The Unity of the Visible Church

June 17, 2007

My Protestant brothers and sisters generally treat the term "visible Church" at *most* as referring only to all believers and their children. See, for example, the Westminster Confession of Faith XXV.2:

"The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the Gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation."

Notice what the WCF does not say about the visible Church (or "Church Militant"). The WCF does not say that the visible Church is an organization or institution. The WCF is, for this reason, fully compatible with denominationalism, and with the complete rejection of all institutions (beyond particular churches themselves). When we say in the Nicene Creed, "We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church", in what sense does the term "one" refer to the visible Church for the person adhering to the WCF? The answer, I think, is that the visible Church is at most *invisibly* one. All believers and their children are one in the sense that they are joined to Christ by faith and baptism. But that 'invisible' unity of the visible Church is quite compatible, in principle, with each believer being in or starting his very own denomination, and no believer being in institutional communion with any other believer.

According to the Catholic Church, by contrast, the Church Militant is a "visible organization through which [Christ] communicates truth and grace to all men". (CCC #771) In other words, according to the Catholic Church the visible Church is not just all believers and their children; it is an hierarchical organization (institution, society, family) into which believers are incorporated. We can be in full communion with the visible Church (as are Catholics), or in imperfect communion with the visible Church (as are Protestants – CCC #838). In this way denominationalism and individualism are incompatible with the unity of the visible Church. It is not an accident of history that Protestants rejected institutional unity as part of the unity of the visible Church. Including institutional unity in their understanding of the unity of the visible Church would have undermined the very act by which Protestantism came to exist, i.e. the act of separation from the institution of the Catholic Church.