Theology – Page 4

The Christian witness today in light of the family

The Holy See’s office for the Synod of Bishops release its working document for our –particularly the synodal participants– reflection, The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization. One of the very interesting paragraphs that deserves personal attention is paragraph 15 which is noted below. But before you get there, it would be could for all of us to give some attention to the first paragraph of the Preface of the same document where it says,

The proclamation of the Gospel of the Family is an integral part of the mission of the Church, since the revelation of God sheds light on the relationship between a man and a woman, their love for each other and the fruitfulness of their relationship. In these times, a widespread cultural, social and spiritual crisis is posing a challenge in the Church’s work of evangelizing the family, the vital nucleus of society and the ecclesial community. This proclamation of the Gospel of the Family takes place in continuity with the synodal assembly on The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith and the Year of Faith, announced by Pope Benedict XVI.

I find this to be a key section that deserves lots of time:

Some episcopal conferences argue that the reason for much resistance to the Church’s teaching on moral issues related to the family is a want of an authentic Christian experience, namely, an encounter with Christ on a personal and communal level, for which no doctrinal presentation, no matter how accurate, can substitute. In this regard, some responses point to the insufficiency of pastoral activity which is concerned only with dispensing the sacraments without a truly engaging Christian experience. Moreover, a vast majority of responses highlight the growing conflict between the values on marriage and the family as proposed by the Church and the globally diversified social and cultural situations. The responses are also in agreement on the underlying reasons for the difficulty in accepting Church teaching, namely, the pervasive and invasive new technologies; the influence of the mass media; the hedonistic culture; relativism; materialism; individualism; the growing secularism; the prevalence of ideas that lead to an excessive, selfish liberalization of morals; the fragility of interpersonal relationships; a culture which rejects making permanent choices, because it is conditioned by uncertainty and transiency, a veritable “liquid society” and one with a “throw away” mentality and one seeking “immediate gratification”; and, finally, values reinforced by the so-called “culture of waste” and a “culture of the moment,” as frequently noted by Pope Francis. (15)

The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization, 2014

How does one identify what it means to be an “authentic Christian witness”? What does the author hope for us to identify as ways to approach and follow the teaching of the Church? What does the author mean by “communal”? What are Catholics doing already to live the communal? How do we address the challenges noted in the paragraph?

Hans Urs von Balthasar remembered

Today is the anniversary of death of Hans Urs von Balthasar, the renowned theologian of our era. Remembering Balthasar I also recall my dear friend, Jesuit Father Edward T. Oakes, who did much to make Balthasar’s theological perspective known and used.

Father Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988), a Swiss Catholic theologian, is remembered as one of the 20th century’s great theologians yet was not never a university professor nor invited as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council. Balthasar’s theological and philosophical output was massive which has influenced the course of theology today. His key idea was the idea that God’s relation to creation is the convergence of of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. It was Oakes who would remind me that Balthasar was the “kneeling theologian,” that is, appreciating the contemplative and liturgical tradition and indicating the way I ought to reflect on the Divine Majesty versus the academic or “sitting” theological approach (most often credited to people like Karl Rahner).

In 1929, he entered the Society of Jesus with a doctorate in literature. During theological studies for priesthood he found himself discouraged by the neo-scholastic theology offered having been attracted to the Church Fathers. He and the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth had mutual interest in theological thinking; Balthasar later wrote a book on Barth.

From experience we know that we all have our complements. Balthasar’s was doctor and mystic, Adrienne von Speyr, whom he had received into full communion with the Church. Their complementarity was friendship in the Lord looking for greater communion in the Divine, Trinitarian Life. Balthasar and Speyr founded a Secular Institute, the Community of St John –which you can read about in the book, Our Task, that tries to bridge religious and lay vocations. At this point he was dismissed from the Society of Jesus.

In 1988, John Paul II announced his intention to name Balthasar to the College of Cardinals. He had been offered the red hat before, but declined its acceptance. He died two days before the consistory on June 26, 1988.

“In the trinitarian dogma God is one, good, true, and beautiful because he is essentially Love, and Love supposes the one, the other, and their unity.”

Prayers for Hans Urs von Balthasar: priest, theologian, cardinal-designate.

Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization

In advance of the October 2014 extraordinary Synod of Bishops on Marriage and family, the “instrumentum laboris,” —the working document of 75 pages— offers a broad picture of the ways the Catholic Church witnesses to the Gospel and teaches and lives the moral life and the significant work that needs to be done to adequately address contemporary challenges. The office for synods published “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.”

The Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is the third of this category. One might say this is the first synod with such wide interest, international participation in the initial stages and hope for good work going forward.

“The Pastoral Challenges of the Family” is based on the feedback and analysis requested from the national various Conferences of Bishops around the world late in 2013. So, besides the questionnaire, the document also incorporates the concerns of those who sent their reflections directly to the Pontifical Council for the family with the appropriate theological reflection. This is the first Synod for Lorenzo Cardinal Baldisseri.

The Holy Father has placed the work of the Synod under the patronage of the Holy Family. The Synodal prayer concludes the instrumentum labors.

Theological commission defines role of sensus fidei in Church

A high powered theological commission, the International Theological Commission (ITC) gave a detailed definition to what Catholics mean when they say they have, or employ, a sensus fidei in Church life. Over the last decades various meanings have surfaced, and not all of them are correct. The ITC has stated in another place, “Catholic theology speaks the truth in love, so that the faithful may mature in faith, and not be ‘tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine.’”

The focus of “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church“ historical method identifies (discerns) the authentic contributions to the sensus fidei, by two criteria: conformity to the apostolic tradition and active participation.

Concluding the 85th session of the The International Theological Commission, released a new document . “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church” deals with the role of sensus fidei (the sense of the faithful) in the Church. There was one American on the sub commission that produced the “Sensus Fidei, Sister Sara Butler, M.S.B.T. (a former professor of mine).

The Catholic understanding of the sensus fidei “does not consist solely or necessarily in the consensus of the faithful. Following Christ, the Church seeks the truth, which is not always the same as the majority opinion. The Church values sociological and statistical research when it proves helpful in understanding the historical context in which pastoral action has to be developed and when it leads to a better understanding of the truth. Such research alone, however,” he insists, “is not to be considered in itself an expression of the sense of faith.” That was Pope John Paul II said. His successor the emeritus Pope Benedict XVI taught, “It is particularly important today to clarify the criteria used to distinguish the authentic sensus fidelium from its counterfeits. In fact, it is not some kind of public opinion of the Church, and it is unthinkable to mention it in order to challenge the teachings of the Magisterium, this is because the sensus fidei cannot grow authentically in the believer except to the extent in which he or she fully participates in the life of the Church, and this requires a responsible adherence to her Magisterium.”

As a technical term, sensus fidei describes the our ability as members of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, to discern how the Gospel of Jesus Christ is lived. The document’s works with with the survey sent to national episcopal conferences on the Synod of the Family.

Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity

One of the local Dominican friars put me on to the life and insight of the French Carmelite nun, Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity (whose feast is November 8). Thinking of this Blessed woman on Trinity Sunday draws me to think more deeply of what Love is in my own life and how it exists.

Blessed Elizabeth (1880-1906) had a personal mission of making the Holy Trinity better known and widely loved by every Christian. Hers is a manner of living the baptismal consecration we have received by the power of the Holy Spirit as a gift of living in the Father, Son and Spirit who make Their home within us (cf. Jn 14:23). Some of the many things she said:

The Trinity – this is our dwelling, our ‘home’, the Father’s house that we must never leave.

I think that in heaven my mission will be to draw souls, by helping them go out of themselves to cling to God by a wholly simple and loving movement, and to keep them in this great silence within, that will allow God to communicate Himself to them and transform them into Himself.

To her mother she said: Oh, may the Master reveal to you His divine presence, it is so pleasant and sweet, it gives so much strength to the soul; to believe that God loves us to the point of living in us, to become the Companion of our exile, our Confidant, our Friend at every moment.

A Christmas poem of 1901 states: He comes to reveal the mystery, To give all of the Father’s secrets, To lead from glory to glory, Even unto the bosom of the Trinity.”

Why is Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity important for today? Why is this very young Carmelite nun relevant to my experience of faith? True to the meaning of her name, Elizabeth (means ‘house of God’), she communicated to the world that “God wants to make is His home in us.” She is widely admired and her writings are read the important and common persons because people seen in them a certain authenticity, a call to go deeper into the mystery of Love, that is, God Himself. Many call Blessed Elizabeth a “prophet for our time” saying that she heard God’s call, and speaks the truth to us today. In his beatification homily Pope Saint John Paul said that Elizabeth is “a brilliant witness to the joy of being ‘rooted and grounded in love'” (Eph 3:17). Can we say the same for ourselves?

Years later in the mid-20th century the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani would echo the teaching of Blessed Elizabeth by reminding his followers that God is not an abstraction, an idea, a figure of ages past. But that God is a Presence here-and-now, contemporaneous with human experience. Blessed Elizabeth and Father Giussani would indicate that a true Christian cannot claim with any degree of seriousness that we are surrounded by God as by air, light or energy, BUT that God is present within us; that God is at home in the human heart, that He exists in our concrete experience; that the newness of Christianity is that God wants to be in relationship with each person, and that God really cares and loves us. God incarnate –Jesus Christ– is not absent but truly present in every facet of human life. We know this by way of His eucharistic Presence.

Blessed Elizabeth’s writings reveal an awareness of the indwelling presence of God. She wished to “live through love in his presence” and to be in communion with Him for ever.

Who is Christ in our time?

A running fight between a priest and his religious superior over how direct the priest can be in his preaching that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life has been ensuing for an extended period of time. The dialogue between the two is not edifying. The superior is arguing that the priest is teaching his own brand of Catholicism that is offending some of the faculty and some of the parents. The priest is preaching and teaching what Church believes, and is articulated in the Second Vatican Council and other documents like Dominus Iesus. The latter contends that the fruits of V2 have too often generated poorly catechized adults and has contributed to a general weakening of the truth of salvation. Jesus Christ has been reduced to moralisms or what beige Catholicism shows, “the nice Jesus.” Reading the homilies you do realize that the priest is not pouring vinegar in the eyes of the congregants but he is being clear in his teaching: the gospel is true, and the magisterium of the Catholic Church is accurate –salvation is at hand. His point: Do you believe in what is biblically revealed by God? Or, is theology made up as you go along to get along? If it is the latter, then we are in deep trouble.

Catholics can’t be the only ones dealing with matters of doctrine and dogma. Sure enough, the Wall Street Journal answered my question. No, Catholics, the Orthodox and other ecclesial communities are having to face the problems of what is being preached, and what face of Jesus Christ is being revealed today to the world. The secularists are not the only ones to “change” the face of Jesus. The content of a priest’s preaching is as much important as the how something is said. Words matter; concepts matter, clear thinking is crucial. Yet, style cannot be confused with content.

In the “Houses of Worship” column in WSJ today Stephen Prothero writes about a Seattle Evangelical Pastor Mark Driscoll and his efforts to portray a more robust understanding of who Jesus Christ is, an image that does not make Jesus out to be a “pansy.” Driscoll evidently believes that many quarters of Christianity have distorted the Christology to fit contemporary concerns. Prothero characterizes Pastor Driscoll as believing “too many American churches are populated by ‘chicks’ and a bunch of nice, tender chickified church boys.” In other words, what Driscoll sees in Christian churches today is a face of Jesus that is cosmetically altered to fit a current ideology, one that is not too challenging, one that has little-to-no-concern for ultimate things. Dare I say, the current Jesus is anemic.

I think it is fair to say that Jesus Christ we ought to preach, the Second Person of the Trinity, is not made in the image and likeness of certain men and women. He is the image of Someone greater, the Divine Mystery.

What else does Driscoll think and say? Apparently, his assessment indicates that some Christians have swapped out the revealed Son of God for “a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in his hair.” Jesus is metrosexual. Sounds similar to the controversy noted above. Prothero notes that some segments of American Christianity, since the 1800s, have preached a “Jesus as a brave warrior –not a meek preacher….” It is thought that if the image and person preached –Jesus– was more masculine men would be coming back to the practice of religion, or we would be more faithful to what is biblically revealed. I am not sure that has to be an agenda item; but I am concerned that the truth be preached and not glossed-over to suit a constituency.

I happen to think that the person of Jesus we often warm up too is inconsistent with what is foretold in the prophecies of the OT, and in the portrait given in the NT. Sacred Scripture does not give us an effeminate savior. Quite the contrary, Jesus of the NT is not aiming to be a “nice God-man interested in how you’re feeling.” We don’t have a Savior who is a good social worker. Salvation is not the liberation of personal anxieties but the liberation from sin and death; it is the opening the possibility of encountering the Beatific vision. Think of Jesus’ interaction with tax collectors, the pharisees, the mis-guided apostles and so on, ought to give us an indication of the person of Jesus: being “nice,” that is, sentimental, is not going to get you to heaven.

Prothero quotes Billy Sunday who said in 1916: “Lord save us from off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, think-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, sissified, three-carat Christianity.” A strong, masculine Jesus was transformed in the 60’s and 70’s with “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell.” You know, I think Billy Sunday is right.

Stephen Prothero is uneasy with and dismissive of, Pastor Driscoll and Sunday, because he lacks a Catholic understanding of Scripture, liturgy, and theology. Prothero, likes suburban Catholicism with a pretty low Christology. It seems to me that he sees the person of Jesus as relative and subjective. And is inconsistent with what is witnessed by the saints. Rather unfortunately, Prothero doesn’t hold to the existence of objective reality, objective truth. A reading of the person of Jesus in Scripture and orthodox biblical exegesis shows a face of Jesus concerned more with the true “ends” of man and woman rather than being given a make-over to suit post-modern problems in psychology. Nowadays, according to some, you just have fit-in if you are going to be an acceptable preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

What is an Apostolic Exhortation?

There are several levels of papal teaching: sacred, ordinary and general. Not all teaching documents that come from “Rome” or from “the Pope” have the same weight or the same required degree of personal adherence of the faithful. The Church in her experience distinguishes types of teaching. So, what are the differences between a bull, an encyclical and an exhortation issued under the name of the pope?

The following –in the order of importance– gives a sense of what I am talking about:

Papal Bull is a generally a legal document covering any topic.

Apostolic Constitution (often given as Papal Bulls) are used typically to make a change in a church law or to define something as definitive with regard to faith and morals, or changes in ecclesiastical circumscriptions, and the like…

The Motu Proprio are legal acts not covered in the Code of Canon Law; the document is given to the Church by the Pope on his own initiative (without a special request of others) and is in conformity of Church Law but doesn’t change the Law unless expressly stated.

An Encyclical (originally circular letters by bishops) is an exposition on a topic that regards a pastoral concern and giving insight into the Faith and ministry of the Roman Pontiff shared by the bishops, but only the papal version (vs. a translation) published in the Acta can be authoritative to resolve a particular issue or to advance matter of faith. This in the category of being of the ordinary magisterium of the pope and bishops.

An Apostolic Letter is addressed to particular groups for a jubilee or a clear up a matter of concern under the notion of general teaching authority; the Letter does not have a solemn responsibility to make changes in doctrine but it may be used to communicate a matter of concern.

An Apostolic Exhortation is published to encourage the faithful to live in a particular manner (greater conversion to Christ) or to do something of virtue. An Exhortation does not have the ability to change Church teaching de fide. The dogmatic teachings of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption could not be communicated to the Church as de fide in this form. For example, a post-synodal document offered to the Church which is typically a summary of a previous synod and hoping the faithful will do something helpful for the life of the church (e.g., the new evangelization, go to confession, rely on St Joseph, the moral life, preparation for a special event in the Christian life). This level is of ordinary teaching authority.

Papal Addresses are given to groups like the Knights of Columbus, the plenary meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the Congregation of Worship or some such significant gathering; papal addresses have a point to make.

Papal Rescript answers a question or a request for dispensation.

Apostolic Brief is a matter of minor importance but nonetheless there is a need among the faithful for a decision from authority.

Each document has a particular formula for addressing the recipient and authority of teaching.

Not every document listed above requires a complete agreement on our part. Some of what is given to us is the prudential judgement of the Holy Father (the Magisterial part of his office) while other documents are to be accepted de fide, that is, on faith and adhered to with one’s intellect and will: needed for salvation. The bulls and constitutions and the elements of faith and morals contained in the encyclicals are to be closely followed and accepted as needed for salvation. These documents, however, are not the same as defining dogma. For that we have the tool of papal infallibility and this tool is seldom exercised. Since the definition of infallibility was made at Vatican I, the Church has only defined two dogmas using the ex cathedra formulation. Both were Marian teachings in the Immaculate Conception and Mary’s Assumption.

With regard to the documents noted above from the Apostolic Letters down, we are not required to give our complete consent intellect and will; we are, however, asked to sincerely and significantly consider what is being offered to live the Christian life with greater openness, integrity and holiness.

Theologians will speak of the teachings of the Church as part of the consistent teaching of the Church, based on biblical revelation which Catholics must receive as the ordinary papal teaching with the “religious submission of intellect and will” (Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 25). What does this mean? Essentially, it means that faith and reason are united so as to form and to inform the way we live as disciples of the Lord and faithful members of the Church. The posture we hold is to have an open mind to what is proposed for our salvation and to allow our views and lives to be shaped by the teaching (this is receptivity). It is not an easy task and we understand that the religious submission of intellect and will is always a journey, and gradual conforming ourselves to what Jesus Christ expects of us: to be a person fully alive in God’s glory.

Communion given to divorced and remarried Catholics?

The former archbishop Freiburg im Breisgau Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, 75, tried to legislate a change in pastoral practice to allow remarried Catholics who have not received the required annulment from a previous marriage bond to receive Holy Communion. His resignation was accepted by the Holy Father on 17 September 2013. Archbishop Zollitsch, as the emeritus archbishop, has no authority to make such an allowance due to his canonical status but also because the proposal he was hoping to enact contradicted the theology of the Church.

The several at the Holy See were clearly unhappy at Zollitsch’s bold (wreckless?) attempt to change a practice without thinking through the theology. Not that the happiness of the authorities Church is the goal of anything. Heaven is the goal and we get there by correct teaching, sacraments and compassionate leadership. The chief shepherd of a diocese, even he is the former shepherd, cannot on his own authority, make a change in theology. The transcentals (the beautiful, the good, the true and the one) can’t be ignored; neither can clear teaching based on Scripture.

Does something need to be done? Very likely. We do have a problem that needs sensitive guidance. But there we have to see to it that a few things are done: First, start giving good human, spiritual and catechetical formation to couples engaged to be married. Second, seek to walk with all married couples. Third, help to bring reconciliation to couples whose marriages are no longer sacramental. But Zollitsch created a chaos.

Recently, Archbishop Müller wrote an article outlining the Church’s teaching about marriage, divorce and the sacraments in L’Osservatore Romano.

Today, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote a letter to Archbishop Zollitsch, who now serves as the Apostolic Administrator of his former diocese. The following translation of Archbishop Müller is the work of Mark de Vries.

Archbishop Müller’s letter:

With the Document Prot. N. 2922/13, of 8 October 2013, the Apostolic Nuncio has communicated the draft of the guidelines for the pastoral care of separated, divorced and civilly remarried people in the Archdiocese of Freiburg, as well as your newsletter to the members of the German Bishops’ Conference prior to the publication of this letter, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A careful reading of the draft text reveals that it does contain very correct and important pastoral teachings, but is unclear in its terminology and does not correspond with Church teaching in two points:

“Remarried divorced people themselves stand in the way of their access to the Eucharist”

1. Regarding the reception of the sacraments by divorced and remarried faithful the proposal from the bishops of the Oberrhein area is recommended anew as a pastoral direction: after a process of discussion with the parish priests, people concerned can either reach the conclusion to participate much in the life of the Church, but to deliberately refrain from receiving the Sacraments, while others can in their concrete situations achieve a “responsibly reached decision of conscience” and be able to receive the Sacraments of Baptism, Holy Communion, Confirmation, Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick, and this decision is “to be respected” by the priest and the community.

Contrary to this assumption the Magisterium of the Church emphasises that the pastors must recognise the various situations well and must invite the affected faithful to participation in the life of the Church, but also “reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried” (cf. John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio, of 22 November 1981, N. 84; also compare the Letter of this Congregation of 14 September 1994 about the reception of Communion by remarried divorced faithful, which rejects the proposal from the Oberrhein bishops; and Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis of 22 February 2009, N. 29).

This position of the Magisterium is well-founded. Remarried divorcees stand in the way of their access to the Eucharist, insofar as their state of life is an objective contradiction to the relationship of love between Christ and the Church, which is made visible and present in the Eucharist (doctrinal reason). If these people were allowed to receive the Eucharist this would cause confusion among the faithful about the Church’s teaching about the indissolubility of marriage (pastoral reason).

2. In addition to this a prayer service is suggested for divorced faithful who enter into a new civil marriage. Although it is explicitly stated that this is not some “semi-marriage” and the ceremony should be simple. but it would still be a sort of “Rite” with an entrance, reading from the Word of God, blessing and giving of a candle, prayer and conclusion.

Such celebrations were expressly forbidden by John Paul II and Benedict XVI: “The respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage” (Familiaris Consortio, n. 84).

The affected faithful are to be offered support, but it must be avoided that “confusion arise among the faithful concerning the value of marriage” (Sacramentum Caritatis, N. 29).

Due to the aforementioned discrepancies, the draft text is to be withdrawn and revised, so that no pastoral directions are sanctioned which are in opposition to Church teaching. Because the tekst has raised questions not only in Germany, but in many parts of the world as well, and has led to uncertainties in a delicate pastoral issue, I felt obliged to inform Pope Francis about it.

“Going paths which fully agree with the doctrine of the faith of the Church”

After consultation with the Holy Father, an article from my hand was published in L’Osservatore Romano on 23 October 2013, which sumarises the binding teaching of the Church on these questions. This contribution was also published in the weekly edition of the Vatican newspaper.

Since a number of bishops have turned to me and a working group of the German Bishops’ Conference is dealing with the topic, I would like to inform you that I will send a copy of this letter to all the diocesan bishops of Germany. Hoping that on this delicate issue we are going pastoral paths, which are in full agreement with the doctrine of the faith of the Church, I remain with heartfelt greeting and blessings in the Lord.

We need Negative theology

Thinking about the way we come to understand the contours of our relationship to God we have the work of negative theology. We inhabit a world in which human beings have faith and reason and they pursue the beauty of Truth. The truth here is not an object but a person. Christians call truth by the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the second Person of the Trinity. I like Father Dumitru Staniloae’s theological work since I encountered his writing a decade ago in theology school. Father is now deceased but he was an Orthodox priest and theologian of the Romanian Orthodox Church, who, in my opinion, has relevance for Catholics today.

Negative theology is still a mental operation, the final one, mixed, however, as prayer is, with a feeling of the powerlessness to comprehend God. It is related to the comprehension of God through nature, history, Holy Scripture, art, dogma and in general through everything which is between us and God either as an external reality or as a system of concepts and symbolic images. Every reality, concept or symbolic image mirrors God as well as awakens in us the proof or unexplainable feeling that God is totally different, in comparison with them; so they compel us to negate all the positive attributes which, because of them, we ascribe to God. In other words, all things in between open for us a perspective to God; at the same time they confront us with an infinite abyss of divine reality which we can’t grasp with our minds, and which first of all doesn’t show us anything that created realities, concepts and symbolic images do. But our mind, faced with this abyss still doesn’t give up looking at things, concepts and symbolic images, but turns its gaze from this to that and finds that they don’t give it the means to describe the abyss. It tries, we might say, to measure it with every measure in the world, in other words with every attribute or image, or with every concept based on created things. Finally, the mind realizes that not one is suitable. So it eliminates them one by one. Negative theology is therefore a mental operation because it investigates the context of various attributes and concepts and compares them with the divine abyss, which it lives somehow with feeling, and finds they are insufficient.

In a certain sense, negative theology is still a rational operation; it is still an exact weighing of each concept, whose limits only now appear to the mind in all their clarity. But the comprehension of the definite content of a concept is made at the same time as we cast our gaze over the divine abyss which reason can’t encompass, but which the mind gains by intuition, by a look or feeling of another nature; so this operation, although on the one hand mental, isn’t only rational, not only deductive, but has an intuitive element in it, the ascertaining of which is limitless and therefore can’t be described. It is a rational operation by which the mind concludes, nevertheless, that reason isn’t sufficient.

Father Dumitru Staniloae
Orthodox Spirituality, in the section titled “Negative and Positive Theology: A Dynamic Relationship”

Theology: Catholic and Orthodox?

What does it mean to say “Theologically… thus and such….”

There are many “professional” theologians and types of reflection on God, the biblical teaching, ecclesial tradition, prayer, the spiritual life, etc, how do you discern who to read? Sometimes the professionals lack the lex agenda (that is, the law of life) that’s required for an authentic Christian life. By nature, we worship, believe, live and act in accordance with the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It will make your head spin in trying to make a good decision on what to read and what to avoid. We know that not everything in print (or on a blog) is worth the time.

Admittedly, Catholics, clergy and laity alike, can stand behind the veil of something they know little about and the implications of what is published. Selecting a good book in theology is often made in a knee-jerk way. For example you will hear some priests say, “I will never read anything written by a Jesuit” or “she’s fema-nazi, a heretic” or there is a perspective that contends that “reading outside the ecclesial family is wrong.”

It is true, not everything in the field of liberation theology is germane to an authentic Catholic life. But that can be said of all the allied fields in theological reflection. An honest intellectual will say that you have to know what reasonable people are saying. We need less ideology and more openness to faith and reason is needed. Faith and reason are oriented in loving the truth. So while one could argue that the theological reflection of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger is far more satisfying than Hans Kung and Karl Rahner when you read, study and pray with sacred Scripture, knowing a something of the other is good. A critical reader ought to be able to enter into a respectful and lively dialogue with thinkers; there can’t be an a priori stance that one or the other is always wrong. The default answer to every question doesn’t have to be NO. Yet. dialogue is not negotiation; openness to the other doesn’t mean you compromise the truth. The point is that we have to have an objectivity (know the the sources of claims made) about what believe and teach and live.

I have long argued that a Catholic’s first theological reflection is liturgical. The maxim of St Prosper of Aquitaine guides: legem credendi lex statuat supplicant. Meaning: The Church’s faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles – whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi (or: legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi, according to Prosper of Aquitaine [5th cent.]). The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays. Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition (Catechism, 1124). Let’s start here rather than attend to confessional lines of how catholic one is, or not.

The point of theology is reflect in a public way who God is and God’s grace operative in our world. Theology is in pursuit of wisdom and of making disciples.

A 2008 blog post at Erenikon, “What is Orthodox Theology?” asked the same questions regarding but for the Orthodox believer. I would say that much of is held and live in the Orthodox Church coheres with Catholic theology. Several Catholic theologians I know use the thinking of professional theologians who belong to the Orthodox Church.