Mike's musings

Anglicans and authority: William Beveridge

Although written around 1699, the first (incomplete) version of Discourse upon The Thirty-Nine Articles wasn't published until 1716, and this (complete) edition in 1840: Beveridge, William (1840) Ecclesia Anglicana Ecclesia Catholica or, The Doctrine of the Church of England consonant to Scripture, Reason and Fathers: in A Discourse upon The Thirty-Nine Articles agreed upon In The Convocation Held at London MDLXII, Oxford University Press, Oxford. (A bit of a mouthful!).

The clue here is very much in the title: it's about combining Scripture, Reason and the Church Fathers. There is a very strong argument from reason, and an enormous amount of footnoting in Greek, Latin Syriac and other languages. It's a work of considerable scholarship, though I think that much of the evidence presented would these days be felt to be weak, and sometimes misused. The care that is used, and the style of argument, can be seen in these excerpts from Article 6 (On the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation):

Thus we can see how careful the Fathers are to bring the canonical books into the scriptures, and truly they are as careful to keep the Apocryphal out. They acknowledge them, indeed, lawful to be read as we do, but not of the same authority with the former. (Beveridge, p. 286)

And thus we see how clear and express the Fathers are, not only in determining the same number of canonical books that is in this Article determined, but also in passing their judgment upon the Apocryphal books as this Article doth. Even that though the church reads them "for example of life, and instruction of manners," yet it doth not "apply them to establish any doctrine."

On a sidenote, the copy of the book that I borrowed from the relevant library seems to have been printed in 1840, had no other names in the borrowing list (it looks like it was acquired from the Lightfoot Library in 1977), and a good number of the pages had never been cut. Not a very popular book! That neither volume was fully cut means that I've not had a good chance to read it, and this is something I want to remedy. in particular, Articles 20 ("Of the Authority of the Church") and 21 ("Of the Authority of General Councils") deserve more attention than I could give them (as I couldn't actually open most of the pages...)

Labels: authority, theology

Anglicans and authority: John Jewel

The second piece of reading that I've done, and really very much enjoyed, is Archbishop Jewel: Jewel, John (1564) The Apology of The Church of England, trans. Bacon, Anne, ed. Jelf, Richard W. (1852), Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London. This book is in and of itself a jewel, and full of some fantastic theology and statements about the Church of England. Jewel, writing earlier than Hooker, is mainly concerned with defending the Church of England against the Church of Rome. A central statement of his position is this (Jewel, p. 21):

Furthermore, we believe, that there be divers degrees of ministers in the church: whereof some be deacons, some priests, some bishops: to whom is committed the office to instruct the people, and the whole charge and setting forth of religion. Yet notwithstanding, we say that there neither is, nor can be any one man, which may have the whole superiority in this universal state: for that Christ is ever present to assist his church, and needeth not any man to supply his room, as his only heir to all his substance: and that there can be no one mortal creature, which is able to comprehend or conceive in his mind the universal church, that is to wit, all the parts of the world, much less able rightly and duly to put them in order, and to govern them rightly and duly.

Here, Jewel is arguing against the claims of the Pope. A little later, he comes up with a brilliant argument against the supposed authority of the Roman Church over men's souls, which, though long, is worth quoting in full (Jewel, pp. 23-26):

Moreover we say that Christ hath given to his ministers power to bind, to loose, to open, to shut. And that the office of loosing consisteth in this point: that the minister should either offer by preaching of the gospel the merits of Christ, and full partdon to such as have lowly and contrite hearts, and do unfeignedly repent themselves, pronouncing unto the same a sure and undoubted forgiveness of their sins, and hope of everlasting salvation: or else that the same minister, when any have offended their brothers' minds with a great offence, with a notable and open fault, whereby they have, as it were, banished and made themselves strangers against the common fellowship, and from the body of Christ, then after perfect amendment of such persons, doth reconcile them, and bring them home again, and restore them to the company and unity of the faithful. We say also, that the minister doth execute the authority of binding and shutting, as often as he shutteth up the gate of the kingdom of heaven against the unbelieving and stubborn persons, denouncing unto them God's vengeance, and everlasting punishment: or else, when he doth quite shut them out from the bosom of the church by open excommunication. Out of doubt, what sentence soever the minister of God shall give in this sort, God himself doth so well allow of it, that whatsoever here in earth by their means is loosed and bound, God himself will loose and bind, and confirm in heaven.

And touching the keys, wherewith they may either shut or open the kingdom of heaven, we with Chrysostom say, "They be the knowledge of the scriptures:" with Tertullian we say, "They be the interpretation of the law:" and with Eusebius we call them, "The word of God."

Moreover that Christ's disciples did receive this authority, not that they should hear the private confessions of the people, and listen to their whisperings, as the common massing-priests do every where now-a-days, and do it so, as though in that one point lay all the virtue and use of the keys: but to the end they should go, they should teach, they should publish abroad the gospel, and be unto the believing a sweet savour of life unto life, and unto the unbelieving and unfaithful a savour of death unto death: and that the minds of godly persons being brought low by the remorse of their former life and errors, after they once began to look up unto the light of the gospel, and believe in Christ, might be opened with the word of God, even as a door is opened with a key. Contrariwise, that the wicked and wilful folk, and such as would not believe, nor return to the right way, should be left still as fast locked, and shut up, and, as St. Paul saith, "wax worse and worse." This take we to be the meaning of the keys: and that after this sort men's consciences either be opened or shut. We say, that the priest indeed is a judge in this case, but yet hath no manner of right to challenge an authority, or power, as saith Ambrose. And therefore our Saviour Jesu Christ, to reprove the negligence of the Scribes and Pharisees in teaching, did with those words rebuke them, saying: "Woe be unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, which have taken away the keys of knowledge, and have shut up the kingdom of heaven before men." Seeing then the key whereby the way and entry to the kingdom of God is opened unto us, is the word of the gospel, and the expounding of the law and scriptures, we say plainly, where the same words is not, there is not the key. And seeing one manner of word is given to all, and one only key belongeth to all, we say, that there is but one only power of all ministers, as concerning opening and shutting. And as touching the bishop of Rome, for all his parasites sate, and ringly sing these words in his ears, "To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, " (as though those keys were fit for him alone, and for nobody else,) except he go so to work, as men's consciences may be made plaint, and be subdued to the word of God, we deny that he doth either open, or shut, or hath the keys at all. And although he taught and instructed the people, (as would God he might once truly do, an persuade himself it were at the least some piece of duty,) yet we think his key to be never a whit better, or of greater force than other men's. For who hath severed him from the rest? Who hath taught him more cunningly to open, or better to absolve than his brethren?

A long section, indeed, but it sums up rather well Jewel's theology, I think. For him, the Word is paramount, and the Church of Rome has tried to claim far too much authority. He is again attacking those of the Church of Rome when he writes:

Therefore the holy scriptures, which our Saviour Jesus Christ did not only use for authority in all his speech, but did also at last seal up the same with his own blood, these men, to the intent that they might with less business drive the people from the same, as from a thing dangerous and deadly, have used to call them a bare letter, uncertain, unprofitable, dumb, killing, and dead: which seemeth to us all one as if they should say, "The scriptures are to no purpose, or as good as none."

Jewel, at the end of the book, shows an interesting side to the argument. He's not necessarily suggesting that the Church of England has everything right, but he feels that the Church of Rome has moved away from God (Jewel, pp. 154-155):

Wherefore if the pope will have us be reconciled to him, his duty is first to be reconciled to God. For from thence, saith Cyprian, spring schisms and sects, because men seek not the head, and have not their recourse to the fountain (of the scriptures), and keep not the rules given by the heavenly teacher. For, saith he, that is not peace, but war; neither is he joined unto the church, which is severed from the gospel. As for these men, they use to make a merchandise of the name of peace. For that peace which they fain would have, is only a rest of idle bellies. They and we might easily be brought to atonement, touching all these matter, were it not that ambition, and gluttony, and excess did let it. Hence cometh their whining, their heart is on their halfpenny. Out of doubt their clamours and stirs be to none other end, but to maintain more shamefully and naughtily ill-gotten things.

Jewel's position (which does sometimes fall into the invective), then, is that the Church of Rome has moved away from the true church, and holds on to its position of error partly - or largely - through the corruption of the Pope. It is _we_ who are Catholics he says, in yet another piece of brilliant theology (Jewel, pp. 16-17):

Wherefore, if we be heretics and they (as they would fain be called) be catholics, why do they not, as they see the fathers, which were catholic men, have always done? Why do they not convince and master us by the divine scriptures? Why do they not call us again to be tried by them? Why do they not lay before us, how we have gone away from Christ, from the prophets, from the apostles, and from the holy fathers? Why stick they to do it? Why are they afraid of it? It is God's cause. Why are they doubtful to commit it to the trial of God's word? If we be heretics, which refer all our controversies unto the holy Scriptures, and report us to the self-same words which we know were sealed by God himself, and in comparison of them set little by all other things, whatsoever may be devised by men; how shall we say to these folk, I pray you, what manner of men be they, and how is it meet to call them, which feat the judgment of the holy scriptures, that is to say, the judgment of God himself, and do prefer before them their own dreams, and full cold inventions: and, to maintain their own traditions, have defaced and corrupted, now these many hundred years, the ordinances of Christ and of the apostles?

Jewel sees himself as a reformer: someone who is trying to re-form the church into what it once was: a body built on the word of God, and informed by that above all things. It is writing such as this, with its rhetoric and theology, that convinces me that I am, in many things, a Protestant - and a Reformation Protestant, at that.

Labels: authority, faith, PhD, protestantism, theology

Anglicans and authority: Richard Hooker

For a while, now, I've been doing some preparation work for a possible PhD around Anglican understandings of authority. This has involved a bunch of reading, and I've really enjoyed it. What I've started with has been some reading of the early theologians of the Church of England. I thought I'd record some of the reading I've been doing, as if all goes well, I'll need to be coming back to my thoughts.

The first piece of reading I did was some Richard Hooker, one of the Church of England's great theologians: Hooker, Richard (1593) The Folger Library Edition of The Works of Richard Hooker, Vol. 1: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, ed. Speed Hill, W., Belknap Press, Cambridge, Mass.. Best is probably to set out some of the chapter synopsis provided by Hooker for his first book (Hooker, pp. 55-56):

9 Of the benefit of keeping that lawe which reason teacheth.

10 How reason doth leade men unto the making of humane lawe, whereby politique societies are governed, and to agreement about lawes whereby the fellowship or communion of independent societies standeth.

11 Wherefore God hath by scripture further made knowne such supernaturall lawes as doe serve for mens direction.

12 The cause why so manie naturall and rationall lawes are set downe in holie scripture.

13 The benefit of having divine lawes written.

14 The sufficiencie of scripture unto the end for which it was instituted.

15 Of lawes positive conteined in scripture, the mutabilitie of certaine of them, and the generall use of scripture.

16 A conclusion, shewing how all this belongeth to the cause in question.

From chapter 16, we have (Hooker, pp. 138-139): "In reasonable and morall actions another law taketh place, a law by the observation whereof we glorifie God in such sort, as no creature els under man is able to doe, because other creatures have not judgement to examine the quality of that which is done to them, and therfore in that they doe, they neyther can accuse or approve themselves. Men do both, as the Apostle teacheth, yea, those men which have no written lawe of God to show what is good and evill, carrie written in their hearts the universall law of mankind, the law of reason, whereby they judge as by a rule which God hath given unto all men for that purpose." He's keen on the importance of natural law, clearly. Slightly further on, he is talking about the importance of laws within nations - and between nations (Hooker, p. 56): "The publique power of all societies is above every soule contayned in the same societies. ... [E]xcept our owne private, and but probably resolutions be by the lawe of publique determinations overruled, we take away all possibilitie of sociable life in the worlde. A plainer example whereof then our selves we cannot have. How commeth it to passe that we are at this present day so rent with mutuall contentions, and that the Church is so much troubled about the Politie of the Church? No doubt if men had beene willing to learne how many lawes their actions in this life are subject unto, and what the true force of ech law is, all these controversies might have dyed the very day they were first brought forth." Hooker is writing not just about the contentions between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, but also about issues within the Church of England, where he was battling against Puritan elements.

In the second book, he is arguing against those who "urge reformation in the Church of England: Namely That Scripture is the onely rule of all things which in this life may be done by men." He wants to show that God's rules come from beyond solely scriptural teaching (Hooker, p. 147-8): "To teach men therfore wisedome professeth, and to teach them every good way: but not every good way by one way of teaching. Whatsoever either men on earth, or the Angels of heaven do know, it is as a drop of that unemptiable fountaine of wisdom, which wisdom hath diversly imparted her treasures unto the world. As her waies are of sundry kinds, so her maner of teaching is not meerely one and the same. Some things she openeth by the sacred bookes of Scriture, some things by the glorious works of nature: with some things she inspireth them from above by spirituall influence, in some thinges she leadeth and trayneth them onely by worldly experience and practice. We may not so in any one speciall kind admire her that we disgrace her in any other, but let all her wayes be according unto their place and degree adored."

There are some interesting issues raised in chapter 6:

Our question is, whether all be sinne which is done without direction of scripture ...? (p. 169)

For in truth the question is not, whether an argument from scripture negatively may be good, but whether it be so generally good, that in all actions men may urge it. The Fathers I graunt do use verie generall and large tearmes, even as Hiero the King did in speaking of Archimedes, From hence forward whatsoever Archimedes speaketh, it must be believed. His meaning was not that Archimedes could simply in nothing be deceyved, but that he had in such sort approved his skill, that he seemed worthie of credit for ever after in matters appertaining unto the science he was skilfull in. ... Let any man therefore that caryeth indifferencie of judgement, persuse the Bishops [the Bishop of Salisbury's] speeches, and consider well of those negatives concerning the scripture, which he produceth out of Iran&aedigraph;us, Chrisostome, and Leo ... They mention no restraint in the one then in the other. ... (pp. 173-174)

In chapter 8, he helpfully (for our purposes, at least), lays out two contrary positions:

Two opinions therefore there are concerning sufficiencie of holy scripture, each extremely opposite unto the other, and both repugnant unto truth. The schooles of Rome teach scripture to be so unsufficient, as if, except traditions were added, it did not conteine all revealed and supernaturall truth, which absolutely is necessarie for the children of men in this life to know that they may in the next be saved. Others justly condemning this opinion growe likewise unto a daungerous extremitie, as if scripture did not onely containe all thinges in that kinde necessary, but al thinges simply, and in such sorte that to doe any thing according to any other lawe were not onely unnecessary, but even the opposite unto salvation, unlawfull and sinfull. Whatsoever is spoken of God or thinges appertaining to God otherwise then as the truth is; though it seeme an honour, it is an injurie. ... [W]e must ... take great heede, lest in attributing unto scripture more then it can have, the incredibillitie of that do cause even those things which indeed it hath most abundantly to be lesse reverendly esteemed. (Hooker, pp. 191-192)

The third book is "Concerning their second assertion, that in Scripture there must be of necessitie contained a forme of Church-politie the lawes whereof may in no wise be altered." It's fairly clear from the arguments above that Hooker looks beyond Scripture for rules - and rules are very important here, as he's writing around the time where Puritans are arguing that the nation should be ruled according to their views - based, they argue, on Scripture - and that the Church should also be separated from the state's tradition exertion of authority. Hooker, who wishes to keep the church as an Established church, is arguing against this strongly.

Labels: authority, PhD, theology

Redemption

I was given a recommendation to read Jean de Lubac's Catholicism a few weeks ago, and I'm getting through it bit by bit. I'm enjoying it, though there's much in it with which I don't agree. Some of it I like very much, in particular de Lubac's insistence on the importance of the redemption of the entirety of the Body of Christ, the Church. But there are facets of his theology with which I disagree, and it's not just de Lubac, I think.

I'm aware that he was writing in the early part of the 20th Century - the 1920's - and things may be different in modern (Roman) Catholic theology, but it feels like too much of the argument through which he has, at times. to wade, is to deal with the fact that it's impossible for him seriously to question Roman Catholic doctrine and the theology of major theologians and Popes in the Roman Catholic church. That's not my major issue, however. My main issue, which shouldn't surprise anyone, is that de Lubac's theology is underpinned by the assumption that redemption comes through the grace available through the (catholic) church: by which he means the Roman Catholic Church. We - by whom he explicitly means everyone not part of the Roman Catholic Church - are in the same boat as pagans with regards to redemption:

"[O]utside the church, no salvation. Obviously it cannot mean that no one is ever saved who does not belong exteriorly to the Church ... [b]ut the explanation for which a formula has been found during the last few centuries in the distinction between the body and soul of the Church is neither sufficient nor entirely exact; for the axiom refers, more often than not, not to the soul but to the body of the Church, her social visible body. Following Innocent III's example Piux IX is more explicit: he speaks of the Roman Church."

Clearly, I don't accept the position that it is only through the grace which it is the privilege and ability of the Roman Catholic Church - and only the Roman Catholic Church - to grant to its members that we can come to redemption. On the other hand, I do believe in the importance of the catholic church (note capitalisation) as the Body of Christ, and I like the role that de Lubac gives it in terms of corporate - communal - redemption. So I'm not happy in a solely "personal" redemption. But if, as Protestants, we reject the suggestion of a singular authority enshrined in the Roman Catholic Church, then we need to think about where we believe redemption sits in our relationship with God and the church. It is the question of authority and the church which interests me - fascinates me - and which I hope to study over the next few years. I also think it's vital that we address the whole question of authority and the church, particularly the Church of England.

Labels: authority, catholicism