Even though it’s been over a year since I last posted anything on this particular thread, I had no intention of dropping it altogether. This post will be a response to comments made by Andrew over here. It may be easier to follow this post by using those comments as a reference. As with the previous posts, it will be addressed directly to him.
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God’s Love and Election
We agree that God does not elect everybody. The question is - on what basis does he elect one person over another? Since the act of election is discriminating, the motivation must also discriminate. God’s love will only fit this criterion if it is does not have every person for its object. You can’t have it both ways. If love is the determining factor in election, and if God loves everyone, then everyone is elect. My own position is that God elects those whom he loves and that he does not love everybody. I have also stated that if God does love everyone, then something else must be the motivating factor in election. Just what that might be, I don’t know. To the question of the extent of God’s love, you have responded that God’s love is his most fundamental motivation; in fact, “so fundamental that God can be spoken of as being love.” Since John states in so many words that God is love, I cannot deny the premise; nevertheless, your conclusions do not necessarily follow. It isn’t that a God who is love must indiscriminately love everything and everyone, but that those whom he does love receive all of the benefits of that divine love. As I have indicated, though, I am willing to concede that God’s love could be universal; however, if it is, then there must be something else that determines who he elects. This something else is, from what I can tell, unknown to us. Your appeal to John 15:15 to argue against the possibility of unknowns when it comes to what God is doing or his motivations asks far more of this verse than it was meant to give. Reaching that stage in redemptive history where we can know what God is doing does not mean that we will ever know why he does it. To then say that we know that God always acts in love begs the question. It may be true, but it does not account for why he elects some people and not others. Even if you can make the case that we can know why God does everything he does, you will need to come up with a better reason for particular election than universal love.
Relationship of Persons
I appreciate the distinction that you draw between persons who share the same nature and persons with different natures. When two persons share the same nature, it is not an option for one not to love the other even though the love between them is freely given. To whatever extent a person has a different nature than God, his disposition to love God will be different. That is to say, man is capable of either loving or not loving God. This does not mean, however, that a human person has all options open all the time. Human nature is malleable. The regenerating work of the Holy Spirit effectually disposes a person toward loving God. This love is genuine even though a person so disposed cannot refuse to love God. Okay, he may temporarily fall into sin; however, the general trend will be toward loving God and, once he is in heaven, the ability to sin will be gone. The genuineness of human love for God is found in the source of that love, which is God. It is not found in the fact that, in this life, that love may be impure. The fact that we do not always love God as we ought does nothing to validate that love.
Adam’s Fall
I have no argument against the idea that the Fall was driven by a misguided desire for God or that Adam chose a lesser good. But then, neither of these is an argument against my own position that Adam also chose to disobey an explicit commandment of God. You admit that choosing a lesser good is not necessarily a sin. Can you provide examples where it is a sin (chosen at the expense of the greater good) and a revealed commandment of God has not been broken? With any other tree in the garden, Adam could have eaten because he had an immediate perception that it would be good. Each case would have been a lesser good than communion with God himself; however, in no case would this have been sin. The sin is not found in the fact that there is a distinction between a lesser and a greater good but in whether or not God has declared something that is otherwise good to be off limits.
Love and the Atonement
I seem to have gone too far in connecting your statement to Abelard’s view of the atonement. Not that this may not be your view, but that I can’t assume this from the statement that the work of the cross was to restore the bond of love between God and man. I do disagree with Catholic theology in calling Adam’s original state “original grace.” As I understand it, grace is not mere goodness but is limited to soteriology and only given to undeserving sinners. Even if grace is defined as a good that is not due, I don’t believe that it would apply to Adam before the fall. Being created in the image of God is not synonymous with the indwelling of the Spirit. Nevertheless, by creating man in his own image, God created him with a telos of union with himself. This union was something that man had to merit and this would only be possible with the indwelling of the Spirit. The giving of the Spirit to unfallen man was not optional on God’s part but was the only just thing to do if the end for which man was created was not to be a mockery. Once man had been given a fair chance, then the Spirit could be justly taken away when he failed. Our indwelling by the Spirit, our continued indwelling by the Spirit even when we have sinned is a matter of grace and is based upon the work of Christ and the promise of God. Christ’s work does create a bond of love between God and man. I don’t know that it merely restores it. Inasmuch as I can accept your distinction between love as a matter of affection and as a state of being, I argue that the state of being is a goal that will only be achieved in the resurrection. It is that for which Adam was made, not something that he already had.
Choice Between Eternal Truth and Immediate Perception of the Good
You explain that, in heaven, there will be no more differentiation between these. Choosing the immediate just is choosing the eternal. I will accept this only if the apparent lack of difference is due to a change in our perception; i.e., that there will be something about us such that our immediate perceptions of the good are always a clear vision of the eternal truth of the good. Our ability to remain sinless in heaven cannot be because God relaxes his standards, nor can it be a lack of opportunity. The ultimate goal of salvation must involve a change in us.
The End of Human Nature
I will agree that teleology should govern a given nature; I’m not so sure that it actually does. People have within their natures the capacity to desire God. It is also possible for human nature to become so disordered that a person is repulsed by God. Your statement that “a man will gladly embrace that which by nature beckons him to God, but he will be repulsed by that which by nature separates him from God” sounds reasonable, but it doesn’t fit the Scriptural evidence. Consider John 3:19- “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.” Somehow, I have a hard time thinking of the love of darkness as following one’s immediate perception of the good.
You draw a distinction between Adam’s human nature before the Fall and that of Christ: the first was incomplete and still disordered whereas the latter was fully formed. This would explain why Adam was vulnerable to temptation whereas Christ was not. The problem, though, is that it violates the principle of “that which is not assumed is not healed.” As I understand it, the capacity to fall into disorder or to be immune from disorder is, itself, a part of a given nature. The former is the state of human nature before the resurrection and the latter that of human nature afterwards. In the incarnation, Christ took on human nature as it exists so that we could be changed with him in the resurrection. I have no problem attributing the lack of actual corruption in Christ’s human nature, and thus the lack of sin as to his person, to an even greater measure of the Holy Spirit than Adam had, if this is even necessary. The difference here is extrinsic to the nature itself. I do have problems accepting an intrinsic difference. I agree that we will be made perfect like Christ is perfect, but I believe that Christ himself had to be made perfect as to his human nature. He was not formed that way from the beginning.
The Sacrifice of the Mass
The idea that Christ is resacrificed in the mass is not some Protestant conspiracy to make Catholics look bad. It comes straight out of the twenty-second session of the Council of Trent. In Catholic theology, the cross is the one bloody sacrifice of Christ, but it is not the only sacrifice of Christ. “That same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross...For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of the priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different” (Chapter 2). You are correct that Christ is not crucified again, but this is technicality. Crucifixion is a bloody sacrifice, which Trent rejects other than the one time historical event. It does not, however, reject the notion that the same Christ who was crucified is immolated, i.e., sacrificed again and again in an unbloody manner in the mass. The mass is, as you say, “the re-presentation of the one sacrifice of the cross;” however, the means of this re-presentation is through another sacrifice of the same victim. See chapter 1- “– that He might leave, to His own beloved Spouse the Church, a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires, whereby that bloody sacrifice, once to be accomplished on the cross, might be represented...” It is not enough in the Tridentine conception of the mass “merely that His one offering (Himself, body, soul, and Divinity) be forever present with us.” This is an accurate account of Transubstantiation or what the elements actually are despite appearances. The doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass is not, however, solely about what the elements are, but about what is done to them. Christ is not merely present in the mass, he is also sacrificed in it. For those who claim that the mass does not constitute an actual sacrifice, Canon I offers the following- “If any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.” Another anathema, from Canon III, is pronounced on those who say “that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated upon the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice.”
Deliberation and Willing
Inasmuch as deliberation is an act, then yes, it also follows the stronger inclination of the will; namely, the inclination to deliberate as opposed to not deliberate. Deliberation is a means whereby we are able to regulate the strength of those inclinations that are the subject of the deliberation, so I don’t follow how deliberation would throw our wills into chaos. Regulation and chaos are not the same thing. The will is a faculty that only follows its strongest inclination; however, this does not mean that the person is a slave to his own will, as though external forces were inclining the will and the person was just along for the ride. The will is always strictly determined by the person; consequently, there can be no libertarian free will. There is, however, free agency insofar as the person is at liberty to do as he pleases. What a person may be pleased to do or is able to do will be limited by his nature.
Corporate Unity and Individual Responsibility
I claimed that it is naive to think that there have never been any cases where a church has been in error. And you wonder why. I am operating under the assumption that denominations are manifestations of the true universal church. That “particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure” and that “the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan.” The universal or catholic church is infallible in the sense that “there shall always be a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.” This does not mean, however, that any particular visible manifestation of the church will be free from error. If denominations are true manifestations of the one true church, and if they disagree on certain points, then it would be naive to think that more than one contrary position could be right.
You write, “Insofar as the Catholic Church has spoken definitively on any given issue, it has never erred.” Since I am a Protestant, I hope you will understand if I don’t take this statement at face value. Still, I do appreciate the logic behind the statement. If the church is a divine institution, then it needs an inerrant authority. We both believe the Scriptures to be an error free authority. And I believe that we both see the need for their to be certain people who, in a properly defined situation, speak with unerring authority. The difference is that you believe this to be an ongoing reality whereas I believe that this was no longer necessary after the generation in which Christ finally became incarnate.
A list of Protestant disagreements with Rome probably won’t change your mind. I do wonder, though, how a church that does not err when it speaks definitively is capable of changing its mind on such matters. An example that immediately comes to mind, since I was just referencing it, is the Council of Trent, which contains numerous anathemas pronounced on those who hold to several points of Protestant doctrine. On the other hand, Vatican II recognizes both the work of the Holy Spirit and the presence of saving grace within Protestantism. First, Rome was synonymous with the universal church such that there was no de facto loss of unity. Protestants left the church altogether; therefore, how could there be disunity within the body? But now, even though Rome considers herself the one true church and best expression of the Christian faith, the legitimacy of other churches as being part of the body of Christ is recognized. Consequently, a loss of unity has been recognized and a move toward ecumenicity has been initiated. How is such a major shift in attitude and perspective possible for a church that does not err when it speaks definitively? Or were the Tridentine anathemas merely gentle suggestions? Unless the Catholic church wants to escape into some Orwellian fantasy in which the way it is now is the way that it has always been, then one of these perspectives is in error.
You write that the question of personal responsibility or corporate unity is not needed so long as you and other members of the Body perform their task well. This is obviously true. I only object to the notion that the condition will always be met. As to your statement “that personal responsibility is derivative of corporate responsibility,” I agree. If, however, a particular instantiation of the visible church persists in either doctrinal or moral corruption, it is no evidence of corporate responsibility to remain loyal to it. This is not an argument for individualism or against the necessity of a visible church; for the visible church is the kingdom of Christ, the ministry of Word and Sacrament is entrusted to it, and, outside of it, there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. Still, it is possible for a particular church to become so corrupt that remaining a part of it constitutes disloyalty to those visible churches, past and present, which are and have been faithful to the core of Christian belief.
If you object to the vacant reasons that Protestants have for flitting around from church to church, then we have no disagreement. More likely, though, the objection is to the Protestant Reformation itself. A discussion of this point, based on the premise that the Catholic church had done nothing worthy of protest and was not in error, would be fruitful. The same cannot be the case if objections to Reformed theology carry no more substance than the mantra that Catholic doctrine and practice is, by definition, free of error.
Summa as Revelation
Both the Scripture and the Summa (as well as other ecclesiastical writings) have this in common: they were written for the church by men who are in the church. Nevertheless, being produced by the church, even if there is common purpose with that of Scripture, is not enough to classify something as revelation. The human authors of Scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit in such a way that he, too, is the author of Scripture. This point is essential to revelation and is not something that can be said of the Summa. It is not a proper use of the word “revelation” that it be defined according to content. It is possible for non-inspired writings to be about Christ; it is not possible that these writings be revelation. Even more than subject matter, revelation is defined by its divine source. It is the Word of God. You have already admitted that the Summa has things that are not true. This is not something that is possible for God’s Word, which is both true and inerrant in all that it intends to teach. I will entertain the idea that the Summa can be classified along with Scripture as an important church document, but I will not classify them both as revelation, which is nothing more nor less than the infallible Word of God.
History and Allegory
It’s not so much that history is being used to interpret Scripture but that Scripture is understood to be an accurate documentation of history. Your appeal to the Jesus Seminar to show “an example of a bad construction arising from historical interpretation” does not work. Not that it isn’t a bad construction, but that it has nothing to do with historical interpretation. The Jesus Seminar is based on the denial that Scripture is history. Consequently, we must look elsewhere to find out what really happened.
I have no objection to figurative interpretation provided that this is not set in opposition to reading Scripture as history. Both symbols and metaphors take the following form: x represents y. In both cases, x must be something that is naturally perceived and understood; consequently, there is no requirement that either one be couched in fictional terms. Take, for example, the Exodus. This is a figurative passage, a metaphor for the redemption that Christ ultimately provides for his people through his death and resurrection. Even so, it still happened. Or take the records of the resurrection itself. These are not symbols nor are they metaphors but are straightforward accounts of that which is physical, corporeal, and human. And it’s about as superior as revelation gets. Allegory has a place is the interpretation of some Scripture, but never when it goes against or makes irrelevant an understanding of Scripture as history.