From Terrence Tilley
Thanks to Terrence Tilley; he has posted this in the comments section in “Weasel Journalism.” It deserves its own post and comments.
An Open Letter to Father Weinandy
Dear Tom,
In the fall semester of 1976 we both began our teaching careers at Georgetown University. Then and now we have agreed on some theological issues and disagreed on others, both methodologically and substantially. I have followed you stalwart defense of the doctrine of divine impassibility with interest.
However, I was very disappointed by your essay, “Terrence Tilley’s Christological Impasses: The Demise of the Doctrine of the Incarnation.” The main reason is that you fault my presidential address for superficial scholarship. However, your essay never mentions over three decades of my published scholarship that underlies the address and was cited in the notes. This is especially disappointing coming from the Executive Director for the Secretariat of Doctrine of the USCCB and the Convener of the Christology Section of the CTSA.
First, you misrepresent my views. I affirm the doctrine of the Incarnation. See my The Disciples’ Jesus (Orbis, 2008) especially 36-37; 224-231. I do not support adoptionism. I never say that the classic councils were “complete failures,” although for reasons stated I do think that the central problem was not resolved.
Second, you misinterpret my views. I do understand the centuries of discussion and debate that led to the orthodox formulae differently from you. I simply point out the political issues were also involved. I am not a cultural relativist as you suggest (see Inventing Catholic Tradition [Orbis, 2000], especially 156-170, and History, Theology and Faith Dissolving the Modern Problematic [Orbis, 2004]). Nor do I hold that “the present culture always trumps the content” of the gospel. I do hold—and have argued—that the contemporary use of terms like “nature” do not mean what “phusis” or “natura” meant in the Patristic era and so cannot be used to communicate the tradition accurately today (unless, of course, one expects all believers to have graduate degrees in theology). Your inference that I challenge the authority of the magisterium is inaccurate; I do question how some magistri have exercised their authority.
Third, you fault my rhetoric, yet you tar the approach I use by rhetorically associating it with other approaches that lead to positions I never address and that you find abhorrent. In so doing, you at least neglect the maxim “abusus non tollit usum.” This sort of rhetoric implying “guilt by association” is hardly fair, especially from a person of your status.
There are other issues that I find you misread or misinterpret. That contributes to my sadness at the tone and content of your essay. But they are too many for discussion in a brief note.
I hope that you will begin to emulate the theologian whose name graces the chair that I have agreed to take up in January, 2010. His practice was always to read others’ work thoroughly, interpret it charitably, and report it accurately—especially when he disagreed with them.
Sincerely yours,
Terrence W. Tilley
Avery Cardinal Dulles Professor of Catholic Theology(elect) and
Chairperson of the Theology Department
Fordham University
Professor Tilley
I am not a theologian by profession or training and I am not familiar with your work, although I suspect I ought to become acquainted with it. I found your original address stimulating and pointed. At the least food for thought. I found your Open Letter more than a convincing reply to Fr. Weinandy. Best wishes!
P.S. I am a Hellenist and you might want to note that the plural of telos is tele, the second e being an eta.
Third, you fault my rhetoric, yet you tar the approach I use by rhetorically associating it with other approaches that lead to positions I never address and that you find abhorrent.
Quite right. And for those who haven’t made it through both works, here’s what Prof. Tilley is talking about. First, Weinandy says this:
It seems clear to me that this misrepresents what Tilley actually said. But even if Tilley had been making a guilt-by-association argument in the referenced passage, Weinandy doesn’t seem to think that’s out of bounds. This is from the end of his response:
Gotcha?
A Kudos and three quotes from Lonergan for our Advent Reflection.
Kudos to Professor Tilley for bringing this discussion to a 21st century forum such as this. Too often theology can devolve into theologians arguing with other theologians about other theologians’ theologies. What we need are vigorous debates brought out into public forums for all to hear and follow. It is good to hear a theologian and a person at the Bishops’ conference actually in dialogue and debate. Too often, academic theologians ignore the Bishops and their representatives, and the local church suffers. Too often the local Bishops and their representatives show little interest in academic theology and the church suffers. I would just hope the two of you could continue to talk and pay attention to one another.
We need to find some way to connect what the Prof Tilleys and the Father Weinandys are about. Community depends on the development of common meaning, not endless games of trying to prove the other wrong. My work among college age youth shows me a generation tired of the endless debating of the elders. We need to work harder at listening to one another and forming the community. The church and world suffer when we fail in this mission of constructing common meaning. Ongoing, deepening, conversion is needed on all levels by all of us. Peace, Rick Malloy, S.J.
“As common meaning constitutes community, so divergent meaning divides it. … The serious division is the one that arises from the presence and absence of intellectual, moral, or religious conversion. For a man is his true self inasmuch as he is self-transcending. Conversion is the way to self transcendence. Inversely, man is alienated from his true self inasmuch as he refuses self-transcendence, and the basic form of ideology is the self-justification of alienated man” (Lonergan 1972:357).
“Finally, the divided community, their conflicting actions, and the messy situation are headed for disaster. For the messy situation is diagnosed differently by the divided community; action is ever more at cross purposes; and the situation becomes still messier to provoke still sharper differences in diagnosis and policy, more radical criticism of one another’s actions, and an ever deeper crisis in the situation” (Lonergan 1972:358).
“…the ideal basis of society is community. Without a large measure of community, human society and sovereign states cannot function. … There are needed, then, individuals and groups and, in the modern world, organizations that labor to persuade people to intellectual, moral and religious conversion and that work systematically to undo the mischief brought about by alienation and ideology. Among such bodies should be the Christian church….” (Lonergan 1972:361).
And kudos to Rick Malloy both for the dialogical sentiments he expresses and for the challenging quotes from Lonergan that he provides.
Let me add a further Lonergan-inspired point. Though concepts (like “person” and “nature”) are important, what is absolutely crucial is the judgment affirmed. For we may make the same affirmation using different concepts or categories.
When Terrence Tilley says, in his open letter: “I do not support adoptionism,” he is making, I suggest, a judgment that such a position does not do justice to the New Testament witness as interpreted by the Great Tradition of the Church.
Certainly that judgment is an important index of the “common meaning” constitutive of the community that is Catholic Christianity. It also infinitely extends the horizon of the “self-transcendence” to which we are called.
I am delighted to see Tilley “pushing back”. What Weinandy calls relativism is what most scholars call responsible historical hermeneutics. This sheds a lot of light on Vatican usage of the term relativism.
Yes, as we know since Noonan et al., historical hermeneutics can make trouble for some church claims and also for the manner in which claims were articulated. Approximately adequate for their time they may no longer be what is most adequate in ours.
Chalcedon’s sublime paradoxes on the unity of divine and human in Christ are not so much a definition as a keeping-open of horizons of thought, as Sarah Coakley argues.
A somewhat wooden reading of the Johannin Prologue prevails on both sides of this debate.
I have no inside information about why all this is taking place now. Nor am I saying anything about motives. I don’t know Fr. Weinandy or John Allen. But I have a hunch about how this is playing out now–thanks to Mollie’s excerpts above.
I’m a moralist–not a specialist in Christology. Mollie’s excepts crystalized for me he fact that Father Weinandy objects to Prof. Tilleys view, non the grounds that it could lead to the position that the bad behavior of bishops and priests can “contaminate” the truths of the doctrine authoritatively taught.
Mmm. I can see why someone who is the theological advisor to the American bishops would worry about such an issue-generally–it’s a big problem right now–not in the area of Christology (Weinandy’s area), but in the area of sexual ethics.
The bishops are back in the news for sexual abuse issues again. The devastating Dublin report was just released, and Connecticut released its files. The bishops also just issued a pastoral letter reaffirming traditional teaching on each and every item listed the piece from Weinandy’s response quoted by Mollie.
So the actual issue, as it arises in our time, very existentially, isn’t about Christology at all. It’s about ethics–and the degree to which the bad behavior of the bishops–the cover-up of the abuse situation –calls into question the ability of the bishops to teach with authority and credibility on matters of sexual ethics.
By having the argument over Christology–not a hot button topic-Weinandy could 1) make the point–bad behavior doesn’t affect doctrinal authority; 2) not reignite the specific discussion on the bishops and sexual ethics in the public mind; and 3) indicate to CTSA minded theologians (since Tilley was president of the CTSA) that the bishops are not going to back down on sexual ethics on the grounds that they’ve been bad themselves.
It’s an oblique supportive move, not a direct one. I have no idea if this was the plan. If it’s not , it would have been a very good one, judging by the fact that everyone is talking about Weinandy and Tilley and Chrstology and Councils–and not bishops and depositions and sexual abuse and contraception.
That is a great point, Cathy. Reminds me of Bishop Gregory’s remark during the height of the pedophilia scandal about the bishop’s coverup. He said that the groups attacking the bishops were supporting divorce, homosexuality, women’s ordination and abortion. Those same sins now seem part of those who are studying the ambiguities of Chalcedon. Nice try which will not work since revelations of scandalous bishop behavior seems to have no end.
George says ignore them. Then on second thought obey them. Keep distracting with abortion, homosexuality, Anglicans, SSPX, liturgy and christology. Yet the premier qualifier of Jesus: “Let your light shine before all” seems practically non existent among the Most Reverends.
Professor Tilley, you refer to impasses in the real life of the Catholic Church, beginning with what you believe have become stalemates that have splintered the ecclesial community, The Great Western Schism and The Protestant Reformation. You feel that these “malignant stalemates” destroyed the possibility of ecclesial unity and will not be overcome as long as the shepherds of one flock demand that their separate brethren repent of their errors to be accepted back into the fold. If it is true that heresy is error, and that error begets error, how can one profess to be Catholic while professing error simultaneousy? How can one profess The Creed while denying The Filioque without denying the complementary, inherent, ordered Nature of The Love Between The Father And The Son, The Holy Spirit, to begin with?
Nancy, niether you, Augustine, the popes and bishops, nor anyone else has any idea what filioque means. Augustine postulated it and said others were free to disagree. That part of Augustine’s should be stressed more often.
Professor Tilley invokes the memory of Cardinal Dulles, the theologian whose name graces the chair he will soon assume. I wonder if there are any conditions attached to the chair such that its holder might be expected to reflect the views of Cardinal Dulles, or is he as free as any other theologian to dispute those views.
Just curious.
Cathy: As you say, you’re “a moralist, not a specialist in Christology,” and so I suppose it’s natural that you would write: “So the actual issue, as it arises in our time, very existentially, isn’t about Christology at all. It’s about ethics–and the degree to which the bad behavior of the bishops–the cover-up of the abuse situation –calls into question the ability of the bishops to teach with authority and credibility on matters of sexual ethics.” Well, this may state what one moralist thinks is the actual, existential issue. That it is one, I would not deny. But there are others who are of the view that christology is an actual, existential question, and one a lot closer to the heart of the Christian proclamation, and of the Church’s fidelity to it, than a bunch of questions about sexual ethics.
Joe, I agree that Christology is far more important than a bunch of questions about sexual ethics. But the big challenges facing Church–and the reasons many people we both know are despairing about it–has to do with sexual abuse crisis. And the bishops did just issue yet another document on the topic of sexual ethics -which most people perceive to affect their lives more directly –that’s what I meant by existentially — than the filioque, pace Nancy. That document would be within Weinandy’s bailiwick.
Cathy: I don’t myself despair about the Church, perhaps because the first thing I think about when I hear the word is the whole body of believers, not the hierarchy, and throughout the years of this crisis, I have been impressed and edified by how well the vast majority of believers have had the wisdom to distinguish between the hierarchy and their failures, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Church as a community of people who believe that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” the fundamental christological claim.
Joe, you’re talking to the ones who have stayed. Not the ones who have left.
As one who is not a theologian, I would like to have some clarification. Is it fair to say that there are two parties related along these lines? Both agree that Jesus the Christ is truly God and truly human and that this is true of Jesus the Christ in a way that it is not true of any other figure in history. They differ in this way. One party holds that the formula “Jesus is one person with two natures, one divine and the other human” is itself also definitive and perfectly adequate, but the other party open to other formulations as well.
…party is open… (last line)
And you, Cathy, to whom are you talking? To both? Me, too.
Joseph Gannon: I would say that the one party is saying that the formula “one person, two natures” is true. Some of them who hold this may also believe that it is “definitive,” and some few of them may think it “perfectly adequate.” But I think most in this “party” would not think any human formula adequate to the mystery. The Chalcedon dogma has two parts, one in which it is stated that it is of one and the same Jesus Christ that the Scriptures make two sets of statements, one of which assert or imply that he is truly divine, the other asserting or implying that he is truly human; the second part invokes contemporary terms, not drawn from a contemporary Dictionary of Terms Useful in Christology, in order to have words to refer to what there is one of in Christ and to what there are two of in Christ.
Augustinie asked earlier, in his De Trinitate, “What is a person?” And he replied: “What there are three of in God.” The conciliar and patristic language were first of all efforts to establish an agreed upon language for speaking of the mystries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. Most of the Fathers. e.g., Athanasius and Augustine, were aware that there were differences between the language used in the East and that used in the West, and they knew enough to go on to ask certain questions in order to ascertain whether the different terms stated the same faith. The anathemas of the Second Council of Constantinpole (553) are exemplary in this respect. I do not believe that the CDF’s position in response to Haight and Sobrino is as obtusely intransigent as Dr. Tilley states or implies.
I wonder why Weinandy didn’t put the piece in a regular, double blind refereed scholarly journal, such as Theological Studies, Modern Theology, or the Thomist. That would have made a bigger separation between his private opinion as a theologian and his job, than publishing in FCS Quarterly.
I think Cathy’s post on sexuality and the Bishops says a lot abou tAllen’s presebntation of this matter, which we talked about below,
Whether the Frs. Weinandy Tilley dispute is purely theological or not, I think Fr. Weinandy’s presentation suffers in manner and that gets to the heart of the continuing divide problem and how it effects community.
For, as crazy as it sounds, I agree both with Fr. Joe about how many good Catholics in community hang on but also with cathy about how man yhave gone away and keep going away.
Beyond all this. we’ll see how the neo Holy Office redounds down into the Bishop’s confenece and how , in the future,not only episcopal theologian disputes will go (but also episcopal-academe, episcopal- Catholic media relations.)
Father Komonchak: I had thought that there was a parallel situation in talking about the Trinity. All orthodox theologians accept that God is both one and three, but while some are comfortable with saying three persons, others think that in current usage “three persons” is likely to connote in most people’s mind three individuals. Similarly Tilley, if I understand him, seems to hold that “two natures”, in current usage at least, is not much help in explaining that Jesus is both divine and human.
Hello Cathy (and All),
“I wonder why Weinandy didn’t put the piece in a regular, double blind refereed scholarly journal, such as Theological Studies, Modern Theology, or the Thomist.”
I had exactly the same question. I’m a philosopher and not a theologian, and I have never worked long in a university with a theology department, but I think I’m safe in my belief that the standards of professional conduct in these disciplines are similar. The proper first response to a scholarly article like Professor Tilley’s address is to publish a commentary in a relevant refereed publication, ideally the journal in which the original article appeared. My impression from looking at the linked issue of “Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly” where Fr. Weinandy published his response is that this is not a professional level publication, but a more general audience journal with a partisan orientation similar to “First Things”. (I’d appreciate being corrected if my impression is mistaken.) If I am right, then whatever Fr. Weinandy may have intended, his “Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly” article amounts to a quite public attack on a piece first addressed to professional theologians. Such relatively public criticism is appropriate only after the “offending” author has had a chance to respond to criticism in refereed professional publications (and not necessarily even then). So I cannot blame Professor Tilley for issuing his own very public response to the Weinandy article.
I also agree with Professor Tilley and several participants here that Professor Tilley’s views have been misrepresented. But I have learned never to expect better from authors who think that practically everything philosophers and theologians in North America write or say is somehow an attack on Church teaching on sex.
Mr. Gannon: I’ve said the same thing re the Trinity in my classes. There was faith in the Tri-une God before the language of persons and natures was adopted and gradually refined. That language permitted certain precise distinctions to be made and great advances in understanding to be achieved–there is such a thing as the development of doctrine. So I would not lightly let the language go, and would want any substitute language not to misprize the doctrinal clarifications and advances. I do tend to think that it is not a very difficult thing, whether in catechesis or in advanced theological courses, to get the point across that the word “nature” or “person” or the Latin or Greek terms they translate in the patristic or medieval period do not have the same meaning as “nature” or “person” today.
Speaking of “impasse” and cultural warriors” – Weinandy had a theological teaching post at Steubenville. Not sure he would agree that there is something like the development of doctrine.
Hello Bill (and All),
I cannot resist responding. I would think that theologians who work or have worked at institutions like Stuebenville, where the theology departments go out of their way to advertise their loyalty to the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, must believe that Church doctrine and teaching develop in some sense. If they didn’t, then they would be committed to believing that certain formal declarations by popes such as Pius IX’s formal definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and Pius XII’s formal declaration of the Assumption are nothing more than rubber stamps. Certainly one can fairly argue that Pius IX and Pius XII formally affirmed what many Roman Catholics had believed for centuries. But I don’t think anyone would seriously maintain that their formal definitions are of no importance.
Fr. Komonchak: I tend to agree that we should not underestimate the ability of any human mind to think outside the limits of the conceptual world-picture in which it is most at home. There is much to be lost in studying the past if we insist that everyone we encounter in history must finally be reduced to someone who thinks conceptually exactly as we do. One must avoid intellectual narcissism as much as any other fallacy.
“But there are others who are of the view that christology is an actual, existential question, and one a lot closer to the heart of the Christian proclamation, and of the Church’s fidelity to it, than a bunch of questions about sexual ethics.”
JAK,
I could not agree more that Christology is an existential matter. For me the fact that Christ/God was willing to suffer and die for the sake of us finite, sinful, but also sinned against, creatures is the most significant fact in all of history. And so what motivated Him to do so and how He is related to us becomes a matter of supreme importance.
The problem of evil is an existential one. Jesus is, I don’t doubt, the answer to all our frustrating and furious questions about it.
Peter – would agree with you except that is the exact argument that I have heard – that those definitive dogmas merely confirmed what was already the truth of the magisterium. I have heard folks go to great lengths to defend the “deposit of faith” as if it is something that was given to us lock, stock, and barrel at the time of the resurrection.
“Joe, you’re talking to the ones who have stayed. Not the ones who have left.”
Cathy –
You are, unfortunately, so right.
Note that according to Karl Rahner, “Jesus is God” is not a direct identity statement, but is licensed only in virtue of the “communicatio idiomatum”. The hypostatic union is a union not an identity. The connection between the divinity of the eternal divine Word and the humanity of the historical, Jewish, Galilean Jesus is rather less transparent than is usually thought. John 1:14 suggests that the eternal Word enters the historical and fleshly realm in and through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus (in all its connections with Israel, the Church and the world). We have made it out to be a crude amalgam of a divine substance and a human substance (thanks to an undue prevalence of the Alexandrian Logos-sarx schema, with its leaning toward monophysitism). Recall the beautiful subtlety of the Chalcedonian adverbs, borrowed from Neoplatonism jargon: asynchotoos, atreptoos, adiarietoos, achooristoos — without mixture, change, division or separation. These four negative signposts point in two opposing directions. We may not separate or divine the Logos from the fleshly history of Jesus, but neither may we mix them in an impure melange or subject the Logos to change or the humanity to alterations that would undercut its nature.
You might say that the asynchotos, atreptos, adiairetos, achoristos language is just a political comprimise between opposing parties, but this would surely underestimate the serenely disciplined habits of thought lying behind the judicious formulation, the same habits that shine luminously in Pope Leo’s Tome, received at the Council of Chalcedon. Chalcedon is a moment of great lucidity in the history of theology, lucidity also about the limits of theological language. But, as with Trent and Vatican II, the moment of vision was dulled in the ensuing official interpretations. Instead of leaving open the mystery of Christ the neochalcedonians tried to package it in easy to handle scholastic formulations — or so it might be argued.
All of which is not to say that the lucidity of Chalcedon is exactly the same as the lucidity required today. Chalcedon is a model for our own efforts to reflect in depth on the identity of Jesus Christ, but imaginative development inspired by that model would h.ave to take into account our contemporary vision of human history and evolution
JAK –
I thought that words describing the Trinity including ‘person” and ‘nature’ are used only with analogous senses when applied to the Trinity. So how can you talk about their “exact” usages? Or did the notion of analogous predication become important only in the Middle Ages?
Hello Again Bill (and All),
Thanks for your response. Maybe we have gone a tad off topic here, but what you describe really interests me. If one really believes that Christians had received the entire deposit of faith at the time of the resurrection, then one is committed to some views that are rather surprising, to say the very least. For one thing, on this view evidently all that popes and ecumenical councils do when they make definitive declarations is remind everyone what Roman Catholics have always believed. You’ve told us you have direct acquaintance with people who maintain that Christians had the deposit of faith in its entirety right when Jesus rose, but I find it hard to believe that these people think that popes and ecumenical councils are that unimportant. (Of course, there’s the possibility that some of those you refer to in your response to me are not being consistent, but I’ll try not to go there.)
The more one studies the history of dogma the more obscure becomes the precise denotation of ousia, phusis, hupostasis and prosopon (substantia, essentia, natura, subsistentia, persona) in Trinitarian and Christological usage. They function within various language games, but when pressed as to their objective meaning one ends up with Augustine saying “three I-know-not-whats”. That is why Newman in the Grammar of Assent summarized the doctrine of the Trinity without any use of any of these terms.
There was a very incisive critique of the Vatican’s edict about Sobrino by Peter Hunermann in Herder-Korrespondenz.
Yes, dogmas and conciliar formulae are a sort of hedge around the event of revelation and can add nothing substantial to the New Testament. There is a tendency among some Catholics to treat the NT as just raw material for the edifice of dogma raised by the Church, and to magnify the conciliar way of expresing truth in dogmatic rules and propositions as the primary mode of Christian articulation of truth. I have even seen it written that “Jesus came on earth to reveal the mystery of the Trinity”. Some scholastic theologians claimed that Jesus spoke to the inner circle of his disciples in scholastic syllogisms.
Ann: I’ve looked back over my posts to this thread and don’t find I have used the word “exact” in any of them. In any case, I agree with you that any notion predicated both of God and of a creature has to be analogous.
For those still wondering about the event that occasioned this thread, John Allen has posted Terry Tilley’s reply at NCR, along with an amusing little response from Weinandy:
Is this how the man conducts himself on panels at academic conferences?
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/exchange-between-terrence-tilley-and-fr-thomas-weinandy
I thought Fr. Weinandy’s response was hardly amusing: both terse and frosty under a vaneer of courtesy.
Not a professional response.
Interestingly, Allen does not note the criticisms made against him nor does he seem to have done much more research.
On analogies, it seems to me that analogical predication of God is problematic because it reverses the usual relationship between the two parts of an analogy. If I say that I have a church “family,” I understand this term because I first know what a literal, biological family is. I say that my church relationships are a family in a sense that is analogous to this.
In the case of God, it seems that fullest meaning of any predicate would first be applied to God, and then analogously applied to us. But to understand in what way the term is analogously applied to us, we would first need to know its literal meaning as applied to God. Most have concluded that this literal understanding of God is impossible. Instead, we seem to think it is proper to assert an analogical relationship without ever explaining how the analogical term gains any meaning in the first place.
Mr. Pettit: I believe that analogy works the other way ’round. One begins with the term as used of a creature, e.g., “father,” and then applies it to God, noting the similarity and not forgetting that the dissimilarity is greater.
Analogy begins from the common sense of the words — good, true, father, etc. But I think at a second and more rarefied stage people would try to think in the reverse direction: God alone is truly good, true, and the Father from whom all fatherhood is named.
Ephesians 3:15
“I do not believe that the CDF’s position in response to Haight and Sobrino is as obtusely intransigent as Dr. Tilley states or implies.”
Joe, can you elaborate on this statement?
“Ann: I’ve looked back over my posts to this thread and don’t find I have used the word “exact” in any of them.”
JAK –
When you referred to “precise distinctions” I thought that you were referring to exact concepts.
I think the rough-hewn distinctions of the Fathers had value — e.g. the distinction between “created” (genetos) and “begotten” (gennetos) or between ousia and hupostasis. But the exteme preciseness reached in Thomas Aquinas and the other scholastics, in their ingenious analyses of the processions, persons, relations and “notions” are not necessarily a sign of immense and valuable development. The assessment of this metaphysical brilliance and its role in the history of Christian theology is ongoing.
Ann: I did use the phrase “precise distinctions,” in reference to the sorts of distinctions made in the course of theological reflection on the conciliar affirmations. Thus, a precise distinction was elaborated between “person” and “nature” so that it was not self-contradictory to say that God was three persons in one nature. But this did not imply or entail that the two terms were used analogously when predicated of God and of creatures.
Fr. O’Leary: The subsequent theological clarifications do not have the status of the dogmatic affirmations, and how useful (or clarifying) they were is indeed a matter of theological discussion. For myself, I do find them clarifying and helpful, but I wouldn’t suggest that this was necessarily so.
Perhaps the discussion with Professor Tilley of the Dulles Chair can be continued when Fr. Weinandy is appointed to the Sobrino Chair of Catholic Theology at Fordham.
Over at NCR, in the comments under Allen’s brief piece carrying Fr.Weinandy’s response, there is one from Fr. Brian Massingale, president now of CTSA criticizing Allen’s description of that organization.
If itt’s the case that Allen is “carrying water” for the Bishops and their doctrinal arm (se thread below), is it any wonder that this dispute is both open and marked unfortunately by issues of control, not love?
This is the comment Bob refers to:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/exchange-between-terrence-tilley-and-fr-thomas-weinandy#comment-80919
Here are the two paragraphs from the CDF’s notifications with regard to Haight and Sobrino that are most pertinent to this discussion:
Re Haight:
With particular regard to the validity of dogmatic, especially christological formulations in a postmodern cultural and linguistic context, which is different from the one in which they were composed, the Author states that these formulations should not be ignored, but neither should they be uncritically repeated, “because they do not have the same meaning in our culture as they did when they were formulated [...]. Therefore, one has no choice but to engage the classical councils and to explicitly interpret them for our own period” (p. 16). This interpretation, however, does not in fact result in doctrinal proposals that convey the immutable meaning of the dogmas as understood by the faith of the Church, nor does it clarify their meaning, enhancing understanding. The Author’s interpretation results instead in a reading that is not only different from but also contrary to the true meaning of the dogmas.
Re Sobrino:
Certainly, it is necessary to recognize the limited character of dogmatic formulations, which do not express nor are able to express everything contained in the mystery of faith, and must be interpreted in the light of Sacred Scripture and Tradition. But there is no foundation for calling these formulas dangerous, since they are authentic interpretations of Revelation.
Father Sobrino considers the dogmatic development of the first centuries of the Church including the great Councils to be ambiguous and even negative. Although he does not deny the normative character of the dogmatic formulations, neither does he recognize in them any value except in the cultural milieu in which these formulations were developed. He does not take into account the fact that the transtemporal subject of the faith is the believing Church, and that the pronouncements of the first Councils have been accepted and lived by the entire ecclesial community. The Church continues to profess the Creed which arose from the Councils of Nicea (AD 325) and Constantinople I (AD 381). The first four Ecumenical Councils are accepted by the great majority of Churches and Ecclesial Communities in both the East and West. If these Councils used the terminology and concepts expressive of the culture of the time, it was not in order to be conformed to it. The Councils do not signify a hellenization of Christianity but rather the contrary. Through the inculturation of the Christian message, Greek culture itself underwent a transformation from within and was able to be used as an instrument for the expression and defense of biblical truth
Here is Hunermann’s answer to the CDF on behalf of Sobrino: http://www.phil.uni-sb.de/projekte/imprimatur/2007/imp070304.html
I notice that Hunermann quotes Bernhard Welte, a very highly regarded priest of the Archdiocese of Freiburg, as saying the same things about the language of the Councils as Sobrino does. Welte preached at Heidegger’s funeral, and was deeply conscious of how much the language of the Councils moved in the sphere of Greek metaphysics despite its metaphysical innovations. His basic conviction was that the New Testament bears witness to an Event and that Nicea inaugurated a period in which the emphasis on getting the metaphysics right, in a series of judicious propositions, tended to occult that event and put our language in a clumsy relationship to it.
I once taught a course on the Trinity — beginning with the OT on dabhar, ruah, hokma, then the NT witness, then Origen, Nicea, Athanasius, the Cappadocians, Augustine. Then a look at how theologians today try to think back to the NT revelation — Barth, Rahner. Two students, armed with R McBrien’s Catholicism, asked why I had not got to the core and essence of the Trinity as expounded by Aquinas in ST I qq 27-43.
This is a bit like giving a course on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and having students who say Hegel solved everything in his Science of Logic, so why bother with Kant’s petty questions…
For centuries the tract De Deo Trino was an exposition of the brilliant Thomist speculation; the biblical phenomena were quickly vaulted over to get to the speculative nub of the matter. Getting Thomas into a correct perspective is still a very difficult task, how much more the re-assessment of the Councils.
When are we going to stop explaining away that the first seven councils were called by Emperors and that Constantine strong armed Nicea for the sake of a uniform empire. He even sided with the Arian view when he thought that would unify his reign. And how do we continue to gloss over Athanasius when he exhibited excessive ambition, manipulated for his job ab initio and clearly did not forego force to achieve his ends. We have many more facts at our disposal today. What is our reluctance to face these findings and why do we sanctify Nicea when it was truly tainted?
Nicea was not tainted by the politicking that went on. Nicea imposed itself by its merits through the ensuing 60 years of intense debate, triumphing in the interpretation of the Cappadocians over against the extreme formulation of Arianism by Eunomius. In the West Hilary of Poitiers brought the triumph of Nicea in face of a lot of skulduggery against him. Athanasius was a very great theologian and saint — yes, the vast forces commanded by the bishop of Alexandria may have included rough police, but one must recall that all the incidents of violence of which Athanasius was publicly accused are refuted by him in his apologetic tracts. Exiled five times from his see, he yet retained the loyalty of his faithful and bishops to so great an extent that in 362 he could preside over a council in Alexandria that marks the beginning of the great reconciliation that ensured the triumph of Nicea at the second council of 381, whose Creed we recite today.
Apart from the manner in which this issue has burgeoned(see my post 31 in the thread below), I think the issue raised here was impasse and the current stalemate theolgically where it’s posited that the Church is hurting from -sometimes by game playing, “sleight of hand’, e.g changing the subject -something I’ve seen on posts on topics here.
Tilley suggests Christology (as i read him) as the frame to look at the methodological staring point -scripture and tradition or the current situation.
It struck me that without some of the division operative today, the methodolical frameworks could be reconciled.
If we are going to do this, i think it’s important to bbe clear on where each of us is coming from and be open to hear others – part of the dialogue problem today and I think seen even in the latest liturgical discussion here.
(Hating to be repetitive, I do think the Allen reporting of the matter made the problem of an yharmony far more difficult.)