Mike Hsu

I’m grateful for Mike’s interaction with my article, because I believe that entering into dialogue is a first step toward attaining that unity Christ prayed that His followers would enjoy. At the same time, I would like to clear up a misunderstanding, and explain why a call to seek to establish a “united ecclesial structure” from one that does not already exist is problematic.

I agree that Christians should seek for “united hearts,” if that means to be united in love for Christ, and thereby in love for one another for Christ’s sake. But just as we cannot love what we do not know, so the foundation of charity between believers is unity of faith. St. Peter wrote, “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22) And Pope Leo XIII wrote, “But how can hearts be united in perfect Charity where minds do not agree in Faith?”¹ Our capacity for loving one another deeply from the heart as fellow servants of Christ depends on together obeying and sharing the truth from Christ and about Christ. The more a fellow Christian believes that I deny some essential of faith, or believes that I affirm something heretical, the less we are capable of having hearts united in agape. So the pursuit of “united hearts” requires the pursuit of the “one faith” (Eph. 4:5) that has been handed down from the Apostles. But pursuing the one faith by which we can be united in heart requires pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, because otherwise there are as many interpretations as there are interpreters. Therefore, without ever sacrificing truth for unity, all Christians should be pursuing not only unity of faith but also a united ecclesial structure. To deny that would be to abandon altogether the concept of schism as an evil.² Affirming the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds involves affirming the unity and catholicity of the Church, and so recognizing the sinfulness of schism, and thus the necessity of pursuing and preserving structural unity in one body. No denomination limited to a certain geography or certain ethnicity, and not a member of a worldwide organization can claim to be “catholic,” and therefore can claim to be the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded.³

Denying the obligation to pursue visible unity with other Christians would require giving up the claim to believe in a visible Church, whether universal or local.⁴ That is because to deny our obligation to pursue a united ecclesial structure with other Christians is likewise to deny our obligation to belong to a local visible church.⁵ Claiming that we must belong to a local visible church but that visible churches need not belong to a universal ecclesial structure would be ad hoc and therefore self-refuting. The ad hoc nature of man-made denominations ‘disallowing’ do-it-yourself church’ is not lost on the emergent generation.⁶ All the reasons one could provide for the necessity of the visibility and structure of the local Church equally support the necessity of the visibility and structure of the universal Church. For these reasons I’ll take as a given that we agree that all Christians ought to be pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, each without ever denying what he believes to be true, or in any other way going against his conscience. The point in question, therefore, is whether the unified ecclesial structure all Christians ought to be pursuing must already exist now.

The reason why the visible ecclesial unity toward which Protestant-Catholic reunion is ordered must already be present can be found in “Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative.” By his own efforts man can effect only a man-made unity ordered to earthly, temporal ends. Unity of this sort is not in itself evil, nor is the pursuit of such unity in itself evil. Natural virtues are not evil, and neither is the man-made peace that results from peace-treaties, human alliances, human compacts, man-made clubs, organizations, corporations, or other such agreements or societies. But the sort of peace and unity achieved in those cases is not a supernatural peace or a supernatural unity. They are each instances of a merely natural peace and natural unity.⁷

By contrast, the peace of God surpasses all human comprehension (Philippians 4:7). Jesus, speaking to His Apostles, said, “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.” (John 14:27) Christ’s peace is not a natural peace that can be established by men. Because this peace surpasses human comprehension, it cannot be established by mere men, according to the natural power of men. Christ’s peace is a supernatural peace that comes only from Him. St. Paul teaches that we are called into one body to be ruled by this supernatural peace in Christ’s mystical Body, i.e. the Church. (1 Cor 12) He writes, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” (Col 3:15) The presence of this peace in His Body is not an accident, because Christ Himself “is our peace,” (Eph. 2:14) and by His Spirit we enter into Christ’s peace through union with Him in His mystical Body.⁸ The unity of the Spirit (Eph 4:3) is a participation in the peace of Christ, through sharing in His Holy Spirit who animates His Body, the Church.

The Dilemma

For this reason, seeking to establish a visible ecclesial structure, while presuming that the visible ecclesial structure Christ established does not exist, entails a dilemma. Either Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men are seeking to reestablish, or Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure, and ecumenically minded men seeking to establish a visible ecclesial structure are seeking to establish something beyond what Christ intended. Let’s consider each horn separately.

Horn A: On one horn of the dilemma is the claim that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men now seek to reestablish. If that unified ecclesial structure was essential to Christ’s Church, then adopting this horn obviously presupposes ecclesial deism, because it requires believing that Christ allowed something essential to His Church to be lost, and this entails that the Church herself was lost. Moreover, because it affirms the responsibility of all Christians to pursue the realization of a unified ecclesial structure, it either attributes to mere men the ability to establish a supernatural unity, or it treats the sort of unity Christ established in His Church as a merely natural unity that men can establish themselves. The former notion entails an ecclesial pelagianism,⁹ while the latter notion implicitly denies the unique deity of Christ, by treating the Church He founded as a merely natural society on the same level as any other human society formed by mere men, rather than as a supernatural society which is Christ’s Mystical Body of which He is the Head.

On the other hand, the notion that the unified ecclesial structure Christ established was only a kind of extraneous decoration, nice to have but not essential, is deeply problematic. It treats the unity of the Church’s governing and teaching authority as a mere adornment that is not part of the Church’s nature, but as something that can be removed without any injury to the Church’s life. However, the unity of the governing and teaching authority is essential for the very existence of a divinely established governing and teaching authority. If the Church’s governing and teaching authority could be divided into various competing factions, none having more authority than the others, there would cease to be a governing and teaching authority in the Church.¹⁰ So for this reason this position reduces to a kind of biblicism (i.e. solo scriptura), in which each individual retains ultimate magisterial authority for himself.¹¹

This notion that the unified ecclesial structure is not essential to the Church reduces the Church to something that is in essence invisible, and accidentally visible only when the Church happens to possess a unified ecclesial structure, perhaps only at the very beginning of her history. As a result, schism would never be intrinsically wrong. Whenever any Christian disagreed with any other Christians, he could legitimately separate from them and form a different sect, so long as he held no bitterness in his heart. And therefore this notion undermines the very prospect of pursuing a unified ecclesial structure, since such a structure would be entirely devoid of authority, and entirely conditional on unanimous consent among all Christians, something that both common sense and Church history indicate does not happen. Without mutual recognition of divinely established magisterial authority, there are almost as many opinions as there are persons.

Not only that, but whatever unified ecclesial structure men would establish would not be a restablishment of the Church Christ founded. Whatever new institution ecumenically minded Christians established would be a numerically different institution from the one Christ founded, i.e. it would be an altogether new institution that had never before existed. It would therefore not be a divine institution (i.e. one founded by Christ) nor would Christ be its Head, nor would the Holy Spirit be its animating principle. It would be merely a man-made institution. The future unified ecclesial structure intended by Protestants seeking visible ecclesial unity can be a divine institution only if it is the very same divine institution that the incarnate Christ Himself founded during His time on earth, and which was born on the day of Pentecost. And that means that ecumenically minded Protestants seeking a supernatural unified ecclesial structure are in fact, even if unaware of this truth, seeking the same unified ecclesial structure Christ founded and which has existed in unbroken continuity to this day.

For all these reasons, the notion that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that was later lost, and which mere men can reestablish, is deeply problematic.

Horn B: On the other horn of the dilemma is the notion that Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure, but now all Christians ought to strive to establish a unified ecclesial structure. The primary problem with this notion is that in seeking to establish a unified ecclesial structure for the “one holy catholic Church,” ecumenically minded Christians would be seeking to establish something beyond what Christ Himself intended or instituted when He established His Church. In that case, if Christ did not found a body with a unified ecclesial structure, then to seek to bring all Christians into a body with a structural unity is a form of “outdoing Christ,” that is, it seeks to go beyond the unity that Christ Himself saw fit to establish in His Church by imposing on what He founded as a merely invisible entity a visible unity He Himself did not see fit to establish. But seeking to outdo the omniscient, omnipotent God involves no small hubris. Claiming to worship Christ as God, while seeking to outdo Him in the establishment of ecclesial unity, is likewise no small performative contradiction, and undermines the claim to be following Christ as God.¹²

Someone might claim that Christ secretly instructed His Apostles to pass along a message through the generations, instructing them to wait until the third millennium to establish a visible ecclesial structure. But the notion that Christ established His Church only as an invisible unity while secretly transmitting the instruction that His disciples should someday (in the third millennium) upgrade the unity of the Church to visible structural unity is a kind of gnosticism. It requires believing in some secret tradition that has not been recorded or developed by any Church Father. Such a claim deserves no further consideration.

This horn of the dilemma faces a further undesirable consequence. Any attempt to build a man-made catholic (i.e. universal) ‘Church,’ rather than being reconciled to the Catholic Church Christ founded, would be the religious equivalent of attempting to restart the building of the Tower of Babel. As I explained in “Pentecost, Babel, and the Ecumenical Imperative,” an attempt by man to form a universal Church is not essentially different from the mission of the Antichrist, who seeks to replace the Church Christ founded with a universal Church founded by man, and thus (despite the appearances) ordered ultimately to the worship of man.

Therefore, the notion that Christ did not endow His Church with a unified ecclesial structure but that we all ought now to establish a unified ecclesial structure, is also problematic.

So both horns of the dilemma are untenable. The only remaining possibility is that Christ endowed His Church with a unified ecclesial structure that has never been lost, and therefore that the full visible reunion of Christians now separated by schism involves a return to that same continuing Catholic Church.¹³ And that entails that the goal of ecumenical reunion is an ecumenism of return. As St. Jerome said, “We must abide in that Church, which was founded by the Apostles, and endures to this day.”¹⁴ Pope Pius XI similarly writes:

[T]he union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. …

Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the [Protestant] Reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, “the Mother and mistress of all Christ’s faithful”? Let them hear Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) crying out: “The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind.”¹⁵

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is “the root and womb whence the Church of God springs,” not with the intention and the hope that “the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, “Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church!”¹⁶

To the ears of many Protestants, such words are sectarian and arrogant. Yet if ‘sectarianism’ is simply defined as the claim that the body to which one belongs is the Church Christ founded, then assuming that ‘sectarianism’ [so defined] is always wrong presupposes either that Christ never founded a visible Church or that, having done so, at some point He allowed it to fall out of existence. Either way, such an assumption is not theologically neutral; it assumes precisely what is in question between Protestants and Catholics, namely, either that Christ did not found a visible Church,¹⁷ or that if He did, some kind of ecclesial deism is true. The person making this assumption has placed himself in an epistemic position in which he cannot come to discover whether Christ did in fact found a visible Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. In his mind he has already ruled out the very possibility, by assuming that such a thing would be sectarian, and that sectarianism is always wrong.

Nor is it arrogant to claim to be what one actually is. Hence the notion that claiming to be the Church Christ founded is ipso facto arrogant likewise presupposes that there is no body which is the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church Christ founded, just as the notion that claiming to be the Son of God is ipso facto arrogant presupposes that there is no Son of God. So the charge that claiming to be the Church Christ founded is arrogant is a question-begging charge, i.e. it assumes precisely what is in question.

I certainly welcome the call among ecumenically minded Protestants for “united hearts” and a “united ecclesial structure.” What I have done here is show why the pursuit of a “united ecclesial structure” in an ecumenism of non-return faces an intractable dilemma. The solution to that dilemma is an ecumenism of return.¹⁸

May the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, and unite our hearts in the one body to which we have been called in Christ.

1. Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae.
2. See “Michael Horton on Schism as Heresy.”
3. On ‘catholicity’ as a mark of the Church see comment #21 in the “Collapsing Ecclesiology” thread.
4. cf. Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXV.2.
5. See Baptist pastor Mark Dever’s comments on the importance of being part of a local church.
6. See A Reflection on PCA Pastor Terry Johnson’s “Our Collapsing Ecclesiology,”.
7. For a helpful explanation of the natural/supernatural distinction, see “Nature, Grace, and Man’s Supernatural End: Feingold, Kline, and Clark” or see Lawrence Feingold’s The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas and His Interpreters.
8. See Mystici Corporis Christi.
9. Pelagianism is the notion that without grace man can attain the supernatural end which is heaven. Ecclesial pelagianism is the notion that mere men can establish a supernatural society.
10. See “Philosophy and the Papacy.”
11. Cf. “Solo Scripture, Sola Scriptura, and the Question of Interpretive Authority.”
12. I first wrote about this horn of the dilemma in 2007, as I explained in “Institutional Unity and Outdoing Christ.”
13. This is why Protestantism by its origins is oriented not to the future establishment of a new Catholic Church, but to a return to the Catholic Church; see “Reformation Sunday 2011: How Would Protestants Know When to Return?”
14. Quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia article titled “Apostolicity.”
15. Divine Institutes IV.30.
16. Mortalium Animos, 10-12.
17. “Christ Founded a Visible Church.”
18. See, for example, “Reformation Sunday 2011: How Would Protestants Know When to Return?.”

Russell MooreRobert George

Listen to the discussion here:

The mp3 can be downloaded here. A video of the discussion can be viewed here.

The combox below is open only to those who have listened to the discussion or watched the video.

Recently I had the pleasure of coming across an article entitled “Christ’s Test of our Orthodoxy” on Ordained Servant, a Journal published by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I was a member of this denomination for six years, and the title immediately caught my attention. Pastor Jack W. Sawyer’s article can be read here.

So many times on Called to Communion we have rightly spoken to the areas in which we differ from our Reformed Brethren, from which we have in a sacramental sense have broken the ties which have bound us. The issues that divide us are important, that is true. But in so many ways, as former Reformed Christians who have become Catholics, we acknowledge the light and goodness, the beauty and truth, that is found within the Reformed Protestant circles from which we left. And so with the spirit of thankfulness for what we still hold in common with Reformed Believers, I want to focus on Pastor Sawyer’s article on Christ’s Test of our Orthodoxy.

He introduces his position on what Christ’s test for our Orthodoxy is by discussing what may be obvious tests of orthodoxy, but moves to the words of Our Lord Himself. In what is not too surprising for those who know the texts of the Gospels in our heads, he moves to a point which may be surprising to our experience in our own hearts. By discussing the words of Christ which speak of people knowing we are His disciples by our love for one another, he makes this comment:

Here Jesus declares that observable love between believers is to be the hallmark of the Christian community. It is to be considered the definitive mark of genuine Christianity, a certifying badge of discipleship. When outsiders observe a Christian community, according to Jesus, they are to see a beautiful, Christ-like love evidenced in the various relationships. Thus, as they observe the Christian community’s marriages, families, friendships, or gatherings, this signature mark is to stand out as the prominent atmosphere of all the relational exchanges.

After stating the hallmark of Christian life and community, Pastor Sawyer moves to his conclusion in the article with some words of practical advice. How do we reflect the heart of Christ in a world of fractured Christians? His suggestions are insightful, and in my estimation, reflect the heart of a God who holds Love to be preeminent, of a God who is Love Himself.

Similarly, I wonder what might become of a session’s ministry if it maintained a deliberate record of, at least, remaining sincerely concerned and cordial to the most challenging people that leave its church? What if these elders saw every such circumstance as a providential opportunity to demonstrate Christ-like, cross-like love toward such sheep? What if this session firmly held its doctrinal convictions—amid all such encounters—yet it also determined that agreeing to disagree, wisely and lovingly, was also just as central a matter of Christian orthodoxy?

When I read these words I could not help but think of my own life in leaving the OPC for the PCA, which was a story in itself, and the even more “dramatic” change of growing into full communion with the Catholic Church. There have been instances, as he points out, where those who have left the Presbyterian world of the OPC for other places, the Catholic Church not being the only destination. I do not want to rehash words that have been said to me and other former Calvinists, for they bring up painful moments. And truly, there have been and there will be cases of Catholics who have not continued to love those who have left the fold of the Catholic Church for Reformed Christianity and other places. There have been instances where calls for faithfulness verge on not following Our Lord’s words to forgive even seventy times seven in a day. And clearly relativism is not the solution. But the point is that Pastor Sawyer and others are making strong calls to keep loving one another after differences have been shared, to keep reaching out, even when roads diverge into different Christian communions. How can we learn from these mistakes of a lack of love for our former homes? How can we not cease to make a Call to Communion? He concludes with these words, which speak so well for themselves. As I read those words, I used them for my own spiritual reflection on my spiritual health. It reminded me of how much I am still thankful to God for my time as a Presbyterian, because the words that he wrote ring true in my ears, even to this very day.

In conclusion, all of us are remembered for something, and leaving spiritual legacy is something we do—whether good or bad, whether we like it or not. Is your orthodoxy of community as pure as your orthodoxy of doctrine? What are you currently well known for, and what do you want to be remembered for in the future? What is your church currently well known for, and what do you want it to be noted for in the future? Jesus’s will is crystal clear: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Amen, Pastor Sawyer. Amen.

Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I, Nov. 30, 2006

What is the state of the Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical dialogue? One window into the state of that dialogue can be seen in a recent address by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of the Diocese of Diokleia. On April 3, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia, Metropolitan Ware gave the keynote address to an ecumenical gathering of Catholics and Orthodox. In this address he first discusses the implications of the Ravenna Statement, by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue Between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, held October 8-14, 2007, in Ravenna, Italy. In this statement the Orthodox representatives recognized a universal primacy of the bishop of Rome. Metropolitan Ware then discusses the Orthodox conception of the exercise of that primacy, drawing from Apostolic Canon 34 (canon 35 here). Watch the keynote address in the two-part video below:

Kallistos Ware: Orthodox & Catholic Union Part 1

Kallistos Ware: Orthodox & Catholic Union Part 2

Or watch them on Youtube: Part 1, and Part 2.

H/T: Orthocath

Unity is not optional for the Body of Christ anymore than it is optional of our physical bodies. Those members which would take part in my life must partake of my bodily unity for if not found there, it shall not be found elsewhere. Those who would take part in the life of Christ must likewise join to that in which His life already exists in Bodily unity.

To have enough faith in Christ to follow the unity imperative is one thing; it is another altogether to maintain the hope that it shall indeed be realized. No doubt, this hope seems unreasonable; but as one famous journalist who achieved this very hope for himself said, hope is only useful when it is unreasonable.

Moreover, Aquinas follows Boethius in arguing that “unity belongs to the idea of goodness” because “a thing exists so far as it is one” and as St. Thomas explains, both goodness and unity are convertible with being. ² Thus, along with goodness and truth, unity is one of the ‘transcendentals’ because it is convertible with being. These transcendentals are simply being apprehended under different modes. This complements St. Augustine’s teaching that evil is not its own being but the corruption of being. All things, in so far as they exist, that is, in so far as they have being, are good and they exist in truth and unity.

Harmony or proportion is also closely related to unity. For harmony is a bringing together of two or more things into a unity while maintaining some aspect of their distinctive identity. Proportion is the perfect representation of another thing or conformity to some good. St. Thomas gives the example of the Son as the perfect image of the Father and thus said to be in perfect proportion. ³ Elsewhere he states that God is beautiful as being “the cause of the harmony and clarity of the universe.” ⁴ He also states that love, which is the most beautiful virtue, is “a certain harmony of the appetite with that which is apprehended as suitable.” ⁵

Unity and harmony, as qualities of beauty, can be understood when we consider the attractiveness of a complex piece of music (or any artwork) over something simple. All other things equal, the complexity makes the piece more beautiful. This is because the act of harmoniously incorporating additional forms and components into a greater unity approximates truth, beauty, and goodness. The unity of the Trinity is the perfect archetype of harmony and pure oneness (out of something like a plurality). A family is beautiful because of its unity; and a well ordered society is for the same reason. That is all to say that unity and harmony point to not just any truth, but to truth itself, God, as do all things beautiful.

The dissolution of a thing arises from a defect therein. Disunity is an evil because its end is the dissolution of a being in the same way that the end of sin is the dissolution of some good. The ugliness of disunity is evidenced by the pain that accompanies it. St. Thomas quotes St. Augustine saying, “what else is pain but a feeling of impatience of division or corruption?” ⁶ and goes on to say, “the good of each thing consists in a certain unity” in defense of his proposition that the desire for unity is a cause of sorrow.⁷

With all of these ideas considered, we followers of Christ ought to sorrow at the disunity of Christians and earnestly pray for the re-unification, the integration, of all Christians into one body: the Church. Unity is beautiful because it is good and Christ intended unity for His Church⁸ because it is His own body. Our theological differences notwithstanding, I hope that Christians of all backgrounds will join together during this week of prayer for Christian unity to petition the Holy Spirit to move on the hearts of men that we may be unified not only in spirit, but in body, that is, in Church.

1. Summa Theologica, 1.39.8
2. Ibid., 1.6.4; 2.36.3
3. Ibid., 1.39.8
4. Ibid., 2b.145.2. Aquinas is quoting Pseudo-Dionysius
5. Ibid., 2.29.1
6. De Lib. Arb. iii, 23
7. Summa Theologica 2.36.3
8. cf. John 17

This year we are asking for reflections from Reformed and Presbyterian readers on the recent document, Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”), by Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father writes on the place of Sacred Scripture in the Church’s life, liturgy, thinking, teaching, praying, and evangelizing. As he states in the introduction,

I wish to point out certain fundamental approaches to a rediscovery of God’s word in the life of the Church as a well-spring of constant renewal. At the same time I express my hope that the word will be ever more fully at the heart of every ecclesial activity.

This post-synodal exhortation is one of the most significant Magisterial works on the Bible since Vatican II’s Dei Verbum.¹ The document may be found in pdf format and in html. Successful entries will reflect on the document with an eye toward the implications for the visible reunion of Catholic and Protestant Christians. Essays may respond critically to Pope Benedict so long as they are written respectfully. Given the length of the document, authors may focus on one section, if they wish, or tackle a general theme. Furthermore, we will consider submissions that do not directly interact with Verbum Domini but which discuss the broader topic of the recovery of unity between Catholics and Calvinists.

Verbum Domini is divided into three sections. Part One, “Verbum Dei,” considers the role of Scripture in the Church’s theology. It covers issues such as the nature of Sacred Scripture as coming from the Triune God who speaks to mankind, the interpretation of Scripture. This part has a section on the Bible and ecumenism. Part Two, “Verbum in Ecclesia,” discusses the place of Scripture in the liturgy and worship of the Church. Part Three, “Verbum Mundo,” is on the Church’s mission to proclaim the gospel to the world. Readers will find a detailed outline at either the end or beginning of the document depending on which format they use.

We will send the author of the winning essay a copy of Henri de Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, vol. 1, The Four Senses of Scripture (Eerdmans, 1998), in keeping with the theme of Scripture in the Church’s life. De Lubac’s work is an important multi-volume historical investigation into the ways in which medieval theologians listened to the written word of God and contemplated its riches.

We ask that essays remain under 1500 words. Email submissions to barrett ‘dot’ turner ‘at’ gmail ‘dot’ com. Include your name, mailing address, and email address. The deadline for entries is the end of the Octave, January 25th. We will announce the winner in the first week of February and publish the essay on the blog.

All readers of Called to Communion are encouraged to participate in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity regardless of participation in this contest. Ask your priest or pastor what can be done during times of corporate prayer to include this intention. We all long for the healing of the schisms which wound the Church’s unity, especially those which continue to separate us from our former communities in the Reformed tradition.

Lord Jesus, we pray for the intention of Your Sacred Heart, that all Christians would be reunited fully to the Church. Amen.

1. A recent guest post by Jeffrey Pinyan expounds the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council.

“But as the old Confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; (Genesis 11:7) for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony.” (St. Gregory of Nazianzen, Oration 41)

Pentecost (1308-11)
Duccio di Buoninsegna
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. But no one can truly rejoice in this feast without knowing the great good that has been bestowed upon us on this day. And that great good cannot be rightly understood apart from recalling an incident that took place long ago on the plain of Shinar, where men attempted to build a tower up to the heavens. “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name; lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:4) These descendants of Noah sought in their pride to establish a unified society which, by means of technology would allow them to live in the iniquity of those before the flood, but immune from the divine punishment of another flood.

Here we see clearly the first indication of what St. Augustine would describe later as the “city of man” as opposed to the “city of God.” According to Jewish tradition it was Nimrod who organized and oversaw the building of the tower of Babel.¹ Nimrod is in this respect a prototype of the Antichrist, the ruler of the city of man, i.e. those who seek to live as if man is God.² (Gen 10:8-10) Nimrod and those following him wanted to build a city and a tower, to make a name for themselves in order to preserve their man-made unity, to exalt themselves to heaven while living in opposition to God. God saw that when so unified, the city of man would be capable of whatever evil it purposed to do. Just as He had mercifully driven man out of the garden of Eden to prevent him from eating of the Tree of Life and so living forever in his sinful condition, so also at Babel God acted mercifully in confusing man’s language, to prevent the city of man from carrying out the great evils it would do if united together in opposition to God. God delayed judgment of the city of man to allow man to repent.³ By confusing the language of the men at Babel, He separated and scattered the city of man into various races, languages, cultures, and lands, and thereby limited its capacity for evil and destruction.

Tower of Babel

But God’s redemptive purpose was not merely to prevent man from falling into greater evil; He also set out to restore to man the true unity he enjoyed in Eden, a fellowship in the Divine Trinity. Only by this communion with the Divine Persons can men be truly united to each other; the true unity of men with men only comes about as a participation in the divine unity of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.⁴ In preparation for this true society coming down from Heaven, God called Abraham out of Ur, and began to form a people in which He Himself would come to men as a man. Finally, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.⁵ After His death and resurrection, but before His ascension into Heaven, He commissioned His Apostles to “make disciples of all the nations,” going “even to the remotest part of the earth,” to “every nation and tribe and tongue and people.”⁶ Yet He told them to wait for what the Father had promised, the gift of the Holy Spirit.⁷

Fifty days after His resurrection, and ten days after his ascension, while they were in the upper room, there was a noise like a rushing wind that filled the whole house where they were sitting, and tongues of fire rested on their heads, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and by the enabling of the Holy Spirit they began speaking in other languages which they had not known.⁸ There, in Jerusalem, were men from every nation under heaven, and they all heard the Apostles speaking in their own language of the mighty deeds of God. On that day, three thousand heard, believed and were baptized. On Pentecost, the Church was born.

One of the primary purposes for Christ founding a Church is to undo the division of men against men, the divisions of the human family effected by sin. These divisions began when Adam sinned, but were manifest in a universal way at the Tower of Babel, that tower of man, initiated by men and built up by men. That tower is the paradigmatic referent of Psalm 127:1, “Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” Pentecost is the supernatural redemptive reversal of Babel, and this is why the Church is the anti-Babel.⁹ The purpose of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is to reverse that division by means of a divine ingathering. All the nations of the world are to stream into her doors, into one household, the household of faith.¹⁰ The Church is the house of the Lord, and because He builds this house, those who labor against it labor in vain.¹¹ This is the stone that “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”¹²

The Pseudo-Fulgentius wrote:

For just as after the flood the wicked pride of men built a high tower against the Lord, and the human race then deserved to be divided by means of a diversity of languages so that each people speaking its own tongue was no longer understood of the others; so the humble piety of the faithful has made these divers tongues combine in the unity of the Church, so that what discord had broken up charity should reunite, and the scattered members of humanity, as members of one only body, should be bound up together in Christ, the only head, and forged together in the fire of love to make the unity of this holy body.¹³

Apart from Christ man cannot form such a unity, though he thinks he can. But apart from Christ, man’s attempt to do so is the mission of the Antichrist, to form by the mere natural power of man, the whole of mankind into a universal social and political unity ordered to this world as man’s final end.¹⁴ By his own power he attempts to recover each of the preternatural gifts lost by Adam’s sin: immortality (by genetic manipulation), impassibility (by pharmaceuticals), integrity (technological dominance over nature), and infused knowledge (by electronic technology, internet, news media).

By contrast, the Church that Christ founded is a supernatural unity, coming down from Heaven, in Christ, and by His Spirit, at Pentecost. And this is why this supernatural unity is the first of the four marks of the Church, specified in the Creed: “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” The Life of the Church is the supernatural Life of the Trinity, not from man, but from the God-man, and not ordered to natural earthly bliss, but to the supernatural end which is the very perfect and eternal communion of the Three Divine Persons.¹⁵

God wants all men to be united through being incorporated into the body of Christ, i.e. the Church.¹⁶ This is the supernatural peace that comes only through Christ, the peace that passes all [human] understanding.¹⁷ The gift of of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a reversal of God’s confusion of the language at the tower of Babel; the pouring out of the Spirit is the divinely ordained way of uniting men in one body, one Spirit, one hope, one faith, one baptism into one God.¹⁸ The true unification of man takes place only through Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Church. But godless men always seek a substitute for the divine. And the city of man continues to seek peace and unity through political, economic, technological and military means. Yet the city of man can never find true peace and unity through these means.

St. Augustine explains the relation between Pentecost and Babel, writing:

But lo, say the disciples to the Lord, we are told in what name we are to baptize; You have made us ministers, and hast said to us, “Go, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Whither shall we go? Whither? Have you not heard? To Mine inheritance. You ask, Whither shall we go? To that which I bought with my blood. Whither then? To the nations, says He. I fancied that He said, Go, baptize the Africans in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Thanks be to God, the Lord has solved the question the dove has taught us. Thanks be to God, it was to the nations the apostles were sent; if to the nations, then to all tongues. The Holy Spirit signified this, being divided in the tongues, united in the dove. Here the tongues are divided, there the dove unites them. The tongues of the nations agreed, perhaps that of Africa alone disagreed. What can be more evident, my brethren? In the dove the unity, in the tongues the community of the nations. For once the tongues became discordant through pride, and then of one became many tongues. For after the flood certain proud men, as if endeavoring to fortify themselves against God, as if anything were high for God, or anything could give security to pride, raised a tower, apparently that they might not be destroyed by a flood, should there come one thereafter. For they had heard and considered that all iniquity was swept away by a flood; to abstain from iniquity they would not; they sought the height of a tower as a defense against a flood; they built a lofty tower. “God saw their pride, and frustrated their purpose by causing that they should not understand one another’s speech, and thus tongues became diverse through pride.” Genesis 11:1-9 If pride caused diversities of tongues, Christ’s humility has united these diversities in one. The Church is now bringing together what that tower had sundered. Of one tongue there were made many; marvel not: this was the doing of pride. Of many tongues there is made one; marvel not: this was the doing of charity.¹⁹

The mission of the Church is to go into all those nations and languages that were separated at Babel. This is the symbolism of the tongues of fire. By the Spirit of Christ, mankind, separated from God and from himself by sin, is brought into unity by entering into the supernatural society that is the Church. Just as pride was the source of the division of men at Babel, so the humility of Christ in condescending to become man, is the source of the charity by which men are restored to true unity.

Two years ago, on the feast of Pentecost, Pope Benedict XVI said:

Afterward, at the feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is shown through other signs: an impetuous wind, tongues of fire, and the apostles speaking all languages. This last one is a sign that the Spirit, who is charity and who fosters unity in diversity, has overcome the Babylonian Diaspora, fruit of the pride that separates men. From the first moment of its existence the Church spoke all languages, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit and the tongues of fire, and lives in all cultures. It does not destroy the gifts or the history of a culture, rather it assumes them all in a great new unity, which reconciles unity with the multiplicity of forms.²⁰

Grace does not destroy nature but perfects and elevates it, and so the natural diversity of men is not destroyed or obliterated by the Church, but is incorporated and raised up into the supernatural unity of the Spirit. St. Paul writes: “being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”²¹ The “unity of the Spirit” is the unity that has been given to the Church by the Spirit on Pentecost. The Spirit transformed men who formerly quarreled about who would be greatest, into men who made themselves into each other’s servants, with all kindness and brotherly affection. In this way the Church reverses Babel, not by man’s own efforts, but by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Body of Christ, pouring out charity into our hearts, to incorporate all men into that Body.²² As the power of the Spirit had overshadowed Mary when she conceived Jesus in her womb, so also on Pentecost the Holy Spirit fell once again on Mary and the Apostles, and they became for us Holy Mother Church, the Mother of all the living, i.e. those living with the supernatural Life of God.

But Pentecost did not end. Into that mystical Body “men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” are to this day still being incorporated, by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Church and her sacraments.²³ The Church is in this way a sign to the world of man’s original social purpose, the harmonious union of all men. In the mystical Body of the Second Adam, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the fruits of the first Adam’s sin (i.e. division and strife and dissension and schism) are done away. Instead of murdering our brother as did Cain and the children of Cain, we now, incorporated into this mystical Body, are marked by the charity of laying down our lives for our brothers, as the Second Adam did for us.

Throughout the Church’s history since the first Pentecost, the schisms that have weakened the unity and strength of her voice to the world by adding many other competing voices, are in their effect like the curse of Babel that thwarted the builders of that tower. But in this case they are opposing not the tower of men, but the tower that God Himself is building.²⁴ The Church does not lose her supernatural unity when men form schisms from her. No man can break or destroy this supernatural unity. But as man through sin robs God of the glory He ought to have received, so schism from the Church robs the Church of the clarity of its witness to its supernatural origin and unity, like an eclipse that darkens the light of Christ to the world. Christ has established that by the witness of the Church’s supernatural unity in charity, the world will know that Christ came from God, and that those who love Christ are loved by the Father.²⁵ For this reason, the feast of Pentecost kindles in us not only tongues of evangelism to those who do not know of Christ, but also tongues of reconciliation with those in schism from us. Pentecost as the reversal of Babel calls us to pursue true peace and reunion with all those estranged from us; it lays upon us the ecumenical imperative.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of Thy love. Bring all Christians into full and visible unity in the Body of Christ. In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

1. According to this Jewish tradition it was Eber, the father of the Hebrews and the great-grandson of Shem, who refused to participate, and for this reason his language (Hebrew), which was the language spoken by Noah and all those before him, was not changed at Babel. (Gen 10:24-25; 11:14-17)
2. Man can truly live as God, but only in union with the God who for our sake and for our salvation, became man, Jesus Christ.
3. 2 Peter 3:9,15
4. Those not at peace with God cannot be at peace with one another.
5. Gal. 4:4
6. Matthew 28:20, Acts 1:8, Revelation 14:6
7. Acts 1:4
8. Acts 2:1-4.
9. This is why it is fitting that the Church is built on Rome, which Peter refers to as Babylon (2 Peter 5:13), and which is the natural kingdom taken over by Christ’s supernatural Kingdom, according to Daniel’s prophecy (Dan. 2). At the time Peter was writing, Rome, like the Babylon of old, was the locus of that same human attempt to unify man apart from God, just as Nimrod had sought to do.
10. “Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.” (Isaiah 2:2) Cf. Gal 6:10, Ephesians 2:19.
11. 2 Chron. 13:12, Acts 5:39.
12. Daniel 2:35
13. PL 65, 918.
14. “The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment.” Catechism of the Catholic Church, 676.
15. If the Church were founded by mere men, it would have earthly, natural happiness as its end. Heaven would merely be a return to an earthly paradise, without disease, suffering or death, on and on forever without end, grace without glory. But Heaven is infinitely beyond the natural happiness of paradise, as the Life of the Creator infinitely transcends the life of mere creatures. Heaven is the eternal inner Life and Happiness of the Triune God, into which we are graciously called to participate. To have Heaven as its end (i.e. its telos), the Church must have Heaven as its principle and source, which is why the Church must be founded by the God-man, Jesus Christ. This is why no society founded by mere men can be the Church. And this is why apostolic succession is essential to the Church, because only by apostolic succession is the activity of the Church the continuation and extension of the supernatural Life and mission of the incarnate Christ.
16. Gal 3:28; 1 Cor 12
17. Phil 4:7
18. Eph 4:4-5
19. St. Augustine, Tractate 6.10
20. Pope Benedict XVI, May 7, 2008.
21. Ephesians 4:3
22. Romans 5:5
23. Revelations 5:9
24. To read an early second century description of the Church as the tower that God is building, see Book 1 of the Shepherd of Hermas.
25. John 17:21-23

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We would like to congratulate the authors of the winning essays: Jeremy Tate and Dave Wade. Jeremy is finishing a graduate degree at Reformed Theological Seminary in D.C. this Spring. He is being received into the Catholic Church tomorrow (February 7, 2010). His winning essay is titled “The Authority of Divine Love.” Dave is a catechist on the RCIA-ACI team at St. Cecelia Catholic Church in Clearwater, Florida. He is preparing to enter the Masters Degree program at the Institute for Pastoral Theology at Ave Maria University. Dave’s winning essay is titled “The Catholic-Protestant Divide: A Path to Unity.”

For their winning essays, Jeremy and Dave each received a copy of Taylor Marshall’s recently published book, The Crucified Rabbi. Many thanks to Taylor for donating the books for our essay contest. Thanks also to those who sent in essays that were not selected. And thanks to Andrew Preslar and Jonathan Deane, for doing blind reviews of the essays we received.

Both Jeremy’s and Dave’s essays stimulated a good deal of substantive dialogue in the comment threads. It is well worth carefully reading through the two essays and the comments that followed them.

Jeremy Tate’s “The Authority of Divine Love“

Dave Wade’s “The Catholic-Protestant Divide: A Path to Unity“

Congratulations, Jeremy and Dave!