One More Friend to Enter the Church

Becoming Orthodox

(By Jeremy Carey)

After over two years of thought, prayer, and struggle, I am officially becoming a part of the Orthodox Church. God willing, I will be baptized during Holy Week and have my first communion on Pascha, that is, Easter, 2013. Most of you know about my long interest in Orthodoxy, but I haven’t spoken of it in much detail. For my own sake, to try to collect thoughts that have been long in forming (though I know many must escape words), and for the sake of any who care about me and might be interested, I thought I would try to put down in writing the main considerations that have led me to what for many seems a strange and exotic form of Christianity.

Orthodoxy is richly traditional, and, like all real traditions, has to be experienced over a period of time to have any real grasp of its meaning. Therefore, I can’t pretend to do any justice to what really eventually draws one into Orthodoxy. Still, at the surface level, at the level of what can be communicated fairly clearly, it seems to me that the things which attracted me most can be clustered into two main issues: the nature of the Church, and the nature of salvation. I’ll say a little bit about each of these.

Before I do so, it’s worth pointing out something that can be easily misunderstood. Though it’s fairly easy to focus on the differences between Orthodoxy and other forms of Christianity (for my purposes, primarily Protestant Evangelicalism), they do share much important in common. Though I will have some things to say about what I find problematic about contemporary Protestantism, I don’t see my transition to Orthodoxy as a rejection of my previous experience so much as a fulfillment (and, naturally, at times a corrective) of all that was good in that experience.

Those who know me well know that I grew up in a church whose theology was and is, by the standards of historical Christianity, problematic (to say the least). It wasn’t until my second year in college that I found I could accept the doctrine of the Trinity.

This background and the changes that my thought and practice had to go through naturally had an effect on my mindset and the way I approached Christianity. I had grown up thinking that Christianity took a turn for the worst very soon after the death of Christ, and that most Christians for most of history were mistaken in fundamental beliefs. The denomination I grew up in taught that not only was the doctrine of the Trinity, which was so central in the intellectual and spiritual development of the Church, wrong, but it was harmful.

Though I think it has since weakened its stance, I was also taught that salvation depended on a certain way of being baptized and the attaining of certain spiritual experiences, requirements most self-identified Christians throughout the centuries did not meet. As I began to reject these problematic claims, my understanding of the history of Christianity would also have to change, but I never settled how or even gave the matter much explicit thought. Though I was intensely interested in Christian theology, this meant that, like most Protestant Christians, I studied contemporary theologians or, at the limits, those going back to the years after the reformation.

All of this changed for me when my cousin, with whom I’m extremely close, began also to question the same problematic claims of our shared childhood denomination which I had recently rejected. Initially, he seemed at a loss for what to do next, flirting with various non-Christian philosophies and religions. I did my best to steer him towards the reasonable Reformed Christianity of which I was then a part.

To my dismay, it soon became clear that the only options he was taking seriously were Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. As we debated for the next year or so, I was forced for the first time to confront my understanding of Christian history and the nature of the Church, and to think seriously about the knee-jerk objections I had been raised with against distinctive practices of the historical churches like prayer to saints and the veneration of the Mother of God (I will not be discussing these here – if you have questions or worries about them, I’d be happy to discuss them further). In the end, he became Orthodox.

By that time, though I had not yet set foot in an Orthodox Church, I was intellectually convinced that Orthodoxy contained a beauty and a fullness that I desired and seemed to me so lacking from my previous understanding of the Church and Christian life. Here I hope to give some hint of this fullness and beauty.

Soon after I came to accept the doctrine of the Trinity, it began to seem incredible to me that most Christians for most of history were so misguided on so many issues that I now had the right answers to. These were men who were closer to the time of the apostles, who shared more of their culture, and who were willing to die for what they saw as the understanding of Christianity needed to ensure the salvation of mankind and the world. Surely these characteristics made them more likely to understand the truth than me, living in comfort and sitting in my ivory tower.

I also began to notice the strangeness of our current ecclesial situation, with thousands of denominations believing so many different things, and many more started every year. Surely this was not Christ’s plan or that of the Apostles in the early days of the Church. This strange situation, which is so easy for us to take for granted, is in fact historically new. There was a time when the Church was (for the most part) unified, and when unity was seen as a necessity.

But what was the basis of this unity? This is an important question in our own day, when Christians are more and more feeling the effects of their separation and longing for a reestablishment of unity. But this unity cannot be cheap. Christians disagree about so much – baptism, the nature of the Eucharist, the church calendar, veneration of the saints, the Sacraments, church hierarchy. How are we to know what is fundamental and who is to judge? Back in my more, let’s say, optimistically ecumenical days, I would have probably proposed something like the acceptance of the Apostle’s Creed at face value as the measure for essential Christian unity.

As long as one can say the creed and mean it, that’s all that matters. Of course, it’s not clear what “face value” means here, and Catholics and Orthodox will mean something very different from Protestants when they talk about the Virgin Mary and the communion of saints and the catholicity of the Church. And what about baptism, which plays no role in this creed? And what about the Eucharist itself?

Though I think it’s correct that there is something like what C.S. Lewis called “mere Christianity”, and that the things which bind us are far more important than the things that separate us, it’s also easy to overestimate the similarities. The fact is that Protestants, by definition (though some groups more than others), consciously reject a huge portion of what most Christians believed and how they acted for the majority of the Church’s existence.

At the least, between, say, 300 and 1000 AD, Christian practice and understanding was fairly uniform and would involve things like a hierarchy of deacons, priests, bishops, and patriarchs; a veneration of relics and holy places; an understanding of the centrality of the Eucharist and Christ’s real presence therein; a special respect for Mary as the Mother of God; following a calendar which includes regular and occasionally intense fasting; ritualized and highly symbolic liturgy (to name just a few – the rejection of these last two seems especially strange to me given how obviously important they were to Judaism and the enormous likelihood that they would be taken up by the earliest Christians, who were primarily Jewish).

Most of these things play no role in the faith of many Protestants and are viewed by them as, at the very least, unnecessary. And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that, for example, your average Christian from 1000 years ago would feel pretty comfortable in an Orthodox liturgy or traditional Catholic mass of today, but would be at a complete loss in a typical Protestant service (though this depends significantly on what type of Protestant we’re talking about).

But the key question in all this is not really about how similar or different various Christian groups are, but what Christian unity consists in. And it seems to me that the answer that developed within the lifetime of those who knew the apostles stressed two things: (1) apostolic succession through the office of bishops, and (2) accordance with apostolic tradition (what Irenaeus calls the “rule of faith”, and which was never seen as a competitor with Scripture, but as the proper interpretation and use of Scripture). Here are representative quotes from two important sources:

(1) St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-108 AD):

“To the end that you may obey the bishop and presbytery without distraction of mind; breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality and the antidote that we should not die but live for ever in Jesus Christ.” Epistle to the Ephesians, 20:2

“Let no one do anything that has to do with the church without the bishop. Only that Eucharist which is under the authority of the bishop (or whomever he himself designates) is to be considered valid. Wherever the bishop appears, there let the congregation be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 8:1-2

(2) St. Irenaeus:

“For [the Church] is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account are we bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the thing pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, [in that case,] to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? … Now all these [heretics] are of much later date than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the Churches… since they are blind to the truth, and deviate from the [right] way, they will walk in various roads; and therefore the footsteps of their doctrine are scattered here and there without agreement or connection. But the path of those belonging to the Church circumscribes the whole world, as possessing the sure tradition from the apostles, and gives unto us to see that the faith of all is one and the same….” Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 4; Book 5, Chapter 20

[Discussing the authority of the writings of St. Clement of Rome]:

“To this Clement there succeeded Evaristus. Alexander followed Evaristus; then, sixth from the apostles, Sixtus was appointed; after him, Telephorus, who was gloriously martyred; then Hyginus; after him, Pius; then after him, Anicetus. Soter having succeeded Anicetus, Eleutherius does now, in the twelfth place from the apostles, hold the inheritance of the episcopate. In this order, and by this succession, the ecclesiastical tradition from the apostles, and the preaching of the truth, have come down to us. And this is most abundant proof that there is one and the same vivifying faith, which has been preserved in the Church from the apostles until now, and handed down in truth.” Book 3, Chapter 3.

These are just a few statements but I think they illustrate the approach to the unity of the Church I mentioned, and they both happen to be very early – when these men became Christian, it was under the influence of people who knew the apostles themselves. And what is striking to me is the fact that the marks of unity defended here – faithfulness to apostolic tradition, secured by apostolic succession – are precisely those which Catholics and the Orthodox still claim to have and which the reformers gave up on.

(Again, to be fair, different Protestants will feel differently about this – many will claim to be faithful to a true apostolic tradition which in others has been corrupted by various pagan influences. I suppose I just don’t find these arguments convincing; at any rate, their idea of apostolic tradition is simply whatever can be gleaned by the best reading of the apostolic writings rather than what was the passed down (“traditioned”) understanding of those writings and the way they are best put into practice.)

This living tradition of the Church, the body of Christ active in the world through the Holy Spirit, also helps to solve the problem of authority that had come to bother me so much in my attempt to study the Bible. Though I came to believe that the Trinity is a biblical doctrine which is normative for all Christians, my own long experience in the oneness tradition showed that this could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt from the texts themselves.

This is a problem if Scripture is the only source of authority for Christian doctrine. The doctrine of Sola Scriptura seems to require the corollary doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture – that the meaning of Scripture must be clear to anyone who approaches it with an open mind and a good will. But this doctrine seems clearly a failure in practice – for members of all of the thousands of Protestant denominations claim to find different things in the clear meanings of Scripture. It is perhaps too easy to simply deny that those we disagree with really have an open mind or a good will, but such a tactic is problematic. My own struggles to find even as central a doctrine as the Trinity taught clearly in the text of the Bible showed me that common sense and an open mind are not enough.

Worse, Sola Scriptura is self-defeating. For it is a matter of doctrine what the Bible is, something that there was debate about in the early centuries, and this is not something that can be found out from Scripture itself. Are the so-called apocryphal books parts of the Bible? What about the book of James or Revelation? What about the Shepherd of Hermas? What doctrines one finds in the Scriptures depends on what one believes the Scriptures to be.

Furthermore, such a doctrine requires that in the earliest days of the Church, there were no fundamental doctrines, nothing that had to be accepted in order to be a Christian. This is because for the first several decades the Church existed without any of the New Testament writings, and it was much longer after that before the books circulated as a single entity called ‘the New Testament’. So how did they know what to believe, about Christ? How did they organize their worship services and conceive of the Christian life? The answer is: based on the teachings of the apostles, and those appointed by the apostles. Why think that things changed dramatically with the formation of the canon as we now know it?

The basic problem here seems to me a separation and distinction between God’s written Word, and his living Word, that is, the Church, which is the body of Christ. The Scriptures and the Church cannot be thought of as separate sources of God’s work. The Scripture comes from the Church and is God’s Word in a unique sense because it is the Word of his Body. But the Church’s life, insofar as it is the life of Christ, is also a source of revelation.

There’s much more to be said about the Church, but I want also to say something briefly about the Orthodox conception of salvation, which has changed the way I think of Christianity. Before I even thought seriously about Orthodoxy, I had come to question the standard Protestant presentation of what exactly the basic story of the gospel is. On that story, the basic problem which Christianity solves is God’s wrath against sin and, therefore, since we are sinners,

God’s wrath against us. This problem is solved by Christ’s atoning death, which is thought of as a sort of penal substitution – Christ experiences God’s wrath instead of us. Because of this atonement, we are ‘declared’ righteous with Christ’s righteousness, and therefore set free from the consequences of our sinfulness. Though I don’t deny that this story captures something of the truth, it seems to me to have two central problems:

First, its conception of forgiveness seems troubling. Why does God’s wrath have to be ‘discharged’? Why can’t he just forgive us if he loves us, without someone needing to be punished? Can it really be the case that justice and mercy conflict with each other in this way? There are various ways of answering these questions, none of which end up seeming to me fully satisfactory. But the second and bigger problem is just that this story seems relevant to such a small part of our everyday lives – it seems less than the Good News that we need.

As George MacDonald put it, Jesus was so named because he would save us from our sins, not just from the consequences of our sins. Our problem is not just that we have sinned, thus incurring God’s wrath, but that we are sinners, and, because of that, we continue to hurt each other, to isolate ourselves, to destroy our planet, and to be subject to physical and spiritual death.

In other words, our main problem is existential and relational, and not the sort of thing that can be solved completely merely by another’s death and a declaration of righteousness.

(Another important point, which I’ll discuss a bit below – this standard gospel story doesn’t tell us anything about why the Resurrection was important and necessary, though it was the lynchpin of the apostolic preaching. If all that was needed was Christ’s atoning death, why did he need to be resurrected physically? What does the resurrection do for us?)

Contrast this with the Orthodox conception of salvation. To get the full story we have to go back to our creation in the image of God, meant for fellowship with God. Our identity, our essence, is tied up with three related things: our relationship with God, our relationship with others, and our vocation in this world. Man was created to know God. Though created in the divine image, the divine likeness was something to be attained. Just as God is a community of loving Persons, we were to find our true identity only by a loving communion with others.

And as a microcosm of the universe, being both spirit and matter, man was to serve as the bridge between these elements. As one theologian puts it, the entire world was a gift of God’s love, destined for deification. According to another, “[man was] created just for this purpose: to actualize the created potential of his being to achieve a fully realized community between all creatures and their Creator.” Our problem is the loss of these, one after the other; i.e., the loss of our humanity, and the way that affects the whole universe. And Christianity is only good news if it constitutes the solution.

In Orthodoxy, salvation is often primarily thought of as theosis, that is, deification, or, as St Peter puts it, partaking of the divine nature (2 Pt 1:4). This is the restoration of what was lost and given up in the fall, only made possible through the incarnation of the divine Word: Because man failed at his task, a new Man was needed. And salvation, for us, and for the world, is nothing less than incorporation into this new man (that is, Christ). Thus, the incarnation and resurrection are central – in the incarnation, God shows his love for us by bridging the gap between us, forming a union between divinity and humanity.This union reaches its fullest expression of love when the impassible Son of God takes on our sin and experiences, though blameless, the loneliness and death that are the consequences of our own sins.

Finally, the union is established forever through the resurrection. We make this union our own in the Church and through our own struggles to unite ourselves to Christ, and our task is to bring the rest of the world into this union as well (“creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” Rom. 8:19). In this way, no aspect of our lives or our place in this cosmos is unaffected by Christianity, and salvation is not a matter primarily of individual forgiveness, but of union with God, which cannot be separated from our relationships with one another and the material world around us.

To be clear: I am not saying that the (standard) Protestant story about salvation is wrong or merely that I don’t like it (though I do have misgivings about its emphasis on penal and juridical categories), but that it is only a fragment of the story – it doesn’t fully answer the problem that religion is meant to solve.

It is true that this is partly just a matter of emphasis (Classical Protestants still think ‘sanctification’ is important, even if they (wrongly, in my view) separate it from salvation, and those in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition have a view of salvation closer to that of the Orthodox in many ways, but at the expense of an increased individualism and distance from tradition), and that the Protestant can appropriate whichever aspects of the Orthodox conception he or she chooses. But then what?

The Christian life cannot be lived on one’s own, and sanctification doesn’t just happen by a change in one’s beliefs, but by a change in one’s desires and practical orientation to the world (ironically, perhaps, the book that has most impacted my views about this and the importance of liturgy is Desiring the Kingdom, by Calvinist philosopher Jamie Smith).

So this leads us, I think, back to the Church and its tradition. The Church is a treasure house of the wisdom of the saints, and a communal striving toward holiness. We are not meant to be left to our own devices, and there is no need to be.

The Church keeps us well-rounded with its liturgical calendar, delights our senses with its beautiful worship, connects us directly to God in the sacraments, corrects our desires with its set times of fasting and ascetical expectations, connects us with each other as we strive together, and in so many ways brings us into communion with saints of the past. As I mentioned above, to remain Protestant is to reject a very large part of this wisdom and tradition.

The Protestant world, especially in its evangelical form, is too fragmented, too modern, too celebrity-oriented, too centered on relevance, too individualist. While I would never say that holiness is impossible in this world (I know it is not because I have been blessed to know so many holy people), I have come to the realization that I need something more, roots that are deeper and wider.

I need a full-blooded and satisfying Christianity that fulfills me intellectually and also gives me real tried-and-true resources for becoming more what I ought to be.

And I believe I have found that in Orthodoxy.

The Road to Emmaus – Their Eyes were Opened in the Breaking of the Bread

In the time between the joy of Easter and the anticipation of Pentecost, it is good for us to reflect on the life that has been given us by the resurrection of Christ. Christ is risen from the dead, having conquered death, sin, and suffering, but instead of immediately returning to the glory of the Father, he comes to heal and strengthen his disciples, for he has not abandoned them.

On the contrary, it is as the risen Lord that he will disclose himself to them more fully, radically change their lives as never before, and eventually empower them to turn the world upside down by the message of the gospel.

In Luke 24 we look at the first disclosure of our Lord to his disciples, which took place on the road to Emmaus, a city just a few miles from Jerusalem. Only one of the disciples is named here, by the name of Cleopas. Church tradition has it that he was one of the 70 disciples, and that he was the brother of Joseph, the husband of Mary; and that the other disciple was his own son Simeon, who became the second bishop of Jerusalem after AD 70.

We can’t know for sure who these disciples were, and at any rate Luke is not terribly concerned with that. What is important is that Jesus, on the very day of his resurrection, comes to meet his disciples who had left Jerusalem out of despair, and he comes to heal and restore them by bringing them to life in communion with the risen Lord.

 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.

The disciples were leaving Jerusalem, as one leaves the place of his or her pain and disappointment. Later on, the disciples were to leave Jerusalem to proclaim life, to tell the world of the Lord who had died and rose again for the salvation of mankind.

Now, however, the disciples were walking sorrow and despair, because in their hearts they think they have nothing to proclaim but death and failure.

They walk together and talk, maybe trying to make sense of their desperation. Even in their pain they are in communion, seeking mutual comfort and help; but the one who could ultimate heal their hearts was the one they had not encountered yet.

Their 7 mile walk was a walk in the desert of Adam, in the darkness of death, in a land where hope had been abandoned. That is the condition of humankind unable to find hope when they have not encountered the risen Christ. But the risen Christ loves them, and he is coming to them to bring them to himself.

While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

Jesus draws near to them as they were in the darkness of despair. He draws near and he walks with them. He keeps them from recognizing him, but he walks with them. They couldn’t recognize him because they still struggled with the confusion and unbelief that could only be dispelled by the resurrection.

Throughout the gospels, the disciples are often unable to understand Jesus’ words concerning his coming death and resurrection. They were compared to the blind man that was healed, but at first could see only men as trees.

Their vision was being restored unto seeing the glory of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit – but that had to be a gradual process that would only be achieved in the resurrection. So here, too, the disciples were unable to recognize the resurrection and the life.

But they were unable to recognize him, most importantly, because Jesus keeps them from recognizing him. He does so because he wants to teach them, as they would realize later, that his presence is always with them, and yet it is fully disclosed only in the Eucharist.

Earthly Hopes

“Friends, why are you so sad?” Open your hearts, for the healer of your souls is close to you even whey you can’t recognize him through the mist of your tears. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened!”

Life is full of contradictions, perplexities, pain, and lack of answers. Evil often seems to be gratuitous. Suffering comes to the just and the unjust. There is unimaginable darkness in this world, and we often have to be face to face with despair, disappointment, and anger.

The death of Jesus on the cross was the epitome of all the contradictions and evil upon humankind, for if there would be any way out of the despair of the human condition, it would be that God would intervene in the world through his anointed to liberate his people.

But as far as the disciples are concerned, he is dead. If that Jesus of Nazareth is dead, then there is no hope. There is no meaning. There is not truth, no beauty, and no goodness. All is pointless.

We had hoped. Job had said, “where now is my hope? Who will see my hope? Will it go down to the bars of Sheol? Shall we descend together into the dust?” The disciples had hoped, and if hope in Jesus of Nazareth failed, no other hope could ever survive. They had hoped that we would redeem Israel.

But their idea of redemption was still clouded by their earthly vision. Christ was triumphing over sin, death, and the devil on the cross, but all they could see was just the opposite. It’s hard to blame them; Jesus didn’t look very victorious on the cross. But the cross was the victory of Christ, and he was about to open the eyes of his people to see eternity beyond their immediate earthly cares.

The Way Up is Down

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus rebukes them, but only because he has compassion on them. He had compassion to meet them in their doubt and despair, and to walk the dark road with them. And he had compassion to begin turning them around from their blindness and unbelief by redirecting them to his promises. He was compassionate to rebuke them for their earthly hopes, when a much greater and higher hope had been already accomplished.

It was necessary that Christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory. The eternal Son of God, the eternal Logos who was in the beginning, the one who was with God and who was God, always had all the glory there is to have.

And yet, he took upon himself full humanity to redeem humanity and bring humanity to God. It was as a man that he had to achieve glory, but in his compassion for fallen humankind, he could only achieve glory as a man after facing the cross.

The bright Sunday morning could only come after the darkness of Friday and Saturday.

That is our road too. We can only inherit the kingdom of God if we pick up our crosses daily and follow him. In Jesus’ words, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

In baptism we are buried with Christ, and that baptism has to be actualized every day. The devil incites man to achieve glory, and by doing so brings them to ruin and destruction.

Christ invites us to join him on the cross, to wear his crown of thorns, to suffer, to be despised by men, to die and be buried; and through that he brings us to his eternal glory. In God’s economy, the way up is down.

All of the Old Testament is All About Christ

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets (the only Scriptures they had), he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Jesus gives us here the hermeneutical rule to understand the Old Testament: it’s all about Christ.

If one would interpret the Old Testament as accurately as a scholarly Rabbi, that one would not have understood it at all. Unfortunately this is a mistake many modern day evangelicals make. It’s a complete confusion of categories.

The only Christian interpretation – and thus the only legitimate interpretation, since Christ is risen – is one that finds Christ in every page of the Old Testament. It is there that all the promises of God are given and prefigured, whether explicitly or implicitly, for their fulfillment in Christ.

For example, in their immediate contexts, passages like Isaiah 53 refer explicitly and exclusively to the ancient nation of Israel (certainly not the modern secular state of Israel). This is what Isaiah meant. Jewish rabbis correctly point that out.

And yet, God in his providence was supervising the writings that would ultimately be fulfilled explicitly and exclusively in Christ. Non-Christian Jewish rabbis cannot receive this because they reject Christ, and thus they miss the meaning of Scripture as God fashioned and fulfills it.

One example of apostolic interpretation of Scripture comes from St Paul. In reading the Exodus, he sees Baptism and the Lord’s supper: “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us.”

The entire fabric of the Scriptures, including the Old Testament, is Christological and Christocentric – every thread and every theme leads to, and centers on the crucified and risen Christ. Looking at the Scriptures without seeing Christ is like looking at a man from Nazareth named Jesus without seeing the Son of God.

Jesus walks with them, and their hearts are burning because the one who is the Incarnate Word is disclosing himself to them. He is catechizing them, so that they are being prepared to find him fully. They have now become like the burning bush, which burns with the uncreated fire of God’s presence and is not consumed, but is vivified and sanctified by the One who is, and the One who speaks.

Their Eyes Were Opened by the Eucharist

So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.

This language should be very familiar to us. At the table, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Luke had just used it a couple of chapters ago. There, we read,

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. (Luke 22:17-20)

Now, the kingdom of God has come. Now, heaven comes to earth, because the broken Lord is the risen Lord, and the risen Lord is broken in the bread and wine for us. Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, gives it to them,

And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight.

The one who came and walked with them, the one who talked with them and disclosed himself to them, preparing them to encounter them as their Risen Lord, is the one who now opens their eyes to see him in the breaking of the bread.

It is in the communion of the body and blood of Christ that he gives himself fully to them. It is in the communion of this broken body, which is now risen and given for their eternal life, that they can truly meet Christ.

The opening of the Scriptures was necessary, but it was not sufficient.

Christ redeems the mind and the heart, but he does not meet us just in the mind and the heart. The mind and the heart have to be renewed by the spoken Word so that we can then encounter the Incarnate Word, the one who redeems soul and body, the whole person, the whole creation.

We find him fully in the full communion with him in the meal of the kingdom, the source of our life, the bread of life, the manna from heaven, the wine of the blood of forgiveness, the meal of the nourishment unto new and eternal life.

It is not a mere cannibalistic eating of the flesh and blood of a dead corpse, the flesh and blood of mortal, fallen creatures. It is the Body and Blood of the risen Christ – the deified Body and Blood which can vanish before your eyes, and even go through locked doors, and yet it can be touched. It is the risen, deified Body and Blood which enters Heaven itself, the place no mortal flesh and blood can inherit (1 Cor. 15:50).

As the Church Fathers have said, the Lord’s Supper is the medicine of immortality. By faith we eat and drink Christ so that eternal life is given to us, flows through us, and our eyes are opened because we join Christ in the table of the kingdom. We eat him, and we eat with him, and we are gathered to him and to one another, so that we might be one.

This communion will be finally fulfilled in the last day, when all things are consummated, when all sin and death will have vanished; and yet this encounter, this seeing, this communion, this healing, already happens here and now, when we meet with Christ at the table, when the kingdom comes from heaven to us and we are taken up to it.

It is here that we find comfort and renewal from the despair of death, darkness, apparent failure, and hopelessness – because in the Divine Liturgy we are taken to Heaven and Heaven is brought to us. Heaven and earth meet together in the very Body and Blood of the Incarnate and Risen God-Man. We find light, life, victory in the brokenness, and the sure hope of our resurrection, because we commune and partake of the Risen Christ.

In the Eucharist, Christ is with us in the fullest way in this life. Is there that we meet God and thus our eyes are opened. It is there that we recognize him.

Of course he is always with us. He was with the disciples before he walked with them in that road, for Christ is everywhere. He drew closer, however, when he walked with them, talked with them, drew them to himself, and disclosed the Word to them.

But he was fully present with them in the breaking of the bread. And this is true for us. Christ has ascended to heaven, but in the breaking of the bread he is present with us in a unique way that transcends his omnipresence.

They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.

Jesus himself had told them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy . . .  So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”

The disciples run back to Jerusalem to help the downcast. The joy of encountering the Risen Christ can only be translated into love, compassion, and zeal to heal others, and to proclaim from the rooftops, he is risen he is risen indeed.

They retrace their steps on the road that had been of a road of darkness and despair, but now their feet are the beautiful feet of one who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isa. 52:7; Rom. 10:15).

St Augustine in one of his sermons had this to say about this passage:

Ah yes, brothers and sisters, but where did the Lord wish to be recognized? In the breaking of bread. We’re all right, nothing to worry about – we break bread, and we recognize the Lord. It was for our sake that he didn’t want to be recognized anywhere but there, because we weren’t going to see him in the flesh, and yet we were going to eat his flesh. So if you’re a believer, any of you, if you’re not called a Christian for nothing, if you don’t come to Church pointlessly, if you listen to the Word of God in fear and hope, you may take comfort in the breaking of bread. The Lord’s absence is not an absence. Have faith, and the one you cannot see is with you. (Sermon 235. 2-3)

The risen Lord is with us always, and he brings us to himself especially in the eating of his Body and his Blood. As he said,

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. (John 6:53-56)

There, the gives himself to us fully, and takes us fully to himself, body and soul. There, our sins are forgiven, our wounds are healed, our eyes are opened, our souls are strengthened, and the promise is renewed.

There, death and life come together, because the broken Body is the risen Body which gives us life. At the table of the Lord the kingdom comes to us and we are taken up to it, until that day, when we will see him in all of his glory.

Preliminary Thoughts on the Eucharist, on Sola Scriptura and on Icons (Un-Protestantism 101)

The Eucharist

The center of the Faith, as we know from Scripture and from 1,500 years of Church history (i.e., until things changed during the Reformation for some Western Christians), is the Eucharist. All Christians gather together around the Body and Blood of Christ. The Liturgy revolves around it.

The Eucharist is where our “eyes are opened” in the “breaking of the bread,” (Luke 24) for “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink” (John 6).

That is why all the fathers of the Church, the very disciples of the apostles, emphasized it as such. For example, St. Ignatius of Antioch (AD 50 – AD 117), a disciple of the apostles Peter and Paul, wrote to the church in Smyrna:

Consider those who are of a different opinion from us, as to what concerns the grace of Jesus Christ which is come unto us, how contrary they are to the design of God. They have no regard to charity, no care of the widow, the fatherless, and the oppressed; of the bond or free, of the hungry or thirsty.

They abstain from the Eucharist, and from the public offices; because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ which suffered for our sins, and which the Father of his goodness raised again from the dead. And for this cause contradicting the gift of God, they die in their disputes; but much better would it be for them to receive it, that the might one day rise through it. (To the Smyrnaeans, 2:14-17)

St Justin Martyr, writing in 150AD with the first description of what was going on in the Christian Liturgy, wrote:

And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined.

For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Savior, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. (First Apology, chapter 66)

There are many other passages of many fathers speaking similarly. Also, the Eucharist is not only the very Flesh and Blood of Christ, but it also depends on apostolic succession. The early Church emphasized that because of the sects (gnostic, arian, apollinarian, eutychian, etc.) one could not take upon himself to celebrate the Eucharist without the authority of a bishop who had been in the ordination line of the apostles (and thus holding the apostolic doctrine and faith).

So again, St Ignatius wrote,

Make certain, therefore, that you all observe one common Eucharist; for there is but one body of our Lord Jesus Christ, and but one cup of union with his blood, and one single altar of sacrifice–even as there is also but one bishop, with his clergy and my own fellow servitors, the deacons. This will ensure that all your doings are in full accord with the will of God.” (Letter o the Philadelphians, chapter 4)

“Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful to baptize or give communion without the consent of the bishop. On the other hand, whatever has his approval is pleasing to God. Thus, whatever is done will be safe and valid. (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, chapter 8)

Notice that these are from the earliest Christian writings available to us. These were second generation disciples of the apostles. There are many other passages like this as well in the Fathers.

So now we have 2 things that are necessary for the fullness of the Christian life, and certainly for the apostolic liturgy and worship: the Eucharist, and apostolic succession which makes it real and safeguards the organic unity of the Church. Those two things alone exclude Protestantism.

Sola Scriptura

How about about sola scriptura? As I have said elsewhere, sola scriptura does not mean that one goes only to the Bible for doctrine (the magisterial Reformers – Luther and Calvin – understood that; this misunderstanding is not what they meant by the term, since they themselves tried to support their claims from historical interpretations of the Church, even though they were not able to do that very well in my opinion).

Properly understood, sola scriptura means that the ultimate authority on the matters of doctrine and piety are the Scriptures. Which does not mean at all that the Scriptures contain all truths, much less that truth is restricted to Scripture.

Of course, even a proper understanding of sola scriptura  has its own problems. As Luther and Calvin understood, the ultimate authority on the matters of doctrine and piety are the Scriptures properly interpreted – whether the final authority of interpretation will be the Roman Catholic Magisterium, Luther, Calvin, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism, Pastor Bob, Me Myself and I,  Benny Hinn, Tim LaHaye, Oprah, and so on. There are thousands of Protestant denominations which agree on a number of issues, and yet disagree on others which they consider important enough to have left and begun a new church.

Or, the final authority of interpretation will be the ongoing living tradition of the Church (including the Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and present day canonical bishops).

In other words, sola scriptura does not work because if one says the Bible is the final authority, such authority can only be applied by interpreting the Bible, and so the real final authority will be the one who determines what the Bible means. And, of course, claiming the Spirit as the one who does that for each believer does not work; for every 3 “Spirit filled” believers, one finds at least 5 contradictory Christian doctrines from interpreting the Bible differently.

That is not even to mention that Protestants who adhere to sola scriptura cannot use the concept of “Bible” legitimately, because the New Testament, which most Christians did not have for centuries, was defined and canonized by the Church, not by the Bible. The Church said that the Didache was not the New Testament, and the letter to the Ephesians was, and so on. The final authority for one to even consider a writing to be the “Bible” comes from the Church, not from the Bible. It was the Church who wrote the Bible, and then said that the Bible is the Bible. After all, as St Paul told his pupil Timothy,

I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1Tim. 3:15)

Icons

What about icons? Yes, through them we do talk to those whom they represent, and ask for their prayers. It was the pagans of old that denied that there is eternal, everlasting life with God after death. But Christianity affirmed that Christ was “risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and bestowing life upon those in the tombs.” He is “ not God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20).

Those who live their lives following him serve him by loving and serving others. Whey they “repose” (as we call it), they become even more alive to God, without the encumbrances of sin, weaknesses, body limitations of tiredness, hunger, need of sleep, etc. They behold the face of God in Christ, and, filled with his Spirit, transfigured by grace and deified in the presence of the living God, they continue to worship and serve him more than ever – which means they continue to love and pray for those who seek their assistance. They are able to do that because they are united to Christ by the Spirit, not dependent on spatio-temporal considerations of time, place, ability to know by the physical senses, etc.

Just like we instinctively ask for the prayers of those whom we know to be devout people here on earth – people that we trust, that we know that they know God, and that God hears their prayers because they walk with him (of which the Scriptures are full of examples, the prophets being the most common) – so we also ask for the prayers of those who are alive in Christ. We often use the word “pray” to them, because the English word means to ask for something, not to worship.

So icons as windows of heaven. Against the gnostics (forms of which Protestantism is full, unfortunately), the Church has always affirmed that God created and redeemed both spiritual things and material things. He sanctifies matter for his own use. Icons become blessed elements through which we address God, his Mother, and his saints, much like we look at a picture of a loved one and kiss it, or have a thought about them, or say a prayer for them.

For more on icons, see my post “Worshipping Images? Iconoclasm and the 7th Ecumenical Council.”

St Paul and the Monastic Vow

But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. . . . So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. (1 Tim 5:11-15)

It is very interesting to notice that what later developed into full monasticism was already present at the time of the New Testament, as it was being written in the first century.

Even the apostles considered vows of a monastic kind to be extremely serious. There were many widows who were fully supported by the Church, and they typically made vows to serve the Church by serving the poor and dedicating their lives to prayer and good works. Dorcas (Acts 9) was one example. Hence the necessity to regulate who qualified for such work.

In the passage cited above we can see St. Paul, who considered marriage as the creation of God, giving instructions to Timothy and directing that he wants young widows to marry; and at the same time stating that widows who had made monastic vows of celibacy and devoting their lives to prayer (and thus being fully supported by the Church), and who later break that vow in order to marry, are actually following Satan. These are very strong words.

So for St Paul, to abandon the vow of celibacy and prayer, in order to get married, is in a sense, a self-condemnation, a sentence of death. Conversely, not to make the vow of celibacy and prayer, in order to marry and raise a family, is to attain life in the sacred calling of marriage.

(Of course, St Paul had much more to say about marriage elsewhere, but what is interesting in this passage is what he notes about the vows of celibacy made by the widows.)

This also reminded me of the story about the elder in Mount Athos giving advice to a catechumen who was just about to be baptized. Upon hearing about his upcoming baptism, the elder was elated, and when the young man asked him for advice, the geronta answered, “you must either marry or become a monk.” As the catechumen seemed a little puzzled, the elder repeated it again for emphasis:   “you must either marry or become a monk.” Those are the only two callings in the Christian life.[1]

The explanation was that “we Christians are not meant to live alone. We are called to be part of a family. We thus have a choice: either make a new family or join an existing one.”

Both involve a vow that cannot be broken.

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[1] Graham Speake, Mount Athos – Renewal in Paradise, p. 260.

The Apocalypse given by Signs

John  starts the Apocalypse by saying

“Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει, καὶ ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ τῷ δούλῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰωάννῃ.”

It is the unveiling (apocalypse) of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must soon take place, and he SHOWED BY SIGNS, sending his angel to his servant John.

He introduces the whole book using the verb σημαίνω, to signify, to make known by signs, etc. This of course comes from the word σημεῖον, sign, which John is fond of using. In his gospel, there are 7 such “signs” by Jesus.

The book of Revelation then is a collection of signs (not literalistic devices) to present the reality of God’s presence, love, comfort to his people, sovereignty, judgment to come, and deliverance to come – all of which are “revealed” because they stand somewhat hidden by the present reality of persecution and suffering.

Such revelation of the spiritual realities that underlie the temporary conditions of this present age is laced with and entirely derived from the Old Testament apocalyptic parables and signs. They all come together in a crescendo, in a much greater scale, as God now not only brings judgment and restoration to his people in the Ancient Near East, but also upon (eventually) the whole cosmos.

But this is all given through means of “signs” as he “signified” (ἐσήμανεν) what is to take place.

That verb is used in the New Testament only in 5 other places, 3 of which by John:

In John 12:33 Jesus indicates, signifies what kind of death he was to die, by a sort of a parable: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” The same happens in 18:32. Yet again in John 21:18 Jesus indicates by a parable or sign the kind of death Peter was to die:  “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.”

So one needs to be careful as one seeks to understand the Apocalypse. First, it is not a linear narrative (rather, it repeats several events from different points of view), and second, it is given by signification, not wooden literal devices.

Kant and Radical Evil (Part 2)

In part 1 we saw how Kant defines evil as radical in relation to free will. In this segment, we will address how Kant’s arguments necessarily reject an ethical code of human flourishing (eudaimonia) as the proper moral ground, and how he argues that ought implies can.

For Kant, the human being is evil because he is morally culpable in a very particular sense: he is conscious of the moral law and yet has incorporated the deviation from it into his maxim. This aspect of Kant’s moral philosophy is a direct parallel to the Scriptural principle that the law is “written on [people’s] hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.”

This propensity for evil is innate but not a natural predisposition, since a natural predisposition does not admit of moral responsibility or accountability. Neither is it a corruption of the morally legislative reason, for reason still knows the moral law and thus it is accountable to it. The human being knows the moral law and never repudiates it because that law imposes itself “irresistibly” upon him as a result of his moral predisposition; the problem is that he incorporates incentives other than the moral law into his maxims, which then work against it.

The choice of maxims contrary to the law must be accidental, even while “entwined with humanity itself and, as it were, rooted in it: so we can call this ground a natural propensity to evil . . . we can further even call it a radical innate evil in human nature (nonetheless brought upon us by ourselves).”

Kant understands that humanity, even at its best (e.g. persons of good morals living in highly civilized societies that are more propitious for the flourishing of virtue and the restraint of vice) still is forced to recognize at least mixed motives in all it wills and does. This is a root problem of the heart, and not of natural inclinations that arise from the sensual nature of human beings – for, as we have seen, the natural inclinations are guided by the will. Even the best human being is evil because he reverses the moral order of his incentives in incorporating them into his maxims; the moral law is mixed with incentives of self-love and is indeed subordinated to it.

Eudaimonia? Bad!

Again, the actions that result will often be empirically good. But as Kant sees it, it is a perversion of the heart to do the good because of the benefits it affords. An eudaimonistic ethic would, for Kant, be something that will only yield good deeds accidentally, because the heart is corrupted at its root when it chooses based on the maxim of self-love, self-flourishing, good living, and general happiness. The empirical character can become good, but the “intelligible character is still evil;” as seen in the Gospels, the type of the real sinner is the Pharisee.^[1]

This evil is radical because it is a natural propensity to evil that corrupts the ground of all maxims. The propensity is natural but it is still found in a free power of choice, and therefore it is imputable, and thus morally evil.

It is also radical, and therefore, it cannot be extirpated through human forces, since that would entail precisely the inversion of maxims which would have the moral law itself as the highest – which will not occur if the ground of the power of choice, to begin with, is already operating through the maxim of self-love, and thus will not submit this self-love to the moral law. But if this is the case, how can the problem possibly be fixed?

Ought Implies Can

Here Kant runs into a very difficult problem. How can one become morally good? Kant does not allow for direct divine intervention, for that would be outside the scope of the boundaries of mere reason. Yet the human being seems trapped: what he is makes it impossible that he becomes what he ought to be! The human being has made self-love the maxim to which everything else, including the moral law, is subordinated (and thus he has become evil) and the only way to become morally good (as he ought) is for him to choose to restore the moral law as his supreme maxim, so that duty is the only incentive for his choices and deeds – and this is precisely what his self-love will not do.

Kant’s answer here is a principle and an answer to which he will return continually: ought implies can. The law commands, duty has its claim, and reason recognizes that the moral law has to be obeyed for duty’s sake – therefore, since reason knows that to be the case, then it necessarily follows that the reorientation of the human being – the inversion (or reversion) of maxims – must be possible.

Evil and the Fall

This question of turning from morally evil to morally good, of course, is inseparable from the question of the origin of evil. If human beings have a propensity to evil that has encroached upon the predisposition to the good, we can only get out of this predicament if we can understand how we got into it in the first place. But precisely these two questions – how does a human being with a predisposition for the good corrupts his heart and earns a propensity for evil, and how does he overcome this innate evil? – are the ones Kant seems unable to fully answer.

As to the origin of evil, he states that “the most inappropriate [way of explaining it] is surely to imagine it as having come to us by way of inheritance from our first parents”  for in whatever way that is described, it would remove culpability and accountability from the agent. As a result, “every evil action must be so considered, whenever we seek its rational origin, as if the human being had fallen into it directly from the state of innocence.”

Why? Because each time a choice is made that is morally evil (i.e., corrupted to the core by a mixture and/or inversion of incentives, even if the action itself is good), the moral law is still commanding the human being to act for respect of the moral law and for duty alone. And, insofar as the moral law is still commanding it, the human being must be able to do it – ought implies can:

However evil a human being has been right up to the moment of an impending free action (evil even habitually, as second nature), his duty to better himself is not just in the past: it still is his duty now; he must therefore be capable of it, and, should he not do it, he is at the moment of action just as accountable, and stands just as condemned, as if though endowed with a natural predisposition to the good (which is inseparable from freedom), he had just stepped out of the state of innocence into evil.[2]

As a result, Kant argues that we cannot inquire into evil’s origin in time, but only into its origin in reason. For this, he uses the aid of the Scriptural representation of the Fall. Evil has a beginning in human nature – not from a fundamental propensity to it (which would remove freedom and thereby moral accountability) – but from the choice to transgress the divine command (standing for the moral law).

Instead of obeying the command absolutely, as the only incentive, man chose to look for other incentives, and thereby subordinated obedience to the principle of self-love (he saw that “it was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise”).

The book of Genesis presents this account in temporal categories, but a religion within the bounds of mere reason dispenses with this temporal framework. Genesis merely confirms what we can find by pursuing the course of reason: Adam did not count the moral law as a sufficient incentive to action, but mixed in other incentives, and indeed inverted the order of incentives within his maxim; sensory inducements were brought in and he sinned.

The result is that we are all like Adam: every moral choice is a kind of a fall. The narrative also symbolizes the fact that there is no discoverable ground for evil. It comes from a choice, yet our predisposition is to the good. How does evil arise? Kant does not seem able to provide an answer:

[T]his propensity to evil remains inexplicable to us, for since it must itself be imputed to us, this supreme ground of all maxims must in turn require the adoption of an evil maxim. Evil can have originated only from moral evil (not just from the limitations of our nature); yet the original predisposition . . . is a predisposition to the good; there is no conceivable ground for us, therefore, from which moral evil could first have come into us. The Scriptures express this incomprehensibility in historical narrative . . . by projecting evil at the beginning of the world, not, however within the human being, but in a spirit   . . . and so for the human being, who despite a corrupted heart yet always possesses a good will, there still remain hope of a return to the good from which he has strayed.

Thus it is incomprehensible that we have fallen into a state of innate evil, of propensity to evil; it has come not from our natures, but it has encroached upon it; yet every choice guided by the maxim of self-love is, as it were, another Fall to which we are accountable. How can we turn back to the state of moral good?

As we have seen, human beings cannot be partially morally good and partially morally evil; hence, this change cannot happen gradually – at leas not in the heart, even if it might seem so empirically. But how can this change come about? This seems as incomprehensible as the origin of evil in reason. As he states, “How it is possible that a naturally evil human being should make himself into a morally good human being surpasses every concept of ours.”[3] But once again, Kant returns to one of his foundational concepts: ought implies can. “For, in spite of that fall, the command that we ought to become better human being still resounds unabated in our souls; consequently, we must also be capable of it.”[4]

Revolution

The restoration of that original predisposition to good is not an acquisition of a lost incentive to the good, since that has never been lost; we know the moral law and we respect it. We have a predisposition to the good. Rather, it is a recovery of the purity of the law as the supreme ground of all of our maxims, the law itself being incorporated into the power of choice, not merely bound to other incentives nor subordinated to them. When this happens, the individual becomes morally good, and only then the “empirical character” can begin to show the new condition of the heart, and “little by little” virtue is acquired.

Here Kant makes room for the idea of habituation, a gradual reformation of conduct where one passes from a propensity to vice to a propensity to virtue – but this is merely the empirical character, which can also be mimicked by a mere change of mores. To become morally good, there has to be a revolution in the disposition of the human being in his core, the moral law becoming the only incentive and the supreme maxim – this is the revolution that, according to Scriptural usage, brings forth what is called the “new man” though a kind of rebirth, a kind of new creation.[5]

But how can this revolution, this rebirth take place if the human being is corrupt in the very ground of his maxims? Ought implies can: “Yet duty commands that he be good, and duty commands nothing but what we can do.”[6] So what needs to take place is a “single and unalterable decision” by which a human being reverses the supreme ground of his maxims and thereby can begin his journey of gradual reformation of his actions, which is the incessant laboring that creates character and makes one worthy of hoping for future happiness.

This revolution begins an ever-continuing striving for the better, and endless process (which, he argues, God sees as a unity) of gradual reformation of the propensity to evil and the perverted attitude of the human mind. Kant continues to revert back to the question: “but does not the thesis of the innate corruption of the human being with respect to all that is good stand in direct opposition to this restoration through one’s own effort?”[7]

He answers, once again, with ought implies can:

Of course it does . . . if the moral law commands that we ought to be better human beings now, it inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings.[8]

We might not have an insight into how this happens, but we can know it does. This, of course, presupposes the moral law as commanding us to effect that self-rebirth; but this kind of argument, when it fails to account for the how this can happen, might at the end make plausible arguments that would question precisely that presupposition (especially the aspect of the self­­­ regenerating itself). One could perhaps argue that the fact of radical evil makes it impossible that one could reorder his maxims, and so one possibility is to conclude that we ought not to effect a moral revolution in our characters because we cannot.[9] External intervention is necessary.

Quit Praying and Get to Work

However, as Kant emphasizes, this restoration is through one’s own effort. He sharply criticizes religious schemes (what he calls religion of rogation) in which one either believes that God will forgive his debts and make him eternally happy without any need of moral reformation, or else that moral reformation is done by God in the individual through his asking. For Kant, prayer (to an omniscient being) is “no more than wishing” which amounts to “doing nothing.”[10]

In contrast, he argues for a moral religion, one in which one must do as much as it is in his power to do so he can hope that what does not lie in his power (i.e., future happiness) will be made good by cooperation from above.[11]

This, of course, generates a rational religion which, at the same time that it eliminates God as an agent that answers prayer and changes individuals, it also requires God as an agent that will hopefully reward one’s efforts in the final judgment. Not only that, Kant’s need for a God who, as an agent, will bestow happiness in the day of judgment upon those who make themselves worthy of it, also requires an agent who will also rectify injustices in this life by punishment as he remedies them in the next life.^[12]

Wait. What?

In Kant’s thinking, religion has its intellectual foundation in what he calls the “postulates” or practical reason: the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. The first is a condition for moral action, the second provides the ground for the attainment of a human being’s final end as a moral being, and the third provides the agent who bestows or denies happiness in the final day, according to the judgment of moral lives.^[13]

The difficulty is that this agency seems at odds with Kant’s purely rational faith.

For him, pure rational faith is a necessary need of reason, which needs to presuppose the existence of a highest being, but can never prove his existence one way or another. God is a pure rational hypothesis which explains certain given effects, and so he is a postulate of reason.[14] Yet, one can and should hope: “it is not essential, and hence not necessary, that every human being know what God does, or has done, for his salvation; but it is essential to know what a human being has to do himself in order to become worthy of this assistance.”[15]

In the next segment we’ll see how Kant present Jesus Christ as the prototype and model of what we are to do and become.

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[1] Bernard M. G. Reardon, O 1975. “Kant as theologian.” Downside Review. (1975, 93 (313)):256.

[2] Wood & Giovanni, 87.

[3] Ibid., 90.

[4] Ibid., 90.

[5] Ibid., 92.

[6] Ibid., 92.

[7] Ibid., 94, emphasis mine.

[8] Ibid., 94, emphasis in the original

[9] Philip L Quinn, “Original sin, radical evil and moral identity.” Faith and Philosophy (April 1984, Vol. 1, No. 2), 199.

[10] Wood & Giovanni, 95.

[11] Here one hears the echo of the late medieval maxim that facientibus quod in se est Deus non denegat gratiam.

[12] David McKenzie, “A Kantian Theodicy.” Faith and Philosophy. (April 1984; Vol. 1, No.2),  245

[13] Bernard M. G. Reardon, O 1975. “Kant as theologian.” Downside Review. (1975, Vol. 93):254.

[14] Wood & Giovanni, 14.

[15] Ibid., 96.

Born Again, Born from Above

The Gospel of John presents a series of signs and discourses to show that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that we may have life in his name by believing in him. The first of these signs is the miracle of the water turned into wine in the wedding at Cana. Jesus was beginning his public ministry, and he was manifesting his glory by the signs he was performing.

John the Baptist had announced his coming, preaching a baptism of repentance; now the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God, had come to baptize in fire and in the Holy Spirit – bringing judgment as well as salvation to the world.

The first discourse of this Gospel will address one of the central questions of the book: how can a person be saved?

Double Entendre

It is very important for us to keep in mind that apostle John has a particular literary style and particular interests, which are evident in the topics he chooses as well as how he expresses the truths he conveys. One of the features of his style is the occasional use of double entendre. John often states things that have double meanings – sometimes for irony to make a point, and sometimes because both meanings are true, and therefore should be taken together. In this passage, this literary device is used a few times, as we will see.

The first discourse takes place at night, when Nicodemus, one of the religious leaders of Israel, comes to meet Jesus. He is described by St John as being a ”ruler of the Jews” (ἄρχων τῶν Ἰουδαίων) which is a reference to the Sanhedrin, the council composed of the chief priests, the elders of the people and scribes. The Sanhedrin was a governing body that tried various cases and disputes, oversaw Jewish religious life, and was presided by the High Priest of Israel. Members of the Sanhedrin were the most influential people of the Jewish society, and were strict adherents of the Law of Moses.

Nicodemus was not only a member of the Sanhedrin, but he also belonged to the sect the Pharisees, the strictest group in relation to keeping external regulations of the Law.

This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

The fact that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night is the first of the several elements of this passage that suggest a double meaning. Nicodemus came at night, when it was dark, because he hoped to get an interview with Jesus when the crowds were not around to disturb, or, most likely, because he did not want to commit himself publicly to Jesus just yet. He had heard of his miracles, and was intrigued by what they could mean, and what sort of authority Jesus had; but he did not yet know enough about Jesus, and perhaps he sensed that his miracles could be a threat to the Jewish establishment of which he was a part.

Yet, there is another, more subtle sense intended by John. The Gospel of John is full of references to the contrast between light and darkness. John shows us Jesus as the light of the world.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Not Able Unless

Nicodemus addresses Jesus in a polite way, calling him Rabbi and recognizing that the miracles of Jesus were an indication that God was authorizing his ministry. Then he brings out two concepts which become the two most important ideas of this entire passage: the question of ability and the question of exception. Here, Nicodemus says that no one is able to perform such miracles except God is with them. Jesus’ response will use the same concepts, but in a way that shifts the conversation to directly address the heart of the matter.

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus saw beyond Nicodemus’ words of respectful greeting to the very state of his soul. It is true that no one is able to do the miracles Jesus was doing, except by the power of God – but, most importantly, no one is able to enter the kingdom of God except he is born of God. The language Jesus uses here is very emphatic in the original – there is only one way in which one can see the kingdom of God – by being born again. There is no other way.

Nicodemus: οὐδεὶς γὰρ δύναται ταῦτα τὰ σημεῖα ποιεῖν ἃ σὺ ποιεῖς, ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ ὁ θεὸς μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ.

Jesus: Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, ἐὰν μή τις γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, οὐ δύναται ἰδεῖν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ.

This statement was a powerful confrontation. Nicodemus was, after all, one of the rulers and teachers of Israel, a member of the Sanhedrin and of the strict sect of the Pharisees, who prided themselves in keeping the Law of Moses. Jesus cuts to the chase, as if he was saying: “Nicodemus, your power, your social status – and what’s more, your idea of the observance of the Jewish Law – are absolutely inadequate to qualify you for the kingdom of God.”

Again/From Above

Here we see another element in the narrative to which John deliberately gives a double meaning. The word translated as “again” in “born again” can also mean “above.” The expression “born again” could also be translated “born from above.” In fact, John uses this same word (ἄνωθεν) in other passages always with the meaning of “above” (3:31, 19:11, 19:23).

Here, he apparently intends a double meaning, because both meanings are true, and because Nicodemus understood it as meaning “again.” One needs to be born again in order to be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, and that birth is a birth from above; it is a birth effected by God.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus now connects being born from above with being born of the water and of the Spirit. But just what does he mean by “born of water”? Once again, John is presenting the narrative with elements that are deliberately meant to convey more than one meaning.

The Spirit and the Water

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

As a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus understood that the Scriptures had often connected the work of the Spirit with the cleansing of water. Now, Jesus brings the fulfillment of God’s promises by being the One who dispenses his Spirit to his people as he unites them to himself through repentance and baptism. The New Testament brings the Old Testament connection between water and spiritual cleansing to its fulfillment. This is, for example, exactly what the apostle Peter does in the first sermon preached in the book of Acts, in connection with the work of the Spirit in Pentecost:

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. . . Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:32-38)

During Pentecost, the devout people who were coming to Jerusalem for the feast also needed to be born from above through repentance and baptism; here, in the Gospel of John, Jesus was confronting one of the leading men of Israel and showing him that his respectability was not enough; Nicodemus needed to be cleansed and be born from above, from the Spirit of God. As Jesus himself came from heaven, those who enter his kingdom must receive life from God who is in heaven.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

At this point, Jesus makes evident that his statement is a universal truth, because when he restates here that “You must be born again,” he uses the plural. It is not only Nicodemus, but we must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. We must be born from above as we trust Jesus. There was no other way for one of the most pious Jews of his time, and there certainly is no other way for us.

Natural man is born of the flesh even while being God’s creation. The first Adam was created by God out of the dust of the ground before God breathed the Spirit of life in his nostrils. As descendants of the first Adam, we are born of Adam and Eve, but as those who are recreated in the image of the heavenly man, we become descendants of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

In this way, we are also born not just of Adam and Eve, but we are born again, born of God and his Church. We are born not only of the earthly man from the dust, but also of the heavenly man, who gives us the same Spirit who hovered over the waters in Genesis.

The Spirit who brought life to creation as he hovered over the waters is also the Spirit that Christ sends to his Church, the Spirit who uses the waters of baptism as the means through which he promises and gives the washing of regeneration. As the apostle Paul tells Titus,

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

Born of the Spirit

We are born again and we are born from above as God gives us the Spirit through the new birth in the waters of regeneration and resurrection:

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (Romans 6:4-5).

As baptism unites us to Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection, as Paul teaches us, so we are raised to a new life in the Spirit through the means of grace. Baptism is a promise and a means; it is the entrance into the kingdom and the engrafting into the body of Christ by our mystical union with him.

The first Adam was created to till and cultivate the garden of God, until the time when, after obediently carrying out God’s purposes, he would have been glorified forever; he failed, and we inherit the consequences of that failure; but in Christ, the second Adam, the Man from above who is already glorified and who dispenses to us the Spirit without measure, we are re-created in his image so we can live in the new garden, the New Heavens and the New Earth, where the living waters are freely given.

We are born again and from above so that we become like newborn babes, for, as Christ tells us, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” As newborn babes, we are children who need to be nourished by their mother. When we are born of the flesh, we are nourished in the bosom of our mothers, and when we are born of the Spirit we are nourished by our heavenly Mother, the Church, through the washing of the Word and the grace of the Sacraments.

The same Spirit who blew life into the earthly man Adam, and who brought to life a valley of dead bones in Ezekiel, also gives us life as He unites us to Christ through baptism and begins to deify us. This is nothing less that a re-creation, a refashioning, transfiguration and restoration of human beings into the image of the true man Jesus Christ. We are born again unto newness of life, a newness that begins even here in this life. St. Athanasius, in his book On the Incarnation, puts it this way:

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so it was with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind make after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as he says in the Gospel: “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” This also explains His saying to the Jews, “Except a man be born again [he cannot see the kingdom of God].” He was not referring to man’s natural birth from his mother, as thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the image of God.

Through repentance, faith, and baptism we have received the washing of regeneration and we have been born of the water and of the Spirit. We have been born again and born from above. The flesh is subject to death, but the Spirit is incorruptible, so that the new life we have received through God’s promises and work in the Spirit is a life that is everlasting, incorruptible, sustained by the last Adam who has defeated sin, death, and the devil.

Baptism is not only the cleansing washing of regeneration according to the promises of God, but also a public statement that we have been transferred from this world to the womb of the Church, to the kingdom of God. Even Nicodemus, the respected Pharisee and teacher of Israel, would have to publicly undergo baptism and live in newness of life even if that meant shame and scorn from those who would refuse to unite themselves to Jesus, his cross, and his resurrection.

Nicodemus came at night and he was not sure how to think of Jesus. Only through the new life given by the Spirit could he pass from death to life, from darkness to light, and from seeing things from a fleshly perspective – Jesus as an interesting miracle worker and rabbi – to seeing things in the heavenly perspective, i.e., Jesus Christ, God incarnate, the Man from heaven who unites us to himself through the Spirit and gives us eternal life.

St John Chrysostom on Marriage

This, then, is what it means to marry in Christ: spiritual marriage is like spiritual birth, which is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh. Consider the birth of Isaac; Scripture says, “It had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” Her marriage was not one of fleshly passion, but wholly spiritual, just as the soul is joined to God in an ineffable union which He alone knows: “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.”

See how he does not despise physical unity, however, but uses spiritual unity to illustrate it! How foolish are those who belittle marriage! If marriage were something to be condemned, Paul would never call Christ a bridegroom and the Church a bride, and then say this is an illustration of a man leaving his father and his mother, and again refer to Christ and the Church.

The Psalmist prophesies of the Church when he says, “Hear, O daughter, consider, and incline your ear; forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty,” and the Gospel says concerning Christ: “I came from the Father and have come into the world.” . . .

Tell [your wife] that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that in the world to come you will be united in perfect love.

Say to her, “Our time here is brief and fleeting, but if we are pleasing to God, we can exchange this life for the Kingdom to come. Then we will be perfectly one both with Christ and each other, and our pleasure will know no bounds. I value your love above all things, and nothing would be so bitter or painful to me as our being at odds with each other. Even if I lose everything, any affliction is tolerable if you will be true to me.”

Show her that you value her company, and prefer being at home to being out. Esteem her in the presence of your friends and children. Praise and show admiration for her good acts; and if she ever does anything foolish, advise her patiently.

Pray together at home and go to Church; when you come back home, let each ask the other the meaning of the readings and the prayers.

If you are overtaken by poverty, remember Peter and Paul, who were more honored than kings or rich men, though they spent their lives in hunger and thirst. Remind one another that nothing in life is to be feared, except offending God.

If your marriage is like this, your perfection will rival the holiest of monks. . . .

Finally, never call her by her name alone, but with terms of endearment, honor, and love. If you honor her, she won’t need honor from others; she won’t desire praise from others if she enjoys the praise that comes from you.

Prefer her before all others, both for her beauty and her discernment, and praise her. She will in this way be persuaded to listen to none that are outside, but to disregard all the world except for you.

Teach her to fear God, and all other good things will flow from this one lesson as from a fountain and your house will be filled with ten thousand blessings. If we seek the things that are perfect, the secondary things will follow. The Lord says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

What sort of person do you think the children of such parents will be? What kind of person are all the others who associate with them? Will they not eventually be the recipients of countless blessings as well? For generally the children acquire the character of their parents, are formed in the mold of their parents’ temperament, love the same things their parents love, talk in the same fashion, and work for the same ends.

If we order our lives in this way and diligently study the Scriptures, we will find lessons to guide us in everything we need! In this way we will be able to please God, and to pass through the course of this life in virtue and to gain those blessings which He has promised to those who love Him, of which, God willing, may we be counted worthy through the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, and power to the Father, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

 

St John Chrysostom, Homily on Ephesians 5:22-33 (“On Marriage and Family Life,” pp. 54-64)

 

The Divine Liturgy – The Same Today as Described by St Cyril of Jerusalem 1,700 Years Ago.

By the loving-kindness of God ye have heard sufficiently at our former meetings concerning Baptism, and Chrism, and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ; and now it is necessary to pass on to what is next in order, meaning to-day to set the crown on the spiritual building of your edification. . . .

After this the Priest cries aloud, “Lift up your hearts.”  For truly ought we in that most awe-inspiring hour to have our heart on high with God, and not below, thinking of earth and earthly things. In effect therefore the Priest bids all in that hour to dismiss all cares of this life, or household anxieties, and to have their heart in heaven with the merciful God. Then ye answer, “We lift them up unto the Lord:” assenting to it, by your avowal. . . .

Then the Priest says, “Let us give thanks unto the Lord.”  . . . Then ye say, “It is meet and right”  . . . After this, we make mention of heaven, and earth, and sea; of sun and moon; of stars and all the creation, rational and irrational, visible and invisible; of Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Dominions, Principalities, Powers, Thrones; of the Cherubim with many faces . . .

We make mention also of the Seraphim, whom Esaias in the Holy Spirit saw standing around the throne of God, and with two of their wings veiling their face, and with twain their feet, while with twain they did fly, crying Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Sabaoth. . . .

Then having sanctified ourselves by these spiritual Hymns, we beseech the merciful God to send forth His Holy Spirit upon the gifts lying before Him; that He may make the Bread the Body of Christ, and the Wine the Blood of Christ; for whatsoever the Holy Ghost has touched, is surely sanctified and changed.

Then, after the spiritual sacrifice, the bloodless service, is completed, over that sacrifice of propitiation we entreat God for the common peace of the Churches, for the welfare of the world; for kings; for soldiers and allies; for the sick; for the afflicted; and, in a word, for all who stand in need of succour we all pray and offer this sacrifice.

Then we commemorate also those who have fallen asleep before us, first Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and intercessions God would receive our petition.

Then on behalf also of the Holy Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and in a word of all who in past years have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a very great benefit to the souls, for whom the supplication is put up, while that holy and most awe-inspiring  sacrifice is set forth. . . .

Then, after these things, we say that Prayer which the Saviour delivered to His own disciples, with a pure conscience entitling God our Father, and saying, Our Father, which art in heaven . . .

After this the Priest says, “Holy things to holy people.”  Holy are the gifts presented, having received the visitation of the Holy Ghost; holy are ye also, having been deemed worthy of the Holy Ghost; the holy things therefore correspond to the holy persons. Then ye say, “One is Holy, One is the Lord, Jesus Christ.”  For One is truly holy, by nature holy; we too are holy, but not by nature, only by participation, and discipline, and prayer. . . .

After this ye hear the chanter inviting you with a sacred melody to the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and saying, O taste and see that the Lord is good. Trust not the judgment to thy bodily palate no, but to faith unfaltering; for they who taste are bidden to taste, not bread and wine, but the anti-typical Body and Blood of Christ . . .

Then after thou hast partaken of the Body of Christ, draw near also to the Cup of His Blood; not stretching forth thine hands, but bending, and saying with an air of worship and reverence, Amen, hallow thyself by partaking also of the Blood of Christ.

Hold fast these traditions undefiled and, keep yourselves free from offence. Sever not yourselves from the Communion; deprive not yourselves, through the pollution of sins, of these Holy and Spiritual Mysteries. And the God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, and soul, and body be preserved entire without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:—To whom be glory and honour and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and world without end. Amen.

- Excerpts from St Cyril of Jerusalem, Lecture XXIII (On the  Sacred Liturgy).

Radical Orthodoxy – Conclusion (Part 6 of 6)

Counter-Ontology

Erik Olin Wright, President of the
American Sociological Association

For Milbank, Christian theology/sociology has to provide a “counter-ontology” because, as required by the provision of a different ethics, it has to establish an ontology of participation united with an epistemology of analogy, both of which are necessary to provide depth to all reality.

Outside of such ontology of participation, all reality is flattened; all social, political and cultural aspects become reducible to the mere human and humanistic level, all ethics are reducible to preference and power games, all language reducible to mere signs, and all men reducible to chemical/biological machines.

Within an ontology of participation, there are no things, no ultimate substances, only shifting relations and generations in time which only exist in their constitution of ideal, logical patterns; knowledge is not a representation of things, but is a relation to events, and a action upon events, because truth, for Christianity, is not correspondence, but rather participation of the beautiful in the beauty of God.[1]

Secular reason is part of an antique-modern scheme, and this is counteracted by an ontology of difference where narrative and ontology reinforce each other, the transcendent God announcing himself in the narrative as the God Who Is.

In this ontology, “there can be no more ‘truth and falsity’ . . .  because no positive non-being is posited, as by Platonism, and not pure material potency, as in Aristotelianism, [and] nothing that is, can be in any sense wrong.”[2] The other important points Milbank makes concerning this ontological outlook have been already highlighted in the first section of this paper.

Counter-History of the Kingdom

Lastly, this Christian theology/sociology has to take up again the “counter-history,” but this time under the aspect of ecclesial critique. Milbank has no intention of adopting a naïve perspective in which Christian theology and Christian praxis have been perfect, mere victims of secularization and distortion coming from outside. Rather, the failures of Christian theology and practice themselves have given occasion to ontological and epistemological shifts that have eventually led down the path to secularization and nihilism.

The Church failed to bring about salvation, but instead ushered in the modern secular – at first liberal, and finally nihilistic – world. [3]

For Milbank, the invention of the secular began at least in the eleventh century.[4] The Church helped to unleash a naked violence and failed to displace politics; it engendered a newly rationalistic and formalized approach to law from the twelfth century onwards, even to the degree that theorists of papal absolutism pressed for a doctrine of unlimited absolutism, and the State assumed the form of a perverted Church, an anti-Church.

In the midst of history, the judgment of God has already happened. And either the Church enacts the vision of paradisaical community which this judgment opens out, or else it promotes a hellish society beyond any terrors known to antiquity: corruptio optimi pessima.

For the Christian, interruption of history decoded antique virtue, yet thereby helped to unleash first liberalism, then positivism and dialectics and finally nihilism. Insofar as the Church has failed – and has even become a hellish anti-Church – it has confined Christianity, like everything else, within the cycle of the ceaseless exhaustion and return of violence.[5]

Milbank’s contention then is that the Catholic vision of ontological peace now provides the only alternative to a nihilistic outlook; there can be again the emanation of harmonious difference, the exodus of new generations, the diagonal of ascent, and the path of peaceful flight.

Conclusion

John Milbank and the Radical Orthodoxy project have made important criticisms of postmodern philosophy, and it has great merit in trying to recover the classical Christian tradition in a way that not merely repeats it, but adapts it and applies it to contemporary issues and challenges. Modern and postmodern insights are not just discarded, but rather incorporated and reoriented when they are helpful.

Beginning with the Enlightenment, the idea that there can be a neutral ground of thought – whether in politics, hard sciences, sociology, philosophy, etc. – became generally accepted. The reaction against the influence and authority of the Church over all areas of human life led thinkers to remove its yoke and seek knowledge independently, for its own sake, and for the sake of human achievement and profit. The illusion created was that knowledge can be acquired without any theological and philosophical presuppositions.

Radical Orthodoxy successfully challenges this outlook.

There can be no knowledge without presuppositions (as postmodernism recognized) and there can be no presuppositions without a theological outlook grounding them. There can be no thought without theology, and it is a matter of which theology will inform one’s presuppositions. As theologians have been arguing for centuries now, secular reason has a religion of its own, with its own sacraments (e.g. empiricism), and its own canon law (e.g. closed natural systems).

Milbank’s arguments, however, at times seem to be inconsistent, both internally and with the Augustinian/Thomistic tradition he seeks to recover.

As discussed in the other articles of this series, Milbank presses his arguments too far when challenging the autonomy of reason. There is no purely autonomous reason indeed, but there are serious difficulties in arguing that revelation is “but a higher measure of illumination.”

In this area, Milbank should follow his own directive of appropriating what is useful in the modern/postmodern context; there is legitimacy to reason and knowledge that does not make reference to transcendentals – one can know things in this way, but ultimately, what needs to be shown is that there is no reason why one should be able to know anything in a universe not sustained by God’s Logos.

We can know the laws of physics, biology, mathematics, logic – but they are only borrowed capital from the God who sustains all things and gives order to all things. In a secular universe, there cannot be any order, and therefore there cannot be any law. Moreover, there can be no ethics that is not arbitrary; in a secular universe, all that can be known about ethics – and some things are rightly known – ultimately can be reducible to preferences and power games, if ethics does not participate in the being of God.

Another deficiency in Milbank’s arguments has to do with his vision of peace as the antidote to postmodernity’s will to power. As already shown, Milbank seems to correct this in his later work, but correlative to his views of the altera societas of pure peace and pacifism is the denial of the full legitimacy of the State/Church distinction.

Milbank’s arguments fail to account for the fact that the Church arguably will never engulf all societies before the eschaton. That means that the work of the theologian, as an expression of the work of the Church, is to recognize that God has granted legitimacy to certain aspects of culture – law, government, politics, and so on. Milbank argues that “tending gardens, building bridges, sowing crops, caring for children, cannot be seen as “ecclesial” activities, precisely because these activities are now enclosed within a sphere dubbed “political.”

But what is the alternative? A totalitarian Christian Church that engulfs governments, civilizations, cultures, denying their freedom to believe as they will, and the legitimacy of the value of life to those who are not Christians (or at least theists)?

This will not do.

Christian theology has to view the public square not only as something that is, but also as something that should be, and then address it, precisely because before the consummation of all things, the Kingdom of God advances by the presentation of Christ and him crucified – as Augustine, Aquinas, and many other Church fathers understood – within a context of loving persuasion, not domination. It is ironic that the very context of the early Church that Milbank seeks to recover was one that is the most similar to our contemporary context when it comes to the existence of the Church in a thoroughly pluralistic society.

Christianity did eventually became mixed with the State, but for three hundred years it flourished, even under persecution, in a context in which Christian thought and practice was only possible in a pluralistic context. And this flourishing was not by denying legitimacy to the pluralistic world.

This seems to be Radical Orthodoxy’s greatest weakness: it fails to recognize that we live in a pluralistic world in which globalization is here to stay.

Christian theology should not use this as an excuse to dissolve its message under a relativistic banner of radical correlationism, but neither should it spend its energies outlining a Christian world where there is “no secular.”

Christian theology has to confront nihilism with the core of its message; the center of Christianity is not participation and transcendence – although they are indispensable for it – but the Incarnate, dead, buried, resurrected, and ascended Christ who is the revelation of the Triune God from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.

When that is obscured, one runs the risk of reifying transcendence and participation, which is precisely one of the main complaints Radical Orthodoxy has concerning postmodernity: reifying things apart from the One who gives them depth.

Therefore, it seems that Milbank’s concerns with relation to the nihilistic path Western civilization has taken are well grounded, and many of his criticisms and suggestions are needed, but there has to be a certain refining towards consistency in his work when it comes to our present global pluralistic context.

If Milbank rightly does not want the One to be swallowed by the many, neither should he allow the many to be swallowed up by the One.

***

See Also:

Radical Orthodoxy – A Theological Vision

Radical Orthodoxy – Altera Civitas

Radical Orthodoxy – Reason and Revelation

Radical Orthodoxy – Metanarrative Realism

Radical Orthodoxy – Counter Ethics

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[1] Milbank, Theology & Social Theory, p. 434

[2] Ibid., p. 438

[3] Ibid., p. 383

[4] Ibid., p. 441

[5] Ibid., p. 442