What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

This is an article on the nature of worship. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

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Historical attempts at differentiation

Now, I must admit that as far as my central questions are concerned, Pelikan’s monographs offered me no new insights, though they frequently employed the terms “worship” or “adoration” and “veneration” – and even attempted to differentiate between them. Well, the monographs didn’t need to as they were books on the development of dogma, not books on basic theological questions. The author must presume that the readers know the answers to elementary theological questions, like “What is worship?” (or as for my other article, “Why is doctrine important?”). I didn’t. I don’t.

It truly was a challenge to sail through the 2,000 pages on the lookout for clarity, especially when the author often used “worship” and “veneration” interchangeably (see, for example, 2:96-99, 106). This was very odd. Why would he do that? I doubt that a theologian of his caliber would not distinguish between them in his private thinking, so it must be presumed that he was trying to faithfully follow the belief of his sources as it chronologically developed.

For early on in the chapter “Images of the Invisible” in the second volume we get the first (yet still minimalist) definition of worship: it is “paying honor” (2:103). The definition, though welcome, is unfortunately not very helpful, for it does not explain what “paying honor” means – and surely one can “pay honor” to both God and people, so “paying honor” belongs to veneration as well as to worship.

But later, a need for clarification and distinction becomes clearer. Eastern theologians made it clear that “it was one thing to pay proper respect [τιμή] to the saints, quite another to address worship [προσκύνησις] to them, and yet another to portray them in worshipful images” (2:112). But this distinction too, though welcomed, remains one of mere terminology, for “paying proper respect” and “addressing worship” are not defined.

Eventually the question that bothers me was raised in a straightforward manner. The italics are mine:

The orthodox “were obliged to set forth a theory of worship that would protect the uniqueness of the worship of the true God and yet permit other acts of reverence”.

When iconoclasts argued that “there is only one kind of worship, not many kinds,” the orthodox replied that “this is true of the worship of adoration [λατρευτική]” but that the worship of mortals “was nevertheless permissible by analogy and derivation from the single worship of God”. There was a “worship of adoration, which we pay only to the God who is by nature adorable”, but there was also a worship paid to “the friends and worshipers of God” for his (God’s) sake, because of “their derivative divine nature; this included both angels and saints”.

“Adoration pertained only to God, but either by love or by reverence or by law one was also bound to other to whom one paid worshipful respect. This distinction was grounded in biblical evidence about worship paid to creatures by men whose adoration of the one true God was beyond reproach.” (2:126.)

But even the distinctions above pertain only to the object of the reverential act, not to the act itself.

But as said, “adoration” in its technical sense as distinguished from “veneration”, could be offered to God alone. Saints could be venerated and even glorified, but only God could Anselm of Canterbury (who thought God was present even in the holy cross) “adore, venerate, and glorify” (3:132). One theologian said that “[e]ven though the saints are [sometimes] called ‘gods,’ they are not worshiped; only Christ is called ‘God’ and is worshiped” (3:55). “Believing in Christ,” said another theologian, meant “venerating and loving the Logos” (whereas “believing Christ” meant simply affirming “that he speaks what is true”) (3:4). If the “preexistent Son of God incarnate” was not in Jesus, “the worship of Jesus would be idolatry” (3:248).

“[W]hile the worship paid to the icons was one of honor rather than of adoration,” explained Cyril of Alexandria, “the worship paid to the Eucharist was one of adoration rather than merely of honor, because the presence in the Eucharist was that of the Lord himself” (2:291). If Christ, who was present in the Eucharist, was not true God, “there would be no reason to venerate the elements [of the Holy Communion] as the worship of the church did” (3:200). The elements were “adored”, but “such worship, addressed to a mere symbol of the body of Christ, would be idolatrous” (4:55).

Idolatry is precisely what it was (and is), according to Protestant critics of the practice.

But everyone agreed on this point, however: we are not to “adore or worship anything except the true God” (3:68) and “[t]he catholic faith is this … that we worship one God in Trinity” (3:19).

As for veneration, of all the saints Mary was “the woman who uniquely deserved to be venerated”, said Bernard of Clairvaux (3:162), one of her most ardent devotees. Her unique relationship with Christ was the basis of her uniqueness.

“Expressions of devotions” or “devotional expressions” to her (3:171), and in her honor, could include, say, the praying of the rosary and the commemoration of events in her life, like her birth, the “immaculate conception”. It was fitting that “veneration and prayer” should be addressed to her – which Pelikan calls “such worship of the Virgin” (making my head spin because of yet another “liberal” use of the word “worship”).

Not every theologian even during the Middle Ages was happy with the growing cult of Mary, but most were (3:178-179).

Yet Mary was not God. “The absolute necessity for a qualitative distinction between Christ and Mary,” Pelikan explains, “served as a restraint” (4:40; also 3:165-168) on the tendency of going too far, on “possible excesses of devotion” (3:176).

In search of concrete criteria

If find these “possible excesses of devotion” very interesting. Not from a (Protestant) polemical point of view, but from the point of view of establishing possible criteria for distinguishing between “true worship of God only” on one hand, and “idolatry” and “proper veneration of the saints” on the other. You see, there must be a way to differentiate and evaluate.

Let me expalin. In science, there is such a thing as “pseudo-theory”. Pseudo-theory is a theory or belief system, which cannot be refuted. It cannot be refuted, not because it is a “perfect theory”, but simply because it is eternally flexible: whatever you throw at it is absorbed and interpreted in its favour.

Marxism has been thought to be one such theory. Literally whatever you say in attempt to criticize it, it can respond by saying: “Well of course, that’s exactly what we should expect if Marxism was true.” If you say “White” it will reply, “Of course, white is what was to be expected.” But saying “Not-white” will give you the exact same reply, “Of course, not-white supports our theory.” How can one argue constructively with such responses?

Some social sciences, too, like sociology and social psychology, are sometimes dangerously close to being (at least partly) pseudo-scientific or mere tautology, as Alisdair MacIntyre has shown (After Virtue 1981). And the theory of evolution has been receiving a lot of flak lately for precisely its pseudo-scientific aura.

But the point here is not this or that theory of science, but only to acknowledge that the “cult of the saints” too, in order to make any sense, needs some criteria for knowing when “veneration” has become “excessive” (and in what way) or when it has turned into “idolatry” (worship of creature). Without such criteria the practice of veneration saints is “pseudo-scientific”, so to say.

“Superstitions and excessive credulity in the cult of saints” (4:248), it goes without saying, is to be shunned, but this advice is totally useless if it is not explained what such “superstitions” and “excessive credulities” could possibly be!

Well, what could they be?

What is Worship?

Part I, Part II, Part III

Some time ago I posted an article titled "What is worship?" I asked for comments and through email got several, from both Protestant and Catholic friends. The Catholics were more active. So, in response to my (slightly) increased understanding I have re-written the article. What follows in as extended, I hope both in length and in substance, version of my original article.

References are to Jaroslav Pelikan's five-part marathon history of the development of Christian doctrine. Reference 4:45 would mean book 4, page 45.

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There was one question that loomed large in my mind as I read through Pelikan’s monographs. In fact there were two, but the second – “What is the point of dogma?” – has been discussed in a separate article. Both questions are theological questions that seem simple. Almost too simple to entertain seriously, but when further reflected on, they prove to be absolutely fundamental for a Christian, whether layman or theologian. I was hoping to find, if not proper answers to them, at least a satisfactory articulation of the questions themselves. The one I must discuss here is:

What is worship?

Indeed, what is worship? What exactly do we mean when we say we “worship” God?

We Christians believe that worship is the proper response of creature towards Creator. We believe that worship is the primary calling of man in relation to God. One could say that love is this primary calling. Yes, for our purposes here worship and love may be treated as one. Both overlap each other, and both are prerequisites for happiness in the truest sense (“human flourishing”).

We also believe that the object of worship must be the “true God”, not our construction of him, otherwise we worship and idol (in other words we are “idolizers”). Also, not only the object of worship but worship itself must be “true” or “right”, otherwise it is imperfect at best and meaningless at worst (making us unjust towards our Creator to whom, and only to whom, true worship is due).

Now, what constitutes worship? Or, put another way: How does worship towards God differ from a proper disposition towards other things, like people?

Catholics and Orthodox make a distinction between “worship” and “veneration”. The first, when applied to God is proper, and when applied to creatures (mainly to the saints and foremost to Mary) is not only improper but also a mortal si. The second, when applied to saints is proper, and when applied to God is either proper or meaningless apart from worship.

Thus far this distinction, however, is only object and of terminology. Where lays the “real” difference in the act itself, the difference in terms of “substance”, the difference that counts, the difference that can be experienced and observed in reality?

Or is what is “given” in worship and veneration the same, but just directed to different objects? Or if not, then what, exactly, is reserved for God only that is constituent to worship and not veneration?

Difference of degree or quality?

Let’s assume there is a real difference between worship and veneration. Is the difference a difference of degree or a difference of quality? To use an analogy, is veneration a mild electric current which, as it grows stronger, approaches worship (difference of “degree”), or is veneration a mild electric current and worship something quite different, like fire (difference of “quality”)?

What, then, if the difference is that of degree?

In traditional theology of love we speak of an “order of loves” (ordo amoris/caritatis). Loving objects in the proper order and in the right way is the (or a) key of right worship.

Is this backed by Scripture? It would seem so. The disciples asked Jesus of the proper “order of commandments”.

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31.) Implicit in Jesus’ answer is an order of loves: the most important thing is to love God, and secondly, you must love your neighbor as yourself.

Since we have treated worship and love as partly interchangeable, what follows is some kind of “order of worship”. “Proper worship” would be “a proper order of worship”: God merits our highest form of reverence (which we call “worship”), and lesser things merit a lower form of reverence (which we call “veneration”). The right order is the “measure” and difference of proper worship and veneration. If the order is wrong, worship and veneration become corrupted in some sense.

So, we’ve established an order of things. What else can be said? By connecting worship to love and by establishing an order of worship we’ve found part of the answer to our question. But, the core of the question still remains: What, exactly, is worship (or love)?

Jesus provides another key when he says that: “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15) and: “The person who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). This is helpful. Love/worship is doing the will of God. (Here I am not going to ask if obeying, “works”, is merely the fruit of love, “faith”. I take it that they are organically connected.)

Continuing with the degree paradigm, we can add sacrifice as one constituent of worship/love. It is remembered that agape, the love which “God is”, is self-sacrificial. Now, what is sacrifice? This is a difficult question, and though I will address it here and again at the end of this article, an exhaustive answer cannot be offered.

But our presuppositions imply that if worship belongs to the degree category, and if sacrifice is constituent of worship, it follows that sacrifice also belongs to the degree category (if not also to “quality”). From this it follows that, if the “order” is right, sacrifice can be directed and offered both to the Creator and to the creature. This makes sense: humans often “make sacrifices” for each other, especially for spouses and children, and we commend them for that.

But we have to return to the sacrificial character of worship later: it might be the crux of the question.

We left many important questions unanswered. But, if the difference between worship and veneration is that of degree, at least we’ve established a few things. We know that worship, veneration, and love are all intimately connected. Their legitimacy or illegitimacy depends on the proper order of their objects. Worship of God implies doing God’s will. Lastly, worship is sacrifice (whatever that is).

So, when we say that we “worship God”, if our words are backed by our whole being, we are saying at least the following: that we love him, that we love him above all else, that we love our neighbors as ourselves, and that our love is sacrificial. We understand that we haven’t said what “sacrifice” is, and we understand that worshiping God requires knowing him (we cannot worship what we don’t know – worship and love require the right object).

Home Alone Again

As the internet has been down for several days now, there's no photos in this post unfortunately. (I am at an internet cafe without my USB memory card.) My parents arrived to Dar es Salaam last Friday, which was nice. On Sunday the whole family - my parents, Danny and Sirkku, Benjamin and Daniella - left to Tanga, which is up north near the Kenyan border. They're participating in a one-week Disability Forum.

I had just visited Tanga, so I had decided to stay at home. We just moved into a new lovely house, so it was a good idea for someone to 'keep watch'. I have enjoyed my time alone. During the daytime I get a lot of work done. In the evenings I will have a beer and perhaps enjoy a Cuban cigar on the roof terrace, and just look at the stars and listen to the Indian Ocean greeting the star-lit beach with endless waves. But come weekend, it will be wonderful to see everyone again.

Christian Churches and Same-Sex Marriage

As everyone knows, the question of same-sex marriage is dividing the Christian churches. Anglicanism may be the nearest to blessing same-sex marriage and right to adoption, but Lutheranism, at least in Northern Europe, is not far behind.

As far as the Lutheran State Church of Finland is concerned, I predict it will follow Anglicanism’s lead within the next five to ten years. This will result in a break within the church, which will be of much greater caliber than when women’s ordination was introduced (1986), because the nature of the issue is one of (biblical) morality and not of church structure.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church, the Orthodox churches, and (most of) the Free Churches (Pentecostal, Baptist, etc.) are no way near blessing same-sex marriage. Against unrelenting critique from without and within Christendom the Catholics and Orthodox have held on to male-only ordination, so it is unlikely that these churches will ever succumb to the demand to bless same-sex marriages.

My intention here is not, however, to dwell on individual churches’ position in this heated debate, but rather to (1) mention the very dissimilar approaches between mainstream Lutheranism and Catholicism and (2) discuss a possible reason for how such different approaches can exist in the first place.

At the heart of this discussion is the relationship between human nature and human action, or being and doing.

Human nature vs. human action

Catholic teaching emphasizes the difference between “homosexuality” (noun) and “homosexual acts” (verb). It is possible that in some cases a person’s “homosexuality” is a voluntary decision: not determined by an inbuilt “necessity” but more the result of repeated homosexual acts and behavior resulting in homosexuality itself which, upon retrospect, may falsely seem to have been there “all along”.

However, as far as I understand the Catholic Church’s teaching, it admits that in some cases the opposite is true: a person may, from a very young age, be sexually attracted to one’s own sex in such a profound way that there is reason to believe homosexuality, at least in these cases, is inbuilt.

So far, most would agree. But this is where mainstream Lutheranism (and by the way, secularism) parts ways with Catholicism.

Mainstream Lutheranism holds that, since (or when) homosexuality is inbuilt in one’s “nature” (part of one’s being), homosexual acts and behavior are only natural and thus should not to be condemned.

Catholicism, however, does not arrive at the same conclusion. Catholics emphasize that involuntary homosexuality (noun) is not sin; but voluntary homosexual acts (verb) are. This means that, in theory and in practice, a bishop or even the pope could be a homosexual provided he does not lead a homosexual lifestyle. Every Christian has a “cross” to carry; for some Christians their cross includes coping with a homosexual tendency.

For a modern mind that does not distinguish between human nature and human action, such reasoning sounds downright absurd. For it the idea of homosexuality itself not being sinful but homosexual acts being sinful is unintelligible and unacceptable. Either both the nature and the behavior are sinful or, which is more probable according to them, neither is sinful.

What is behind such vastly dissimilar positions as regards the relationship of human nature and human action?

Tendency to sin vs. sin proper

I think I have traced one reason that allows for such a radical disagreement. I’m sure it’s not an exhaustive reason but it may be profoundly suggestive. It involves Christian anthropology (view of man) in relation to the doctrine of justification (salvation of man), or the doctrines of sin and grace.

The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine Justification (1999) by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation was an ecumenical triumph. The Declaration stated that the centuries-old mutual condemnations the churches had proclaimed on each other in the aftermath of the Reformation over the question of justification did not apply to the agreement reached in this document. After many years of intense theological discussion both parties were able to proclaim that they agreed on the more fundamental parts of justification, and that the still remaining disagreements were not divisive.

The “still remaining disagreements” are of special interest here. In the “Appendix” to the Declaration added by the Catholic party are listed a few items that, said the Catholics, still divided the churches. One crucial point concerned the state of the forgiven Christian.

The Catholics stressed that, after repentance and forgiveness, a person is not sinful anymore; although the tendency to sin remains, condemnable sin proper does not exists until the person gives into the tendency to sin by actively sinning.

Traditional Lutheranism, on the other hand, stresses that the Christian is simultaneously both-sinner-and-justified; the tendency to sin that is always present is sin, just as sin proper is, although perhaps in a different way. Hence we are always sinning in one way or another, knowingly or unknowingly.

(Depending on which side one adheres to, the opposite side seems “unrealistic” and one’s one position “realistic”. Either the Catholic position is “falsely optimistic” or the Lutheran position is “falsely pessimistic”.)

Homosexuality reconsidered

Now, returning to the topic of homosexuality (noun) and homosexual behavior (verb). It seems that there is a certain parallel between it and the question of justification. The disagreement in the general question of justification allows for the disagreement in the particular question of homosexuality.

As regards justification, from the Catholic point of view the tendency to sin is not sin proper, only sinful acts are; but from the Lutheran point of view the tendency to sin is sin proper. This is the fundamental presupposition dividing the two. Hence, as regards homosexuality the Catholics are able to say that a homosexual tendency is not sin, only homosexual acts are. Lutherans, on the other hand, cannot make this distinction. For them it follows that either both the tendency and the acts are sinful or neither is.

And so, argues the mainstream Lutheran, we have two choices: (1) if the homosexual tendency is sinful, it means that the homosexual person remains sinful until he or she is healed from this tendency; (2) but if the homosexual tendency is not sinful, it follows that neither are the homosexual acts that spring from this (non-sinful) condition.

In a world where Christians are being encouraged (sometimes indiscriminately) to “love homosexuals”, it is only understandable that compared to the first grimmer option the second option looks more authentically “loving”. And so the State Churches fluctuate behind the States towards this latter “solution”.

For the Catholic Church, however, (1) and (2) are not the only options. In fact they are both false options.

For Catholics “loving the homosexual” does not differ from loving any other person. And loving a person means first acknowledging that some tendencies, though not sinful as such, are nonetheless disordered and unhealthy, and then encouraging the person not to “live out” these tendencies, but rather to seek transformation through intimate correspondence with grace.

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Disclaimer: the “Lutheranism vs. Catholicism” juxtaposition above is not entirely accurate. Not only are there Lutherans who fall into the “Catholic” camp and Catholics who fall into the “Lutheran” camp, Northern/Western Lutheran churches tend to be far more “liberal” than, for example, their African sister churches. Also, as far as the question of homosexuality goes, my guess is that most Free Churches feel more comfortable with the “Catholic” position than the “Lutheran” position, even if in other questions the opposite is true.

Kawe-beach, Here We Come...

Due to several reasons my brother and his wife have decided to move. This means that I, the PhD-Nanny, will be moving also. Starting from today the next few days will be spent driving between the old house and the new house, packing, unpacking, cleaning, and so on. Thankfully we have a lot of formidable help.


The old house and its location have a lot of perks (like the swimming area in the picture above). But the new house ... well, let's just say that it's quite incredible too. Once the move is over and we've all settled in, I will post some photos. The view from the roof-size terrace, for example, is impeccable. From the edge of the backyard begins the beach, a white sand buffer separating the house from the blue, awe-inspiring Indian Ocean with a few tropical islands in the horizon.

The Inadequacy and Inevitability of Doctrine

This is an essay on the nature of doctrine. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan’s monographs on the development of Christian doctrine. Reference (3:241) would refer to volume 3, page 241.

1. Doctrine is “important”
2. Doctrine and mystery
3. The inadequacy of doctrine
4. The inevitability of doctrine
5. The scope of doctrine
6. “Hierarchies” of doctrine
7. The relation of words and reality
8. Liturgy as the fulfillment of doctrine
9. Love as the fulfillment of doctrine

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Love as the Fulfillment of Doctrine

Simeon the New Theologian thought some monks needed to hear that “asceticism without love is in vain” (2:258). The same can be said to apply to doctrine: without love, true meaning and fulfillment of doctrine escapes us.

“Do not,” Simeon admonished his brethren, “try to describe ineffable matters by words alone, for this is an impossibility… But let us contemplate such matters as activity, labor, and fatigue… In this way we shall be taught the meaning of such things as the sacred mysteries” (2:258).

Just as doctrine is incommunicable apart from liturgy, doctrine is incommunicable apart from love. Love in action is the most appropriate way to articulate a truth that defies positive verbal formulation.

The “doctrinal explanations” of scholastic and speculative theology cannot do justice to mystical theology, because the ecstatic love that “consists in the experiential perception of the union of the soul, with God as its supreme object and goal, can in no way be communicated [tradi] through doctrine,” as Gerson put it (4:65).

Still it is essential to remember that there exists a tradition that does not separate, though it may distinguish between, “scholastic theology” and “mystical theology”; I hope to cling to this tradition. Doctrine needs to have experience as its “companion” (4:65).

But doctrine can “protect the experience”. For exacmple, as in the case of the mystical experience of union with God which, on the subjective level, can sometimes compromise the uniqueness of both God and the individual person (4:66). In this sense “mere practice” isn’t sufficient either (5:151-152). The truer the theology, the truer the experience.

However, in another sense the “right order of things” is “first do, then teach”, to quote Bede (3:13), for as earlier theologians have said, practice was the basis of theory. Gregory of Nazianzus’s epitaph of Basil the Great read, “his speech was like thunder because his life was like lightning” (5:55). This has served as a good guiding line for those who have wanted to hold on to the right relation between doctrine and life: thunder follows lightning.

Maximus distinguished between “commandments” and “doctrines”, and said the former were the prerequisites for the latter (2:8-9). Whatever the precise nature of the relation, at least this much is sure: the connection between orthodoxy and moral obedience has always been “a close one” (3:24).

Isidore of Seville’s comment about faithful preachers serves as a salutary model for all Christians in all times: “a shining example both in doctrine and in life,” for “the former without the latter made a man arrogant while the latter without the former made him useless” (3:13).

It is a shame to end this essay in a paradoxical accent. But the nature of things has not permitted any other way.

“The invisible things of God,” according to Hugh of Saint-Victor, “can only be believed, but cannot in any way be comprehended.” They transcend all analogy and likeness, whether of soul or of the body, and therefore “their very substance is the faith by which they are believed” (3:215). Or, as Balduinus said, faith was “the certain apprehension of unchangeable truth”, a comprehension that “exceeds all the experience of the senses and transcends all the conjectures of human reason” and that deserved to be called “knowledge” in the fullest sense (3:215).

Jean the Gerson’s approach was: “seek, through reasons based on the true faith, to understand the nature of God” and at the same time “hold principally to the love of God … without lofty inquiry” (4:63).

Doctrine is inadequate and inevitable; I must not inquire and yet inquire: Hier stehe ich und kann nicht anderes.

How to Eat an Elephant

This dialogue was from this morning. I was outside reading a 1000-page theological brick and I exchanged polite "goodmornings" with a South African elderly couple.

Couple: Are you studying?

Jason: Yup. I've been quite effective, but it feels like I'm slacking or "skipping class" because of the wonderful atmosphere here -- sun, warmth, birds, you know.

Couple: Do you know what the Africans say about how to eat an elephant?

Jason: No...

Couple: One bite at a time.

Jason: Thanks, I'll try to keep that in mind.

The Inadequacy and Inevitability of Doctrine

This is an essay on the nature of doctrine. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan’s monographs on the development of Christian doctrine. Reference (3:241) would refer to volume 3, page 241.

1. Doctrine is “important”
2. Doctrine and mystery
3. The inadequacy of doctrine
4. The inevitability of doctrine
5. The scope of doctrine
6. “Hierarchies” of doctrine
7. The relation of words and reality
8. Liturgy as the fulfillment of doctrine
9. Love as the fulfillment of doctrine

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Liturgy as the Fulfillment of Doctrine

There may be satisfactory answers to the questions in this essay, most of which have been left open. Some answers may even be expressible in words (the topic of the previous post)!

Whatever the case, it must be admitted that even the best answers and formulations do not suffice. This is consoling, for I am lacking the best answers and formulations.

For, as it is, undoubtedly some “nuances”, say, of christology are unintelligible to us “simple” people. But fortunately what is said of icons applies to liturgy in general: they are “books for the illiterate” (2:132). When words fail us, liturgy and love in action take over and fulfill what mere words, by themselves, were never meant to fulfill.

Throughout Pelikan’s monographs liturgy has been a main source (see e.g. 2:6); and throughout my essays I have mainly ignored it, as well as the “powerful monastic movement” (2:5-6) and several other important and intriguing elements in the history of the development of Christian doctrine. But now liturgy comes into play.

Earlier it was said that the central obligation of the church is the “communication of what has been granted” it (2:31). Liturgy (worship) is uniquely “the summit toward which the activity of the church is directed and at the same time the fountain from which all her power flows”, as was stated at the Second Vatican Council (5:295).

Maximus’s reminder of the words of Scripture can be considered valid to theological words, too: “every word … is a forerunner of the more perfect word to be revealed … in an unwritten way in the Spirit” (2:31). “The heart” of all major churches, not only of the Syrian Jacobite Church to which this Hage’s expression originally refers to, “beats in its liturgy” (2:51). And Nicephorus’s formulation of the liturgical action of “their priests” can be generalized to encompass all liturgical action and participation: “they express the form of the orders of being that transcend this world” (2:134).

Worship has a special function in “theology”, for it can convey the knowledge of the unknowable (2:135). Liturgy is “participation in divine mysteries” and “completely manifest knowledge” (2:136).

Some dogmas are always “liturgical” rather than “dogmatic” in their fundamental character. Such a dogma, preeminently, has been the Atonement (2:137-138), even more so than the doctrine of the Incarnation (5:268). These belonged more appropriately to the “rule of prayer” articulated in the ritual rather than the “rule of faith” articulated in dogmatic theology (1:339).

Although it is true, as Newman said, that all dogmas and creeds “have a place in ritual, they are devotional acts, and of the nature of prayer, addressed to God,” (5:268) whatever the metaphors employed to the doctrine of atonement – satisfaction, deification, sacrifice – they all “spoke in the accents of worship” (3:129-144).

And as for the Holy Communion or Eucharist, perhaps “no theological theory … can adequately express this mystery, which is best apprehended by and through the worship of the church” (5:298).

Everything comes together in liturgy. Pelikan summarizes: “The place that brought together the scholarly exegesis of Scripture and the devotional recitation of Scripture, the technical dogmatic vocabulary of the erudite and the inarticulate affirmation of the simple, was the ‘melody of theology’ in the liturgy” (2:137).

The Inadequacy and Inevitability of Doctrine

This is an essay on the nature of doctrine. References are to Jaroslav Pelikan’s monographs on the development of Christian doctrine. Reference (3:241) would refer to volume 3, page 241.

1. Doctrine is “important”
2. Doctrine and mystery
3. The inadequacy of doctrine
4. The inevitability of doctrine
5. The scope of doctrine
6. “Hierarchies” of doctrine
7. The relation of words and reality
8. Liturgy as the fulfillment of doctrine
9. Love as the fulfillment of doctrine

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The Relation of Words and Reality

So, there’s a difference between “real” assent and mere “notional” assent. There is also a difference between agreeing and disagreeing “really” or merely “verbally”.

Words seek to express in human language a reality that exists independent of them. Much of theological thinking – and dispute – requires as constant awareness of the relationship of words to reality. For, as history has repeatedly shown, oftentimes the thinking – or disputing – revolves around “mere words” without truly reaching the reality that is at stake.

We are told to avoid an “excessive preoccupation” with terminology (5:34), and to make sure our discussions and disputations are not “merely a dispute over words” (3:22). Anselm urged that we avoid “a quarrel about words” and stick to the substantive issues (3:230). Many stalwart theologians, such as Peter of Lombard and Duns Scotus, would consign much of theological dispute, even over the Filioque, to the category of “logomachy”, to mere dispute of words (5:34).

Everyone would agree that some differences did not pertain to dogma at all and that ways of speaking did not affect salvation. But some differences of Christology are “not merely of terminology but of doctrine” (2:57).

The controversy, for example, over whether original sin had become part of the “essence” of human nature is, most agree, “more than a quarrel over terminology” (5:35). Beyond some “methodological differences” in Trinitarian doctrine lay some “ultimate, metaphysical differences in the doctrine of God itself” (2:193). A fideist caution against logomachy can easily become an attack on doctrine itself, as in the case of Milton who questioned the entire Trinitarian orthodoxy (5:34-35).

Peter of Abelard said that although Mohammed “confesses that [Christ] is the messenger of God, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God, he does not understand or confess by the terms ‘messenger,’ ‘word,’ and ‘spirit’ what we do” (3:244).

Words are important for they point towards “something that seriously qualified” them (2:30), to the “fundamental content” of dogma (3:204).

I must, however, confess that I am lost in a hermeneutical mesh and swamped in a theological thicket.

For I cannot understand what, exactly, do we mean when we say that something is (or is not) of “fundamental content”, pertains to “the dogma itself”, conveys the “essence” of the thing, and so on.

All ways of explaining the difference between “real difference” and “difference in terms” seem to beg the question: What, precisely, constitutes this difference? How do words, even so-called “orthodox” ones, relate to the reality they seek to express (especially as this reality is, at times, nearly incomprehensible to begin with)?

Thus “clarifications” that appear (and portray) to be lucid and informative reveal, when considered more carefully, a fermenting series of serious problems of meaning and distinction. As in: “Theologians continued to recognize that the fundamental content of the dogma of transubstantiation was the doctrine of the real presence, rather than a particular philosophical definition of substance and accident” (3:204).

What an amalgam of ambiguities! What does “fundamental content” here mean? How is “real presence” less philosophical than a(nother) “philosophical definition” of the mystery?

It has sometimes been suggested that the difference between philosophical language and theological language is that theological language “contains the essence” of the reality it seeks to express. Unfortunately I have, to this day, no idea what this means.