’s Church.
“But I want to know the Eastern perspective, and its counter-arguments. I am ignorant of vast swaths of it, and would like to fill in the gaps.”
One hopes that Perry Robinson will be along shortly…
Trebor135,
Then you said:
I think you answered your own question. If “papal infallibility” is the “heresy of heresies” (as I’ve seen some EO’s claim), then we should expect a universal council in the East called to address this heresy. Your Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ would benefit — in theory — from such a conciliar pronouncement.
Start with the concept of the Theotokos or the doctrine of theosis as case studies. I think both evidence “Newmanian” development of doctrine.
Peace in Christ,
Brent
Trebor,
The problem I have with the Eastern Orthodox on this question is that they don’t have a unified idea of what the place of the bishop of Rome was in the first millennium or even what primacy means among them; e.g.: the Eastern Orthodox say the patriarch of Constantinople has primacy (of honor), but have endless disputes as to what that means (between Moscow and Constantinople primarily). I also have problems with the Eastern Orthodox because I deny Constantinople second place among the patriarchs, but that’s a minor issue. ;)
From Afanassieff: “As we study the problem of primacy in general, and especially the primacy of Rome, we must not be ruled by polemical motives: the problem is to be solved to satisfy ourselves and Orthodox theology. The solution of the problem is urgent, since Orthodox theology has not yet built up any systematic doctrine on Church government. And although we have a doctrine concerning Ecumenical Councils as organs of government in the Church, we shall see presently that our doctrine is not enough to refute the Catholic doctrine of primacy.” (p. 92 of The Primacy of Peter)
The definition of the Trinity is a good start, as are the various Christological definitions (against Nestorianism, monophysitism, monothelitism, and iconoclasm).
It doesn’t have to be placed on the same level, but papal infallibility must still be held by Catholic faithful. I would consider the structure of the Church to be a most important doctrine, however. Care must be taken in explaining and defending this doctrine in that it cannot say anything nor endorse anything the Church of the first millennium would not recognize. It also cannot be read in such a way as to contradict previous ecumenical councils. For instance, after Vatican I, Melkite Patriarch Gregory II signed the decree on papal infallibility with the following qualification from the Council of Florence: “except the rights and privileges of Eastern patriarchs”. The statement from the 1995 meeting of the Synod of the Melkite Catholic Church also affirms this:
John Paul II also extended an invitation to the East and the Protestants to discuss with him what the papacy could look like in the third millennium. Obviously, we can’t deny the dogmas formulated at the other ecumenical councils after the Schism, but we can work on understanding them in the context of a reunited Church. For me, simply because authority can and has been abused (mandatory priestly celibacy outside historic Eastern Catholic homelands >.< among other instances), it doesn't mean that authority doesn't exist.
I'm Eastern Catholic (Byzantine), by the way, so it is of paramount importance to me to have proper articulation of this doctrine that avoids extreme positivism I've found in some Roman Catholic defenses of the papacy and the view that Rome has only a primacy of honor or is only a court of appeals I find among some Eastern Orthodox. This is why I want more Eastern Catholic scholarship and explication on it.
IC XC NIKA
Garrison
I should clarify that Patriarch Gregory II added the phrase “except the rights and privileges of the Eastern patriarchs” when he signed the decree as it was not in the original document.
Trebor135, I too am interested in seeing the folks here address the issues you brought up in comment #2. (This can also serve as a response to Garrisonâs comment in #8).
You may be aware that Archbishop Roland Minerath, who was a contributor to the Vaticanâs 1989 Historical and Theological Symposium, which was directed by the Vaticanâs Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, at the request of the then Cardinal Ratzingerâs Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the theme: âThe Primacy of the Bishop of Rome in the First Millennium: Research and Evidence,â has made the admission that the Eastern Orthodox churches ânever shared the Petrine theology as elaborated in the West.â
This was not merely âthe manner in which the primacy is exercisedâ. Minnerath clearly is talking about the developments of Roman theological and doctrinal proposals. Here is how he puts it:
Not all of the pages of the Minnerath essay are available either through Google Books or through Amazonâs âSearch Insideâ feature; but Iâve scanned the pages not available at the Google Books link, and made them available here, so that the interested reader can read the entire essay.
The reason I bring this up is because some of the folks here are reluctant to admit that they have âthe burden of proofâ to explain precisely why they donât have to make an actual argument for the papacy. That was one of the reasons why this Green Baggins comments thread is so long. The thread here, with all the articles, is their attempt to fulfill their âburden of proofâ requirement with respect to the Eastern churches, who cannot be said to have âseparated themselves fromâ âthe Church that Christ foundedâ.
However, if anyone within the Roman Catholic hierarchy is in a position to say with authority that âThe Eastern church has never taken into account the developments about the Roman bishop as vicar, successor or heir of the Apostle Peterâ, it is Archbishop Roland Minnerath.
Thus, given the philosophical backgrounds that these individuals have, they ought to recognize that Archbishop Minnerath is not âbegging the questionâ in any way, and that some burden of proof now lies squarely within their court. And as you say, Vatican I will be a difficult set of pronouncements for them to have to deal with.
John,
First, I have no interest in interacting with Green Baggins if they insist on using the term “Romanism”. There are other perfectly acceptable terms to use.
Second, I agree with Abp. Minnerath, but I don’t agree with the conclusion that you draw from his observations: that there is no special office in Rome, which is a conclusion the East didn’t draw, either. The definition at Vatican I does pose a challenge, but not an insurmountable one, I think, especially in light of the clarifications on collegiality at Vatican II.
IC XC NIKA
Garrison
John Bugay.
# 10.
If you are looking for a thorough treatment of Arch-Bishop Minnerath’s essay or more accurately your representation of his essay then stay tuned.
Brent (re: post #7)–
I get what you’re saying.
But what kinds of ânew questionsâ do you see being answered by, e.g., the doctrine of papal infallibility?
That’s a fair point. Although, Donatism, Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism haven’t been condemned by any of the seven ecumenical councils (in AD 144 Marcionism was resisted with a local council in Rome, I believe–what about the other three errors?). Yet the Eastern Orthodox Church condemns all of them as heresies just as much as the Catholic Church does. Grave errors don’t need to be anathematized by a group of bishops for the Christian world to be able to recognize them as false.
What do you regard, on the one hand, as the developing “sapling” and, on the other, the developed “tree” for these two notions?
Garrison (re: post #8)–
This seems like a formidable problem. But I can make two points:
1) Maybe the early Church itself “[didn’t] have a unified idea of what the place of the bishop of Rome was… or even what primacy [meant]”.
2) Even if the present-day Eastern Orthodox conception of ecclesiology were completely and thoroughly wrongheaded and innovative, using this as an argument against Constantinople but in favour of Rome would involve the tu quoque fallacy. It would not prove that the Vatican I dogmas are logically consistent and historically well-supported.
That one’s probably best left for another combox discussion. :) But didn’t the Catholic Church accept Canon 28 of Chalcedon after the Great Schism?
I appreciate his nuanced and charitable tone; Afanassieff may be right here. But this point can’t be deployed for the Catholic stance as ammunition in defense of the universal ordinary jurisdiction and doctrinal infallibility of the pope as dogmatically defined in 1870. In comparison to the other apostolic Churches, these teachings are peculiar, indeed unique, to the Catholic Church.
There may be some good points here. But what were the “saplings” for what would grow into the “trees” of the universal ordinary jurisdiction and doctrinal infallibility of the pope?
But the papal dogmas are a vital part of the visible community of Christians to which the CTC team is calling us, so fundamental because they pertain to how that society operates in practice. By contrast, Christians donât really need to know a whole lot in terms of abstract and technical theologizing about the trinity and Christâs divinity, unless others are spreading strange heresies whichâlike Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianismâundermine these doctrines.
Indeed. But this fact itself doesn’t persuade those of us who deny the Vatican I dogmas to accept them. :)
All true. So it is now the task of Catholic apologists to explain how the universal ordinary jurisdiction and doctrinal infallibility of the pope are supposed to fit in with the belief and practice of the early Church. When were infallible proclamations on faith and morals handed down in the first millennium, and where can we read the text of the papal proclamations?
What does this really mean, in practical terms? Adherents of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church are obliged to believe in the Vatican I dogmas by virtue of being in communion with the bishop of Rome. What “rights and priveleges” invoked by Gregory II would possibly allow them to argue with or dissent on these doctrines?
That seems like a non-starter. The fundamental problem is not how the papacy functions today, but the Vatican I dogmas of 1870. If only John Paul II had been the reigning pope in 1870–the Catholic Church might not have gotten itself into the current dead end.
But what this boils down to is that the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches would be obliged to accept those post-Schism Catholic teachings as necessary for salvation although the two communions deem them to merit the label of either theologoumenon or heresy but certainly not dogma. This looks like a winner-takes-all scenario.
Correct. But the question remains as to whether the Vatican I dogmas have any solid foundation in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition for being considered necessary for salvation at all.
Nifty. Having been to Ukrainian Greek Catholic and American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox services, I can say that Slavic Byzantine worship is spectacular.
Indeed.
Please explain. :)
Well, the latter may be the most historically viable understanding of the papacy in the early Church. Catholic apologist Mark Bonocore has written a fair amount on the subject and seems to base his defense of the Vatican I dogmas from the early Church on the bishopric of Rome’s status as a final court of appeal.
Given that Eastern Catholics have made the U.S. their home for generations now, it’s surprising how little output has come from that quarter of American Catholicism defending the Vatican I dogmas against Eastern Orthodox objections. No Ukrainian or Ruthenian Greek Catholic clerics or intellectuals seem to have done much scholarly or polemical work to bring back their brethren who followed Alexis Toth into the Russian Orthodox Church.
Sean, whatever the factual content of Minnerath’s article is, it is also a prompt for you guys to put forth the positive statement of the Scriptural and historical “development” of the early papacy. The “Orthodox” did not “leave” the way that you say the Protestants did, and thus, you can’t claim that their reasons for not accepting the papacy are “question-begging” and thus avoid the whole discussion.
John.
You are invited to look at the archive. You’ll find several dozen entries related to the early church and the papacy. Have it at.
Other than that, you’ll have to be patient. Several of us are putting together a good summary of the Papacy and the Eastern Orthodox.
Sean Patrick (re: post #16)–will the “good summary of the Papacy and the Eastern Orthodox” currently being prepared in fact take into account Eastern Orthodox theological and historical objections to the Vatican I dogmas? Sergius Bulgakov makes many important–I would say devastating–arguments in his above-linked essay “The Vatican Dogma” (the Introduction and Part I can safely be skipped, but parts II-IV and the postscript are crucial). I would be intrigued to see this particular work taken on by the CTC team…
Trebor135,
Thank you for your comment and irenic tone. You are a true gentlemen (or gentle-woman), and a breath of fresh air in the online world of combox machismo.
The problem with comparing those with the “papacy” is three-fold. First, for some of those heresies the Scriptures are plain (St. John, for example takes down gnosticism). Second, those heresies were very localized. Donatism may have just been a schismatic issue more than anything (which of course eventually led to doctrinal errors). Look at this same time period and consider Arianism. If “papalism” is a problem, then it is a problem at the level of Arianism (see world youth day) : ). We both know how Arianism was dealt with. Thirdly, the “Christian world” hardly recognizes the “papacy” as false. The Catholics who hold to the papacy are hardly a fringe group.
If “paplism” is as grave and universal as it would appear to be, then they should. When was the last “anathematization” by a group of Eastern (of some kind) bishops?
I think Sacred Scripture — for both — would represent the “sapling” (see The Doctrinal Seed of Scripture). If you don’t mind, what is your main contention with Newman’s concept of development?
I also recommend Bryan’s article “The Commonitory of St. Vincent of LĂ©rins”, particularly, the section on Development of Doctrine. Also see this post by Dr. Liccione, the comments, and the preceding posts in that series.
JMJ,
Brent
One of the more significant exegetical monographs that we have on the topic of the importance of Peter is Peter in the New Testament is the work edited by Raymond Brown, Karl Donfried, and John Reumann. This work describes its mission and function:
So two works have been produced by this commission. Iâve had the first for some time now, and have referred to it on occasion. The second, Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, just arrived in my mailbox. It has taken me a while to locate it, because it was not referred to directly in the first work. The footnote in the first work refers to the second only in terms of function (I suppose the essays had not been collected at that point:
From the Roman Catholic side, T.Austin Murphy, Bishopâs Committee for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Affairs served as a co-editor. Murphy was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore at the time.
Iâm working through McCueâs essay, âThe Beginnings Through Nicaeaâ, and I hope to talk about this a bit more, but for now, Iâve found the following, which I find quite interesting:
The Brown, Donfried, and Reumann work concludes by saying, âit has become clear to us that an investigation of the historical career does not necessarily settle the question of Peterâs importance for the subsequent churchâ (168).
Origen is the first commentator from the Eastern church (Alexandria) on the importance of Peter. According to this passage, Peterâs importance as an apostle is not denied, but it is very much put on par with that of the smallest of believers.
There is no acknowledgement here of any âprimacyâ. This speaks also to the issue that Christ founded a visible church and specifically, what this âvisible churchâ is â very much reminiscent of Calvin and the WCF, âThe catholic or universal Church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.â
Here Origenâs understanding deals with the ontological aspects of what is visible, and that is, âevery imitator of Christ is a rockâ, a reflection of Peterâs own statement, âyou yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual houseâ.
Both of these together support the notion that there was nothing special about the âontologicalnessâ of being Peter. In terms of being âfirstâ, as Iâve mentioned elsewhere, Peter had the privilege of being the first one to preach the Gospel, âfirst to the Jews, then to the Gentilesâ (Acts 10), but in the context of historical âtraditionâ, Origen contradicts the notion that the early third-century church in the East thought that there was anything particularly special about him, or where he happened to be located.
Trebor (#14),
I would grant that there wasn’t a fully developed idea of the full extent of papal primacy in the early Church, but the Fathers do attest to the unique status of the Apostolic See, and we do see the Roman Church involving herself in issues outside her territory. This was regarded with varying degrees of acceptance and rejection. Even before Rome backed down (the Quartodecimian Controversy), St. Irenaeus did not say Pope St. Victor I did not have the right to interfere, but that it was wiser to continue the tolerant policy of his predecessor. I never said anything about the Eastern Orthodox ecclesiology being innovative as I don’t think theirs is. Some may hold innovative ecclesiologies such as denying a place for the bishop of Rome at all, but that is not the only view.
Rome did accept Canon 28 after the Schism, but I certainly don’t feel that acceptance of it is necessary. ;) The fact of her extremely late acceptance of it and that it’s not a matter of faith or morals permits a greater discussion of the patriarchs, I think.
As do I. I wasn’t using it to defend universal ordinary jurisdiction (UOJ) or infallibility, but to illustrate the lack of coherence from the EO on this point.
Matt. 16:18, John 21:15-17, Luke 22:31-32, First Clement, the Quartodecimian Controversy, the Council of Chalcedon, etc. Here is where you can find the Catena Aurea of Aquinas, the compilation of Patristic quotations commenting on the Gospels: https://www.josephkenny.joyeurs.com/CDtexts/index2.htm
The Tome of St. Leo and the Letter of St. Agatho to the Third Council of Constantinople are two.
It means that the Byzantine tradition (and all orthodox Eastern traditions) is to be maintained without interference from the West and that the West cannot dogmatically define against the their spiritual heritage, and that they will defend their right to that heritage. For instance, the ban on married priests outside traditional Eastern Catholic lands is often ignored by the Melkites and other Eastern Churches and for good reason. Of course, no Catholic (Eastern or Western) can argue with dogma; we can argue about the intricacies of the definition (Do Easterners have to explicitly endorse Purgatory? no. Can they deny it? Also, no. Can they speak of it in terms part of their spiritual heritage instead of those of the West? Yes.), but we can’t deny any of them.
It’s an annoying fact and an ecumenical problem, but I don’t see that it is insurmountable or a dead end. One possible solution is for the pope to make more of a distinction between his role as bishop of Rome and custodian of the Universal Church.
As for positivism in Roman circles concerning the papacy: the need or desire for the pope to define every little doctrine or we don’t know what’s going on. See the debate concerning the Assumption: did Mary die? Yes, she did. The Fathers attest that she did, the liturgy attests that she did, and Pius XII alludes to her death multiple times in Munificentissimus Deus. No, it was not dogmatically defined that she died, but that doesn’t mean she (possibly) didn’t.
Oh, I have no problem with that; I just have a problem with the idea that the pope is *only* a final court of appeals on the level of the Universal Church.
Those schisms had nothing to do with the Vatican I definitions, but had everything to do with Latinization and the denigration of the legitimate practice of ordaining married men to the priesthood. I know the Ruthenians, at least, are still traumatized by that. Given the lower status of Eastern Catholics outside their homelands, they don’t really have much input here.
IC XC NIKA
Garrison
John Bugay (posts #10/19)–thanks for referring us to those books and links. I’m not able to access scanned images of print pages with my screenreading program, and as a university student can’t justify the expense of purchasing the hard copies from Amazon. :) So, I won’t be able to comment on the contents of the Puglisi and other works until the CTC team posts an article dedicated to, e.g., the issues raised in the Minerath essay and a good discussion can be started with non-Catholic readers there. I agree with you that the ball is in the CTC’s court where defending the papacy of Vatican I to Orthodox and not just Protestants is concerned. Additionally, your citation and analysis of the Origen passage is well taken. If charisms exclusive to the bishop of Rome were really instituted by our Lord and regarded by the early Christians as being conferred each time a new “vicar of Christ” came into office, at least one Early Church Father–say, St. Ignatius of Antioch–should have had occasion to mention them sometime, somewhere.
Brent (re: post #18)–
Well, thank you for the kind words. :) Apologetics is so much more preferable to polemics; the goal must be to seek the truth, not win a debate. (By the way, this is a “gentleman” here–Trebor is my forename in reverse.)
These are all excellent points. How widespread was Marcionism, though?
The “Timeline of Church History” at OrthodoxWiki mentions a small number of such councils in the second millennium, the last two being in 1672 (“Synod of Jerusalem convened by Patr. Dositheos Notaras, refuting article by article the Calvinistic confession of Cyril Lucaris, defining Orthodoxy relative to Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and defining the Orthodox Biblical canon; acts of this council are later signed by all five patriarchates (including Russia)”) and 1872 (“Council in Jerusalem declares phyletism to be heresy”).
I was under the impression, however, that the development of doctrine advocated in Catholic apologetics referred to the Church growing in understanding its teachings in the course of time. If we go by this definition, the question arises: what distinguished the doctrines of the Theotokos and theosis as believed in the third and fourth centuries in comparison to the fifth and sixth?
My fundamental problem with the notion is that it makes controversial Catholic doctrines historically unfalsifiable: the deployment of Newmanian doctrinal development signals that the time has come “when Tradition doesn’t matter anymore“. If the papacy did not function in the first millennium in a manner at all resembling the papacy in the second millennium, the skeptic need not fear. A clever solution to the problem is waiting in the wings, for what might seem an evident novelty is in fact the product of doctrinal development. Following Perry Robinson, “I simply will not grant [the Catholic apologist] his run to a priori, apersonal and ahistorical principles to decide the issue“.
I’ll read this section again and the combox discussion about it. For a Catholic apologist to appeal to St. Vincent of Lerins in support of Newmanian development of doctrine in the course of defending the historical basis for the papacy is profoundly ironic, however. The Commonitory, as far as I can tell, is deafeningly silent on the ostensibly critical role of the bishopric of Rome to the preservation of the true faith. If the work had been written by a Catholic scholar in 1934–fifteen hundred years later–with no reference to papal infallibility, surely this would have raised the eyebrows of all observers concerning his fitness to compose such a treatise? After all, the Catholic faithful are bound on pain of anathema to believe in the divinely-instituted role of the pope as supreme teacher of the Church.
Thanks. I’ve ploughed through that dense blog post, and will now have to peruse the combox discussion in full.
God bless,
Trebor
Part 1
Garrison (re: post #20)–
As the sole patriarchate in the West, in the city where Sts. Peter and Paul were martyred, such recognition would make sense.
Such intervention can be interpreted in different ways, however: either the see of Rome was exercising its preexisting, legitimate authority, or it was seeking to obtain novel, illegitimate authority. For Catholic apologetics on the papacy to be successful, some way must be found for the latter notion to be refuted thoroughly.
If (John Bugay’s interpretation of) Archbishop Minnerath is correct, the East always denied what the West often claimed.
A quick Google search indicates that this writer has been brought up, somewhat surprisingly, in just one discussion thread (see post #30 here). French Eastern Orthodox convert AbbĂ© GuettĂ©e penned a lengthy work entitled “The Papacy” in which he provides an alternative analysis of the Easter controversy in relation to the doctrine of papal supremacy (see chapter three: “Of the Authority of the Bishops of Rome in the First Three Centuries“).
I hadn’t taken you to have done so. :) When in post #14 I stated, “Even if the present-day Eastern Orthodox conception of ecclesiology were completely and thoroughly wrongheaded and innovative, using this as an argument against Constantinople but in favour of Rome would involve the tu quoque fallacy,” I was actually referring by “this” to what you had described in post #8 as “[t]he problem [you] have with the Eastern Orthodox on this question”–i.e., “that they donât have a unified idea of what the place of the bishop of Rome was in the first millennium or even what primacy means among them”.
But are not you here conceding the argument to the camp in Eastern Orthodoxy which grants some degree of authority to the bishop of Rome (though not the same as defined at Vatican I, for otherwise its adherents would be converting)? If the early Church’s ecclesiology were truly more Catholic than any species of Eastern Orthodox, honest observers would be obliged to describe the latter as “innovative”, wouldn’t they?
Right.
Sure.
Understood. :)
Continued in next post.
Part 2
Garrison (re: post #20)–
By your exegesis, how do the three biblical citations support the Vatican I papacy? (Let’s set the Epistle of St. Clement and the Council of Chalcedon aside for now–they’re probably best left for other combox discussions entirely.)
I browsed the excerpts from the Fathers gathered by St. Thomas Aquinas on Matthew 16:13-19 (Lectio 3), Luke 22:31-34 (Lectio 9), and John 21:15-17 (Lectio 3). When they focus on the role of St. Peter the Apostle rather than making some other point, the Fathers seem, very rarely indeed, to apply any passage to the bishop of Rome. Examples illustrating this fact are given below.
– Patristic interpretations of Matthew 16:13-19 (from the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas):
It is commonly (in my experience) argued in Catholic apologetics that the pope, as the successor to St. Peter, has his charisms by virtue of the promises made by Christ to the apostle regarding the keys of the kingdom and the power of binding and loosing. This Catholic Encyclopedia article shows this argumentation to be obtrusively unpatristic, however:
– Patristic interpretations of Luke 22:31-34 (from the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas):
– Patristic interpretations of John 21:15-17 (from the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas):
I acknowledge that some of these citations speak to St. Peter being made the chief shepherd of the whole Church. They do not state, however, that St. Peter’s successor in Rome (why not Antioch?) would in his very person be the perpetual centre of ecclesiastical unity. Fr. Laurent Cleenewerck concisely contrasts in “An Orthodox Reply to ‘Why I Didnât Convert to Eastern Orthodoxy’” the differing models of the Church in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy:
Continued in next post.
David, I am confused about what you might mean by the word “compel?” As far as I understand, the Church teaches that one can know with certainty the supernatural origin of the Catholic Church. Doesn’t that certain knowledge morally and rationally oblige (i.e., the definition of “compel”) someone to make the assent of faith?
I also think you are wrong that such knowledge would obviate faith. Merely knowing that the Catholic Church is the bearer and guardian of Revelation doesn’t make Revelation anymore evident in itself to us – we still have to have faith in God through his Church because Revelation is not evident to us. What is evident, though, is the credibility of Christ and his Church.
Part 3
Garrison (re: post #20)–I’d like to add an interesting detail which came to my attention quite recently, in post #68 of a Catholic Answers Forum thread which I began, regarding the “power of the keys” in Catholic theology:
MardukM, the Coptic Orthodox convert to Catholicism who wrote the above, offers an interesting perspective on the papacy at the Catholic Answers Forum, in such threads as “High Petrine view in the early Church“. I’m still headed towards Eastern Orthodoxy because–thus far–its arguments appear stronger. But MardukM gives me food for thought nonetheless.
Did the bishops of the universal Church receive these documents (1) as the definitive statements on monophysitism and monothelitism, (2) protected from error by the Holy Spirit, (3) proclaimed with the aid of the charism of doctrinal infallibility originating from St. Peter and subsequently transmitted to his papal successors in an unbroken chain all the way down to Sts. Leo and Agatho?
What mechanism is available to the Eastern Catholic Churches to (1) prevent the Western Catholic Church from running roughshod over their “spiritual heritage” and, if necessary, (2) force an over-zealous pope and curia in Rome to reverse decisions which violate the same?
Is there no way for the affected “Orthodox in communion with Rome” to have the prohibition overturned permanently?
This looks like a distinction without a difference, and an approach that creates more problems than it solves.
Perry Robinson put it well in comment #68 of another CTC thread–here are the relevant excerpts:
If the dogmas of the Catholic Church cannot be changed, and what are in fact fundamental aspects of papal supremacy as defined at Vatican I are absolutely unacceptable according to the doctrines and canons of the Eastern Orthodox Church, all reunion talks must end swiftly, to avoid giving Christians any more false hope that the Great Schism can be healed.
God willing…
How could he go about doing so, in your view?
OK, thanks for clarifying–I understand what you mean now. Nonetheless, it seems strange to possess a charism of infallibility without employing it to settle a point of contention once and for all. The decision not to define whether the Theotokos died or not seems more political than theological.
What episodes in the early Church most strongly, in your view, demonstrate this to be the case?
In another thread, Comment #246 the issue came up: âpapal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by general councils meant to bind the whole Churchâ. We were sent to this thread to post comments on the historical papacy. But this speaks as well to epistemology.
Of âpapal ratificationsâ, it was said:
Of course, itâs not like âpopesâ had called these councils, or were leading these councils, or even present at these councils, or were even afterthoughts at these councils. In some cases, they didnât even know about them until after-the-fact.
âPope Sylvesterâ was not present at the First Ecumenical Council (Nicea 325AD). Only two priests from Rome were present (among the 300+ Eastern bishops at the council) and Sylvester is neither mentioned by, or even apparently though of at this council. At the Second Ecumenical Council, Constantinople (381AD), from which we have âthe Nicene Creedâ in its present form, âPope Damasusâ (366â384) didnât even know it was occurring, and only received reports about the council later.
What was âthe papacyâ like at this time? This is from Hans KĂŒng: âInfallibility, an Inquiryâ:
The historian Eamon Duffy writes of this âofficial imperial styleâ:
It was Siricius (384-399), who was the successor of Damasus, who âself-consciously ⊠began to model their actions and style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. ⊠[Siricius responded to an inquiry from a neighboring bishop in Spain] in the form of a decretal, modeled directly on an imperial rescript, and like the rescripts, providing authoritative rulings which were designed to establish legal precedents on the issues concerned. Siricius commended the [inquiring] Bishop for consulting Rome âas to the head of your bodyâ, and instructed to him to pass on âthe salutary ordinances we have madeâ to the bishops of all the surrounding provinces, for âno priest of the Lord is free to be ignorant of the statutes of the Apostolic Seeââ (Duffy 40)
Interesting that KĂŒng refers to these men as âbishopsâ, given that they were the first to refer to themselves as âpopesâ.
Regarding the way that âhistorical fictionsâ worked their way into papal consolidation of their power, Roger Collins, Keeper of the Keys (New York, NY: Basic Books (Perseus Books Group), ©2009) writes:
This was totally historically inaccurate, although it wasnât the only such incident giving sanction to historical inaccuracy. The purpose of such ânoveltiesâ, according to Collins, was âalways theâ
inventionâmaintenance of traditionâ (59).Later, Collins writes about the âSymmachan forgeriesâ:
This is how Rome does âinterpretationâ. The reliance of these bishops of Rome on fictions and forgeries to expand their realm is truly staggering. Collins says âIt is no coincidence that the first systematic works of papal history appear at the very time the Roman churchâs past was being reinvented for polemical purposes.â We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.
* * *
There was a representative of a pope present at the third Ecumenical council. History records a speech from âPhilip the Roman Legateâ at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD). It is important to note that this was at the third session â after all of the major issues had been decided, âafter the conclusion of the whole matterâ, after many of the important players had left. Philip stood up in front of an almost-empty room and said:
For Roman Catholics, this counts as âpapal ratificationâ of a council.
In reality, this speech of Philipâs was a novelty, a burp after a meal, a âdonât-forget-about-meâ momentâ which wasnât on anybodyâs mind at the time (except for those at Rome), and at Vatican I, we see here the real-life practice of what Iâve been calling âThe Roman Catholic Hermeneuticâ, returning âto the sources of divine revelationâ â interesting how this afterthought of a speech turns into âa source of divine revelationâ for the great and certain Roman Catholic IP, that fountain of all epistemological certainty.
This unimportant speech was cited at Vatican I (D. 1824), as precedent for and evidence of âthe Perpetuity of the Primacy of Blessed Peter among the Roman Pontiffs.â
I know, someone will say, but none of this is inconsistent with the fact that the popes really were infallible in that day.
But it is upon this sort of activity, and the reporting of this activity, [and the modification of the reports of this activity in history], upon which the â100% certaintyâ of the âCIPâ rests, folks here find âpreferableâ.