Reflections on Jaroslav Pelikan's "The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition"

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Open Questions, #1: Mystery vs. doctrine

In my earlier essay on Bernhard Lohse’s A Short History of Doctrine, I mentioned the relationship of “doctrine” and “mystery” as one question that intrigues me, and to which I hope to find some light during the course of the new studies I have undertaken. What do we mean when we say, for instance, that “doctrinal formulations do not seek to ‘unravel’ the mystery”? So, naturally, as I flipped through Pelikan’s pages I was on the lookout for glimpses of light. None were forthcoming, unfortunately.

For a split second I thought I saw something in Gregory of Nyssa’s treatment of the mystery of the Trinity:

“Even Gregory of Nyssa, philosophically the most brilliant and bold of the three Cappadocians, stopped short of providing a speculative solution for the relation of the One and the Three [within the mystery of the Trinity] or of the distinctions between the properties of the One and those of the Three.”

Gregory’s fundamental axiom was, in his own words: “Following the instructions of Holy Scripture, we have been taught that [the nature of God] is beyond names and human speech. We say that every [divine] name, be it invented by human customs or handed on to us by the tradition of the Scriptures, represents our conceptions of the divine nature, but does not convey the meaning of the divine nature in itself.” (p. 222.)

So, doctrines (“our conceptions of divine nature”) do not touch the mystery (“convey the meaning of that nature in itself”). Why, then, do we bother speaking about it? And where, if anywhere, is it possible to reach the “nature in itself”?

Does Pelikan offer a tentative answer in the end of his treatment of the mystery of the Trinity?

“Gregory of Nyssa was willing to look for rational supports in his reflection on the One and the Three; but if none were forthcoming, it was most important to [quoting Gregory himself] ‘guard the tradition we have received from the fathers, as ever sure and immovable, and seek from the Lord a means of defending our faith.’ The dogma of the Trinity was enshrined in the liturgy and, if one read them aright, documented in the Scriptures. Now it was the task of theology to defend it, to reflect upon it. In one sense, the dogma in of the Trinity was the end result of theology, for it brought together many of the themes of the preceding development. But in another sense, it was the starting point.” (p. 223–4, italics mine.)

I am still left puzzled and frustrated. However, as I glance at the content pages (disposition) of volume two, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, the titles of some chapters leave me hopeful: “Knowing the Unknowable”, “Images of the Invisible”, and “The Mystic as New Theologian”. We'll see.

Open Questions, #2: Free will vs. predestination

Another question I was hoping to find answers to was the ever frustratingly difficult doctrine of predestination – predestination in general and Augustine’s beliefs about predestination in particular.

But I left the building in exactly the same condition I had entered it: lost in a doctrinal maze and openly grudging the ambivalence of Augustine’s treatment of this difficult topic.

My experience of reading Augustine’s City of God is similar to that of Pelikan’s. It seems frustratingly ambiguous. Sometimes Augustine seems to side with free will; but soon after he’ll put forth a strong doctrine of double predestination.

Pelikan writes: “As part of the apologetics in his City of God, Augustine sought to distinguish the Christian-Pauline understanding of predestination from pagan fatalism, arguing that the decisions of the human will were part of the ‘order of causes’ included in the divine prescience. But even in this book he came eventually to include the human will in the order of effects of the divine predestination.” (p. 297.)

Augustine received opposition from orthodox theologians to his doctrine of predestination even during his own lifetime:

“Fundamentally, the objection was that Augustine had resolved the paradox of inevitability and responsibility at the expense of responsibility, and that he glorified grace by belittling nature and free will. [Quoting Faustus of Riez] ‘If you pay careful attention, you will recognize clearly and abundantly how through the pages of the Scriptures sometimes it is the power of grace and at other times it is the assent of the human will that is asserted.’ Grace and freedom stood in antinomy… which ‘the rule of the church’s faith’ did not permit to resolve at all. It was a violation of the rule of faith and of the teaching of the fathers to teach, as Augustine did, that God called only the elect in accordance with his decree.” (p. 320.)

According to Faustus of Riez, the Augustinian doctrine was not merely novel and heretical, it was finally heathen. It was a “fatalistic theory”. It spoke a great deal about grace, but “in the name of grace [Augustine] preaches fatalism”. “But fatalism,” Pelikan comments, “even under the guise of the Christian doctrine of predestination, would lead to conclusions that any Christian would find repugnant” (p. 320).

It is this fatalistic shadow that has worried so many Christians thereafter, and which any account of predestination - be it Calvinist or Catholic - must seek to overcome.

In times of theological “battle fatigue” I am tempted to say in unison with Faustus, “the rule of faith does not allow its resolution”, or with Cassian – paraphrased by Pelikan – “[b]y the goodness of the Creator there still remained the capacity to initiate the will for salvation. The mistake was to reduce the complex and diverse operations of God to a single formula such as Pelagian synergism [human free will and divine providence work together] or Augustinian predestinarianism [divine providence predestines other to heaven and others to hell].” (p. 324.)

Pelikan concludes, “the paradox of grace, which had lain at the center of Augustine’s theology, was not resolved” (p. 328), but “Augustine’s anti-Pelagian doctrine of grace became the official teaching of Latin Christianity” (p. 329).

Yet “[m]uch of Western theology since ... has oscillated between these two poles [notions of human merit and initiative vs. strict providence], and we shall have to write its history (to paraphrase Whitehead’s epigram about Plato) as ‘a series of footnotes’ to Augustine” (p. 330).

It may be worth adding, that in many ways “Augustine managed to hold together what Augustinians have often tended to separate” (p. 306).