The Bishop's Weekly Column from the Parish Bulletin

OUR LADY OF FATIMA

CATHOLIC CHURCH

"Transformational Theology"

(Blog Wars II ?)

June 23, 2007

"All things are in flux"

Heraclitus c 500 BC - "Patron Saint" of
"Transformationalists" & "Alchemists"

A couple of days ago I entered into yet another of my facetious skirmishes with a good priest friend of mine via the internet. I wrote in the previous column these very ambiguous words:

"...the search for objective truth does not always imply a return to some arbitrary date or epoch as though that magical date could somehow solve the "blues" of today; rather the stuff of life is to take those values of the past and make them relevant to the present. It is to recognize that we are in transformation, that there is a core that does not change, and an outer shell that is in flux. In terms of the Faith the core could be for a Catholic, the Creed, the shell, how that Creed is made present in my life, a life of loving union with Christ who is the Truth itself. We take the treasures from the past, dust them off, so that they show forth a new luster in today's world. "

Yesterday evening, Sister and I were invited to dinner by a couple of parishioners. The husband referenced that column and said that there had to be a third person in it somewhere. I explained the background. However, although I was having a private joke in a public forum, lest other minds wrongly conclude that I have lost my theological mind I owe it to readers to explain what that paragraph was really all about since my clerical correspondent e-mailed this to me yesterday evening:

Being that everything is in flux, it is hard to know how to address you at this given moment which is different than a moment ago and a moment in the future. The imperial and papal title may no longer be yours now that you have embraced transformational theology.

You might want to look at my blog today. You might recognize some words from your pen....

In processu transformationis,

Fr. X fieri

NB/ The imperial and papal titles to which he humorously refers are another private joke between us - I do not actually claim these titles de facto.

So okay I was responding to my priestly friend's post on his own blog. He tried in a conversation to suggest that my posting was without cause, however, last night he admitted that his piece was somewhat "provocative" to which I responded "Well if it was 'provocative' then I was provoked !" He knew as well as I did that the above paragraph was written more than tongue-in-cheek. In any case my friend took me to task in a follow up blog posting of his own. The point du départ was the use of the highly contentious term "transformation" that I used in my last column. My use of that term was designed to provoke him as indeed it did ! Here in part was his response:

Now the transformer-theologian will not, of course, generally attack the Faith directly. He will speak about keeping the essence of the Faith, or the kerygma, or whatever; he will only change the antiquated and outmoded terms with which these concepts were enshrined. By no means is there a break. There is continuity. The core remains. Readers may remember the Theological Alchemist who awhile ago was trying his best to show how there has been no break with the Church's past in the Second Vatican Council, or in the consequent documents of the Magisterium. This theological Magus recently wrote very eloquently of the beauty of transformation:

At this point he proceeds to cite my text as shown above. What, in fact, are we discussing ? For months we have been reading works of the current Successor of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI, first Introduction to Christianity (a 1968 work by the then Fr. Ratzinger, the celebrated 'theologian from Tübingen' as he was dubbed by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais last year) and more recently Jesus of Nazareth. We have been comparing notes so to speak about both of these books. I, in addition, have been doing side reading having acquired more than a shelf load of the Pope's writings going back to his first theological dissertation on St Bonaventure which earned him his doctorate. As a Cardinal, Pope Benedict once affirmed that he had not changed in his belief system since the 1960s until the present. In some respects this is true, in other respects he has clearly moderated his positions, however, there are definitely elements of his philosophical and theological insights that remain the same.

My paragraph about what we have both privately dubbed "transformational theology" was a succinct statement on the essence of Joseph Ratzinger's theological mind. Over and over again he writes about a fixed "core" which in Jesus of Nazareth he finally identifies in the last couple of pages as the Nicene Creed. The 'shell' is the external, and to use (for the Pope) a horribly scholastic term, 'accidental' parts of theology, which the Pope would maintain are non-essential and hence 'transformable'. Transformable might even mean being capable of being jettisoned with the passage of time. Thus, transformation means evolution of dogma, at least the non-essential parts, but one can't help wondering if even the "core" itself might be subject to change.

Is all this a little heavy-going ? Well let me give you an example of what I mean: earlier this year a document was published from the International Theological Commission (ITC) which suggested, in effect, that the theological conclusion of Limbo might now be replaced with the idea of the all-embracing merciful love of God (based on an erroneous interpretation of His universal salvific will) who would not wish the banishment of unbaptized children who die before the use of reason from the Beatific Vision but would rather welcome them into His presence. In a (what Fr. and I have termed) 'that-was-then-this-is-now' moment, theological conclusions of the past were neatly dumped in favor of a more 'compassionate' more 'user-friendly' theology. The report from the ITC in no way involves an exercise of papal magisterium, but the very issuance of such a document with its very dangerous ideas is, to say the least, deeply disturbing.

Father takes up his theme again:

Now it might be observed that in fact, since all revelation ended at the death of the last apostle, objective truth does in fact involve a return to an "arbitrary date", that being the death of Saint John the Divine. But we will not enter into that question now.

The first point to be made here is that the end of Revelation is not an "arbitrary date". That, however, was not the point of my column. I had been asked to address the issue of Trads who like to opine that the early Church, or the mediaeval times, or the Counter-reformation, or the 1950s etc were some heyday of Catholicism to which we must return. The choice of that particular period of time is based on the subjective opinions of those who say such things and thus the date chosen is purely based on the arbitrariness of their theological and liturgical penchants. Father would probably concede this so let him proceed:

The important thing to focus in on is the idea of transformation. "We are in transformation..." which is true if we mean that we are subject to change. That is not the same as saying that the truths of the Faith are in transformation or that the Church's understanding of the truth is transforming itself. We must also notice how there is a distinction between the "core" of the Faith which is the Creed, and the way in which it is made present as an act of union with Christ; but in reality there is a mixing of meaning. Insofar as Christ the truth is known by the Faith, if that Faith is understood according to the mind of the Church, there is no transformation. The union with Christ to which he alludes here is effected rather by charity, and that is an act of the will, not the intellect. More importantly, there is the presumption that a new theological vocabulary or a new shell is in fact equivalent to what was understood before. Let us look at one of the more renown theologian-transformers and see how transformation means, in fact, a change of understanding:

"...the nascent Church took the substance of these three terms [Son of Man, Son, I am he], centered on 'Son' and applied it to the other term 'Son of God', thereby freeing it once and for all from its former mythological and political associations. Placed on the foundation of Israel's theology of election, 'Son of God' now acquires a totally new meaning, which Jesus had anticipated by speaking of himself as the Son and as the 'I am'.

This new meaning then had to go through many difficult stages of discernment and fierce debate in order to be fully clarified and secured against attempts to interpret it in light of polytheistic mythology and politics. For this purpose, the First Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) adopted the word consubstantial..."

This quotation (carefully avoiding giving the author's identity - because he is treading on dangerous ground !) is from the Pope's latest book Jesus of Nazareth. He continues:

In this brief section we see that there is a change of meaning in the terms used. The dangerous thing implied is that the understanding of the Church grew as time went on; this is more than just explication of terms. Rather the Church seems to go from a vague understanding to a clear one on such an important dogma as the divinity of Christ. This is absurd. The Council of Nicea did not come to a greater understanding of anything. It defended the truth which was already clearly held by the Church and condemned as heretical the impious and novel teaching of Arius. This is one example, and a somewhat more benign one, of an underlying thesis of the transformers. The assumption is one of progressive evolution. It is not a question of the same idea being presented in clearer terms, but rather a passing from some form of misunderstanding to one of understanding. It is in fact a change of meaning taking place. Those of the past are presumed to be adversely affected by their cultural situation so that time and the forces of theological progress or even of the inspiration of the community bring the real truth to light at last.

Here we have a problem - I do not agree that the Church clearly held the orthodox teaching unless he makes the distinction between the western Church (which did) and the eastern Church which was clearly confused otherwise why did Arius teach heresy in the first place? Why did Nicea have to be convened ? Why was upshot of that Council a great period of turbulence and tribulation as part of the Church refused to accept the decrees of the Council ?

I have covered this issue of the development (in a Catholic sense) of dogma before but it bears repeating here:

Boy oh boy was this a morning for crank calls or what ! A home-aloner sede type called me to give me the third degree. In the course of our conversation I recommended he visit this site and check out all the wonderful Catholic theology that refuted his contention the Church can exist without its head. One of his questions was: "So are you saying that you believe Church teaching can evolve and develop ?" I proceeded to give a thumbnail sketch of some basic truths of theology that apparently went in one ear and out the other since he ended by saying: "Excuse me Father, Bishop.. whatever you call yourself you sound like a Modernist". At this I asked him if he had done any formal theological training to which he responded that he had not, in fact, but that he knew his Catechism and truths do not change. "Fr" Ratzinger, (as he insisted upon calling our Pope) was the biggest heretic of the lot and he thinks truths can change... (I think you can get the kind of mindset from this).

In fact, I deliberately began my reply to his question about the evolution of dogma with a provocative statement calculated to rile him up, and he fell for it ! I said: "Well we know from the philosophical discipline of Cosmology that all things are in motion (omnia fluunt). Even mountains are in motion as the earth's continental plates are shifting."

Certainly there is organic development of dogma. The deposit of Faith was not explicitly handed to St Peter, but was defined over time by the teaching of the Fathers, the Councils, Papal writings etc. The very fact that heresies arose which needed to be combated, that various schools of theology exist with contradictory positions all of which are tolerated by the Church is proof that not all is cut and dried as far as Church teaching is concerned in many matters.

Fr Otten's two volume work" Manual of the History of Dogmas or Tixeront's three volume Histoire des Dogmes, in French, layout some of the great theological battles through the centuries as the Church sought a clearer understanding of what God had revealed to man through His Church. I cited the battle over the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, a debate that raged quite fiercely with some of the greatest Fathers battling royally over the question. I asked my interlocutor if he had ever heard that the Church at one time speculated that there were two conceptions for every human being. No he had never heard of that one. Well if he had never heard of that then he could not possibly understand what the fight over the Immaculate Conception was all about.

As an aside, I was shocked to hear one of my long-time parishioners after Mass many years ago, state that Our Lady had two conceptions. "What ?" I asked in disbelief. "Oh, yes Mary of Agreda says so." he replied. I had a difficult time explaining to him that that was a mediaeval misconception that the Church had later rejected and with very good reason. "Why ?" He wanted to know. I told him that such a position left a way of justifying abortion, since the second conception theory taught that a rational soul was infused at a later stage and as such the fetus was not fully human and could be done away with as the abortionists allege today.

What is the point of all of this ? Why mention the subject at all ? It is because, a large section of Traddies are of the opinion that there is some kind of stasis with regards to Church teaching. They erroneously think that what we learnt in Baltimore III was the be-all and end-all and what is black and white, is black and white. Truth never changes. Well this is perfectly true, as far as it goes. Truth in an absolute sense cannot change, but our understanding and/or appreciation of the truth certainly does. At this point I will quote Fr Otten from his work previously cited which explains what the Church means by the development of dogma:

"The History of Dogmas is a part of Ecclesiastical History, and as such it forms a record of the development of the Church's teaching, taking due account of the causes of that development, both internal and external, and presenting the final results of this critical inquiry in an orderly manner. It presupposes that revealed truths are objectively permanent and immutable, and also that their subjective apprehension and outward expression admits of progress. Hence whilst the meaning of doctrines once revealed never changes, these doctrines may nevertheless in course of time come to be understood more fully, be presented more clearly, and receive a certain emphasis from their due coordination with other truths. In this sense every revealed truth is a living germ, the growth and unfolding of which is traced up and recorded in the History of Dogmas.

The determining cause of this growth is twofold. First, the God-given vitality of the Church, which assimilates ever more fully the contents of revealed truths as time passes on. Secondly, the rise of heresies, which calls for a clearer statement of the truths contained in the depositum fidei. Both contribute to the development of dogmas, but each in its own way.

How vast this development has been, and, by inference, will continue to be, one begins to realize only on comparing the definitions of later councils, as for instance, that of Trent, with corresponding statements of the same revealed truths as contained in the Patristic writings of the first centuries of the Church. Equivalence of thought there may be, and identity of objective reality, of course, there is; but in all else the two seem worlds apart. These early Fathers believed all that we believe, for they had the complete depositum fidei; but much of what they believed was only implicitly contained in the faith as then explicitly taught by the Church. It required ages of thought and struggle before the mustard seed of the Gospel could grow into a fully developed tree, whose branches extend ever farther and farther over vast region of revealed truth."

A Manual of the History of Dogmas Vol I Rev. Bernard J. Otten S.J., St Louis, 1922 pp 2 & 3

Surprisingly enough, I used the image of the acorn and the oak tree to convey the imagery of the development of Church dogma. Well, said fellow, who this morning heard me summarize, what Fr Otten so eloquently writes above, ended by calling me a modernist despite the fact that this is the Catholic understanding of the development of dogma.

Column from March 6 2006

Back to this column: Father concludes his blog from yesterday as follows:

The same line of thinking regards the Church's struggle against liberalism and modernism. It is admitted by these transformers that there were excesses in the ideas of those who introduced the ideas of the revolution into society. But the transforming-theologian claims that the Church's battle against the rights of man was only an attempt to restrain these excesses. The Church substantially still holds the same ideas as they did in the 19th century, they claim. Only now, the ideas of the revolution and liberalism have been sifted of their dangers. The more candid among them, however, admit that the Churchmen of the 18th and 19th centuries were too bound by the theology of their time to appreciate these new concepts sweeping the West. They did not really understand what it was all about; there was merely a reactionary impulse which led to condemnation. Again it is presumed that the Church of the past had an incomplete, and indeed, erroneous understanding of what the Faith was really about. One is forced, given these transformations, to ask: what is the substance that never changes? To what belongs the outer shell, and to what belongs to core?

It is, of course, all a subterfuge. Modernism re-interprets the Faith so as to empty it of it's original meaning. Now not all modernists do this to the same degree. Some are afraid to take their ideas to the logical consequences. They want to hold on to something, but yet they fear to appear outdated; they therefore try to live in both worlds. Their heads are infected with Modernism, and their hearts struggle to remain Catholic. But a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and neither can Transformational theology. The truths of the Faith are not subject to change. They remain eternally fixed and stable. Christ does not reign as king of the political order one day, and then resign to become Citizen Jesus the next. The "Christus Vincit" can never be exchanged for "La Marseillaise" no matter how much the transformers try to make God in their own image. We must beware of the illusions of the transformer-theologians and hold fast to the Faith, to the language in which that Faith has been passed down to us, remembering the instructions of Saint Pius X, that the teachings of the Church must always be understood "in eodem sensu", with the same meaning, not a newly invented one.

So when one begins to hear of transformation in the realm of the Faith or of the perennial theology of the Church, keep this in mind:

Transformers: more than meets the eye...
Transformers: Modernists in disguise.

I have absolutely no beef with this - in fact I entirely agree with him, however, his launching point was my statement here:

"...the search for objective truth does not always imply a return to some arbitrary date or epoch as though that magical date could somehow solve the "blues" of today; rather the stuff of life is to take those values of the past and make them relevant to the present. It is to recognize that we are in transformation, that there is a core that does not change, and an outer shell that is in flux. In terms of the Faith the core could be for a Catholic, the Creed, the shell, how that Creed is made present in my life, a life of loving union with Christ who is the Truth itself. We take the treasures from the past, dust them off, so that they show forth a new luster in today's world. "

The last sentence clearly demonstrates my difference from transformational theology - we take past truths, dust them off and represent them to the people in our own age. There is absolutely no question of changing the truth - thus no transformation in my mind or explicitation of the truth - as a neo-modernist would understand it. The image of the core for me is the unchangeable deposit of Faith that is presented to the People of God without altering that which is transmitted in any way. It is the method of transmission that may vary which reminds me of the Latin axiom:

Ecclesia nove non nova proponit - The Church proposes in a new way but not new things - that is the difference between myself and transformational theology.

+TF