Semipelagianism (hence "SP")--developed by John Cassian in response to Augustine's polemic against Pelagius--implies that one makes a free first step toward salvation, a first step that is in the power of the individual apart from grace. That first step in itself is incomplete, and can be completed only with God's assistance by means of grace.
It seems that SP implies
(A) there can be human actions apart from God's grace,
and that is a proposition I wish to deny. No aspect of human action is possible apart from grace. Insofar as there is an aspect of human action--moral or otherwise--it owes its reality to God's act of creation. But God's act of creation is one of grace--it is a sheer gift. However, since SP implies (A), and (A) is--so far as I can tell--false, it follows SP is false.
salus populi est suprema lex
Derek replied some time ago to my reflections on Mary--and though this is perhaps now an ancient controversy, I still have something left to say.
I.
Things seem to have "wound down" considerably, as we might have reached bedrock conviction on a number of issues.
Consider the distinction between dogma and doctrine; "[t]his," he says, "as far as I’m concerned, is why this is worth fighting over." He is right to say that if the fifth Marian dogma is in fact a true dogma, I should wish to see him converted to it, as dogma by its very nature is mandatory. I agree with him. But look: timing is everything. I would wish him to be converted--but when? When I want to see it happen? No--in God's time. Sure, we have to sow the seeds of dogma, but that doesn't imply they will sprout on my schedule. At the suggestion he might be an anonymous Marian--that he might have already, anonymouosly have accepted the fifth dogma regardless of his conscious dissent here below--he is offended:
I hate to say it, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. If a roshi told me that I was an anonymous Buddhist, or if I were told by an imam that I was an anonymous Muslim, I’d thank them nicely for their complement of my character but feel a bit annoyed at their condescension.
Well, what if the roshi or the imam were right? John reflects on our preference for darkness and shadow in his gospel--annoyance would be an expected reaction to confrontation with dogma--on Scriptural grounds even. That may be condescending, but I think John would say I prefer darkness on other issues and practices; who can stand to leave the shade for long?
But, on the other hand, this may be bedrock for him: the notion of an anonymous Christian or Marian or whatever is--perhaps--just inconceivable. To the contrary, it strikes me that this is just how God operates elsewhere. Who would have guessed you'd be born--exactly you and not some other? Approximately nobody--and God didn't ask your permission first. You were thrown into the mix, and that's all there is to it. Who's to say you won't get tossed around again? I think of God as throwing us into new--even scarcely conceivable--existential situations, but Derek does not. And that seems to be a bedrock difference.
II.
Consider too how Derek develops the theological notion of recapitulation to help make sense of Marian dogmas. He writes:
The central question for me, then, is origin and volition: was the choice of obedience at the annunciation Mary’s free, “unaided” will, or was it her choice assisted and inspired by the Spirit already at work in her life? I can’t see it any other way than the second. To my way of thinking, even Mary’s “yes” was at God’s initiative through grace. It was surely not a coerced “yes”, but the prime mover for the action, its true origin, was in God and not Mary herself.
He has come to several large issues here--how human will relates to divine will, the nature of human action, how grace impacts action and the will, et al. These issues are so large, reasonable people may well be expected to disagree--like Banez and Molina, say. If settling on whether to accept the fifth dogma depends on addressing these issues, it may be each side has at least a prima facie reasonable case, and tolerance is called for from each side toward the other. We can probably agree on that.
Even so, another bedrock difference might emerge. It seems Derek has a rather Lutheran view of freewill--taking Luther's debate with Erasmus as defining where Luther stood. On that view--if I understand Derek correctly--Mary is no more an autonomous agent when she says "Yes" to God than an axe is when I swing it and split firewood, to adapt a figure from Luther. Surely in each case Mary and the axe play a role, perhaps an essential role, but their roles have nothing to do with autonomous freedom or incompatibilist freedom, to use the technical term. But on just this point, I side with Erasmus. To put it crudely: Mary and God act together in producing her "Yes," but she contributes something apart from God, which God could not contribute on his own, without which there would be no "Yes" at all--and could not be. Pressed, I would fall back on an amalgam of Scotus and Molina (as yet unpublished, mea culpa) in defense. Anyhow, here we seem to have another bedrock difference.
Given these differences, it's a good thing we can tolerate each other. There is something in our compatibility that recommends the Anglican ethos; for instance, neither of us are obligated as Anglicans to refuse to participate in the Eucharist with the other. To him, I'm probably confusing dogma with doctrine, but the doctrine is relatively harmless if a bit bizzare. To me, he is in for a big surprise.
I.
Things seem to have "wound down" considerably, as we might have reached bedrock conviction on a number of issues.
Consider the distinction between dogma and doctrine; "[t]his," he says, "as far as I’m concerned, is why this is worth fighting over." He is right to say that if the fifth Marian dogma is in fact a true dogma, I should wish to see him converted to it, as dogma by its very nature is mandatory. I agree with him. But look: timing is everything. I would wish him to be converted--but when? When I want to see it happen? No--in God's time. Sure, we have to sow the seeds of dogma, but that doesn't imply they will sprout on my schedule. At the suggestion he might be an anonymous Marian--that he might have already, anonymouosly have accepted the fifth dogma regardless of his conscious dissent here below--he is offended:
I hate to say it, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. If a roshi told me that I was an anonymous Buddhist, or if I were told by an imam that I was an anonymous Muslim, I’d thank them nicely for their complement of my character but feel a bit annoyed at their condescension.
Well, what if the roshi or the imam were right? John reflects on our preference for darkness and shadow in his gospel--annoyance would be an expected reaction to confrontation with dogma--on Scriptural grounds even. That may be condescending, but I think John would say I prefer darkness on other issues and practices; who can stand to leave the shade for long?
But, on the other hand, this may be bedrock for him: the notion of an anonymous Christian or Marian or whatever is--perhaps--just inconceivable. To the contrary, it strikes me that this is just how God operates elsewhere. Who would have guessed you'd be born--exactly you and not some other? Approximately nobody--and God didn't ask your permission first. You were thrown into the mix, and that's all there is to it. Who's to say you won't get tossed around again? I think of God as throwing us into new--even scarcely conceivable--existential situations, but Derek does not. And that seems to be a bedrock difference.
II.
Consider too how Derek develops the theological notion of recapitulation to help make sense of Marian dogmas. He writes:
The central question for me, then, is origin and volition: was the choice of obedience at the annunciation Mary’s free, “unaided” will, or was it her choice assisted and inspired by the Spirit already at work in her life? I can’t see it any other way than the second. To my way of thinking, even Mary’s “yes” was at God’s initiative through grace. It was surely not a coerced “yes”, but the prime mover for the action, its true origin, was in God and not Mary herself.
He has come to several large issues here--how human will relates to divine will, the nature of human action, how grace impacts action and the will, et al. These issues are so large, reasonable people may well be expected to disagree--like Banez and Molina, say. If settling on whether to accept the fifth dogma depends on addressing these issues, it may be each side has at least a prima facie reasonable case, and tolerance is called for from each side toward the other. We can probably agree on that.
Even so, another bedrock difference might emerge. It seems Derek has a rather Lutheran view of freewill--taking Luther's debate with Erasmus as defining where Luther stood. On that view--if I understand Derek correctly--Mary is no more an autonomous agent when she says "Yes" to God than an axe is when I swing it and split firewood, to adapt a figure from Luther. Surely in each case Mary and the axe play a role, perhaps an essential role, but their roles have nothing to do with autonomous freedom or incompatibilist freedom, to use the technical term. But on just this point, I side with Erasmus. To put it crudely: Mary and God act together in producing her "Yes," but she contributes something apart from God, which God could not contribute on his own, without which there would be no "Yes" at all--and could not be. Pressed, I would fall back on an amalgam of Scotus and Molina (as yet unpublished, mea culpa) in defense. Anyhow, here we seem to have another bedrock difference.
Given these differences, it's a good thing we can tolerate each other. There is something in our compatibility that recommends the Anglican ethos; for instance, neither of us are obligated as Anglicans to refuse to participate in the Eucharist with the other. To him, I'm probably confusing dogma with doctrine, but the doctrine is relatively harmless if a bit bizzare. To me, he is in for a big surprise.
Is it over yet?
Like those Japanese holdouts from World War II who stayed the course right through the '40s and '50s, right-wing Anglicans continue to insist on fighting yesterday's battles tomorrow.
I.
In case you've been hiding in the jungle for the last couple months or so, you should know that the last shreds of the ragged fabric of conservative ideology have unraveled, disintegrating spectacularly across the globe. Once upon a time Neoconservatism seemed compelling--can anyone after our five years in Iraq and Afganistan mouth neocon pieties with a straight face? And I still have relatives who self-identify as fiscal conservatives, though they are currently in a state of shock. I don't personally know anyone who follows fiscal conservatism out to its logical extreme--libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism--but there are a few high-profile examples out there on the radio and the internet. The Republican Party from Reagan forward--who remembers Nixon fixing prices?--has been happy to run huge deficits on principle, and that has always seemed to me sufficient to show that their fiscal conservative/libertarian rhetoric a la Buchanan, Tullock and von Mises was just for chumps, alot of chumps. Classical liberalism has long been dead.
Nevertheless, there are too many dead-enders with too much invested to abandon folly. Or, just as credit markets are said to be "frozen," we might say these secessionists are frozen, locked into their course.
What remains? Visceral, grumpy conservatism: paleocons, mashing together Burke with Kirk, social Darwinism and christianist fundamentalism, all with little regard for consistency--consistency which would lead to the already discredited neocon or classical liberal positions.
There are still consistent conservative positions available, yet to be tried: Carl Schmitt & Martin Heidegger might do in a pinch as the focus for new efforts willing to tacitly give up on Christianity's truth. I am impressed at how far the U.S. seems to have adopted Schmitt's point of view, as one can see in how our Executive Branch's powers have expanded in the War on Terror. But I do not think right-wing American voters are ready to embrace Schmitt/Heidegger openly. More likely: the right-wing elite embraces them, moving away from Strauss, while the elite's PR wing produces a front for their mass following consisiting of a jumble of grumpy, fiscal, and neocon positions. And from that quarter we will likely hear an intensification of calls to confront the Enemy for, say, defying "our" religion or "our" political values or "our" way of life.
II.
I've made the point before that GAFCON's efforts are riddled with inconsistencies; there is nothing there to serve as a stable foundation for debate, much less a form of life. Likewise with the Southern Cone: Preludium makes the point that its reception of Schofield and Duncan generates internal inconsistencies. And so what? Like right-wing dead enders, Anglican dead enders have no remaining coherent ideology, Christian or otherwise. What we are dealing with in the Anglican Communion is power politics, Machiavelli writ large, or maybe "theologico-political realism" for lack of a better term. The end of realignment justifies the praxeis necessary to produce the relevant result, so the key is to work out the mechanics of how to get to realignment.
That is ironically the very thing Archbishop Williams probably detests most of all; yes--he detests liberalism in its various forms--political, classical, theological--but liberalism is rooted in realism as an attempt to move realism in an ethically circimscribed direction: not Hobbes' leviathan but Locke's polity, not mercantilism but Smith's mostly free markets, etc. The problem is that such ethical circumscription does not typically restore theological primacy. Williams likely did not see TEC's Global South critics in terms of machiavellian realism, at least until very recently. Sure, maybe the GS is actually rightly characterized as accepting theological primacy for the most part, and the problem is rather with Minns-primacy; I hear he was once a high-powered businessman well-placed in the world. Maybe he--and other American GS leaders--picked up machiavellian habits from long habituation to the "rules of power" in the marketplace. Who knows? Williams wanted to restore theological primacy, even before seeing it take a left-wing course; thus he was willing to work with the GS as long as it seemed they too accepted theological primacy, even if wishing it to take a right-wing course.
III.
Now? We're waiting for Fort Worth, and perhaps others, to consummate their union with the ethos of machiavellian realism through performing the act, the act of schism. Won't be long now.
And what then? Preaching the Gospel and celebrating the Eucharist: what else? The Episcopal Church will have failed--this time--at containing competing factions within a common worship. Do you think the Church of England hasn't likewise failed? Remember the roundheads. More important than success at maintaining a common worship is fidelity to the effort. That may seem tragic, but it is not, since we are called to a common worship, to common prayer--e.g. it is not hubris. As awful as it may seem to say, our situation is not a tragedy at all, but more like a comedy, even a farce.
I.
In case you've been hiding in the jungle for the last couple months or so, you should know that the last shreds of the ragged fabric of conservative ideology have unraveled, disintegrating spectacularly across the globe. Once upon a time Neoconservatism seemed compelling--can anyone after our five years in Iraq and Afganistan mouth neocon pieties with a straight face? And I still have relatives who self-identify as fiscal conservatives, though they are currently in a state of shock. I don't personally know anyone who follows fiscal conservatism out to its logical extreme--libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism--but there are a few high-profile examples out there on the radio and the internet. The Republican Party from Reagan forward--who remembers Nixon fixing prices?--has been happy to run huge deficits on principle, and that has always seemed to me sufficient to show that their fiscal conservative/libertarian rhetoric a la Buchanan, Tullock and von Mises was just for chumps, alot of chumps. Classical liberalism has long been dead.
Nevertheless, there are too many dead-enders with too much invested to abandon folly. Or, just as credit markets are said to be "frozen," we might say these secessionists are frozen, locked into their course.
What remains? Visceral, grumpy conservatism: paleocons, mashing together Burke with Kirk, social Darwinism and christianist fundamentalism, all with little regard for consistency--consistency which would lead to the already discredited neocon or classical liberal positions.
There are still consistent conservative positions available, yet to be tried: Carl Schmitt & Martin Heidegger might do in a pinch as the focus for new efforts willing to tacitly give up on Christianity's truth. I am impressed at how far the U.S. seems to have adopted Schmitt's point of view, as one can see in how our Executive Branch's powers have expanded in the War on Terror. But I do not think right-wing American voters are ready to embrace Schmitt/Heidegger openly. More likely: the right-wing elite embraces them, moving away from Strauss, while the elite's PR wing produces a front for their mass following consisiting of a jumble of grumpy, fiscal, and neocon positions. And from that quarter we will likely hear an intensification of calls to confront the Enemy for, say, defying "our" religion or "our" political values or "our" way of life.
II.
I've made the point before that GAFCON's efforts are riddled with inconsistencies; there is nothing there to serve as a stable foundation for debate, much less a form of life. Likewise with the Southern Cone: Preludium makes the point that its reception of Schofield and Duncan generates internal inconsistencies. And so what? Like right-wing dead enders, Anglican dead enders have no remaining coherent ideology, Christian or otherwise. What we are dealing with in the Anglican Communion is power politics, Machiavelli writ large, or maybe "theologico-political realism" for lack of a better term. The end of realignment justifies the praxeis necessary to produce the relevant result, so the key is to work out the mechanics of how to get to realignment.
That is ironically the very thing Archbishop Williams probably detests most of all; yes--he detests liberalism in its various forms--political, classical, theological--but liberalism is rooted in realism as an attempt to move realism in an ethically circimscribed direction: not Hobbes' leviathan but Locke's polity, not mercantilism but Smith's mostly free markets, etc. The problem is that such ethical circumscription does not typically restore theological primacy. Williams likely did not see TEC's Global South critics in terms of machiavellian realism, at least until very recently. Sure, maybe the GS is actually rightly characterized as accepting theological primacy for the most part, and the problem is rather with Minns-primacy; I hear he was once a high-powered businessman well-placed in the world. Maybe he--and other American GS leaders--picked up machiavellian habits from long habituation to the "rules of power" in the marketplace. Who knows? Williams wanted to restore theological primacy, even before seeing it take a left-wing course; thus he was willing to work with the GS as long as it seemed they too accepted theological primacy, even if wishing it to take a right-wing course.
III.
Now? We're waiting for Fort Worth, and perhaps others, to consummate their union with the ethos of machiavellian realism through performing the act, the act of schism. Won't be long now.
And what then? Preaching the Gospel and celebrating the Eucharist: what else? The Episcopal Church will have failed--this time--at containing competing factions within a common worship. Do you think the Church of England hasn't likewise failed? Remember the roundheads. More important than success at maintaining a common worship is fidelity to the effort. That may seem tragic, but it is not, since we are called to a common worship, to common prayer--e.g. it is not hubris. As awful as it may seem to say, our situation is not a tragedy at all, but more like a comedy, even a farce.
quot homines, tot sententiae
Continuing with debate over the proper place of the Virgin Mary: Derek responded with Denuo..., and I should like to say a few things as well.
Where better to begin than with a quote von Balthasar: One is ashamed for a Christianity which today is ashamed of its own Mother. (tr. Aidan Nichols)
I.
Derek says: Show me the evidence, Scotist, that this was held by the undivided Church, and I’ll be happy to consider it more deeply. It is hard to know what level of evidence if desired, but there are some interesting bits and pieces from the Church Fathers--I presume Bernard, Bonaventure, and the like do not count, or at least do not count as much:
Expanding on one of the "causa salutis" reference of an earlier post, here is Irenaeus:
Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. (Adversus haeresus, III, 22)
And again from Irenaeus in the same work: And as by the action of the disobedient virgin, man was afflicted and, being cast down, died, so also by the action of the Virgin who obeyed the word of God, man being regenerated received, through life, life . . . For it was meet and just . . . that Eve should be "recapitulated" in Mary, so that the Virgin, becoming the advocate of the virgin, should dissolve and destroy the virginal disobedience by means of virginal obedience. (Ibid, III, 22,24)
St. Jerome put it briefly (Ep, 22, 21): Death through Eve, life through Mary.
Modestus of Jerusalem has it that through Mary we are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil. (Patrologia Graeca 86, 3287)
John Damascene addressing Mary: Hail though whom we are redeemed from the curse.
(Patrologia Graeca 86, 658)
There 's a neat saying from Augustine: Christ is truth, Christ is flesh: Christ truth in the mind of Mary, Christ flesh in the womb of Mary. (Sermo 25, Sermones inediti, 7: PL 46, 938)
And in that spirit, a bit from Origen's Commentary on John: The Gospels are the first fruits of all Scripture and the Gospel of John is the first of the Gospels: no one can grasp its meaning without having leaned his head on Jesus' breast and having received from Jesus Mary as Mother.
This is just a list I pieced together; it is not exhaustive, but might serve as a ground floor to the discussion, as all of it would be accessible free of charge to anyone with Google. Anyway, maybe there is enough here to merit further serious consideration. Although such quotes might be explained away individually--no great feat--that strategy is beside the point. Rather, we were seeking evidence for an appropriate base of belief or practice in the "undivided" church which might have found faithful articulation in the fifth Marian dogma. Such quotes, from diverse authorities spanning centuries, seem to me to constitute the desired evidence justifying further inquiry, or deeper consideration. This call for deeper consideration is not much--granted. And there is no demonstration of my case from these quotes--granted.
To Derek's section II, I shall have to plead ignorance. There is too much in Lumen Gentium which I cannot claim to understand, though it seems to me anyone holding to the analogy of faith would disavow any consideration of a Marian dogma apart from other dogmas; abstraction would produce new content. As I believe RC theologians generally take the analogy of faith seriously, they would seem to have to prefer considering Marian dogmas only as part of a greater dogmatic whole. Of course, that's not quite what I am doing, as the greater dogmatic whole a RC theologian might recognize is probably something I would not recognize.
The real difference between us, quotes from the Fathers et al aside, seems to be the distinction Derek draws in his section IV between doctrine and dogma. He writes dogmas are absolute and binding in a way that the more general term doctrine does not require, as a dogma is a belief we must hold about the faith, whereas a doctrine is a belief we actually hold. He might entertain the fifth dogma as a doctrine, something some hold where he thinks we may see popular devotion gone awry, but there is no sufficient basis, he seems to say, for regarding it as dogma.
I can live with that--both the doctrine/dogma distinction and the rejection of the dogma. Why? He is willing to tolerate Marian devotion as a doctrine, even if not as a dogma. And indeed though I think it really is a dogma, proving that in Anglican terms, from Scripture, might be impossible. There is no reason, as an Anglican and an Episcopalian, I have to convert him and others to belief in the fifth dogma as dogmatic, however desirable conversion would be.
Moreover, and perhaps more controversially, the text Derek quotes from the RC Catechism defining dogma as truth in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith has a certain looseness to it. A devotee of Rahner, familiar with the notion of an anonymous Christian, might think there could be anonymous Marians as well.
That is to say, even an Anglican who would think the propositional articulation of the fifth dogma is in error could nevertheless be a Marian in spite of himself, were he disposed to regard Christ with the heart of Mary. In that case, he might have a faithful relation to the dogma in question--an irrevocable adherence as it were. True, the fullest adherence for a rational animal might include propositional articulation, but adherence might well be possible in the absence of such articulation, or even in the presence of a contrary affirmation, as when words are uttered contrary to the inward disposition.
Where better to begin than with a quote von Balthasar: One is ashamed for a Christianity which today is ashamed of its own Mother. (tr. Aidan Nichols)
I.
Derek says: Show me the evidence, Scotist, that this was held by the undivided Church, and I’ll be happy to consider it more deeply. It is hard to know what level of evidence if desired, but there are some interesting bits and pieces from the Church Fathers--I presume Bernard, Bonaventure, and the like do not count, or at least do not count as much:
Expanding on one of the "causa salutis" reference of an earlier post, here is Irenaeus:
Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. (Adversus haeresus, III, 22)
And again from Irenaeus in the same work: And as by the action of the disobedient virgin, man was afflicted and, being cast down, died, so also by the action of the Virgin who obeyed the word of God, man being regenerated received, through life, life . . . For it was meet and just . . . that Eve should be "recapitulated" in Mary, so that the Virgin, becoming the advocate of the virgin, should dissolve and destroy the virginal disobedience by means of virginal obedience. (Ibid, III, 22,24)
St. Jerome put it briefly (Ep, 22, 21): Death through Eve, life through Mary.
Modestus of Jerusalem has it that through Mary we are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil. (Patrologia Graeca 86, 3287)
John Damascene addressing Mary: Hail though whom we are redeemed from the curse.
(Patrologia Graeca 86, 658)
There 's a neat saying from Augustine: Christ is truth, Christ is flesh: Christ truth in the mind of Mary, Christ flesh in the womb of Mary. (Sermo 25, Sermones inediti, 7: PL 46, 938)
And in that spirit, a bit from Origen's Commentary on John: The Gospels are the first fruits of all Scripture and the Gospel of John is the first of the Gospels: no one can grasp its meaning without having leaned his head on Jesus' breast and having received from Jesus Mary as Mother.
This is just a list I pieced together; it is not exhaustive, but might serve as a ground floor to the discussion, as all of it would be accessible free of charge to anyone with Google. Anyway, maybe there is enough here to merit further serious consideration. Although such quotes might be explained away individually--no great feat--that strategy is beside the point. Rather, we were seeking evidence for an appropriate base of belief or practice in the "undivided" church which might have found faithful articulation in the fifth Marian dogma. Such quotes, from diverse authorities spanning centuries, seem to me to constitute the desired evidence justifying further inquiry, or deeper consideration. This call for deeper consideration is not much--granted. And there is no demonstration of my case from these quotes--granted.
To Derek's section II, I shall have to plead ignorance. There is too much in Lumen Gentium which I cannot claim to understand, though it seems to me anyone holding to the analogy of faith would disavow any consideration of a Marian dogma apart from other dogmas; abstraction would produce new content. As I believe RC theologians generally take the analogy of faith seriously, they would seem to have to prefer considering Marian dogmas only as part of a greater dogmatic whole. Of course, that's not quite what I am doing, as the greater dogmatic whole a RC theologian might recognize is probably something I would not recognize.
The real difference between us, quotes from the Fathers et al aside, seems to be the distinction Derek draws in his section IV between doctrine and dogma. He writes dogmas are absolute and binding in a way that the more general term doctrine does not require, as a dogma is a belief we must hold about the faith, whereas a doctrine is a belief we actually hold. He might entertain the fifth dogma as a doctrine, something some hold where he thinks we may see popular devotion gone awry, but there is no sufficient basis, he seems to say, for regarding it as dogma.
I can live with that--both the doctrine/dogma distinction and the rejection of the dogma. Why? He is willing to tolerate Marian devotion as a doctrine, even if not as a dogma. And indeed though I think it really is a dogma, proving that in Anglican terms, from Scripture, might be impossible. There is no reason, as an Anglican and an Episcopalian, I have to convert him and others to belief in the fifth dogma as dogmatic, however desirable conversion would be.
Moreover, and perhaps more controversially, the text Derek quotes from the RC Catechism defining dogma as truth in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith has a certain looseness to it. A devotee of Rahner, familiar with the notion of an anonymous Christian, might think there could be anonymous Marians as well.
That is to say, even an Anglican who would think the propositional articulation of the fifth dogma is in error could nevertheless be a Marian in spite of himself, were he disposed to regard Christ with the heart of Mary. In that case, he might have a faithful relation to the dogma in question--an irrevocable adherence as it were. True, the fullest adherence for a rational animal might include propositional articulation, but adherence might well be possible in the absence of such articulation, or even in the presence of a contrary affirmation, as when words are uttered contrary to the inward disposition.
erga veritatem
In reply to Derek's Contra Scotistam I, I'd like to defend some of the points I made earlier about Mary--though I have to reinterate my disavowal of expertise and experience. Others with more exposure to Mariology should do better than I can, or at least be more accurate; caveat lector.
I.
Doctrine develops, and it develops naturally from devotion.
Whence the Chalcedonian definition? I should say: development from reflection on sacred text, sacred practice, and secondary theology--development that worked. Verily, saying
Thus, early devotion to the BVM as I see it was not fundamentally about doctrine. [But is any devotion fundamentally about doctrine?] Yes, there certainly was doctrine about the BVM, but as Christopher notes, it was in relation to Christology
would not preclude that early devotion developing into a separate doctrine, even a true doctrine. The contingent historical practices of ancient patronage making that early devotion intelligible as an historical phenomenon need not be essential parts of the developed doctrine. Just so, contemporary doctrine articulating the need for obedience to the last commandment of the Decalogue does not require taking women as property; nor do the inital commandments require henotheism. And rightly so.
II.
One may see Mary as the Church--"here is your mother"--in SoS commentaries and elsewhere; that symbolism is consistent with taking Mary to be Mediatrix. In fact, it seems to set up a structure crying out for just such doctrine. The schema I threw around was:
the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People.
Nothing precludes the schema being elaborated thus:
the Father--the Son--the Church [Mary--....].
That would be to say the Father is normally mediated to the people through the Son only in the Church, where Mary represents the Church before Christ.
III.
The gist of what Derek wants to say, the main point I think, is here:
The bottom line for me is this: Yes, Anglicans should honor Mary, giving her the veneration she is due....But does this mean we must embrace modern Roman dogmas in her regard, especially the contentious issue of “co-redemptrix”? I think not. Yes, our salvation comes through her as she bore the Christ and shared with him her humanity, but redemption proper is a function of the Uncreated Godhead. If she were to be “co-redemptrix” for her role, by extension the patriarchs must also become “co-redeemers” for their role in the unfolding of salvation according to both the flesh and the spirit. (And you won’t see the Roman church pushing for that anytime soon…) So, devotion to Mary? By all means. Scholastic dogmas of Mary? Unnecessary, I think. Illicit? No, I don’t think that either—but not required.
First, I do not think that the argument beginning with "If she were to be "co-redemptrix"... is sound. What the Roman church pushes or does not push for is not a necessary criterion for how doctrine should develop. More importantly, the roles of the Patriarchs differed from that of Mary. While they contributed to the history of salvation, their contribution was significantly different from Mary's. In virtue of that difference, her contribution might merit a different title.
Well, what's the difference? Picture Mary and Abraham witnessing the life of Jesus. They would see the same events of the very same life, but they would see them differently inasmuch as Mary has a connection to Jesus that Abraham does not simply from the fact she is his mother and he is not.
You might say--and this is very close to my main point--Abraham knows something like what Mary knows when he takes Isaac away to be sacrificed. Kierkegaard mentions this likeness in Fear and Trembling, though he does not make anything of it in terms of Marian doctrine: both Abraham and Mary are paradigms of faith. In Kierkegaard's treatment, Abraham's first-person experience of taking Isaac out to be sacrificed matters; indeed it is essential to the truth God wishes to communicate in Genesis 18 et al.
Just so, Mary's first-person experience of Jesus' life matters. Is it essential to the truth God wishes to communicate?
It seems Derek would say "No!" here. That is, it seems according to him you do not need to see Jesus as she saw him; nothing essential to the faith is gained by it. Whatever she knew of Jesus that was peculiar to her is a remainder that well remains with her alone, with no ultimately significant loss to us.
Of course I disagree with this hypothetical Derek, and say "Yes". Genuine faith in Jesus requires grace, at least so that we might regard the object of our belief, the Jesus of the Gospels--Jesus as Mary knew him--with grace. That is, not as a patron with whom I negotiate a mutual exchange or from whom I first and foremost get what I want, but as beloved.
Of course Abraham and Mary are not exactly parallels: e.g. Abraham's faith was not formed by the actual sacrifice of Isaac; Mary was not so fortunate with Jesus; Mary saw the life of Jesus unfold with a type of grace that Abraham lacked in seeing Isaac. So far as I can tell, these differences would intensify the significance of Mary's first-person experience of Jesus. Coming to regard Jesus as beloved, in grace, is sharing the most relevant and essential aspect of Mary's experience of Jesus. There is no other type of love fitting for him.
I call having this love for Jesus that Mary had "having the heart of Mary", and then went on to say:
anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith.
That still seems right to me. If it is, then there is a sense in which grace is mediated to the Church through Mary, though that grace does not originate with her, and the work of redemption Christ completed is not her work.
I.
Doctrine develops, and it develops naturally from devotion.
Whence the Chalcedonian definition? I should say: development from reflection on sacred text, sacred practice, and secondary theology--development that worked. Verily, saying
Thus, early devotion to the BVM as I see it was not fundamentally about doctrine. [But is any devotion fundamentally about doctrine?] Yes, there certainly was doctrine about the BVM, but as Christopher notes, it was in relation to Christology
would not preclude that early devotion developing into a separate doctrine, even a true doctrine. The contingent historical practices of ancient patronage making that early devotion intelligible as an historical phenomenon need not be essential parts of the developed doctrine. Just so, contemporary doctrine articulating the need for obedience to the last commandment of the Decalogue does not require taking women as property; nor do the inital commandments require henotheism. And rightly so.
II.
One may see Mary as the Church--"here is your mother"--in SoS commentaries and elsewhere; that symbolism is consistent with taking Mary to be Mediatrix. In fact, it seems to set up a structure crying out for just such doctrine. The schema I threw around was:
the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People.
Nothing precludes the schema being elaborated thus:
the Father--the Son--the Church [Mary--....].
That would be to say the Father is normally mediated to the people through the Son only in the Church, where Mary represents the Church before Christ.
III.
The gist of what Derek wants to say, the main point I think, is here:
The bottom line for me is this: Yes, Anglicans should honor Mary, giving her the veneration she is due....But does this mean we must embrace modern Roman dogmas in her regard, especially the contentious issue of “co-redemptrix”? I think not. Yes, our salvation comes through her as she bore the Christ and shared with him her humanity, but redemption proper is a function of the Uncreated Godhead. If she were to be “co-redemptrix” for her role, by extension the patriarchs must also become “co-redeemers” for their role in the unfolding of salvation according to both the flesh and the spirit. (And you won’t see the Roman church pushing for that anytime soon…) So, devotion to Mary? By all means. Scholastic dogmas of Mary? Unnecessary, I think. Illicit? No, I don’t think that either—but not required.
First, I do not think that the argument beginning with "If she were to be "co-redemptrix"... is sound. What the Roman church pushes or does not push for is not a necessary criterion for how doctrine should develop. More importantly, the roles of the Patriarchs differed from that of Mary. While they contributed to the history of salvation, their contribution was significantly different from Mary's. In virtue of that difference, her contribution might merit a different title.
Well, what's the difference? Picture Mary and Abraham witnessing the life of Jesus. They would see the same events of the very same life, but they would see them differently inasmuch as Mary has a connection to Jesus that Abraham does not simply from the fact she is his mother and he is not.
You might say--and this is very close to my main point--Abraham knows something like what Mary knows when he takes Isaac away to be sacrificed. Kierkegaard mentions this likeness in Fear and Trembling, though he does not make anything of it in terms of Marian doctrine: both Abraham and Mary are paradigms of faith. In Kierkegaard's treatment, Abraham's first-person experience of taking Isaac out to be sacrificed matters; indeed it is essential to the truth God wishes to communicate in Genesis 18 et al.
Just so, Mary's first-person experience of Jesus' life matters. Is it essential to the truth God wishes to communicate?
It seems Derek would say "No!" here. That is, it seems according to him you do not need to see Jesus as she saw him; nothing essential to the faith is gained by it. Whatever she knew of Jesus that was peculiar to her is a remainder that well remains with her alone, with no ultimately significant loss to us.
Of course I disagree with this hypothetical Derek, and say "Yes". Genuine faith in Jesus requires grace, at least so that we might regard the object of our belief, the Jesus of the Gospels--Jesus as Mary knew him--with grace. That is, not as a patron with whom I negotiate a mutual exchange or from whom I first and foremost get what I want, but as beloved.
Of course Abraham and Mary are not exactly parallels: e.g. Abraham's faith was not formed by the actual sacrifice of Isaac; Mary was not so fortunate with Jesus; Mary saw the life of Jesus unfold with a type of grace that Abraham lacked in seeing Isaac. So far as I can tell, these differences would intensify the significance of Mary's first-person experience of Jesus. Coming to regard Jesus as beloved, in grace, is sharing the most relevant and essential aspect of Mary's experience of Jesus. There is no other type of love fitting for him.
I call having this love for Jesus that Mary had "having the heart of Mary", and then went on to say:
anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith.
That still seems right to me. If it is, then there is a sense in which grace is mediated to the Church through Mary, though that grace does not originate with her, and the work of redemption Christ completed is not her work.
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