October 12, 2006

In his first speech as Pope, Pope Benedict said, "The current Successor [to John Paul II] assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers."  Recently I have been thinking about the nature of the goal of Christian unity; here are some thoughts.

With regard to unity there are many things on which we can agree. We know and agree that Christ wants His Church to be one. The Church is the Bride of Christ, and Christ is not a bigamist or a polygamist. He said He would build His Church, not Churches (cf. Matt 16:18). According to the Nicene Creed, we believe in "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church". Jesus prays in John 17 "that they may be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee" (vs. 21), and then "that they may be one, just as We are one" (vs. 22), and then "that they be perfected in unity" (vs. 23). Surely a person cannot read the Bible and say that schism and division is not something Jesus hates. As Peter Kreeft says, "The divisions that make the Church visibly many rather than one are scandalous and intolerable."  We pray continually for the unity of Christ's Church. That does not mean that there cannot be and should not be certain kinds of diversity within the Church. Diversity is beautiful and helpful, just as a husband and wife are different from each other and have different strengths, and yet form a beautiful marital unity. But diversity is not the same thing as division. There is diversity in the Trinity, but there is not division. The Persons of the Trinity are not divided against each other. God is one, and therefore His Church must be one. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 12:25 that God has composed the body that there would be no schisms in it. That is God's will. But when we are not in full communion with each other, what is that if not schism, even if it is de facto schism? In 1 Cor 1:10-13 Paul exhorts the Corinthians that they all agree and that there be no divisions among them, but that they be made complete in the same mind and the same judgment, because Christ has not been divided. Christ Himself says that a house divided against itself cannot stand, and that our unity is a witness to the world of the truth of the Gospel. (John 17:21, 23)

So, we agree that unity among Christians is an extremely important goal, because as Christians we are commanded to be diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, for there is one body and one Spirit, ... one hope ..., one Lord, one faith, one baptism. (Eph 4:3-5) Therefore, regardless of our present disagreements, we should be striving for unity and reconciliation with all Christians. And so Catholics and Protestants can agree, I think, that we should all be striving toward unity with each other. I should be striving to be unified with you, and you should be striving to be unified with me. Setting aside or ignoring the goal of striving toward unity with fellow Christians is not a legitimate option for any Christian. No one said achieving this goal would be easy; in fact, I think it is a very difficult challenge. But, we must pursue it in faith and hope and charity, no matter how difficult it is.

We should therefore ask ourselves exactly what it is for which we are striving when we strive for Christian unity. What does it mean to be "perfected in unity" (John 17:23)? What would perfection in unity look like? What is the goal of our ecumenical efforts toward Christian unity? Can the Body of Christ be perfected in unity and yet remain divided on matters of doctrine, practice, and authority? If we do not know what it is that we are striving for, then how can we pursue it? Therefore, we should think hard about what it means for Christians to be "perfected in unity". I'd like to discuss that.

Since the unity of the Church is necessarily grounded in and to be a likeness of the unity of the three Persons of the Trinity (cf. John 17:22), it is important to think about the nature of that divine unity. The three Persons of the Trinity are each God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God. They are one because they each share the very same divine nature. Because they each share the very same divine nature, they are equal. (cf. John 5:18) And yet, there is an hierarchical order in the Trinity. The Son is begotten by the Father, and does only what the Father tells Him (e.g. John 5:19, 8:28). And the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and does only what is willed by the Father and the Son. This hierarchical order is precisely and entirely what distinguishes the three Persons from each other, for in all other respects they are identical. Notice that in the Trinity, there is both hierarchy and equality, without contradiction. Likewise, in the Church therefore, there is necessarily both hierarchy and equality, without contradiction. Christ appointed the twelve Apostles and gave them authority over His Church. They are equal to us as human, and yet over us with respect to authority ( e.g. Matt 19:28, Luke 22:30, Rev 21:14). As Jesus Himself said to His Apostles, "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16).

The Apostolic authority did not die with the Apostles, but was passed on to all whom they ordained as bishops. That is why Ignatius (himself ordained by Peter, and serving as the second bishop of Antioch), writing within ten years of the death of the Apostle John, writes to the Christians in Smyrna, "You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father." And the early Church fathers all agree on this. Why must we follow the bishops? Because the bishops have the authority received from the Apostles, and thus they form the present core of the Church. That is why Ignatius says, "Where the bishop is, there is the Church." When the Apostles were still alive, to be united to the Church (Christ's Body) was to be united to the Apostles. But when the Apostles died, to be united to the Church one had to be united to the bishops, those having received the supreme authority in the Church from the Apostles. For even the heretics could claim (and did claim) to be united to the Apostles' teachings and therefore to be followers of the Apostles. The same thing that distinguished the authority of the Apostles from that of the heretics is what distinguished (and distinguishes) the authority of the bishops from that of imposters -- valid ordination. To be a true follower of Christ, it was not enough to claim to be a follower of Christ's teachings; one had to be in communion with the Apostles and those whom the Apostles ordained to be their successors, i.e. the bishops. And in the early Church the bishops distinguished themselves as the rightful successors of the Apostles not by holding and winning debates with these heretics over the proper interpretation of Scripture (although in their writings the bishops and Christian theologians did refute the heretics). There was no accepted canon of the New Testament at that time, and heretics appealed to various  texts (including those eventually accepted into the canon) to justify their positions. The bishops distinguished themselves from such heretics as the rightful successors of the Apostles by appealing to their Apostolic succession and the authority given to them by Apostolic ordination through the laying on of the Apostles' hands. The heretics could not show that they had been appointed or ordained by the Apostles; the bishops could. For this reason, claimed the bishops, the heretics did not have the authority to tell the Church what the Scriptures meant, what belonged to the canon, what the Gospel was, or what the Apostles had taught. That authority was had only by those to whom the Apostles had given it through the sacrament of ordination (as Timothy was ordained by Paul to be the first bishop of Ephesus). And that is why "apostolic" (meaning in valid sacramental succession from the Apostles) was one of the four distinguishing marks of the true Church.

Can Christians be perfected in unity if they disagree about who are the rightful and legitimate divinely appointed human authorities in the Church? I do not see how that could be. If we are in disagreement about who are the rightful and legitimate divinely appointed human authorities in the Church, then we are still divided, and still not perfected in unity. That also seems to be implied in what Paul says in 1 Cor 1:10-13, where Paul rebukes the Corinthians for not being in agreement concerning Church leadership. Some were saying, "I follow Paul', and others, "I follow Apollo", and others, "I follow Cephas", I others, "I follow Christ". Paul sees this disagreement concerning Church leadership, and responds by saying "Is Christ divided?" In other words, Paul views this disagreement concerning rightful Church leadership as an unacceptable division in Christ's body. Therefore, it seems clear that Paul himself viewed perfection in unity as requiring agreement concerning who are the rightful and legitimate divinely appointed human authorities in the Church. So it seems to me that the perfection in unity that Christ prays (in John 17) for the Church to have involves not just a unity with regard to doctrine (e.g. the Creed), but also unity and agreement regarding Church authority. And that seems to push us to think hard about how to determine who are the rightful and legitimate divinely appointed human authorities in the Church.

The Apostle John tells us something very important in 1 John 4:6. He writes, "We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood." If the "we" just meant whoever happens to be reading John's letter, then even the heretics who read John's letter would be from God. But the "we" there refers to the Apostles and by implication to those to whom the Apostles gave ecclesial authority. So, the way to test the spirits is to see who is obeying the Apostles and those to whom the Apostles have given their authority. Anyone can claim to be following the Spirit, but John is saying that we can determine who truly has the Spirit of truth by seeing who is obeying the Apostles and those to whom the Apostles gave ecclesial authority. Notice that it is not the other way around, i.e. that somehow we determine who is an Apostle or has Apostolic authority by first determining for ourselves who has the Spirit of truth and who has the spirit of falsehood. That is the way of gnosticism, the way of Eve, the way of the Anti-Christ, and the way of Lucifer. It is also the way of the Mormons and the Muslims. It seeks out and determines who to follow according to how they move oneself, how they meet one's self-perceived needs, how one feels about them, how impressive they are, whether they perform miracles or claim to have received revelations, how many hours per day they pray or read the Bible, or the degree to which they teach what one already believes, etc. But the way of the true Christian ( i.e. the true follower of the incarnate Christ) is to find and follow those true and rightful successors of the Apostles, not those falsely claiming to be the "spiritual" successors of the Apostles (for all kinds of imposters can and do make such a claim), but only those who in an unbroken line of succession have received the spiritual authority through the sacrament of ordination ultimately from the Apostles through the laying on of the Apostles' hands. That is what the Church universal has believed and taught always and everywhere (though not by Protestants).

Just as the incarnation required that the Son become a physical being, so all the sacraments (including the sacrament of Holy Orders, i.e. ordination) require a physical component. Just as there is no Eucharist without bread or wine, so there is no ordination without the laying on of hands by one who is himself validly ordained. And since one cannot give what one does not have, therefore those who cannot trace their ordination line back to the Apostles have no claim to be validly ordained, for they cannot justify that claim. In other words, they cannot show that the person who laid hands on them was even capable of giving the gift of ordination to them. Following such individuals (who cannot show that they are validly ordained) is not the way of one who seeks to follow the incarnate Christ and pursue perfection in Christian unity; the true Christian seeks out and ultimately follows as present-day Christian authorities only those who can show that they are validly ordained and thus the rightful heirs and successors of the Apostles. And in that way, properly determining who are the rightful and legitimate human authorities in the Church is a major step (perhaps the major step) toward achieving that perfection in Christian unity for which Christ prays in His high priestly prayer.

I might recommend three documents that could be helpful for understanding the goal of our ecumenical efforts, the first from the second Vatican council, the second from John Paul II, and the third written by [then] Cardinal Ratzinger and ratified by John Paul II.

Unitatis Redintegratio (1964)


Ut Unum Sint (1995)


Dominus Iesus (2000) [especially section IV]


I think that discussing these over time could help us think through (and thus ultimately pursue correctly) what it would mean to be perfected in Christian unity.