Donald,

I do continue to appreciate your thoughtful contribution to this debate. I'm a bit reluctant to wade into it again.

What I would specifically like to see is a reconciliation of Fr. Forrester's doctrine of the atonement with Irenaeus' teaching on the passion (against Gnostic denials or theories of a cosmic stauros in the aeons). It seems to me that it denying the distinction between how Jesus is Christ (by nature) and how we are Christ (by adoption), Fr. Forrester also runs the risk of the precise denial of the salvific value of the historical sufferings of Jesus. I continue to believe that Eckhart, not Irenaeus, drives his teaching here. The relevant passages are in book III, chapter 18 of Against Heresies.

I agree that recapitulation is not Anselmian satisfaction. But it still does depend on the identity between Son, Jesus, and Christ, which Irenaeus emphatically asserts. It also depends on the salvific value of his sufferings in the flesh, to set us free from the bondage of sin.

What I find in Fr. Forrester (as in Eckhart) is the passion as an archetype of detachment and not as concrete historical action for liberation on the part of the incarnate Word.

Lastly, I would repeat, that Fr. Forrester invited this scrutiny by his own actions. Altering the baptismal liturgy to remove references to sin (troubling enough in itself) led to suspicions about his teachings on the matter and unearthed a troubling Christology.

I agree that Irenaeus wanted orthodoxy to be a big tent, but he was also willing to cut off what did not agree with the public teaching of the Church. Heresy is not an intellectual mistake; it is recalcitrant and deliberate error, a crime of the will.

Dear Don,

I do thank you for reminding us of the voices of inclusivity that call out to us from the depths of our incarnational theology. Indeed, I have contemplated (and used in sermons) Irenaeus’ “what he [Christ] did not assume, he did not save,” and often find myself trying to explain Gregory Nazianzen’s, ‘He became what we are that we might become what he is.

I pray that you might receive this response in the friendly and conversationally-intended spirit in which I am writing it. My aim is to contribute and foster conversation – not at all to be adversarial.

***

Orthodoxy is a funny thing. Yes, it’s a word that has been hijacked by the more conservative wings of most religions, and it is a word that has been wielded for millennia to achieve the selfish aims of so many sick-minded theologians who are trying to make God into their own image. As we struggle to regain our sense of what Orthodoxy is and is not, we must take care, as you suggest, to err on the side of the inclusive embrace, or else run the risk of missing the core message of Jesus’ ministry (which I would define as reconciliation).

I would, normally, fully embrace the general understanding of orthodoxy that you describe: "that Christ lifted up on the cross drew all people to himself as he had taken all of human life to himself, moment by moment throughout Jesus’ life among us.” But I think that what you are affirming is not the availability and desire of God to embrace us all through Jesus Christ – what you seem to be suggesting is a universalizing blessing of God’s embrace on all that we might encounter or endure as a definition of salvation – and I’m not sure that this is true. While I do believe that God’s blessing is universally available, indeed, woven throughout everything as a product of creation – I think that there is also an element of intentionality and reception that are necessary.

Yes, I do believe that God would like for all of us to warmly receive him, and to believe in his Son, and to know the richness of that relationship. That is what was/is behind the Incarnation itself. But to say, “what Christ did not assume, he did not save” is not the same thing as saying that everything is good and right and blessed because God became Human. Yes, God ennobled Humanity when Jesus became human (Anselm?), but that ennobling does not override the necessary function of Human choice and the freedom of the will. These are still factors that must be considered, and it remains a part of the human condition that we can and do reject God – and it remains a part of the Covenant that God lets us.

It must be so. Without our ability to reject God, and without God’s allowance for us to reject him, we would be nothing more than mere puppets playing out a sick game – and I don’t think that any of us believe that.

No, we must choose God – we must choose the loving embrace – and even if blessing is forced on us, love cannot be compelled. I am focusing on “choice” because Orthodoxy itself suggests that there must be some kind of choice – even the kind of Orthodoxy that you suggest Irenaeus defends that “holds an opening for universal salvation, union, and knowledge of God.” Even your words suggest that there is only an “opening” – and I imagine that your words suggest a door that is open (invitationally), not a black hole that is sucking us all in. If that is the case, then, as we contemplate the choice of God, we must also contemplate what we are choosing, and what we are excluding.

The very same Ecumenical Councils that you cite as wrestling with Christology did, indeed, come up with some exclusionary language for what is and what is not Christian. The creeds themselves are at once doctrinal, theological, devotional, and prayerful (if I may take language from Jaroslav Pelikan), and as such betray our human wrestling with an imprecise language that is trying to articulate universal and relative/personal experiences of God at the same time.

Even so, the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 stated “The catholic and apostolic church anathematizes any and all those so-called Christians who presume to deviate from their creed or alter it in any way.” So, even as you say, "orthodoxy consistently rejected enlightened, high-minded efforts to narrow, refine, protect, and make wholly consistent the church’s faith and practice," I must object and suggest that there *were*, indeed, very successful attempts to narrow, refine, protect, and make consistent the faith and practice of the church.

Yes, in general, I think that we are being called to reconcile the world to Christ – to bring the world to Jesus Christ in a radical way, in an inclusive way – but I disagree with your interpretation of Irenaeus’ own ministry and theology, and want to suggest that any definition of Orthodoxy requires some lines, even the most radically inclusive definition.

You seem to be working very hard to defend the election of Kevin Thew Forrester, even to the point of claiming a sort of Gnosticism on the part of bishops and Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church (using words like elitism and secret knowledge in the process). Perhaps it is more innocent than you presume.

We have a process of consent in the Episcopal Church in order to evaluate and maintain a sense of unity, orthodoxy, and identity. I do not believe that we are attempting to create cookie cutter processes, and generally dioceses are free to use whatever process of election seems good and right to them… generally. But a Bishop is elected and “called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church” (BCP 517) – which is the answer to your question: “Why would we subject any preacher who is actively engaged in pastoral and missionary theology to a line by line scrutiny of sermons-once-preached to see if phrases drawn from ancient Christian and contemporary cultural sources might be taken to imply something that deviates from a central ‘core of orthodoxy.’”

I do not think that we are attempting some kind of Gnostic perfection by examining any preacher’s writings as part of the Episcopal Election Consent Process. Rather, I think that it is an attempt to be faithful to an understanding of our faith and polity, while exercising our responsibility as an ecclesial body that is called upon to ask these questions without the presumption of a foregone conclusion. The consent process is not meant to be a rubber stamp process, and for it to have integrity, I believe that those involved must attempt a faithful examination. I trust that this is what they have done – prayerfully, faithfully, and with deep love for the people of Northern Michigan.

I echo many of Fr. Pipkin's comments above.

I also think there is a subtle misreading of Irenaeus (and Patristic thought in general) in this essay. Rather than write a whole essay picking it apart in the comments here, I've engaged it more deeply on my own blog: http://www.jaredcramer.com/?p=1068

Donald, I sympathize with your plea for a more inclusive church, but "orthodoxy's inclusive embrace" sounds like an oxymoron. The question of how broadly to define "orthodoxy" may not be that important. If it is defined narrowly, then liberals may simply choose a more liberal, albeit "heretical," faith or no faith. What really matters is not membership in a particular social club but rather standing up for equal rights for all persons.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Donald,
Thank you for this very moving piece, with which I wholeheartedly agree. As for the idea that might affirm the historic 'anathematizing' of 'so-called Christians', I wonder if we have the discernment to know the devil's arguments when we hear them.
I eagerly await the time when Kevin+ will speak what is in his heart and mind. I trust that he too has the mind of Christ, and from that deep still place God may yet speak a word to us.

I think the comments above point out an extremely important distinction, one which goes to the heart of the Thew Forrester election issue.

I don't think what's at stake here is necessarily a question of orthodoxy in general, so much as an issue of orthodoxy as it relates to ecclesial polity. A bishop is called to be the chief pastor of the church, or, as mentioned above, to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church."

It seems as though the assertion that a priest's heterodox views may be an obstacle to his/her preferment is being with an assertion that no priest should ever be allowed to hold or preach any view even marginally deviating from established orthodoxy.

This is in essence a straw man argument; I doubt that many of those objecting to Fr. Thew Forrester's election think he should be defrocked for preaching the sermons which have given many of us pause; when our priests are free to explore new avenues of theology, in an atmosphere of open discussion and exploration, it benefits us all, and the absence of a rigid enforced dogma is one of the strengths of our Communion.

That being said, the role of the bishop should be to 'rein in' those clergy who deviate too far from the historical faith of the Church. For this reason, the criteria for selecting bishops should be somewhat more stringent that the criteria for the ordination of priests or deacons, as Paul himself asserted in 1 Timothy (I think?).

We have maintained the historical episcopate and the orders of bishops, priests, deacons, and the laity for good reason, and it has allowed us to enjoy what I feel is the most authentic visible expression of the christian Church in the world today.

Fr. Thew Forrester should feel free to seek truth whence it may come, and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, his rather unorthodox ideas might eventually lead somewhere wonderful. But a bishop has different responsibilities, and I think the rejection of his election is based on legitimate concerns over his ability to perform that office in the way the church needs.

I find myself in partial agreement with Jason. I do think that bishops are especially responsible for articulating the shared faith of the church. Heterodox teaching in a bishop is inconsistent with the central task of the bishop. At the same time, all priests are specifically ordained as teachers and are to share with the bishop in the councils of the Church. (In our tradition, deacons and lay people also share in this role, but priests make a specific vow to this effect.) The views of Fr. Forrester are so far out there that they point to a major problem in how we are forming priests for ministry. I would hope that any bishop would have long ago reined him in in one way or another, deposition being the measure of last resort, rather than the first. We are a broad tradition, but there are limits to acceptable diversity. I continue to believe that Fr. Forrester has consistently and deliberately crossed that line.

An excellent essay, Donald.

You have helped me understand a meaning of "Orthodoxy" which is grounded in church history, but seldom aired today.
Thank you.

Nigel Renton

Should a bishop be a robot who merely parrots back citations from the tradition? In that case it might be better to have robot bishops just like the Shinto robot priests in Japan which are very popular for weddings. Robots don't mess up and don't tell silly jokes. It would be even better for people to exchange pages of The Prayer Book with each other, thus bypassing the need to pay someone to read aloud.

I don't see how any serious claim can be made that this tradition is a better embodiment of Christianity than any other, given the ideal to which it would have to be compared is invisible, just like God.

Even among Christian denominations, there is no agreement that the historic episcopate is a guarantee of apostolicity, as we learned from the Concordat with the ELCA Lutherans, who accepted the historic episcopate from the Episcopalians but told us it is unnecessary.

A living episcopate should be able to surprise people by teaching new things and even interrupting the standard ways of doing things.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Thank you, Donald. Your comments about the challenging task of preaching to congregations and to people beyond the institutional church are very apropo to this discussion.

God continues to speak to God's people in new and various ways; some of it we get, some flies right by us. The test of "orthodoxy", it seems to me, is whether what is proclaimed feeds hungry souls, stirs in them the desire to come ever closer to the living God, and showers upon them God's love and generosity, igniting within them a passion for justice, mercy, and walking humbly with God.

I get uneasy when anyone gets too zealous about protecting God - God can take care of Godself.

Elizabeth Morris Downie

While Fr Cramer has offered a thoughtful response from an Irenaean pov, I offer a complimentary Anselmian pov at my blog. I think the heart of both is that though Christ's work is all sufficient, that work in us is ongoing in Him. What we continue to miss in Fr Thew Forrester's read is an account that recognizes the depths of Sin and that only by Christ and in Christ is this overcome once-for-all and being overcome in us.

On seeing the arguments regarding The Rev Forrester's consent and issues of "orthodox belief" revived, I initially wrote a "letter to God" in which, in rather child-like way, I asked God to explain why we had all these doctrines about sin, redemption, the nature of Christ, divinity, etc., etc., etc.... yet there was so much about the world that seemed at odds with this type of "orthodox" Christian view. It went on for quite a while and was, in essence, two things: one a critique of "orthodox" Christianity from the perspective of the inadequacy of its coming to terms with Theodicy; the other simply an observation that to an "outsider" this all just sounds as if we are talking about the merits of Martian vegetable cultivation.

I wonder if the problem is not orthodoxy versus non-orthodoxy versus alternative orthodoxy, but rather that we are all putting the wrong thing _first_ (note to self: relearn HTML tags so you can underline and italicize). If we discount for a minute the Gospel of John, the invitations of Jesus to others in the synoptics seemed so often an invitation to experience. "Come and see" or "Follow me." The people went out to Jesus and ate meals and got healed and experienced community and did things together. People who came to Jesus with complex doctrinal/theological questions (e.g. the rabbinic puzzle story of the multiple spouses) often got rather unsatisfactory answers. IMHO orthodox "thought" is the verbal expression or enfleshment of our _experience_ of God and Christ. No amount of verbalization will ever do justice to the experience just like no amount of reading recipes, no matter how carefully thought out, can equal one good meal. There is nothing wrong with the talk, as long as we put it in a proper perspective. If all we ever did was read recipes, however, we would surely starve to death.

I think that it is OK to share and debate our ideas that grow out of our experiences, individual, corporate and historical, but to make them the center or the sine qua non of our religious experience seems to be missing the mark. It is just this kind of unjustifiable (to an outsider who does not automatically see the "logic" of the "authority" of the ecumenical counsels----Says WHO? Who said that the Counsel of Nicea could promulgate no error?) and inconsistent argument that has caused many to leave the church and many more to simply disregard it as irrelevant. To _us_ on the "inside" these arguments seem important. To the outsider (prospective insider) looking in, it may seem no better than arguing how many angels may sit on the head of a pin. We need bishops and preachers and laity who are authentic in their lives of faith and practice and can relate that experience to others within the church and in the world at large, and can continually reinvent and reform the church so that it is _alive_ and not simply an antique admiration society quoting contrary patristic texts ad absurdum.

Ah, Dr. Shy. The bishops are, after all, representatives of an historic faith, and all these theological hurdles are part of the gauntlet they must run to win office (as candidates for the priesthood must immerse themselves in study of this stuff). Once in office, of course, they spend most of their time dealing with business -- finances, buildings, personnel -- for which they've been given no training. Theology is simply the membership card that must be shown from time to time.

The pronouncements of God were all written by human beings, and ones recorded in previous millennia are probably no more reliable than ones written today (we are more likely to be skeptical when we know the authors).

You say, 'Orthodox "thought" is the verbal expression or enfleshment of our experience of God and Christ.' Exactly. Only, my experience was that I was immersing myself in the Christian story, repeating what I'd read and been told, and extrapolating from that. I can't say that I've experienced personal contact with God or Jesus (and I was a devout Baptist youth, a layreader, and editor at the Episcopal Book Club in the 60s where we had the daily offices and Eucharist). Maybe some people have such experience, maybe they're interpreting their feelings in a way I don't feel justified in doing, maybe it's all an urban legend (things that only happen to other people).

In any event, we aren't creatures who have fallen from a previous perfection or relationship with God; we are organisms descended from previous life-forms who are driven to codify their experience in stories. In my life, I've found 'sin' not to be a useful organizing principle (many temptations I resisted in my youth now seem to be missed opportunities for relationship and living). I value the continuity of the church with previous ages (something that attracted me in the beginning, and leads Gary and I to hang around commenting), but that is merely what has brought us to the present. If we are to continue to seek justice, exercise compassion, and practice mindfulness in community with others, we'll have to do it in a world of evidence and present experience.

Murdoch Matthew

"In any event, we aren't creatures who have fallen from a previous perfection or relationship with God; we are organisms descended from previous life-forms who are driven to codify their experience in stories."

I'm not sure why we as Anglicans ought to understand the Bible literally, from either the "conservative" or the "liberal" point of view.

Genesis is not a book of facts; it's an attempt - in metaphor and story - to explain the very human problem and condition of separation from God. Surely union with God is the goal and end of our faith - and just as surely, we are unable to attain it on our own. The story of the Garden is dealing with fundamental questions in the light of faith: the existence of evil; the continual failure of we human beings to behave as though we were Children of God; the fact of the struggle that is life on earth.

Anglicans (and of course, many other Christians) are perfectly well able to understand these meanings; we don't need to take the story literally.

And of course, we live in the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, the slow poisoning of the atmosphere, and death en masse, let us not forget, please. If anything, the modern world is far less enlightened than it ever has been. That is the "evidence and present experience" I see - and Genesis looks as relevant as ever, if not more so.

And so does the Christology encoded in the Creeds - for without it, we are ourselves Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds. It doesn't do to be Polyannas about this.

In seeking union with God, humankind has denied our union with nature. We are part of the natural order. But in supposing God has given our kind dominion over the Earth, we in the West (the descendant of the Roman Empire) have despoiled it. Our tribe has taken Genesis and imperial Christianity as license to lord it over the Earth. Science, like religion, has fed our hubris. Cheap energy has enabled us to multiply past the capacity of the Earth to sustain us. Demand has permanently exceeded supply. We'll go on telling stories -- that's what our kind does -- I hope they'll better reflect our place in the natural order of things.

Murdoch Matthew

BSnyder, I am happy to hear you don't think Anglicans should take Genesis literally. But by saying it is an attempt, through metaphor and story, to explain a putative separation of God and humans, you seem to have muddled things. How do metaphors and stories explain anything? Stories and metaphors do not explain but may express ongoing human dilemmas and attitudes toward existence. And is this sort of theological reading of Genesis merely an allegorical reading, a way of saying one knows what the text is really about? Are you saying the text means what the church says it means?

My own bias is to see Genesis as a testimony of faith rather than a test of faith. The world it represents is no longer.

In any case, I don't think anyone has solved the problem of the relation of metaphors/stories to statements.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Donald's statement: more to the point, as a preacher, I believe that we keep an ear open to those outside of church, listen to their longing and questions, weigh the best in our common culture and discourse, and take some risks formulating Good News of God’s work among us.

And Jeffrey's statement: We need bishops and preachers and laity who are authentic in their lives of faith and practice and can relate that experience to others within the church and in the world at large, and can continually reinvent and reform the church so that it is _alive_ and not simply an antique admiration society quoting contrary patristic texts ad absurdum.

These two statements are more in line with my thinking about this. Having benefited from listening to many of Donald's sermons; having experienced profound changes in my thinking and exercise of Christian faith, in part from Donald's preaching and teaching and shepherding, I have to admit to this transformative yet solidly orthodox perspective.

I too count Irenaeus as an old friend and adviser. I know nothing of the controversy regarding Bishop elect Forrester. But I am on the side of pushing our boundries, going beyond our comfort zone, going beyond the convenient stopping place, of being wary when people say - well, this is just too far beyond the accepted standard of where our theology takes us.

Our orthodoxy is the orthodoxy established by Christ's actions, not just the writings of early church fathers. This orthodoxy involves breaking the legalistic regulations in order to reach suffering people where they live: healing on the sabbath, allowing unclean women to touch him, feeding those who hunger.

Breaking all these rules he never renounced God or the faith he was born into, he did not establish a new religion. But he did make it possible for us to see beyond our comfort zone and invite all to the table.

I say we have a theologian among us in bls. Precisely so, getting to the heart of matters.

Gary, says, "I don't think anyone has solved the problem of the relation of metaphors/stories to statements.¨ If by "statements" we mean statements of (empirically verifiable) facts, I´d say that most artists and poets deal with this issue daily, At bottom, the challenge in crafting metaphors and images is not whether this can be empirically proven to be true (You´d be wise then to avoid kissing someone with lips of coral!) but whether they are appropriate. And appropriateness is largely an aesthetic judgement. "it fits" "aha! that´s right!" "how beautifully put!" are indications of aesthetic appropriateness.

I´d suggest that the philosophy of art, with its concerns to untie its philosophical Gordian knot, "How come one thing can be another?" to explain such phenomena as metaphor and symbol, might shed some light upon religion, its forms and its claims. This may not mean in the end, however, that religion is reducible to art, but that the philosophy and critical theory of art might be able to furnish some tools with which to understand what is at stake in religious beliefs and practices, since religious beliefs and practices are after all human constructions, --even if we find them to be divinely inspired and revelatory.

I find the tendency in these discussions to treat theological statements as if they were empirically verifiable troubling. Both conservatives and liberals tend to fall into this trap, confusing the image (theological idea) with what it represents (God, the human condition, etc), and so reducing the Incomprehensible to a specific symbolic formulation.

This is a form of idolatry. For the names of God can only be that: names. They are not God. Hence the wisdom of the deacon regularly bellowing out in the orthodox liturgy "We worship GOOOOD" as if to say, "do not confuse liturgy with God." Let´s not do that to theology either.

This does not mean that theological statements have no import. They are hugely important, because as statements of worldview and ethos (Geertz) they establish "oughts" about the way we (and God) aspire to live life. When we talk about a "core doctrine" in Christian faith we are pointing to the shape and meaningfulness of this core metaphorical construction.

The question raised by the Forrester affair, for me, is not wether such concepts as "orthodoxy" and "core doctrine" are still relevant --I think they are-- but how we want to live them today: preserving them from the pollution of the present, or re-casting them in such a way that our contemporaries can enter into their meaning without benefit of Ph.D.´s in systematic theology?

I say this because it strikes me that i these discussions we often present theological ideas as if they were empirical facts, empirically verifiable. I find this to be a sort of theological literalism, akin to a literal reading of scripture. It is not helpful. It also betrays the symbolic and metaphorical character of theological statements. They are incomprehensible when taken literally --as they are impossible to verify. We can only ask consistency an appropriatenes from them. Thus we cannot ask whether the statements are true in the usual sense of verifiable, but we can ask whether they are true in the sense that term is used about art. Is the expression appropriate? To what?, Whom, Where, When?

The error of much of modern philosophy is to assume that when we move beyond what is empirically verifiable, we are merely emoting and expressing private judgment. One can make this error in aesthetics as well. There are forms of objectivity and truth other than that which a logical positivist would acknowledge. Much of what we see from modernists and postmodernists (most modernists?) is one form or another of the Enlightenment prejudice against prejudice.

What is needed is a return to anamnesis, narrative, tradition, including the subversive elements already within the Christian tradition, and an acknowledgment that embodied practices with a specific, contingent, historical origin can have noetic value and that particular claims of a tradition may make a public claim to truth, even universal truth. Because we are dealing with mysteries that exceed our grasp, the evidence can always be read in different ways. So what?

"Most Modernist". I like that. I have tended to go with hyper-Modernist.

I am going to have to disagree that "Names are just names." The Name of Jesus is very much bound up in the Second Person's communication of Who God is, and that can be so without suggesting that God's infinity or Mystery is somehow lost.

Language is sufficient, the way God communicates with us, and in Christ does so in the flesh. That need not mean it can capture, but it does communicate. To suggest otherwise, is to move toward a God so incomprehensible as to be incommunicable.

Bill,

Modern philosophy does not hold anything like your caricature of it. Kant worked hard to show that aesthetic judgements have a rhyme and a reason, --they are much more than personal fantasies or tastes.

Aesthetic judgements definitely involve critical criteria. One such is appropriateness, as I wrote before. Others might be technical expertise, whether the work´s formal elements are in balance, expressivity, etc etc.

The shared critical criteria about symbolic structures (stories, narratives, enactments, etc.) that constitute religions need not be any less powerful than the criteria of empirical verifiability. Again, not all valid knowledge needs to be empirical.

"Anamnesis, narrative, tradition," are all forms of analogical, symbolic enactment, and the only sane way to engage them, IMO, is to read them as such. Katherine Pickstock --whose book, After Ritual...¨ has made many a liturgist scratch his head, opens with a lamentation of the West´s historical loss of our ability to think analogically. Scientism (the idea that all knowledge must be empirically verifiable in order to be true) has to a great extent destroyed our ability to engage in analogical thinking. I´d have to agree, and point out that even the "... subversive elements already within the Christian tradition, and embodied practices with a specific, contingent, historical origin can have noetic value and that particular claims of a tradition may make a public claim to truth, even universal truth." I´m not denying that. I am only pointing out the nature of these statements --historically and culturally conditioned symbolic statements. Do they lead to truth? They can. But being symbols, They can also lead to idolatry; it depends on how the knower engages them.

Although "objectivity" is a concept difficult to apply to symbolic beings --a theatrical play, for example--, it is not entirely useless. One could, I suppose, speak of an objective meaning of Medea, but of course, we would be referring to a consensus of critical judgements about the meanings of the play, and not whether the play is an accurate record of facts. The consensus may even be quite complex, stretching across places, times, and cultures, but it is still basically a shared consensus. The sensus fidelium, if you will, of a community.

I do not understand why this view of religious knowledge is seen as in some way threatening. What do you think is being lost? Do you read my position as inferring that religious knowledge is some sort of fictional fantasy? I don´t believe that. But I do believe with Aquinas that it must be, by definition, analogical and mediated by symbols.

Chris, yes, language about God is sufficient (whose language?, to whom? language is multiplex), but never exhaustive. It is also sufficient as long as we employ it appropriately, as analogous language. It is also necessary --at least for us humans. But the necessity of language can easily taint its sufficiency. When we confuse language about God with God, in the name of objectivity, our theological language becomes opaque, it is not even a glass through which we see darkly, but a solid, opaque wall, which can not mean (mediate) between the knower and God. The human ability to engage these statements symbolically and our growth in that ability is, IMO, an essential aspect of spiritual development. --one that in TEC at least seems to be sorely lacking in what few Christian formation programs we have.

Further, it´s been my experience (with illiterate people, extremely poor slum dwellers, children, and many "others") unconditioned by scientism that the human ability to think analogously is not either increased or decreased by academic knoweldge. When I ask an immigrant, "When was your Red Sea?" The person immediately intuits the parallel betweeen the Exodus story and their own experience. Only a fool (and there are many, I hate to say, with Ph.D.´s) would retort "oh, but I have never been in the Sinai!" Humans constantly think analogously. Otherwise symbols would not work, and we´d go around trying to keep Medea from killing her children, or attempting to hug the Mona Lisa.

Again my core question to you and Bill, is, why is this threatening? What do you think is lost when we speak of God in full knowledge that we are using analogies?

I hope this helps.

Oh, dear, another narrative of the Fall, this one, according to Pickstock, is that "we" have lost the ability to use analogies! The problem with analogical language is its ambiguity. X is like Y but X is also simultaneously not like Y.

I agree with Juan Oliver that symbolic language can easily become idolatrous. I would argue that it does when it attempts to hide its lack of foundation in fact.

Romanticisms of various sorts have since the 19th century mourned the loss of some kind of magical social glue. Some argue that myth itself, the idea that some cultures bond magically by gathering around the camp fire and telling their tribal stories, is itself a myth. Myth, rather than being lost in the nineteenth century, could be argued to have been fictioned. Likewise, this talk about a symbolic function that would be noetic sounds like an invention to me.

Gary Paul Gilbert

I've been away and without good internet access. In fact I was in Spain and in the Basque country - when Eduardo Puelles Garcia, an anti-terrorist police investigator was killed by an ETA car bomb and the next day my wife and I walked in the silent witness - 60,000 people in Bilbao marching together for peace and an end to violence. I've been thinking a lot about that conflict, about violence, about how we embrace one another across differences (or not) and what it costs us. Also reading Marilyn Robinson's 'Death of Adam.' Almost enough to make me give Calvinism a second chance because M.R's picture of it is so generous and full of mercy. So with all that swirling around, I've read the notes here with interest and some care.

Bill, I went back to re-read the section of Irenaeus you pointed us toward. We read Irenaeus differently, though I do see what you're focused on. I see Incarnation at that heart of his argument and a series of different atonement models taken up to reinforce his main assertion - JESUS was really the Christ and Logos of God and really did suffer and die (as well as live a youth, middle age, and old age and take on the whole of our human experience). My impression is that he's about two for one in his assertions that Incarnation must include the whole of human experience - including suffering and death - to be true recapitulation.

And is he a universalist? No, I am (mas oe menos) and he's not. But I feel him leaning as far that way as he can. So I'm very willing to admit that I'm an Origenist and Irenaeus is not - yet. But he does lay a good foundation for it and he seems determined to present God's outpouring of grace on this coming-to-be world of physis/nature as vast beyond our imagining and taking in a lot more than than his narrow-minded pseudo-gnostic adversaries.

Jared, I went to your blog and read what you'd done there separately. My reading of the consistent drift of the process of defining 'orthodoxy' in church history - at least in the ecumenical consensus on the first eight centuries - as a steady stretch toward including more of human experience and more of us - a fight to make the elect our whole chosen-ness rather than an 'elite' is my own. I appreciate the reference to a writer I've not read, and I'm glad to see that others have come to the same conclusion, and for teahers that pointed me in that direction I'd name David Evans (my first patristics teachers, a student of Florovsky's) and Richard Norris (my second patristics teacher). I did go back and re-read Rowan Williams material on Irenaeus in 'The Wound of Knowledge.' My text was already heavily underlined. I found this and think it's worth sharing - "The event of Jesus makes humanity, by its enactment of archetypal human situations in such a way as to direct them Godward...the doctrine of recapitulation is really an extended meditation on Paul's image of christ as the new Adam.' (RW, 'Wound of Knowledge,' p. 30).

Irenaeus is writing about heresy. He does condemn those who would exclude most of humanity from God's embrace and hold 'knowledge' and the salvation it brings for an elite few. Anathemas have an interesting and problematic history. Intriguing to see them invoked against heretical abolitionists (anti-slavery) in the fourth century. And that anathema reinforced by a succeeding ecumenical council. Intriguing that the separation implicit in the word was originally used to denote 'holy' as in 'set apart' in translating Hebrew to Greek. Most intriguing and troubling is the beheading of Priscillian. He was the first condemened heretic who was turned over to the state for civil punishment. Martin of Tours tried to prevent this, was tricked into believing he succeeded and when he was on his way home, the execution went forward.

Yes, there are contradictory strands within Irenaeus himself and throughout these centuries, but what I fear is that when orthodoxy isn't understood as reasserting the blessedness of our created condition and God's longing to embrace us whole, that it makes a killer.

Gary and Murdoch, I'm a lot closer to Juan's thinking on signification than yours, as you know, I think. But I'm glad you're pushing us to face the dilemma of truth claims - that they've been taken so often to imply something else is a falsehood or a lie.

To Juan's passage of the Red Sea and ordinary people's ability to analogize it, I'd add that none of my children have been baffled by my insisting to each that s/he is my favorite and most beloved. And that 'truth' of the kind we value most isn't provable. I don't care whether God 'exists;' I want to know that there's love and compassion at the heart of the universe, and the only way we have of have of knowing love is in opening ourselves to receive and return it.

Cheryl thank you for encouraging words. I miss preaching (or at least preaching as often as I'd like), and I'm awfully glad to hear what my preaching meant to you over some years.

Thanks all for careful, intense engagement in a conversation that matters to us all.

love,
donald

Ah, Gary, but life without narratives is pretty dull, even meaningless, no?

Juan,

I'm perfectly happy with the doctrine of analogy. I'm not nearly so sanguine about the success of the third critique. Kant does his best to reestablish some basis for aesthetic judgment, but he has already given away the store.

Any attempt to name God will bump up upon the fact that "no created species is able to represent the divine esse as it is."

I agree that anamnesis, narrative, and tradition all involve analogy. Nothing to be threatened by there.

Life without narratives is pretty dull, even meaningless, no?

I'm amazed at this remark. Of course you can't do without narratives - Language is narrative (and meaning is in language). The thing is, to recognize our discourse as narrative, and to be aware of what it's based on. (It's fun to treat the writings of John Watson, M.D., as history and to construct lives of Holmes from them, but it's a game. As is, I think, theology.)

Murdoch Matthew

Thank you, Bill. I was afraid of being labeled a heretic too! (Poor Kant, he though he was moving us beyond Scholasticism, and many of us even though he had succeeded).

Would someone then explain to me what exactly Forrester´s heresy consists of? I do not see in his writings a denial of sin, --although, of course, he is free to use a different term, like "missing the mark," the literal translation of hamartía. I do not see a denial of the salvific nature of the cross, nor of the necessity of faith (pisteo means "to trust with the heart" as much as "to believe") in order to avail ourselves of its saving power, all under the free and gracious initiative of God. I do not find any more gnosis than is presented in the 4th Gospel, and I do not find any jettisoning of our objective alienation from God. --an alienation already bridged in the Incarnation, and waiting only our free cooperation to be redeemed.

As I see it, Forrester has attempted to express the truths of the Christian faith using terminology from the very same Tradition in ways that may be more accessible to people today. There is nothing either heretical or new about that. We can differ as to how successful he is, but I continue to find the relish with which some have erected straw men in this case in order to then call him heretical to be in very bad taste, especially for Anglicans, and very suspicious. What are we going to have next, the Anglican Inquisition?

And a very happy feast of SS. Peter and Paul to all!

Juan Oliver, Are you conceding my point about the inevitability of narrative even or especially in theology? I love narratives but do not use them to make knowledge claims. Literature has many other uses and need make no statements of fact.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Donald, I may be closer to you than you think, given you distinguish between facts and some other kind of truth. "And that 'truth' of the kind we value most isn't provable. I don't care whether God 'exists;' I want to know that there's love and compassion at the heart of the universe, and the only way we have of have of knowing love is in opening ourselves to receive and return it." I would cosign the last part of this citation, the part about opening oneself to love. Whether one can really return love is another question. And I don't care whether love is at the heart of the universe. The universe cannot love. But the basic attitude of an openness to love I would subscribe to.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Gary,
I think you're right on point when you note the distinction between facts, and other kinds of truth, and especially when you note "'truth' of the kind we value most isn't provable."

For me, this is the core of the issue around Forrester's election. We're judging his preaching against orthodox doctrine, as if it were factual in some sense. As you've noted Gary, theology is never factual in that way.

By contrast, the content of Forrester's preaching conveys the sense that he's not interested in orthodox doctrine as fact, but rather as a different sort of truth. He's particularly interested in the question of which truths we value. Which is appropriate for a preacher.

My professor of homiletics once said "you must prepare your sermons with profound pastoral attention to the community who will receive them." He abbreviated the same sentiment in the following advice: "Don't answer questions no one is asking."

Doctrine, and theology generally, should arise organically from questions within the community. It draws on tradition (and narrative) creatively to accomplish this task. It occurs in the practice of prayer, preaching, bible study, pastoral care, the works of our hands, and what we do on a daily basis to survive. This is basically how Jesus does theology. He doesn't theologize into the void, but almost always in response to questions, usually urgent ones (that is, "we caught this woman in the act of adultery... can we kill her yet?").

The question of what is orthodox doctrine, is, to a certain extent, one people aren't asking. It doesn't interest them. With all respect to Michael's observation that "The creeds themselves are at once doctrinal, theological, devotional, and prayerfu," I notice that the recitation of the creed is a decided low point in our worship, not just in terms of energy, but in terms of prayer as well. Scanning the congregation, I see eyes glaze over, and people checking watches.

Furthermore, new members coming to church seem to show very little denominational loyalty. Which implies that they aren't choosing a community based on its adherence to the Nicene Creed, or the Articles of Religion, or the TULIP confession, or whatever. Here's what they are asking (or at least what I hear them asking) "Why does it matter?"

It's not a cynical question. It's a curious one, born out of lived experience. Its also one we (and I include myself) tend to shy away from. It's more uncomfortable and convicting than the rather easy question of what is doctrine.

Just some ramblings.
-Peter Schell

Gary,
Just a footnote. I agree with you about the inevitability of narratives. Don't think you're right about using narratives to get knowledge though. I think narrative pervades everything we do, including attempts to get facts. By way of an example:

Fact-The guy at bat just hit a single.

When I state it, I'm actually redacting an absurdly complex situation involving thousands of chemical and physical processes into a comprehensible narrative that fits inside a known framework. Facts don't need narrative, but narrative is the only way we can get at facts. It's not self-evident that this process is different from the way we make analogies to scriptural stories.

-Peter

Peter, You are eliding a crucial difference between a statement such as "the cat is on the mat" and "Christ is risen!" or "Ouch!" One can be verified while the other two cannot even be falsified because they express attitudes rather than describe states of affair.

Of course, facts are transmitted through narratives but there are different kinds of narrative. The narratives of science, for example, bear no relation to religious narratives because in science truth is provisional, awaiting future possible falsification. Failure is built into this other discourse and even celebrated.

One can speak different discourses as long as one does not blur the distinctions. When I greet someone with the word "Hi" I am not positing anything other than performing a speech act of greeting. In religion, words like "explanation" and "proof" operate quite differently from the way they do in ordinary grammar.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Gary, before I respond, my question remains, "why does this discussion matter?" Again, not cynically, but out of curiosity. I think this discussion matters, but I can't clearly say why, except that it's fun to debate philosophy after work; which feels insufficient to me.

I think you were missing a distinction between the facts we describe, and the process we use to describe them. Of course cats being on mats is a different kind of truth than saviors being risen... but I'm not sure the process we use to arrive at them is so different. Yes cat-on-mat is falsifiable, but only within context of data my senses afford me. Saviors being risen is also falsifiable within the context of data other senses afford me.

It seems strange that the narratives of science and religion should bear no relationship at all, given that historically they emerge together, in conversation, and sometimes conflict with one another.

Yes, scientific truth is provisional, in the rarefied world where all scientific discourse conforms rigorously to the scientific method. But, then, as scholars like Feyerabend and Polayani have documented, real science doesn't work the way it says it does. Just notice the way people use the phrase "it's Scientific Fact," to end a discussion.

On the other side of things, religious discourse can be plenty provisional in moments, as in Paul's statement "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

Yes there are different discourses, but the distinctions between them are inherently blurred, because they arise in relationship to one another.

When you have a fight with someone you love, "Hi," can posit the shared experience of hurt and a desire for reconciliation. On occasion religion uses words like explanation and proof exactly the way "ordinary grammar" does, whatever that is.

The desire to sensibly parse out what kind of language game we're playing at any given moment, is a desire to have language operate the way we want it to, rather than the way people actually use it, whether in the laboratory, in prayer or at the dinner table.

-Peter

Gary,

You ask, " Are you conceding my point about the inevitability of narrative even or especially in theology?" I guess --I´m not sure how you are using "narrative." All forms of knowledge are, in a sense, narrative. Scientific knowledge is a narrative about what is "out there" --a narrative that tries to dispense with the subject in the subject-object relationship we know as knowledge.

Other types of knowledge/narrative handle this relationship differently. I do not think we can talk about religion as if it were science any longer. Religion has a huge investment in the subjectivity of the knower, because it deals with meaningfulness and meaning is always "meaning-to-someone." (Aune) and never "meaning in itself" in spite of the fact that theology tends to present itself as "factual" knowledge. Plus it cannot prescind from the "location" of the theologian (culture, time, place, etc.) but must be interpreted as much as scripture has to be interpreted, often by the same methods. This is the deeper reason why "parroting back formulae" is NOT orthodoxy. Theology cannot be meaning in and by itself, regardless of its context, like science, because the purpose of meaning-making is to mediate experience.

This is so strong in religion that without, for example, the knower´s faith (trust) there is no sacramental efficacy possible (Aquinas). To deny this strong subjective pole of religion is to hand oneself over to its detractors, who of course can make hay out of the stupidity of thinking the world was made in 7 days.

Religious narratives are not science. They cannot possibly be, for they deal in meaningfulness. The opposite is also true: science cannot possibly be a narrative about the meaningfulness of life and remain objective.

In order to understand how religion works as a system of symbols and symbolic narratives, we need other tools than the tools of science. That´s why I´m suggetsing that the tools of literary criticism and art theory may be more appropriate. Yes, all knowledge is narrative, --of different kinds, requiring different methods of interpretation, and making different kinds of "truth claims."

Peter, I think the discussion matters because it´s high time our church came out of its "let´s pretend this is scientific fact" closet and openly owned that we are talking about narratives and their meaning-to-someone. Faith cannot be scientific fact, or it would not be faith. What fun. We´re doing epistemology!

Juan Oliver, I agree with you that religious language does not deal with scientific facts. I would go further and say it doesn't do facts or epistemology of any kind.

Meaningfulness is not factual and I have no problem with affirming meaningfulness as long as it is not presented as factual.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Subjectivism is merely the flip side of objectivism. As R M Hare says, they are both a brand of naturalism. They both assume that moral/religious language transmits information.

There are other alternatives, such as emotivism and prescriptivism. Emotivism was a breakthrough in moral philosophy in the early twentieth century and basically says that when one says "Smith is a good chap" one is merely expressing an attitude of approval. Prescriptivism says one is commending Smith. In neither case is one transmitting information, either personal or objective.

I would argue that the insights of a philosopher of language such as R M Hare would be very useful for looking at how religious language functions.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Gary, I think we are practically speaking, agreeing. Religious language communicates meaningfulness --either "my meaning" or "our meaning" depending on its scope. The example of "Smith is good chap" is --whether emotivist or prescriptive, a statement of my/our feelings in relation to Smith. It IS transmitting personal or communal information, but it´s that information may or may not be factual.

The reason, IMO religious people get in trouble with secularists is that both sides consider factual (empirically provable) knowledge the only kind of knowledge there is. That assumption has the unfortunate effect of precluding what would be very profitable dialogue between both kinds of knowers, and for one thing, prevents the possibility of those in the maws of scientism ever considering that "objective" knowledge is perhaps every bit as subjectively loaded as the knowledge of religion.

Juan Oliver, we almost agree. But I would not say that moral statements and religious statements convey information. "Smith is a good chap" does not communicate the feelings of the speaker, according to emotivism, but rather an attitude of approval. Emotivism is not the same thing as subjectivism, which would argue that the speaker has positive feelings toward Smith. If the speaker dislikes Smith and says he is a good man then the statement is false. For an emotivist, however, the speaker need not feel anything but only express approval. "Express" here need mean no more than 1 + 1 is another expression for or expresses 2. Prescriptivism is more like an imperative in that it is saying something like "Open the door," a statement which is not falsifiable. R. M. Hare would say there is some factual element in "Smith is a good chap" in that certain facts, depending on the values of the speaker, might change the expression of approval into one of disapproval or the prescription into a prohibition.

Emotivism and prescriptivism are nondescriptive, that is they do not teach, as does descriptivism, that the semantic content and truth conditions of a statement, are its whole meaning.

On the other hand, I very much agree with you that certain atheists/secularists and religious types speak the same language to the extent they assume that moral and religious statements transmit facts. Fundmentalism's early twentieth-century insistence on miracles as factual, for example, presupposes a scientific world view in which there are laws of nature. Prior to the rise of modern science, God or the gods were always intervening so that notion of a miracle as in intervention in nature would have made no sense. A certain atheism and a certain fundamentalism use the same rhetoric.

Wittgenstein liked Newman on miracles because the man would take away all rational proof for a miracle and then argue that something could have been a miracle. Newman tells the story of missionaries who had their tongues cut out and yet they could still speak. But then Newman says that it is still possible for someone to speak without a tongue and that if only part of the tongue had been cut they would not have been able to talk. Newman then says that it may nevertheless have been miracle. Miracle then becomes something more like an expression of an attitude rather than any factual claim.

Just because something is not knowledge doesn't mean it is unimportant. Values are important but they don't transmit knowledge of any kind.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Juan Oliver, To clarify, not everything is about information. A distinction must be made between expressing and stating. I would translate "It IS transmitting personal or communal information, but it´s that information may or may not be factual" into it is expressing a personal or communal attitude rather than asserting or stating a fact.

Once this distinction is made it is clear that the fundamentalists and certain atheists assume that language is only about stating facts.

Gary Paul Gilbert