I hope that you all have been following these exchanges the last couple of days, because it inspires me to make a few clarifying comments as a Catholic about our paradigmatic differences. First, I cannot deny that you may find a Church Father or a whole group of them that hold opinions that sound like what would later become Protestant opinions. Let me say it rudely, and then explain: So what? People of great importance have opinions and even disagreements. The Fathers are not a norm in and of themselves, except rarely, and I will grant the possibility that the average apologist overstates these occasions. The Church, in her teaching authority, sets the norm of faith. I don't doubt that one could construct a theology consonant with a later Protestant one; it might even be convincing. But it doesn't mean you've read the Fathers, nor are in harmony with them. The most important thing the Fathers tell us is about the nature of the Church, the authority to which they submitted. This is when the claims of the Catholic Church get really strong. It's based on the "Three Things" that we've talked about before. When I or another Catholic tell you that your interpretation is "novel", we are talking about one of two things: Either you have explicitly changed the meaning of "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" or you hold a theological view on some particular thing contrary to the faith defined by the Church that possesses these marks indelibly as a part of her nature.
Some of you lament the fact that an ecumenical council "slammed the door shut" on a particular line of theological inquiry. That's what councils do. If you are prepared to consider the possibility that whatever they determine is from the Holy Spirit and belongs to the riches of Christ, then you are thinking like a Catholic. If "councils may err," then you are not. If someone Catholic persists in this opinion and even acts upon it by separating (or doing or believing something such that you separate yourself), it doesn't matter how sympathetic a figure you may be, or how fervent you are in other things, you are a heretic, (false opinion) a schismatic, (having separated from the Church) or both.
I realize that not all Christians even realize that the Catholic Church is the one Christ founded, and that's OK. It's not even my purpose to convince people of that, though I don't mind it. But I do want you to understand me. I do want to clue you in that it may, and should happen to you: to realize the truth that the Catholic Church is that Church. I wrote a poem called "The Darkness" that sort of sums up what has culminated in, well, me. Catholic me. You can see a temptation in that poem to settle the disunity of Christians by retreating into "Mere Christianity," but as you may be realizing, that is no way to live. Indeed, we could choose a "room" in the big house (and Lewis says we should) but it would seem, only to the extent that we accepted the proposition that none of the rooms has the corner on what Christianity is, in its wholeness. Do you want minimalist Christianity? Is that how you live? Why does this explanation content anyone? It doesn't even begin to do justice to anyone's quest for the Truth. But as I explored the roots of Christianity, the very record of the outworking of the dominion of the Son of God--despite all our sins, that's exactly what history post-Paschal Mystery (let the reader understand this to be the totality of Christ's work here) is--I began to see the Church in her reality. Along the way, things I thought I knew became things I was wrong about. And things I was right about found a basis, a ground, that is Christ Himself. So, for me, Catholic is not my tribe while Christian is my name. We are not content to be one among many. We are not one room in a bigger house. We are the house. I only know that because I never lost what I knew after I gave the Catholic Church a fair shot. The proximate cause of being a Christian separated from the Catholic Church is the equivocation, or outright re-definition, of terms in the science of theology. Either culpably or not. I digress.
I can say with confidence and boldness that I do theology without fear, because the Church indeed teaches me and all of us what belongs to Jesus Christ. So I can read and consider anything you would like, from Barth to Barthelemy. But we have to define our terms. I do know that I cannot both receive the faith once delivered as a son, and define it for myself. Something had to give. All I can tell you is that the Catholic Church makes a strong case that she is our mother.
It's not just a room in the house, because God is good, and those elements of truth and sanctification outside the Church really do impel us toward unity. She doesn't achieve unity by denying those gifts that belong only to her, contrary to what you may have heard. She woos--Christ woos--because He knows that most of us who are his never meant to be far away. If we saw clearly, we would run back as quickly as we could! I'm getting sentimental here. Wow, this turned into a love-rant. Anyway, think about it. Pray about it. Whatever you do, look for Christ first; wherever He is, falsehood cannot be.
Some of you lament the fact that an ecumenical council "slammed the door shut" on a particular line of theological inquiry. That's what councils do. If you are prepared to consider the possibility that whatever they determine is from the Holy Spirit and belongs to the riches of Christ, then you are thinking like a Catholic. If "councils may err," then you are not. If someone Catholic persists in this opinion and even acts upon it by separating (or doing or believing something such that you separate yourself), it doesn't matter how sympathetic a figure you may be, or how fervent you are in other things, you are a heretic, (false opinion) a schismatic, (having separated from the Church) or both.
I realize that not all Christians even realize that the Catholic Church is the one Christ founded, and that's OK. It's not even my purpose to convince people of that, though I don't mind it. But I do want you to understand me. I do want to clue you in that it may, and should happen to you: to realize the truth that the Catholic Church is that Church. I wrote a poem called "The Darkness" that sort of sums up what has culminated in, well, me. Catholic me. You can see a temptation in that poem to settle the disunity of Christians by retreating into "Mere Christianity," but as you may be realizing, that is no way to live. Indeed, we could choose a "room" in the big house (and Lewis says we should) but it would seem, only to the extent that we accepted the proposition that none of the rooms has the corner on what Christianity is, in its wholeness. Do you want minimalist Christianity? Is that how you live? Why does this explanation content anyone? It doesn't even begin to do justice to anyone's quest for the Truth. But as I explored the roots of Christianity, the very record of the outworking of the dominion of the Son of God--despite all our sins, that's exactly what history post-Paschal Mystery (let the reader understand this to be the totality of Christ's work here) is--I began to see the Church in her reality. Along the way, things I thought I knew became things I was wrong about. And things I was right about found a basis, a ground, that is Christ Himself. So, for me, Catholic is not my tribe while Christian is my name. We are not content to be one among many. We are not one room in a bigger house. We are the house. I only know that because I never lost what I knew after I gave the Catholic Church a fair shot. The proximate cause of being a Christian separated from the Catholic Church is the equivocation, or outright re-definition, of terms in the science of theology. Either culpably or not. I digress.
I can say with confidence and boldness that I do theology without fear, because the Church indeed teaches me and all of us what belongs to Jesus Christ. So I can read and consider anything you would like, from Barth to Barthelemy. But we have to define our terms. I do know that I cannot both receive the faith once delivered as a son, and define it for myself. Something had to give. All I can tell you is that the Catholic Church makes a strong case that she is our mother.
It's not just a room in the house, because God is good, and those elements of truth and sanctification outside the Church really do impel us toward unity. She doesn't achieve unity by denying those gifts that belong only to her, contrary to what you may have heard. She woos--Christ woos--because He knows that most of us who are his never meant to be far away. If we saw clearly, we would run back as quickly as we could! I'm getting sentimental here. Wow, this turned into a love-rant. Anyway, think about it. Pray about it. Whatever you do, look for Christ first; wherever He is, falsehood cannot be.
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