Christ's Spotless Bride -- Catholicity As an Attribute of the Church (Part Eight)
The Third Attribute in the Nicene Creed – Catholicity
It is useful to begin with a brief survey of historical reflection on catholicity of the church:
Avery Dulles (a Roman Catholic theologian): “Cyril of Jerusalem in his Catechetical Lectures gives the fullest discussion of the term in Christian antiquity. He assigns five reasons why the Church is called catholic: it extends to the ends of the earth; it teaches all the doctrine needed for salvation; it brings every sort of human being under obedience; it cures every kind of sin; and it possesses every form of virtue.” (Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church, 14)
Dulles continues: “The Orthodox churches have continued to claim catholicity, which for them means, above all else, adherence to the fullness of the faith as handed down from the Fathers.” Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church, 15)
Edmund Clowney (Presbyterian): “The Greek term katholikos means that which is universal or general, having to do with the whole; it is not used in the New Testament to describe the church. The early church fathers used it to express an important New Testament teaching: that the church as a whole is more than the local church.” (Clowney, The Church, 91)
Clowney: “As the church struggled against false teaching, the term ‘catholic’ came to be used to describe the orthodox church as distinct from the Gnostic, Montanist and Arian heresies . . . . Catholicity took yet another meaning when the Novatians [who did not admit the lapsed] and later the Donatists held to orthodox theology, but separated from the church . . . . Augustine appealed to the geographical spread of the catholic church. . .” Reformers replied to Roman Catholics “by pointing to another dimension of catholicity: its extension in time.” (The Church, 91-92)
Reformed Teaching
Louis Berkhof addresses catholicity:
Protestants again “apply this attribute primarily to the invisible Church, which can be called catholic in a far truer sense than any one of the existing organizations . . . . The invisible Church is primarily the real catholic Church, because she includes all believers on earth at any particular time, no one excepted; because, consequently, she also has her members among all the nations of the world that were evangelized; and because she exercises a controlling influence on the entire life of man in all its phases. Secondarily, they also ascribe the attribute of catholicity to the visible Church.” Berkhof (Systematic Theology, 575)
How Do the Reformed Confessions Address Catholicity?
The Belgic Confession comments on catholicity at some length: It is “one single catholic or universal church.” “This church has existed from the beginning of the world and will last until the end. . . . This holy church is preserved by God against the rage of the whole world, even though for a time it may appear very small . . . . This holy church is not confined, bound, or limited to a certain place of certain persons. But it is spread and dispersed throughout the entire world . . .” (Article 27)
Heidelberg Catechism Q & A 54 seems to refer to catholicity when it speaks of the church gathered “out of the entire human race, from the beginning of the world to its end.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith (25.1) says “the catholic or universal church” that is “invisible” “consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one . . .” But 25.2 adds that the visible church “is also catholic or universal under the gospel.” It is “not confined to one nation” but “consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children . . .”
Summary of the Reformed Confessions: The church extends throughout time and reaches the entire human race (under the new covenant), hence not limited to one time, place, nation, or people.
Further Elaboration from Reformed theologians
Bannerman in Church of Christ, speaks of the invisible church as catholic in its distinction from the old covenant community, which had only one holy place of worship, etc. (46-47) and the visible church as catholic in that “the bond of union among its members is a common public profession, and an outward federal relationship to Christ.” (48) “The character that Christians sustain as members of the Church, is a character that bears reference primarily and principally to the catholic, and not to any particular and local Church. That they are members of this or that local society of professing Christians, is an accidental circumstance . . . . But in becoming members of that local Church, they become members of the Church catholic and universal.” (51)
Bavinck: “The texts to which the church fathers appeal for the catholicity of the church . . . prove that its meaning consists especially in the fact that Christianity is a world religion suited and intended for every people and age, for every class and rank, for every time and place. That church is most catholic that most clearly expresses in its confession and applies in its practice this international and cosmopolitan character of the Christian religion.” (Reformed Dogmatics, 4.322)
Horton: “Catholicity is . . . lodged ultimately in God’s electing grace, not in individual choice or the vicissitudes of ecclesial faithfulness or unfaithfulness in history, but it becomes visible in history through Christ’s work (2 Timothy 1:9-10). In short, the covenant of grace is the visible, already/not-yet, semi-realized form of the glorified communion of the elect in the eschaton . . . . Like its unity and holiness, the church’s catholicity is affirmed in faith, not by sight. Its security lies in God’s election, not in determinations that can be made by empirical inspection . . . . Covenantal catholicity is grounded neither in a hierarchical unicity that derives from ecclesial agency nor in an egalitarian plurality that derives from individual choice, but in the intra-Trinitarian covenant of redemption” (People and Place, 200-201)
Horton adds: “I did not choose these people for my sisters and brothers; God did . . . . A local church (or wider body of churches) is not free to develop its identity in continuity simply with the givens of racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, generational, or consumer affinities. [The Pentecost converts] were one because they shared the same things, not because they became fused into the same thing . . . . As we survey the contemporary ecclesial landscape . . . this account of catholicity seems to be reversed. Whereas an almost infinite diversity of doctrine and practice is tolerated, even celebrated, churches are becoming more hegemonic [dominant state or group over others] than ever with respect to politics, socioeconomic position, age, gender, and cultural tastes.” (People and Place, 204)
He concludes: “Catholicity does not depend on the similarity of our cultural tastes, consumer preferences, or political views . . . .Yet it does require a common confession . . .concerning the triune God and the action of this God for our salvation . . . ” (People and Place, 204)
Summary of added insight from Reformed theologians:
Bannerman and Horton emphasize the church’s common confession/profession. Horton also emphasizes that the church should not try to establish commonality with respect to the earthly things that differentiate us, which Bavinck also seems to try to capture with his reference to Christianity’s “international and cosmopolitan character.”
Roman Catholic Teaching
What are we to make of the following? Cardinal Ratzinger (Called to Communion, 44) on the “image of Pentecost” in Acts: “We find here a preliminary sketch of a Church that lives in manifold and multiform particular Churches but that precisely in this way is the one Church. At the same time, Luke expresses with this image the fact that at the moment of her birth, the Church was already catholic, already a world Church. Luke thus rules out a conception in which a local Church first arose in Jerusalem and then became the base for the gradual establishment of other local Churches that eventually grew into a federation. Luke tells us that the reverse is true: what first exists is the one Church, the Church that speaks in all tongues—the ecclesia universalis; she then generates Church in the most diverse locales, which nonetheless are all always embodiments of the one and only Church. The temporal and ontological priority lies with the universal Church; a Church that was not catholic would not even have ecclesial reality.”
Response: the first part of this makes a point the Reformed might also make: the church at its origins at Pentecost was already multiform and catholic, rather than merely local or particular. But Ratzinger turns this into a structural/organizational catholicity, which we would expect.
Similar themes are found in Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church. Some of his points the Reformed might affirm as well:
“In summary, Vatican II presents catholicity not as a monotonous repetition of identical elements but rather as reconciled diversity. It is a unity among individuals and groups who retain their distinctive characteristics, who enjoy different spiritual gifts, and are by that very diversity better equipped to serve one another and thus advance the common good.” (24)
“The term pleroma (fullness) is perhaps the nearest biblical equivalent for what we call catholicity. Col 2:9 speaks of ‘the fullness of divinity.’” (31) He also mentions Eph 4:10, re Christ filling all things. (48) “The divine catholicity . . . does not remain sealed up in the godhead. Out of the fullness of his love, God wills to communicate his goodness and share it with others. Created beings are likenesses and participations of God’s absolute perfection.” (32) “Because Christ is personally present in his body, the catholicity of the Church, as a participation of Christ’s own fullness, is more than an idea or a hope; it is a present reality.” (41)
“To separate oneself from the great Church for the sake of cultivating some particular insight is to guarantee deformation and impoverishment.” (43)
“Within the Holy Trinity, the Spirit is the principle of unity in diversity . . . . In the Church the Spirit fosters communion without effacing differences . . . . The diversity of gifts serves to build up the whole in unity . . . . The gift of the Spirit is the sign of the fullness of time, the messianic age of completion and perfection.” (46)
In the Great Commission, “the word ‘all’ occurs four times in three verses: Jesus has received all authority, all nations are to be evangelized, they are to be taught all that Jesus has commanded, and Jesus himself will be with his commissioned witnesses all days. If catholicity signifies totality, this fourfold ‘all’ abundantly certifies the Catholic character of Christian mission.” (72)
“The concept of catholicity in time strikes us as unusual because we generally place the historical continuity of the Church under the caption of apostolicity rather than catholicity. But since the theme of apostolicity would raise more specialized questions, such as the succession in the ordained ministry, I prefer to speak first of the abiding identity of the Church as a whole through the centuries.” (87) In the following pages, he emphasizes that this aspect of catholicity begins with Abel and extends to the eschaton.
Yet, it is important that to notice also Dulles’s more distinctively Roman Catholic claims:
Regarding soteriology: “Because all human beings are called to the same supernatural end, and because the offer of grace is inseparably bound up with that call, it follows, in Catholic theology, that the offer of grace must be universal. We can speak in this sense of the ‘catholicity’ of grace. Against heresies such as Jansenism [French Augustinians–who the Jesuits condemned because of “Calvinistic tendencies”], Catholic Christianity has always insisted on the extension of God’s real salvific will to every individual who comes into the world. Vatican II . . . asserted this doctrine.” (58)
Also soteriological, regarding non-Christian religions: “Catholicism . . . is irrevocably bound to affirm that the fullness of grace and truth came into the world in Jesus Christ, and is disposed to find elements of truth and goodness in religions that have developed without benefit of exposure to Judaism or Christianity. Contemporary Roman Catholicism, as represented by Vatican Council II, holds that God’s saving grace is operative among all peoples . . . . One channel for the mediation of divine grace could presumably be the religions in which people attempt to articulate their relationship to the divine.” But “many elements in the non-Christian religions are in need of being corrected, and not simply supplemented.” (63)
Dulles makes several interesting points, but suggests Roman Catholic organizational structure:
“There is another aspect of the Church’s catholicity, sometimes called quantitative or horizontal. These terms designate the union of Christians with one another in a community that is expansive and inclusive. Catholicity in this sense is opposed to schism, sectarianism, and whatever would tend to confine or isolate Christians in a closed, particularist group. Quantitative catholicity . . . is connected with qualitative. It is the self-diffusiveness of the fullness of God’s gift in and through the Church—the capacity of that gift to communicate itself without limit to persons of every kind and condition.” (68)
“Before ending this study it will be appropriate to say something of Protestantism as the principal type of Christianity that does not consider itself, and is not generally considered, Catholic.”
Dulles considers Anglicanism Catholic and not Protestant, which is strange since so many Protestants confess the Apostle’s Creed.
Biblical Reflection on Catholicity
It is helpful to think of unity and catholicity in terms of a circle. In this image, unity points toward the center, which has one point, while catholicity points toward the circumference, which has infinite points and encompasses the whole. (Dulles, 146, uses the center/circumference analogy to speak about unity and catholicity, respectively.)
There is good biblical reason to affirm the aspects of catholicity Reformed theologians hold (with which many Roman Catholic theologians agree).
Every time: Romans 11:17-24 (when Paul speaks of the olive tree) (1 Kings 19:18 is relevant here–”Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” in light of Romans 11:2-4– “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal”); and other texts showing one people of God through redemptive history.
Every location: 1 Corinthians 1:2 (the church in Corinth is called “together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”); 1 Timothy 2:8 (men “in every place” should lift up holy hands in prayer).
Every kind of people: 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 (“Jews or Greeks, slave or free”); Galatians 3:28 (“neither Jew nor Greek . . . neither slave nor free . . . no male and female”); Colossians 3:11 (“there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all”). In new creation: Revelation 5:9; 7:9 (“a great multitude . . . from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages”).
Related to the last point, every social identity: 1 Corinthians 7:17-24:
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. (But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.) For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”)
There is no biblical support for those alleged aspects of catholicity that Roman Catholics add.
While soteriological catholicity is important, in that the one gospel of Christ extends through every time, place, people, etc., the contemporary Roman Catholic claim that people of every religion may have communion with Christ and the RCC, has no biblical grounding. While we cannot dogmatically fix the bounds of God’s mercy, Scripture does point to the preaching, believing, and confessing of the gospel as the way (e.g., Romans 10:9-17) and the covenant community as the place (e.g., Ephesians 2:12-13) in which the church’s soteriological catholicity is realized. The gospel is the basis for catholicity, not the church’s organizational structure.
It makes sense that the RCC should strive to reflect that identity as it organizes its structures. It does not restrict its authority or offices to one place, or one nation, or one social status, etc. It tries to extend the church to places and peoples not yet evangelized and honors Christians and churches that have come before. Yet Scripture does not speak of catholicity in terms of a hierarchical church organization with reach through the world and institutional continuity with past times. Instead, the Bible speaks of a common faith (Ephesians 4:5-6).
Some Reformed theologians (e.g., William Perkins of old, Swain and Allen recently, Trueman in the den Dulk lectures at Westminster Seminary California) have identified themselves as “Reformed catholics,” or spoken of “Reformed catholicity.” What should we make of this? Recognizing that the Reformation was just that, reformation, and was not the invention of a new religion. Likewise, a Reformed theology affirms that it’s working in continuity with an earlier theology (and in conversation with contemporary non-Reformed theologies), and Reformed churches also affirm that the church was in existence before the Reformation.