What is the "Deposit of Faith?"

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

 

Michaelangelo's "Creation of Man"

#1 God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness, freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.

 

#2 So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."⁴ Strengthened by this mission, the apostles "went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it."⁵

 

Christ teaching the Apostles

#3 Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.⁶

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a lot of talk in the Church these days about "changing teaching."  This kind of talk is dangerous, especially when it fails to make clear the critical distinction between what is changeable, and what is not, among the Church's many teachings.

 

The whole of the "deposit of faith" is not changeable.  As the quote from the beginning of the CCC shows, it is precisely this core content, revealed by God in the Incarnation, life, Passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as well as in Scripture and Apostolic Tradition, that must be kept whole and intact, and passed on to future generations.  Christ Himself commanded that the Apostles (and their successors) do exactly that: preserve and hand on, without change, the teachings ("deposit of faith") He taught them.

 

St Bede the Venerable,
preserving and proclaiming

A certain bishop recently said, "We're not a Church of preservation, but rather a Church of proclamation."  This is misleading.  We certainly are a Church of proclamation, but the only thing we have authority (given by Christ) to proclaim is precisely what has been preserved, namely the apostolic deposit of faith.  We're not free to add to it or subtract from it, to alter it, to rearrange its parts into a more pleasing pattern, to hide parts of it behind other parts of it, etc.  We are given the mandate by Christ Himself to preserve it, and to hand it on.  So, we are also a Church of preservation - not for the sake of preserving as an end in itself, but precisely for the sake of proclaiming something real and true.

 

So what constitutes that deposit of faith?  Here's a brief schematic (following CCC #84 ff):

• Scripture and Tradition - the unchangingness of revealed/inspired Scripture is generally unquestioned, but some modern translations implicitly change the meaning by subordinating the actual text to (transient) cultural norms; "Tradition" tends to be understood rather nebulously, rather than as the concrete set of things the Apostles actually did and taught, and therefore passed on to their immediate successors to be received as essential to faith in Christ.  The problem is precisely that Tradition is not written down.  But, the synthesis of the Pastristic Fathers and the witness of the medieval and early modern Church does a good job of demonstrating in practice what Tradition really means.

• 

  An ecumenical council:
  pope and bishops together

  Magisterium - the teaching authority of the Church.  It has two and only two explicit duties, for which Christ has given His authority, namely, the preservation of the deposit of faith, and the interpretation of it across time and cultures.  There is no authority given to innovate.
• defined Dogma - Some aspects of faith are so overarching that they "crystalize" in dogmatic form.  Dogma must be present from the beginning, as part of the deposit of faith, but may be demonstrated either from Scripture or from Tradition.  Having been defined with full magisterial authority, dogma cannot be changed, and we should not lightly change the formula in which the dogma is expressed.  Here's a short list (not trying to be comprehensive):
• Trinity - God is three persons in one substance; God is both transcendent and immanent
• Incarnation - Christ is both fully God and fully man; "remaining what He was, He became what He was not;" He truly suffered and died for our sins; His sacrifice on the Cross is sufficient for our redemption; He truly rose from the dead and took again the body he had previously assumed, now perfected and glorified; He founded the Church He intended to found; etc
• Church - "One, holy, Catholic, and apostolic," with a divinely-intended mission and "constitution," including the authority of the papacy and the episcopate
• Seven Sacraments - hence also the fullness of the liturgy, sacramental grace, the reality of sin and conversion, the necessity of baptism; the baptismal call to holiness; the revealed definition of marriage; the mission of the laity in the world as witnesses and disciples; the clergy
• Four Last Things
• Etc - all of these defined dogmas have numerous further implications for doctrine (positively expressed but not defined with highest authority), which likewise can't be contradicted without calling the dogma into question, as well as for pastoral practice, which likewise can't be contradicted (although there is generally a wide range of pastoral options that don't contradict the dogma)
• "sensus fidei," the actual unity of faith experienced as the instinctive acceptance of what is consistent with Catholic faith, and the instinctive rejection of what isn't - this is a sure guide, to the extent that it matches up with "what Catholics believe, always, everywhere, and by everyone"
• It is a greatly damaging modern conceit that only Catholics today matter, because Catholics in the past weren't "mature" or were "superstitous" or the like.  This idea must be rejected as a grave sin of pride, and as a contradiction of the deposit of faith.
• "faith seeking understanding," the actual fullness of truth (sufficient for salvation) of the whole of the one faith, experienced as longing to know and love God by faith, contemplation, and study (study does not have to be formal; pious practices like reading the lives of the saints are also study, in this sense)

The Lamb of God

All this content of the deposit of faith is ultimately received from God.  Willfully to reject it, modify it, or subordinate it to personal whims or cultural demands is to commit the same sin of pride that caused the fall of the lost angels.  (We sometimes do that not willfully, because we are finite beings, and because we are always under pressure from the world, the flesh, and the devil to make compromises.  This is what we mean we say "The Church is always in need of reform.")  To be faithful to Christ means that we must make every possible effort to receive the deposit of faith entire and uncorrupt (which is given to us with supernatural power in the sacraments and in the Magisterium of all time, so we can actually know it), and also to pass it on by our teaching, our witness, and our piety, likewise entire and uncorrupt. 

 

 

 

 

 

Society for Catholic Liturgy conference, Oct 2-4, 2014, in Colorado Springs

This past weekend I presented a paper at the annual conference of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, in Colorado Springs.  St. Mary's Cathedral was a great venue for the conference, and it was great to meet some new people and hear some quite excellent papers and presentations.

Here are some brief write-ups about the conference.  The main keynote was from Bp. Conley of Lincoln.

Bp. Conley giving keynote at St. Mary's Cathedral. Picture by Jennifer Donelson.
 

My paper was called "Order of Levitical Blessing: Fruitfully Reclaiming a Patristic, Liturgical Typology of the Diaconate."  I argued that the Latin Church very early developed a theology of the diaconate based on the type of the Levite, the second priesthood (after that of Aaron) of the Old Testament.  We can see this type used in a wide variety of sources, liturgical and non-liturgical.  I sketched out the main lines of development of the type, noting its moral arguments and its theological implications for relationships among the grades of Holy Orders, and I examined the use of the type in the ordination rites of deacons in the Latin Church (citing texts from the Leonine Sacramentary, Gelasian Sacramentary, Gregorian Sacramentary, Missale Francorum, Liber Ordinum (Mozarabic Rite), and Tridentine (1595) Pontificale Romanum), and comparing the much more limited use of the type in the current (2012 English edition) Pontificale.  I showed how the Tradition had developed an understanding of specific blessings or graces for the Church in the separate ministry of deacons, complementing that of other orders, and how that idea disappeared from the current recension of the rite, because it used only New Testament passages to develop a (slightly different) theology of the diaconate.  I therefore suggested that re-introducing the previous Old Testament typology to our understanding of the rite and of the diaconate would greatly add to the Church's reflection on the renewal of the diaconate, and help us answer key questions about certain aspects of its sacramentality, and about its distinctive place within the layers of the Church's ministry.

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 4

Chapter 3 examines the first of his five models: "revelation as doctrine." This is the most traditional of the models, at least in the chronological sense. "But it would be too much to claim that this theory was dominant in patristic times or in the Middle Ages..." (p. 36).

He notes in some detail how this model is used in conservative evangelical Christianity, but we're going to jump to his second section, how it's used in Catholicism (see p. 41).

This theory is strongest and most fully deployed in what he calls Neo-Scholasticism, an attempted revival of Scholastic method from mid-19th century to mid-20th century. "As we shall see in later chapters, the Second Vatican Council backed away from some [emphasis added] of the characteristic emphases and tenets of neo-Scholasticism" (p. 41).

Key aspects of this model

1. distinction between "natural" and "supernatural" revelation. Natural revelation is "by deeds" - phenomena of the natural world, up to and including human capacities and behaviors (e.g. natural revelation concerning the nature of sexuality and marriage, from the gender complementarity of human physiology). The existence of God as one divine and personal being is knowable from natural revelation alone. Supernatural revelation is "by words" - either inspired human words, or direct divine speech. The mysteries of faith, e.g. the Trinity and the Incarnation, are knowable only from supernatural revelation.

2. Supernatural revelation directly transmits conceptual knowledge. Even though human words may not capture totally the fully sense of divine speech, what is expressible is accurately expressible. E.g., this doctrinal statement about the Trinity, revealed in the totality of Scripture: "three persons in one substance," is accurate, even though it does not and cannot completely express the reality of the Trinity.

3. What is supernaturally revealed therefore commands assent, because of the divine authority of the speaker who reveals. Everybody loses arguments with God.

4. This applies most importantly to Scripture itself. Dulles quotes a key part of the First Vatican Council's statement on Scripture: "All those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment, or by its ordinary and universal magisterium, proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed." In the Profession of Faith which all clergy take before ordination, and again whenever they take up an office in the Church, the same is sworn: "Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act."

5. Certainty in faith therefore derives from the perfection of God. Faith is inherently reasonable, both in its content and in the decision to assent and believe (see Pope Benedict's Regensburg lecture). But it is not provable by means outside itself (IOW, by reason alone). Miracles and the like support this, and give sensory evidence in favor of faith. Note that this does not exclude the need for interior grace to assent; faith, the act of believing, is a gift, first and foremost.

6. Revelation therefore has an inherent link with "the deposit of faith." The deposit of faith was built up in the process of Israel living through the events of the Old Testament, and gradually recording them through inspired human writers; and in the process of Christ's birth and life, death and resurrection, and recording them in the New Testament, again through inspired human writers. Revelation also implies communicating the contents of the deposit of faith to each new generation ("evangelization and catechesis"). So, in one sense, revelation is the deposit of faith; in another, it is the communication of it, first by God to us, and then generationally by the Church to us.

Go back to post #3, and begin applying his evaluative schema to this model. What works and what doesn't work? What are its strengths and weaknesses? We'll look at his answer next.