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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Playing shell-games with "The Church"


ANDREW PRESLAR SAID:

Until that change comes, Augustine's point will remain of some practical benefit, and this benefit will continue to provide some limited but palpable support for the doctrinal claim that the location of the Church that we confess in the creeds is not hidden in a corner of the mind.


The church you confess in the creeds is not and cannot be the 21C church of Rome. The framers of the ancient creeds couldn’t have that denomination in mind. The creeds do not and cannot refer to a denomination centuries after the fact. They can only reflect the historical horizon of the framers. The state of the church in their own experience. In their own time and place. Past and present, but not far into the future.

When you confess the creed, you can, if you are so disposed, mentally reassign the referent to the 21C church of Rome, but that’s an odds with the intent of the framers. So at that juncture you’re really not confessing the creed. Rather, you’re confessing your own creed under the guise of an ancient creed, by using the ancient creed as a cipher which you redefine at will.

I really do not know what to make of the title and related comments. As I have indicated, this particular post at CTC is right in line with St. Augustine. So, those of us who think that there is something to it are in pretty good company.

This suffers from the same fallacy. Augustine couldn’t possibly be talking about the 21C church of Rome. That didn’t lie within his purview. He was not a prophet. He was not a seer. To appeal to Augustine in that manner is an act of self-deception. An exercise in projection and retrojection. 

12 comments:

  1. If Augustine is going to be our standard, then we should reject Roman Catholicism. Augustine not only wasn't Roman Catholic, but even contradicted Catholicism on many points, including the foundational doctrine of the papacy.

    Last year, I wrote a series of posts in which I documented some contradictions between Augustine's concept of the church and the Roman Catholic concept. I quoted the Roman Catholic patristic scholar Robert Eno at length. See here.

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  2. What?!? A Romanist employing anachronism?!?

    Surely you jest, Steve?

    /sarc

    In Him,
    CD

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  3. Hey Steve,

    My comment does not hinge upon St Augustine's ability to see into the future; rather, it hinges upon the fact that the exact same criterion of catholicity can be applied today as in Augustine's day--namely the "asking directions to the Catholic Church" test--with the result of being directed to a specific church.

    Now, it is almost certain both that someone employing this test today would be directed to a church in communion with Rome, and that someone employing this test in the 4th or 5th century would be directed to a church in communion with Rome.

    Furthermore, throughout the intervening centuries, those churches in communion with Rome have *always* been referred to as the "Catholic Church."

    Of course, it is true that schismatics and heretics, in Augustine's day up to and including our own, covet the name "Catholic," and use it among themselves, of themselves. The thing is, and this is part of what is brought out by the asking directions test, you can tell the pretenders to the name from those who rightly own it, by the "air in the throat that lingers" when the former attempt to self-attribute this ancient denomination.

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  4. Andrew Preslar wrote:

    "Furthermore, throughout the intervening centuries, those churches in communion with Rome have *always* been referred to as the 'Catholic Church.'"

    As I've documented in the articles I linked above, Augustine had some communion with Rome while being ignorant of or rejecting much of what Roman Catholicism teaches. He defined the church in a way that contradicts the Roman Catholic definition, including on the foundational issue of the papacy. The more of a Roman Catholic definition you give the term "communion with Rome", the less you can apply it to Augustine and other ancient sources. If you have to define the term in a more vague manner that doesn't single out your denomination, then what's the significance of using it to argue for your denomination? If your argument depends on that sort of equivocation, then it isn't much of an argument.

    Where does Augustine say that the circumstances in his day will apply throughout church history? Word usage often changes over time. Augustine defines his concept of the catholic church for us, and it wasn't your denomination. Over time, the term "catholic" has become less common, at least if we're to judge by English usage. If a term that used to be applied more broadly is now primarily associated with a particular denomination, what evidential value should we assign to that sort of change in the use of a term?

    Prior to Augustine, Celsus and Origen argued over the name "Christian". Celsus argued that the followers of Jesus had become so divided that the "Christian" name was all they had in common, if even that much (Origen, Against Celsus, 3:10-13). Apparently, "catholic church" wasn't a central term or one that all Christians had in common. Neither Celsus nor Origen seems to have thought that the use of the term "catholic" had the significance that's now being assigned to it. Around the same time Celsus wrote, Irenaeus also says nothing about identifying the church by the use of such a term. Instead, he tells us that the church can be identified by a variety of characteristics that don't single out Roman Catholicism. See here. Much the same could be said of other ancient sources. Why single out Augustine, and why ignore other comments Augustine made about the church that are inconsistent with the Roman Catholic denomination?

    The church has been defined in many ways over the centuries. The fact that the term "catholic" was so prominent and distinguishing in Augustine's day, while being primarily associated with one denomination today, doesn't tell us much. The same terminology is often used for different reasons with the passing of time. The term "Christian" is an example (Acts 11:26, 1 Peter 4:16).

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  5. ANDREW PRESLAR SAID:

    "My comment does not hinge upon St Augustine's ability to see into the future; rather, it hinges upon the fact that the exact same criterion of catholicity can be applied today as in Augustine's day--namely the 'asking directions to the Catholic Church' test--with the result of being directed to a specific church."

    That's name-recognition, based on name-branding. No different than if you ask for directions to McDonalds. Or the Graceland mansion.

    "Now, it is almost certain both that someone employing this test today would be directed to a church in communion with Rome, and that someone employing this test in the 4th or 5th century would be directed to a church in communion with Rome."

    Organizations can change hands, but retain the same logo. ABC, CBS, and NBC have had the same name for decades, but the content of the programming is quite different today.

    "Furthermore, throughout the intervening centuries, those churches in communion with Rome have *always* been referred to as the 'Catholic Church.'"

    Do you have any evidence that, say, the Roman house-church of Priscilla and Aquila was referred to as the "Catholic Church" in the 1C?

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  6. Andrew,

    You didn't really just try to peddle that "ask for directions" nonsense, did you? Commenters at this blog piled on that pretty hard in an earlier post, but if you're going to bring it up again, we can certainly repeat it.

    "Catholic" is now a name brand; only theologians know it to be a word that has definition outside of that use. Don't believe me? - ask 10 people what "catholic" means and see what happens. I'll wager dollars to doughnuts less than 20% will define "catholic" as anything except RC.

    And here's the point: if I ask 10 people where the Target is, and they all point at the concentric circles painted on the ground and say, then I should perhaps try clarifying what I meant.

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  7. Jason,

    Is the Robert Eno material cited available online? I would like to read more of his thinking.

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  8. Steve,

    "Intervening centuries" as between 400 and 2011 AD. I think that the usage ("catholic") goes back much further, to around 100 AD, but it had become a proper name, a brand name, at least by Augustine's time.

    Proper names are among the things we primarily use to indicate identity. If a company arises tomorrow, and claims to be "GE," but some research shows that this company is constituted by a faction of board members who broke away from the "GE" that has existed for decades, and continues to exist, then we would not accept their claim to be GE.

    Now, suppose that this "GE" company is formed, and justifies its appropriation of the name by claiming to be even more general, and more electric, than the other company, the one everyone refers to as "General Electric." Fine. Maybe they are, that would have to be demonstrated. But what is indubitable is that this new company, whatever they might wish to call themselves, whatever they might be, is not GE.

    The identity of GE is recognized by the name, and by the material continuity of the organization, acting as such, through time. New structures can be developed. Different aspects of essential roles can be emphasized, or not, at different times. Services, marketing, etc., will change over time, adapting to circumstances. The central idea, the essence, of the organization will blossom into action, growing and expanding, so long as the organization lives.

    Yes, GE changes over time. So does the Catholic Church. But in order for a thing to change, it has also to remain the same. Those who have left to start their own company can complain that the Catholic Church has not remained the same in essentials. But they cannot claim to be the Catholic Church.

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  9. Andrew Preslar,
    You said:
    Those who have left to start their own company can complain that the Catholic Church has not remained the same in essentials. But they cannot claim to be the Catholic Church

    I would suggest that no one is complaining that the Catholic Church has not remained the same in essentials, but rather, that their "essentials" are 100% entirely wrongheaded.

    This seems to be like if a cigarette company changed the shape of their cigarettes to look like dolphins, and then argues that they're still the same product as before because the ingredients haven't changed. Great, but the problem isn't the change, it's that they'll still wind up killing the user.

    Like the Catholic Church's beliefs will not lead to salvation.

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  10. So... in other words the creed is wrong. What Christians confessed for 2 millenia wasn't actually true. Be easier if you came out and said it wouldn't it?

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  11. John,

    I read Eno's article by subscribing to the journal that published it. You can do that online. If you're looking for a free online version, I haven't seen one.

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  12. Many people I have met consider there to be a distinction between "Catholic" churches and "Christian" churches. "Catholic" churches are those in communion with Rome, and "Christian" churches are Protestant. Does it matter that if you ask these people where the nearest "Christian" church is that they would point you to a non-Catholic church?

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