Archdiocese of Washington DC offers "Amoris Laetitia: Pastoral Plan"

This weekend, the Archdiocese of Washington DC released a longish document on their implementation of Amoris Laetitia.  Like the exhortation itself, this "Amoris Laetitia: Pastoral Plan" offers (mostly) a straightforward recapitulation of the Church's teaching about marriage, some good advice about strengthening marriage prep (both remote and proximate), and a call for conversion and stability.  We all know that our culture is increasingly anti-marriage, both in terms of more and more radical individualism and relativism, and in terms of failing to support marriage in ways both practical (tax laws, welfare state policies, etc) and theoretical (no fault divorce, education policy, court-driven custody rulings, etc).  Having a solid biblical, Catholic, Christ-centered vision of what marriage is, and of what the common problems in marriage stem from, and of how to recognize and respond to those issues in healthy and faithful ways, is critical, and I applaud anything that helps build up the culture of marriage and helps actual couples live their marriages well in Christ.

There are, however, two things about this pastoral plan that strike me as failing to aim at that goal from the outset.  This doesn't necessarily take away from the practical wisdom contained in the document, but it does invite us to think more deeply about our vision and how we communicate it.

The first is the problem of failing to articulate clearly the relationship of eros to agape.  The document states:

The desire to love and to be loved is a deep,

enduring part of our human experience. God

has written onto each human heart the desire for

self-giving love, reflected in the divine plan for

marriage and family. That plan offers a profound

“yes” to true joy in love. It gives us an invitation to

experience Christian hope in the love of God that

never ends. This "desire to love and be loved" is eros-love.  Eros is often where we start, not only in marriage but in many things we pursue.  Eros is not inherently wrong or evil; it is about choices we make at the level of the "appetitive soul."  If, however, our desire and ends remain only at this level, they tend to stagnate into selfishness and idolatry, addiction and neurosis.

As Pope Benedict taught so clearly in Deus Caritas Est, natural eros must always be purified by divine agape in order to pursue the good rather than the self.  Agape is that "self-giving love, reflected in the divine plan."  It is love that imitates Christ's perfect love from the Cross.  It therefore transcends the appetitive soul, through the action of a well-formed (not an eros-formed) conscience and divine grace, allowing the rational soul to perceive and choose the authentic good for others.

What is unclear in the above paragraph is precisely that agapic love is not "natural" to us as humans.  We must learn how to love this way.  While it's true in a sense that God has written the desire for agape into our hearts (as St. Augustine wrote, "Our heart is restless until it rests in you, O Lord"), we do not have natural means to engage this.  We require grace to transcend eros-love and be converted to love with Christ's agapic love.  To fail to distinguish this grace-for-conversion here leaves the entire pastoral plan resting on an insecure foundation.  Anyone who imagines that more eros (natural desire) can solve the problems created by unrefined eros (selfish desire) is bound to fail, but this is the conclusion being (inadvertently) invited here.

Sacramental marriage gives grace precisely to transform eros into agape.  No matter how kind and loving I am to my spouse and children, if I continue to treat them as objects of desire (i.e., they must fulfill me, they are in my life for my happiness), I am not responding to this sacramental grace.  Eros transformed into agape means I live my vocation to married life as Christ crucified - that everything I am and do is for them, rather than the reverse.  From eros fulfilled comes mere happiness; from agape fulfilling others comes joy and union with Christ.

Therefore, while it is certainly true that "That (divine) plan offers a profound 'yes' to true joy in love," it must also be stated that deviations from the divine plan offer an (at least implicit) 'no' to the same conversion, joy, and agape-love.  We must not conclude what the document leaves open to us (and what Amoris Laetitia, too, often seems to suggest), that deviations from the divine plan for marriage and family contain a partial 'yes' to God and grace.  This might be true, only if the deviations result entirely from ignorance and weakness.  When they result from a deliberate choice to pursue eros-love instead of agape-love (even when that choice is less than fully informed), they do not represent authentic modes of encountering Christ's grace, and they are therefore contrary to the divine plan.  Eliding this distinction does not serve anyone well.

The second problem risks being even more corrosive.  It suggests that the Church's doctrine is not itself useful or practical, and that lived experience is needed to understand, or interpret, or even correct that doctine.

Reflecting on the implementation of Amoris

Laetitia in the Archdiocese of Washington, we

begin first with the richness of the Church’s

perennial teaching on love, marriage, family,

faith and mercy.... Secondly, we need to remember that our task is

not complete if we only limit ourselves to faith

statements. The goal is the salvation of souls

and it is a far more complex effort than simply

restating Church doctrine. For this reason, it is

essential to recognize that our teaching is received

by individuals according to their own situation,

experience and life....
At one level, this distinction is not problematic.  I am not trying to suggest that lived experience is irrelevant to doctrine, or that the reception of doctrine is not fraught with difficulties stemming from our human weakness and falibility, or stemming from cultural presumptions at odds with the Gospel, etc.  Even given this, however, it is tendentious in the extreme to suggest that the Church's pastoral care has ever attempted to engage with actual situations merely by "restating doctrine," or that, say, St. John Paul II failed to appreciate the complexities presented to the Church by contemporary culture (see e.g. Familiaris Consortio or Veritatis Splendor, or for a different vocational context, Pastores Dabo Vobis).  Should we now discard the entire Code of Canon Law, beacuse it "limits us to faith statements?"  At this level, the dichotomy becomes a blatant lie, pitting "mercy" (which now means making excuses for deviations from the divine plan for marriage and family) against "doctrine" (which now means cruelly expecting people to be unrealistically perfect). 

If this is our vision of marriage, "our faith is vain," as St. Paul says, because this vision of marriage is indistinguishable from the world's - eros without agape (love with sacrifice, happiness without personal cost), inherently self-centered, and "mercifully" lacking any possible leverage to modify behavior which is actually inimical to marriage, to the dignity of persons, or to salvation. 

I don't actually believe that the Archdiocese of Washington is promoting this cultural vision of marriage.  But, by including these two ambiguities, it weakens the vision which it is trying to offer and sustain, of Christ's sacramental marriage.  And our culture has already weakened that vision enough; we don't need to weaken our presentation of it still futher.

Is the indissolubility of marriage a *dogmatic* teaching?

The Church has always taught that marriage, validly entered (i.e., with true and free consent of both spouses) and consummated, is indissoluble - that is, bluntly, "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder" (Mt 19:6, Mk 10:9).  This is true both of natural marriage (i.e., between unbaptized persons), and of sacramental marriage (i.e., between baptized persons).  A quick glance at, say, the index of Denzinger's or the footnotes of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will show how often this teaching has been repeated.

But, one might ask, is this perennial teaching doctrinal (could be divinely revealed, or is at least consistent with apostolic teaching and practice, yet possibly subject to revision), or dogmatic (divinely revealed in Scripture and Tradition, defined as clearly as possible/necessary with full authority, and not subject to revision as far as the definition goes)?

Doctrine and dogma are not opposed to each other, in the sense that the first is optional and the second not.  Both are to be received as fully as humanly possible, for living and believing with "the mind of Christ," and for not living "according to this age" (Rom 12:2, etc).  There's no difference of truth between them, but there is a difference of clarity and of finality.  Dogmatic teaching is the highest level of exercising the teaching authority of the Church (Magisterium); doctrinal teaching is the ordinary level of the same.

To asnwer the question posed, consider a small sample of points:

• The quote in the first paragraph, above, shows without ambiguity that the indissolubility of marriage is taught by Christ Himself, directly. 

• The 24th session of the Council of Trent (Nov, 1563) dealt with marriage, and its decrees and canons were accepted and promulgated by Pope Pius IV.  It certainly appears to be a formal, solemn, and intended-to-be-dogmatic definition of marriage, including its indissolubility.

• Pope Pius XI, in the encyclical Casti Connubi (1930), refers to that definition of Trent as a "solemn definition," and repeats the unchanging teaching of indissolubility with great clarity.

• The Second Vatican Council, in its sacred consititution Gaudium et Spes, repeats the same (e.g. #48, albeit without the same verbal markers of dogmatic intent; it does, however, cite Casti Connubi, which seems to imply dogmatic intent, given that document's clarity).

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church repeats the same again (e.g. #1639, 1640, etc), without ambiguity.  It cites the same biblical passage above, and GS #48.

Moreover, all these sources consistently present a clear and compelling theological reason why marriage ought to be indissoluble; namely, that God, in establishing the natural of marriage, does so on the pattern of the divine covenant.  This is a thoroughly Scriptural and Traditional claim (e.g., Jer 31:31, Dan 2:44, Eph 5, etc.).  Since God's covenant is indissoluble, marriage must also be.  To claim that marriage is soluble is to claim that the divine covenant is also soluble, that God could change His mind about the promises of salvation; or in other words, that Christ died, but not for our sins (!).  If marriage has any spiritual reality at all, it must, then, necessarily be indissoluble.

Given all this sort of evidence, it seems to me very difficult to claim that the indissolubility of marriage is merely a doctrinal, but not a dogmatic, teaching. 

In Defense of the Transitional Diaconate - theological argument from "sacra potestas"

In the historical argument for the transitional diaconate, we noted that the grades of Holy Orders have, from the beginning and always, been received in a "cumulative and sequential" manner. Even when grades (either minor or major) were skipped, this remained true - there is zero evidence that anyone anywhere was ever ordained to the diaconate after the priesthood, or the subdiaconate after the diaconate, etc., even if that grade had previously been skipped. This is important, because it shows that the apostolic pattern has been maintained always and everywhere, even if some of the details of which orders are included, and which not (cantors, catechists, gravediggers, deaconesses, etc.), took more time to decide. Thus, the standard hierarchy of four minor orders (porter, lector, exorcist, acolyte) and four major orders (subdeacon, deacon, priest, bishop) became fixed for the Latin Church even as early as the third century, and were invariably received in this order by roughly 700.

This apostolic pattern in favor of the transitional diaconate is also supported by two potent theological arguments. One is the "sacra potestas" argument. The other, which we won't broach in this post, is the unity of the sacrament argument.

We'll briefly look at the sacra potestas argument in five questions.

1. What is a "sacra potestas?" A sacra potestas is a "sacred power," that is, a piece of Christ's own divine power, given explicitly to the Apostles, and passed on by them to their successors and helpers by the laying on of hands and (eventually) the precise ritual of ordination to each grade.

These "sacred powers" are obviously rather important, because they are precisely that for which Christ gave us the sacrament of Holy Orders. At the very least, He willed the Church to have bishops to rule, to confirm, and to ordain; priests to confect the Eucharist and to forgive sins; and deacons to proclaim the Gospel. And, given what the Magisterium of the Church is in fact, we must also admit that the subdiaconate and the minor orders also were part of what He willed, at least for the temporality of the Church, if not for her divine constitution (i.e., they are consistent with the will of Christ, but not constituent of it, as bishops, priests, and deacons are).

The hierarchy of "sacred powers," then, is the essence, the "what," of Christ's divine ministry carried out by the Church. It guides how the sacraments are poured out for the people. It defines what is and is not "ecclesial" and "secular," in their particular spheres of human activity (see St. Augustine's "City of God," or Pope Gelasius's "two swords" doctrine, etc.). And it fundamentally shapes the pastoral care of the Church, without defining the "how" of that care dogmatically.

2. Does every grade have a "sacra potestas?" All the major orders have a sacred power. The ordination rites of the Latin Church - I'm looking at those used from roughly 700 until the reforms of Vatican II - were extremely clear about the power given to each grade, both in the words used, and in the symbols. (The current rites have shifted emphasis away from the powers of each grade, and so are not nearly so clear about them.) The power was explicitly conveyed, usually with the formula "Receive the power of... (Accipe potestatem...)" according to each grade.

Moreover, the sacred powers of the bishop and of the priest were clearly and dogmatically defined by the Magisterium, most coherently at Trent (especially Session XXIII), but not uniquely at that Council. Bishops have the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the apostolic power of governance of the Church, and the power to confirm and to ordain. In the ordination rite, the bishop-elect was ordained when the consecrating bishops each put their hands on his head and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." The other powers were enumerating in the signs of the rite: chrismation of the hands, giving of the pastoral staff, ring, and miter, and giving of the Gospels (apostolic commission).

Priests have the power to confect the Eucharist "in persona Christi," and to absolve from sins (Confession and Anointing). In the ordination rite, the newly ordained priest was then told, "Receive the power to offer the sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Masses, as much for the living as for the dead."

The exact sacred power of the deacon (or the subdeacon) has never been dogmatically defined with this same precision. But it is dogmatic that the deacon has sacred power (Trent, Session XXIII, chapter 4; Lumen Gentium 18), and this has always been understood of the subdeacon, too, although not to my knowledge asserted dogmatically. Major Orders convey powers, and the lex orandi is the lex credendeni. Thus, what is true of bishop and priest in the ordination rite is also true of deacon (and subdeacon) in the same rite.

3. What is the deacon's "sacra potestas?" This has never, as far as I know, be dogmatically defined. However, for more than twelve centuries, every deacon ordained in the Latin Church was told, "Receive the power of reading the Gospels in the Church of God, as much for the living as for the dead." Nor is there any other tradition about the deacon's sacred power floating around out there. The Church has always believed, then, and expressed clearly in her lex orandi, that the deacon's sacred power is to proclaim the Gospel within the Church.

This is why reading the Gospel is the deacon's characteristic function within the Church's liturgy. This function is the most immediate manifestation of the deacon's sacred power, in exactly the same way that presiding at Mass and offering Confession and Absolution are the most immediate manifestations of the priest's sacred power. It should be noted, however, that while the priest always exercises his sacred power "in persona Christi," such that it is in fact Christ who changes bread and wine into His own Body and Blood, and Christ who says, "I absolve you...," there's no parallel tradition of the deacon acting "in persona Christi."

The other parts of the deacon's ministry, of sacrament and of charity, relate to the proclamation of the Gospel in fairly direct ways. The Gospel is at the root of all the Church's teachings, so catechesis and sacramental preparation are derivative forms of proclaiming the Gospel. Baptism is the beginning of receiving the Gospel in the Church, so deacons can baptize (e.g., Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch). The Gospel must be proclaimed in action as well as by words, so deacons "sacramentalize the service of the Church," as Pope John Paul II put it.

Again, this is exactly parallel to how the other parts of a priest's ministry relate to the Eucharist (e.g., Lumen Gentium 28 - see more below); and to how the various parts of a bishop's ministry in the "fullness of orders" fit together in the three-fold responsibility to govern, sanctify, and teach.

4. Where in the Gospel does Christ give the Apostles such a power? Lk 9:1-6 is the most clear (parallel passages in Mt 10 and Mk 6). The Twelve receive the power to "keryssein" (preach, herald), and they went out "euaggelizomenoi" ("gospelizing," proclaiming the Gospel or coming of the Kingdom). Luke is most interesting on this point, because in Lk 10, he recounts a separate commission for the 72 disciples, with a different vocabulary of what exactly they are commissioned to do. They are not given a power ("dynamis"), but told only to "say" ("legete," 10:8) the Kingdom is coming.

This same power to "kerygein" the "kerygma," and to "euaggelizein," that is, to proclaim the Good News, is precisely what is given by the Twelve to the Seven in Acts 6, by the laying on of hands. Philip, using this gift of sacred power, explicitly "kerygein-ed" Christ to the Samaritans (8:5), many of whom were healed of demons and baptized; and "euaggelizein-ed" Christ to the eunuch (8:35), who was also baptized. Stephen's trial before the Sanhedrin is unmistakably a "kerygma," completed in his martyrdom (baptism of blood), which led directly to the conversion of the witness Saul.

5. How does this defend the transitional diaconate? The end of the deacon's proclaiming the Gospel, in every ministerial context, is the relationship of the hearer with Christ. In the case of initial conversion, that means baptism first; in the case of the baptized, it means the Eucharist. Deacons proclaim in order to bring people to Christ, and the deepest union with Christ in this life is the Eucharist.

The wisdom of the Tradition is that proclaiming leads to deeper union with Christ. Priests also have the power of proclaiming, in order to make their ministry of uniting and reconciling (Eucharist and absolution) more accessible and more fruitful. The one leads naturally to the other. (This is as it must be, if there is in fact one priesthood of Christ in the New Covenant; but we needn't get into the unity argument here.)

Lumen Gentium 28 states most clearly the theological relationship of the power of proclaiming to the power of confecting and absolving, in the ministry of priests:

By the power of the sacrament of Orders, in the image of Christ the eternal high Priest, they are consecrated to preach the Gospel and shepherd the faithful and to celebrate divine worship, so that they are true priests of the New Testament. Partakers of the function of Christ the sole Mediator, on their level of ministry, they announce the divine word to all. They exercise their sacred function especially in the Eucharistic worship or the celebration of the Mass by which acting in the person of Christ and proclaiming His Mystery they unite the prayers of the faithful with the sacrifice of their Head and renew and apply in the sacrifice of the Mass until the coming of the Lord the only sacrifice of the New Testament, namely that of Christ offering Himself once for all a spotless Victim to the Father. For the sick and the sinners among the faithful, they exercise the ministry of alleviation and reconciliation and they present the needs and the prayers of the faithful to God the Father.

To be true priests of Christ, both in His image and "in persona," priests must preach the Gospel, shepherd the people to Christ, and celebrate the sacraments. They cannot mediate like Christ the Mediator without announcing the Gospel. They cannot unite the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar without proclaiming the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection. This is simply what it means to be a priest of Jesus Christ.

If, however, priests were not ordained deacons first, then they would never receive the sacred power of proclaiming. Like the 72 disciples, they would be able to "say" the Kingdom, but not "proclaim" it with "power and authority." The healing sacraments would be disconnected from the Word, quite contrary to what Luke clearly says in 9:1-6, or what the Church has clearly stated in LG 28. They would not be able to preach in the same ministerial acts as shepherding and celebrating; they would not be able to mediate like Christ, and they would not be able to unite the faithful to the sacrifice of the altar.

Verbum Domini 5

We continue with our reading of Verbum Domini. We've been concentrating on what the Holy Father is saying about our encounter with the Word (Jesus Christ) in different ways, and our response to this encounter (namely, ongoing conversion). Paragraph 15 introduces the Holy Spirit's role in this dynamic of encounter and conversion:

In fact there can be no authentic understanding of Christian revelation apart from the activity of the Paraclete. (15)

Note the compelling summary of the Holy Spirit's activity throughout the New Testament which follows. For Christ Himself, for the disciples and Mary, for Paul and the earliest Christians, the Holy Spirit is always present and active. So too for us.

The word of God is thus expressed in human words thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit. The missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable and constitute a single economy of salvation. (15)

This means that:

...without the efficacious working of the “Spirit of Truth” (Jn 14:16), the words of the Lord cannot be understood.... Just as the word of God comes to us in the body of Christ, in his Eucharistic body and in the body of the Scriptures, through the working of the Holy Spirit, so too it can only be truly received and understood through that same Spirit. (16)

Pope Benedict notes that this same unity also works liturgically. Firstly, we need the present action of the Holy Spirit in order to hear, receive, and respond to the proclamation of the Word in the readings and homily. From there, this unity of Spirit and Son is the very essence of "Tradition:"

Indeed, since God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16), the divine word, spoken in time, is bestowed and “consigned” to the Church in a definitive way, so that the proclamation of salvation can be communicated effectively in every time and place. (17)

The root of all ministry in the Church, whether priestly, diaconal, or lay, is our fidelity to the real and compelling communion of Spirit and Son in the one economy of salvation. What the Son does and commands us to do, the Spirit likewise does and supports. We cannot follow Christ coherently without the following of the Holy Spirit. (As a tangent, this is why the argument about "spiritual but not religious" is always wrong-headed; it divides the grace of the Son from the grace of the Spirit, into two separate economies of salvation.) But what has the Son commanded us to do?

Jesus Christ himself “commanded the Apostles to preach the Gospel – promised beforehand by the prophets, fulfilled in his own person and promulgated by his own lips – to all as the source of all saving truth and moral law, communicating God’s gifts to them. This was faithfully carried out; it was carried out by the Apostles who handed on, by oral preaching, by their example, by their ordinances, what they themselves had received – whether from the lips of Christ, from his way of life and his works, or by coming to know it through the prompting of the Holy Spirit...” (17, quoting Dei Verbum 7)

This "all" is all-encompassing of the life of the Church. It is the whole of Tradition. It includes the full panoply of Word, Sacrament, and Charity, and all of our charisms and states of life. Notice especially here the implication of unity of communion with the bishops as successors of the Apostles, and of course with the Successor of Peter as head of that College. Apart from that communion, there is no full and comprehensive fulfillment of Christ's command to preach, baptize, and "do this," but only bits and pieces of that single diakonia.

This communion is not the thrust of his development here, but worth our noticing more closely, certainly. This is where he wants to go from here:

Ultimately, it is the living Tradition of the Church which makes us adequately understand sacred Scripture as the word of God. (17)

And, lest we be overwhelmed by such a demanding expectation, the heart of that statement is here:

...sacred Scripture presents itself to us, in the variety of its many forms and content, as a single reality. Indeed, “through all the words of sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single word... (18)

Scripture, despite its complexity of form and content and composition, and no matter what kind of theory one uses to approach it, must always conform to this overarching truth: its meaning is always one, never plural (though that one meaning can of course have many parts, and many different applications). And that one meaning is always the person of Jesus Christ.

In short, by the work of the Holy Spirit and under the guidance of the magisterium, the Church hands on to every generation all that has been revealed in Christ. The Church lives in the certainty that her Lord, who spoke in the past, continues today to communicate his word in her living Tradition and in sacred Scripture. Indeed, the word of God is given to us in sacred Scripture as an inspired testimony to revelation; together with the Church’s living Tradition, it constitutes the supreme rule of faith... (18, citing Dei Verbum 21).

Verbum Domini 4

Our encounter with Jesus Christ is itself dynamic, a process of growth in faith and holiness. Even when there are dramatic moments of great conversion, these must be integrated into our hearts and lives. The Gospels give us this pattern, both in themselves, and (one might add) in how they are used liturgically:

Reading the Gospel accounts, we see how Jesus’ own humanity appears in all its uniqueness precisely with regard to the word of God. In his perfect humanity he does the will of the Father at all times; Jesus hears his voice and obeys it with his entire being; he knows the Father and he keeps his word (cf. Jn 8:55); he speaks to us of what the Father has told him (cf. Jn 12:50); “I have given them the words which you gave me” (Jn 17:8). Jesus thus shows that he is the divine Logos which is given to us, but at the same time the new Adam, the true man, who unfailingly does not his own will but that of the Father. He “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Lk 2:52). In a perfect way, he hears, embodies and communicates to us the word of God (cf. Lk 5:1). (12)

Just as preparatory revelation leads to the definitive revelation of Christ, so too the Gospels reveal Christ to us progressively, from His Incarnation and birth, to His preaching and miracles, to His Passion and Resurrection. This paschal mystery is the pinnacle of Christ's own mission:

Jesus’ mission is ultimately fulfilled in the paschal mystery: here we find ourselves before the “word of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18). The word is muted; it becomes mortal silence, for it has “spoken” exhaustively, holding back nothing of what it had to tell us.... In this great mystery Jesus is revealed as the word of the new and everlasting covenant: divine freedom and human freedom have definitively met in his crucified flesh... (12)

Further, just as He Himself illumines the whole of creation, just so His Passion illumines for us the whole of His life:

In the most luminous mystery of the resurrection, this silence of the word is shown in its authentic and definitive meaning. Christ, the incarnate, crucified and risen Word of God, is Lord of all things; he is the victor, the Pantocrator, and so all things are gathered up forever in him (cf. Eph 1:10). Christ is thus “the light of the world” (Jn 8:12), the light which “shines in the darkness” (Jn 1:5) and which the darkness has not overcome (cf. Jn 1:5). (12)

Since "Human salvation is the reason underlying everything" (9), Easter is the definitive statement (Word) of that meaning. The early Fathers sometimes described the significance of Easter as the "fulcrum" of all time. Pope Benedict is making a similar claim here, morally rather than chronologically:

...Christ’s victory over death took place through the creative power of the word of God. This divine power brings hope and joy: this, in a word, is the liberating content of the paschal revelation. At Easter, God reveals himself and the power of the trinitarian love which shatters the baneful powers of evil and death. (13)

Only perfect love fulfills perfectly our inherent longing for communion.

Because Easter has this overarching clarity and depth of meaning for all the rest of creation, it must be accepted as definitive revelation. Since Jesus truly is God Himself, what more of God could He reveal? What greater obedience or victory could He enact? Therefore the Church has taught since the beginning that revelation is complete ("perfected") in Christ:

Indeed, as the Fathers noted during the Synod, the “uniqueness of Christianity is manifested in the event which is Jesus Christ, the culmination of revelation, the fulfilment of God’s promises and the mediator of the encounter between man and God. He who ‘has made God known’ (Jn 1:18) is the one, definitive word given to mankind” (14; he also here cites St. Paul, Dei Verbum, and St. John of the Cross).

Very briefly, the exhortation then draws out the implications of this fact for eschatological truth (the Lord we meet after death is the same Lord we already meet and love - or not - in this life) and for private revelations (increase faith and devotion, and sometimes have a prophetic character, but don't add anything to Scripture or Tradition), before turning to the Holy Spirit's role.

Verbum Domini 3

In the first nine paragraphs, Pope Benedict has established the Word, Jesus Christ the Son of God, as the root and the meaning ("Logos") of all physical creation, spiritual reality, and salvation history. "Human salvation is the reason underlying everything." (9) This divine foundation puts the dynamic of perfect love at the center of everything; nothing can possibly exist, even sin, apart from a defining relationship with "God who Speaks."

In paragraph 10, he begins working down to the level of the individual:

Those who know God’s word also know fully the significance of each creature... those who build their lives on his word build in a truly sound and lasting way. (10)

This is of course not a novel idea for followers of Christ. The parable of the house built on rock (on The Rock) versus one built on sand will come to mind, for example. In the same way, no created thing is solid and "real" enough to be that foundation stone:

Possessions, pleasure and power show themselves sooner or later to be incapable of fulfilling the deepest yearnings of the human heart. (10)

This brings into this discussion the interior dynamic of continuing conversion and the action of grace; that is, the encounter with and desire for perfect love. As we grow in faith and holiness, we see more and more clearly how things of this world, even when they are good and even as we inevitably use them daily, cannot be the end, the "root and meaning" of our lives. We dig deeper to find and make more central the Rock which is Christ, because only perfect love fulfills perfectly the longing of our hearts. (Cue St. Augustine's famous quote from the Confessions, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.") This longing brings us face to face with Jesus Christ:

Here the word finds expression not primarily in discourse, concepts or rules. Here we are set before the very person of Jesus. His unique and singular history is the definitive word which God speaks to humanity. We can see, then, why “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a definitive direction” (11, citing his own Deus Caritas Est, 1).

The bits and pieces of preparatory revelation, embedded everywhere in creation (as how could they not be?), all point to the definitive revelation of God the Son, Jesus Christ. Only the darkness of sin prevents us from seeing this clearly from the beginning. The fundamental encounter is precisely "illumination:" Christ who is "lumen gentium" literally "in-lumen-ates" us, dispelling the darkness of sin from our spiritual senses. And given a taste of transcendent and perfect love, we long for more:

The constant renewal of this encounter and this awareness fills the hearts of believers with amazement at God’s initiative, which human beings, with our own reason and imagination, could never have dreamt of. (11)

Models of Revelation 14

We’re still in Ch 9, on Dulles’s idea of “symbolic mediation.” Dulles argues that revelation occurs primarily in symbols – special kinds of signs that become deeply embedded in Tradition, that carry multiple, powerful layers of meaning, and that ultimately become definitive for that Tradition. I have agreed with much of what Dulles is arguing here about how symbols work in Tradition and in carrying the content of revelation symbolically. But I have argued in rebuttal that the primary (as in original and bedrock) form of revelation needs to be something more than a symbol. The Tradition cannot take a single, coherent direction only from a multi-valent symbol. I have suggested that historical fact, direct propositional revelation, direct ritual or liturgical revelation, and symbolic revelation all coincide to establish the baseline of meaning, from which further symbols take their meanings. The two most critical of these nexus are Exodus, and the Incarnation and Passion of Christ.

Having seen how his symbols work in reference to the propositional model, he works through the other four in the same way. I believe my rejoinder holds up in each case: symbols cannot define themselves, ultimately; something more must be given to be definitive, to establish the Tradition.

In reference to the historical model, Dulles takes the historical events themselves as symbols. “Just as a literary text discloses to the literate reader a meaning which is really there, so a revelatory sign-event, to the religiously disposed observer, can convey a divine meaning that truly belongs to the event” (p. 146). Dulles briefly addresses the two problems of subjectivity – that is, maintaining a fixed meaning in the sign-event if it can’t be accurately expressed propositionally, but only narratively – and of distinguishing in history special divine causation (an “act of God”), and therefore dealing with miracles.

In reference to the experiential model, the symbols must mediate the experience of divine presence, and shape the revealed meaning of that presence. “[T]he experience of grace cannot be rightly interpreted, or recognized for what it is, without the help of symbols derived from the known world through sensory experience” (149). The mystical experience also emphasizes the “gap” between symbol and divine reality.

In reference to the dialectical model, the Word itself is taken as the predominant symbol. There is a risk here of taking Christ only as “a” symbol, rather than as unique Savior. Here, Dulles must in fact take my position on his argument, to avoid this: “The word, as the sign [broad sense, not narrow “symbol”] which articulates meaning, is a necessary complement to revelation through any other kind of symbol. The grosser symbolism of nature, deed, or artifact [including ritual], potent though it may be, is too ambiguous to be the sole mediator of revealed religion. The symbol becomes revelation only when interpreted…. For public revelation, moreover, there must be external words, capable of being heard or seen. Such attesting words are necessarily symbolic, for otherwise they could not be conducive to a salvific union with the divine.” (p. 152).

Dulles and I would seem to disagree on the priority of this last sentence. For him, as I understand his argument, the symbols are primary, and the words are human words being used as further, derived symbols to reveal divine truth. I would argue in contrast that the Word, the Logos, is primary to the use of words as symbols.

Finally, in reference to the new consciousness model, symbols do shape and affect our experience, but Dulles insists on the objectiveness of the symbols’ meaning. He also distinguishes (for the first time, here) between primary symbols that carry objective revealed meaning, and “mutable secondary symbols” (153-4; he those symbols such as those in art or liturgy – though he doesn’t here, as I wish he had, note that some of those liturgical symbols are in fact primary) which are more flexible over time.

At this point in my analysis of his argument, I add a second objection. In his desire to retrieve what he sees as the benefits of the different models, he does not distinguish adequately between the giving of the symbol, and our reception and response to it.

The giving of the symbol (if revelation is indeed in the form of symbols) must be accompanied with defining, irreducible propositional, historical, and probably liturgical elements, just like I have argued in reference to Exodus and the Incarnation and Passion. But, the giving of the symbols does not first and foremost involve our inner experience, dialectical submission, or conversion (“new awareness”). These are not the form of revelation, but our response to revelation. What is true in these models is true about our reception of revelation, not about revelation per se. Dulles does yeoman work to show the continuity between 1 and 2 as giving revelation, and 3, 4, and 5 as receiving it. My insistence on the primacy of a Logical nexus of word, sign, and act helps us to separate out these two modes from each other.

Models of Revelation - Excursus on Faith and Reason

One of the greatest strengths of the "traditional" view of theology (Patristic and Scholastic) is how the category of knowing which is "faith" is intrinsically related to the category of knowing which is "reason." This is the gist of the famous line that theology means "faith seeking understanding." All truth leads to Truth, therefore, and Truth must necessarily be one and universal.

These ideas about truth, knowledge, and so forth are not merely unprovable assumptions, for which other (equally valid because equally unprovable) assumptions might be substituted. Rather, they rest on a long tradition of observation, analysis, testing of hypothesis, and synthesis. They are proven, at least at the level of plausibility and self-coherence. They have stood the test of time (despite the contempt that modernity's irrationality holds them in). They are, in effect, conclusions of "natural theology."

Take, for example, the problem of defining "life" in "living" objects, as opposed to non-living objects. Reason tells us that the stuff is the same - the same elements of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, merely arranged differently here than there. Reason tells us, however, that there is clearly something different between living and non-living things. If you've ever seen a person or an animal die, you know that the difference is clearly visible, but not clearly quantifiable. Metaphors like "the light in the eyes" must be employed. In fact, reason tells us that the difference between living and non-living is not really a question of the arrangement of stuff (atoms, molecules) at all. It's something different.

In other words, experience, observation, and reason clearly "prove" the existence of something non-material. Its effects are observable; it itself is not directly observable. In terms of living objects, this non-material element can be called "soul." It expresses the vitality, motion, and ultimately rationality of different kinds of living things. But it can never be reduced only to material properties.

Coming at the problem from the angle of faith works essentially the same, but in reverse. The same observations about the material world, and the visible effects of the spiritual world therein, describe different kinds of relationships with God. Here "soul" is not a property or set of properties related to the observable differences in categories of objects, but defining spiritual realities that separate those same categories of objects in how that relate to God.

But these two aspects of the idea of "soul," from reason and from faith, are not to be seen as unrelated to each other. Together, they tell us more about "soul" than simply the juxtaposition of the two ways of knowing.

But for this to be true, that spiritual knowledge must be expressible in the form of a proposition (or more likely, a set of propositions). Even if the set of propositions is not complete in an absolute sense, it still must be relatively complete (relative to the extent of our ability to know at all), and accurate to the same extent. If this is not true, then "faith" knowledge is not related to "reason" knowledge, since the rules of logic (that is, propositional relationships) don't work there.

This is the heart of the propositional model in Dulles's schema. Of the five, only this model holds the intrinsic relationship of faith-knowledge and reason-knowledge; that is, that revelation is ultimately reasonable in itself. The historical model, and Dulles's theory of symbolic mediation, hold an extrinsic relationship between faith and reason. This can, in practice, be fairly close to the intrinsic relationship, but it's not really the same idea. At root, the existential, dialectic, and transcendent models all separate faith and reason from each other in modernist ways; this is why they are less successful at grasping revelation.

This is why I insisted in the previous post that there must be some non-ambiguous "rule" - an act, a word, or a symbol; or a combination of these, as in Exodus and the Passion - at the bedrock of revelation, prior to the mediation of the symbol(s). This "rule" must be expressible (to the extent of human knowing) as complete and accurate propositions. Even if the propositions are derived, and not taken as the primary content of the revelation itself, still the propositions are equal to the revelation in its relationship to the faith community: the propositions carry the revelation. I mean this concretely, not abstractly, because the propositions are not simply abstract, but concretely embedded in the liturgical life of the community (Passover and Mass, etc.). They are still explicit, however: they are acts, words, and symbols expressible as propositions. Therefore the meaning is not ambiguous and subject to change, and not derived from human sources, but given by God.

It is precisely in the knowing by both faith and reason that the certitude of revelation exceeds that of science (reason alone) or of individual inspiration (faith alone). It is precisely in the being carried by Tradition that the meaning remains stable and non-arbitrary. And it is precisely in the "faith seeking understanding" that we accept the invitation into God's own life, which is what revelation really is.

Models of Revelation 13

In the second half of Chapter 9, Dulles is testing three Christian symbols – light, the Cross, and the Eucharist – to see how they work in each of the five models he’s described. He quickly encounters some difficulties.

Propositional Model – “To theologians who view revelation as propositional, the symbolic approach seems to imperil the truth of revelation. The danger is not altogether imaginary” (141). In this counter-argument, a symbol’s absence of fixed meaning makes it unsuited for revealing objective, universal, unchanging Truth. Dulles cites one Gordon Clark on the example of the Cross (142), showing how the absence of fixed meaning denudes the Cross of the power to reveal. Dulles responds by noting how the symbol of the Cross needs to be re-expressed, through metaphor and simile, into propositions. These propositions “explicate” the symbol of the Cross in order to limit its ambiguity. “But the propositional explication, to the extent that it achieves literalness, leaves out things tacitly perceived through the symbol…” (143). However, Dulles again avoids the critical question of priority in meaning (in other words, of authority in interpretation of the symbol). Does the limitation of ambiguity by re-expressing into propositions, come before or after the symbol itself? In other words, do the limits inhere in the symbol, or must they be supplied? If the former, how is this a supernatural revelation? If the latter, whence do they come?

Dulles seems to argue for inherence: “Because of the cognitive content implicit in the originative symbols, revelatory symbolism is able not only to “give rise to thought” but also to shape the thought it arouses” (144). But then he equivocates: “Yet the influence travels in both directions. Doctrine enriches the meaning of symbols…. As the process of doctrinal development goes on, the Church tests new proposals through its grasp of the total symbol-system…” (144). He appeals to Tradition, in the form of “participation in the community of faith,” to limit the pliability of symbols’ meanings. “Interpreted against the background of the symbols and of Christian life, certain conceptual formulations can be put forward as bearing the authority of revelation” (145).

What he means, I think, is that the symbol is primary. In the ways in which the symbol is received by the community, its meaning becomes much more firmly fixed. Eventually, some of those meanings are clarified to the point of propositional formulation as dogma or doctrine. These formulations in turn operate on other symbols in the same limiting or specifying fashion, and can even become symbols themselves. The accumulation of symbols with fixed, received meanings by the community comprises Tradition.

The advantage of this argument is that it clearly relates the Christian community, in its origins, with its Jewish roots. Christianity begins, not in a vacuum, but within an existing revelatory tradition. However, I think Dulles makes a mistake, overstating the power of Tradition to define itself. His argument just pushes the problem of certainty and authority further backwards in time. If that ground cannot ultimately be found, then the peril to the truth of revelation remains. That is, if the tradition is built up in the very-distant past purely in reference to human culture (in this case, ancient Israel’s human culture) or human choices of possible meaning, can it be said with certainty, with the “authority of revelation,” that that tradition “got it right” with respect to its symbols? Why could they not have been (or now be) interpreted differently, even contradictorily?

Somewhere behind that tradition of traditions, I would argue, there must be a solid, unambiguous, revelation – either a proposition, or an event, or a symbol-with-only-one-possible-meaning – to provide the authority for tradition to accumulate upon.

Now, for ancient Israel, that was Exodus: the event as a whole, including as distinct items of revelation the propositional revelations – “I am who am;” the Ten Commandments; the terms of the Covenant with Moses – and the liturgical rituals of the Passover. These were not treated as primary symbols, but rather as secondary symbols. That is, their nature and usefulness as symbols derived from their unambiguous, divine, no-other-way-to-explain-it-as-it-actually-happened authority, and not the other way around. It’s only given this bedrock for the tradition, that other symbols can come to function in the manner Dulles describes here.

For Christians, the Passion-and-Resurrection of Christ functions in exactly the same way. The event, including its distinct propositional and liturgical revelations, is primary to all symbols. Christian symbols take it as their referent; it is definitive for the Tradition, and for the symbols in that Tradition. Only with this (now double) bedrock as primary revelation and authority, can other symbols (including the Cross) come to function in the way Dulles argues.

Models of Revelation 12

Dulles defines in Chapter 9 what he means by “symbolic communication” or “symbolic mediation.” First, he notes, revelation never occurs in an unmediated encounter with God. That encounter is always mediated – specifically, by symbols as “an externally perceived sign that works mysteriously on the human consciousness so as to suggest more than it can clearly describe or define. Revelatory symbols are those which express and mediate God’s self-communication” (p. 131).

“Symbol” here is a special kind of sign. Some signs only indicate something (as a shadow on a sundial); others represent something, usually by convention or tradition (as a written word stands for a set of sounds, which in turn stand for an agreed-upon meaning in a particular language). Symbols might indicate or represent, but what makes them symbols is that they evoke something beyond what can be indicated or represented. Their meaningfulness exceeds the indicated or represented meaning.

Because symbols evoke, their communication includes the response of the viewer. A national flag might only be a sign if we’re reading it in a catalogue, and have no emotional response to it. But it might be a powerful symbol, evoking a broad response of feelings and memories and expectations, when we see our own flag flying on some special occasion or place. “To enter the world of meaning opened up by the symbol we must give ourselves; we must be not detached observers but engaged participants” (133). Many kinds of things can be symbols: words, objects, persons, artifacts, dreams, rituals, myths, allegories, etc.

This definition faces two fundamental problems, of subjectivity, and of finitude. (1) If the symbol requires the participant to add his own experiences etc. in order to be meaningful, then how can symbols be (a) objective, and (b) universal? And (2), how can symbolic communication reveal to humans something beyond natural human experience? Where does that “supernatural” content come from, if the meaningfulness of the symbol depends so strongly on the human audience? Dulles sidesteps these problems to some extent: “To establish this, one would have to construct a theoretical argument based on the nature of revelation itself…. [Here,] I shall seek to propose an argument based on the parallelism between the properties of symbolic communication and of revelation. Four such properties may be singled out” (136).

First, symbolism gives participatory knowledge. A symbol is never a sheer object, but rather lures us into a newly-opening universe of meaning. Second, symbols transform the knower; the new meanings it opens change the one who participates in the symbolic communication. Third, that transformation is expressed as “consistent and committed action” (137). Fourth, symbols allow a kind of knowledge or awareness not available to discursive thought. They are a kind of mystery, both concealing and revealing in their evoking.

“These four qualities of symbolic knowledge make it apparent how symbol can be uniquely apt as a medium of revelation; for the qualities of revelation correspond, on a transcendent level, to those just noted…” (138). Just like symbols, revelation gives participatory awareness, transformation, commitment, and insight into unfathomable mysteries.

I do wish Dulles had given a more comprehensive answer here. Everything else he will say in the book depends on this point, that revelation takes place through symbolic mediations, using a variety of symbols according to the five models (propositions, history, inner experience, mystery, and new awareness). It seems plausible, but in making this point, he does not face squarely the problems of subjectivity and finitude. Instead, he goes around them by noting that symbols are like revelation. This is not sufficiently convincing, by itself. This becomes an enormous “IF…” statement, to which the remainder of the books is the “THEN…” which follows. But “IF NOT,” then his whole argument for symbolic mediation fails.

Dulles tries to buttress his assertion with three examples: light, the Cross, and the Eucharist (140-1). He “tests” these examples as mediating symbols in each of the five models. We’ll look at these carefully next week.

Models of Revelation 11

In Chapter 8, Dulles does a quick compare-and-contrast of his five models.

First, six points in common across all five models (p. 117):
(1) Revelation is God’s free action, a “turning toward” us of some kind, and a gift more-than-natural.
(2) Revelation communicates truth in some way, truth which is otherwise unknowable by natural reason.
(3) This truth of revelation is spiritually important in some way; it is “for salvation”.
(4) Revelation comes in a finally decisive way in Jesus Christ.
(5) Access to revelation is through the Church proclaiming the biblical message. (Note the very careful phrasing here.)
(6) Revelation demands some sort of response of faith.
I’m always surprised when I get to this point in the book by how much the very different models actually have in common. Nevertheless, it is necessary to include in all six points some qualifier (“in some way, of some kind,” etc.). These qualifiers hide the underlying differences even within the commonalities. Are these differences so great that the common points are effectively meaningless, or is there some shared meaning after all?

To answer, Dulles lists the differences (118):
(a) In each model, revelation has a different form: proposition, history, subjective experience, dialectic, and new awareness. Some of these can overlap, as we’ve said, but some are mutually exclusive.
(b) In each model, revelation has a different content. Again, some are comparable, some exclusive.
(c) What each model means by “for salvation” is very different.
(d) What each model means by “response of faith” is very different.
Now the differences begin to seem overwhelming to the shared points. Dulles investigates further by posing five additional questions, which emphasize the differences (120). I won’t rehearse all the questions, but take #2 as an example: “Does revelation give infallible certitude?” Model 1 (proposition) says definitely yes. Models 2 (history), 3 (experience), and 4 (dialectic) also say yes, but not in a way reducible to propositional statements. The certainty is there, inexpressibly. Model 5 (new awareness) also asserts certainty, but only of a limited kind (is it certainty at all?). On the basis of all these differences, Dulles argues that it is not possible to hold all the models together.

In order to move forward, Dulles is going to introduce a new concept, what he calls symbolic communication. “I shall contend that revelation is given and transmitted by symbolic communication. Symbol, I shall maintain, is a pervasive category that functions… in each of the five models. [It] can be of great value as a dialectical tool for bringing out the strong points and overcoming the weaknesses [of each]…. I am not proposing a sixth model, the “symbolic,” to be played off against the other five. The variety of models has advantages that should not be sacrificed by the adoption of a single model, however apt…. By recourse to symbol as dialectical tool it will be possible, I believe, to enrich and correct the existing models…” (128).

Here he’s making two implicit claims: (1) the category of “symbolic communication” is not a different mode of communication (not a "sixth model"). It is somehow more profound, more basic, than the mode of communication each of the five models selects (proposition, historical event, inner experience, dialectical experience, new awareness). Thus, each of these five modes fits in some way within the category of “symbolic communication,” or in other words, some symbolic communication is proposition, some historical, etc. Each of these five modes is potentially able to serve in God’s communication of saving truth.

(2) Even more, it seems that each of these five modes carries some unique aspect of saving truth without which revelation would be incomplete. Theologically, this is a very bold claim. Can it be shown that his category of “symbolic communication” is at least implicitly grasped as part of the deposit of faith from the beginning? (I.e., if this is a new element in theological discourse, not part of the deposit of faith at all, then that deposit has been incomplete in its reception of revelation until now, which has devastating consequences for the whole idea of “tradition”). We need to be paying attention to see if he can support this claim convincingly.

If he can't support the claim convincingly, then he has to justify including each of the five models individually in his synthesis, rather than the inclusive assertion of "advantage to variety" he asserts above.

This is really getting suspenseful! On to Chapter 9!

Models of Revelation 10

In Ch. 7, Dulles presents his fifth and final model, that of “revelation as new awareness.” Again, he’s presenting an abstraction, a type assembled from several related theological ideas, and he admits he’s not really representing any of the authors thoroughly.

This model is rooted in “subjective idealism of the nineteenth century” (98). It assumes the Kantian denial of noumenal knowledge is fully true (i.e., we cannot know things as they really are in themselves, only as they appear to our senses). It also assumes a very aggressive historicism of ideas (context driven meaning rather than content driven meaning). Thus, this model begins with the premise that the Church at time/culture A is not inherently the same thing as the Church at time/culture B.

Furthermore, this model also assumes an “anthropological turn” characteristic of the 19th and 20th centuries. Man can be defined only with reference to himself; there is no “outside” or “objective” constant against which to define (no noumenal knowledge means no certain knowledge of a personal God, a non-mythical Jesus Christ, or an unchanging human nature). In its more virulent modes, this is taken of the individual person; in less aggressive modes, it is taken only of groups of persons (cultures, “peoples” in the sense of “the American people,” or even of humanity in general).

Given these assumptions, it’s scarcely surprising where this model goes: namely, evolution. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin argued that revelation and [spiritual] progress are tightly interlinked (99). He talked about “orthogenesis” (“right becoming”) rather than orthodoxy. Karl Rahner followed this argument. “For him revelation is a particular instance of a more general phenomenon – that of the self-transcending movement of created reality toward ever-greater freedom and self-possession” (100). [Questions: does this movement exist? Can it be proven to be in this direction? Is it “self-” movement, rather than having an exterior cause?] Rahner basically argued that revelation is grace: the experience of grace (even understood more or less in classical theological terms) itself reveals the self-giving God who saves. Dulles quotes another contemporary theologian, Gregory Baum: “Since divine revelation is not information about another world but God’s self-communication to man, and hence his gracious entry into the dynamic process of man’s becoming fully human, it is possible to express what the Church believes by describing the new self-consciousness created by faith.” (101, fn 18). In other words, in the end, revelation doesn’t reveal God to man, it reveals man to himself.

It’s characteristic of this model to assert the use of reason; but in order to get around the limits Kant et al set on reason, they must assert a non-discursive reason, a kind of intuition for faith (103). This often becomes the role of imagination. “Since the imagination is the power by which we anticipate and construct our own future, revelation must actuate the symbolic imagination” (103). This kind of symbolic thought is the opposite of propositional doctrine: image, not word; myth, not truth-that-can-be-expressed-propositionally; subjectivity, not objectivity. As symbolic, the truth-value of revelation can only be judged pragmatically. “Revelation is true if it enriches the quality of individual and community life.” (104, fn 36).

Therefore, revelation is not something we receive from the past; it is by definition something we experience in the present. “History is revelatory insofar as it provides paradigms for human self-transcendence that continue to function in the present” (105). Biblical history, creeds, and doctrines are not recordings or summaries of some objective truth, but of powerfully creative symbols of change (106).

Because there are no revealed truths, this model cannot talk about “human nature;” instead, it talks about “the human condition.” To the extent that revelation says something useful about the human condition, it is universal. Therefore revelation is not limited to the Bible or Judeo-Christian truths. From here it’s a very short step to the idea that grace is universal (107).

The strengths of this model which Dulles notes are not objective, but require the same assumptions the model uses. First he notes how this model responds to the weaknesses of all the other models: not “authoritarian and rigid” (110) as the propositional model is argued to be; not assuming two layers of history; not sentimental or overly mystical, as the “inner experience” model can be; not passive, as the dialectical model can render us. If, however, one does not accept the initial assumptions, it’s much less clear that this model provides any significant advantage over any of the other models.

In terms of the seven criteria of evaluation, Dulles suggests this model does well on plausibility, practical fruitfulness, and dialogue. Again, it’s only plausible if one accepts the assumptions. It’s very practical in the sense that it can be made to fit a lot of different kinds of situations and ideas; but if Truth is the measure of practice, its inherent relativism mitigates this. The same with dialogue.

Apart from the reasonable of its core assumptions, this model also has some serious flaws. “The most persistent objection has to do with the fidelity of this model to Scripture and tradition” (111). Moreover, by implying that modern Christians are more “enlightened” than in the past [oh, those doltish credulists of the past!], it makes Christ not Christ. Dulles rather laconically notes that this makes it “difficult to give a fully coherent account of [this] position” (113) as a Christian theological position. Further, this model is adequate, not to all experience, but only to certain kinds. As to theoretical fruitfulness, its reduction of thought to imagination is “dissatisfying” (113).

Models of Revelation 9

Dulles continues in Ch 6 with the fourth model, “dialectical presence.” This means that revelation is always a paradox, simultaneously revealing the mystery of God, and thus concealing Him in the mystery, in the very act of revealing. The origins of this model lie in the inadequacies of liberal theology, displayed with such clarity in the unprecedented social and moral devastation of WWI. It was the juxtaposition of divine transcendence with undisguised human sinfulness that led thinkers like Barth, Bultmann, etc., to deny that “God’s presence and activity could ever be discovered within the realms of historical fact, doctrinal statement, or religious experience.” (85). Yet there is nowhere else to discover God’s presence and activity; hence the paradox.

This model never constituted a school as such, and there are significant differences among those who play with it. What Dulles offers here is a quite artificial schema, which he admits cannot really do justice to any of the thinkers he cites.

The core of this model is the idea that revelation is always of a mystery. God’s self cannot be reified in human terms. Instead, revelation for us is always of God’s saving self, hence of Christ. There is no revelation apart from Christ. (86). This requires a rejection of “natural theology,” of the revelation of some aspect of God’s nature in created natures, which was such a mainstay of medieval theology. But as revelation only in Christ, revelation is also coterminous with grace. (87). Therefore revelation, as the same saving act of God, continues today with the same mysterious divine freedom. The Bible, the Church, and the sacraments are not in themselves revelatory; but they can be the means of the one revelation of Christ, because of grace. By the same token, nothing outside the mystery of revelation is necessary to God’s salvation, and so the Bible, the Church, and the sacraments must be seen as fallible and changeable. (88).

Continuing this logical reduction, the act of faith is also the same as the act of revelation, and is the free gift of God. (89). Apologetics, then, falls into the same category as Bible, Church, and sacrament.

Hence, the form of revelation in this model is the Word itself, Jesus Christ. The problem is that the “residue” of the Word, whether in Scripture, in the Church, in the sacraments, in Tradition, etc., is not the Word itself, and so ultimately is not really a trustworthy witness to Christ.

Dulles is very careful to note the positive aspects of this model (93-4). He finds four positives. It is quite well-grounded in Scripture, at least in the sense that it doesn’t contradict Scripture. It salvages an epistemology of faith (albeit individual and subjective) from the Kantian cul-de-sac. Its rejection of apologetics cleared away accumulated tangles of intellectualizing undergrowth. And its quite spare religiosity renewed a sense of commitment to the absoluteness of God.

The principle weakness of this model is its inner incoherence (94-5). If faith (as the content of faith) cannot be meaningfully communicated, how can it be itself meaningful? If the Bible is not a reliable witness to Christ, how can the experience of revelation, even as a paradox, be judged as true or false to Christ? If salvation history is not actually historical, how can it be salvific? At the root of this incoherence is the divorce of the “Christ of faith” from the “Jesus of history,” which is really at the center of this model.

Dulles’s conclusion is surprisingly positive, however. “In view of these difficulties it is not surprising that dialectical theology, in its acute form, was only a phase in the career of its authors. When they sought to reflect further on the meaning of the gospel, they moved beyond dialectical thinking…. [T]hese theologians took up something like the analogous discourse of the classical tradition…. Whenever theology is tempted to forget its own limitations and to claim mastery of the revealed message, the vehement negations of dialectical theology remain a valuable corrective.” (97).

You might notice that all the thinkers cited by Dulles, and all the assumptions that underlie this model, are Protestant, mostly Lutheran. I've also come across some "post-modern" Catholics who fall for the illusion of clarity in this model, especially in sacramental theology. For example, M.-L. Chauvet wrote "Symbol and Sacrament" (originally in French) very much along these lines. He either coined or popularized the phrase "the absence of the presence of God" in reference to sacramental presence, especially True Presence in the Eucharist. The same criticisms noted above apply here, without any of the offsetting positives.

Models of Revelation 8

Dulles’s third model is “revelation as inner experience.” This doesn’t mean the bells and whistles of private revelation in the form of visions and whatnot, but an experiential, even existential, model of immediate, interior communion with God. This rejects the objectivity of both the dogmatic and the historical models. It is based on a thoroughly modern set of assumptions: i.e., what is “natural” (immediate and interior, intuitive or instinctive) is “more real” than what is artificial (mediate and exterior, learned objectively); the distrust of authority, here in objective revelation; the denial that noumenal (i.e., the thing as it really is, vs. “phenomenal,” the thing as it seems to my senses to be) reality can be known; individualism.

Again, there are several forms of this model. In this chapter, Dulles is not as clear on the permutations as in the previous. Without clearly defining the differences among them, he notes (p. 69-70) a liberal Protestant version, a modernist Protestant version, a modernist Catholic version, and a “transcendental” Catholic version. This last, he points out, best articulated by Karl Rahner, is “not typical” of this model, and he mostly sets it aside here. (He will return to Rahner under his 5th model.)

The model, in general, works this way: (p 70:) As transcendent and non-contingent Creator, God is in some immediate sense “present to” every point of creation. So then, every part of creation implies at least the theoretical possibility of some kind of “religious” or “mystical” experience of that divine presence. Such experiences, being immediate, are also universal (at least potentially). (p 72:) This experience always communicates the whole of God’s being, therefore not “revealed truth” in dogmatic or even historical form. Dogmas and history, even sacred history, even the Bible, are not “revealed” at all in this sense, but mere human attempts to communicate the reality of this experience in a particular tradition.

Faith and belief, then, are two quite distinct things. Faith is having the experience; belief is only an approximation of the experience in human terms. All belief, then, is necessarily more or less wrong, and therefore any belief is more or less tolerable in itself. (There follows, 73ff, a description of much jumping through hoops in order to try to ascribe some significance to tradition in Christianity; but, if the assumptions be granted, the most that can be said is that certain beliefs, including Scripture, the Church, the sacraments, etc. etc., tend to be more helpful for us, in being receptive to the faith-experience.)

This same problem of tradition and authority must also be faced, in reference to Jesus Christ. Here it can be said that Christ was the highest and fullest example of religious experience, and that following Him in the Church maximizes our potential to have the same experiences. But of course this is a very far cry from claiming that Jesus is the unique and universal Savior.

The substantial weaknesses of this model should be fairly obvious. It is non-Biblical, and even contradicts the Bible in significant ways. “All the passages from Scripture used to support either of the first two models constitute objections to the third.” (p. 78). It denies the prophets' own experience of inadequacy to know and love God. It substitutes elitism for divine election. It cannot be harmonized with a great many traditional Church teachings. It makes the Church herself a secondary, rather than a primary, reality. It disappoints many expectations of what religion is “supposed to do,” such as define the meaning of stuff, especially in the moral and metaphysical senses.

Is there any redeeming feature of this model? Dulles notes two only: “[T]his model made it possible to accept that critique [i.e., the Kantian denial that noumenal knowledge is possible] without falling into skepticism.” (p. 77). There are other, better responses to Kant; nor is it necessary to accept that critique at all, or at least wholly. But the much harder trick, if one is intending to accept Kant, is not to fall into relativism, which this model, by itself, inevitably does. Second, “this model gave striking support to the life of devotion.” (p. 77) By this he means, “New links began to appear between systematic and ascetical theology. The life of prayer and mystical experience… appeared once again as central themes.” (78). To the extent that “systematic and ascetical” theology have been divided since the 17th c. (much more so in Protestant denominations than in Catholicism), this renewed connection certainly is valuable.

One of the most obvious places I think this model has taken root in the Church is in moral theology, specifically in the formation of conscience. Very few Catholics think about the Bible, the Church, or Jesus Christ in these experiential terms, but all too many think exactly this way about their conscience: that it is immediate, rather than needing formation; that it is interior, rather than shaped by our learning and practice of the Faith; and that it is authoritative of itself, rather than needing the authority of the magisterium for full conviction.

Models of Revelation 7

Using the seven criteria of evaluation, Dulles notes several strengths of the historical model:
• It emphasizes our relationship with God in more concrete ways, in the sense that actions speak louder than words.
• It retrieves some biblical themes that can be missed or downplayed in the propositional model.
• It is “more organic” than the propositional model. “The meaning of events is capable of being formulated in many ways… The flexibility, however, does not [necessarily] lead to relativism. Believers in every age and culture can find their identity in relationship to events that have objectively occurred…” (61). I would add, though, that this risk of relativism must be consciously avoided.
• It is less authoritarian.

There are some weaknesses to note also:
• Words do remain intrinsically meaningful and indispensable. “God’s self-disclosure in words and visions is not unrelated to his self-disclosure by deed, but there seems to be no cogent reason for unilaterally subordinating the former to the latter…” (63).
• Some biblical categories (e.g. Wisdom books) make little sense in purely historical terms.
• Some biblical categories (e.g. Genesis) are not “history” in terms meaningful to this model.
• It is not well attested in early Christian thought or tradition; this raises the question of continuity and resulting change of identity (if discontinuous with Tradition).
• It has questionable value for the ecumenical project of Christian unity, or for interreligious dialogue generally.
• The idea of an historical “act of God” (this is not the same thing as the Catholic meaning of “miracle”) is difficult to define coherently. If, in terms of the second form of this model, one posits two strains of history, human and sacred, one can avoid the definition but still needs criteria for which acts belong to which histories. If, in terms of the third form of this model, one posits only one strain of history, the definition risks denying the possibility of the miraculous, or else becoming merely a circular definition. (This problem, as I noted in the last post, is linked to the use of “scientific” standards of objectivity for history treated as a social science.)
• Finally, if events are not self-interpreting, as most theologians using this model agree, it seems to be implied that the event is not primary to the word which interprets it.

Dulles concludes the chapter with a quote (on p. 66) from Dei Verbum: “This plan of revelation is realized by deeds and words having an inner unity: the deeds wrought by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the teaching and realities signified by the words, while the words proclaim the deeds and clarify the mystery contained in them.” He suggests, in other words, that these two models must be used together, as if one model, to understand the “inner unity” of revelation in Scripture.

Models of Revelation 6

Dulles continues in Chapter 4 with his second model: “Revelation as History.”

A word of preface here. One of the features of the model mind-set is the increasing tendency, since the late 18th c., to “historicize” everything. This means that people see everything only, or at least mostly, in terms of a process over time. This view connects closely with the model of evolution, and goes a long way to explain why we now tend to see everything, not merely biology, in terms of that theory.

In a positive sense, this historicizing can keep us from making the mistake of thinking that people at time A had the same assumptions or attitudes about stuff as people at time B. It has made us more aware of the diversity of human experience.

But in a negative sense, historicizing has also undermined any confidence in a fundamental stability to stuff. It denies more or less strongly that anything is permanently real: thus, no unifying human nature, no unchanging moral law, etc.

Since everything else was subjected to historicizing in the 19th c., it’s not surprising that revelation also was.

Dulles notes from the first that there is an historical element in the first model of Revelation as dogma. That model implies that revelation occurs in history, for where else would it occur? It notes that revelation must also be handed down through history (“Traditio”). And it includes some events, such as Exodus and the life of Christ, in the category of Revelation. “Still, the propositional model is not in the fullest sense historical, for it denies that the events of sacred history are by themselves revelation…” (53).

The defining notion of this model is that “revelation occurs primarily through deeds, rather than words, and that its primary content is the series of events by which God has manifested himself in the past” (53).

Dulles identifies three forms of this model, and gives examples of theologians who follow each.

The first form he calls “Revelation as Event.” “God, inasmuch as he is personal, cannot be adequately revealed through nature, but only through persons – that is to say, through actors on the stage of human history. The historical persons and events are the source of any truths which the mind may derive from them. Creeds and doctrines depend upon the prior events of revelation from which they are derived.” (54). The events, in other words, offer a self-evident interpretation. For this version of this model, there are some immediate problems:
• If words do not reveal, there are no revealed truths in dogmatic form. At the extreme, all dogma is changeable, if our interpretation of the events of sacred history changes.
• The Bible, strictly speaking, is not revealed, and therefore cannot be held to be inerrant.
• What becomes the ground for interpreting the events of sacred history? At the extreme, is there even such a thing as Tradition?
• “If we cannot trust the biblical interpretation, what resources do we have for asserting [even] the fact that God was active in this history?” (56).

The second form he calls “Revelation as Salvation History.” The Protestant Oscar Cullmann and the Catholic Jean Danielou represent this version of the model quite well. Cullmann responds to some of the problems of the first version of this model by distinguishing among event, prophetic interpretation, and recapitulation. [So for example, the meaning of the event, “the crossing of the Red Sea,” is made clear through the centuries by accumulating layers of interpretation of liturgy and law and prophecy, culminating in the baptism of Christ in the Jordan and the institution of the Sacrament of Baptism in the Church.] The key difference from the first version of the model is that here, the events cannot interpret themselves. So there must be some kind of meaning-carrying Tradition to serve as the interpretive key. The Catholic scholar Danielou follows much the same path, but manages to include in the accumulating layers of meaning in Tradition a defense of Patristic typology. Something very significant for the reality of the Church comes from this, but of course this is a Catholic point, which Cullmann does not fully agree with.

The principle objection to this second version is that it still posits two kinds of history taking place together: one objective and human, one sacred and meaningful only to those who have faith. The third version, which Dulles calls “Revelation as History,” takes on this objection. One of its principle supporters was Pannenberg. “Revelation, he holds, is not to be found in a special segment of history, but rather in universal history…” (59). In other words, every event, no matter what its context, or how mundane or celebrated, how public or private it is, can serve to reveal something of God in an objective way. [NB, this is tied in to the mid-20th c. defense of historicizing which tries to make history into a social science, rather than a liberal art.] “Hence no special illumination is needed for their meaning to be understood. It suffices that people be able to use their reason… Faith, therefore, does not precede the recognition of revelation…” (59). In order to hold this position, one must claim that events reveal God only indirectly, never directly, which denies the possibility of theophanies, word-revelations [“I am who am.”], and miracles.

This throws one immediately back to the question of interpretation. This version can only hang its claim to objective, universal interpretation on the Resurrection. This becomes the interpretative key to the whole of Revelation, the most fundamental meaning of any and every other event in human history.

Question: Can you think of examples of this model which you have encountered?

Models of Revelation - Excursus on the origins of Faith

Back in the first chapter (p. 14), Dulles indicated that he was assuming the question of the origins of faith. In other words, he takes as given the remote past of the faith, and the successive layers of covenants between God and man - i.e., Adam both before and after the Fall, Noah, Abraham, Moses; then the successive renewal of the Mosaic covenant down to the Incarnation. This allows him to look at the big-enough topic "what is revelation" without having to parse repeatedly the even-bigger question "what is the relationship between revelation and faith." That would be too difficult a project.

But Tom and Dennis are raising the question, so let's step out of the book for a moment to consider that more closely.

There is a traditional apologetic answer to this question -- Augustine's masterpiece "On the City of God" is an excellent example -- which I think is still really the clearest and fullest one. It is the one Dulles is in fact assuming. It boils down to a fairly simple theology of the Fall, its corrosive effects on various created natures, and their redemption in Christ.

(1) Adam sinned by an act of disobedience. Thereby he lost the gift of the possibility of not sinning. We his children, therefore, inherit a corrupt nature, carrying the not-possibility of not-sinning. We call this concupiscence. It affects our will (we sin) and our intellect (we can't grasp God properly).

(2) He did not, however, lose either his status as a creature (God still loves him and us in the same way) or his purpose as a creature ("to know, love, and serve God in this life, and to be with Him eternally in the next").

Moreover, the goodness of creation is still good. It still reflects the goodness of God.

(3) So, despite concupiscence, our purpose of loving God still draws us to those aspects of His creation that fulfill, even if only partially, that purpose. These we call "natural virtues," such as the "Big Four:" prudence, temperance, justice, fortitude. We know these are good from our experience, and from any reasonable analysis of the outcomes of actions based on these versus the alternatives.

God uses these, then, to call us to him. This is the underlying, "historical," layer of faith: a choice to respond with prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude to the goodness of creation.

(4) Those who make this choice are therefore open to a further step in "knowing, loving, and serving God in this life, and being with Him eternally in the next." Outside of the specific revelation to Israel, there were and are naturally virtuous people, even lacking any clear knowledge of God's person: Augustine and other apologists point to some of the early patriarchs, philosophers like Plato or Cato the Elder, statesmen like Cincinnatus, lawgivers like Solon, etc. And of course ordinary people too, about whom we may know nothing.

Within the specific revelation to Israel, knowledge of God slowly became more clear: rooted in this "natural revelation" but gradually adding more and more specificity about who God is as Father, and what He desires from us as His children. This reaches its fullest point in the Incarnation. Christ leaves this fullness in the Church He wills, etc.

(5) Like every good thing from God, faith is, therefore, first and foremost a gift. In the general sense, it is the invitation to respond with natural -- and, eventually, supernatural -- virtue to the goodness of creation, and of the gift of being itself. We are free to respond positively or negatively. In the specific sense, it is the grace of God in me, against the impulse of concupiscence, strengthening and guiding my intellect and will, so that I may choose more positively than negatively. But even under the action of grace, I remain free to believe or reject. (This is quite a separate mystery, btw.)

As gift, faith is prior to revelation. It can be received even by infants, and so we not only practice but strongly encourage infant baptism. But, in another sense, revelation leads us to faith, which is why adult conversion (and baptism) is always possible.

Models of Revelation 5

We're still in Chapter 3, on the first model (revelation as doctrine). Remember Dulles's criteria of evaluation (see post #3):
1. Faithfulness to the Bible and Christian tradition
2. Internal coherence
3. Plausibility
4. Adequacy to experience
5. Practical fruitfulness – namely, “sustains moral effort, reinforces Christian commitment, and enhances the corporate life and mission of the Church” (p. 17)
6. Theoretical fruitfulness – humanly satisfying in the quest for religious understanding, and thus be of assistance for theology more broadly
7. Value for dialogue

Starting on p. 46, Dulles offers his evaluation of this model. First, its strengths: "The propositional model stands up well in terms of its faithfulness to tradition, its internal coherence, and its practical advantages..."

Faithfulness to Tradition: If revelation is in the form of doctrinal propositions, then these doctrinal propositions can be received immediately into Tradition, and preserved and passed on without having constantly to reinterpret and rephrase things. A good example of this would be Trinitarian and Christological formulae. Having been hashed out in finest detail once, and all the pieces and foundations of these formulae having been located in revealed Scripture, we don't need to redo any of that fight.

Internal Coherence: "Once the premises are granted, the whole theory follows with a certain inevitability. This, in turn, makes for a measure of theoretical fruitfulness. The propositional model provides firm doctrinal standards, so that the orthodoxy and heterodoxy of theological opinions can be measured..." (p. 46).

Practical advantages: A simple and useable theological method derives directly from this model. "Theology, then, has the task of systematizing the data of revelation, defending them against adversaries, and spelling out their logical implications." (p. 47). Even if one claims that theology may also do other things, these tasks are necessary as part of our response to revelation.

Moreover, "Among the more striking advantages of this model are its practical fruitfulness for the unity and growth of the Church." (p. 47). This would include loyalty to Scripture and Tradition, and clarity of and solidarity in identity and mission.

He then lists these weaknesses of this model:

"The Bible, in this approach, is viewed principally as a collection of propositions, each of which can be taken by itself as a divine assertion." (p. 48). And, "...every declarative sentence in the Bible, unless the contrary can be shown from the context, is to be taken as expressing a revealed truth." (p. 48-9). Both of these are true in a sense, but not absolutely. Some doctrines are revealed propositionally and immediately in Scripture (e.g., the sanctity of human life, in the Ten Commandments); some are revealed symbolically and must therefore be derived exegetically, which this model, as a pure type, does less well. Again, the quality of revealed truth in each sentence in Scripture must exist, unless we think that God can lie to us; but the nature of that truth is not identical from sentence to sentence. (This is sometimes referred to as the "four levels" of truth in Scripture.) These nuances are not contradicted by this model, but something must be added to the model to understand this in the way the Church asks us to.

Another weakness is adduced in the historicism of the day. If conciliar and magisterial statements of dogma are merely historical and not universal truths, then their foundation in Scripture may not be universal either. (You won't be surprised to know that I reject this sort of hyper-historicism root and branch, for very good epistemological reasons that are probably too complicated to deal with here.)

Another weakness is its "inadequacy to experience" (p. 50-1). It demands assent to explicit propositions and to past definitions, "irrespective of whether they actually illuminate the believer's own situation." (p. 51). To this it must be noted that this model, and its fruits, have certainly illuminated believers' situations, both in the past and in the present; and that the possibility of universal truth, as claimed, is not precluded by examples of weak or failed faith. To be fair, the other possibility needs to be considered objectively, also.

"Finally, it must be mentioned that the doctrinal understanding of revelation has not shown itself favorable to dialogue with other churches and religions." (p. 51). Again, this is true in one sense: if such doctrines are true, then their opposites cannot be, and those who adhere to the opposites are objectively in error. But, if one accepts that something in revelation is true, one can then pursue it in dialogue; while if one accepts that nothing is universally true in revelation, no dialogue is even possible.

Summary: On criteria # 1, 2, 5, and 6, this model is strong or very strong. On criteria # 4, this model is weak. On criteria # 3 and 7, this model gets mixed review, depending on other presuppositions. Dulles concludes with this final caveat: "In this chapter we have taken as a target a rather rigid form [what I called above a "pure type"] of the propositional model. In showing the shortcomings of this style of theology we should not be taken as implying that God's revelation is devoid of cognitive value or that the clear teachings of Scripture and the creeds are without grounds in revelation." (p. 52). To be revelation to us, at least some part of it must be graspable and expressible by our human intellects, in human language.