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A Pittance Of Grace, and the "Noltie Conundrum"

After going to Confession for what seems like the gazillionth time in a very short period, I think I understand something about mercy today. Mercy is the love of God for sinners, in the simplest terms. He showed me how deep the love goes, in the person of His priest.

Those of you who think Catholicism is some kind of performance treadmill are, I'm sad to say, insane. On the other hand, there are enough little details and devotional practices to keep door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen in business for centuries, if you put them in books and did that sort of thing. [This is the worst metaphor ever.--ed.] All that is to say, you can put yourself on the treadmill pretty easily.

And I think I've been doing that recently. You get wound tighter than a drum, and a little proud, and you're asking for trouble. One never wants to sin to find out how much one really needs God, but it can happen that way.

In any case, the heart of the disagreement between Catholics and Protestants pertains to the nature and the application of the redemption wrought by Christ, not a debate as to whether someone else has done it. And any good Catholic knows this. Encouragement in the confessional sounds like a good Protestant sermon. Catholic homilies sound like bad movies on the Hallmark Channel sometimes, but that's changing. [Shut up; you don't believe there are bad movies on the Hallmark Channel.--ed.] No comment. I digress.

I had this feeling during Mass today, this feeling of "Mere Christianity." Again, many people in other communities think they are practicing Mere Christianity, and this is in fact the stated reason or purpose for which they remain outside. But we had never taken account of how much of our identities, how much of our theology was one of negation.

If nothing else, being Catholic is about surrender. It's about love and trust. The Church is human and divine, just as the Lord in His Incarnation. But when we talk about that human element, we're not talking about sin at all; we're talking about the fact that Jesus was unashamed to take on flesh; the redemption is to be wrought in us, not merely for us.

If you talk to other Christians about the humanity of the Church, you almost get the feeling that it's a concession, a hedge, a commentary on the Fall. On the one hand, the frailty of humanity is no more in evidence than in the Catholic Church. On the other, those four indelible marks of the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic, are as real as the sun in the sky. They're not just things we hope for, though they are. They really are irrevocable promises given to the Catholic Church.

That's not a boast, because it goes to the heart of why we disagree with our separated bretheren. The Protestant most times is entirely comfortable with dogmatic uncertainty as a consequence of sin; he can explain myriad theological disagreements this way, and all manner of schisms within, with an apparent added benefit that they never get blamed on anyone in particular. Barth, to his credit, would vomit, but this is where we are.

And I want to be clear: this is not ecclesiastical cheerleading; in fact, if you asked me on the whole who lives purer lives, more Christ-like lives, I might say Protestants do. It is to say that Catholics are more comfortable with personal soteriological uncertainty; dogmatic uncertainty sounds like a slander against God, and it is.

It's as though the Reformers traded dogma for security, and ended up with neither. As lovely as this warm-sounding Protestant "catholicity" sounds, can't you hear the doctrinal agnosticism of it all? "Well, Fred the Presbyterian is gonna baptize his babies, and while I think that's (borderline) damnable, we're united in the real Church." Whatever that means. But even if I wanted to get more committed to a certain set of things, how would I do that? Will I simply invoke the Holy Spirit, to sanctify my hopefully studious reading of the Sacred Scriptures? That's great, until I happen to notice that at least every Protestant is ostensibly doing the same thing. Now, I might've had an opinion as to what the Scriptures say that I personally think is exegetically and homiletically superior to what Bob the Methodist says, but the very demands of charity and humility (not to mention the fact that the Methodists aren't going anywhere, nor is Bob) prevent me from damning Bob to Hell for disobeying what the Holy Spirit is obviously saying. How kind, right?

But here's where it gets fun: I'll go back to my church, and Bob to his, and if we want to know what the Scriptures say, we'll ask them. Oh, we'd lie about it, since we're supposed to be asking God the Holy Spirit and reading the Scriptures, but isn't it remarkable how everyone sounds like whomever started the tradition we happened to be in? Which would be fine, if we had any way of knowing that we were right. Can't ask the church literally; that's a betrayal of Sola Scriptura (and too Catholic). Can't piecemeal it; that's prideful and fundamentalist. In fact, the people who have a Catholic ecclesiology and lie about it are called "confessionalists." There's a connection to the Reformation, so you don't even realize it. So I guess "lie" could be a strong word. We call the other people "missional" or some such, because they go wherever they think God is leading. It might not be Him, but who can say? They don't really care about ecclesiastical committments, (or they care less) because they (rightly) see God working all over the place. The confessionalists have a point: are these hippies going to just make it up as they go along? What about the past? Our forefathers? Truth?

Not that it helps to be a confessionalist. An idiot's read of history indicates that it's a mite anachronistic to accuse Paul of being a Methodist or some such. We can look up the history of anything we like; that much is clear. So, where am I getting all that confessional dogmatic certitude? Even if I were dense enough to miss the fact that my reactions to some abrogation of the doctrinal standards are not exactly Reformational by definition, apparently, I am unfazed by the blindingly obvious point that our people were not there, our doctrine as we understand it and defend it "to the pain," was not there, either. Something was. Someone was.

I feel your pain, confessionalist. I'd nail some dude to the wall for being out of step, too. But for the fact that those standards depend on an historical continuity and notion of authority that the Reformation rejects, by definition. To put it more simply, (I hope) it doesn't matter if he's out of step with some statement of faith if that statement ultimately means squadoosh. What good will authority and tradition do if everyone agrees that those are a "help," not the end?

I'm just rambling, now. I'm leaving. The truth is out there.

Comments

Speaking as someone who would consider himself Reformational and confessionalist, I have no problem saying that the Confessions matter. Nor would Luther, of course, who thought they mattered a great deal. As I've noted elsewhere, if we do look at history, we find a German church that long had an independent streak.

Luther didn't break off a church for grins and he probably wouldn't have succeeded at all, say, in France. But, historical messiness being what it was, he inherited an ecclesial environment that already had a suspicion of Rome. So, when the Roman church cut the German church off (and notably, Luther did not break off intentionally, but was broken off), he did not reject confessions. The only thing he rejected is that the confessions had more authority than Scripture. The Augustana, then, isn't meaningless, but its authority is derivative.

Notably, too, I'm happy to admit that I seek to understand theology within the Church. Confessional, Reformational Protestants have consistently held to this position. No thoughtful Protestant will argue for some kind of solo-interpretive methodology as being the proper mode of "sola Scriptura."

The thing to remember is our basic contention is that the Scriptures are the only infallible authority, not the only authority. And, in that, we are not a historic anomaly, but come out of a clear stream of thought in the Medieval Church.
Jason said…
I recognize your effort to distinguish "solo" and "sola," but the distinction is not real: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/11/solo-scriptura-sola-scriptura-and-the-question-of-interpretive-authority/#why. Only a section; you can do it. And I realized it well before I was Catholic, lest you think I am blinded by the Magisterium.
Jason said…
Other problem: You cannot situate theology within the Church if you cannot define the Church in a principled way. In this way, theological disputes are at root ecclesiological. As a corollary, one's own authority to define the Church comes into question in the defining (and fuels new disputes).

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