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Journeyman
A Journal for the Inquiring Christian
Vol. 1, No. 3, March 2002
Comments from a Medieval Protestant
| Overview: Replying to The Two-Fold Magisterium, Mr. Jones finds the proposal "earthy, nicely messy, and realistic," but has some concerns that unity may have been cast as too much of an intellectual issue. |
by Doug Jones
The Intellect Should Follow, Not Lead |
With the ecumenical ideal presented here, I have little dispute. It's a grand vision and goal. In fact, I think Krehbiel's Dulles adds an intriguing twist to the usual discussion, with his biblical arguments for the involvement of the laity in shaping the hierarchy. All sides need to reexamine these texts. Even conservative/medieval Protestant sorts, like me, who recognize the truth of ecclesiastical authority and are trying to convince our more atomistic Protestant brothers of genuine hierarchy have to face these texts anew. This two-fold model is very helpful, and it should immediately deflate some Protestant worries.
One concern I have, though, may be purely rhetorical. It's so easy to slip into practical unitarianism and non-Christian dualism, and here we have a surface description of a dualistic authority — hierarchy and laity. The metaphor behind the model appears to be a courtroom or a legislative assembly. Those, of course, have their place, but I'm wondering if we shouldn't first attempt to ground such a profound ecclesiastical image in some reflection of the Trinity. I don't pretend to know how to do that in this case, but it appears that some of the elements are certainly there, namely, the unity of the hierarchy and the plurality of the laity. But it must be deeper than just that in order for a model like this to balance well in the midst of our Triune reality.
My second concern has to do with the intellectualist strategy assumed here. The ecumenism sketched is in some senses earthy, nicely messy, and realistic, but it still assumes that ecumenism is primarily a unity of ideas, a vision that still seems more friendly to a Leibnizian vision where agreement equals propositional agreement: “therefore the church must be in constant dialog with the faithful to refine and clarify the content of the faith.” But most demons are unified in their propositional beliefs. It seems that we could be “constant” in spending decades and centuries working toward intellectual unity and still miss the weightier matters of the law.
Rationalism assumes that goodness flows from getting our ideas in order, but that seems to get the biblical reality reversed. Intellectual agreement seems to be a symptom of doing goodness and beauty. If each communion led first with doing the good and the beautiful instead of just thinking about it (my tradition), then the intellectual ecumenism would seem to flow much more easily. Intellectual agreement assumes a context of trust and good will. It would seem more profitable for each communion to expend its efforts in the short term (meaning over the next two centuries) showing the ugliness of modernity, individualism, egalitarianism, unitarianism by contrast with our mature, healthy Christian communities (“Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” [Deut. 4:6]). If we were all better at provoking the non-Christian world to jealousy for Triune goodness and beauty, then we would have much less problem using the sort of model proposed to unite more intellectually. But we don't want to assume a thin rationalism to fight Rationalism. That's playing by their rules.
Douglas M. Jones is a fellow of philosophy at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho and senior editor of Credenda/Agenda magazine.
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