Flawed Institution—Flawless Church : A Response to Pope John Paul’s Appeal for a Critical Self-Evaluation of the Church [1 ed.] 9781443867573, 9781443845700

Citation preview

Flawed Institution—Flawless Church

Flawed Institution—Flawless Church: A Response to Pope John Paul’s Appeal for a Critical Self-Evaluation of the Church

By

Paul Ungar

Flawed Institution—Flawless Church: A Response to Pope John Paul’s Appeal for a Critical Self-Evaluation of the Church, by Paul Ungar This book first published 2013 Cambridge Scholars Publishing 12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright © 2013 by Paul Ungar All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4570-1, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4570-0

This book is dedicated to my dear wife Marta and our children Maria, Julia, Paul, Joseph, Andrew, Martha and Thomas

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Acknowledgments ...................................................................................... xi Part I: Conceptual Framework Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 The Church Chapter Two ................................................................................................ 9 Aspects of the Church Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 21 Comparing Outlines to Biblical and Theological Concepts Part II: The Battle of Institutionalism and Holiness in Church History Chapter Four.............................................................................................. 27 Jesus Christ: The Cornerstone of God’s Kingdom Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 33 Age of the Biblical Institution Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 39 Beginnings of Massive Eastern Institutionalism Chapter Seven............................................................................................ 45 “Papo-Caesarism”: The Western Institutionalism Chapter Eight............................................................................................. 49 The Non-Church in Action: The Great Schism Chapter Nine.............................................................................................. 55 Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

viii

Table of Contents

Part III: Sociology, Psychology, and Spirituality of Hypocrisy versus That of Holiness Chapter Ten ............................................................................................... 71 The Anatomy of Institutionalized Hypocrisy Chapter Eleven .......................................................................................... 81 The Case Study of a Saint Chapter Twelve ......................................................................................... 87 Conscience: The “Organ of Faith” Part IV: The New Evangelization: A Positive Response to Pope John Paul’s Call Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 107 New Needs of the Church in Evangelizing the Postmodern World Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 111 The World’s “Form of Living” Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 117 Renewing the Church to Touch the World’s Conscience Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 127 Can the Church Articulate New Reasons to Believe? Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 137 The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 149 The Mystery of the Church, Living With God Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 157 The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith” Chapter Twenty ....................................................................................... 173 Conclusion Bibliography............................................................................................ 175

PREFACE

There is a common challenge to all people of faith, illustrated by the some fifty million former Christians in North America. A similar massive deChristianization is occurring all across the Western world. Such postmodern agnostic globalization, in which many are disillusioned with the Church and are questioning the relevance of their faith, makes all Christians aware that the Church urgently needs renewal. But, when talking about her renewal, Christians often reiterate very true, but very generalized expressions such as that the Church “needs to enthusiastically witness the treasures of Christian spirituality,” or that it needs to “tirelessly inspire the world to follow our saviour Jesus Christ’s example.” Do people of faith in our time hide behind abstractions because we have no clear vision of what such renewal would look like in everyday practice? The ultimate purpose of this book is to define such a vision. Let me first illustrate the complexity and delicateness of that objective with an example. The bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, was respected as an exemplary servant of God, until one day in 2009 when he was apprehended by police because of his involvement in paedophilia. It is not only the abusive behaviour, but also the hypocrisy inherent in such cases that shocks. This raises a painful question—is the Church, in which such non-Christian conduct repeatedly occurs, the one and the same as the flawless and holy “body of Christ” presented in the Bible? Christians will respond to that challenge from a believer’s point of view and sceptics from a non-believer’s one. How could the Church resolve this impasse in communication with the world? It is apparently impossible to resolve the stalemate and it is equally difficult to efficiently witness either the treasures of Christian spirituality, or to inspire the world to follow our saviour Jesus Christ’s example, without first understanding and resolving the reasons for the agnostics’ and atheists’ bitter emotional resistance against the Church. Therefore, after thoroughly analysing the sceptics’ hearts, minds and souls—the parallel universe they live in—we will discuss a radically new approach in evangelizing a postmodern world disillusioned with the so called “organized religions.” The book also focuses on an even more painful controversy. Amongst contemporary Christians, almost the opposite of what Jesus prayed for

x

Preface

(John 17:21–23) occurs, i.e. that His disciples would be one, as He is one with the Father, so that the world may believe. The book proposes new ways of restoring the Church’s biblical unity and credibility in times of its fragmentation into more than twenty thousand denominations. The author discusses these topics, inspired by John Paul II’s invitation, a part of his preparation for the jubilee year of 2000, in which he called the Church to engage in a critical self-evaluation of its actions over the past centuries. Although such an invitation may seem like turning the ecclesiology we are accustomed to upside down, it is a “do or die” task for the contemporary people of God. As confession is the indispensable way of personal growth in discipleship for individual Christians, such a critical self-evaluation is the precondition of renewal of the institutional Church and its functioning as the Vatican II defines it—a “Visible continuum of Christ’s ministry.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Internation Bible Society. Used the permission of the Zondervan Corporation. The “NIV” and the New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society.

1

PART I: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

CHAPTER ONE THE CHURCH

Introduction The believers’ relationship with God stands on two legs. One leg—such as the scriptures—is shared and appreciated by the whole Church and written in stone. The other leg is unique to each individual, in the form of personal prayers and communication with Jesus, or personal experiences with the ecclesial institutions. Faith presumes a synchronized walk on both metaphorical legs, however controversies in this will often occur. Even true prophets, saints and theologians were very often unpopular in their lifetimes or even censured by the institutional church. Their contemporaries were often revolted by their prophecies that contradicted familiar “common sense” theological concepts. For example, the Old Testament Hebrews differentiated between true and false prophets. A false prophet would say, “Look people, at midnight it’s dark and there is no sun!” In contrast, the true prophet would proclaim, “Look people, even though it’s midnight, the sun is shining today!” Those hearing the prophecy of a true prophet would say, “Down with him! He is deceiving us!” Why is it that the one who speaks nonsense is considered the true prophet, while the one who speaks common-sense truth is seen as false? It is because the false prophet did not reveal anything new, but proclaimed what everyone already knew. On the contrary, the true prophet shared a personally discerned truth that was not immediately self-evident to everyone. Nevertheless, in time everyone would have realized that he was right, that the sun was truly shining at midnight. Most of us are not great prophets, saints or theologians, however, we are all equally challenged by the same mystery of God, and the Church. So, for better or worse, all of us have our personal viewpoints on questions related to faith, and are a true or a false prophet for ourselves in our relationship with God. Individually, we are all walking a tightrope, as did the prophets. This rope stretches between the common theological understanding of a particular time, and the individual’s unique way of relating to God. It is one of the paradoxes of human life that nobody can

4

Chapter One

remain neutral and avoid being a true or false prophet for themselves or for others; true or false prophecies shape the history and self-understanding of the Church.

How Does the Church Understand Herself? Jesus did not meticulously define how his Church ought to be understood. But from such biblical metaphors as “the Bride of Christ” (Eph. 5:31–32), “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15), the “Gateway to Jesus” (John 10:1–10), and St. Paul’s definition in I Corinthians 12:12–26, the “Body of Christ,” we glean the essence of the Church’s biblical meaning. is a visible continuum of Christ’s ministry.1 The Church’s understanding of herself is based on the above biblical metaphors, interpreted slightly differently by diverse denominations. For example, while most Protestants emphasize the importance of personal faith, Orthodox, Catholic and some Anglican believers also focus on the sacraments. So the Church, according to Catholics, is a symbol, a visible sign of an invisible reality, a sacrament “of intimate union with God,”2 a “sign, instrument and foretaste which would be completed in the Kingdom of God.”3 Accordingly, the Church as she appears at present is not yet fully completed. That “already” and “not yet” realized character of the Church raises difficulties in providing a theological definition. While the rather static Protestant view of the Church—based on Sola Scriptura (by scripture alone)—sees it as a “fundamental fact of Christian revelation,”4 Catholic definitions have changed even over the course of one generation. For example, Catholics today can remember the Church being defined as the “perfect society.” That definition, according to Dulles,5 emphasized that the Church “is subordinated to no other and lacks nothing required for its own institutional completeness. It depends on no other society and is above all societies.” This definition was in use until June 29, 1943, when Pius XII issued his encyclical, De Mysticis Corporis Christi, defining the Church as the mystical “Body of Christ.” The last step in the self-definition of the Catholic Church was taken by the 1964 Lumen Gentium of Vatican II which revived the Old Testament idea of the “People of God.”6 As The Catechism teaches, the “People of God is marked by characteristics that clearly distinguish it from all other religious, ethnic, political, or cultural groups found in history.”7 The Church has many meanings: it is a symbol, visible and invisible, a sacramental and institutional reality, but above all, as Paul VI8 noted, a mystery, a “reality imbued with the hidden presence of God.” It is seemingly impossible to exactly define a mystery like Jesus’ Church.

The Church

5

Every individual’s understanding of this mysterious reality, imbued with the hidden presence of God, is slightly different.

Personal Understandings of the Church Biblical definitions of the Church are metaphorical and can often be interpreted in multiple ways. Therefore, personal differences amongst theologians attempting to prove their specific opinions regarding Jesus’ Church were sometimes substantial, which can be seen in the following scenarios. Augustine first hinted at the dichotomous aspects of the Church. Relying on Augustine, the reformers—Martin Luther, and even more explicitly, John Calvin, in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion— distinguished between a visible and invisible Church. To the visible belong all those baptized, while the invisible Church “includes not only the saints presently living on earth,” but all who are, “children of God by grace” (Institutes 4.1.7).9 Some Reformers in the seventeenth century went even further, emphasizing that believers’ personal relationship with Jesus alone constitutes the Church, independently, whether or not they are organized into a visible society. Catholics reacted at the Council of Trent by placing their emphasis on the Church’s observable aspects which are, “constituted and organized as a visible society in the present world.”10 In 1608, however, Robert Bellarmine went to the extreme in emphasizing perceptible elements constituting the Church. He stated that “the true Church is a fully visible society—as visible as the Kingdom of France, or the Republic of Venice.” Today, when the emphasis is on ecumenism, we look at these disputes from a less polemic and a more self-critical perspective. As Cardinal Avery Dulles commented, “Cardinal Bellarmine’s baroque definition—phrased in times of confrontations between Reformation and Counter-reformation—apparently neglects the most important thing about the Church: the presence in it of the God who calls its members to himself, sustains them by his grace and works through the mass to enable them to carry out the mission of the Church.”11 The mystery of Jesus’ Church is understood differently not only by diverse denominations but also by members of the same denomination. Thus, not only the Protestant Martin Luther and the Catholic St. Bellarmine, but also Popes Pius XII and Paul VI, and the Council of Trent and Vatican II, all understood the biblical idea of the Church slightly differently. The Church is a mystery. It is impossible to define it perfectly once and for all. Different historical situations, permanently changing challenges, and a better understanding of the mystery of Jesus’ Church today compared to the past, make a certain

6

Chapter One

progress in theological reasoning necessary. Therefore, there has been, and always will be, differences and evolution in the Church’s selfunderstanding through history, as well as in the definitions of Jesus’ Church provided by her greatest theologians—popes, saints and synods. However, other much more basic controversies in the theological understanding of the Church (like those between Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant theologians) did not solely emerge from the progress of theological reasoning and a better understanding of the mysteries of Jesus’ Church. What, then, caused the fundamental discrepancies between different Christian theologians and denominations in understanding the same teachings of Jesus, of the same Scriptures and of the same Church? Faith, as noted, presumes a synchronized walk on two metaphorical legs so that they complement one another. However, the two legs do not always walk together. Countless times throughout history, theological differences originated from strong personal identification with different aspects of differently institutionalized churches. In other words, the determinants of ecclesiology were not simply Jesus’ words or biblical exegesis. At times, worldly interests expressed in power struggles between differently organized and governed churches led to differences in understanding Jesus’ words and biblical descriptions and definitions. Denominational differences in understanding the Church are significant, however differences in defining the Church between Christians and atheists are paramount as they are causing divisions in the Western world like never before in history. The reason for this detrimental division is something even deeper than a power struggle—it is a struggle between worldviews. This could be illustrated with the paraphrased words of the philosopher Wayne H. Dyer: “If you change the way you look at Church, then the Church you looked at changes.” The perspective we take on the ultimate questions of human life, like God, salvation or the purpose of our existence, influences how we perceive them. It is the same when perceiving the Church. It becomes apparent that not every, or indeed any, perspective can be the right one, as we will later discuss. However, as stated above, sceptics and Christians observe the same church from parallel universes. The crucial question, essential for any future evangelization, is therefore whether the people of faith are able to open a constructive dialogue with sceptics and to look at Jesus’ Church from similar perspectives. Such dialogue does not imply compromising the truth for sake of reaching a consensus. On the contrary, it implies courage on both sides to acknowledge the truth. In this context we have to take a stand with regards to a practical question: from which perspective we will we look at

The Church

7

things, and how in this book will we understand what the Church truly is? Based on pure logic we have three options: we may see her as being flawless, without any blemish, as holy as the Scriptures describe Jesus’ Church. Alternatively, we may see a Church as flawed and abusive as the experiences of the victims of crusades, inquisition or child abuse may suggest. Alternatively, perhaps the Church consists of an integrated mixture of both of these controversial characteristics. If we accept this third option—the compromise solution—then we have to ask: how is it possible for such mutually exclusive characteristics as holiness and sin to co-exist and be integrated into one? In other words, how could an institution in which child abuse has repeatedly occurred, be identical and synonymous with the biblical “pillar and foundation of the truth,” and the “visible continuum of Christ’s ministry?” We will discuss these questions in the following chapters.

Notes 1. M. J. Havran, “The Church,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, Volume 3, ed. Berard L. Marthaler, 2003, (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale in association with The Catholic University of America), 577. 2. F. L. Cross and F. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), 288. 3. Martin Reardon, “Unity,” The Oxford Companion of Christian Thought, Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason, and Hugh Pyper, eds., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 732–33. 4. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 87. 5. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church, Expanded Edition, (New York: Doubleday - Image Books, 2007), 10. 6. Austin Flannery, Vatican Collection Volume I; Vatican Council II; The Conciliar and Postconciliar Documents, (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1992), 799–812. 7. Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994), 172. 8. Catechism, 169. 9. Karl Heussi, Kompendium de Kirchengeschichte, Sechste Auflage, (Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1928), 44–46. 10. Dulles, Models, 10. 11. Dulles, Models, 11.

CHAPTER TWO ASPECTS OF THE CHURCH

For the Church there is no way to visibly exist in the world other than in an organized and institutional form. On the other hand, nothing is more detrimental to the biblical Church than the threat arising from her excessively worldly—i.e. institutional—functioning. What then is the relationship between the institutional and the biblical aspects of the Church?

The Church as a Faith-Shaping Institution Faith is God’s gift. Parents, family and church community play a paramount role in spreading the divine gift, and also in forming, expressing and articulating the individual’s relationship with God. Accordingly, there is no solitary believer. As Henry de Lubac said, “Each one in his very being receives of all, of his very being must give back to all.”1 The basic principle of this receiving from all, and giving back to all, is love. A loving giving of a person’s self to the other, and receiving the beloved person’s self in return is not only the most blissful communitarian experience, but is also the way of personal growth and fulfilment in relationship with Jesus. Accordingly, the purpose of all Church institutions is to facilitate a horizontal communication in love (among believers) and the vertical communication with an infinitely loving God. Through such horizontal and vertical communication, the visible Church becomes a faith-shaping institution. As Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) noted, “The Christians took quite seriously the idea that God does not live in stone but is alive. Those people in whom he is alive and who belong to him, accordingly, form his true temple.”2 God’s true temple therefore has the task of integrating the visible and institutional, as well as the spiritual aspects of the Church. In this context, Pius XII, in his encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, stressed the indivisible unity of visible and spiritual aspects of the Church. Similarly, Paul VI emphasized the indivisible oneness of the visible and invisible aspects of the Church expressed in a wide scope, from the canonic law to charismatic spirituality.3 Thus in Catholics’ understanding

10

Chapter Two

there are not two Churches, an invisible and a visible, a holy and a worldly, a spiritual and a material, an ideal and a real. However, Jesus’ Church does have two aspects: the visible and the spiritual. These two aspects exist, metaphorically, not one beside the other, but one above the other. As other institutions exist with a purpose that determines their functional characteristics, so it is with the visible, i.e., the institutional, aspect of Jesus’ Church. Accordingly, biblical metaphors like the Bride of Christ etc. are the blueprint—the heart and soul—of the visible and institutional Church. Note that this biblical blueprint is not merely a concept or some Platonic idea, but one that is factually and visibly realized in the institutional Church. Thus, holiness takes on a material form in visible, flawless Church institutions, and becomes an empirical reality, a “visible continuum of Christ’s ministry,” and a foretaste of God’s kingdom. However, as cases of abuse prove, events that contradict pure holiness and love also occur in ecclesial institutions. We will discuss in the next chapter whether they are due solely to individual perpetrators, rather than the institution.

Flawed Institution or Flawed Individuals? In social settings, achieving a particular purpose depends not so much on the individual as on the community educating, coaching and shaping its members’ individual behaviour patterns. The spirit of the community can reward and motivate, coach and boost the individual to surpass personal limits. The cohesion of the community outweighs personal limitations and gives a qualitative surplus to individual members pursuing common goals. In contrast, a communal spirit of selfishness, abuse or hypocrisy has the opposite effect. It exponentially amplifies shortcomings, and breaks individuals’ optimism, trust, moral values and ideals. This is especially true for the faith-shaping institution—the Church—in which everyone is the receiver from all and the giver to all, and which substantiates a kind of collective responsibility in Jesus’ Church. With this in mind, the academic question arises: what came first, the chicken or the egg? Were flawed institutions formed by flawed individuals, or have flawed ecclesial institutions produced flawed individuals? Even though Jesus never philosophically discussed the question, He gave His answer. He was never portrayed in the scriptures as angry with a particular sinner, i.e. a flawed person. The real threat to God’s kingdom did not involve evil single persons, but rather the spirit, organization and functioning of flawed institutions which shaped individual members’ and

Aspects of the Church

11

their behaviours. For example, when cleansing the temple, Jesus says, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:15–17; Isa 56:7). The metaphorical den of robbers symbolizes the evil community shaping individuals, their collective beliefs and behaviours. It symbolizes the institutionalized hypocrisy of the synagogue. What made even Jesus angry was the two-faced service of an abusive institution which was meant to be holy. In such ecclesial hypocrisy (which Mark 11:15–17 refers to) holiness and sin are organizationally—i.e. institutionally—interconnected, so that holy has become evil, and evil has become holy. The real threat to God’s kingdom was degrading even the house of prayer for all nations to a worldly institution enacting holiness and promoting sin. The abusive organizational climate that provoked Jesus’ wrath is also a challenge to postmodern ecclesial institutions. In our individualistic mindset, we tend to see fault only in the individual, a single person who blemishes the Church. However, as John Donne wrote, “No man is an island.”4 Individuals form a professional society, but the society, organization or institution, for good or for ill, also forms its individual members’ behavioural standards. As the behaviour of the individual merchants revealed the spirituality of the synagogue, so the Bishop of Antigonish was also embodying not only his own, but also the spirituality of the ecclesial institution that formed him, where he was serving, and which supervised him. But which particular institution are we discussing? Certainly not Jesus’ Church, because the biblical Church is a flawless and holy faith-shaping institution, the pillar and foundation of the truth. However, there seems to be a dichotomy, a gap between the very real flawless and holy aspects of the body of Christ, and the equally real flawed aspects of the institution, existing in parallel to the genuine Church of Jesus. Let me illustrate what I mean with an anecdote. St. Francis asked, “Who do you respect more, a sinless angel or a sinful priest?” According to the story, the answer was, “Indeed, you more respect the sinful priest: he represents Jesus Christ at the altar!” But not every priest and not every Christian has always and wholeheartedly represented Jesus at the metaphorical altar of life. It is more or less commonly accepted, especially after John Paul II’s call for the critical self-evaluation of the Church’s past actions, that crusades, inquisition, Galileo’s trial or the so called “Constantine’s donation” (a medieval forgery legally substantiating the existence of the Roman Church state), were not wholly in harmony with Jesus’ intentions. These “tips of the iceberg” were not only private mistakes committed by individual members of the Church, more importantly they were systematic

12

Chapter Two

errors in moral reasoning shared by many, or even the majority, of the Church’s members. It is as though two different spiritualties (a holy and a worldly) existed side by side, not only in individual believers but also collectively, in the whole institution colloquially called organized religion.

Aspects of the Institutional Church In the previous section we talked about tips of the iceberg, such as the inquisition, crusades or Galileo’s trial. But where or what is this metaphorical iceberg itself, the common foundation of all forms of worldly behaviour patterns in the flawed ecclesial institution? To answer this question let us further dissect the visible institutional appearance of the Church. As Luigi Accattoli noted, the Vatican II documents assert: Christ, “holy, innocent and undefiled” (Heb 7:26), knew nothing of sin (2 Cor 5:21), but came only to expiate the sins of the people (Heb 2:17). The church, however, clasping sinners to her bosom, at once holy and always in need of purification, follows constantly the path of penance and renewal (Lumen Gentium 8).5

Accattoli observes that in a single statement, the document “presents a twofold vision of the Church, as ‘holy in Christ’ and ‘sinful in its members’.”6 This twofold nature of the Church has important and paradoxical consequences. As Hans Urs von Balthasar noted:7 … [T]here exists within the visible Church two opposing spirits, such as Augustine describes, following the bible of the old and new covenant, as the battle between two civitates; and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius (more spiritually) as the opposition of the two casts of mind, one the Luciferian, the will to power; the other, the Christian, the will to poverty, abasement, and humility.

The same institution may thus seemingly appear in two mutually exclusive aspects. One aspect of the institutional Church is biblical, holy, unflawed and genuine. As noted, it shapes the individual believer’s relationship with God, and its law is love. It is a visible and touchable materialization of the holy, Godly essence of the Church, seen in sacraments, liturgy, teaching and the preaching of God’s word, and in Christian love expressed in a multiplicity of humanitarian activities. This visible, institutional aspect of the Church authentically reflects Jesus’ teaching, and is a sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s kingdom. It genuinely materializes such biblical metaphors as the pillar and foundation of the truth, amongst others.

Aspects of the Church

13

The other aspect is caused by the Church’s clasping sinners to her bosom. Sinners—as are we all—definitely constitute the body of Christ, however their sinful behaviour contradicts the very essence of Jesus’ Church. So sins committed by clerics or lay members of the Church (despite occurring within the walls of the institution) are not what the Church is. They contradict all of Jesus’ and the Bible’s definitions. They also definitely contradict the Church’s self-understanding as the “visible continuum of Christ’s ministry” which, as noted, is “holy, innocent and undefiled,” and, “knew nothing of sin.” In contrast, selfish, power hungry, narcissistic and abusive behaviour patterns occurring in organized religion, characterize what Hans Urs von Balthazar called the “non-Church”8 We could visualize the non-Church by comparing the whole visible, institutional Church to a slice of Emmental cheese, in which the genuine matter—the cheese—represents the genuine biblical Church’s institution, while the bubbles of air—the non-cheese—represent the non-Church. Inside the same slice of cheese exists the matter of the cheese (holiness) and the bubbles of air (the non-Church). Similarly, inside the same visible, institutional Church walls two institutions may and sometimes do exist— one the genuine and holy Church, the other the non-Church. The genuine Church is the holy and visible reflection of the body of Christ. On the contrary, the non-Church—despite sometimes existing virtually in same institution, time and space, buildings and walls as the genuine Church—is the greatest challenge to the people of God. It has no Christ-like, spiritual, and sacramental essence—the non-Church is only a flawed institution, a Luciferian caricature of the flawless Church. Therefore, when we look at the institutional Church we are not to imagine that there were no contradictions between its genuine Churchly and non-Churchly aspects. In other words, we should not look at the Church as the world does. In the eyes of non-believers, the worldly and holy aspects are seen as one, with holiness and sin integrated and enmeshed. As von Balthasar noted,9 “The worst feature of integralism is that out of this mentality, which obviously should be most consciously fought against, the two aspects, the ‘visible Church and the visible nonChurch’ are combined and not sharply distinguished.” While nothing is more truthful than the twofold vision of the Church as holy in Christ and sinful in its members, the integration of the Church and of the non-Church is unacceptable for Christians. The Pillar of Truth (the Church) and the Luciferian (non-Church) cannot be integrated or enmeshed. Neither individual confession of sins, nor a genuine personal faith, nor a collective purification and penance of the Church that Lumen Gentium talks about, nor a critical self-evaluation that John Paul II talks

14

Chapter Two

about, would be possible if holiness and sin in the minds of the people of God were mixed, combined or integrated. Just as one cannot simultaneously sit on two horses running in different directions, neither can Christians belong to the Church and the non-Church simultaneously. In a situation when genuinely striving for holiness, one definitely belongs to Jesus’ biblical Church. But at other times (if wilfully estranged from God) the same person may switch to behaviour indicating a detour towards the Luciferian non-Church. As we noted with St. Augustine, “the battle between two civitates,” between good and evil, and between belonging to the Church and the non-Church never stops and is a substantial part of the Christian form of being. We started this section talking about the tip of the iceberg. Can we see and pinpoint now also the real danger, the iceberg itself? It is apparent that the metaphorical iceberg is the Luciferian nonChurch. The non-Church, which through its “tip” represented by the inquisition, the crusades, and Galileo’s trial, or like the child abuse scandals in postmodern times, is killing the world’s trust in Jesus’ Church and its mission more efficiently than all the positivists’, agnostics’ and atheists’ propaganda combined. Definitely, Jesus’ anger described so vividly in Mark 11:15–17 would today be directed against the non-Church, which is an equal or worse enemy of Jesus’ Church than the world itself. The above theoretical discussion has a self-evident practical ramification. Although we will return to these topics, we can already state that it would be almost sacrilegious for God’s people to say that the scandals of Constantine’s donation, crusades or sexual abuse happened in the Body of Christ, or in the biblical Church. These scandals happened in what von Balthasar called the non-Church, and in what we will call, with Avery Dulles,10 “institutionalism.”

The Institutionalism of the Non-Church As we have stated, human life is communitarian. The profane society as well as the Church functions institutionally. Colloquially we can differentiate three types of institution: (1) Worldly institutions were, in Jesus’ time, represented by the Roman Empire with its medicine, theatres, politicians, court system, senate, mythology and military. The purpose of Roman institutions was to ensure the empire’s power, security, and well-being by social, political, and military means.

Aspects of the Church

15

(2) The second form of institution is in a specific way set apart from the world; it is holy. Its pinnacle is Jesus Christ’s ministry. Jesus, from the first moment of His incarnation—together with His disciples—lived “in the world.” He was a member of the Hebrew community, observed the law, obeyed the Decalogue, regularly attended the synagogue, celebrated the prescribed holidays, and paid taxes. Nevertheless he was always different; Love was more important than Law. Additionally, His disciples were exposed to Hebrew cultural, economic, and even political realities. Accordingly, Jesus and His disciples physically lived in a Hebrew environment, but—to paraphrase John 17:16 and 17:11—Jesus’ disciples were “in the world but not of it.” Also, the first and other early Church communities had, as Dulles notes,11 “recognized ministers, accepted confessional formulæ, and prescribed forms of public worship.” The primordial Church was thus already an institution. This institution genuinely served as a foretaste of God’s kingdom without being morally or spiritually integrated into either the Roman or the Hebrew establishments. This is also how the current Church exists—in the world, but not of it. (3) The third type of institution is the non-Church. It is a form deceptively comprising both biblical and profane elements, Along with Dulles, we can identify the non-Church as an example of institutionalism.. The essence of institutionalism is hypocrisy. In the mildest cases, it places a legalistic over-emphasis on holiness; at its worst, it employs deliberate pretence, seeking to create the illusion or deception of true holiness. Accordingly, the term “flawed institution,” used in title of this book, the “non-Church” and the “institutionalism” Cardinal Dulles talks about are synonymous with one another. On the other hand, to call the Church an institution, as Dulles notes, does not necessarily imply institutionalism any more than papacy implies papism; law, legalism; or dogma, dogmatism. Dulles points out that institutionalism is: … a deformation of the true nature of the Church—a deformation that has unfortunately affected the Church at certain periods of its history, and one that remains in every age a real danger to the institutional Church … A Christian believer may energetically oppose institutionalism and still be very much committed to the Church as institution.12

Similarly, Ratzinger notes:

16

Chapter Two Ecclesial institutions and juridical organisations are not intrinsically evil; on the contrary, to a certain degree they are simply necessary and indispensable. But they become obsolete; they risk setting themselves up as the essence of Church and thus prevent us from seeing through to what is really essential.13

This “seeing through to what is really essential” does not imply a meticulous, legalistic or judgmental attitude. It is not about sentencing the flawed institution and its institutionalism, but is rather about a critical selfassessment of “how much am I committed to the contrary of institutionalism; promoting Jesus’ values, such as love, and promoting His institution on earth?” The non-Church does not always appear to be in all aspects Luciferian. Therefore, there is a substantial difficulty in distinguishing the biblical Church institutions from flawed institutions of the non-Church. Just as moral choices are often not black or white but grey, the distinction between the biblical institution and the hypocritical institutionalism of the non-Church is not always an easy yes/no choice as the boundaries are often blurred. To make the distinction easier, we can draft the relation between biblical organization and institutionalism in fig. 2.1 below. Fig. 2.1. The Church as it appears phenomenologically

Phenomenologically, as it appears to many Christians, the Church contains elements of God’s holiness and the sinner’s imperfections. However, for the people of God it is difficult to grasp the biblical “Bride of Christ,” “pillar and foundation of the truth,” the “Gateway to Jesus,” “the Body of Christ” or the “visible continuum of Christ’s ministry” as a dichotomy constituted of holiness, imperfection and sin. In quoted biblical definitions, the Church is not “grey,” and is not holy and sinful in same time. There is a gap between biblical description of the flawless and holy Church and the reality of the non-Church associating itself with her, the bride of Christ.

Aspects of the Church

17

How then to bridge this gap in our conceptual framework? The nonChurch exists not “inside” but “beside” Jesus’ Church. Consequently holiness and sin, biblical institution and institutionalism, the Church and the non-Church are real but mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the Church and the non-Church’s destiny is interconnected in God’s and the world’s eyes more than the destiny of monozygotic twins. In God’s eyes, the Church is responsible for evangelizing even her worst enemy, the non- Church. In the world’s eyes the people of God are to blame for transgressions of the non-Church. The passionate hate of her atheist adversaries in last four hundred years, encompassing the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, nineteenth century materialism, twentieth century Communism and postmodern religious apathy was often provoked by the hypocrisy and selfishness of the non-Church, which was mistakenly projected onto the Church. Despite fundamental differences, the Church and the non-Church are not only adversaries but win or lose together in building God’s kingdom.

Only grace resolves the threat of institutionalism In the context of Cardinal von Balthazar and Cardinal Dulles’s work, the “Catholic and apostolic Church” referred to in the Nicene Creed means not only an institution, but more precisely the people of God described by The Catechism of the Catholic Church: This People has for its Head Jesus the Christ (the anointed, the Messiah). Because the same anointing, the Holy Spirit, flows from the head into the body, this is the messianic people … The status of this people is that of the dignity and freedom of the sons of God, in whose hearts the Holy Spirit dwells as in a temple … Its law is the new commandment to love as Christ loved us. This is the new law of the Holy Spirit …14

Violation of this law of the Holy Spirit makes the non-Church a mortal enemy of the biblical Church. Let me illustrate the gravity of this hazard by referring to the internal affairs of the ancient and modern non-Church. A malignant institutionalism already acting within the synagogue explains the fanatical religious animosity toward the truest of prophets, such as Isaiah, who according to tradition was executed by being sawn in half, or the afflictions of the prophet Jeremiah which foreshadowed Jesus’ on the cross. However, a similar pattern is repeated in most Christian saints’ lives, not only in times of the Roman persecution but also during predominantly Christian centuries. For example, flawed ecclesial institutions condemned St. Joan of Arc and burned her at the stake in 1431. Even the

18

Chapter Two

most prominent theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas and Ignatius of Loyola were compelled to defend themselves against charges of heresy, while St. Teresa of Avila and Faustina Kowalska were censured. The threat originating from the non-Church was no less significant than the animosity of the religiously apathetic world, even in the lives of some contemporary Christians and saints. In our time, Padre Pio was banned on countless occasions from addressing the public, celebrating mass in public and hearing confessions. He was ordered to abstain from all activities except private celebration of the mass, and was radically silenced until 1933, when Pope Pius XI made a well-known statement: “I have not been badly disposed toward Padre Pio, but I have been badly informed.” Padre Pio was fully rehabilitated by Pope John Paul II; nevertheless, it is a reoccurring pattern that many saints revered by the Church today, were ostracized in the past by flawed institutions of the non-Church. As the saying goes “saints are suffering for the Church and also from the Church” (which we shall define more accurately as the non-Church). In the above discussion it appears that even committed Christians’ behaviour sometimes resembles members of the non-Church. We all make metaphorical excursions from the Church into the non-Church and back; we are all sinners. If we are all flawed sinners how is it then possible for us at all to belong to Jesus’ flawless, absolutely holy biblical Church and be a pillar and foundation of truth at all? As Pope Paul VI explained: “The Church gathers sinners already caught up in Christ’s salvation but still on the way to holiness: The Church is therefore holy, though having sinners in her midst, because she herself has no other life but the life of grace.”15 The “grace” Pope Paul VI talks about has many meanings. In our context, it means receiving the gift of faith. It means a rational and emotional confidence that the Church is the body of Christ. It means the internal evidence of living in mystical community with Jesus, the head of the Church. God’s grace in this context also has a unique aspect—since the people of God are sinners they all need forgiveness, and they hope that God judges them more lovingly than canonic law. As Andrew Murray explains, “The master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the effort.”16 To God, not only success but also the effort counts. Holy efforts in fostering faith, love and discipleship—the lives that most Christians reveal—have a real value in God’s eyes. Jesus best demonstrated this truth. At the end of his worldly life his ministry seemed hopeless and unsuccessful; the teacher was crucified, almost all his disciples abandoned him, and his teaching seemed totally defeated. But his messianic efforts were to the Father more precious than imposing a quick, easy, spectacular and triumphal victory over the

Aspects of the Church

19

devil! God’s grace, accordingly, also means Christians’ participating in Jesus’ lifestyle, suffering and glorious victory over evil, sin and death. Most Christians belong to the Church by God’s grace, inspiring them to grow and become like Jesus and fight sin, rather than by achieved perfection. Jesus’ messianic ministry, the Holy Spirits’ grace, and the believer’s faith, love and efforts in discipleship enable sinners’ belonging to the most holy community on planet Earth and their being sanctified.

Notes 1. Henri De Lubac, Catholicism, Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 333. 2. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World, Believing and living in our time - A Conversation with Peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 63. 3. Avery Dulles, Models of the Church, Expanded Edition, (New York: Doubleday-Image Books, 2007), 7. 4. John Donne, The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, ed. Charles M. Coffin (New York: Modern Library Classis, 2001), 454. 5. Luigi Accattoli, When a Pope Asks Forgiveness, The Mea Culpa of John Paul II (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), 30. 6. Ibid. 7. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Church and World (Montreal: Palm Publsihers, 1967), 14. 8. Ibid. 9. von Balthasar, 15. 10. Dulles, 12. 11. Dulles, 17. 12. Ibid. 13. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion, Understanding the Church Today, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 67. 14. Catechism, 172. 15. Catechism, 182. 16. Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1981), 52.

CHAPTER THREE COMPARING OUTLINES TO BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

Between AD 413 and 426, St. Augustine1 completed his influential book De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos (God’s City Against the Pagans). He presented two supernatural powers clashing on Earth—God and Satan. God’s love shapes the Church’s history, while Satan’s power shapes the world’s. When observing happenings in the world, we often have the feeling that Augustine was right. However, as von Balthasar described it, such competition happened not only in the world, but also within the institutional church (organized religion) where, beside holiness, the nonChurch also has a foothold. The crucial question is what facilitates institutionalism, the flourishing of the non-Church parallel to Jesus’ Church? Individual hypocrisy—putting on a show of holiness when true striving for discipleship is lacking (as noted in chapter two)—is not the original sin, nevertheless it is a prominent enemy of God’s people, which had been effectively identified and described five centuries before Christ by the inspired author of Genesis 3:1–20. To correctly understand the message of Adam and Eve and the Fall, we must think for a moment the way the Hebrews did two thousand five hundred years ago. As Celestin Tomic notes, to modern individualistic Western readers, Adam is only our ancestor—an anonymous person, almost like a mummy—with whom we have only some genetic similarity.2 But to contemporary Hebrew readers, Adam meant a human being in a general sense. (The word “Adam” is used some five hundred times in scripture, much more often to signify humankind than simply to identify our ancestor). Adam is not only a particular individual, he is a “corporate personality”3 representing the whole human race, embodying the psychology of every sinner. Let us now focus on the original sin introduced by Adam and Eve’s fall. The metaphorical mother of all sins is egotism and selfishness. Selfishness is the sin par excellence. It is the motivator, and is in the background of all other sins. Selfishness is inborn, acting in every person

22

Chapter Three

but often hidden, and in social settings controlled. What enabled Adam and Eve’s selfishness and egotism to surface and direct their behaviour was hypocrisy. If selfishness is the mother, then hypocrisy is the father of all sins, being a socially learned behaviour. Deception, like that of the serpent, and self-deception, like Adam and Eve when convincing themselves that to eat the apple is the right thing to do, is manipulative. Metaphorically, egotism (as the mother), and hypocrisy (as the father of all sins) together produce children of sin, like lying and greed, murder and robbery. The original sin is accordingly also a product and child of the interaction of inborn selfishness and learned hypocrisy. The unknown author of Genesis 3:1–20 focuses less on inborn selfishness and more on socially learned hypocrisy, describing how the triumvirate of Satan, Adam and Eve—the first society of institutionalized hypocrisy in meta-history—facilitated all of humanity’s fall. Adam and Eve were the first to secretly negotiate with God’s arch-enemy Satan. They finally accepted Satan’s lure, his skilfully applied truths, half-truths, and interpretations. The self-deceptive triumvirate then gradually convinced themselves that the right and proper thing to do was to outsmart the would-be selfish God. Hypocrisy subsequently became Adam and Eve’s nature. Confronted with their transgression (verses 12–14), Adam accused Eve, and Eve accused Satan, avoiding acknowledgment of their own guilt and keeping the appearance of moral perfection. This was the advent of institutionalized hypocrisy, which has, through Adam and Eve, become the social sickness of mankind. Can we paraphrase the biblical story into a more modern rationale, comprehensible even to sceptics? In modern societies, as Hans Vaihinger described in The Philosophy of “As If”, individuals are conditioned to live an “as if” lifestyle.4 To paraphrase Vaihinger, they are coached to be polite, acting as if they enjoyed each other’s company; at their workplace, to behave as if they were committed to their employer; to bear children as if human life had a purpose; to buy things as if they really needed them; and members of the non-Church worship as if they really sought God. Consequently, in the past, as well as recently, even some Christians “make their phylacteries wide and the tassels of their prayer shawls long; they love the place of honour at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi’” (Matthew 23:5–7). Such accustomed hypocrisy at that time—and today almost conventional —that Jesus warns about here, is something Adam and Eve’s successors often feel only in the back of their mind, but are unhappy to think about,

Comparing Outlines to Biblical and Theological Concepts

23

and even less willing to acknowledge as a problem. This has grave effects. In opposition to Ovid’s well-known saying, Video meliora, provoque, deteriora sequor (“I see the right way, approve it, and do the opposite”), institutionalism virtually prevents one from even seeing the right way. Such a delicate or blatant—but in many contemporary ecclesial settings, even prominent—institutionalism that Jesus had warned about in Matthew 23:5–7 is a feature of the non-Church and a mortal enemy of the biblical Church How do these insights fit with conventional theology and ecclesiology? Does labelling institutionalism a threat to Jesus’ Church not contradict Pius XII and Paul VI’s teachings emphasizing an indivisible unity of the visible (institutional) and invisible (spiritual) aspects of the Church? This is a false premise. There is an indivisible unity of Jesus’ Church and its biblical institution exactly as defined by Pius XII and Paul VI; on the other hand, there is an indivisible connectedness between the nonChurch and its hypocritical institutionalism, as we abstract from von Balthazar’s and Dulles’s descriptions. Therefore, the formulations of Pius XII and Paul VI are valid for the genuine Church, but are invalid for the non-Church. There is an actual and indivisible unity of the visible and spiritual aspects of the Church, but also a paramount disparity between the institutionalism and hypocrisy of the non-Church and the biblical Church. The same distinction between the Church and the non-Church is foreshadowed in the title of this book. Because the non-Church has no holy, spiritual, sacramental or Christ-like aspects, it is nothing more than a flawed institution. The flawed institution contrasts with Jesus’ biblically instituted, holy and flawless Church. Such a contrasting and clear distinction between the Church and the non-Church is not only an empirical reality, but a sign of our times. How do we help resolve the contrast between the Church and nonChurch? By not minimizing differences, and not equating the Church and non-Church as the rest of the world does. For in the world at large, what you see is what you get, i.e. the world does not differentiate between the flawed institution and the flawless Church. On the contrary, for all the people of faith from Abraham to Moses through to the Old Testament prophets, great Christian saints, martyrs, theologians, and masses of postmodern Christians, the difference between the church and the Church was, is and will ever more be paramount. After being awakened by John Paul II’s call, and even more by Christians deserting organized religions, we must apply Jesus’ and biblical definitions to the “Church you see,” and clearly differentiate the flawless Church from the flawed institution. Postmodern Christians are painfully aware that the Church is not always

24

Chapter Three

the public image of the institution, but rather it is the community itself that genuinely reflects Jesus’ concepts, biblical definitions, and the selfunderstanding of the Church. In this section we tested our conceptual framework comparing it to other biblical and theological concepts. Let us next test the validity of our concepts on practice. It is an essential prerequisite for any future renewal of the non-Church to be able to answer the questions: where, when and how has Satan used our fallen nature to bring us to the point where biblical behaviour patterns and institutionalism are competing within the phenomenologically same ecclesial institution? To answer this question let us in the following chapters undertake a meticulous examination of Church and world history. The purpose of our overview is not merely to chronologically list historical events, but rather to identify cause, reason and rationale, those principles that move history. So, we now open a Pandora’s Box of the past, to discern which historical dynamisms facilitated institutionalism and the flourishing of the nonChurch parallel to Jesus’ Church.

Notes 1. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (Tubingen, Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1998), 33. 2. Celestin Tomic, Prapovijest Spasenja (Zagreb: Provincijalat Hrvatskih Franjevaca Konventualaca, 1977), 120–28. 3. Adalbert Rebic, Biblijska Prapovijest (Zagreb: Krscanska Sadasnjost, 1972), 74–76. 4. Hans Vaihinger, Die Philosophie Des Als Ob (Berlin: Reuter & Reichard, 1921).

PART II THE BATTLE OF INSTITUTIONALISM AND HOLINESS IN CHURCH HISTORY

CHAPTER FOUR JESUS CHRIST: THE CORNERSTONE OF GOD’S KINGDOM

Jesus’ ministry, the single most important happening in human history, can be discussed from many and different standpoints. We will discuss it from the perspective of the everlasting conflict between worldliness and holiness.

The Roman View of Jesus We summarize here the historical happenings influencing the Roman perception of Jesus as seen by the church historian Winfried Harrington.1 In 63 BC, Pompey conquered Palestine in the name of the Roman Republic, the most powerful institution the ancient world had ever seen. Pompey was, nineteen years later, defeated by Julius Caesar. Nevertheless, Palestine remained a Roman province, and the Jewish state was not restored until 1948. After Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, Rome descended into a civil war from which Gaius Octavian emerged victorious (after defeating Antony and Cleopatra in 31 BC) to become one of the most powerful Roman emperors of all time. In 27 BC the senate enthusiastically proclaimed Octavian Augustus the protector of Rome, in which capacity he ruled until AD 14. Deifying Augustus after his death helped to keep the multinational empire together. Gods of conquered nations were all recognized by the Romans inside a common pantheon ruled by the highest god—Dea Roma—and were observed through worshipping the emperor. Emperor-worship was not strictly enforced in the Western provinces, but in Palestine Herod the Great, a loyal (and exceedingly corrupt) Roman client king, made an effort to prove his fidelity to Rome by placing a statue of Octavian in the temple at Jerusalem. This offended the Jews and made Herod unpopular. However, he secured himself against both Roman and Jewish sides. On the one side, he had friendly ties with Augustus dating from the time he had helped him defeat Antony and Cleopatra. On the other, in 37 BC, he married Princess

28

Chapter Four

Mariamne I, and in 35 BC designated her brother, Aristobulus III, as the High Priest of the Temple. Politically, he was pragmatic, and used his diplomatic skills to expand his own kingdom, while at the same time building temples to honour Augustus. In return Herod was exempted from paying taxes and had to provide military forces only during wartime. To strengthen the institution he ruled, Herod attempted to regain Hebrew support by refurbishing David’s Citadel, building magnificent buildings, and massively expanding the Temple. Near the end of his life, he became mistrustful and in 29 BC, executed his third wife, Mariamne II, as well as his sons by Mariamne I, Aristobulus and Alexander. Then, a few days before his own death, he killed Antipater, his son by his first wife, Doris. He then divided the kingdom among his remaining sons, Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip I. Herod’s sons were never acknowledged by Rome as client kings, but were supervised by a procurator. The procurator exercised his power by naming the High Priest of the Temple and taking command of the military. Between AD 26 and 36 the procurator was Pontius Pilate. He was hated because he openly humiliated the Jews by forcefully taking money from the Temple, and slaughtered Jews in Samaria. The emperor Tiberius supported him, but in the time of Caligula, he fell into disgrace, and was brought to trial and condemned in Rome. A reader may wonder why Jesus was perceived as an enemy of the empire. Pontius Pilate wanted to be popular, and that meant proving that “the Hebrew’s enemy is also my enemy.” More importantly, he was a cog in the Roman imperial machine, reflecting its mental climate and obeying its god, Caesar. But the God of Jesus Christ was infinitely above all gods, including Caesar. This was a blatant threat to a totalitarian empire that required absolute religious subordination to Caesar. Pilate had disdain for distinctions between right and wrong, good and evil, and morality and religion. He was truly a Roman politician, and therefore must have felt personally threatened by Jesus’ perfect humility, loving unselfishness, and godly superiority, qualities he himself never possessed. The Messiah foreshadowed the worthlessness of everything Pilate lived for, and the great distinction between Caesar as lord and Christ as Lord.

The Hebrew View of Jesus As Marijan J. Fucak notes, the title “Son of man” that Jesus used for himself was immediately associated by almost anyone living in that culture with Daniel 7:13–14 and Psalm 110:1.2 Clearly, Jesus was proclaiming himself as the suffering Messiah, but who was this person?

Jesus Christ: The Cornerstone of God’s Kingdom

29

St. Mark starts his gospel by describing Jesus’ baptism, and presenting both a proof and a clarification. It took the form, as Fucak notes, of a powerful message coming from heaven (Mark 1:11) proclaiming, “You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”3 A similar message appears in Psalm 2:7 (speaking of the coronation of a Jewish king), and also in Isaiah 42:1 (describing the servant of God. By these repetitions the Hebrews immediately understood that Jesus was identifying himself as; the Son of God, the true King of Israel and God’s Servant in one person. Jesus didn’t literally fulfill the prophecies of Micah or Zechariah: Their flesh shall rot while they are still standing on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On that day men will be stricken by the LORD with great panic. Each man will seize the hand of another, and they will attack each other. Judah to will fight at Jerusalem, The wealth of all surrounding nations will be collected —great quantities of gold and silver and clothing. A similar plaque will strike the horses and mules, the camels and donkeys, and all the animals in those camps. Then the survivors of all nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. (Zechariah 14:12–16).

Jesus discerned a quite different purpose in his messianic mission, when proclaiming in the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. (Matthew 5:1–12).

Jesus was not like the Lord who emerged from the accustomed Hebrew interpretation of Zechariah’s prophecies, neither was he like worldly rulers and idols who aspire to lead their people in a triumphant march over the bloody corpses of enemies. He did not make His people into the new rulers over the leftovers of humankind, and He did not even strive to establish an all-powerful theocratic empire. On the contrary, from the very beginning Jesus’ “Law of love” (Mark 12: 28–34) challenged the Hebrew worldview that anticipated Zechariah’s prophesised triumphant and victorious

30

Chapter Four

celebration led by the expected Messiah. The Hebrews were collectively challenged by Jesus’ revealing a God who loves all humans equally (Luke 15: 11–34), and who even loves His enemies (Matt. 5: 43–48). This radically contradicted their traditional understanding. Jesus challenged the core of Jewish self-confidence that was based on the expectation of God’s support in attaining worldly glory, power and riches, and of a Messiah who places all spiritual and worldly power in Hebrew hands. By contrast, Jesus’ law of love challenged Hebrew self-esteem. Focusing not on external conflict, but on the struggle with sin—the internal enemy of God’s kingdom—Jesus struck a mortal blow against the hypocritical selfconfidence that equated personal holiness (closeness to God) with worldly power and riches. He proclaimed that the time had come when no one could remain neutral: “He who is not with me is against me” (Mark 1:15). And there was no other way for one to follow Jesus than to “pick up his cross” (Mark 8:22–31), because “the Lord did not come to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45). Jesus shifted the emphasis from formal “as if” obedience to law, to personal responsibility to serve others with love. But most religious Jews did not want to be “born again” (John 3:3) or to belong to a community of people “in the world but not of it” (John 17:11 and 17:16). Indeed, hypocritically serving the Law is much easier than accepting that love is the fulfilment of the law (Rom. 13:9–5). Most Hebrews (like citizens of our postmodern world) were unwilling to rejoice in their own suffering (I Peter 4:13–14). So, instead of striving for genuine love, they attempted to kill the One who was ultimate love.

The Rejection of Jesus by Roman and Hebrew Institutionalism Our Western way of thinking likes definitions. Are we therefore now able to define the reasons Romans and Hebrews wanted to silence Jesus? We could summarize Roman reasons with one word—Caesaro-theism. The Caesars and their establishment saw a mortal danger in Jesus’ proclamation of God’s kingdom, a concept which rejected the emperor as supreme god. There was no place in the Roman world picture for a Jesus who would, as Bouyer noted, “pray for Caesar, but not to Caesar.”4 The Hebrews’ motive for rejecting Jesus was the opposite, and we refer to it as “Theo-caesarism.” Because of its purported special closeness to God and the pervasive hypocritical grandiosity, the Hebrew religious, social, and political establishment expected to be recognized by Jesus as superior and Caesar like. They saw a mortal danger in Jesus’ opposition to the pretended holiness of the apparatchiks who were accustomed to “eat

Jesus Christ: The Cornerstone of God’s Kingdom

31

the bread of pure widows” described in Matthew 23:1–39. Hebrew potentates were angered by Jesus unmasking the hypocrisy of the temple, the Pharisees, and of the whole Hebrew theocratic system. His adversaries realized, sooner than Jesus’ disciples, that God’s kingdom and the institutionalism of worldly kingdoms were incompatible. In summary, the enemy of Jesus was neither the Jew nor the Roman, but the malignant and pervasive hypocrisy of both. The pinnacle of revelation, Jesus revealed a characteristic of the sovereign God—rejection of deception and hypocrisy in every possible situation.

Notes 1. Winfried J. Harrington, Uvod u Novi Zavjet. Spomen Ispunjenja. (Zagreb: Kršüanska Sadašnjost, 1975), 11–22. 2. Marijan Jerko Fucak, Dogadjaj Isus Krist (Zagreb: ITKL, 1989), 56–58. 3. Fucak, 56. 4. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), 46.

CHAPTER FIVE AGE OF THE BIBLICAL INSTITUTION

Sometimes, Christians dream of how wonderful life must have been in the days of the Original Church. Even sceptics are often predisposed to share such a sentiment. They are less likely to criticise the primordial Church than its subsequent institutionalized form. This is by no means an accident. St. Luke’s and St. Paul’s accounts reflect the baby steps of a biblical functioning Church—a genuine foretaste of God’s kingdom—irresistibly attracting all human hearts.

Pentecost The event described in Acts 2:1–41 happened fifty days after Jesus’ ascension, when some hundred and twenty of his disciples were gathered in the upper room where Jesus had celebrated his last supper. As Ronald Knox reconstructs: It was a spring morning in Jerusalem; great crowds of Jews were making their way to the temple for the Pentecostal ceremonies. Above the noise of talking and the sound of marching feet came a mighty roar in the sky above; it was a loud, rushing sound like a storm of wind; but the air was still; not a tunic fluttered, not a leaf moved on a tree. All eyes looked up; they saw nothing but blue sky and sunlight.1

As Peter later explained, this sound was the overture to Jesus’ promised gift of the Holy Spirit. The event signified a qualitative transition from a group of loosely attached disciples, to a visible, touchable, and measurable expression of that Spirit which would remake disciples into partakers in Jesus’ mystery, life, death and resurrection. The Church had become a spiritual and social organism. The number of disciples subsequently doubled, tripled and quadrupled and, as Kenneth D. Whitehead notes, they :

34

Chapter Five … suddenly became effective witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus and to the graces that would henceforth flow as a result of it. They began to preach with utter conviction and to bear witness up to the point—in the case of at least most of them, as tradition holds—of giving up their very lives. And what they began then is still going on.2

Such a biblical institution had one more sign: joy. Despite the fact that the Spirit remained invisible, the joy written “on disciples’ foreheads” proved the paramount power of an invisible reality acting through the Church; it won over the Roman Empire, and was on its way to winning over the world.

The Judeo-Christian Community in Jerusalem The first Christian community consisted, according to Franzen, of the apostles led by Peter, the seventy missionaries selected by Jesus, some older followers of Jesus, and those inspired by the Spirit at Pentecost.3 They called their community the Church of God, and themselves, brothers, disciples, believers, and—after the sixth chapter of Acts—saints. Their leaders’ lives reflected Jesus’ teaching: “If anyone wants to be the first, he must be the very last, and servant of all” (Mark 9:32). And in their community, as Cerfaux wrote, “No rule, unless it were the inspiration of love” prevailed.4 As Acts 4:32–37 reports, “All the faithful held together, and shared all they had, selling their possessions and their means of livelihood, so as to distribute to all, as each had need.” The apostolic Church was, from the beginning, as Knox describes, “not merely a set of beliefs; [but] … a way of life,” in which “love appeared as essentially superior to worship and to all observances.”5 Nevertheless, this was neither a utopia nor an ancient communist society, but, according to Cerfaux, “… sharing in common was the fundamental religious attitude included in the love of God” (Matt. 22:37–40). So Ananias, “could have kept his field as he could have kept the money he received for selling it” (Acts 5:4). He was punished because of deception and hypocrisy. Their catechism reflected and preserved the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Living the Sermon was not possible without a zealous expectation of Jesus’ imminent return. This hope, particularly “when a joyful cry of Maranatha rang out,”6 sustained the community. Despite the disciples’ continuing respect for the Law of Moses, their very lives, embodying their faith in such an exemplary way, offended the Hebrews, and persecutions soon arose. As Franzen notes, the first to be martyred was Steven, stoned to death in AD 32. The persecutions between 33 and 36 had an unexpectedly adverse effect for the

Age of the Biblical Institution

35

Hebrews in Saul’s conversion. Peter was jailed in AD 42, and in 43 James the Elder was martyred. Many Christians (mainly the Hellenists) then left Jerusalem and moved to Antioch. Around 62, when James the Younger was killed, separation from the synagogue seemed inevitable. Prompted by Jesus’ prophecies in Matthew 24:1–2, predicting that “Not one stone will here be left on another,” Christians collectively abandoned Jerusalem and escaped its destruction in 70. Nevertheless, Simeon, Jesus’ relative, later returned to the deserted city only to be excommunicated by the Hebrews and murdered in the year 100. Christians did not support the bloody revolt of Bar Kokhba, revered by many Hebrews as the true Messiah. Nevertheless, they were still perceived by Rome as traitors—along with the participants in that revolt—and were finally barred from Jerusalem in approximately 136. The primordial Church in Jerusalem practically ceased to exist at this time.

The Hellenist Community in Antioch Christians persecuted by the Hebrews in Jerusalem moved in waves to the capital of Syria, Antioch. First they attempted to connect to the synagogue. Later waves of refugees established their own communities, often connecting to more friendly gentiles, calling disciples Christians. Since the apostles Peter, John and James remained in Jerusalem, the spirituality of their brothers living in Antioch was not very well known to them. The distrust between the two communities escalated especially after Paul, the ex-Pharisee, became the leader in Antioch, and the local community started to grow quickly in numbers and influence. Gal. 2:4 speaks of “false brethren” arriving from Jerusalem to spy, showing the significance of those tensions. St. Paul (Gal. 1 and 2) describes the synod in Jerusalem. His opponents were James (the Lord’s brother, who was bishop of Jerusalem), Peter, and John. The discussion at the synod was sometimes hard. Finally, as Kenneth D. Whitehead notes, “… it was Peter who rose up ‘after there had been much debate’ and summed up the meaning of the momentous decision the infant Church was about to make.”8 The conclusions of the Synod are slightly differently reported by Paul (Gal. 2:9) and Luke (Acts 15:28–29). Nevertheless, Paul’s saying in Phil. 3:12 that Jesus “took hold of me” was justified; the dispute was resolved in a mutual understanding. As Tertullian later noted, everyone could say of the Christians, “Look how they love each other.”9 This is how internal problems of the Church were resolved at that time.

36

Chapter Five

The Community in Rome As Adrianyi notes, according to oral tradition—confirmed also by the latest archaeological findings—the Christian community in Rome was founded by Peter in AD 42 or 43, when fleeing from Jerusalem.10 However, as Franzen notes, Peter did not permanently reside in Rome.11 Around AD 50, he spent time in Jerusalem and was not in Rome in 57 and 58 when Paul was jailed there. But he wrote a letter from Rome around 63, where Nero executed him the following year. The first written report that Peter established the Church in Rome dates from Pope Clement (AD 96). Franzen notes that at that time, when the canon was not yet defined, it became necessary for Jesus’ Church to establish standards of authenticity. In cases when apostolic origin was provable, a particular resource’s authenticity and orthodoxy seemed almost self-evident. Accordingly, Peter’s name served as the best guarantee of orthodoxy. Later, being Peter’s disciple or a disciple of his disciples conferred, in many cases, similar status. When, in 95, some Christians in Corinth rebelled against ordained presbyters and chose charismatic leaders, Pope Clement reacted in his letter, citing for the first time in history his authority as Peter’s successor.12 At that time, as Ignatius commented, Rome “presided in love.”13

Spreading the Church through the Roman Empire Christianity spread rapidly thanks to the Spirit acting through apostles, disciples, Christian travellers, merchants, soldiers and preachers. In the early centuries, the majority of Christians lived in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. According to Franzen, in the western part, around AD 100, there were only a few thousand.14 Around the year 200 the numbers of Christians were in the tens of thousands; by 300 as many as two million; and by 400, four to six million. In the eastern part of the empire, near the beginning of the fourth century, there were already five to six million Christians. The Church was on its way to victory over the Roman Empire. As Bouyer notes, “The church had everything to gain from a situation in which the world pretended to ignore her, while allowing itself gradually to be won over by her.”15 The massive institutionalism that began proliferating during the following centuries turned this promising relationship between the Church and the world upside down.

Age of the Biblical Institution

37

Notes 1. Ronald Knox, It is St. Paul Who Writes (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956), 3. 2. Kenneth Whitehead, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), 21. 3. Arnold Franzen, Kleine Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968), 45. 4. Lucien Cerfaux, The Spiritual Journey of St. Paul (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), 16. 5. Knox, 12. 6. Cerfaux, 17. 7. Franzen, 67. 8. Whitehead, 82. 9. Gabor Adrianyi, Az Egyhaztortenet Kezuikonyve (Munchen: Aurora Konyvek, 1975), 38. 10. Adrianyi, 30. 11. Franzen, 60. 12. Franzen, 68. 13. Ibid. 14. Franzen, 77. 15. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), 21.

CHAPTER SIX BEGINNINGS OF MASSIVE EASTERN INSTITUTIONALISM

Constantine was the emperor who probably made the greatest footprint in history. Thanks to him, myriad disciples, saints, martyrs and other ranks of exemplary believers, freely and zealously started to build God’s kingdom, exponentially multiplying God’s love on planet Earth. To paraphrase an ancient poet: “If oceans would turn into ink, and sky into a sheet of white paper, this would be not enough to write our due thanks to that emperor.” We will not observe happenings only from a believer’s perspective, and discuss only what went well in realizing God’s kingdom, but also Constantine’s institutionalism that culminated in tragedy in 1054.

Historical and Social Antecedents The Roman Empire was a society of law, but Emperor Nero was the exception, accusing Christians (in AD 64) of setting Rome on fire. Later, legal reasons purported to justify the persecution of Christians. Worshipping the emperor became the acid test of loyalty. Christians fully respected the state, but worshipped God. This was a mortal challenge to Rome. Between the years 100 and 250, Christianity was, as Franzen notes, regarded as distinct from Judaism, a “forbidden religion,” and an enemy of the state.1 As we know from correspondence between Pliny and Emperor Trajan, if suspected Christians were willing to worship the emperor, they were released, if not they were executed. New laws intended to exterminate Christians were introduced around 250. Citizens had to prove their loyalty by sacrificing to gods. While many who refused were executed, others complied or bribed authorities to obtain a certificate of loyalty. The church became divided over the question of whether Christians who repented such behaviour could be accepted back into fellowship. The theologian Novatian insisted on definite excommunication and established the “Church of the holies.”2 This schism lasted until the

40

Chapter Six

fourth century. Unity was restored by agreeing that Jesus died for all, including apostates. Powerful emperors were more rigorous in persecutions. For example, Diocletian was tolerant for a while, perhaps because his wife and daughter were Christians. Then, around 303, he unexpectedly issued a series of edicts ordering all churches to be destroyed, all priests executed, and all citizens required to sacrifice to Roman gods and to denounce Christianity. This harsh persecution lasted until 311.

The Great Historical Turning Point To please the ever-growing numbers of his Christian subordinates, in 311 Emperor Galerius proclaimed: “… and from now on let the Christians be.” However, after Galerius’ death in 312 a most surprising and controversial shift occurred. As Franzen describes it, the military commander in Britannia, Constantine, at first only lukewarmly accepted the acclamation of his troops to become the next emperor.3 Only after seeing a vision of Christ’s cross (when crossing the Milvian bridge) with the message In hoc signo vinces (In this sign you conquer), he became aflame to fulfill his mission. After “… the taking of Rome (in 313), Christianity was accepted as a legitimate religion and rapidly reached a favoured status in the empire, although it was not the religion of the vast majority.”4 Paradoxically, as Hans Urs von Balthasar comments, in the “Constantinian era … the cross, the sign of the divine helplessness, was made the standard behind which the church marched onto the field of earthly battle.”5 After becoming emperor—with Jesus’ help, as he believed—Constantine, “determined to use the religious factor as a unifying force within the state,”6 granted new surprises almost yearly. The emperor confessed himself as Christian in 312, and in 313 issued the Edict of Milan, proclaiming religious tolerance. Tax exemption was granted to ministers in 313; crucifixion was abolished in 315; and after 319 Sundays were nationally celebrated. In 320 he started building the Lateran basilica on St. Peter’s grave, and in 321 abolished the sacrificing of animals and gladiator fights. In the same year, bishops received the privilege of functioning as judges. Constantine was baptized before his death in 337. After Constantine’s death, as Franzen relates, Christianization continued. Constantine’s sons closed all the pagan churches, and around 380 ordered all citizens of the empire to become Christians.7 After 381 anyone converting to paganism was punished. The Roman Senate collectively, and under oath, accepted Christianity in 382. In 385, persecution of heretics began.

Beginnings of Massive Eastern Institutionalism

41

Eastern “Cesaro-Papism” As Franzen notes, after 313 it seemed that at last doing God’s will in an almost paradise-like setting, with Emperor Constantine’s help, became a reality.8 But Karl Heussi describes the opposite;9 the church had become a servant of the state. The emperor, the first after God, became involved in naming bishops, regulating life and boundaries of church provinces, determining topics of synods, and participating in the formulation and enforcement of their conclusions. The power of Caesar, transferred into a Christian setting, was used to realize an imperial kingdom of God. The “King Messiah”—as he liked to be called—removed his capital from the old to the new Rome, Constantinople. In the East he became celebrated and revered according to Bouyer as isapostolos (“equal to apostles”), and by this a certified revealer of God’s will.10 Factually, according to Adrianyi, his tombstone also proves that he regarded himself as the thirteenth apostle.11 The influential church historian Eusebius, wrote: … imperial authority was an epiphany of this cosmic role of the Logos, which goes hand in hand with a transfer of the Roman Empire, as the universal empire of Old Testament theology—the People of God—with the emperor equivalent to the king of Israel, as the “anointed one” of the Lord and therefore the truly ‘messianic’ icon of Christ himself.12

Constantine, like his idol King David, relied on administrative, political and above all military power to enforce God’s will, which was always identical to the emperor’s. It was widely believed that God had become visible through the theocratic state’s institutions, and as the warrior King Messiah, Constantine held both profane and ecclesial power in his hand. The taxis (“transfer of all powers”) was the fulfilment of an ancient archetypal idea of arranging everything on earth in the same manner as the afterlife. Re-enacting this idea, supported by Eusebius, demonstrated that Constantine’s Christian society was the visible image of the heavenly Kingdom. Such unified establishment of the spiritual and worldly power in the emperor encompassed all areas of life, all people, all worlds, every existing thing, even those far beyond the boundaries of his empire. No doubt Constantine was a committed Christian, but one without any theological education. His theological choices were enmeshed in imperial interests. For example, the Arian heretics thought that there is only one true God—the Father. They understood Jesus to be a kind of a half-God, a mediator between the true light (the Father), and the darkness of the world. Constantine had participated in framing the Nicene Creed in 325, and in expelling Arius. Nevertheless, as Franzen notes, he later became fascinated

42

Chapter Six

by the Arian monarchical concept that stated: “One God in heaven, and one Emperor on earth.”13 Sympathizing with Arius, Constantine later permitted his return. When Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, remained faithful to the Nicene Creed and proclaimed the true deity of Jesus he was sent into exile in 335, and Arianizers were appointed in his place. Athanasius later returned, but four more times he was exiled for the same politico-theological reasons. Kenneth D. Whitehead noted that Constantius II (the son of Emperor Constantine) went even further. He attempted to force a return to Arianism. Pope Honorius resisted revising the Nicene Creed so he was exiled and in his place an antipope, Felix II (355–365), was inaugurated. The emperor then convened synods in Rimini and Seleucia. The bishops at these assemblies were not allowed to object to or to debate what was proposed; they were simply obliged to accept and subscribe to the creed that Constantius II had drawn up. The four hundred bishops assembled at Rimini were not allowed by the imperial praetorian prefect to leave the city until they subscribed to this imperial creed. 14 The Church regained its freedom when the emperor unexpectedly died in 361. He was succeeded by Julian the Apostate who attempted to revive paganism. For that reason, he was not interested in dictating the creeds of the church. His successors resumed the promotion of Christianity, and by 391 Christianity had become the state religion. According to Congar, Constantine’s ecclesiology could be summarized thus: “The unity of the kingdom has to be expressed in the church, in its very structure.”15 So the church represented the empire and, reciprocally, the empire represented the imperial kingdom of God. It was a symbiotic relationship. Only monasteries in their solitude, isolation, prayer and mysticism remained free of the symbiosis that church historian Bouyer called Caesaro-papism.16 But what was Constantine’s relationship to Rome? Rome was in slow decline. Adrianyi notes that in the year 150 the city had approximately one and a quarter million inhabitants; by around 200, only one million; and by around 300, only five hundred thousand.17 The decline accelerated after Constantine chose Constantinople as his new capital. However, this also had a paradoxical effect. As Congar notes, the immunity of the Western church from imperial influences dates back to times of the great persecutions.18 Before Constantine’s conversion, it had lived almost like a secret society. After the turnover, the bishops of Rome represented Church unity, and this accelerated the centralization of the Western church around the popes.

Beginnings of Massive Eastern Institutionalism

43

Notes 1. August Franzen, Kleine Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968), 122. 2. Ibid., 45. 3. Ibid., 47. 4. M. J. Havran, “The Church” New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Volume 3, ed. Berard C. Martin (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale in association with the Catholic University of America, 2003), 585. 5. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Church and World (Montreal: Palm Publsihers, 1967), 17. 6. Havran, 585. 7. Franzen, 49. 8. Ibid, 57. 9. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1928), 79. 10. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), 31. 11. Gabor Adrianyi, Az Egyhaztortenet Kezuikonyve (Munchen: Aurora Konyvek, 1975), 65. 12. Bouyer, 31. 13. Franzen, 87. 14. Kenneth D. Whitehead, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church Was the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2000), 246. 15. Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years; The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches (New York: Fordham University Press, 1959), 17. 16. Bouyer, 29. 17. Adrianyi, 53. 18. Congar, 12.

CHAPTER SEVEN PAPO-CAESARISM: THE WESTERN INSTITUTIONALISM

In his Historia Eclesiastice (Church History) completed in AD 324,1 Eusebius reflects the ancient Christian belief that God acts in the world through the Church. His prophecy affected history in a self-fulfilling way; after Constantine’s conversion, God’s holiness, reflected by the Church, became incorporated in thousands of new basilicas, millions of new Christians, a renewed liturgy, giants of faith like St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, and others. This further took hold in Christian ascetics starting from the fourth century, Christian missionaries like St. Patrick and his later followers since the fifth century, the first great orders like the Benedictines in sixth century, great Popes like Clement, Leo I and Gregory the Great, and in a plethora of well- and lesser-known saints. This massive trend that started in the fourth century and continued for the next thousand years—through the universities of the Middle Ages, scholastics, new orders, great Popes and saints—with almost with the same momentum until the fourteenth century. Many perceive this as the Golden Age of Christianity. Such colossal collective searches for holiness, never before or since witnessed in history, would be difficult to explain independently of God’s intervention and calling. However, as the saying goes, “Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.” Slowly, inconspicuously, seemingly unavoidably, facilitated by actual historical events, self-deceptive hypocrisy was sneaking into the ecclesial institutions.

The World after the Collapse of the Roman Empire As Franzen notes, the Huns, around 375, the Goths in 401, then the Vandals, and later Attila the Hun around 453 all tested the endurance of the declining empire.2 The Romans defeated Attila by forging an alliance of loyal barbarians against the Huns. But the trend continued and wave after wave of westward moving barbarian tribes slowly choked Rome. Finally, the eastern Goths completely conquered Rome in 476, deposing

46

Chapter Seven

its last emperor, Romulus Augustus. The European continent was overwhelmed by Gothic, Frank, Slav and other tribes. The ransacked cities remained Roman, while the conquerors settled in rural areas, using no money, schools, permanent buildings or written laws. In the West the state did not exist. Civilization was preserved only in monasteries, not only in matters of faith, but also medicine, philosophy and artistic treasures of the distant past. With the passing of time, a peculiar interaction developed. Monks spread the culture in medicine, arts and philosophy, and actually attempted to Christianize the Barbarians. These attempts seldom succeeded until tribal leaders converted. So Christians and believers in magic coexisted in rural areas. As Yves Congar describes it, in the eastern provinces the institutions of the Church and State functioned as the two foci of an ellipse, and shared responsibility for ensuring public life.3 In conquered Roman territories only one focus in the ellipse remained, as it were—the institutional Church. This situation is also typified by events in 455 that Franzen describes, when Vandals pillaged the city of Rome.4 Their stay was short but fear of the Vandals’ return lasted a long time. The defenceless people of Rome turned to the Church for protection although it had no military power with which to protect the city. Nevertheless, Pope Leo I (the Great), in his famous homily on Christmas Day 455, spoke about the peace of God’s kingdom, and proclaimed his well-known message: Natalis Domini, natalis pacis est (“With the birth of the Lord, peace was born into the world”). He called on the People of God not to fear worldly threats since they cannot spoil the blessed peace of God’s kingdom. Christians understood his preaching to be the Holy Institution in action.

Rome Becomes a Spiritual, Political, Diplomatic and Military Super Power After conquering Rome, most barbarian tribes still clung to their magical and animistic beliefs. However, when Bishop Remy of Reims sent his missionaries to the Franks, they received a surprisingly gracious welcome; he was able to baptize Clovis, the leader of the Franks in 496,5 but other barbarian tribes turned to the early heresy—Arianism. That heresy was a greater threat to Christianity than all the barbarians, especially after the eastern Goth King Theodoric (489–526), united the Arian-believing tribes. So, when the Arian Goths attacked Rome, Pope Steven turned to the Franks for protection. The Arians were defeated, and the alliance between Rome and the Franks continued to flourish. Pippin, a leader of the Franks,

“Papo-Caesarism”: The Western Institutionalism

47

was granted the rank of patrician by Rome and subsequently became king. In 773, the Longobard Arians attacked again, but Pippin’s son Charlemagne vanquished them. As a result, Pope Hadrian and Charlemagne swore fidelity to each other on St. Peter’s grave. The alliance with Rome gave Charlemagne the opportunity to accomplish in the west what Constantine had done in the east—establish a theocratic empire. According to Heussi, in 777 Charlemagne “ordered all Saxons to convert to Christianity,” and as warrior-king-messiah fervently worked on the literal realization of Augustine’s Civitate Dei.6 Among his confidants, Charlemagne liked to be called “King David.” On Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne a German-Roman emperor. This symbolically reincarnated the Roman Empire. Charlemagne saw himself as the fulfilment of the prophecies of the “king saviour,” and printed a coin with his own image on one side and the pope’s on the other. He granted the Roman pontiff not only the territories given by Charlemagne’s father (Pippin’s Donation), but also new territories, later known as the church state. Legal justification of the church state was based on the decree called Constantine’s Donation. Allegedly, when Emperor Constantine contracted the plague, Pope Sylvester miraculously healed him, and in gratitude he gave the pope not only territories around the city of Rome, but all of Italy. The document justified “… the pope’s worldly power from Gregory VII, to Innocent II and Boniface VIII.”7 In the fifteenth century, however, the document was proved to be a forgery, a typical product of the non-Church that reflected its sinister methods and mentality. By this the Roman pontiff became at first also a political, and later a military power. Successively, reacting to actual historical events like figures in a chess game, there came into existence not only the churchstate, but also the Western flawed ecclesial institution that Bouyer calls Papo-caesarism.8 The term is self-explanatory. Gradually, Rome evolved into a spiritual and military super power and, like Constantine’s taxis, unified all sacral and worldly power of the mighty church state under one hand. Rome had become, and remained, a powerful spiritual, political, and military player for almost a thousand years, until 1870 when the church state was unified with Italy.

48

Chapter Seven

Notes 1. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchangeschichte (Tubingen: Verlog von J.C.B. Mohr, 1928), 1. 2. August Franzen, Kleine Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968), 56. 3. Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years: The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches (New York: Fordham University Press, 1959), 14–19. 4. Franzen, 98. 5. Ibid. 112. 6. Heussi, 107. 7. Franzen, 118. 8. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1983), 29–30.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE NON-CHURCH IN ACTION: THE GREAT SCHISM

The previous sections discussed historical events to help us slowly grasp where, when and how—in St. Augustine’s terms—Satan has used our fallen nature to fight Jesus’ Church. In this chapter we arrive at one of the key turning points in history: when the institutionalism of the non-Church caused the first manifest, formal and lasting fragmentation of the Church.

Gradual Estrangement between Eastern and Western Superpowers Yves Congar notes that after Leo the Great, a kind of special relationship existed between Rome and Constantinople: “In fact the East recognized the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. Doubtless, this was not entirely with the meaning and to the degree that we are led to believe by certain Catholic writings.”1 On the other hand, Rome allowed a form of administrative and canonical autonomy to the Byzantine church as long as it did not collide with Catholic dogmatic teaching or the unity of the church. Despite apparent balance, mutual estrangement was inevitable. It occurred first at a social, cultural and communication level. So for example, Congar was surprised to discover that boundaries between the Eastern and Western churches exactly followed the language boundaries between Greek and Latin speaking countries.2 Different languages enabled the proliferation of different ideas, formulations and liturgy. Since liturgy is an external manifestation of the internal experience of faith, differences in liturgy actually expressed differences in faith. As Congar notes, for Western Christians, faith can be expressed in many different ways since symbol and reality are not synonymous. But for Orthodox Christians, the two (symbol and reality) are almost the same: “The ritual symbol is for them nothing else than faith, which is, manifested in acts.” The Orthodox understanding is that: “… [by] changing liturgy, one has changed the faith.” In the ninth century there were great liturgical changes, but only in the West. It was the beginning of scientific theology with scholastics

50

Chapter Eight

attending the newly established universities. As Congar notes, this was Anselm’s time, and his ideas dominated early Scholastic philosophy in the West.3 The East kept its distance from Scholastic philosophy. So, gradually the Eastern and Western theologians started to talk about the same God but in different terms. Whatever the reason for this divergence, very different cultures with very different traditions, customs and languages can still be united in common faith. Thus, neither tradition, language nor cultural differences caused the first great schism in recorded history—it was institutionalism, or more concretely, the clash between cesaro-papism and papo-cesarism. The Byzantine empire featured Constantine’s model—as in heaven, so on earth exists only one power, one system, one justice, one ruler, one Rome and one confidant of God, the Emperor. As Congar points out, a counterbalance like the papacy (and later papo-cesarism) was not only unnecessary but undesirable to those in the East.4 So when popes referred to “the universal and sovereign authority of the Bishop of Rome over the church,” without the “possibility of appeal to any other authority on earth,” Constantinople introduced the synodus endemus in 381, to keep the balance. This was a permanent synod with powers in the East comparable to what popes had in the West, thus counterbalancing Rome. Institutionalism caused politicalecclesial differences, which ignited recurring confrontations that escalated ominously from the very first synods. For example, when Arians deposed Bishop Athanasius in 339 and he turned to Pope Julius, the Council of Sardice (342–343) restored him to his position.5 But when the Eastern bishops rejected the pope’s arbitration and abandoned the council, the Western and Eastern bishops mutually excommunicated each other. This schism lasted until 381 when, at the second general council, Constantinople was named “the second Rome.” As Bouyer notes: “The emperors of Byzantium began to arrogate to themselves or to exert a quasi-papal authority over the Eastern Church.” This was oil thrown on the fire.6 Congar reports that disagreements within the 451 ecumenical councils at Chalcedon required publication of the meeting’s conclusions in two versions.7 One recognized Leo the Great, referring to him as “Pope Leo, the head of the Universal Church.” The other document was written by the legates of the synod in which Leo is simply called “the Bishop of Rome.” Congar quotes Batifol: “It is regrettable that so fundamental an issue (of how far the power of Peter’s successor may go), was not settled by full discussion and by an ecumenical council during the centuries when there was still union.”8

The Non-Church in Action: The Great Schism

51

Nevertheless, the special relationship and balance might have lasted forever if the escalating flawed institution of Rome and Constantinople had not spoiled it.

The Impossible Occurs—the Official Fragmentation of the Body of Christ When the Normans conquered southern Byzantine territories, Pope Leo IX attempted to form an alliance with Emperor Constantine IX to fight them. However, as Franzen recounts, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Caerularius, felt threatened by this alliance.9 To prevent close cooperation between the emperor and the pope, the patriarch of Constantinople raised the Filioque question and accused the Westerners of counterfeiting the Nicene Creed. The fatal confrontation occurred between Cardinal Humbert Silva Candida, the papal legate, and the Patriarch Michael Caerularius in 1054, when they mutually excommunicated each otter.. As Franzen describes it: This was the beginning of the fragmentation of the institutional church. On December 7, 1965, Pope Paul VI solemnly revoked the excommunication document.10

But the symbolical fragmentation of the church couldn’t be reversed.

Subsequent Millennia of Church History The second millennium of the church’s visible history was free neither from institutionalism nor its severe consequences. Apparently, Satan used our fallen nature again and again to bring us to the point where biblical and hypocritical behaviour patterns are competing within the ecclesial institution. So the battle between holiness and institutionalism, between self-deceptive hypocrisy and discipleship, reached new peaks. What the Easterners call the Latin Schism (or Western Schism), and the Westerners call the Greek Schism (or Eastern Schism), was only the beginning of the repeating pattern of schisms and later religious wars. Only five hundred years after the first schism occurred, the next may have been an even more devastating blow to unity. After Luther’s proclaiming three solas, and the later establishment of the Lutheran, Calvinist and other reformed communities, the avalanche started to roll even faster, so that today—five hundred years after the Great Reformation—according to a UN report, there are more than twenty thousand Christian denominations.

52

Chapter Eight

“But let us be realistic,” a reader could object, “would Christianity as we know it exist at all if heretics were free to broadcast their teachings? Was not the series of disputes, schisms and religious wars an historical necessity to preserve Jesus’ Church and its orthodoxy?” The Christian world would probably look different today if Charlemagne had not, in a bloody military campaign, eradicated Arian heretics. But how much greater would the difference be if Christians had always lived as citizens of Jesus’ kingdom in mutual love. He said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36). The purpose of Jesus and His biblical Church was never to destroy those who believed differently, but to touch their hearts, minds and souls. Indeed, every historical period ought to be judged from its own perspective. Nevertheless, the acid test is having confidence, trust, courage and faith strong enough to adhere to Jesus’ method, namely to make disciples of all nations and teach them to obey everything He commanded (Matthew 28:20). There is no better way to promote God’s kingdom than knowing how to love. Such knowing was, however, often missing from the world’s and the non-Church’s history. Now it is time to get back to our original question, about where, when and how affairs got to the point where Augustine’s two cities were fighting, even inside the ecclesial institutions. We can discern a pattern, for in contrast to the definite Christ-centric lifestyle of the Primordial Church, the attraction and power of the world has also become influential in the life of the institutional church of the Middle Ages. Gradually, social, economic, political, and military considerations assumed an importance equal to, or greater than spiritual motivations. Subtly and discreetly, Satan—disguised in the biblical story as a serpent—inconspicuously used self-deceptive hypocrisy (as when corrupting Adam and Eve) to infiltrate the most holy places on Earth, and cause their fragmentation and gradual degrading to a church (written with a lover case “c”) to an institution of organized religion. Parallel to the growing flawed institution of the non-Church, the world is becoming—as it appears—more and more uninterested in the destiny of God’s kingdom. Despite reports that the overwhelming majority of the population proclaim themselves as spiritual, attraction to organized religions, especially in the Western world is, in some aspects, actually waning. Many Christians feel that we need another Pentecost to give us new hope, optimism, and courage to fight the institutionalism of the nonChurch.

The Non-Church in Action: The Great Schism

53

Notes 1. Yves Congar, After Nine Hundred Years; The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches (New York: Fordham University Press, 1959), 58–73. 2. Ibid., 29–33. 3. Ibid., 38–40. 4. Ibid., 66. 5. August Franzen, Kleine Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968), 112. 6. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), 8. 7. Congar, 66. 8. Congar, 62. 9. Franzen, 112. 10. Franzen, 125.

CHAPTER NINE DISCUSSION: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM HISTORY?

We have described the gradual development of institutionalism and of the non-Church, and discussing the development of this adverse course again raises the question from the preface: Is the flawless Church, still able to fulfil its purpose, as Jesus intended? For postmodern Christians this question is almost equally as important as Jesus’ resurrection was for the primordial Church. However, according to which criterion can we assess aptness of the Church to fulfil her biblical purpose?

Fulfilment of God’s Kingdom as the “Reality Check” of the Christian World Picture We know that Jesus had the intention of establishing His Church, but he seldom spoke about her. In contrast, proclaiming the Kingdom of God was the central topic of Jesus’ life as both teacher and preacher. As Ratzinger notes, this expression is used one hundred and twenty-two times in the New Testament.1 As the primordial ecclesial community realized the biblical ideals of Jesus, they understood how aspects of the genuine biblical Church overlap with the idea of God’s kingdom. In the same vein, contemporary people of God can realize His kingdom only by partaking in the Body of Christ “given up for you” (I Cor. 12: 24), i.e. the paschal mystery, and by being submerged in the body of Christ, the Church. The flawless Church is a means to an end used by Jesus in realizing his kingdom. Accordingly, the fulfilment of God’s Kingdom is thus the criterion by which the Church fulfils her by Jesus’ given purpose, and as such is a reality check for the Christian world picture. However, to demonstrate before the world (i.e. the sixteen percent of Americans who are sceptics, agnostics or atheists) that the Church fulfils its purpose even today, and that God’s kingdom is gradually being realized in front of our eyes, requires first clarifying what the expression “God’s kingdom” means—a promise, a dream, hope, or even a reality. Ancient pagan religions understood history as cyclically repeating

56

Chapter Nine

itself, just as season follows season. In Christian understanding, however, history has a beginning and an end. World history starts with the Creation and ends with the Fulfilment of Times. The History of Salvation starts with God’s Promise of Salvation, continues with Fulfilment of the Promise in Jesus’ incarnation, is followed by the Time of the Church, in which we now live, and ends with completion of God’s kingdom with Jesus’ second coming. God’s kingdom is seen in everything that Jesus did during His earthly ministry, starting from His birth then His baptism, teaching and preaching, healing and working miracles; expelling and breaking the power of the devil and sin, His suffering, death and resurrection, gathering His disciples, and preparing his Church. Jesus restored humankind’s relationship with God and our salvation. All this is God’s kingdom. However, observed from a practical perspective as Cross and Livingstone note, God’s kingdom has three aspects: (1) The present: God’s kingdom is here, but is not a visible reality to everyone (Mark 1:15). “The time has come,” He said, “The Kingdom of God is near” (Mark 4:17). The kingdom is “upon you” (Matt. 3:2 and 12:28), and “within you” or “in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). (2) The future: Jesus talks about the kingdom “to come” (Matt. 6:10). This pertains to Jesus’ second coming on clouds with full power and glory (Mark 13:26), and to His taking His disciples so that “where I am you may be also” (John 14:3). He also speaks of the general judgment (John 5:27–29), and resurrection of the dead (I Cor. 15:35–44; I Thess. 4:15–16). These things are all connected with their happening at the end of time. (3) The Church: this third aspect is described with metaphors like “The Body of Christ,” “The Bride of Christ” and “The pillar and foundation of the truth.” Peter received “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 16:18–19). So, biblically and theologically, the Church is both the instrument and the foretaste of God’s kingdom.2 Evidently, some signs of God’s kingdom, like the existence of his Church where God’s kingdom is “upon you” (Matt. 12:28) and “in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21), are a recognizable and experienced reality for Christians. Other signs, like God’s salvation plan, accomplished by Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection and his ascension through his Church, are a biblical-theological reality. Breaking the power of Satan is among still other signs of God’s kingdom that are not yet obviously present. As Cross

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

57

and Livingstone point out, God’s kingdom is not only an external event. It is also a process, in the minds and hearts of the people of God. The kingdom of God is a matter of faith; of “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).3 From the above analysis we can conclude that the question of whether God’s kingdom is actually being gradually realized is a somewhat complex one to answer, to which there are no easy, simple, obvious, statistical, demographic or empirical resolutions, or scientific options preferred by doubters. Since faith is a necessary precondition for recognizing God’s kingdom, how is it possible to demonstrate to sceptics like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud or Richard Dawkins, who do not feel the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, that the Church and the world are really progressing in fulfilling God’s kingdom? If the Christian world picture is accurate, then progression toward fulfilment of God’s kingdom is, as noted, the reality check for that world view. Accordingly, since God’s kingdom is not an event, but a progression, let us ask—has there been real progress, is God’s kingdom today more a reality than it was a hundred or a thousand years ago? We can predict the answer—just as one disappointed in love experiences the phenomenon differently from one still passionately in love, so sceptics, impartial observers and believers all evaluate the Church’s fulfilling of God’s kingdom differently. We will examine the matter from all three perspectives.

From a Sceptics’ Perspective Church history, as its architect St. Eusebius of Caesarea imagined, ought to be a story of exemplary and fervent proclamation of God’s kingdom on all continents, to all races, cultures and nations; a paramount sacramental and liturgical glorifying of God and the history of God’s love outpoured through charity and worldwide promotion of genuine Christian moral values.4 It would then be part of the process leading to a unique “Christian globalization” of the Earth, spiritually uniting all peoples into a holy and “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (I Peter 2:9). Church history is Historia sacra—the story of God’s acting through apostles, disciples, saints and all the people of God. The flawless, biblical Church’s history is the history of Jesus’ presence in and acting through His body of Christ. It is a history of compassion, peace and joy; in short, a history of holiness. In this sense, the biblical and authentic history of the Church is the history of God’s kingdom. However, did what Eusebius described really occur? Sceptics recognize

58

Chapter Nine

and are aware mostly (or solely) of the non-Church. They see history as occurring exactly in opposition to Jesus’ expectations. The non-Church’s effectiveness, suffering ever more at the hands of institutionalism, gradually waned in its power to advance God’s kingdom. This has been especially true since Constantine’s conversion, and even more so in the Middle Ages, when world and church history often resembled a cosmic chess game in which all the actors (popes, emperors and their peoples) often behaved like pawns, directed and moved, not by biblical, but by worldly, social, economic, political and military rules, all expressing forms of the institutionalism which shaped their history. In the best case, sceptics note that with the exception of a number of glorious popes, saints and exemplary Christians from various equally great and prominent eras of church history, holiness has simply disappeared. As St. Jerome noted, “while the primordial Church, despite persecutions, regularly grew in virtue, after 313 it got bigger only in numbers, power and wealth.”5 The presence of worldliness and institutionalism inside the flawed ecclesial institutions of the non-Church caused, as noted, almost the opposite of what Jesus prayed for (John 17:21–23), i.e. that His disciples would be one, as He is one with the Father so that the world may believe. Disciples are not yet one, religious apathy is still spreading, and the world does not yet fully believe. On the contrary, seen from the agnostic’s perspective, the world is not progressing toward fulfilment of God’s kingdom like the good seed (Mark 13:8), but like the seed that fell on rocky places (Mark 13:5) or among thorns (Mark 13: 9). So God’s kingdom in the form of the Church, its sign and instrument, is in the sceptic’s perception nothing more than an opiate, an illusion, a myth or a delusion.

From an Unbiased Perspective “Christians in the first centuries said, ‘The world was created for the sake of the Church’.”6 If the flawless Church was “foreshadowed from the world’s beginning”7 as God’s tool in realization of His kingdom, then the world ought to be closer than ever before to fulfilling Jesus’ kingdom. However, observing from a perspective that is as unbiased and objective as possible, is it possible to recognize the progression of God’s kingdom from its minuscule seed—Jesus’ disciples—to a gigantic mustard tree as described in Mathew 17:31? If we think of the horrors of the world wars, the cold war, threats of nuclear annihilation, hunger, terrorism, and the postmodern global deChristianization of the Western world then we may be uncertain about

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

59

progression toward fulfilment of God’s kingdom. However, despite our frustration with recent history if we observe it from an unbiased perspective, we might say: “The situation has objectively never been better; humankind has never been closer to God’s kingdom than today.” Here is an example by way of illustration as recounted by August Franzen. The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century established a “New Zion” in the German city of Münster8 and when, in 1534–35, troops loyal to the local Catholic bishop laid siege to the city, the Anabaptists’ leader, Thomas Munzer, perceiving events to be apocalyptic, became convinced that God had made him invincible, and that he was even able to catch artillery shells fired against his fortifications barehanded. But finally, after an extremely bloody war, the New Zion fell. The surviving Anabaptist leaders were then tortured to death and their bodies hanged in cages from the cathedral steeple to show the fate of heretics. The above example is not an exception, but part of a pattern. As a consequence of religious hatred, between 1618 and 1648, from Sweden to Spain, and from Scotland to Transylvania, Europe was again soon involved in a bloody mutual extermination of Christians who belonged to different denominations. Indeed, religious indifference is a great challenge in our time, but were the actions of Christians during these thirty years of religious wars more pleasing in God’s eyes? Christians of that time were not religiously apathetic, and Catholics and Protestants were ready to kill or be killed for their religion. But was there more biblical peace, love and joy manifested during their annihilation of each other in Jesus’ name than there is today? Or was her position more favourable in God’s eyes when the church was tolerant of the activity of the Sanctum Officium in Rome (the Holy Office’s headquarters of the Inquisition), whose practice was a colossal programme of saving sinners’ souls by killing their bodies or (as Matildka Morbai noted) when rich victims bribed the executioner to secretly choke them to death in the smoke after lighting the bonfire, to save them from the horror of being burned alive.9 In comparison to a thousand years ago, when Christianization was pursued metaphorically by burying or burning alive, we are living today in idyllic, tolerant, loving, peaceful and almost biblical times, times foreshadowing God’s kingdom. Yet paradoxically, exactly because of this—for spreading the Gospel in an almost idyllic and peaceful time— religious indifference is spreading in the Western world. The public’s estrangement from the Church is growing like never before. However, there is a flip side to the coin. I grew up after World War II with help from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA). For us hungry children, and our desperate parents it

60

Chapter Nine

was a glimpse of the eschaton, i.e. the realization of God’s kingdom. The experiences of those touched by humankind’s solidarity in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes, tsunamis, and other mass disasters are probably similar. A thousand, or even a hundred years ago, such a massive outpouring of charity was unknown. Apparently Jesus’ example and love have a pervasive—albeit anonymous and unconscious—Christian civilizationforming influence. Despite all its claims of religious indifference, our Western postmodern culture is more impregnated with historic Christian values such as striving for peace, justice and compassion than ever before in history. Never were mutual tolerance, solidarity, charity and care for others, even potential or actual adversaries in times of calamity, famine or natural disaster, exemplified in the behavioural manifestations of Christian love as widespread in the West as they are today. To some degree, the behaviour of persons belonging to non-Christian religions—and even of agnostics and atheists—is influenced by Jesus’ ethical teaching. Consciously or unconsciously, Jesus’ paramount example and civilization-forming influence are imprinted in the postmodern world’s heart, mind and soul. Recognizing this fact after Vatican II, theologians such as Louis Bouyer talk about “the one Church and the divided people of God,”10 about “the Church and anonymous people of God,”11 and those whom Karl Rahner called “anonymous Christians.”12 The human mind contains conscious and unconscious psychological dimensions. Thus, unconscious structures also constitute human personality and influence our behaviour. As St. Basil noted, thanks to Jesus’ ministry “A spark of divine love exists in every human being,”13 even if they’re only aware of it at a subconscious level. By the controversial terms “anonymous people of God” and “anonymous Christians,” we refer to people not having a completely conscious, but rather a pre-conscious, relationship with God, which is reflected in their obedience to the calls of the Holy Spirit, and respecting the law written in their hearts. In their fundamental choices, they are striving for Christian ideals of goodness; they revere conscience, but have only a pre-conscious relationship, are non-conscious disciples of Jesus, and are only informal members of Jesus’ Church. They are the anonymous children of God who, despite their anonymity, often appear like the more obedient son in Matthew 21:28–30 in building God’s kingdom. A similar recognition prompted Karl Rahner, the author of the term anonymous Christians, to say in the years before and after Vatican II, “Not only does man have within him the potential of knowing God, but this potential is already being actively exercised [because] … Man experiences grace as part of his own self.”14 In our time, the number of people in the

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

61

Western world calling themselves religiously indifferent is on the rise. But thanks to Jesus’ civilization-forming influence even those who claim to be indifferent to religion are often unwitting builders of God’s kingdom. We should not underestimate them. Sometimes these unwitting builders have witnessed God’s kingdom more convincingly by their anonymous Christian love than the non-Church did by its Luciferian behaviour patterns. This is what institutionalism has done to the non-Church! Let us now raise a crucial question. If “extra Eccleisam nulla salus” (“Outside the Church there is no salvation”), as repeatedly emphasized by the Church fathers and the later tradition, can “anonymous Christians” not formally belonging to the Church achieve salvation? The catechism responds to such questions that “those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and are moved by grace, try in their actions to do His will as they know it through their conscience those too may achieve eternal salvation.” If anonymous Christians are able to maintain a particular relationship with God, if they are able to contribute to building God’s kingdom, if they are able even to achieve salvation, despite there being no salvation outside the Church, then couldn’t this imply that the Church in some “anonym form” may exist also where we do not easily recognize it? Let us also discuss other inferences. As noted when John Paul II “outlined his plans for the jubilee year 2000 in 1994, he called the church to make a critical self-evaluation of its actions over the past centuries.”16 He then publicly admitted the culpability of what we called the nonChurch in numerous cases. If we accept the Pope’s mea culpa, and accept the possibility that the past was often even worse than our current ecclesial situation, then our assessment of our times will change. We may then avoid seeing through rose tinted glasses and nostalgically glorifying the past imperial power and splendour of the non-Church, failing to differentiate it from the flawless, biblical Church. We may then correct the passionate glorification of the past institutionalism by regarding it as a golden age of Christianity. We may then look more optimistically into the future. We will, then, evaluate the success of Jesus’ Church not in terms of numbers, power and wealth, but as recommended by St. Jerome, in terms of holiness and discipleship. Let us also avoid suggesting that genuine Christianity is identical to the worst aspects of institutionalism which prevailed in the dark Middle Ages. Sceptics like Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Richard Dawkins—as well as the entire contemporary world—need very different apologetic reasoning.

62

Chapter Nine

From a Believer’s Perspective A reader could say: “But let us put hand on heart and ask: ‘Does history unequivocally demonstrate the purposeful realization of Jesus’ kingdom, or of worldly senselessness?’” Truly, we do not see a literal explosion of God’s kingdom, like the one in the previously noted figurative visions of Zechariah 14:12–17. God’s kingdom is not the archetype of absolute worldly power or well-being. However, this may help us to recognize a principle—Godly joy, peace and optimism in God’s kingdom are often invisible, hidden beyond historic facts. What I mean is this: God is love (1 John 4, 8:16). His kingdom is a reflection of Jesus’ love. But love is invisible, and not always empirically measurable. So, to assess the progress and growth of God’s kingdom in love we need to use measurements different from the measures of physical science and reasoning other than the Aristotelian logic that is suited only for scientific recognition; we need meta-empirical logic and reasoning. Here are some hints about such meta-empirical reasoning. As noted, St. Paul observed (Rom. 14:17), “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” What determines one’s ability to discern that the reality of God’s kingdom is being fulfilled is not its external, visible or financial fulfilment—typical of worldly success—but the internal experience of the almighty God’s closeness and love. Thus, God’s kingdom is like most theological concepts, subject to neither proof nor disproof by sensorial scientific evidence. Therefore the attempt to objectively prove the progression of God’s kingdom is a falsely set task. Only those who belong to Jesus, internally and personally, will find the growth of God’s kingdom obvious. God’s kingdom is like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more God’s people feel it internally—within themselves—the more they will notice it externally, and it is for them that God’s kingdom is becoming operant, visible and touchable. The recognition of God’s kingdom is—like love— first experienced internally which then makes possible its realization and external growth. Internal commitment (faith) is the precondition of external appreciation of living in and with God in His kingdom. Let me clarify what I mean. Earlier we noted that the perspective we take when looking at the Church will determine how we perceive it. An unbiased, objective or religiously indifferent person can also observe God’s kingdom from several different perspectives and ask many philosophical, scientific or theological questions about it. Each of the questions we ask can be answered logically positively or negatively, thus one can logically prove or disprove the progression of God’s kingdom. Logical arguments are, as

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

63

Viktor Frankl described,17 like weights on a metaphorical scale, almost in balance. The answer to all these logical questions depends on us, on the kind and quality of our individual faith. Faith, as we have seen, is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Choosing the right answer, making a resolute leap into faith will be a self-fulfilling act. Christians trust Jesus and His revelations about His kingdom, and subsequently almost tangibly experience the joyful union with Him. As a result, they throw their weight on the correct side of the scale over and over again even more determinedly. This is what faith is. True faith is optimistic, like Jesus’ faith. It facilitates the discernment of the fulfilment of God’s kingdom internally and also externally as a mystery. Thus, despite all impediments, the kingdom slowly and mysteriously takes shape before the believer’s eyes. God’s kingdom is gradually going to be made visible by the flawless biblical Church in the world, and be equally felt in His gifts that St. Paul talked about in Rom. 14:17. Perceiving the realization and fulfilment of God’s kingdom in correlation to faith has an important practical consequence. Personal faith, the collective faith of believers, or the faith of the whole of humankind ideally ought to permanently progress and deepen. In practice, however, faith does not always progress in a straight line. Therefore, neither personal perception, realization and fulfilment of God’s kingdom, nor a culture’s, the ecclesial institution’s or the world’s progress in advancing God’s kingdom proceeds in a straight line, a triumphal and euphoric march, or a clear, scientific, empirically measurable trend, but happens with ups and downs depending on the quality of prevailing the faith. Therefore “The history of salvation,” as Louis Bouyer notes, “does not appear as a linear development. Rather, it is a progressive spiral which causes people of God to go back periodically over analogous (but not identical) experiences which are only a gradual deepening of the content implied by the original experience.”18 The “original experience” is Jesus. Becoming a witness for Jesus is often accomplished, not in the context of linear development, but rather in a forward-moving spiral, progressing through repeated challenges, through ups and downs. In our mind, this truth is basic to understanding the history of both the Church and the world. Let me explain “forward-moving spiral” with examples. A century ago sexual abuse problems similar to those of today probably occurred, but were not widely publicized, acknowledged, vigorously fought, or rectified and made a public issue. The attitudinal change of the Church and the world was prompted by the world’s help. The religiously indifferent and agnostic world today plays a similar role (in evolving this forward-moving spiral) as the Babylonians did almost 2,700 years ago. Just as the Hebrews

64

Chapter Nine

were deported to Babylonian exile, we postmodern Christians are chastised by the moral lash of the world. And just as the Babylonian exile helped the Hebrews to renew Messianic expectations, so our postmodern challenges may revive our striving for genuine Christian values. We can be grateful that His interventions happen in front of our eyes, uncomfortable though they may be. This is the way that countless times, step by step, God’s kingdom has become realized through history, and this is how it is also progressing today. One has to be a very committed Christian not only to grieve over the Middle Ages when the church, as St. Jerome observed, “got bigger only in numbers, power and wealth,” but also to be able to see, realize and appreciate the very paradoxical evolution of God’s kingdom even amongst current challenges facing the Church. As noted above, nobody can avoid taking a stand in this eternal clash between good and evil and making a choice for or against Jesus (Luke 12:49–53). Unavoidably, one’s chosen lifestyle—with its sociology, psychology, and spirituality—correlates with one’s attitude toward God’s kingdom and its foretaste, the Church. To paraphrase Hippocrates, for every one of us “… the road is long, the time is short, and choice is urgent,” to apply for citizenship in God’s kingdom, which is moving toward its fulfilment not linearly, but as a supremely paradoxical pattern. This is also one of the basic principles to be found in Church and world history.

The Contrast between Increasing Religious Apathy and the Fulfilment of God’s Kingdom Religious apathy or indifference did not exist in biblical times. The nonChurch did not exist either when persecution was the price paid for belonging to Jesus’ Church. After Constantine’s conversion, however, joining the imperial non-Church ensured the same reputation and status for prominent ecclesial as worldly officers. This started a kind of integration so that the difference in prestige, wealth and power between the church officials and their worldly counterparts (i.e. between the popes end emperors, the bishops and powerful landlords) practically disappeared. Parallel with this process, the spiritual differences between the church and the world also gradually decreased. This was the age of eastern “CesaroPapism” and of western “Papo-Cesarism.” For a deacon, priest or a patriarch, at that time it was not discipleship or sainthood that were of essence in being respected as an exemplary servant of God, but to be as a sprocket in the machinery of institutionalism and want nothing more or nothing less than to become an apparatchik in the symbiotic church-state

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

65

system. It was during these times that the flawed institution of the nonChurch started to rapidly flourish. Many of God’s people, such as the Orthodox monks in the East, or St. Francis and his followers in the West, were disappointed with such “as if” discipleship. However, most “as if” religious clerics and lay people did not care to differentiate the Church from the non-Church. For the next fifteen hundred years or so, the nonChurch was seen as the archetype of unified spiritual and worldly power within a monarchy. For many disadvantaged and poor, but also for the rich and even the powerful feudal landlords at that time, joining the ranks of the imperial church was like joining the communist party in totalitarian communist countries in the recent past. However, as the worldly reverence, excellence and eminence of the non-Church diminishes in modern times, the “as if” religious, the conformists and careerists, are abandoning the sinking ship. These are the religiously indifferent, sceptic and apathetic persons of the postmodern world. Morality is important. All humans in all situations seek to justify their choices morally. Religiously indifferent and apathetic former Christians are understandably critical and disillusioned with the widely perceived immorality of the non-Church. But as noted, they are failing to distinguish the non-Church from the body of Christ. Consequently they are also projecting their moral frustration on the people of God. They are also deserting the flawless Church of Jesus Christ, thereby throwing out the baby with the bath water. However, religious indifference and apathy is not only an apocalyptic sign, but also a promising process that highlights the decrescendo of the non-Church which has been absorbing indifferent and apathetic “as if” religious persons—the religious opportunists—until recently. As discussed earlier, the true foes of Jesus’ Church were not the Roman Caesars, but the institutionalism of the non-Church. The church of Cesaro-papism and that of Papo-cesarism contributed to the fundamental and massive moral disappointment with organized religion, definitely more than all the atheists or the Communist dictators of the past. So, not only the resistance of the world against Jesus, but also misplaced frustration with the nonChurch, now culminates in religious indifference and apathy. It is the rebellion against the non-Church that is unconsciously or consciously stirring many modern sceptics, agnostics and atheists against the Church. We could paraphrase the saying, “when the Satanic departs, the Angelic comes forth” as “when the non-Church departs the flawless Church comes forth.” In this context, Vatican II, and especially Pope John Paul’s call to the Church to make a critical self-evaluation of its actions over the past centuries is the most important and promising turning point in Church

66

Chapter Nine

history since the conversion of Constantine. The above discussion concurs with Cardinal Ratzinger’s observation: Just think of the sixteenth century. The monographs of this period show how accommodating the established Church was, how weak the faith of the bishops was. They had just become part of the system, and certainly they were not the kind of people to become living witnesses to faith, apostolic and capable of being martyred. And while this was going on the Church was almost asleep, in a state of almost total decay.

But, as the author continues, the Holy Spirit helped by bringing the needed renewal from an unexpected direction: “[the]new impulse at first took the institution by surprise and frightened it, but in the end it could be seen that it was the outbreak of a true renewal.”19 Something similar is happening in our own times. The institution may be surprised and even frightened to see religious apathy facilitated not only by flawed postmodern mentality, but also by the decrescendo of the rich, lavish and glorious non-Church model. Accordingly, recognizing the damaging role of the non-Church is the precondition of any renewal. But what will the future bring? Is it realistic to hope that striving for a more genuine discipleship initiated by Vatican II, and John Paul II’s call to the Church for critical self-evaluation will continue? God’s kingdom will continue to progress mysteriously. Not only the people of God but also the world will be continually called by the Holy Spirit to strive to become like Jesus. Thanks to Jesus’ civilisation forming influence, it is foreseeable that, in the near future, Western society’s struggle against what we called the “mother of all sins” (malignant selfishness) and the metaphorical “father of all sins” (hypocrisy) will continue. Therefore, a progression toward the realization of God’s kingdom through promoting charity, empathy, democracy, basic human rights, mutual responsibility, justice and social care will continue to advance. This trend may cause an increase in the number of socialized, unselfish people of good will—unconscious followers of Jesus, and anonymous Christians recruited from the ranks of religiously apathetic people, agnostics and atheists. It is also foreseeable that the Holy Spirit will repeatedly call these to realize the ultimate absurdity of their struggle for a kingdom of God without Jesus. The self-imposed suffering of ultimately meaningless life will drive some to depression, others to rebellious acting out, and many others to a massive conversion, a “second Pentecost,” in the charismatic vernacular. So, the Holy Spirit will stir many anonymous Christians to full membership of the body of Christ. The paramount task of God’s people is already, and will be even more so in the

Discussion: What Can We Learn from History?

67

future, to evangelize people and guide them towards the conscious choice of Jesus, equipping them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul and strength. Christians have a part to play in deciding whether the universal brotherhood envisioned in Galatians 3:28 will continue until “we are all one in Christ Jesus.” Vatican II and the call of the pope are, in the apocalyptic vernacular, lampstands leading towards this goal. Historia est magistra vitae—“History is the teacher of life,” says the Latin proverb, so let us now summarize what Church history has taught us. We realize how right St. Augustine was in describing how God’s love shapes the Church’s history, while Satan’s power shapes the worlds’. Studying history, we also realize how much von Balthazar was right; we could observe countless times how the cosmic battle between evil and holiness occurred not only in the world, but also between the non-Church and the Church. This epic and ongoing battle explains why a big part of history was directed not by God’s love, but by institutionalism; the social, economic, political rules and worldliness also influencing the nonChurch’s life. Studying history we have observed how the father of all sins, individually learned hypocrisy, or the hypocrisy of many individuals in cooperation with inborn selfishness, which we have labelled as the mother of all sins, were leading to collective institutionalism of the non-Church. But we have also observed the opposite trend—that individual sainthood or many individuals’ sainthood essentially contributed to the holiness of the community that is Jesus’ Church. Summarized in one sentence, we could state that the key factors moving history and especially Church history are the eternal fight between two learned behaviour patterns— hypocrisy and holiness. How do we use these insights in evangelization? The way to holiness is achievable by overcoming what we called “sins par excellence”—egotism and selfishness. However, it would be difficult to collectively erase inborn self-centeredness from human nature without first acknowledging it, i.e. without first resolving self-deceptive and deceptive hypocrisy. The way to holiness is first through recognizing and subsequently defeating the “father of all sins.” Therefore, in the following chapters let us switch our attention from the world and the Church’s history to personal history, sociology, psychology and spirituality of illfamed hypocrites and prominent saints.

68

Chapter Nine

Notes 1. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion, Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 21. 2. F. L. Cross and F. A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), 218. 3. Ibid. 4. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1928), 1. 5. Gabor Adrianyi, Az Egyhaztortenet Kezikonyve (Munchen: Aurora Konyvek, n.d.), 76. 6. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (Ottawa, Canada 1994) 167. 7. Ibid. 8. August Franzen, Kleine Kirchengeschichte (Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968), 232–34. 9. Matildka Morbai, A Hirhedt Inkvizicio, (Ujvidek: Kincses Kalendarium, 2008), 200. 10. Louis Bouyer, The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit, (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), 510–526. 11. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1995), 902. 12. Joseph Schwarz, Argumente fur Gottes Existenc (Eisenstadt, Austria: selfpublished, 1988), 49. 13. Ibid., 47. 14. Erickson, 902. 15. Catechism, 186 16. Luigi Accattoli, When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), XV–XCII. 17. Maria Mendez, A Life With Meaning: Guide To the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy. (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 23. 18. Bouyer, 517 19. Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, A Conversation with peter Seewald (San Francisco:Ignatius Press, 2002), 360–361.

PART III SOCIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY OF HYPOCRISY VERSUS THAT OF HOLINESS

CHAPTER TEN THE ANATOMY OF INSTITUTIONALIZED HYPOCRISY

We have already discussed the Old Testament explanation of original sin. Jesus was more outspoken than the biblical author; in Matthew 23 He repeatedly warned, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” As noted, hypocrisy is a learned behaviour. Let us now focus on its psychology, the worst of the socially conditioned enemies of Jesus’ kingdom.

A Case Study In the fifteenth century Florence was one of the leading cities of Renaissance Europe, but it was also a battlefield for conflict between local noble families. For example, Janos Erdody recounts the showdown between the Medici and Salviati families.1 In the late evening hours of April 26, 1478 Cardinal Raffaele Riario of Rome and Francesco Salviati, Bishop of Pisa, met in Florence to plot the death of the Medici brothers. The cardinal and the bishop, together with the local nobility led by the Pazzi family, agreed to a shocking plan—the assassination of the Medici brothers at a solemn mass in the Santa Maria del Fiore church. The cardinal set forth the details of the plan, saying, “At the solemn mass, when I elevate the host—that will be the sign to stab the dictators to death.” It happened as planned: the cardinal lifted the holy host for consecration and the assassins, led by Bishop Salviati, struck. Giuliano de’ Medici was killed, but his brother Lorenzo, although wounded, managed to escape. Lorenzo organized a response in which, one after the other, the assassins were caught. Bishop Salviati was hanged, but the cardinal (since he had not personally wielded a weapon) was freed. Even if we adhere both to the Golden Rule and to the axiom “Judge every historical event from its own moral perspective,” we still wonder what societal dynamics, and what in the perpetrators’ minds, could have justified the planning and execution of this heinous act?

72

Chapter Ten

Sociological Background The Medici family became famous in thirteenth-century Florence at a time when the power struggle between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie in Italy was taking a decisive turn. According to Erdody, this was the beginning of a new era in which the destiny of a nation was not decided by the will of the people, or of their rulers, or by the sophistication of their weapons.2 It was to be determined by a different kind of power—money. The Medici had—and exponentially multiplied—such power. They re-introduced a political and financial system—democracy—which called for the vote for everyone, as well as proportionate taxing on them. However, there was a catch. Just as it does today, wealth existed then in two forms. One was concentrated in the hands of the feudal aristocracy and of the church. It had been stored up through generations down the centuries. This accumulated wealth was dead capital; it was not growing. Equal taxing would melt it away, causing aristocrats to lose wealth and power. The other kind of wealth was living capital. Such assets are in constant motion, multiplying geometrically through investment, trade, and lending at usurious interest rates. In Medici banks from London to Constantinople, their “money was making money.” The strength of this new class (bankers, merchants, and traders) was not only their skill in managing money, but even more in political manipulation. As noted, they reintroduced a form of democracy in which everyone had equal participation. The large majority, although impoverished, were proud that Florence was emulating the age of Athens and Pericles centuries earlier, an ideal that was characteristic of Renaissance thinking. But their democracy was corrupt. The Medici bankers’ money determined exactly where and how jobs, food and public assistance would be distributed. These decisions determined where votes would go and which candidates would prevail. The ability to distribute their money through their own banking system was used to promote the Medici’s power and interests. Paradoxically the Medici became the best friends of the impoverished urban proletariat who lived on tax money paid by the bourgeoisie. So, as Erdody explains, the alliance of the Medici with bankers, merchants and traders, dictated the outcome of elections.3 Step by step the seemingly humanistic Medici, by taking care of virtually every Florentine citizen, attained unheard-of popularity and total control of the city, and their so-called democratic voting arrangement systematically pushed the feudal aristocracy from power. Their hope was for this to happen not only in Florence, and throughout Italy, but in all of Europe,

The Anatomy of Institutionalized Hypocrisy

73

from Constantinople to London, wherever Medici banks dominated law, art, culture and public life. Their ultimate goal was also to control the position of Peter’s successor, and eventually have a Medici pope in that throne, a goal they would in time achieve. The institutional church was in crisis. It was not endangered by the new ways merchants and bankers made money, nor by new ideas and ideologies, nor even by the urban proletariat. The even greater challenge was the absence in the church of genuine biblical morality. The most holy institution was involved in simony, bribery and blackmail. In this crisis the non-Church allied itself with the feudal nobility. The kings of countless small Italian kingdoms, the feudal nobility and many church institutions stood united. Pope Sixtus IV, like the nobility in general, saw an archenemy in democracy, as projected by the Medici. The future of the Church, not only in Florence, and in Italy, but the non-Church in all of Europe and the world, was at stake. When Cardinal Raffaele Riario arrived in Florence at the head of his entourage shortly before sunrise on April 26, 1478 he had in mind, as Erdody describes it, the task of performing an unpleasant, but necessary duty.4 The original plan was that the Medici brothers would be invited for a banquet and served poisoned olives. Although the brothers were cautious and declined that invitation, they could not refuse to attend the solemn mass. Some of the potential assassins declined to participate in a murder at such a holy place at such a holy time. According to Erdody one of them exclaimed something like: “If I have to go to fight on streets then, yes, I will be there, but to jeopardize my salvation … No, I will not do this!”5 Erdody reports Cardinal Riario’s justification of the scheme: “It is a painful necessity that such a sad event must happen in God’s house. But if this is the only way to restore the freedom of Florence … then assassination has become an unselfish deed—enacted for the well-being of the Republic. It is nothing personal; the well-being of Florence, Europe, of the Church and of the whole humankind justifies performing this unpleasant task.”6 Lorenzo, Cardinal Riario, and Bishop Salviati were all influenced by the same social philosophy, later known as Machiavellianism. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) in his influential 1513 book, Il Principe (The Prince),7 gave practical “how to” advice to rulers of his time on how to attain, sustain and multiply their power. He asserted the paradox that a genuinely moral sovereign is incompetent to rule. Nevertheless, it is essential for the sovereign to project the image of morality. Morality is the emperor’s make-up, which prompts popularity, devotion and fidelity

74

Chapter Ten

among his subjects. But, privately, the ruler must use evil methods to achieve higher, collective interests. By virtue of their position, emperors are protectors of the republic, and they protect the interests of everyone. So, by protecting their own interests, emperors’ best serve the interests of the whole society. Rulers’ selfishness, hunger for power, greed, cruelty and brutality, are not private matters, but necessary qualities in promoting the best interests of the republic. It is not only permitted, but actually required of skilled rulers that they use deception, betrayal, extortion, bribery and manipulation to achieve their goals and through achieving them, ensure collective well-being. So, remorse for murder, extortion, cruelty or plotting is not only unnecessary, it is unethical.8 It is an all too familiar story. Morally, Lorenzo de’ Medici was no more corrupt than others; he just played the game of hypocrisy more skilfully than his enemies. As a good Machiavellian he convinced himself that his was a morally noble task. Since humankind’s fall in the persons of Adam and Eve, such selfdeceptive hypocrisy has enabled every violation of the law of love.

Psychological Background Agnostic psychological theories are powerless in discussing faith, but are well able to discuss worldly, biological, psychological or sociologically motivated behaviour patterns such as hypocrisy. As he is representative of different agnostic psychological concepts, we will use the teaching of Sigmund Freud. Even more prominently than others, he rejected God “in any shape or form,” and to that extent represents all agnostic psychological theorists.9 First let us summarize Freud’s basic concepts. Just as they are aware of their bodily functions (for example, their heartbeat), humans experience neurological processes occurring in the brain. They experience them as thinking, feeling and memory. The brain’s functions, as Freud had already recognized in his writings around 1900, is determined by two factors: inborn anatomy and personal experience. In his book The Interpretation of Dreams, published in 1909, Freud presents his idea that experiences are stored in the brain in the form of engrams or memories.10 These traces of past experiences are mostly unconscious except when they are recalled, either spontaneously or intentionally. Some experiences are easy to recall, others difficult, and some impossible. This is because, metaphorically, there is a psychological guardian that decides which memories may become conscious and which may not. This guardian (which Freud called the superego in his later writings) has a protective role. Remembering—or

The Anatomy of Institutionalized Hypocrisy

75

re-living—some hidden memories would be traumatic, shameful or painful. In his Introduction to Psychoanalysis, written in 1916, Freud talks about the purposeful forgetting of such memories.11 We all forget trivial things such as a telephone number. We know that we know it, but cannot recall it. Then, unexpectedly the memory comes to mind. This recollection is not facilitated from outside but inside the mind, from an area which was previously unconscious. Freud compared the subconscious to a crowded waiting room where people are suppressed and yearn to get out; that is to say, the memories want to become conscious but the superego—the socalled guardian—allows only particular, favoured memories to leave the waiting room. Others remain forgotten, but after a struggle can—like the forgotten telephone number—be released from the waiting room. The third type of memory is that which is suppressed or purposefully forgotten for an indefinite time. Let us now apply these concepts to the events that occurred in Florence in 1472. The Machiavellian leaders of the plot could freely choose among many options to respond to the perceived Medici threat. But their superego permitted only particular thoughts to enter into their conscious minds, while suppressing others. So despite their knowledge of Christian ethics and their being in good standing as “as if” Christians, their superego kept the possibility of Jesus-like love, forgiveness or peace-making purposefully forgotten and suppressed in the subconscious mind. Their superegos did not even veto murder or other evil deeds as long as they were in the service of personal well-being and success in the race for survival in the world. Let us now focus on the other motive for the assassins’ behaviour, namely their blind hate. In his 1916 work Introductory Lectures to Psychoanalysis, Freud had already begun to differentiate between different parts of the personality.12 But in his books written after 1921, for example his Autobiography,13 written in 1924, and even more in his New Introductory Lectures On Psychoanalysis,14 written in 1932, he identified three parts: id, ego, and superego. Freud’s concept of the human person, according to Joseph Schwarz,15 is illustrated in Fig. 10.1. The instincts, which Freud called by the Latin word id (that which is strange to the self) are known as the dark sides of personality that do not know space, time or external reality, but have only one intention: to dominate behaviour, aiming at personal survival or sexual satisfaction. Instincts are of basic importance since they influence, and often determine emotions and behaviour. For example, when life is threatened warnings like anxiety, fear and finally horror, gradually appear, which dictate an almost irresistible and unquestionable need to flee or to fight.

76

Chapter Ten

Fig. 10.1 Sigmund Freud’s understanding of the human person

However, in frustrating or threatening social situations a different instinct and emotion-regulated dynamic occurs. Since the threat (in lawregulated social interactions) is seldom physical, the simplest defence— flight or fight—is useless. So, unresolved, socially evoked fear converts into an almost uncontrollable emotion—helpless angst, rage and hate. Hate is timeless, it can be suppressed or masked but without Christian forgiveness it accumulates, and sooner or later causes either implosion (as in depression) or an antisocial explosion. So, the bloody revenge on the Medici was caused by a helpless, pent-up angst and rage that has turned into enduring blind hate, which eventually exploded in the carefully planned bloody events of 1472. We started with superego, and continued with instinct. Let us now examine the ego’s role. Why didn’t each assassin’s self-inhibit such disgusting antisocial behaviour? As Joseph Schwarz summarizes Freud, the id contains inborn drives. The superego is socially coached to control these drives, and only the self (the ego) is free and responsible.16 It is the only structure orientated toward the external world, and has perceptive and executive power. But the self also has a complex task—to satisfy instinct in order that it does not collide with the superego, and while accomplishing that task, always takes reality into account. In fact, the ego is squeezed between the instinct (id) and the superego, having little power. However, its free and responsible discretional

The Anatomy of Institutionalized Hypocrisy

77

judgement gives it great importance. It must choose whether to side with the superego or with the instinct. Ego is a structure acting rationally and logically, but not ethically. So the murder of a hated enemy, if it is safely feasible and advantageous, and if retribution can be avoided—as it appeared to the assassins in the Medici assassination—presents no problem to the ego. Its task was only to rationally assess how, where and when to execute the planned assassination. So, at the meeting of the conspirators on the night of April 26, 1473, it seemed that everything had fallen into place: the assassins’ id—their helpless rage and blind hate—demanded revenge. Their ego calculated that the assassination at the holy mass would be successful. Each assassin’s superego approved of doing evil things for a good purpose. Their Christian conscience, requiring an ultimately forgiving and loving behaviour, was suppressed and purposefully forgotten. Such biased and distorted use of logic is common in all forms of hypocrisy, from Adam and Eve’s fall, to postmodern times.

Spiritual Background Some twenty years after the assassination at the Santa Maria del Fiore church, the pendulum in Florence swung in the opposite direction, towards extreme moral rigor. This trend apparently began, according to Erdody, in 1495, when in the San Marco church, the Dominican Girolamo Savonarola began preaching enthusiastically on an alarming reality—“Only the beauty of the soul counts.”18 His repeated stern warnings against the immorality of the Machiavellian lifestyle attracted crowds who listened with growing anxiety to his apocalyptic warnings about the approaching day of judgement. Their anxiety and fear escalated to horror and exploded into fanaticism which spread like brushfire on the streets of Florence. Anything luxurious, beautiful, artistic, or erotic, became almost overnight a common public enemy. Furious ritual destruction of expensive clothes, artistic paintings, delicate food, and sophisticated wine ensued. It became a mass movement like China’s Cultural Revolution. Savonarola’s most enthusiastic followers (the Friar’s Kids—children aged six to sixteen), who in crowds of five to six thousand enforced morality more strictly and cruelly then any moral police.19 They gathered big baskets of food, toys, books and paintings and then theatrically destroyed all that luxury. Savonarola replaced the picturesque carnival with his own morose choreography—an ox pulling a cart decorated with an allegorical picture of death, featuring skeletons and white crosses around black graves. In 1496, paintings, clothes, books, jewellery, board games, dice, perfumes, playing cards and

78

Chapter Ten

wigs were thrown into the traditional Lenten bonfire. Fanaticised by Savonarola, the crowd acted externally against that which they were internally fighting—attraction to worldly idols. Next, Savonarola proposed political reforms and labelled as devils all who opposed him.20 He urged a universal synod to transform the church in Florence and the whole world; he also turned against the pope, criticizing corrupt aspects of his lifestyle. Savonarola refused to obey a summons to Rome. On June 18, 1497 the pope excommunicated him, but did not arrest him. When Savonarola stopped preaching, his supporters abandoned him. Then, arrested and tortured, he acknowledged that his prophecies about the pope, “the Antichrist Borgia,” and about the end of the church, did not come from God. In 1498, at the Santa Maria del Fiore church, his followers received the pope’s forgiveness, but Savonarola and three more Dominicans were hanged and burned. Martin Luther, whose formative years coincided with the described turmoil, was fifteen at the time. What caused this bipolar turnaround in the Florentine mental climate? The average Renaissance person was religious. Almost everyone believed in the existence of God, because the mysteries of the world and life could not be explained otherwise. However, the Machiavellian superego suppressed the Christ-like love and the Spirit’s calls into the subconscious mind. Metaphorically, in the followers of Machiavelli the conscious had become less committed to Jesus than their unconscious mind. God had become the Prince raised to heaven. The Father, and even Jesus, had become loveless, paranoid, vengeful judges. They could be feared, but not loved; bribed but not glorified. Attending holy mass while living in a close love-hate relationship with local bishops, building grandiose churches, or giving donations to monasteries were not contradictory activities to Renaissance Florentines. But the most prominent characteristic of the Renaissance was, to paraphrase Karl Rahner, the occult heretic.21 In the context of our discussion, this term describes a formal Christian who not only purposefully forgets important ethical aspects of discipleship, but also turns to a different, self-invented God. This was referred to as idolatry and idols in Old Testament times. For Machiavellians, discipleship was replaced by the idolatry of power, money and art. The artistic ideals of sensual love, beauty, goodness and even eroticism had become, in some aspects, synonymous with being in a relationship with God. Art, luxury, and pomp had become a replacement theophany (according to one story, on his deathbed a certain sinner refused to kiss a cross if it was not artistic). By neglecting discipleship, escaping into lavishness and extravagance, spectacle and splendour, Machiavellians condemned themselves to suffering what Frankl called the “existential vacuum.”22 On

The Anatomy of Institutionalized Hypocrisy

79

the other hand their “as if” mentality towards God and the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15) not only killed biblical hope, love and joy, but increased lingering anxiety, leading to a crescendo of purposefully forgotten guilt. Angst concerning the unavoidable approach of both death and the judgement day was a time bomb that exploded in a religious panic. Its contemporary art was a vocal witness to the religious panic of the Renaissance. Robert Fossier23 notes that then, as almost never before, “anguish echoes through their songs [the Dies Irae dates from the midthirteenth century], and through their art [consider Durer’s Apocalypse, and Grunewald’s bloody Crucifixion].” No artist rendered this madness and hideous fear better than Hieronymus Bosch (d. 1516). His Last Judgment mingles prehistoric phantasms, pagan myths and witchcraft in a hallucinatory swarm of monsters, hybrid shapes or delirious half-macabre and half-erotic scenes of tortured, grimacing, infirm beings—sinister caricatures of all human anguish. In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler notes that occurrences like the Renaissance zeitgeist do not happen only once in history.24 Contemporary angst, meaninglessness and the glorification of nihilism in arts, mass media and public life are almost a copy of spirituality. This is how God’s kingdom with repetitions and ups and downs develops a forward-moving spiral. Matthew 7:21 notes that, “[not] everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” In Savonarola’s time, the hypocrisy of only saying “Lord, Lord,” but not obeying the Lord’s commands has become painfully obvious. But here we are facing a significant contradiction. If all psychological functions, including instinct, superego and ego, approved the Machiavellian paradigm of hypocrisy as being acceptable and necessary—even exemplary and commendable—where then did the explosion of collective feelings of guilt and angst come from?

Notes 1. Janos Erdody, Requiem Firenceert (Budapest: Szepmuveszeti Kiado, 1977), 13– 17. 2. Ibid., 59. 3. Ibid., 71. 4. Ibid., 61. 5. Ibid., 64. 6. Ibid., 64. 7. Ibid., 58. 8. Jacob Soll, Publishing the Prince: History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005).

80

Chapter Ten

9. Wilhelm Bitter, Psychotherapie und Religiose Erfahrung (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1965), 63. 10. Sigmund Freud, Interpretation of Dreams (New York: Macmillan, 1914), 67– 70. 11. Sigmund Freud, Introduction to Psychoanalysis (New York: W.W. Norton, 1989), 123. 12. Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1940), 29. 13. Sigmund Freud, Autobiographical Study (New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1989), 78. 14. Sigmund Freud, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (New York: Garden City Publishing, 1933), 89. 15. Joseph Schwarz, Argumente fur Gottes Existenc (Eisenstadt, Austria: selfpublished, 1988), 80. 16. Ibid., 83. 17. Paul Ungar, The Mystery of Christian Faith: A Tangible Union With the Invisible God, an Apologetic on Borderline of Theology, Medicine and Philosophy. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008), 96. 18. Erdody, 89. 19. Ibid., 140. 20. Ibid., 91. 21. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume II, Man in the Church (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1964), 22. 22. Viktor Frankl, Aerztliche Seelsorge (Vien: Franc Deuticke, 1968), 18. 23. Robert Fossier, The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages Vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 511–512. 24. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Frankfurt, 1927).

CHAPTER ELEVEN THE CASE STUDY OF A SAINT

Fallen human nature often re-surfaces in what we call institutional hypocrisy. But what gives exemplary Christians the courage and strength to be different?

The Sociological-Psychological Background of St. Francis Born in 1182, Giovanni Bernardone was one of the seven children of Pietro, a wealthy merchant, and his wife Pica, a noblewoman. Giovanni (his father later re-named him Francis), was groomed to succeed his father in the lucrative family business. As a young man, Francis fulfilled this expectation. In addition, he was involved in endless celebrations and parties, liked fashionable clothes, and became the prime favourite among the young nobles of Assisi. This happy life changed in 1202, when Francis became involved in skirmishes in the neighbouring city of Perugia, and was imprisoned there. After his release and a short military career, Francis returned to Assisi in 1205 where he became a different person. He was no longer comfortable among his former friends, but “began to seek in prayer and solitude the answer to his call.”1 This was only the beginning of St. Francis’ metamorphosis. According to Robinson, Francis experienced a call requiring him to go and repair God’s house which was falling into ruins. Francis understood this message literally. So, as Robinson describes it, “[he] went into his father’s shop, impulsively bundled together a load of coloured drapery, and mounting his horse, hastened to Foligno, then a mart of some importance, and there sold both horse and stuff to procure the money needed for restoration of St. Damian’s.”2 After Francis’s father accused him of irresponsibly spending his money he ran away and hid himself in caves near St. Damian’s. After a month he reappeared but was, in Robinson’s description, “emaciated with hunger and squalid with dirt. Francis was followed by a hooting rabble, who pelted him with mud and stones, and otherwise mocked him as a madman. Finally, he was dragged home by his father, beaten, bound, and locked in a dark closet.”3 His mother secretly freed him, after which his

82

Chapter Eleven

father disowned him. But Francis gladly gave up his inheritance, stripped himself even of the clothes he wore, and started to wander through the hills behind Assisi, singing hymns of praise to the Lord. According the same author, when robbers threatened him, he boldly responded: “‘I am of the great King!’ They took away all he had and threw him into a snow drift. Naked and half frozen, Francis crawled to a neighbouring monastery.”4 He barely survived this ordeal, but after his recovery he started works of charity, reconstructing churches and nursing lepers. On February 28, 1208, Francis, while attending morning mass, was inspired by the way Jesus sent out his disciples. He dressed himself in the coarse woollen tunic worn by the poorest peasants at that time and went forth to preach peace, love and penitence. Surprisingly, even prosperous people were touched, and joined him, giving away their belongings to the poor. With his first eleven followers, Francis travelled to Rome, seeking the approval of Pope Innocent III. The hesitant pope gave only an oral approval, but the number of Francis’ followers multiplied exponentially. In 1211 they established, near Assisi, the first Franciscan convent. Francis’ disciples, like children careless of the day, wandered through the countryside singing joyfully, and calling themselves “the Lord’s minstrels.”5 Soon women also joined and established the second Franciscan Order, the “Poor Clares.” This new spirituality based on heroic poverty spread so quickly, according to Robinson, that by 1217, provinces had already been established in Tuscany, Lombardy, Spain, France and England.6 In 1218, Francis preached before the pope; in 1219 he preached to the Sultan about peace in Egypt and then attempted to convert him. In pursuing Francis’ ideal of heroic poverty, at the meeting held at Porziuncola (1220 or 1221), he intentionally kept a great multitude of his followers sheltered only in huts of wattle, (woven twigs, tree limbs, poles and branches), and without provisions, relying solely on charity. It was then that St. Francis wrote the well-known “Rule of 1221.” This document, later re-written, was solemnly accepted and approved by Pope Honorius III on November 29, 1223. This rule, known today as the “Rule of Saint Francis,” is a “vow of absolute poverty in the first and second orders and the reconciliation of the religious with the secular state in the third.”7 In September 1225, when paying his last visit to St. Clare at St. Damian’s monastery, sick and suffering from extreme self-imposed poverty and self-denial, Francis composed the Canticle of the Sun. On October 3, 1226 Francis was by “Sister Death,” and as Robinson reports, “led away from earth.”8

The Case Study of a Saint

83

What Agnostic Psychological Concepts Can Explain St. Francis’ Behaviour Using the agnostic psychological concepts we discussed earlier, we have no difficulty understanding Francis’ early life given the advantages of his heritage and wealthy father. His instincts, ego, and superego supported the hedonistic lifestyle typical of rich youth in Assisi. But, despite the cooperation of these psychological factors described by Freud, was Francis really content with his life at that time? According to one story, a beggar asked money from him at the marketplace where he was selling his father’s merchandise. After making the sale, Francis ran after the beggar and gave him all the money he had. Isn’t this inconsistent behaviour? It is as though two opposing motives were at work in Francis, as if he had two consciences. One respected his father’s requirements (Francis worked hard to complete a good deal with his customer), while the other required the opposite—mercy, empathy and love—things quite useless in making a profit and in the fight for survival of the fittest. For a long time the conflict between his two consciences remained hidden. Drinking and endless celebrations with his friends served to suppress the guilt caused by the impossibility of pleasing both—often mutually exclusive—motivators. As Fenichel observes, “The superego has been defined as the ‘part of the mind that is soluble in alcohol’.”9 Francis’ drinking helped his noted withdrawal from reality to pleasurable daydreams, while friends helped him escape and forget unpleasant reality. Why do we assume that his life was unpleasant at that time? The young Francis had grave authority problems. His relationship with his father could be characterized with Fenichel’s words: “If you obey and submit, you will receive (real or imaginary) participation in power and protection.”10 The conflict between Francis’s natural attachment to his father, and his call to search for something ultimately greater, caused an ever-deepening conflict between these two loyalties. His imprisonment in Perugia may have been a serious traumatic experience, but it helped the young Francis to grasp that discovering a new purpose in his life was required for him to re-establish internal balance, peace and joy. His search for new meaning was apparent in behaviour after he returned to Assisi in 1205. There, “[although] Francis still joined the noisy revel of his former comrades, his changed demeanour showed that his heart was no longer with them; a yearning for the spirit had already possessed it.”11 The internal conflict between fidelity to God or to his father increased after Francis sold his father’s merchandise and spent the money to rebuild

84

Chapter Eleven

the St. Damian church. The confusion and conflict within his own personality—and between his two consciences—made him unable to find a loving but firm and respectful way to resolve this conflict. His attempt to run away, hiding in caves near St. Damian, starving and being covered with dirt, labelled as insane, externalized that internal conflict. It culminated in the showdown between father and son. We may also imagine the desperation of his father when disowning him, and also Francis’ distress and pain when, according to Robinson, he said, “Hitherto I called you my father on earth; henceforth I desire to say only ‘Our Father who art in Heaven.’”12 Certainly, the event helped him to take a stand against his own dictatorial superego. After spending two years as a hermit following the death of his parents, he sold his properties and proclaiming repentance travelled around Italy working on behalf of the sick, poor and despised. He identified himself with those he so eagerly helped. He was on the way to replacing a superego with a different kind of conscience. Now we come to February 28, 1208, the day Francis, as if struck by a thunderbolt, came to realize his vocation. This mysterious internal process became manifest and almost measurable in many behavioural changes that followed, proving that from that moment on St. Francis knew his vocation. His willingness to share and to help the sick, suffering and despised, to willingly accept living in poverty and to reject luxury and comfort, would be difficult to explain if his mind had been directed only by his ego, id and superego. It was as if from that point on his life became directed not only by his biological, psychological or sociological needs, but also by something else that agnostic psychologists cannot grasp or explain away— a new type of conscience.

What Agnostic Psychological Concepts Cannot Explain in St. Francis’ Behaviour By implication, we previously noted the inconsistencies when one of the would-be assassins of April 26, 1473 said: “If I have to go to fight on streets, then, yes, I will be there; but jeopardize my salvation … I cannot!” What caused his fear and resistance against behaviour to which his id, ego or superego objected? We also asked what, in Savonarola’s time, caused collective guilt without reason, unexplained by any Freudian personality structure? We are confronted with a similar contradiction in Francis’ behaviour. Most of it could be explained using Freud’s or any other agnostic’s psychological explanation up until February 28, 1208. But after that day,

The Case Study of a Saint

85

despite the demands of his instinct, and the disapproval of his superego and all fights and disquietude in his ego, Francis pursued meaning in his life that Freud could never understand or explain. Despite the fact that all the mental functions Freud described would have disapproved of his new lifestyle, St. Francis, instead of normal selfishness, chose sharing and helping the sick, empathetic suffering with the despised, poverty, altruism and rejection of luxury and comfort. If St. Francis exhibited a behaviour pattern not explainable by instinct, ego or superego, then a different psychological function—a different motivator, a different cause—had to exist and act on his personality, a cause not described by Freud or any of his agnostic colleagues. We call it a Christian or moral conscience. By Christian conscience we mean the internal, psychological motivation to strive for life in and with that God, who is the Almighty, eternal and ultimate love. Apparently his Christian conscience must have risen above the superego and functioned like a hyperego, superseding natural, worldly, Machiavellian stereotypes and enabling conduct in the saint very different from his former pattern of worldly behaviour. To a Christian reader it may seem that we are banging on open doors, and indeed trying to prove what is already obvious. But a conscience different from the superego is often hidden even from great agnostics, psychiatrists and psychologists. As Paul Vitz observed, Freud never even published an analysis or reported clinical evidence obtained from a deeply believing patient. Neither did he analyze the lives of saints like Francis.13 However, it is impossible to appreciate the Christian conscience without experiencing, feeling and knowing it, or at least being thoroughly informed about it. Freud’s mistake was not addressing topics he was unfamiliar with, and this was certainly no accident. It would have been painful for this materialist father of psychoanalysis to acknowledge the reality of Christian conscience in which psychological functions are closely connected with authentic spirituality. For the same reason in the teachings of other giants of materialist thinking, there are many misinterpretations and arbitrary inferences found in their understanding of Christian conscience, the topic we are going to discuss in the next chapter.

86

Chapter Eleven

Notes 1. Pascal Robinson, “St. Francis of Assisi” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6, Charles G. Haberman, et al., eds. (New York: Robert Appleton Co., 1909), 221. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., 222. 4. Ibid., 224. 5. Ibid., 221. 6. Ibid., 225. 7. Ibid., 229. 8. Ibid., 230. 9. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neuroses (New York: Norton, 1972), 379. 10. Fenichel, Psychoanalytic Theory, 587. 11. Robinson, St. Francis, 221. 12. Ibid., 227. 13. Paul C. Vitz, Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing Company, 1999), 8.

CHAPTER TWELVE CONSCIENCE: THE “ORGAN OF FAITH”

If Christian conscience is nothing more than expression of a collective neurosis then Christian faith, and the Church as a faith-shaping institution, is also nothing more than symptom of a collective illusion or delusion, as sceptics such as Freud and Dawkins suggest. Consequently, even readers who are not interested in the minuscule details must be assured at the very least that conscience is not exactly as Marx, Nietzsche, Freud or Dawkins understand it. On the other hand, for Christian professionals—teachers, theologians, physicians, philosophers and other specialists—it is important to be able to answer questions concerning the workings of conscience from a well-informed perspective. Sceptics need such information even more than Christians. Last but not least, conscience can be misinterpreted or misunderstood, suppressed and forged, therefore knowledge and proper appreciation of it is supremely important, especially when responding to Pope John Paul II’s call for a critical evaluation of the Church’s past actions. These reasons justify the painstakingly detailed scientific and theological discussion of the conscience in this chapter.

The Individual Conscience and the “Common Conscience” As a seven-year-old boy I was fighting with my first moral dilemmas. I asked my grandmother for advice. She responded: “Ask Father Peter, he will explain this to you.” My grandmother restated an ancient wisdom: “It is true what the Church says, and what the Church says is the truth.” Accordingly, just as conscience is the individual’s “Organ of faith,”1 so too Jesus’ Church is the common conscience of the people of God. There is a delicate balance between the two. The Church, as a faith-shaping institution, relies on believers’ conscience in many aspects. Inversely, the individual Christian’s conscience reflects and witnesses the effect the

88

Chapter Twelve

collective conscience of Jesus’ Church has in the world across many situations. However, the synchronization of the common conscience and the individual conscience does not always work as smoothly as described. The believer’s individual conscience can be influenced not only by the common conscience of Jesus’ Church, but also by the shaping force of the non-Church. As discussed earlier, this happened when the churches—their common consciences—did not stop Christians from mutually decimating each other during the religious wars of 1618–1648. How does the delicate balance existing between the common conscience and the individual conscience protect postmodern Christians from repeating a similar mistake, of being indoctrinated by the non-Church? Today, the personal freedom of conscience has become paramount, and a universally recognized fact. Subsequently, for better or worse the personal choice between different, often mutually competing faith-shaping institutions—of the flawless Church and the non-Church—has become a matter of personal privilege and responsibility. Accordingly, the relationship between the individual and the common conscience has radically changed. In everyday practice the credibility of the Church as a faith-shaping institution is often assessed and scrutinized by the conscience written in the hearts of individual believers. The quality, reliability and validity of this supremely important scrutiny and choice depend on the authority of the “aboriginal vicar of Christ,”2 as the Catechism defines the individual’s Christian conscience.

The Different Philosophical Concepts of Conscience As Henry C. Thiessen asserts, we must conclude that since moral law is not self-imposed and since fears of judgment are not self-executing, “… there is a holy will that imposes this law and a punitive power that will execute the threats anticipated by our moral nature.”3 On the contrary, in the agnostic’s view our moral nature has natural worldly reasons. Freud would explain Christian conscience as a distorted superego, a cognitivebehaviourist as an internal inhibitor, and an orthodox behaviourist as only a conditioned behaviour pattern. In addition, all modern agnostics will agree with the French physician Pierre Cabanis, who as early as the eighteenth century held that “as liver produces gall, so the brain produces mind,”4 and therefore conscience. The commonality in all agnostic concepts is the assumption that conscience is rooted in the neurological functioning of the brain or psychological functions of the mind, and has nothing to do with God. Apparently, a deep and philosophical difference exists between

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

89

the Christian and worldly understandings of conscience. Sceptics focus on its cause, in their understanding of conscience as the effect, consequence or product of neurological, psychological and social learning. Christians base the authority of conscience on the goal that Christian conscience serves to fulfil; they focus, as Thiessen defined, on the holy will of God which is the ultimate purpose that conscience is called to reflect. Let us reflect on the basic differences between these two concepts. Philosophy recognizes two distinct regulatory principles: causal (cause and effect) and teleological (goal orientated). We could illustrate causal regulation with a row of dominos in which when the first is tipped over the rest fall one after the other. From the materialist point of view, this is a model for all astronomical, physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, economic and all other natural processes that cause the events of the world. Teleological regulation could be demonstrated by the same prosaic example. The first domino in line (symbolizing Creation) is tipped over with a deliberate final purpose, namely that the last domino in the row will ultimately fall, symbolizing the end of times. In the teleological model all dominos, despite being pushed over in a causal sequence that is regulated by physical and deterministic principles, together serve a final purpose— the fall of the last domino, i.e. the Eschaton—the fulfilment of times. Accordingly, seen from a Christian perspective, astronomical, physical, chemical, biological, psychological, social, economic and all other events in the world happen to fulfil a final purpose—God’s will. The noted basic philosophical difference between sceptics and believers influences the understanding of conscience as well. It is the reason that sceptics understand conscience as causal—the consequence of learning—while Christians understand the authority of conscience as reflecting a divine purpose and a call to grow, become unselfishly loving and Jesus-like. From this basic philosophical difference in understanding, (i.e. grasping Christian conscience as a product of social learning or as a reflecting a divine purpose) can we better observe the differences in appreciation, and consequently also the differences in lifestyle of the sceptics and people of faith. Historically, Machiavellians neglected their Christian conscience and have behaved virtually deterministically, as if they were pieces in a chess game, propelled by biological, psychological or political forces and principles. By contrast, the behaviour of St. Francis and people of faith has led to the achievement of an ultimate purpose despite worldly laws and regulatory principles because they highly respect Christian conscience. Worldly people in general choose a conscience fitting their lifestyles. Thus, a Machiavellian hedonist will choose a

90

Chapter Twelve

superego-type conscience. St. Francis did not choose a conscience to fit his lifestyle, rather he chose a lifestyle befitting his Christian conscience. Such respect for conscience is typical of holy people living to fulfil an ultimate purpose—God’s will. Obeying his conscience was so important for Thomas Aquinas that he decided: “It is better to die excommunicated than to violate one’s conscience.”5 Obeying conscience, as the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II emphasizes, is essential because it is through his conscience that the human recognizes the demands of divine law.6 Christian conscience is a link able to bridge the transcendental gap between the causal worldly and teleological Godly realities, enabling Christians to exist in the world, but at the same time reflect holiness. If so, what is conscience anthropologically, and how is it able to perform its daunting task?

Freedom of Conscience versus Causative Brain Functions As Avier Tucker notes, “Thomas Aquinas argued for a partial application of rational methods to an understanding of the world, provided Scriptural revelation remained the final arbiter.”7 Today we live in a psychological climate of almost surrealistic extremes that reject St. Thomas’ methodology: Advances in neurology, the physical study of the brain, using brain scanning, rare cases of localized brain damage, and so forth; the discovery of genetic causes for a variety of mental illnesses; and research into the effects of drugs on the brain, allowed scientists for the first time to offer psychological, material explanations to a variety of states of consciousness. At the same time, advances in computer technology generated an advanced form of artificial intelligence. For the first time humans created artefacts that appeared more intelligent than themselves. This led to re-examination of popular concepts of the distinctive essence of humanity.8

Such thoughts are not new. The nineteenth century Russian physician Ivan Mihajlovich Sechenov9 stated that the reflexes of the brain produce the human mind. According to his formulation of mental functioning, the machine (or brain) replaces the machinist (or the mind, soul and spirit). This is a classical materialist formulation. However, are the human mind and conscience really causal products of the reflexes of the brain, or on the contrary, is engendering mind and conscience the teleological purpose which reflexes of the brain are meant to fulfil? Everyday experience answers this question. If upbringing, education and maturation do not enable the brain to produce healthy contents in the mind, then psychological counselling, or psychiatric (especially pharmacological)

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

91

treatment is widely used to help the “reflexes of the brain” to fulfil its teleological purpose—producing a healthy mind, as well as ethical and conscientious behaviour. Thus, in producing mind, the reflexes of the brain serve a psychological-teleological purpose. For professionals, and readers who are interested in the where, when and how of the teleological regulation of reflexes of the brain, let me here paraphrase the discussion from my book The Mystery of Christian Faith.10 The passage includes a textbook example of a discussion of the neurology of vision. Photons are units of light energy which, upon entering the eye, impact nerve cells of the retina triggering an electrochemical discharge. Electrochemical codes representing the observed object are then transmitted by the optic nerve to the primary visual area in the occipital brain. Nerve cells constituting that primary visual area are at rest when the eyes are closed and maintain electrochemical balance. When the eyes are opened, the resting balance becomes disturbed in a way unique to each object photographed in the retina. As nerve cells of the primary visual area invest a specific effort to re-establish the previous electrochemical balance, subjects feel this effort as a sensory experience—sight, seeing colours, patches and contours. The next step, recognition, consists of organizing primary visual information (the sensed colours, patches and contours) in accordance with experience, perspective, visual ideas, logic, purpose and harmonizing visual impression with the totality of all other mental information. So we recognize not what our eyes factually photographed, but what our brain constructs as meaningful visual information from the primary sensory experience. How far the organizing of chaotic primary visual impressions goes is illustrated in Fig. 12.1 below. The illustration shows how the eye’s lens projects the world onto the retina upside down. This inverted image is subsequently transported through the optic nerve to the visual area. But, since we have a firm experience that reality stands upright, the brain in its secondary visual area automatically turns the image 180 degrees and enables the harmonizing of visual recognition with experience. We then see the image the way we know that it ought to be seen. Visual illusions occur when the secondary visual area organizes information drawing a message that contradicts reality, and we recognize what does not exist. Inversely, it causes a negative illusion, in medical terms an agnosia, when His disciples’ (as on the road to Emmaus) did not recognize the resurrected Jesus due to false knowledge: “This person can’t be Jesus since I know that He is dead.” Regaining faith corrected the

92

Chapter Twelve

disciples’ mistaken knowledge, and made their recognition of Jesus possible. Fig. 12.1. The Neurology and Psychology of Vision

Let us now draw a conclusion. The brain is trained to adjust its neurological activity to the production of psychologically, logically and empirically meaningful visual images. Accordingly, not only causal principles in neurological processing, but the final purpose—seeing and psychologically recognizing meaningful images of what we know ought to be seen—direct the brain and the mind’s coordinated function of seeing and recognizing reality. The described principle has a general validity. Synaptic connections that do not produce a desired psychological output are not used and due to their inactivity, are eliminated. By contrast, fervent use reinforces and strengthens synaptic connections producing a psychologically desired output, and causing them to thrive. So there is an almost natural selection, a very purposeful process of self-shaping at work in the brain. The brain regulates its own wiring—its own neurological functions—for the teleological purpose of producing appropriate outputs such as healthy thoughts, feelings, behaviour and conscience. A properly functioning mind and conscience is the purpose of teleological regulation of reflexes, neurology, physiology and even the micro-anatomy of the brain. Recognizing this brings us back to square one—if brain functions do not explain Christian conscience, then what does?

Conscience versus Superego According to Sigmund Freud, “the best mechanist of all materialists” as Viktor Frankl qualified him,11 fear can have both an external and internal origin. An example of internally originated fear is a baby’s realization of the danger of losing their parent’s love. As Freud’s excellent interpreter Otto Fenichel12 explains, to prevent losing the parent’s love, “a constant

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

93

watchman has been instituted in the mind [of babies] who signals the approach of possible situations or behaviour that might result in the loss of mother’s affection.” This internalized fear is, in psychodynamic jargon, made possible by introjections of the parent. As Fenichel explains it, “Babies put whatever possible into their mouth. They then experience the external objects internally, and identify with them. So, when fed with milk, babies figuratively internalize the mother. Her behavioural requirements are subsequently internally experienced.” However, “that part of the ego that was altered by identification, ‘the introjected parents,’ cannot immediately fuse with the rest of the ego, for the objects introduced into the ego are to magnificent, and the distance between them and the ego feeling of the child is too great.” This magnificent ego is the seed of the later superego. A critical period in introjections of parental behavioural standards and forming of the superego occurs after the age of eighteen months. As explained by Joseph Schwarz,13 until that age, parents unconditionally give their babies everything they need to flourish. But, during potty training, the pattern of unconditional giving, receiving everything but giving nothing, changes. Babies are then trained to give up the pleasure of urination and defecation whenever they want for a reward—the parent’s praise and love. Later, the parents gradually coach the baby to exchange the pleasure found in satisfying other shameful instincts in exchange for parental and later societal approval. The internalized parent image (superego) internally rewards obedience—or punishes disobedience—to parental requirements. In other words, “a portion of the ego has become an ‘inner mother,’ threatening possible withdrawal of affection,” if requirements of the real external mother are disregarded.14 This is the first superego. Later, a properly functioning superego makes success, survival, and socialization possible, and becomes the guarantor of good social functioning in general, and of success, security and social well-being. To test Freudian and other agnostic concepts, we need only ask whether they explain real human lifestyles and behaviour. Accordingly, could Freud’s superego explain the behaviour of millions of Christians? The type of conscience that Freud or other agnostics describe is definitely something very different from Christian conscience. It is not an aboriginal Vicar of Christ, the organ of faith, or a tool in hands of the faith-shaping institution that Jesus’ Church factually is. The superego can explain selfish behaviour required for worldly living and success, but it cannot account for the unselfishly loving and holy lifestyles of Jesus, the saints, and the people of God. If a myriad of people of God consciously and heroically strive to live in the world but not of it, then there must be a reason, a psychological motivator, a moral surplus compared to the

94

Chapter Twelve

superego that Freud talks about. In addition, something greater than the superego, with its dedication to self, worldly pleasure, security and survival of the fittest, must be at work in the genuine people of God. As discussed earlier, agnostic psychological concepts can explain institutionalism, hypocrisy and Machiavellianism. But they cannot explain the faith and behaviour patterns of Jesus, His disciples, and billions of earlier and contemporary Christians. Recognizing this brings us back to our original inquiry—if agnostic psychological insights do not explain the source of Christian conscience, what does? We turn for explanations to the Word of God.

The Continuum of Conscience, Soul, and Spirit Modern science is not interested in the questions that St. Paul raised, such as those dealing with the resurrection of the body, nor in the question raised by St. Thomas Aquinas—what accounts for the person’s “fitness to be joined to the soul and its subjection to the soul?”15 We think today in categories validated by research. But is it at all possible to translate biblical and scholastic ideas into modern terms? In I Thessalonians 5:23, St. Paul gives a summary of his anthropology. He talks about the body, soul and spirit, using these terms freely, sometimes as synonyms, and at other times with different meanings. His purpose was not to give a scientific explanation, but he spoke in a revealing manner. Let us first clarify St. Paul’s terms. The term St. Paul uses in I Thes. 5:23 is spirit. Colloquially, spirit, as used in Genesis 2:7, is God’s “breath of life.” The spirit is, as Thomas Aquinas defined it, “not a body, but the principle of life in a body.”15 Spirit establishes a basic existential relationship with God. Human life, then, is the expression of this basic link with God. The soul is more difficult to define. The Old Testament talks about it with a multiplicity of concrete pictures and such metaphors as breath, wish, belief, thought, heart, appetite, life, feelings, desire, reason, beauty and religious experience. It is, as Thomas Aquinas defined the principle source of human dignity, “a creature in the service of God.”16 Soul is, accordingly, the spiritual principle of a free, conscious and responsible relationship with God. As noted, St. Paul used his terms often interchangeably, so when he, in his revealing manner, talks in I Cor. 2;11 about the spirit, he means not only life as a basic existential relationship with God, but also the soul that communicates with God and discerns gifts of the Spirit. The Catechism, again in a metaphorical language, states that “man has in his heart a law inscribed by God …”17 To empirically validate

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

95

this quotation we need to replace the metaphorical heart with that of the soul. We deduce, then, that “man has in his soul a law inscribed by God …” This is exactly what St. Bonaventure states in his Breviloquium, saying that the soul is a form “capable of receiving beatitude from God.”18 Having defined the soul as the spiritual principle of a free, conscious and responsible relationship with God, we have the explanation for many previously unanswerable empirical facts. We can grasp why a myriad of people of God strive to live in the world but not of it, where the moral surplus in saints comes from, inexplicable through the idea of the superego that Freud described, and which is the spiritual factor that must be at work in holy people that sets them apart from the world. The spiritual principle of all these free and responsibly chosen Christian values is in the soul, capable of receiving beatitude from God. But let us focus now on that question raised by St. Thomas—what accounts for the person’s “fitness to be joined to the soul and its subjection to the soul?” In II Corinthians 1:12 St. Paul states: ”Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relationship with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom, but according to God’s grace.” St. Paul reveals there an important fact: his conscience, a psychologically experienced function, was able to testify on his behaviour, assessing it from God’s perspective. How could this be? How could conscience assess human behaviour from God’s perspective? Even for modern scientists or a theologian is not possible to talk about spiritual matters other than in metaphorical language. Biblicalanthropological entities like the spirit, soul and conscience are all seamlessly interconnected and often overlapping. For example, St. Paul describes in I Corinthians 6:17: “But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.” The new spirit (or, more precisely, the new soul) requires a new birth (as that of Nicodemus in John 3:3–5). Unlike Paul, St. John does not use the term “conscience” but he talks about what we call conscience when describing the new disciple’s yearning for union with Jesus (as in John 6:55), and overcoming even the fear of death (in John 5:24 and 5:29). In other words, soul and spirit are of the same essence; both are spiritual. Also, soul and conscience are (in a person) connected, and functionally supplement each other. The soul is the transcendental, spiritual principle of a responsible relationship with God, while conscience is the mentally experienced, psychological principle of the same relationship. The Scriptures do not explain in scientific terms how, where and when the soul is subjected to God, nor how conscience is instructed by the soul. We can only conceive of this biblical-empirical mystery figuratively,

Chapter Twelve

96

formulated in human ideas. So, colloquially formulated, just as the brain regulates itself teleologically to facilitate healthy mental functions, the mind regulates its own functions to serve conscience, while conscience teleologically regulates its functions to fulfil the soul’s spiritual directives, and so the soul teleologically fulfils instructions of the Spirit. Anton Pegis quotes St. Bonaventure, “In the genus of substance, spirit, and matter exist the most ultimate divisions. And yet God could and did bring together into one nature and one personality two substances radically different from each other.”19 Such seamless teleological (goal oriented and purposeful) integration of the mind, conscience and soul, makes our typical human and Christian form of being, behaving and functioning possible.

The Essence of Humanity: “Created in God’s Image” Phyllis Tickle asks: What are we/what am I? Is there even such thing as the ‘Self’? Is ‘Mind’ the same as, or different from brain? If so, how can ‘I’ be more to the point, how can ‘I’ be responsible for anything—anywhere, or at any time? If not, what is “mind,” where does it dwell, and of what is it made? The questions are endless as are the media sources willing and able to broadcast them, unanswered, into every North American life.20

Let us now, by bringing empirical, scholastic and biblical anthropology together, assemble a mosaic to discover answers to Tickle’s questions. As noted, the purpose of the causal, genetically and biologically functioning body is to produce a healthy brain. The teleological task of the causal-deterministic neurological functioning brain is to produce a healthy mind, one capable of appropriate psychological functioning. The mind also has the teleological task of serving conscience. Frankl, in his Unconscious God, pointed out that in healthy persons ego is the master of instinct, but the servant of conscience.21 Conscience also has a teleological purpose: to reflect soul—the principle of responsible relationship with God—and so, according to the Catechism, to recognize divine law. Soul also serves to hear “spiritual truths in spiritual words” from God (I Cor. 2:9–16). This teleologically orientated “chain of command” is illustrated in Fig. 12.2 below.

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

97

Fig. 12.2. The teleological “Chain of Command”

Empirically and experientially, humans are the only known God-searching species, as defined by Askos Pauler.22 In this context, Genesis 12:27 describes: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.” The God who created humans was not physical, but spiritual. Humans created in His image are therefore spiritual beings—living souls. Everyday experience also proves this biblical revelation. The religious beliefs, faith, or the very existence of the Church prove that all humans have spiritual needs because they are all spiritual beings. The teleologically-directed regulation (where the Spirit directs soul, the soul directs conscience, conscience guides the mind and the mind directs the brain), clarifies the descending chain of command to the extent current human understanding allows. It also answers the age-old question of how the corporeal aspects (body, brain or mind) in humans could be directed by a spiritual entity such as the soul. In this model (as in the model of falling dominos we used previously), the causal and deterministic physical-chemical-neurological regulation is never interrupted, but the causal-deterministic regulation is subordinated to, and serves, a teleological and spiritual purpose. Indeed, all the facts discussed here do not mean that every single function of the brain or that all psychological functions always and exclusively serve a spiritual purpose. Most biological, physiological and psychological functions serve to preserve and multiply life. However, the fact that there are spiritually regulated mental functions in us definitely makes the human a unique form of being on planet Earth. It is the essence of humans as created in God’s image.

Conscience as a “Spiritual Psychological Link” As St. Bonaventure summarizes, “perfection of the body is in the soul.”23 Paraphrased in modern terms, God’s perfection reaches conscience, mind,

98

Chapter Twelve

brain and body through the soul. This is a communication descending from God, figuratively passing down through soul and conscience to the mind, brain and body. The behaviour of Christians expresses this connectedness with God, through which He builds His Kingdom. However, there is also an ascending communication occurring in the opposite direction as it passes from body to brain to mind to conscience. Psychologically, we know that the mind, the personality of every human being, affects his or her conscience. We could observe such an interaction both in Machiavellian behaviour patterns, and also in the behaviour of St. Francis. Their free and responsible self either accepted or rejected the requests of their Christian conscience. This psychological choice brought about a good or a bad conscience. Accordingly, there exists both a descending and an ascending link of communication between the human mind and Christian conscience in those two examples. Can we, however, also follow a similar ascension of communication between conscience and the soul, the soul and God? Because the soul is spiritual, we cannot explore the interaction between the soul and God scientifically. Only revelation can help in understanding this dialogical relationship. We know that our spiritual soul endures after the end of our biological existence. As Christian common sense teaches, in an ascending interaction the quality of personal respect and obedience of individuals towards their conscience (i.e. the quality of their faith) affects the standing of their soul before God. As the Catechism teaches: “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death.”24 Psychologically we can only assess this spiritual relationship between the soul and God meta-empirically and indirectly; good or bad conscience is an indirect reflection of the soul’s standing before Jesus. Christian conscience has a privileged position in both the ascending and descending communication. It is truly a spiritual-psychological link, a joining connection of the descendent spiritual with psychological, and in the ascendant psychological with spiritual components of humanity. It is a link in constituting pneumaticos or holy persons. On the other hand, in worldly persons a different dynamic occurs; the descendant communication (between God, soul, conscience-mind-body) is intentionally severed. In sarcicos—individuals without a functioning descendent communication— doing away with the soul and the Spirit is a form of self-mutilation. Choosing such psychological-spiritual self-mutilation in the manner of atheists is a virtual reversal of creation in God’s image and likeness; it is the reduction of the human form of being to a sub-human level of existence and functioning so that in them, also behaviourally, the “Self is

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

99

the master of conscience (and soul), and the servant of instincts,” to paraphrase Viktor Frankl. But Matthew 16:26–27 reports these words of Jesus: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Jesus’ words are the strongest proof of what the Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac noted: “Nothing is more close to man than God, but nothing is stranger than living in godless world.”25

Practical Differences between Christian Conscience and Worldly Conscience Christian conscience, even in most committed Christians, appears sometimes blended with its worldly imitation. Let us therefore briefly compare Freudian (representing the agnostic) with Christian conscience. (1) The Freudian superego serves worldly goals, while the hyper-ego reflects holiness, i.e. being set apart from the world. (2) The superego serves biological life at all costs, while Christian conscience serves everlasting life at all costs. (3) A paraphrase of a well-known saying by Karl Marx states: “The superego does not determine one’s position in society; rather, position in society determines one’s superego.” Moral conscience, on the contrary, is biblical, Jesus-like, and above all social or economic in influence and position. It is virtually the same for all Christians, regardless of their social position. (4) All people of God are in some way mystics. But, as the prominent mystic St. Theresa of Avila reported, she never saw a vision “with the eyes of the body, but only with the eyes of the soul.”26 Thus, the soul and its psychological representative, the conscience, is in every human being—but especially in mystics—not only as a biblical-theological reality, but also as an almost sensorial link between the person and God, sometimes communicating even in a sensorial language, i.e. through visions. On the contrary, the superego never has the qualitative surplus in bridging the gap between the natural and transcendental realities. We previously discussed this in the example of “Freud’s mistake.” (5) In cognitive-behavioural vernacular language, the superego is called an internal inhibitor because it suppresses antisocial instincts. In contrast, Christian conscience is an internal stimulator causing one to strive for discipleship. (6) Fear gives power to the superego. Genuine Christian conscience

100

Chapter Twelve

moves the believer by love, especially God’s love. (7) Successful functioning of the superego is proven by measurable social performance, money and wealth. Obedience to Christian conscience is not measurable, but internally rewarded by biblical hope, trust, optimism, love and joy. (8) The superego promotes the image, concerned only with what others will, see or say. For the hyper-ego, only the essence counts— genuine biblical love. (9) The superego, as noted, is nurtured, socially learned and conditioned. Therefore, it sometimes identifies itself (as with suicide bombers) with non-Christian behaviour. On the contrary, Christian conscience can be silenced, suppressed for a time, or purposefully forgotten, but the striving for a mystical union with the almighty, eternal and supreme love of God is written in human hearts and can never be removed from human nature. (10) Finally, let us mention here something they have in common— both types of conscience are powerless in themselves, and neither can execute behaviour without the ego’s approval. Conscience sets the standards, but the ego is responsible for approving and carrying out preferred behaviour in practice. In this lies the essence of human freedom of choice.

A Conflict between the Superego and Christian Conscience Even exemplary believers fight moral conflicts occurring inside their personalities. These conflicts are often defined by the intertwining of Christian conscience with a superego-type worldly conscience. This is possible because neither superego nor Christian conscience has executive power, but merely consultative power. Therefore, the ego (the self) chooses either the consenting-Christian or the superego type, the profane conscience, or it may fabricate a compromise between them. Such compromise always has its price. Worldly or superego types of conscience do not reflect God or serve as the conscience of love. They are unable to treat the ego more gently than an unconditionally forgiving mother or an ultimately loving spouse. Rather, as we noted in Freud’s metaphor, the superego is like an internal policeman similar to that experienced by paranoid patients who feel permanently watched, scrutinized, and judged. The ego defends itself from such scrutiny. But since the agnostic ego does not clearly distinguish Christian conscience from the superego-type internal policeman, it fights both. It is hard to fight the superego

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

101

(representing objective societal reality), but it seems easy to fight the ultimately loving God. Paradoxically, a vicious circle ensues—the more irrational guilt which the superego lays on the ego, the more animosity the ego projects onto the demanding, but ultimately forgiving, God. In other words, the harder the internal policeman presses the ego, the more the ego fights, struggling to reject Christian conscience. The grave and common human mistake of attempting to replace Christian conscience with the superego helps one become like others. But winning social acceptance and projecting an image of power and freedom unavoidably causes anxiety, because the superego does not provide spiritual worthiness. It falls short of holy dignity, and offers no peace, love, strength and optimism as the Christian conscience does. On the other hand, the innate needs for a loving and encouraging Christian conscience cannot be simply forgotten, erased, blotted out or made non-existent in human minds and hearts. Ego may become keenly sensitive to the purposefully forgotten conscience’s accumulated warnings. There are evident signs of such sensitivity in universal insecurity, tension, angst and the collective pessimistic and depressed mood in our times. The absurdity of earthly existence without hope of everlasting life is also reflected in modern social pathology—the pandemics of divorce, suicide and drug abuse—and other miseries symptomatic of the ultimately meaningless life. On the other hand, the collective uneasiness, self-loathing and guilt about our civilization is a sign that most sceptics did not succeed at spiritual self-mutilation, despite reducing themselves to superegosupervised creatures. Frankl’s observation was that “one can give up everything but not his/her freedom and responsibility”27 to live as a Homo religious. But how can sceptics be helped to use their freedom and responsibility to return to the Body of Christ? Paradoxically, it’s exactly that fear and guilt that appear to be absent in non-believers that increases resistance to God and His Church. Suppressed, seemingly non-existent, subconscious and purposefully forgotten guilt re-emerges in every contact with the Church. God’s people may help ease this resistance by making it clear to non-believers that Christian conscience is not an adversary, and that their extreme or irrational fears come not from Jesus’ Church, but from their own egos’ estrangement from God. The people of faith must show that, unlike the superego, which is an unforgiving punisher, Christian conscience is an organ of love. It is forgiveness that often helps improve agnostics’ relationship with the people of God, and just as forgiveness keeps love alive between spouses, so hope and trust in God’s forgiveness can keep sceptics’ interest in the flawless biblical Church alive. Helping them catch

102

Chapter Twelve

a glimpse of forgiveness, love and joy are the best ways to help a discerning agnostic move toward a new purpose of finding God. Evangelization of the world is not always best served by increased feelings of guilt. On the contrary, empowering ones’ personality with a loving and forgiving attitude helps to decrease the evangelized person’s resistance against conscience, the Church, and Christian morality. In interaction with agnostics, the careful use of words is obviously essential. Elisabeth Lucas gives us this relevant story.28 A Sultan dreamed that he lost all his teeth. He called a wise man and asked what the dream meant. The wise man said: “Oh, it is a very bad dream. It means that your wives, children, and relatives all will die, and you will remain alone.” Not even waiting for the wise man to finish his explanation, the Sultan ordered, “Ten lashes to this faker!” He then called another wise man and asked the same question. The second wise man said: “Oh, this is a very good dream. It means that you will live longer than any of your wives, children and relatives, and that you will have a happy and long life.” The Sultan ordered: “Ten gold qirats to this wise man!” In fact, both wise men had said the same thing, but in different words. Thus, anything can be said, but the wording is critical. In practice, witnessing to the world should be more by action rather than by argument. It should be focused on feelings as well as reason, thus involving the whole personality. It is not a happening, but a process; not a teaching, but a dialogue; not only information, but experience. Its purpose is not to present a philosophical and rational theology and proofs ex cathedra, but to utilize what we could call meta-empirical dynamics, which should lead to biblical peace, love and joy. Thus, the importance of such witnessing becomes obvious. The damage sustained by individuals and by the mission of the entire Church because of the example and influence of the non-Church’s is most severe.

Notes 1. Viktor E. Frankl, Anthropologische Grundlagen der Psychotherapie (Wien: Hans Huber, 1976), 21. 2. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994), 377. 3. Henry. C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology, Revised by Vernon Doerksen (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1979), 31. 4. Michail Jarosevskij, Istoria Psihologiei (Moskva: Izdateljstvo Misl, 1966), 223– 225.

Conscience: The “Organ of Faith”

103

5. Adrian Hastings, “Schism” in The Oxford Companion of Christian Thought, Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 643. 6. Austin Flannery, Vatican Collection Volume I: Vatican Council II, “The Conciliar and Postconciliar Documents” (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Company, 1992), 357. 7. Aviezer Tucker, “The Mind” in New Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Volume 2, Marianne Cline Horowitz, ed. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005), 435. 8. Ibid., 443. 9. Jarosevskij, Istoria Psihologiei, 124. 10. Paul Ungar, The Mystery of Christian Faith, A Tangible Union with the Invisible God, An Apologetic on Borderline of Theology, Medicine and Philosophy (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008), 157–159. 11. Victor Frankl, Arztliche Seelsorge (Wien: Franz Deuticke, 1968), 211. 12. Otto Fenichel, The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neuroses (New York: W.W. Norton Company, 1972), 101. 13. Joseph Schwarz, Argumente für Gottes Existenz (Eisenstadt, Austria: selfpublished, 1988), 80 14. Fenichel, Theory of Neurosis, 106. 15. Anton Charles Pegis, St. Thomas and The Problem of the Soul in the Thirteenth Century (Toronto: St. Michael’s College, 1934), 31. 16. Ibid., 202. 17. Catechism, 377. 18. Pegis, Problem of the Soul, 206. 19. Pegis, Problem of the Soul, 181. 20. Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence, How Christianity is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008), 72. 21. Viktor E. Frankl, Unconscious God (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1975), 53. 22. Ferenc Szabo, Ember es Vilaga (Rome: Self-published, 1969), 104. 23. Pegis, Problem of the Soul, 32. 24. Catechism, 219. 25. Szabo, Ember es Vilaga, 11. 26. Robert Paul Wolff, Philosophy: A Modern Encounter (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 566. 27. Maria Mendez, A Life with Meaning: Guide to the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 47. 28. Elisabeth S. Lukas, Meaning in Suffering: Comfort in Crisis Through Logotherapy, (Berkley, CA: Institute of Logotherapy Press, 1998), 35.

PART IV THE NEW EVANGELIZATION: A POSITIVE RESPONSE TO POPE JOHN PAUL’S CALL

CHAPTER THIRTEEN NEW NEEDS OF THE CHURCH IN EVANGELIZING THE POSTMODERN WORLD

In our time the expression “the empirically validated research proves that …” is the password, the trump card if you will, for winning over the doubtful and debunking opponents in professional, public, or even private discussions. However even facts of empirically validated research can be misinterpreted and manipulated. Take for example Sigmund Freud’s wellknown comment, based on the data available in his time, that religious people have fewer obsessive-compulsive disorders than non-believers. But he also said that religion is itself a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Thus, religious people, because they are already suffering from a kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder, are spared from acquiring a second form of disorder. Indeed, God’s people experience faith very differently. Freud’s example proves how important personal experience is in knowing God and evangelizing sceptics. However, what reasons for faith can Jesus’ Church offer to people who value only visible, touchable and measurable facts? Fortunately, times are changing. Today, even some sceptical sources acknowledge the healing power of faith. As Viktor Frankl hinted, mental and spiritual health have important commonalities.1 Religion intentionally serves the salvation of the soul, but by its effect it also contributes to mental health, as when it promotes forgiveness, or condemns jealousy, hate, or revenge. Inversely, psychological counselling directly serves mental health, but by its effects—such as resolving greed, envy or selfishness—it indirectly contributes to the salvation of the patient’s soul. We present the relationship described by Frankl in Fig. 13.1 below.2 Frankl’s model is an excellent reflection of the connection between faith and the mind in God’s people. But is the same explanation also applicable to understanding the psychological dynamics in Freudian—or any other atheistic—personality theory?

108

Chapter Thirteen

Fig. 13.1. The Relationship of Psychotherapy and Faith

In his words to Nicodemus, Jesus explained, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit” (John 3:6). As Rudolph Schnackenburg noted, there is a significant “contrast between the transitory existence of the human creature on earth and the inviolable power of the absolute, spiritual life of God.”3 Accepting or rejecting such weakness and unreliability of the flesh—the human impotence and dependence on God —presides over believers’ anthropological and psychological functioning. Failure to acknowledge human impotence and dependence on God makes non-believers’ whole attitude toward life, sickness and death pessimistic. Christians observe everything in life and death as God does—from the perspective of eternity. They are not only aware of being a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (I Pet. 2:9), they also have a basic trust that the “prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up” (James 5:14–15) in any and every difficulty. This does not mean that sick believers are less likely to die as Jesus’ healing power will not always restore biological health, but it will always, and in every situation, help to restore biblical joy, peace, hope, forgiveness, optimism, power and love. In other words, by the world’s standards, faith and relationship with Jesus have few, if any, empirically validated proofs. However, God’s people have the most powerful proof—their internal personal experience. The convincing power of the immediate personal experience of living in a relationship with Jesus, verified by biblical joy, peace and love is what strengthens faith. No philosophical, metaphysical, mathematical, logical or astronomical proof has as convincing a power, as the evidence of God found in the internally experienced relationship believers have with Him. As Matthew 7:20 notes, we all “recognize the right tree from its good fruits.” From such good fruits God’s people recognize the right tree; such internally validated proof is stronger than any external, objective, research-

New Needs of the Church in Evangelizing the Postmodern World

109

validated argument. To be effective in evangelization, the postmodern Church needs to base its arguments not only on logical, philosophical or even speculative theological or metaphysical proofs, but also on internal, experiential evidence gained by living in and with God. A basic principle in evangelization is to help the world to understand the healing power of faith, and of the biblical Church as an efficient tool in building God’s kingdom and finally helping the evangelized person establish a vital relationship with Jesus, the source of ultimate joy, peace, and love. This is what evangelizing of the postmodern world needs. How can we help the persons we seek to evangelize to internally discern their relationship with Jesus? This difficult question is connected with another basic principle of evangelization. Let me clarify what I mean with an example. During my training in psychiatry I was repeatedly reminded by one of my teachers to respect the warning which a great physician gave his students when they were challenged by a setback in treatment: “Forget your curative zeal; try first to understand what is really happening in your patient … and the therapy will then come almost spontaneously.” And in evangelization the first task is also to understand the real problem, what is really happening in the evangelized individuals, and to control our eagerness to overwhelm opponents and sceptics. When we come to understand what is really going on in their hearts and minds, as they face the problems of the postmodern world with the Spirit’s help, words will come almost spontaneously. Not convincing but listening, grasping the challenge, pain, and suffering to which faith is the real and absolute solution, and then allowing the Spirit to act is a basic principle in evangelizing our religiously apathetic world. This is the preferred way to advance God’s kingdom. Our attitude in evangelization must be free from attempts to prove ourselves right and them wrong. One must resist the temptation to overwhelm evangelized persons verbally, logically, philosophically, scientifically, even biblically or theologically. Evangelization requires, most of all understanding, patience and courage. It needs understanding of what is really happening in evangelized peoples’ hearts, brains, minds and souls. It takes patience not to overrun them with arguments, but to give them time to discern the right tree by its good fruit. It requires courage to let the Spirit work in His sometimes unpredictable way in evangelized persons, perhaps in the form of a “… ‘repetition,’ a ‘calling to mind’ in the light of their present relationship with him.”4 Let us start working on these principles. Let us learn what is really going on in the hearts and minds of those people living in our times whom we are sent to evangelize.

110

Chapter Thirteen

Notes 1. Maria Mendez, A Life with Meaning: Guide to the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 77. 2. Viktor Frankl, Aerztliche Seelsorge (Vien: Franz Deuticke ,1968), 67. 3. Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 371–72. 4. Pope Benedict XVI, Benedictus, Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI, (Yonkers, New York: Ignatius Press/Magnificat, 2006), 167. .

CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE WORLD’S “FORM OF LIVING”

As we have seen there exists a communication gap between people of faith and the world. Although both groups inhabit the same world, nothing is more evident to believers than God’s love, and nothing is less evident to atheists. Different ideas about religion produce contrasting feelings, language, experiences, behaviours and worldviews even for people living in the same space, time and culture, and sometimes even to members of the same families, as though we lived in parallel worlds.

The “Parallel Worlds” Early in his childhood, the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein experienced the uneasiness of belonging to a family but living in “different worlds.”1 His father, Karl, was a tycoon—one of the builders of the European steel industry. He had five sons and three daughters. His sons were groomed to inherit (and multiply) the family’s fortune. However, three boys committed suicide, the fourth son became a concert pianist, and his youngest son, Ludwig, gave up his fortune and became a philosophy teacher. Later, with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig established the school of thought called logical positivism. In Wittgenstein’s understanding, contemporary humankind is divided into two different forms of life more clearly than ever before in history. As Kenny notes, the term could be best explained as: “… the difference between the life lived by two different species of animals.”2 For example, “Lions have a form of life different from humans; that is why, even if a lion could speak, we could not understand him.” And if the lion could understand particular words, we could not exchange messages because we exist in different forms of life and have different worldviews. To expand Wittgenstein’s example, the lion, despite understanding particular words, could not grasp a human going to church, working, using credit cards, paying taxes or having a mortgage. Similarly, a believer finds it difficult to comprehend (despite understanding their words) worldly people. As Pope John Paul II noted:

112

Chapter Fourteen Positivism has not only been a philosophy or methodology; it has been one of those schools of suspicion that the modern era has seen grow and prosper [so that] … If we put ourselves in the positivist perspective, concepts such as God or the soul simply lose meaning. In terms of sensory experience, in fact, nothing corresponds to God or the soul.3

Worldly people and Christians live in parallel realities. Because they live in different realities, they have different concepts of existence and nonexistence, truth and falsehood, good and evil, right and wrong, and matters of justice, purpose and morality. This makes evangelization in our day more difficult than ever. What is to be done about this chasm? As the saying goes, “If the mountain does not go to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain.” If the world does not appreciate Christians, might the Christians first seek to understand their sceptics’ worldview and modes of life?

The World’s Non-understanding of the Church God created the world, “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:25). However, as noted earlier, in Augustine’s terminology the world symbolizes the profane, unfriendly, and often antagonistic attitude toward Christ and Christianity. So, in this context under the term “world” we may consider approximately sixteen percent of Americans.4 Among these, as Hindson and Lancer5 describe them, are the sceptics who say: “I doubt that God exists,” the agnostic who offers: “I don’t know whether God exists,” and the atheist who proclaims: “I know that God does not exist.” Instead of discussing these well-known buzzwords of the few great—that is, most infamous—worldly people who, with Karl Marx, proclaim God to be the “opiate for the masses,” an “illusion” (Sigmund Freud), a “myth” (Friedrich Nietzsche), or “the God delusion” (Richard Dawkins), let us instead focus on the more numerous element. When we look at hypothetical agnostic in the street, we discern the difference between them and believers immediately. God’s people see the Church as a holy mystery, while worldly people notice only the worldly aspects of the Church. Where does this latter perspective come from? People of faith perceive every human life as infinitely worthy because it is created in God’s image and likeness. Therefore, striving to be worthy and living in union with God is deeply embedded in every believer’s heart, mind and soul. The world, on the contrary, perceives human life as nothing more than a natural happening and humans at best as highly developed moral animals.6 Perceiving themselves as such accidental—and ultimately meaningless—products of matter, sceptics proclaim the Christian

The World’s “Form of Living”

113

God unworthy of their attention, and suppressed in the subconscious mind He becomes, as noted, the “unconscious God.” God’s people cause a kind of uncertainty in non-believers. The flawless biblical Church is a living witness, revealing to its worldly contemporaries that it can accomplish exactly which sceptics think impossible—to live in communion with God. By reminding them of God, Jesus’ Church becomes a permanent annoyance as it again and again leads the world to recognize the futility of living as a pure natural product, with no purpose, and for nothing. In contrast to the scoffers, believers receive the gift of experiencing closeness to Jesus, giving them that biblical purpose, strength, courage and optimism the others lack. This unavoidably causes jealousy and the need for self-defence. Scoffers think, “If I can’t experience God’s goodness, then God’s people can’t either!” Therefore, prominent atheists proclaim faith to be an “opiate,” an “illusion” or a “delusion.” However, pathologizing faith and the people of God does not decrease the “suffering of [the sceptics’] ultimately meaningless life.”7 So, in their resentment against God, militant atheists attack the Church using every opportunity to reduce it to a mere institution. As the reader may recall, joining together the mutually exclusive, genuine “Churchly” with “nonChurchly” elements is what Hans Urs von Balthazar called integralism. Blended by integralism, opponents of the flawless Church do not differentiate between the two controversial ecclesial entities; they identify the Church and the non-Church. They throw out the baby with the bathwater and assail the Church on moral grounds, denying its holiness.

Scholastic theologians used an efficient moral argument to prove God’s existence, but atheists use a moral counter-argument to dispute the holiness of the Church. Unfortunately, this moral counter-argument has done more damage to Jesus’ Church than to the non-Church.

Suffering a Chronically Godless Life Maria Mendez reports that Sigmund Freud was once approached by a young lady who suffered from terminal cancer.8 She was devastated by her condition, and worried about the meaninglessness of her remaining short life. Upon listening to her cry Freud replied: “Ah, my dear young lady, you are making a big mistake; your life never had any meaning!” What is it like to live a meaningless life, long or short? The agnostics and the atheists are not more depressed and in general do not talk, joke, smile, or pretend to laugh any less than people of faith. They

114

Chapter Fourteen

are reasonably healthy, successful and positive. So, persons suffering a chronically godless life, as we could call it, still enjoy art, sports, parties, music, earning, and managing wealth and power. They take pleasure in luxuries and holidays and in food, drink, and merriment and, on the surface, live life to the fullest. But why then did we use the term suffering to characterize their lifestyle? It is because of the thing of great importance they are missing—the experience of God’s compassion, closeness and providence, the confidence of being safe, sure and taken care of by the almighty, eternal and ultimate love of Jesus. At the deepest level they feel themselves to be meaningless and—at the end of the day—insignificant products of nature. As natural happenings, atheists feel ultimately unlovable, unloved and unworthy. They live in the world, and of the world, beings not created for everlasting life, but coming from nowhere and headed for nothingness. This is what it means to suffer the chronically godless life. It is this condition, not only her cancer, that caused the desperation of the young lady in the story! The irresistible drive of instincts that push for preservation of life on one hand, and an awareness of life’s futility and meaninglessness on the other, place atheists between a rock and a hard place, causing what Sartre described as “angst, absurdity and estrangement.”9 To illustrate their mentality, let us discuss the example of the Lafargue couple recounted in my book The Mystery of Christian Faith.10 Paul Lafargue, the son-in-law of Karl Marx, committed suicide in 1911, leaving behind a letter saying (paraphrased): I am giving up my life as a healthy seventy-year-old man, before old age— which has taken away from me, one after the other, many pleasures and joys—can paralyze my energy, break my will, and make me a burden to others. As a young couple, my wife and I promised each other that we would not live beyond my current age… [I]n good time I have prepared a hypodermic of cyanide acid.

Was the writer of this letter, as he states, really a “healthy” person? His reasoning was rational and logical—his assessment of his reality (seen from the perspective of his form of life) was correct. But was he an optimistic, joyful and spiritually fit person? No, he certainly was not. Nothing is further from peace, joy, optimism and trust than a lifelong preparation for suicide. This is not the life we wish our children to have. The Lafargues—postmodern in many respects—suffered from what we, together with Viktor Frankl, would call existential distress. As Maria Mendez noted, while Freud related “sexual frustration” to the will to pleasure, and Alfred Adler related the “inferiority complex” to the

The World’s “Form of Living”

115

will to power, Frankl ascribed “existential frustration” to the will to meaning.11 According to the same author: “Existential frustration is a nagging feeling, which results from the frustration of the will to meaning. It is not the sign of a disease but rather of our humanity, as it alerts us to the relevance of a sense of meaning in life.” In those cases, “When the will to meaning is displaced by the will to pleasure, or the will to power, the result is self-defeating.” Expressed as a metaphor it is as if a boomerang thrown by a hunter in Australia missed its target but returned and struck the thrower. The Lafargue couple were obviously suffering a catastrophic malady that medicine could not treat—a purposefully forgotten Christian conscience, the chronically godless life. There is no more difficult question than how to evangelize people like the Lafargues. This may be the greatest challenge, but also the greatest opportunity for the Church in the twentyfirst century. Only a renewing Church can help reclaim the world.

Notes 1. Anthony Kenny, The Unknown God, Agnostic Essays (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), 199–201. 2. Ibid., 203. 3. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 33. 4. US Census Bureau, “Religious Composition of US Population,” Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2009, 128th Edition (Washington, DC: 2008), 58. 5. Ed Hindson and Ergun Caner, The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics, (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2008), 82. 6. Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, (New York: Random House-Pantheon Books, 1994). 7. Viktor E. Frankl, Suffering of Meaningless Life, (Presentation at Zurich, Limmat Stiftung, 1989), 1. 8. Maria Mendez, A Life with Meaning: Guide to the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 27. 9. Joseph Schwarz, Argumente fur Gottes Existenz (Eisenstadt: self-published, 1988), 89. 10. Srboljub Stoljiljkovic, Psihijatrija sa Medicinskom Psihologijom, (Beograd: Medicinskaknjiga, 1975), 160. 11. Mendez, A Life With Meaning, 64–65.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN RENEWING THE CHURCH TO TOUCH THE WORLD’S CONSCIENCE

Today, even highly regarded theologians like the Cardinal Ratzinger agree that, “there is no doubt that the Church gets tired.” He is not the first to realize such tiredness, heralding the dawn of a new renewal. As the same author describes, by the twelfth century the controversial theologian Joachim de Fiore thought of renewal that: “… the course of history would inevitably correspond to the threefold nature of the Trinity. From the age of the Father, the Old Testament, which was the period of a particular strictness of the Law, through the age of the Son, the period of the Church which is much gentler, to the age of the Holy Spirit, with an entirely new spiritual Church.”1 This new kind of spiritual Church among others would “bring about the reconciliation of East and West, the reconciliation of Jews and Christians and true freedom from the Law.”2 Furthermore, the Latin saying Ecclesia semper reformanda est tells us that the institutional Church, needs constant renewal. Cardinal Ratzinger stated a deep truth when he referred to the Church as “a company in constant renewal.”3 We may have the feeling that never was this need to renew more important or more difficult than it is today. What is to be done and, more exactly what can we do to renew apologetics, pastoral theology and ecclesiology so it can successfully evangelize the non-Church, as well as our religiously apathetic world?

What to Renew? The People of God are not blind, and they do not view everything occurring in the non-Church through rose-tinted glasses. They admit that the church you see (the Church as it phenomenological appears) is often represented by not-yet-perfect clerics and lay believers, and that the dark sides of their personalities would be no less difficult to erase from the church than from their personalities. What then can be done to renew such an institution? The greatest challenge to the biblical Church does not come from its

118

Chapter Fifteen

critics, nor even from proclaiming it to be an illusion or a delusion, etc., and not even attempting to eradicate Christianity as did Diocletian. It comes internally from the non-Church that weakens the Body of Christ’s moral authority. Attempts to preserve the illusion of its perfection can lead to a still worse problem—hypocrisy. Thanks to the progression of God’s kingdom, in our time hypocrisy is not as blatant as in Machiavellian Florence. The hypocrisy of the modern non-Church often appears in a different form; it is masked, grey, inconspicuous and hidden. Let me illustrate such grey hypocrisy with an example: A young German man—later my friend—decided to join the friars immediately after the end of World War II. His parents remained in East Germany while he moved to a seminary in West Germany. However, a few years later the iron curtain was raised, separating the two Germanys, and for the next thirty or more years the young friar lost every personal contact with his parents. In the meantime, his father died. In 1979 he unexpectedly received a letter informing him that his mother had received a passport and was going to visit him. Overjoyed, the friar went to his superior and asked if he could meet his mother. “You certainly can. You may stay with her for two minutes,” came the superior’s cool response. So after meeting her son for two minutes the mother returned to East Germany, and passed away soon after. The superior later explained his reasoning: “Seeing your mother longer than a few minutes would undermine your commitment to our vocation.” The friar understood the message—serving God stands above all worldly interests and obligations. He never doubted this. However, was cutting the mother’s visiting time to only two minutes really a genuine sign, instrument and a foretaste of God’s kingdom? The answer to this question is not black or white. In a grey hypocrisy there are many possible viewpoints, and many and different opinions can be logically justified. However, logic can be perfectly tailored to justify any and every deception, abuse or cruelty. On the contrary, love or holiness cannot, and need not, be proven by formal logic. Genuine morality is often not marked by logic, but by reasons of the heart. Jesus and his disciples did not use syllogisms or buzzwords to prove their love, rather proving it in their actions. A further characteristic of grey hypocrisy is that, seen from a legal perspective, everything seems impeccable. Only the love, which is the fulfilment of the law (Romans 13:8–10), is missing. Therefore it is easy to take a moral stance on the Bishop of Antigonish’s child abuse case where the law has been transgressed. However, it is difficult to take a stand in a case where no law but only love is disregarded. Often, the hypocrisy

Renewing the Church to Touch the World’s Conscience

119

replacing love is registered not so much by the logic of the perpetrators but in the hearts of the victims, empathetic bystanders and by a world sceptical of Jesus’ Church. Seemingly small and meaningless injustices may mistakenly seem almost harmless because they are not transgressing any law. However, they are anything but. The enormous quantity of grey hypocrisy does convert into a paramount qualitative threat, holding back the world in recognizing the biblical Church’s functioning as a sign, instrument and foretaste of God’s kingdom. The grey hypocrisy inevitably kills Christian conscience, encouraging the rejection of the Body of Christ. Accordingly, the constant renewal that cardinal Ratzinger talks about means a return to Jesus’ ideal of the Church—an institution utterly free of institutionalism and hypocrisy in any dilution. We are not the first to discern this need. As Peter Stravinskas noted: “Throughout the history of Christianity, ‘reformers,’ by whatever name, have aspired to return to the ‘early Church.’”4 However, is a return to the earliest Church’s ecclesiology realistically possible in our time? The early Church had many challenges such as withstanding persecution, defining the canon, and clarifying basic doctrinal questions. In facing its challenges it showed great strength. In many aspects the Church, as revealed in St. Luke’s Acts of the Apostles and St. Paul’s letters, was itself a sign of God’s Kingdom. This is what we so desperately need today. Although time cannot be set back and the primitive Church be institutionally restored, we can strive to revive its tradition and help it once again to be an eminent visible sign of God’s Kingdom. It would be a setback to restore its primordial structures, habits or theology. It would be almost impossible to live today in the way described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4:32– 37). But restoring and even surpassing the primordial Church’s biblical zeal—serving as an eminent sign, instrument and foretaste of God’s kingdom—is what constant renewal definitely requires. Evangelization is an example. It may have seemed simple in Constantine or Charlemagne’s time—their tool of choice was often coercion. However, as St. Dominic said when evangelizing the Albigensians, “You may destroy them, but you will never touch their hearts.”5 Real conversion is possible only by touching the heart of a sceptic or, more exactly, their conscience. We cannot return to merely singing Maranatha (“Come quickly, Lord”) as believers in Corinth did. Today, as then, the way of renewing the Church is enabling it to touch the world’s heart, soul and conscience. The first step may be to distinguish between the genuine Church—the Body of Christ—and the non-Church, both within and without church walls. Let us now focus on a difficult question—how

120

Chapter Fifteen

would this constant renewal unfold concretely?

The First Concern is Not to Repeat Past Mistakes As the Vatican II defined it, the Church is “in Christ as a sacrament.”6 Sacraments, as noted earlier, are established by Jesus as visible signs, of an invisible but nevertheless holy reality. So anything that causes estrangement from holiness contradicts Jesus’ intended nature of the Church. Holiness and sin are mutually exclusive. Jesus’ whole mission was focused on promoting holiness and fighting evil, proclaiming: If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed then that with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two feet be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” (Mark 9:43–48; Is. 66:24).

If for Jesus it was so important to fight sins, how can then sinners constitute the Church, the most holy and divine institution on Earth? Sinners (which all of us are) belong to Jesus’ Church not because of our sins, but despite them. All of us sinners belong to the flawless Church because of our faith, struggle against estrangement from God, and our repentance—that is, willingness to grow, change and exert an on-going effort to become holy and Jesus-like. In other words, we are members of the Church not because we are sinners, but because of our striving not to be. Belonging to the Church is gradual. The more the one grows in faith and commitment to Jesus and fights sin and estrangement from God, the more one belongs in the flawless biblical Church. Belonging to Jesus’ Church is neither formal nor unconditional. We also have the freedom to leave the Church and estrange ourselves from God. In this context, even the best Christians or greatest saints, like St Peter and Paul were not permanent members, but rather their so-called fundamental option of faith and discipleship proves their fidelity to Jesus’ Church. On the other hand, just as no saint’s life is completely holy, hopefully no sinner is completely estranged from God. Because of Jesus’ unconditional love, no sinner is able to completely sever his or her relationship with God. Despite sacrificing his life in the fight against sin, Jesus never excluded sinners from his Church. The Church is, as Schwarz noted, a “holy institution of sinners.”7

Renewing the Church to Touch the World’s Conscience

121

The above explains how and why sinners as persons are welcome members, but their sins are mortal enemies of the Church. However, because sinners unavoidably bring their sinful behaviours with them, behaviour patterns that are both “Churchly” and sinfully “non-Churchly” frequently appear side by side. How can this paradox be resolved? As Joseph Ratzinger notes: With the eyes of an artist, Michelangelo already saw in the stone that lay before him the pure image that, hidden within, was simply waiting to be uncovered. The artist’s only task—so it seemed to him—was to remove what covered the statue.8

We noted that sins are not integrated “inside,” but exist (despite occurring in same space time and institution) “beside” the Church. Could we then, in a thought experiment imitating Michelangelo, identify institutionalism and somehow purge it, leaving only the genuine holiness of the visible Church? This is suggested in Fig.15.1 below. Fig. 15.1 Institutionalism is not “inside” but “beside” the Church

As noted, the Church and the non-Church’s destiny is interconnected more than the destiny of monozygotic twins. Metaphorically, the weeds and the wheat grow together, but there is a negative correlation between them, and between the Biblical Institution and institutionalism, holiness and sin. The Church and the non-Church are mutually exclusive. Typical institutionalism, placed on the left and shaded, progressively decreases moving from left to right. As suggested by the many segments of the upper triangle, there are numerous steps between extreme non-Church institutionalism and achievement of a genuine biblical Church institution. The separation between institutionalism and biblical institution is flimsy, marked only by

122

Chapter Fifteen

Christian morality and conscience. Since people of faith are not free from temptations and sins, even committed Christians crisscross this metaphorical border, their behaviour, as noted, resembling members of the non-Church. Even pillars of the Church like Peter and the apostles made metaphorical excursions from the Church into the non-Church and returned with bitter tears in their eyes. How can we decrease this “border traffic” replenishing the non-Church with members of the Church? The Church, as we have seen, has the paradoxical task of accepting sinners while fighting against their sins.Could we then figuratively extract the flawed institution and leave only the biblical institution of the true biblical Church? Heretical and schismatic movements in the past almost always attempted to clean the non-Church externally, as in the above thought experiment. But one cannot cut out the spoiled part of the apple and eat the rest, i.e. cut out non-Churchly, hypocritical, institutional aspects in the hope that what remains will be the genuine biblical community. Just as it impossible for human effort to excise a person’s sinful, human motives and behaviours, it is similarly impossible to cut out un-Churchly patterns from the Church. More importantly, again as noted, Jesus did not excommunicate, expel or cut out sinners from his community. It would contradict the purpose of his Church, being salvation for all. Overcoming institutionalism requires a different approach—to cut out sins, but retain sinners.

Renewing the Church by Expunging Sins While Retaining Sinners To a proposal like expunging sins while retaining sinners, a devil’s advocate would object, “Let us be realistic! Can we really separate sinful members of the Church from their sins?” Yes, we can! We cannot legally, physically, or bodily separate sinners from their sins. It is not possible aggressively, externally, in the flesh or surgically, to cut out sin from the institutional Church—something schismatics have historically attempted. But what we cannot do externally, we can do internally—psychologically and spiritually. Let me explain what I mean. Just as persons are not static, but have the responsibility to grow in community with Jesus, so belonging to the Church does not involve clearcut, logical, black and white alternatives—not everything is either/or. Membership in Jesus’ Church, as noted, is not only a fact completed by baptism or by physically belonging to the ecclesial institution, but much

Renewing the Church to Touch the World’s Conscience

123

more importantly, it psychologically requires a fundamental personal choice, followed by a spiritual growth—an on-going and never-ending dynamic and gradual growth in a progressive spiral. It is a believers’ personally journey toward the right end of the previous diagram with greater and greater determination, stepping through the “Gateway to Jesus” (John 10:1–10). Being a member of the “… the pillar and foundation of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15), is a goal which can never be fully achieved in this life. Nobody is a faith guru. However, the more true believers—not those who merely say “Lord, Lord!”—gradually psychologically and spiritually, with the help of the Holy Spirit—become genuine people of God, the more the non-Church itself gradually evolves from institutionalism into the biblical and visible body Jesus intended it to be. We cannot externally clean the non-Church as schismatics have historically attempted, but we can internally (i.e. psychologically and spiritually) transform the institution to approximate ever more closely what it ought to be. A biblical position avoids that of the extreme rigorists who say, “Where the Church is, there is no sin, and where sin is, there is no Church,” as well as the extremely lax integralism, i.e. those who accept human failings in a divine institution as a normal consequence of the Church’s clasping sinners to its bosom. The Scriptures in John 16:8 report Jesus’ words: “When He comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.” In other translations the Holy Spirit convinces the world, and causes the world to convict itself according to the criteria of Jesus’ love. The Holy Spirit reveals and enables us to understand the fullness of love—Jesus’ teaching—and to discern whatever in the non-Church is contrary to that teaching. In His ultimately loving work the Spirit fully persuades us to give up everything that is contrary to Jesus’ teaching. It enables us to distinguish clearly between things that are holy and Churchly and those that are non-Churchly and merely institutional. God’s people must ask daily for the Holy Spirit’s help in cutting out the fruits of institutionalism in their own personalities and behaviour so that the non-Church will evolve from an organized religion into the company planned by God.

Discussion The theologian Bruno Tarnay compares the mystery of the Church to the mystery of Christ’s personality.9 He notes that the Scriptures talk about the divine and human nature of Jesus without exactly defining it. The essence of the Christological question is how could both divine and human natures co-exist in Jesus? In the monophysite (“one nature”), Eutyches thought

124

Chapter Fifteen

that Jesus had only one nature, a divine one, and that His human nature was completely engulfed by the divine. Nestorians (followers of the theologian Nestorius) on the other hand thought that in Jesus were two different persons—hypostases—a human and a divine. It took almost four centuries (until the Council of Chalcedon in 451) to conclude that Jesus had one person in which two natures (divine and human) are neither separated nor mixed. Similar to the discussions of the Christological mystery by ancient theologians, the dilemma has reappeared in modern ecclesiology. One extreme position, which Tarnay calls “ecclesial monophysitism,” perceives the Church only as divine and perfect, clean of human imperfection. The other extreme, ecclesial Nestorianism, perceives the Church as a “merger” of divine holiness and flawed human elements. However, according to Tarnay, “God’s plan of salvation includes inseparable and [unmixed] divine and human elements.” He concludes: “The institutional Church has to be seen and loved, as it is, in its oneness and fullness of divine and human reality.” Question: Aren’t we promoting ecclesial monophysitism when talking about a flawless Church, or perhaps tending even more toward Nestorianism by holding that the holy Church and the Luciferian non-Church may appear side by side in the same institution? Answer: As Tarnay explains, the Church “includes both divine and human elements that remain inseparable and non-mixed.” This is taking place in countless “inseparable and unmingled” expressions of divine and human love in the biblical institutionalized Church. However, there certainly are situations where humanity and divinity are not inseparable and unmingled. It would not be practical to apply Tarnay’s inseparable and non-mixed formula, for example, to explain the hypocrisy of the Bishop of Antigonish mentioned in the preface. In this case, as in many other issues of the nonChurch’s history, the model in which we figuratively compared the ecclesial institution to a slice of the Swiss cheese may be more accurate. The physical cheese, as the reader may recall, represented the holiness of the Church, while the non-cheese, i.e. the bubbles of air, represented the flawed institution of the non-Church. Similarly, ecclesial institutions in any historical situation contain both genuine holiness and institutionalism. Figuratively speaking, the primitive Christian community contained an abundance of cheese (holiness) and only a small quantity of air bubbles (hypocrisy). Inversely, the Renaissance institution contained only a bit of cheese (flawlessness) but a lot of air (hypocrisy). Apparently, sin and holiness are never inseparable and non-mixed. Christians’ task is to permanently distinguish these two mutually exclusive entities, and in ecclesial institutions as well. The empirical and biblical ideas of the

Renewing the Church to Touch the World’s Conscience

125

Church are not quite yet synonymous. They will not be interchangeable until the fulfilment of God’s kingdom is accomplished at the end of times, at Jesus’ second coming. That the flawed institution still contains clearly identifiable air bubbles, and is not yet what it should be, will only encourage our struggle to make it purer, more biblical, and holier, as Jesus intended His Church to be. Q: As Tarnay states, the mystery of Jesus’ personality is, in a sublime way, replicated in the Church. Where are the limits of comparing the mystery of the person of Christ, and the mystery of the Church, i.e., Christology and ecclesiology, and what are the behavioural differences between Jesus’ personality and the ecclesial institutions? A: The divine and human natures in Jesus’ personality were inseparable and not mixed. However, they were ultimately synchronized. That is to say, Jesus’ human personality, flawless and undefiled by sin, was perfectly synchronized with his divinity. Origen called him Theanthropos, emphasizing Jesus’ nature as an absolutely holy “Godman.” Biblical Church institutions genuinely reflect Jesus’ unflawed personality. However, the non-Church is tainted with institutionalism; it is far from being Christ-like. It appears then—as Cardinal von Balthasar called it—“Luciferian.” Q. As noted, the Church appears to many Christians as a fusion of God’s holiness and human imperfection. She is not yet completed. Is the Church being incomplete the reason for her imperfection? A. The Church is not yet completed because she did not yet fulfil her purpose, that of successfully witnessing God’s kingdom all around the planet Earth, including the non-Church. In other words, the Church is lacking completion not because she is allegedly flawed, but because she did not yet fully accomplish her mission. Accepting the Church as a “fusion” of holiness and sin would mean what we called integralism, and more importantly would contradict the biblical descriptions and selfdefinition of the Church as a “Visible continuum of Christ’s ministry.” Q: What does it mean that “the Church has to be seen and loved, as it is, in its oneness, its fullness of both divine and human (i.e. holy and sinful) reality?” A: Christians have many reasons to be thankful to Jesus for his holy Church, seen and loved, as it is, in its oneness, its fullness of both divine and human reality. However can we also love the Luciferian non-Church, in which inquisition and child abuse scandals repeatedly occur, exactly in same way as Jesus’ Church? Theologically, love means God-like behaviour. Jesus’ love is unselfishly, actively and efficiently helpful. Accordingly, loving the ecclesial institution

126

Chapter Fifteen

would be to help it shed its institutionalism, whilst simultaneously seeing it and loving it as it ought to be in its struggle for oneness, and its desire for a fullness of both Godliness and human reality. All this is so that that we hope the non-Church will become a visible institution that authentically reflects Jesus’ biblical expectations of love. With God’s help, what Tarnay calls the “human reality,” and the non-Church itself, are called to constantly transcend their inclinations and manifest the biblical reality of the Church. There is one way to achieve this—through a Holy Spirit inspired, fearless, inward searching self-analysis, followed by perpetual self-assessment. In this way, God’s people may purify not only themselves, but also existing ecclesial institutions. By these processes, the visible Church is gradually shaping Christians to become like another Christ, and the people of God are gradually shaping the institution, the organized religions and even the non-Church to become the Church—the Bride of Christ. Never since Constantine’s times have the church and the non-Church been so close to this purpose as they have since Vatican II.

Notes 1. Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World; A Conversation with Peter Sewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 361–362. 2. Peter M. J. Stravinskas in Kenneth D. Whitehead: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), cover sheet. 3. Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 133. 4. Stravinskas, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, cover sheet. 5. Mary Jean Dorcy, Saint Dominic (Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books and Publishers, 1982), 13. 6. Austin Flannery, Vatican Council II - Volume I: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Northport, New York: Costello Publishing, 1992), 799–800. 7. Joseph Schwarz, Argumente fur Gottes Existenz (Eisenstadt, Austria: selfpublished, 1988), 67. 8. Ratzinger, Called to Communion, 140. 9. Bruno Tarnay, Jezus Krisztus Isten Kinyilatkoztatasa (Budapest: Pazmany Peter Romai Katolikus Hittudomanyi Akademia Levelezo Tagozata, 2001), 81–83.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN CAN THE CHURCH ARTICULATE NEW REASONS TO BELIEVE?

The catechism states: “When he listens to his conscience, the prudent man can hear God speaking.”1 However, sceptics like the Lafargues did not hear God’s speaking; the sceptic world needs new reasons to believe.

Bygone Trust versus Modern Scepticism Even prehistoric people, not unlike animals, reacted only to what they could see with their eyes, but they organized information about the world into a meaningful context, befitting their cultural level. Such attempts at organization are reflected in the paintings found in caves like that of Altamira and Lascaux (in Spain and France respectively). But according to Paul Johnson, “Stone Age people did not live in caves, except occasionally in cave mouths or natural rock shelters. All the major artistic sites we have found were special places, not human habitations.”2 We may therefore ask: “Special places for what?” According to Arnold Hauser, our Stone Age ancestors who lived some two hundred thousand years ago appreciated only the visible and the touchable.3 A successful hunt, however, had to be planned, that is to say abstracted. By depicting the killing of painted animals, hunters could better understand their roles during a planned hunt. But rituals, according to Johnson, enacted by the light of “flickering torches bringing to life these fine representations with their deep colours out of the surrendering darkness, induced a sense of wonder and reverence.” They “provided the impetus for men and women to lay the foundations of theories of life, and of the universe.”4 So, the first magic religious practices, and much later in the Neolithic Age (some hundred and fifty thousand years later) the first animistic concepts of gods were born. Since those ancient times the search for gods and later for God has been essential to humanity, and it is deeply embedded in the human soul, brain and mind. With the exception of a few antique materialist philosophers, even as late as the seventeenth century,

128

Chapter Sixteen

humans interpreted their experience of the world by symbolically displaying a spiritual reality. For example, people of the Middle Ages widely believed that God’s angels were pushing the sun as it circled the earth, and that literally everything revolved around, and existed for, the sake of the human race, who saw themselves at the centre of creation. This astronomically naive worldview hinted at a basic experiential concept—God’s Providence. We may say that medieval theology and faith was very clearly reflected in the astronomy of the Middle Ages. The introduction of Galileo’s ideas in 1632 meant the end of such an apologetic. Natural laws replaced God’s angels, and such naive religiosity slowly disappeared. But scholastics were motivated (or called) as early as six hundred years before Galileo to discover not only symbolic, but logical and rational reasons to believe. One of the first attempts was St. Anselm’s “ontological argument.” Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109) posited, according to Frederick Copleston, in his ontological argument that: “God is that than which no greater can be thought: But that than which no greater can be thought must exist, not only mentally, in idea, but also extra-mentally: Therefore God exists not only in idea, mentally, but also extramentally.”5 He explains further: “This proof starts from the idea of God as that than which no greater can be conceived.” However, “if such a being had only ideal reality, existed only subjectively, we could still conceive a greater being, namely a being which did not exist in our idea but in objective reality.” This greater being is God. St. Anselm proved God’s existence logically. But how many people in your community actually know about the ontological argument or were converted by this proof? Our contemporaries are neither interested in nor convinced by St. Anselm’s logic, nor any other philosophical proofs. But why does metaphysical theology possess so little traction in our time? As August Comte (1798–1857) described it, human thought evolved through three steps: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive.6 In the theology of the Antique Period and the Middle Ages, humankind sought “the ultimate causes of events and found them in the wills of personal superhuman beings or in the will of one such being.”7 In a later period, the Enlightenment, metaphysical philosophizing replaced theology and saw a transformation of personal deities or of God into impersonal abstractions such as force, attraction or repulsion. Nowadays positivism typically recognizes only visible, touchable and measurable facts. As Copleston noted:

Can the Church Articulate New Reasons to Believe?

129

Here there is no attempt to find ultimate explanatory causes or to discuss the “real” but unobservable inner essence of things. The mind concerns itself with phenomena or observed facts, which it subsumes under general descriptive laws, such as the law of gravitation. These coordinating descriptive laws make prediction possible.8

We live in an age that fulfils Comte’s predictions. In our time it is not eternal truth but collective opinion created and manipulated by mass media that becomes the criterion of progress and knowledge, right and wrong, good and evil and of being and non-being. Such illogical logic upsets religion, just as Galileo’s discoveries disturbed the religiosity of the Middle Ages. Our positivist contemporaries have no trust in speculation and metaphysics. God has become for agnostics such as Freud “at the same time impossible to prove or reject.”9 He may be right. Faith is not about scientific proofs or disproofs at all. However, let us answer Freud’s controversy with Frankl’s words: The question is: “Is existence nothing but a mass of nonsense or a mass of ultimate meaning?” This question cannot be answered by the natural sciences alone. It cannot be answered at all; it is a completely unsolvable problem—rather, it must be decided. All being is ambiguous: both interpretations—the “nonsense” and the “ultimate meaning”—are possible. Both are thinkable: that being is total nonsense, and that it is total ultimate meaning; both these are indeed two “thinkables,” two thought possibilities, and not thought necessities. With respect to the decision we are called upon to make, there is no logical coercion; in no way are we logically forced, or logically obliged, to decide for one or the other. Both interpretations are of equal logical status. Logically there is as much which speaks for the one interpretation as for the other. The equal status of the two answers—one the “absolute nonsense” and the other “absolute ultimate meaning” forces responsibility upon the respondent. He is not only faced with a question— he is faced with a decision. What he must perform is not the intelligere, not a factual realization—but rather a personal commitment.10

Frankl is right: faith is about an internal commitment which acts like a self-fulfilling prophecy, enabling us—if our faith is correct—to discern what we believe, and its realization, externally. The crucial question is how can God’s people use these psychological and epistemological insights in evangelization? By which new reasons to believe could the Church serve the world in overcoming both internal moral nihilism and external positivism?

130

Chapter Sixteen

The Paramount Power of Internal Experience In 1912, John B. Watson launched a new school in psychology called “behaviourism.” The purpose of radical behaviourists like Watson was to exclude introspection and to base psychology solely on visible, touchable and measurable, empirical data. However, St. Paul in I Corinthians 2:13 and in II Corinthians 1:12 writes about his own, personal, non-sensorial, not scientifically researchable communication, “in spiritual words about spiritual truths,” of the “holiness and sincerity that are from God,” and about acting “not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.” Positivists like Watson appreciate only external and sensory data. By contrast, St. Paul recognizes the value of internal recognition. Watson and St. Paul appreciated different types of recognition and subsequently they apprehended different truths. The external reality solely relevant to positivists is experienced scientifically and on a sensory level, and can be measured in pounds, inches and seconds. The internal reality that people experience inside themselves such as feelings, thoughts, or purpose cannot be known to external observers, unless the subject reveals them as St. Paul does in his writing. Such revelation may occur verbal-logically, or behaviourally. Our behaviour reveals our internal reality more convincingly than our words. In living Jesus’ lifestyle St Paul demonstrated the veracity of his internally recognized truths, things appreciated. “....not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace” (2 Corinthians 1; 12). Internally experienced reality and truth are extremely powerful not only as manifest in St. Paul, but in every Homo sapiens’ emotional, logical and even epistemological reasoning. For those in love, their internal experience, although it is intangible, outweighs any empirical-scientific data. It suggests there is no reality more important than their internally experienced truth—that they are in love. The same is also true for guilt, low self-esteem and suicidal risk. A suicidal patient cannot be helped by saying: “Ah, forget your suicidal ideas! They are only your introspection and not a positive fact!” Factually, as long as the patient introspectively experiences the gap between how it is, and how it ought to be, guilt, low self-esteem and suicidal risk are real and there is no way to scientifically dismiss them. Internal experience supersedes even scientific evidence. Frankl describes his experiences in a concentration camp: As we said before, any attempt to restore man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal …Whenever there was a an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why—an aim—for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence.

Can the Church Articulate New Reasons to Believe?

131

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments is “I have nothing to expect from life anymore.”11

Such internal recognition, the will to live, to grow, transcend, and become Jesus-like, is what motivates the people of God. The faith of the primordial Church needed no scientific, logical or theological proof such as those of St. Anselm because it was based on internal evidence. Faith, feeling and knowing the Holy Spirit’s gifts made the Corinthian community sing Maranatha, and fundamentally renewed Jesus’ disciples (Eph. 4:23). They were transformed into God’s children (Romans 8:16), and were enabled to be one in the spirit of Jesus (I Corinth. 6:17). Now, unlike the original Church, we are living in a time of positivism, scepticism and scientism that deny the witness of internal experience. What then, can be done? The answer depends on whether we can substantiate the believer’s internal experiences as really credible, reliable and trustworthy, both evident and paramount. Let me clarify what I mean with an example. In his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II explains that although our information about reality is primarily sensory, nevertheless: We know, in fact, that man not only knows colours, tones and forms; he knows objects globally—for example, not only all the parts that comprise the object “man” but also man in himself (yes, man as a person). He knows, therefore, extrasensory truth, or in other words, the trans-empirical … It is therefore possible to speak from a solid foundation about human experience, moral experience, or religious experience. And if it is possible to speak of such experiences, it is difficult to deny that, in the realm of human experience, one also finds good and evil, truth and beauty, and God.12

The credibility of believers’ paramount internal experience, the transempirical knowing of God that Pope John Paul II talks about, depends in the eyes of the world, on how plausible the epistemology (i.e. the theory of knowledge) of such recognition is. If we can help worldly people—even those like Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche or Richard Dawkins—to appreciate hearing, knowing, and experiencing their own conscience, soul and the Spirit’s call, as real, credible, reliable and trustworthy as well as evident and paramount, then this may be the first step in their search for God. What the world needs is for sceptics to be helped to appreciate the paramount power of their own internal evidence— evidence of being spiritual creatures, created in God’s image.

132

Chapter Sixteen

We will make only one terminological modification—the Greek prefix “trans” means “through.” In this book we will, however, rather use the prefix “meta,” meaning “beyond.” By this we emphasize that “metaempirical” means deeper, beyond sensory, positive or scientific facts.

Reasons to Believe Formulated in Internal Meta-Empirical Language Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” But, what substantiates certainty of what we believe but do not see? The Catechism explains: “Conscience is man’s most secret core, and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depth.”13 The seamless teleological (goal oriented and purposeful) integration of the spirit, soul, conscience and mind was discussed earlier. Conscience, as noted, has a special role in substantiating the certainty of what we believe but do not see. But how and through which psychological functions does echoing God’s voice in Christian’s conscience happen exactly? Let us summarize in a few paragraphs how humankind’s greatest thinkers have wrestled with this mystery for thousands of years—the mystery of how the finite human mind communicates with the infinite God. St. Augustine (354–430) was the first amongst great Christian philosophers who sought “to understand the relationship between faith and reason.”14 Augustine’s motto was Credo ut Intelligam (I think so that I may believe). According to Hindson and Caner, his basis for belief was, “of course the canonical Scriptures as well as the ‘the rule of faith’ that was handed down through the creeds of the early Church,” supplemented by his own personal experience of God gained by introspection.15 Thus Augustine formulated the first valid explanation of how recognition of God occurs in the mind of the believer. He described introspection—an insight of paramount importance in both profane and theological reasoning. Augustine posited “proof from within,”16 made possible by the “certain knowledge which the mind has by itself,” which then makes it possible to recognize God.17 Accordingly “man gains knowledge of God and his soul by looking inward, not by examining the outside world.”18 Seeing God with inward-looking eyes, i.e. introspectively, supports the statement of St. Anselm, the great Scholastic philosopher, offered six hundred years later: “faith precedes reasoning.”19 The area where introspection is irrelevant is mathematics. It may be surprising that the great mathematician Blaise Pascal,20 some six hundred years after St. Anselm, made the next breakthrough by asserting: “The

Can the Church Articulate New Reasons to Believe?

133

metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from men’s reasoning, and so complicated, that they have little effect … the mysteries of faith surpass the reach of the human reason.”21 This explains why sceptics, if logically compelled to acknowledge God’s existence, will afterwards have the feeling that they were somehow deceived, and their resistance will reappear exponentially multiplied.22 Obviously “the heart has reasons which the reason does not understand.”23 One can only conclude that faith is pre-logical; it precedes, and is more powerful than, logic. Existentialists like Frankl, the founder of the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy (the first was Sigmund Freud’s, the second Alfred Adler’s), implicitly followed St. Augustine’s pathway. According to one account, a young psychiatrist—convinced that every human behaviour pattern is explicable in terms of neurological functions of the brain—challenged Frankl to show him a soul under the microscope. Frankl asked if the need to see a soul were a spiritual or a somatic one. “Indeed, it is a spiritual need,” responded the challenger. Frankl replied, “Would it then be possible for me to show this spiritual ‘have to’ under a microscope?” Instead, Frankl focused on the unique human phenomenon revealed in the title of his book Man’s Search for Meaning.24 As Maria Mendez explains, for Frankl, “the Philosophy of Meaning of Life starts with the basic conviction that … ‘life has unconditional meaning, which cannot vanish under any circumstance’.”25 As matter of fact the human condition as characterized by a permanent search for meaning may not always be available to our human perception and to our comprehension— it is foreknowledge. Where does this foreknowledge come from? Pursuit of meaning is an authentic spiritual need, which is not possible to reduce to, or deduce from, neurological or mental functions. For Frankl, conscience is an organ to find meaning (a “Sinn Organ” in German) that motivates humans to pursue “ultimate meaning”—God,26 substantiating the certainty of what we believe but do not see. We may observe through the works of all three (and countless authors not mentioned here) the development of the same idea through distinct historical periods, such as the experience of the meta-empirical recognition —the kind that goes beyond sensory recognition. The Scriptures use metaphorical descriptions. Concerning their Emmaus Road experience, the disciples said, “Did not our hearts burn within us?” (Luke 24:32); Thomas cried out, “My Lord and God!” (John 20:29); there is blessedness for “those who have not seen and yet believe” (John 20:29); and St. Paul sees with “internal eyes” (I Cor. 2:13; II Cor. 1:12). These are all examples of something Comte, Watson and Russell could never have seen with their external eyes. Listening to the meta-empirical language helps us understand

134

Chapter Sixteen

Copleston’s conclusion that the mind can see, “from within, and that by internal reflection alone it can come to know the truth of the proposition that God exists.”27 The way of recognition described by Augustine, Pascal, Frankl and others is the internal language of conscience. Although outwardly unheard, it internally directed apostles, disciples and saints, and it still influences the faith of the Church. It makes non-sensory recognition more prominent and evident than the sensory or scientific. To answer the question raised in the chapter title: yes, now that we understand how and through which meta-empirical psychological functions the echoing of God’s voice in Christian’s conscience and mind happens, the people of God can articulate new reasons to believe. The positivist postmodern world needs to hear such meta-empirically articulated calls of God in the way that the world of Jesus’ day needed “the voice of one, calling in the wilderness” (Luke 3:4).

Notes 1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, (Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994), 377. 2. Paul Johnson, Art—A New History (London: W&N/The Orion Publishing Group, 1994), 9. 3. Arnold Hauser, Socijalna Istorija Umetnosti I Knizevnosti (Beograd: Kultura, 1966), 46–48. 4. Johnson, Art—A New History, 13. 5. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philsophy, Volume II (Garden City, New York: Image/ Doubleday, 1985), 162. 6. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philsophy, Volume IX (Garden City, New York: Image/ Doubleday, 1985), 76. 7. Copleston, History of Philsophy, Volume II, 78. 8. Ibid., 79. 9. Wilhelm Bitter, Psychotherapie und Religiose Erfahrung (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1965), 63. 10. Maria Mendez, A Life with Meaning: Guide to the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 22. 11. Mendez, A Life With Meaning, 27. 12. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 33–34. 13. Catechism, 380. 14. Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encylopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 60. 15. Edward E. Hindson and Ergun M. Caner, The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2008), 90. 16. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philsophy, Volume IV (Garden City, New York: Image/ Doubleday, 1985), 158.

Can the Church Articulate New Reasons to Believe?

135

17. Frederick Copleston, A History of Philsophy, Volume I (Garden City, New York: Image/ Doubleday, 1985), 4. 18. Arthur Hyman and James J. Walsh, Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 16. 19. Mikail Jarosevskij, Istoria Psihologii (Moskva: Izdateljstvo Misl, 1966), 198. 20. Copleston, History of Philsophy, Volume IV, 158. 21. Ibid., 160. 22. Ferenc Szabo, Ember es Vilaga (Rome: Self-published, 1969), 212–216. 23. Copleston, History of Philsophy, Volume IV, 164. 24. Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, Revised and Enlarged (New York: Washington Square Press, 1984). 25. Mendez, A Life With Meaning, 22. 26. Viktor E. Frankl, Antropologische Grundlagen der Psychoterapie (Wien: Hans Huber, 1976), 21. 27. Copleston, A History of Philsophy, Volume IV, 319.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE “THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE” OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

In their liturgy, prayers and preaching, the people of God use ideas, terminology, logic, language and a “theory of knowledge” that often appear strange to the world. Now we know why—because faith is not a sensory or scientific recognition process, but is above all an internally experienced, meta-empirical dialogue between God and humans. What are the logic, epistemology and psychology of that communication?

Introduction to Meta-Empirical Logic Sensory scientific recognition, as used in engineering and medicine, serves everyday survival and well-being. Science answers the how questions of life such as “How is a house built?” It is impersonal, unbiased, and objective. By contrast, what we experience meta-empirically deals with less tangible matters such as hope, love and optimism. It helps us to discern values, meaning and purpose, and answer questions such as “Why live at all?” Answering “how” is usually easier then deciding “why.” Think of the question—“Why keep living when suffering an untreatable illness?” Such answers are crucial since, as Frankl notes: “He who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how.”1 In other words, a person who has a strong purpose—like a mother in childbirth—will overcome almost any pain or suffering. On the contrary, one who has no “why” for living finds most difficulties in life unbearable. The answer to why we live determines how we live. It made the difference between St. Peter’s and Stalin’s lifestyles. Non-believers typically over-value how, while the biblical Church is more focused on why—on God, the ultimate meaning of life. While sensory-scientific standards are objective and the same for everyone, meta-empirical cognition must be done by the individual. Despite being so personal, the meta-empirical is neither arbitrary nor illogical. If we could successfully deceive ourselves at will, King David

138

Chapter Seventeen

wouldn’t have repented, Judas wouldn’t have committed suicide, and nobody would be disappointed, divorced, disenchanted or sad. What then are the standards that enable us to differentiate between true and false, right and wrong, success and failure, in meta-empirical recognition? In contrast to sensory-scientific recognition which is based mostly on the senses and logic, meta-empirical recognition is holistic. For example, let us discuss a typical meta-empirical recognition: that of love. The whole personality, including reasoning and logic, as well as feelings, instincts, conscience, will, and all other mental functions, participates in facilitating the internal experience that “I love.” Sensory-scientific recognition is onedimensional, linear, black and white—yes or no. It is an event—a happening with a beginning and an end. But meta-empirical recognition, like love, is a process where the trend is more important than a mere snapshot. It involves reciprocity, e.g. love gives joy, and joy in love helps one give and receive more love. The ongoing increase of lasting joy confirms the meaningfulness, reliability and veracity of love. Psychologically, the meta-empirical evidence of love turns in circles—the more a loving person loves, the more bliss, trust and optimism he or she introspectively experiences. And vice versa—the more joy, purpose and strength such a person experiences, the more he or she is able to love. So, love is the reason for elation, and elation proves love, while the permanent increase—the crescendo—of love and elation proves the meaningfulness of this cherished meta-empirical experience. Only truth in “throwing one’s existential weight on the right and correct side of the scale” (to paraphrase Frankl) will be corroborated by joy and confirmed as meaningful. Joy is not an arbitrary criterion—we receive joy, but cannot arbitrarily cause it. Just as we do not arbitrarily choose but only acknowledge the rules of logic, so are we unable to arbitrarily cause and receive joy, acknowledging only the right reasons. As we reject the illogical in scientific recognition, so we reject meaninglessness and joylessness in meta-empirical epistemology (as in love); meta-empirical logic is meaning-orientated, and validated by joy. Accordingly, the internal dynamics of genuine love are joyful—joy proves love, and love causes joy. The same is true of faith; faith causes biblical joy, peace and love, and biblical joy proves genuine faith.

The Mystery of Jesus’ Love Meditating on the conclusions of the previous section we may discern a paradox. We know from experience that joy proves love, and love causes joy. However, love does not prevent suffering. On the contrary, did Jesus exactly suffer the most because he loved the most ?

The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God

139

Pondering this question, let us keep in mind that there is an essential difference between Jesus’ and our self-centred human psychological functioning. In everyday human beings when dialectical polarities (like love and pain) are experienced at the same time, the balance between them, or the “bliss balance,” is decisive. In worldly people’s love, as long as the bliss balance in a relationship is positive, the relationship can be saved and sustained despite all setbacks, doubts and disappointments. On the other hand, joyless love and loveless joy are probably the most common reasons for disappointment in love, and the traffic sign to divorce amongst postmodern religious indifferent persons. We may abstract—nonChristian love is self-centred, in a sense that its intensity and extensity is proportionate to the pleasure or happiness it grants. Jesus’ love was very different. Theologically, his love is the reason for his suffering and redemptive self-sacrifice. Psychologically, he was even accepting suffering for the sake of those whom it was unpleasant to love at all. He was suffering also of a rejected love. His love was refused, and could not convert the hearts of those he so loved. he gave even his life for them so that they might become citizens of his kingdom. Jesus was suffering from a “helpless love.” Maybe only parents whose children go astray despite all their efforts can understand the pain of such helpless love. This explains why it was Jesus “who [had] loved the most, has suffered the most” and why Christians exemplarily imitation of Jesus’ love describe similar feelings. There is however, also a flipside of the coin, that being the mystery of Christian joy despite suffering. From many biblical descriptions, it appears that joy despite of all sufferings is a unique characteristic of all people of God; from the first disciples of Christ to these witnessing Jesus’ ascension into heaven, everyone is joyful. We understand the reason for joy of the cherubim’s glorifying God in the heaven. However what makes those faithful people, future martyrs of the early Church, content no matter what horrors await them? Psychologically it is not the pain but the perceived meaninglessness of suffering that causes agony in worldly people. To paraphrase Frankl, the predicament is not so much that we have to suffer, but “that we do not know why” we suffer; it’s meaninglessness that makes the greatest part of suffering. True Christians never suffer from meaninglessness. On the contrary, Christians who have an ultimate “why to live for [and], can bear with almost any how.”2 Despite all suffering, the bliss balance in Christians (if they are genuinely Christian) is always positive, and the biblical joy in people of faith “surpasses all human understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Striving to commonly fulfil a

140

Chapter Seventeen

Divine meaning and purpose grants Christian individuals, couples and communities a biblical joy stronger than setbacks, disappointments or suffering. As when the disciples left the “Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name” (Acts 5:41), Jesus’ divine purpose surpasses all understanding in its power to manage the joy of genuine Christians. Such biblical joy despite all suffering is a significant psychological difference between the people of God and the world.

The Obstacle to Evangelization: Worldly Pleasure and Happiness Compete with Godly Joy As Michelangelo wrote, “The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”3 Paradoxically the greatest enemy of bliss is achieving it. This is because bliss is not a permanent state of mind, but requires continuing change and progression. New and more powerful reasons are required to replace outdated and stale ones. Colloquially we may discuss all sources of delight in three categories. (1) Happiness has its sources in satisfaction of social instincts, such as power, possessions, influence, riches, popularity, luxury—all proving one’s social position. In this there is a paradox. The more success, wealth and popularity one has already achieved, the harder it is to increase these proportionately. Eventually none of the sources of happiness can be sufficiently increased and they unavoidably become deflated. For example, purchasing a humble house brings greater happiness to a needy family than purchasing an eleventh castle would give billionaires. For magnates like the Medici brothers, the richer they became, the more difficult it was for them to proportionately increase their satisfaction based on wealth. Such Renaissance tycoons were punished by being required to pursue unachievable goals, always needing to have just a little bit more. (2) Pleasure finds its source in the satisfaction of vital instincts. These include pleasure in working, eating, drinking, resting, or sex. But pleasure also has natural boundaries. Obesity will limit the pleasure gained from eating, drunkenness from drinking, satiety from sex, and boredom the enjoyment found in even the most luxurious holidays. Endless celebrations, parties, drinking, and eating elegant food among the young nobles of Assisi could not give the young

The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God

141

Francis lasting pleasure. He must have felt its meaninglessness. But when interrupted by fasting, abstinence, hard work and indifference to happiness, that same food, sex and leisure can again be found pleasurable. (3) Christian joy is exempt from the above pattern in which achievement is the greatest enemy of satisfaction. Godly joy is ultimate, absolute and limitless. There are no psychological boundaries (as in pleasure and happiness) to the loving joy experienced by God’s people. There are perpetually new opportunities to love and to give and receive joy in the relationship with Jesus. To positivists, sceptics and atheists, biblical joy may seem to be a kind of self-induced illusion, or a kind of a “faith cocaine.” However, biblical joy does not involve pretence or self-deception. When alone with God, one cannot deceive oneself. In that situation biblical joy becomes an unmistakable experience as God’s immanence overtakes and supersedes the sensory-scientific realities of the world. Like a person in love discerns a new reality—which is hidden from the one who was never in love—so Christians find a quite different, Godly reality in which even the sting of death is taken away by biblical joy. The validity of such experience is denied by those who do not know what the love of God and resulting biblical joy is. Naturally, they declare any relationship with God to be based on “Illusion,” “Opium” or “Delusion.” So Freud, Marx or Dawkins would probably comment: If Christian joy is so fulfilling, why are people, even Christians, so consumed by their pursuit of worldly happiness and pleasure? As John Owen asserted: temptation is a part of being human.4 The clash between the two kingdoms (God’s and Satan’s) that St. Augustine described occurs in every person’s life. There is an ongoing competition, characteristics of the human condition, between happiness (from satisfying vital instincts) and pleasure (from satisfying social instincts), and that of the joy of advancing God’s kingdom (a personal choice arising from the deepest levels of soul and conscience that often requires sacrificing vital and social instincts). Pleasure and happiness arise automatically from inborn instincts, whereas biblical joy comes through that diligent effort called discipleship. Receiving gifts of faith requires effort, sacrifice and self-denial. The wholehearted decision to connect our entire life to Jesus is the prerequisite both to desiring and to experiencing biblical joy, peace and love. This explains why, although Christian joy is a supreme experience, it is still not the focus of those worldly people who have never

142

Chapter Seventeen

experienced it. They search for quick, free and simple satisfaction of inborn instincts. Despite the fact that worldly happiness and pleasure compete with Godly joy, the Church is not hostile to our experiencing them. On the contrary, Christians ultimately regard pleasure and happiness as God’s gifts. Therefore, Packer notes that for Christians pleasure and happiness are not only a random or self-programmed lucky event, they are, more importantly, an opportunity for thanksgiving and joyful glorifying of God.5 By this, Christians rise above the human condition as they connect and integrate pleasure and happiness with joyful praise of God, recognizing pleasure and happiness as expressions of God’s love. So, the Sabbath healing in Mark 3:1–6, the feeding of the five thousand in John 6:1-15, and the wedding in Cana in John 2:1–10, were not only happy events but outstanding opportunities to joyfully glorify God. The joy of having a foretaste of the coming Kingdom was even more prominent than the happiness and pleasure that came from the healing, the wedding and the feeding. These miracles were signs of God’s Kingdom in action— exponentially multiplying pleasure and happiness by glorifying God’s name. Despite its ups and downs, discipleship brings God’s people everdeepening joy. No counselling or medicine could give such a foretaste of ultimate joy!

Joy as a By-product of Faith The life of St. Paul was anything but calm. He earned his bread as a tent maker, had countless enemies, evoked the furious anger of the crowds on several occasions, had to run for his life repeatedly, survived a shipwreck, was imprisoned a few times, and finally encouraged his disciples to rejoice in the time of his impending execution. Christians collectively share aspects of this precarious and turbulent existence—they, like St. Paul, experience ultimate purpose and joy despite all disappointments and suffering. If the kingdom of God is not the “opiate for the masses,” as Marx proclaimed, what then, psychologically speaking, makes its connection to bliss so self-evident? As Frankl explained, bliss is approachable only through fulfilling a worthy meaning.6 Pursuing a correct, important and unselfish purpose (meaning) is self-evidently followed and rewarded by pleasure, happiness or joy. Pleasure, happiness and joy are not goals, but by-products of fulfilled purpose.7 Accordingly, joy can be achieved only when fulfilling a purpose. The more meaningful a pursuit, the more prominent is its byproduct.

The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God

143

The described dynamic is the transparent Christian lifestyle. Christians consistently focus on fulfilling a genuine and ultimate purpose—real everlasting life with Jesus. Pursuing everlasting life not only facilitates its by-product—pleasure and happiness to the biological existence—but also facilitates a biblical joy which surpasses all human understanding. To paraphrase Rudolph Schnackenburg, humans by birth belong to the world.8 Expressed in Freudian terminology, they are instinct-regulated, selfish and pleasure-seeking creatures. Therefore, “unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Being born of the Spirit is not only an abstract theoretical concept, but a new form of being (as modelled by St. Paul), living to fulfil an ultimate purpose. So, Christians—according to Schnackenburg—are like a new life-form in which existence in the world is united with holiness, thereby setting them apart for everlasting life. This makes a radically new creation in which the two orders (natural and spiritual) become connected—a process Jesus described to Nicodemus as “birth from above.” Striving for an ultimate meaning and experiencing its metaphorical by-product, the foretaste of ultimate joy, is the genuine psychological reflection of the new natural and spiritual form of being we call Christian. The metaphorical by-product of such a form of living provides biblical joy, an even more powerful proof of Christian lifestyle than any research-validated arguments. Accepting a Christ-like lifestyle in which one is ready to discern a meaning in suffering is also an exemplary epistemological recognition function that enables God’s people to transcend the worldly nothingness.9 This is recognized in Scripture, where St. Paul writes that it is “… better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). Ultimately, as noted earlier, the foretaste of ultimate joy, a byproduct of fulfilling the ultimate meaning of human existence, is the necessary recognition process facilitating the knowledge of the almighty, eternal and absolute love of God, believing not “Whatever Makes Us Happy” but “Walking the Only Road Leading to Jesus.” Let us, in question-and-answer form, test the believer’s practice of meta-empirical recognitions. Question: If God is invisible and transcendent how can the Church communicate Him to believers? Answer: The Church—the body of Christ—has a privileged position; it communicates God through signs, the sacraments, and in a nonsacramental way. Only believers can understand and feel the message conveyed by the sign language of sacraments. They express a deeper reality than rational, logical and scientific reasoning is able to put into words, and facilitate a meta-empirical encounter with God.

144

Chapter Seventeen

To discuss the non-sacramental way of communicating with God let us use a comparison. In our communication with humans we interact with their invisible “you,” articulated in words, gestures, deeds and behaviour. As the saying goes, “It is easier to know a beloved ‘you’ than your own ‘I’.” For example, a husband, when hugged or kissed by his wife, sees these gestures as communicating her love. Similarly, by loving words and gestures—from Creation, through Jesus’ ministry, and especially through the Holy Spirit’s gifts of peace, joy, love and optimism—God talks to his people. From discerning (i.e. recognizing) God’s loving gestures, exemplary people of faith living in a close union with God know his “Thou” more personally and closely than they know the “you” of their beloved spouse, children or friends. Q: If knowing is so straightforward, what then prevents sceptics from knowing God? A: Believers easily recognize God behind any and every occurrence in humans and the world. Modern positivists go to the opposite extreme in their sceptics; they appreciate only visible, touchable and measurable scientific facts. To illustrate their mentality, let me use the previous comparison again. If you hugged your child then a true positivist, faithful to their world view, would say that only neurological, biochemical and physical processes in your brain, nerves and muscles caused you to do so. But you, as a loving parent, would give a different reason—love. Accordingly, you are not a “human machine” but your love was the real spiritual-psychological motive and reason (as previously discussed, teleologically directing processes in your brain, nerves and muscles), which were finally expressed in your body language, in hugging and kissing your child. A positivist (appreciating only sensorial-scientific facts) could not recognize your spiritual-psychological experience as that of love. Atheists can recognize only visible, touchable and measurable events in the natural world, but not their real source—God’s personality and love. People of faith recognize God’s “you” acting beyond natural happenings in their lives, just as loving persons recognize the love spoken by body language of their loving spouse, children or parents. People of faith, accordingly, live in a world where every occurrence hints towards God, his presence and love. Q: How do God’s people concretely recognize the invisible and untouchable, but still real and objectively-existing God? A: The human personality is also invisible and untouchable. From a strict positivist’s perspective the human self is non-existent—virtually transcendent. Therefore, we could ask: Is the personality you love also existing objectively or only as a fantasy? As Frankl notes, love makes us

The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God

145

astute and discerning. In other words, only the one who truly loves can know the beloved person’s “you”; his or her personal, concealed, invisible but truly and objectively extant characteristics and values.10 Thus, adored values in the beloved person do exist objectively, i.e. independently of the loving person’s recognition of them. Indeed, a non-loving observer is unable to observe qualities noticed and appreciated by the lover. It is the same with faith; the reasons for biblical joy, love, and hope—sourced in the meta-empirical knowing of God’s transcendent personality—truly and objectively exist, but remain hidden to agnostics. Faith, like love, makes it possible to know God’s personality, evident only for believers, exactly like the loved person’s personality for lovers—but hidden from others. Only the internal experience of faith makes the external recognition of God possible. Q: Love often ends in disappointment. Is our relationship with God equally unreliable? A: It is not unreliability that causes disappointment in love; its rules are actually quite reliable. No love would end in disappointment if enduring self-deceptions were possible and every lover could feign happiness. But true love cannot be faked, forged or feigned for long. Metaphorically the logic of love is razor-sharp. Accordingly, the cause of numerous disappointments related to love is not its alleged unreliability, but rather its reality—the impossibility of swindling or cheating love. The same is valid in the realms of faith and the theory of knowledge of God. The letter quoted below illustrates the point: Dear Ann, I am a man in my early 60s, divorced and retired. My sister is in her late 50s and widowed. We go to bed together twice a week. This has been going on since her husband died eight years ago. Actually, when we were teenagers, we fooled around a lot, but never had intercourse. This is not a love match, but it is sex—and good sex at that. We both enjoy these escapades, and they always produce a good night’s sleep. No one knows about this, and no one is getting hurt. Do you think we are fooling ourselves?11

Reflecting on this sad letter, let us repeat here the question we asked discussing the suicide of the Lafarque couple: “Was he really a joyful person?” This question concerns not the unreliability of love, but whether a person can be really happy with a relationship that reduces a relationship to sex only? Can a relationship from which love—including romantic attraction, personal meaning, affection, joy, sincerity, altruism, trust, optimism, purpose—is excluded, make any individual really content? Can

146

Chapter Seventeen

a relationship from which God—as well as the foretaste of ultimate joy, peace and love—are excluded, make a couple really joyful? Must not such loveless relationship provoke the question, “Aren’t we fooling ourselves?” The answer is self-evident—a loveless joy must end in disappointment. Q: God is love (1 John 4, 8:16). However, if we look at God from a different perspective, then we perceive Him differently. But which is the right perspective to see God? A: A surrealist painter depicted the head of a bull seen not only from one perspective—that of the viewer—but from all possible perspectives. The painting seemed like a nightmare; observers could not understand its message. Later the artist explained his work stating, “This is what the head of a bull really looks like.” Humans never perceive truth from all possible perspectives, that would be ultimate relativism, but strive to see it only from the right perspective. It is possible to explore love from physicalchemical, biochemical or neurological perspectives, and state that love is just that. But such reductionism is not the right perspective—it is not what love really is for people in love. Similarly, it is possible to explore God from a Gnostic, Arian, Renaissance, Positivist, Freudian or Dawkins’ perspective. But these are not the right perspective either—it is not how God really is. The right perspective to know God is the one which is biblical, proven by a lasting, permanently increasing joy, optimism and peace that surpasses all human understanding. We Christians should not be insecure in trusting ourselves, our feelings, experiences and epistemology. The mystical union with God is not an illusion. Believing that whatever makes us happy gives people of faith a lasting and increasing biblical joy, optimism and peace that surpass all human understanding is a falsehood. It is only correct recognition that can have such effects; walking the narrow road leading to Jesus. Q: Can excessive zeal, self-deception, and fanaticism also produce Godly joy? If so, then isn’t biblical joy an unreliable criterion? A: In answering let us recall another example we discussed. When the assassins decided to kill the Medici brothers they might have felt an almost religious zeal, enthusiasm and passion. They might even have hoped for God’s approval of their bloody action since in their selfdeceived minds, the interests of the Church in Florence, Italy and Europe were at stake. In their eyes the assassination was a selfless deed, committed to the well-being of the whole Church, and all humankind. The assassins probably even felt joy in fulfilling this self-proclaimed higher moral and Christian duty. But were the assassins, while murdering their alleged enemies, in genuine union with Jesus, were they biblically joyful? Do bloodthirsty persons fuelled by hate really feel Jesus-like love, joy and

The “Theory of Knowledge” of the People of God

147

peace toward their enemies they are exterminating? The answer is selfevident. Q: Isn’t there just a small step between honest mistakes in understanding Christian conscience and self-deception? A: There is a basic difference between mistake and deception. Let me illustrate this with an example. As proof of their commitment, and as a prerequisite for receiving treatment in a drug abuse centre, it was required of potential patients that they run a marathon. Initially, nobody could do it, but with daily coaching the determined patients slowly succeeded in running the distance. Achieving their goal gave them self-confidence, trust, optimism and other psychological qualities necessary for subsequent successful treatment. Indeed, one could be deceptive and lie about fulfilling the requirement. But such a person would not experience the gains—self-discipline, endurance, and stamina, and the self-satisfaction of saying “I did it!” On the contrary, a person who made an honest mistake (e.g. ran a bit more or less than required) would have received the psychological gains and the boost in self-esteem for being able to say “I did it!” The same contrast exists between deceptive “as if” living in union with God and bona fide mistakes in discipleship. Thus, if the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola intended to follow his Christian conscience but made mistakes in good faith then he might have received biblical peace, love and joy, and other gifts of the Spirit, whereas Machiavellian hypocrites could feign piety, but could not feel the gifts of faith, which they intentionally faked. Q: How is it possible to differentiate between genuine biblical joy and the ecstasy that is prevailing in many cults, among religious fanatics, and even in terroristic behaviour? A: For example, Jim Jones’s victims in a euphoric godly joy followed their leader into suicide. Euphoria is defined in psychiatry as a “joy without sufficient reason.” It is an “as if” joy in which the victim, under peer pressure, starts to believe that his or her joy may be real. It can be induced by a skilled leader, a group (especially a cult), or even by selfinduced stimulation from music, alcohol or drugs. It presents itself with unreasonable, hyper-emotional enthusiasm, aimless laughing and ecstasy —contrived behaviour that acts as an effective escape from reality, often connected to an inflation of personality and the illusion of omnipotence. It numbs not only conscience but even the super-ego. The terrorists’ alleged joy is different—they are not genuinely joyful. Their self-experience is more an acting out of long-suppressed feelings of a helpless rage against alleged oppressors, and a sadistic jubilation and triumph of revenge, than

148

Chapter Seventeen

an example of biblical joy, empathy or love. Godly joy, by contrast, involves behaviour that is always accompanied by peace, love, humility and altruism. It is a foretaste of the ultimate joy, the echoing of God’s love in people of faith. It is not a temporary upbeat mood or affect; it is a gradually evolving state of mind, with responsible, rational and logical self-evaluation, guided by Christian conscience. A Godly joy is always inclusive, shares with others, harmonizes with Biblical and Church teaching, and by its growth signals a deeper meaning—union with Jesus which surpasses all human reasoning and understanding. Q: Is biblical joy truly a gift of God, or the psychological effect of faith, just as great-looking muscles are a natural effect of working out? A: The gifts of faith cannot be achieved by the will or generated by human effort; they are not consequences or effects of faith. In other words, while an engineer’s interaction with a machine causes predictable effects, communication with the “you” of your spouse is characterized by a loving unpredictability. And so living with God involves ultimately loving unpredictability. From the loving unpredictability of God, people of faith know that biblical joy is not a product of any self-created euphoria, but a gift from the Other You. No human can predict, grab, snatch, or seize the gifts of faith: they are always sovereign gifts of the ultimate love which Christians call God.

Notes 1. Viktor Frankl, Arztliche Seelsorge (Vien: Franz Deuticke, 1965), 174. 2. 14.Viktor E. Frankl, Antropologische Grundlagen der Psychoterapie (Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Hans Huber, 1976), 243. 3. Matthew Kelly, Rediscovering Catholicism (Cincinnati, OH: Beacon Publishing, 2002), 72. 4. John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006). 5. J. I. Packer, God’s Plans for You (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 54. 6. Viktor Frankl, Arztliche, 49. 7. Ibid., 47. 8. Rudolph Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), 371–72. 9. Jean P. Sartre, L’Être et le Néant (Paris: Gallimard, 1943). 10. Viktor E. Frankl, From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), 132. Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in 11. Mid-Air (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 47.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, LIVING WITH GOD

Wayne Grudem explains that, “Ephesians 1:4 tells us that God chose us in Christ ‘before the foundation of the world’.”1 Faith is thus God’s gift. How God gives faith is a mystery. But can we explore how God’s people experience His gift of faith?

Varieties and Commonalities in Faith Experiences The precondition of communion with God is living in relationship with Him. However, as the title of William James’ book Varieties of Religious Experience points out, experience of the relationship with God varies, “not only from individual to individual, but within the individual person as his or her life unfolds.”2 James Fowler, while attending a Methodist summer conference centre, “listened to the life stories of hundreds of people who attended interfaith seminars,” and from these stories abstracted varieties of faith experience listed in six categories: (1) Intuitive-projective faith, which is common in young children, and contains symbols and stories that are highly emotionally charged, and not always logically coherent. (2) Mythic-literal faith is common in late childhood. It is characterized by accepting beliefs in their environment and interpreting the moral message of these religious ideas more or less literally. (3) Synthetic-conventional faith is common in adolescents. It is based on values organized to support the adolescent’s unique personality in interacting with his or her environment. (4) Individuative-reflective faith is characteristic of young adults and involves making free and responsible choices in discerning personal ideology, morals and lifestyle. (5) Conjunctive faith is achieved in mid-life, and is characterized

150

Chapter Eighteen

by integrating paradox and polarities like life and death, unavoidable suffering and disappointment. (6) Universalizing faith is the last stage in development of faith, characterized by “qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy. Their heedlessness of self-preservation and the vividness of their taste and feel for transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality.”3 Religious experience varies among persons belonging to different denominations and cultures, but religious experience also changes within the same person over his or her lifetime. So, too, in Jesus’ Church everyone has a unique relationship with God, and a personal faith that inevitably changes with time. Accordingly, can faith experiences really be standardized, defined or compared at all? Evidently there are big differences between meta-empirically experiencing God as a small child, and doing so as a mature person. However, in his or her naive, ultimately-committed and unconditional love, the child is no less close to God than a mature believer possessing universalizing faith (Fowler’s sixth category). Despite differences in age, intellectual or social background, culture, or whatever other secondary difference, closeness to Jesus is available to everyone, independent of his or her intellectual, cognitive or developmental level. Scriptures and everyday experience justify this conclusion. Living in union with the Father through Jesus and in the Spirit, even at a very early age (as happened in Lourdes, Fatima and similar examples), proves that union with God is achievable in any of Fowler’s six categories, if God’s call and commitment to discipleship are prominent. Certainly, there are individual differences, but there are definitely many more important commonalities, such as the following, in all Christians’ experiences: (1) Faith is not a human invention, but always a positive response to God’s calling. (2) Without faith and the accepting of discipleship, no knowledge of God is possible. (3) Christians not only know about God, they learn from God. (4) God responds to and communicates with His disciples in a metaempirical language. (5) Communication and especially union with God has both communitarian and personal aspects.

The Mystery of the Church, Living With God

151

Is “God’s Calling” Really From God? Discussing St. Francis’ journey we noted that it was not the pattern of his actions for but of his re-actions to Jesus’ calling that shaped his life. We could ask: was it Jesus or St. Francis himself who really directed matters? In other words, do God’s calls originate solely in the brain and mind of the person called by God, or do they represent an invitation or intervention that cannot be reduced to natural psychological causes? Biblically, the Spirit is like the wind that “blows where it pleases” (John 3:8), and God calls however He pleases, often through quite normal and natural events. However, to answer the question and prevent agnostics from explaining it away as a believer’s fantasy, let us focus on characteristics that differentiate God’s calling from any natural, psychological experience. Thoughts, feelings and behaviour produced by an animal’s brain and mind have a pragmatic role—to live in the world. The brain and mind of the human animal, as atheists call us, serve one (biological) purpose—in Darwinist terms, the survival of the fittest. However, this pattern is not typical of Christians. As we discussed earlier, St. Francis (like billions of other Christians) pursued a meaning and lifestyle that contradicted instinct, ego or superego, and encouraged “being in the world but not of it” (as paraphrased according to John 17:11; 17:16). From a worldly or natural perspective such behaviour is inexplicable, yet such motivation is what we refer to as God’s call. The otherness of such communication with the Father, Jesus or the Holy Spirit opens the window between the worldly and the transcendent, a more real and attractive reality than the material. Let us further explore other characteristics of God’s calls. Immanuel Kant had already said that the greatest tragedy of the human mind is asking questions for which reasoning has no answer. Only God gives answers to humankind’s ultimate questions.4 Let us illustrate this point with my own experience. During my residency training in psychiatry I treated a young man who had attempted suicide, was in a deep coma, and seemed unlikely to recover. Nevertheless, after a few hours in treatment he opened his eyes. I expected to hear a great “Thank you!” for saving his life. However, he said, “Why did you bring me back—why are you forcing me to live?” I was confused—medical training had taught me how to save lives, but it had given me nothing to say in answer to a question like that. The young man was referred to the psychiatric ward. A few days later he was discharged because he was not mentally ill. Soon after his discharge he made a second attempt and this time he succeeded in killing himself. I was tormented by guilt—what should I have said? What answer

152

Chapter Eighteen

should I have given him to save his life? Later I realized—no scientific reasoning, only God, answers questions such as the young man asked me. Had I helped him find God then he probably would still be alive, safe and sound. He would then have had everything he needed. God’s call answers ultimate questions of humankind that no mathematics, astronomy, psychology, medicine, philosophy or any other kind of human knowledge is able to resolve. The search for the ultimate meaning of human existence is an inexplicable and, from an atheist or evolutionist perspective, completely useless. Nevertheless, it is addressed to every one of us. Last but not least, God’s calls are also communicated through suffering. We are unable to avoid pain, guilt, and death. But there is a way to defeat suffering. A commonality of all citizens of the Kingdom of God—from the Virgin Mary, through the baby John in the womb of Elizabeth, to Simeon, the first apostles and those present at Jesus’ ascension—is abundance of joy, peace, and love that the world is unable to give, but only discipleship can provide. As the Acts of the Apostles describes, members of the early Church, the first martyrs and saints, and all those with a relationship to Christ, were joyful. We may wonder what gave Christians the power to be joyful despite all those calamities, horrors, suffering and persecution. The source of that power is found in I Peter 4:12–14: Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

The epistle explains that their positive response to God’s calling made Christians unafraid of suffering, setting them apart from worldly people who would be filled with fear. On the contrary, they appreciated suffering, and even found virtue in it. Their faith helped them to rejoice despite suffering. No worldly philosophy, counselling, psychotherapy or medication could give what responding positively to God’s calling gives. Holiness is manifested in biblical joy, and biblical joy is the sign of holiness. In short, only the call of God enables us to find what all humans are programmed to search for. God does not simply give faith, He rather calls for us to make a choice of faith. Frankl illustrated this with his metaphor of a scale, balancing faith against unbelief.5 He points out that reasons for and objections against trust in God are both thinkable, and logically balanced in this scale. From

The Mystery of the Church, Living With God

153

the point of view of logic, every question in life, scientific or philosophical, can be answered equally and logically both by believers and opponents of God. But hearing God’s call, as Frankl explains, enables “the decision maker to throw the weight of his own being onto one side of the scales.” With all his or her intellectual, emotional and volitional power, the believer chooses to throw him or herself onto the faith side of the scale. God’s call invites and enables one to, “throw the weight of his own being onto [the faith] side of the scales.” Faith is not knowledge. Effective faith is seen when we throw everything we have and are—all of our personal strength, will, and personality—into the encounter with God and subsequent life with Him. In this way we get to know the Almighty. This total, unconditional and absolute choice is what the Scriptures call faith. It requires a radical turnaround. To paraphrase Frankl, it does not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what God expects from us!6 We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who are questioned by God—daily and hourly. Whoever does this fulfils the ultimate purpose of life.

Faith—Responding Positively to God’s Call In the words of the Catechism, “The Church is communion with Jesus.”7 Are we now able to clarify to non-believers how the Church—God’s people—live in communion with the invisible God? Paul Tillich sees faith as “being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality” of God.8 Cardinal Ratzinger defined faith as that “… which breaches the wall of finitude and opens up an unobstructed view into the broad space of eternity.”9 In my definition faith makes the foretaste of almighty God’s absolute love experiential. Let me illustrate what I mean with a true story. While living in an Eastern European communist country, a psychiatrist whom we will call Dr. Brown was invited by a foreign university to give a presentation titled Did Communism Outdate Religion? To prevent leaking technological information, the requirement for giving a presentation abroad was to first to get permission from the security services of his university. The topic of his presentation was not technological, but was touchy nevertheless. Due to his fear of being labelled a black sheep, Dr. Brown decided to travel incognito, without requesting such permission. After the conference he was invited to a dinner with his colleague. At dinner he met a journalist with whom he had a cordial conversation. After arriving home from the conference he realized his mistake: what if the journalist were to report their conversation? Immediately he phoned his colleague asking him to

154

Chapter Eighteen

stop the journalist from mentioning his name. However, it was too late— the article was already published. For a month nothing happened. Then, Dr. Brown was called in for questioning. At this time the communist party still had a dreadful reputation, and could play cat and mouse with anyone, in any way they chose. So as he went in to the meeting, Dr. Brown’s horror intensified step-by-step. His brain was working frenetically. Then something quite unexpected happened, which he described as follows: “In the last few yards, I felt a turnaround in myself as I thought, ‘Yes, I’m confronted with a might greater and stronger then I can deal with, I have no chance; they can humiliate and expel me from the university. But all their power does not alter the fact that I’m right, that I was doing the right thing, that I have the courage to say the truth.’ Quite unexpectedly in this hopeless situation my fear disappeared, and I felt in some delicate way proud of myself. I even felt peace and optimism—a kind of joy that I had never experienced before. I felt ‘God is with me!’” He received a foretaste of the almighty God’s absolute love. This kind of thing occurs in the life of almost every Christian. Paradoxically, God’s call often becomes audible in desperate situations. The more that a believer encounters quite unexpected spiritual peace, strength, and joy, the more they will—with growing confidence—turn to Jesus when faced by life’s other on-going challenges. Situations of need, pain or desperation will then take on a positive meaning, becoming opportunities to look for hope, consolation and encouragement from the one whom Christians call God. God’s people gradually develop a dialogue with the invisible God. The more they exhale faith, and inhale Jesus’ love, optimism, peace and joy, the deeper their experience of the Lord becomes. The great mystics’ numinous and spiritual vernacular is probably the best way to describe this actually inexplicable experience of talking with God. Accordingly, St. Theresa of Avila teaches: … when the Lord is pleased to reveal to the soul so much of His greatness and majesty, the vision has such exceeding great power that I believe it would be impossible to endure, unless the Lord were pleased to help the soul in a most supernatural way by sending it into a rapture or an ecstasy, during the fruition of which, the vision of that divine presence is lost … The soul is now a new creature: it is absorbed by God.”10

Through such meta-empirical communication with Him, God’s transcendent personality, although invisible, becomes real, or more precisely becomes the most important reality for the mystic. As Annette Wilke explains: “boundaries are dissolved—those of the subject, such as in a vacuum of

The Mystery of the Church, Living With God

155

thought, or in ecstasy; those of the object, so that dualities are removed; those of space, to experience the infinite in the finite; those of time, when the ‘timeless, everlasting now’ replaces time.” Worldly reality is replaced with an “immanent transcendence or transcendent immanence.”11 God remains invisible, and transcendent but even more real than anything else internal or external, the ultimate concern for God’s people. Christians are not all mystics. So, not every believer finds the proper words to describe the ineffable experience beyond human words of his or her union with God. Despite the inability to appropriately articulate it, the internal meta-empirical experience of meeting God in all believers is similar. From the point of entrusting him or herself to God, the cycle of faith will revolve more and more determinedly, faster and always with bigger and more potent turns. The ultimate concern for God gives a new understanding of life, and a unique epistemology—knowing God, proven by its by-products of biblical joy, peace and love, optimism and strength. God’s responses enforce believers’ faith, certainty and commitment as such union grows even stronger. The dynamic of permanent giving and receiving is illustrated in Fig. 18.1 below. Fig. 18.1. Meta-Empirical Dynamics in Faith

So, “When the psyche is fully dedicated to God, it acquires a special character” (I Pet. 1:22; 4:19), and “in this dedication it can be anchored in God and can be aware of possessing eternal life, assured of salvation from all that could alienate it from that inheritance” (Heb. 6:19).12 Progressively, a believer’s life comes to centre on union with God, which evokes vivid experiences of God’s encouragement, optimism, power, peace, love and joy which, as noted, surpass all human understanding. This explains how St. Paul could write these words, despite the fact he was waiting in a Roman jail for the end of his earthly life: Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but

156

Chapter Eighteen in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God (Phil. 4:4–7).

When His people, notes Paul Wolff, are governed by the injunction, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5), their relationship with God is “validated” by the foretaste of biblical joy,13 which has an infinitely “greater value than the treasures of Egypt” (Heb. 11:26). The examples of such believers tell us that Christianity—especially taking up our cross at Jesus’ invitation—is not an illusion, phantasm, delusion or believing whatever makes us happy. Rather, it is the only possible path to biblical joy, the path that self-evidently leads to ultimate truth, to Jesus. Godly joy is the supreme and inexpressible peak of experience of one who has it has everything that life can give. Indeed, if persons like Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud or Richard Dawkins—or those who proclaim themselves to be sceptics, agnostics or atheists—had ever experienced such Godly joy, then the world today would be a different place!

Notes 1. Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 2000), 840. 2. William James, Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: American Library, 1958). 3. William Hague, Evolving Spirituality (Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1995), 113–115. 4. Mihail Jarosevskij, Istoria Psihologii (Moskva: Misl, 1966), 145. 5. Maria Mendez, A Life With Meaning: Guide To the Fundamental Principles of Viktor E. Frankl’s Logotherapy. (Victoria: Trafford, 2004), 27. 6. Ibid., 23. 7. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994), 173. 8. Robert Paul Wolff, Philosophy: a Modern Encounter (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971), 598. 9. Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 147. 10. Wolff, A Modern Encounter, 569. 11. Anette Wilke, “Mysticism” in The Brill Dictionary of Religion Vol. 3, Kocku von Stuckard, ed. (Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers, 2006), 1279. 12. Geddes MacGregor, “Soul” in Encyclopedia of Religion, Second Edition, Lindsay Jones, ed. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale/Cenage, 2005), 8561. 13. Wolff, A Modern Encounter, 599.

CHAPTER NINETEEN THE CHURCH AS AN “INSTRUMENT OF COMMON FAITH”

In Matthew 7:15 Jesus warned, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” St. Paul in Acts 20: 30–31 and the apostle Peter (in 2 Peter 2:1–3) used even harsher formulations to warn against false prophets. It is unlikely that mainstream Christians wilfully chose or consciously acted as false prophets; some even lost their life for their ideas. Even false prophets were most often convinced about the orthodoxy of their teachings and no theological argumentation was able to convince them about their mistakes. This is so because being a ferocious wolf, like a false prophet, stems from psychological causes instead of theological ones. It amplifies the danger of schisms and heresies, the fact that psychological motives and dynamics acting in false prophets are highly contagious. They often affect theology, morality and the relationship with the Church of many Christians. If conscience is the individual’s organ of faith, then the Church, as noted, is the common conscience of God’s people. How then can unity in that denominationally-fragmented common conscience be restored, and how can the unity of all main stream Christians be fostered?

New Times—New Challenges The years of religious wars after Luther started the reformation ended in 1555 with a peace treaty proclaiming the well-known and infamous solution, Quius teritorio eius religio—“Whose realm, his religion.” Institutionalism and the enmeshment of the Church and world went so far that an individual’s faith was to be automatically determined by the ruler’s denominational choice. However, history is like a pendulum. For thousands of years religion was politically or even militarily imposed. The twenty-first century is moving toward the opposite extreme—the equality of belief (including non-belief) is accompanied by radical indifference toward religion.

158

Chapter Nineteen

Despite religious apathy and widespread indifference, a second characteristic of our time is the eruption of a multiplicity of Christian denominations. This new situation needs both a new ecclesiology and a new type of evangelization. One step in this process is that effort toward interdenominational communication called ecumenism.

Ecumenism—Its History, Strength, and Weakness After the East-West schism in 1052, theologians held meetings to discern God’s one unquestionable, revealed truth—the genuine interpretation of Scripture—and to re-establish lost unity. However, since Christian denominations sometimes interpreted the same Scriptures, traditions and articles of faith very differently it was impossible to achieve a consensus on denominational differences. Unfortunately these differences ossified even more during ensuing centuries. The twentieth century signalled one of history’s turning points. First, missionaries in Africa realized the counterproductive effect of every denomination displaying a different teaching of Jesus: “That there is a sin of division for which all the churches are responsible was solemnly affirmed by the bishops of the Anglican Church in their Lambeth Conference in 1920 … It is one of the first documents in the history of ecumenism in which a Church admits its share of guilt.”1 The initiators invited other denominations to attend the next session. Nevertheless, at the 1925 Stockholm ecumenical conference on Life and Work, neither the Catholic nor Orthodox Churches participated. At a later conference, Faith and Constitution, most Protestant and Orthodox churches were represented, but not Catholics. The same happened in 1948 at meetings in Amsterdam, and 1954 gatherings in Evanston, Illinois. However, the floodgates to ecumenism were definitely opened for Catholics by events before, during and after Vatican II. New understandings of inter-confessional differences, as well as a modified position toward Jews, Muslims and even non-believers, were seen in numerous Vatican II documents such as the Decree on Ecumenism, the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, the Declaration on Religious Liberty and others. Postmodern ecumenism focuses not only on achieving mutual agreement on theological truths; it employs common prayer, knowledge of each other, and mutual dialogue. Such toned-down goals made it possible to embark on the first faltering baby steps toward restoring unity. The strength of ecumenism is that for the first time in many centuries of estrangement, it offers a path toward better mutual communication. As

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

159

the Catechism summarizes it, Vatican II promoted: Permanent renewal of the Church, Conversions of the heart “resolving to live holier lives according to the Gospel.” Prayer in common, Fraternal knowledge of each other, Ecumenical formation of the faithful, especially priests, Dialogue among theologians and Christians of different denominations, and Collaboration in various areas.2

The weakness of the ecumenical movement is in the multiplicity of unresolved doctrinal differences. As Millard J. Erickson notes: Fellowship is impossible without agreement on certain basic truths [since] disagreement on theological matters is what created separate denominations in the first place. It is difficult to make steps in the right direction and toward unity without a basic agreement on what makes a Church a Church. Consensus on the structure of the church government and on the form and function of the ministry [is needed even to make baby steps in restoring unity].3

Erickson correctly states that it is difficult to progress toward unity without a basic agreement in understanding the Scriptures, on what makes a Church a Church, and a basic consensus on the structure of the church government. However, because Christians’ attempts to agree on these basic ecclesiological elements have failed since the earliest schisms, we will experiment with a different approach. In following previously noted advice, “Forget your curative zeal and first try to understand what is really happening,” we will focus on psychological reasons why consensus cannot be reached with regards to understanding Jesus’ teaching, the Scriptures, articles of faith and on what makes a Church a Church. In other words, we will discuss psychological reasons for the current denominational disorder hoping that the Spirit will lead us all to discern a common denominator helpful in dealing with the present chaotic state of human faith.

Causes and Dynamics of Denominational Differences The great schism of 1052 had two prominent causes, the most basic was mutual estrangement caused by flawed institutions—cesaro-papism in the East, and papo-cesarism in the West. The formally stated reason was a dispute around the filioque (by the Son) doctrine.

160

Chapter Nineteen

As Karl Heussi4 notes, the formulation that the Spirit pours out through the Father and the Son (in differing from outpouring from the Father through the Son in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed) had been in use since the 589 Synod of Toledo. A purpose of that teaching was to emphasize Jesus’ equality with the Father, contrary to Arianism’s understanding that the Son is a secondary God. After 767 the formulation had become universally accepted in the Church of the Franks. After a fiery discussion between Greek and Frankish monks in Jerusalem, the filioque teaching was (with Charlemagne’s support) accepted at the 809 Aachen Council. In the Roman ritual, the filioque formulation was not officially accepted until 1014. In 1052 the question ignited the filioque debate (in which the Roman Church alleged counterfeiting of the NiceneConstantinopolitan creed, while Westerners explained introducing the filioque as extrapolation for the purpose of clarifying the creed). So, for almost five hundred years after its first appearance in 589 until 1052, the filioque formulation and different understandings of it did not divide Christians. In 1052, however, provoked by political tension between Rome and Constantinople, the filioque question became a theological buzzword. It was used to generate emotions, mutual suspicion and paranoia, and so became the official reason for the schism. These quasi-theological (in fact, political) buzzwords have, through history, had the role of a religious Rorschach test. The Rorschach test used in psychology contains a series of standardized, meaningless inkblot pictures. When observing these pictures and asked “What might that be?” different persons will project their interests, fears, expectations and other personal characteristics, and therefore see, perceive and comprehend different images. Unfortunately a similar thing is happening in the interpretation of the Scriptures, and understanding Jesus’ idea of what the Church is. Almost like in a Rorschach test, individual believers belonging to different denominations project themselves onto the text, and strive to force the biblical passage to support their particular denominational institution (and sometimes institutionalism), expressed in theological buzzwords. These buzzwords have become a battle cry in times of denominational conflicts. For example, Bellarmine’s statement that “the true Church is a fully visible society” was one such a battle cry announced in times of bloody conflicts with Protestant opponents promoting the contrary. During the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), confessing Catholic or Protestant buzzwords often became a virtual indicator of fidelity to Jesus, even stronger than fidelity to the biblical tolerance that Jesus actually preached. Catholics and Protestants were decimating each other in the name of

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

161

political-theological buzzwords—alleged indicators of orthodoxy—while at same time disrespecting Jesus’ proclamations of love, peace, forgiveness and other basic Christian behavioural standards. The situation in our own time has essentially improved. On the one hand, attitudes towards ancient buzzwords have changed. As Pope Benedict XVI noted: “The learned, unwilling to agree among themselves, project their dispute over the whole of Christendom, though they cannot make any sense of it anymore.”5 He similarly reported that: “Before the late council, Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope John are reported to have said jokingly that only the hair-splitting and obstinacy of theologians maintains the division between the churches.”6 In this context, Pope John Paul II emphasized “unity through plurality” and coming together in one Church.7 Nevertheless, we are still stuck in a vicious circle. As the previously quoted Erickson formulated: “… fellowship is impossible without agreement on certain basic truths,” however the differences rooted more in institutionalism than in theology cannot be settled without first addressing their real cause—institutionalism. So, the unpleasant and unaddressed but crucial question still remains unanswered—how can believers, congregations, denominations and all of Jesus’ holy and biblical Church foster the ecumenical process by resolving long-standing and deeply entrenched disputes caused not by different theologies, but by mutually exclusive flawed institutions? Let us refer to the experience of the primordial Church to answer this question.

Biblical and Common Sense in Christian Experience Jesus and the apostles used something other than scientific, logical or philosophical arguments to persuade their audience. In John 15:9–15, Jesus talks about His and God’s love, and in John 16:20–24, he assures us that nobody can take away from Jesus’ disciples the joy he gives them. In truth, the disciples’ joy remained even when the Lord was no longer physically but spiritually present with them (Luke 24:52). Apparently, Jesus’ ministry to his disciples was not based primarily on their mastery of theologia (Greek for God-science), but much more on their experiential knowing of God; they focussed on what Pascal called reasons of the heart. True Christians always recognized what Xavier Leon Dufour described: “Jesus’ words brought the fruits: these who believed in him had the fullness of his joy.”9 Thus, the internal recognition of the fullness of truth (Jesus), brings “fullness of joy” (John 17:13), blessedness to those

162

Chapter Nineteen

“who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29), and awareness of the experiential presence of the Lord. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us …?” (Luke 24:32). These experiences agree with everyday Christian common sense knowledge that faith is not based only on theologia, but on a passionate love of God, confirmed by biblical joy. Likewise, the success of the early Church at winning the world over to God’s kingdom was not rooted in rational, logical or philosophical argumentation. As Tertullian reported, they moved the Antique World to say, “Look how they love each other.” In brief, Jesus, the apostles, his disciples, and the early Church used a meta-empirical reasoning of theology and apologetics. Accordingly, in order to participate fruitfully in ecumenical discourse (and even more so to evangelize the postmodern world), a single scholastic-philosophical theology is insufficient. Rather, we need an ensemble of theological approaches in which scientific-logical theology and meta-empirical theology both play their parts. As with musical instruments in an orchestra, the purpose of the meta-empirical approach is not to replace the other, but to supplement classical theological disciplines. While classical, rational philosophical theology appeals more to reason, logic and discursive thinking and meta-empirical theology will play an important role in touching the hearts of postmodern people, and help their walking along the common ecumenical road leading to Jesus.

Reviving Ancient Criteria of Orthodoxy in Our Times As noted, the faith of God’s people stands on two legs. One is the universal, based on Jesus’ teaching defined in Scriptures, tradition, synods, and Church teachings; the other personal, directed by the Holy Spirit, acting through soul and conscience, informing Christians where, when, how and which universal principles to apply to specific and often unique situations in building God’s kingdom. Synchronizing universal and personal standards of faith is not always easy. For example, during World War II millions of Jews were exterminated in Nazi concentration camps. The Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg, however supplied Hungarian Jews with false documents allowing thousands to escape certain death. Indeed, deception in general is not a Christian behavioural pattern. However, isn’t deceiving a brutal and inhumane system in order to save innocent victims a definite form of love? Wallenberg applied the highest moral standard—love—to a particular situation. He lost his life saving people whom he never knew, but the

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

163

people he saved knew and still remember him. Fallen human nature purposefully forgets and counterfeits both personal and universal standards and so contaminates with worldliness both Jesus’ biblical teaching and the Spirit’s calls. Such enmeshment of faith with worldliness was never strange to fallen humans, but occurred on a grand scale after the primordial Church had become the imperial church. Metaphorically, organized religion has often been standing on three legs since the time of Constantine. To make things worse, the three legs are not equal—the “third leg,” symbolizing institutionalized hypocrisy, is often longer and stronger than the other two legs, which symbolize the teaching of Jesus and the calls of the Holy Spirit. Sadly, we often attempt to walk using only that third leg. Let us now apply this prospect to the unavoidable controversy appearing in every contemporary ecumenical dialogue. Without implying that all Christian denominations are equally affected by institutional hypocrisy, walking on this third leg causes seemingly insoluble controversies between the followers of Jesus. We summarized these controversies, as the reader may recall, using Erickson’s formulation, as differences in understanding the Scriptures, the essence of Church, and the structure of church government. How can the genuine Church seeking ecumenical unity help remedy the institutionalism of organized religion that has triggered these bitter theological and ecclesiological disputes that have ultimately led to the fragmentation of Christianity? We noted that Jesus’ Church is like a collective conscience for God’s people. Belonging to the holy Body of Christ is not an automatic, formal ritual, or one-time event; it is an on-going, dynamic, and gradual process of progression and growth in relationship with Jesus. The Catechism describes this growth as: Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept all the means of salvation given to the Church together with the entire organization, and those who by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, and sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion—are joined in the visible structure of the church of Christ who rules her by the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops.10

What the Catechism colloquially demands is to definitely not perform certain prescribed activities, as Pharisees, hypocrites, and teachers of the Law did, but to live the Ultimate Truth of Jesus wholeheartedly. Almost all mainstream Christians agree that only a genuinely Christ-like faith and lifestyle could give ecumenism the boost it needs, and resolve basic doctrinal differences. But how can we accurately and efficiently assess

164

Chapter Nineteen

others and judge ourselves when trying to differentiate between only a hypocritical, deceptive and self-deceptive “as if” obedience to God and living with Jesus wholeheartedly? In the light of the teaching found in Matthew 7:20, we judge a tree by its fruit. In other words, the exemplary people of God are Jesus-like. They are recognizable by their gifts of faith, and its metaphorical good fruits of biblical peace, unselfishness, love and optimism. The members of the Church reflect gifts of faith into the world, and this is how they promote God’s kingdom. Although these good fruits are personal and individual, their importance for the whole Church is equal to, or even stronger than, all philosophical-scientific or even scholastic-theological arguments in matters of ecumenism. Yes, relying on a believer’s internal experiences, self-judgment, or Christian conscience may raise fears against their alleged subjectivism. But let us recall our previous conclusion that biblical peace, love and joy do not come from believing whatever makes us happy, but from actually walking the only road that leads to Jesus. There is no other, better or more efficient way to promote the kingdom of God, and revive the ancient criteria of orthodoxy in our times than to rely on and trust the Christian’s conscience. Liberated of institutionalism, it will necessarily prove itself by its good fruits.

Applying Biblical and Common Sense Christian Experience to Ecumenical Practice Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) presented the following anecdotal story. In medieval times a Jew travelled to the papal court and became a Catholic. On his return his friend asked him: “Did you realize what sort of things are going on there?” “Yes,” he said, “of course. Quite scandalous things, I saw it all.” “And you still became a Catholic,” remarked the other man, “That is completely perverse!” Then the Jew said, “It is because of all that that I have become a Catholic. For if the Church continues to exist in spite of it all, then truly there must be someone upholding her.”11

Ratzinger also quotes Napoleon, who once declared that he would destroy the Church, whereupon one of the cardinals replied: “Not even we have managed that!”11 Institutionalism did not succeed at destroying the Church. However, it has estranged a substantial part of humankind from it. Could Christians, applying the advice found in Matthew 7:20, judge a tree by its fruit and reverse this trend? Therefore, let us pose the question—if the fullness of

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

165

truth positively correlates with the fullness of biblical joy, can we not then reverse the logical equation and recognize closeness to Jesus from the fullness of biblical joy? In fact such assessment—as described in my book, The Mystery of Christian Faith12—is a characteristic of the Christian condition, although not always of the human condition. It occurs unavoidably, consciously and unconsciously, in a Christian’s everyday walk. It occurs externally and internally. To paraphrase the advice of Robert Barnes,13 it is assessed externally by “looking at the disciple first, to see if he or she knows how to live a Christ-like life.” Intentionally or unintentionally we assess others— and they assess us—on their ability to walk biblically and close to God. Knowing how to live Christ-like, helping others to receive biblical gifts, sharing, inducing, and projecting biblical joy, peace, love, optimism and trust validates one’s theological position. As the philosopher Emerson put it, “Your behaviour speaks so loud, that I cannot hear your words.” Accordingly, not only great words but also living in biblical love are the ways that people of faith prove their discipleship externally. The internal self-assessment of whether “I know how to live in union with Jesus” is the core of Christian being. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John1:8). We noted earlier that when Pope John Paul II outlined his proposal for the celebration of the jubilee year 2000 in 1994, he invited the Church to make a critical self-evaluation of its actions during the past centuries. He then “publicly admitted Church culpability ninety four times, on topics ranging from the Inquisition to the treatment of women.”14 If narcissistic hypocrisy is the main characteristic of the “non-Church” then its opposite—critical self-assessment like that of John Paul II—is a genuine characteristic of the Church. In evangelization of the postmodern sceptics and religiously apathetic people, this is the only possible way to go. The strongest attractive power of the biblical Church—its love—is demonstrated more compellingly by a critical self-evaluation than by any speculative proof. God’s power that “is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), is the strongest demonstration of Mauriac’s previously mentioned quotation that “Nothing is more close to man than God, and nothing is stranger than living in godless world.” Accordingly, a daily, hourly and even a minuteby-minute self-scrutiny and consequent deepening of union with Jesus, while experiencing his biblical peace, love and other gifts of faith, is the authentic form of Christian living. A lifestyle of permanent confession is the precondition for echoing God’s love internally and externally, and for being the sign, instrument and foretaste of God’s kingdom. A collective practice of such a confessional attitude is one of the essences that make the

166

Chapter Nineteen

institutional and the organized religions, i.e. the church you see, a genuine Body of Christ. On the contrary, enacting “as if” living with Jesus does not produce internally-recognized gifts of faith, purpose, joy, peace and enthusiasm. A hypocrite may attempt to deceive others, but cannot deceive themself with feigned biblical gifts. Accordingly, self-assessed knowledge of living in union with Jesus does not serve to prove this expertise to others, but is useful for testing ourselves in this ultimately important matter. To experience abundant biblical gifts of faith not only demonstrates one’s personal closeness to Jesus, but psychologically also suggests that one has the right interpretation of the Happy News (the gospel) and, in general, of the Scriptures. It is also the proof of our understanding of the Church’s teachings, our application of the articles of faith, and our positive responses to the Holy Spirit’s call, which gives us far better assurance than any external proof or approval. Consciously or unconsciously, the wellingup of biblical gifts of faith within us is important introspective proof that as Christians we are on the right way to union with God. This upsurge comes from the deepest layers of our human condition, and it is the way persons created in God’s image and likeness psychologically and spiritually experience and assess their closeness to ultimate truth—Jesus. Practicing the message of Matthew 7:20 about recognizing a good tree from its good fruits makes it clear that the best Christian denomination is the one that helps the believer live as one with the Father, in Jesus, through the Holy Spirit; one that helps God’s people grow internally in biblical courage, joy, and love; and one that gives the believer the greatest assistance in presenting Jesus’ teaching to the world. Let us now raise a difficult question—How can the whole institutional church improve and become the best Christian denomination? A great turning point of Church self-understanding in our time is that Christians realize that problems in evangelization occur not only because of the animosity of the world, but also because of the institutionalism within the walls of the flawed ecclesial institutions. It makes the current situation even worse that symptoms of institutionalism are sometimes more obvious to people in the street and are sometimes rectified more efficiently by worldly authority—like in the bishop of Antignish’s case— than by the visible Church. It is painful to Christians that the champion of justice in the eyes of sceptics is not the Body of Christ, but the world. A similar self-indulgent and often self-righteous attitude plagues modern ecumenical efforts as well. Blinded by the impression that theological disagreements created separate denominations, and therefore that progress in ecumenism is impossible without prior agreement on basic

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

167

theological beliefs, theologians attempted first to resolve theological disputes, and then to restore unity. Rather, it was institutionalism that had caused those theological disagreements that resulted in denominational differences. Thus, resolving institutionalism in hearts, minds and souls is the first step in resolving theological disagreements and subsequently denominational differences. Restoring the non-Church as an indisputable and authentic sign and instrument of God’s love, peace and joy is the “to be or not to be” task of our time. Such restoration of the non-Church has one important precondition—that we stay on the road of perpetual selfscrutiny and the lifestyle of permanent confession initiated by Pope John Paul II. To keep this course is essential both for evangelization and progressing towards the incorporation of all denominations into the Body of Christ. As Ratzinger notes, “The church must no longer be fitted over us from above like a ready-made garment; no, we ‘make’ the church ourselves.”15 How can Christians accomplish this? To borrow a Latin term, a Christian is altera Christus—another Christ. The courage to see ourselves not only from our own but also from God’s perspective is the precondition for progress in becoming Jesus-like, and is essential to the spiritual well-being and self-care of God’s people; it is the necessary practice of each Christian who is becoming altera Christus. Only such Jesus-like Christians can fulfil Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21–22 that his disciples may be one as He is one with the Father, so that the world may believe.

A Meta-empirical Ecumenical Practice Christians agree that there is only one criterion that all believers should worry about—God’s expectations. Jesus revealed his will in John 17:21– 22. However, the opposite of what Jesus prayed for occurs in practice. How can a lifestyle of permanent confession resolve institutionalism in Christian’s hearts,minds and souls, and change their approach to ecumenism? St. Paul’s discussion is applicable here: Do you not know that in the race all the racers run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games gets into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last: but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (I Cor. 9:24–27)

168

Chapter Nineteen

St. Paul runs “in such a way as to get the prize.” He is not competing with other racers the way institutionalism and hypocrisy do. St. Paul races by making his body his slave. In other words, St. Paul competes with his own body—his own flawed personality and behaviour patterns, not with the other runners, so that at the end his real, authentic “I” will be not disqualified from receiving the prize. Such a race goes on within all Christians who seek to overcome their lesser selves, their faith status quo, and their hidden hypocrisy. The Christian race St. Paul describes is like mountaineering, where everyone races against his or her body and self, and not with competitors. Contrary to worldly patterns the Christian race does not engender competition but a strong unity among the racers. Most forms of worldly love are exclusive whereas Christian love—because of the very nature of the race—is inclusive. Its essence is overcoming our own lesser selves, and helping others to do the same. Encouraging and helping competitors in the race to overcome their hidden hypocrisy ultimately fosters every Christian’s own growth in their relationship with Jesus. So, St. Paul’s is the only win-win race in the world. We are encouraged in such mutual win-win relationships by Jesus’ admonition in dealing with the non-Church, but especially in his Church: “Master,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he is not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us, is for us.” (Luke 9:49–50)

What will help other denominations and religions in their search to find a God-given joy that, as noted, self-evidently marks out the road to Ultimate Truth? Our acting in a Christ-like way and living according to Luke 9:49–50 is neither relativism nor egalitarianism. Despite there being a spark of truth hidden in every human search for God, only the Ultimate Truth—Jesus— gives a foretaste of ultimate biblical joy. The non-competitive attitude toward other racers does not mean indifference. It is the purpose of God’s people’s to show—by touching hearts, minds, and consciences—that members of misguided cults, denominations and religions receive only a portion, not the fullness, of the foretaste of Godly peace, love and joy, because they appreciate only a portion of Ultimate truth. The best and most Jesus-like denomination cannot be proven only by the use of reasoning, logic or discursive argument. It is the one that meta-empirically touches the basic, deepest layer of human personality, providing reasons of

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

169

the heart; acting as the sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s kingdom; and becoming the “salt of the earth” (Luke 14:34), and the “light of the world” (Mark 4:21–24).

Communion with Christ Necessarily Leads to Communion in his Church The Church’s history is a history of challenges. The Church was challenged by bloody Roman persecutions followed by Constantine’s imperial church, the theocracy of the Middle Ages, Renaissance Machiavellianism, the Enlightenment, the Reformation and CounterReformation, the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, the French Revolution, the eras of secularism and modernism, the threat of fascism, and the defeat of communism. In its time, each challenge seemed fatal and unsolvable from a human perspective. However, with God’s help the Church survived, and one by one overcame all those things that from a worldly perspective had seemed insurmountable challenges. This is how Jesus’ kingdom is inching toward fulfilment in a progressive spiral. It is certain that the Triune God will lead the Church “capable of multiple developments”16 to overcome its postmodern challenges of religious apathy and fragmentation. But how will this happen? In which direction will the Church evolve? Consider an answer to this difficult question discussed in my book The Mystery of Christian Faith.17 There I paraphrase the story of Nathan the Wise by German writer Gotthold E. Lessing: It was a tradition in one family for a father to give a ring to the best of his sons. Thus, the ring travelled through time, from one generation to the next. But one father of many sons could not decide who the best among them was. So he ordered a few more identical rings, and secretly gave a ring to each of his sons. After his death the sons discovered his secret. But the rings were so similar that they could not discern which one was the original. The sons then took their rings to a wise man and asked him, “Whose ring is the original?” After a long while, the wise man said: “It is not now easy to determine which is the original ring. But the one among you, who, by his lifestyle, honesty, and unselfishness proves that he is the best amongst the brothers, is the one who has the original ring.”

Likewise, it would also be quite difficult for contemporary Christian denominations to objectively prove and convince each other that we have the right ring. For a thousand years no Christian denomination succeeded in logically, theologically or exegetically convincing the members of all other denominations that their denomination is the right one and the

170

Chapter Nineteen

other’s is wrong. We have to discern new ways to prove the one and genuine truth and help all Christians to join the right Christian denomination. There is only one efficient way and behaviour pattern to prove fidelity to Jesus’ teaching, and genuine doctrinal, sacramental, traditional and biblical orthodoxy. This behaviour pattern is holiness. Holiness in an ecumenical context has a negative and a positive aspect. The negative aspect of holiness in ecumenical practice means rising above the institutionalism that in the past produced theologically unsolvable disagreements amongst Christians. It means avoiding hypocrisy, like promoting disuniting denominational buzzwords used in the past as virtual indicators of orthodoxy, instead of the law of Love that Jesus actually preached. It means evading battle cries—used in the past to justify divisions—while disrespecting Jesus’ calls for peace, forgiveness and oneness of all his disciples. Holiness in an ecumenical context does not imply compromising the truth for the sake of reaching a consensus. Rather, it means promoting a unifying perspective of mutual discipleship, as Jesus has commanded in John 17:21–22. Positive aspects of holiness in ecumenical practice are more difficult to define. At the time, the world could not recognize the resurrected Jesus. Only the disciples whose hearts were “burning within” (Luke 24:32), who did cry out “My Lord and God!” (John 20:28), and only the blessed “who have not seen” and yet believed (John 20:29) did recognized the risen Lord and lived accordingly. Our situation today is similar. The meta-empirical recognition of Jesus makes Christians’ hearts “burn within” and strive to live in holiness. Just as the behaviour of the most deserving son identified the original ring, the disciples whose hearts burning within, and the Church that is characterized by the Jesus-like biblical trust, optimism, forgiveness, peace, love and joy will similarly identify themselves as the genuine Body of Christ. This is what we so desperately pray for today: Christian holiness in the form of genuine “Communion with Christ, leading inevitably to communion of the members of his Church, one with another.”18

Notes 1. Luigi Accattoli, When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), 11–14. 2. Catechism of the Catholic Church (Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994), 180. 3. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), 1142.

The Church as an “Instrument of Common Faith”

171

4. Karl Heussi, Kompendium der Kirchengeschichte (Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr), 37–45. 5. Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), in Communio, Vol. 1-The Unity of the Church: Ressourcement: Retrieval and Renewal in Catholic Thought (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2010), 10. 6. Ibid. 7. John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 151–153. 8. Catechism, 184. 9. Xavier Leon-Dufour, Bibliai Teologiai Szotar, Szabo Istvan, ed. (Budapest: Szent Istvan Tasulat, 2009), 1073. 10. Catechism, 186 11. Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World, A Conversation with peter Seewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 67. 12. Paul Ungar, The Mystery of Christian Faith: A Tangible Union With the Invisible God, an Apologetic on Borderline of Theology, Medicine and Philosophy. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008), 410. 13. Robert Barnes, Theories in Counseling (Abilene, TX: Hardin-Simmons University, Department of Counseling and Human Development, 1994), 2. 14. Luigi Accattoli, When a Pope Asks Forgiveness: The Mea Culpa’s of John Paul II (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998), Back Page. 15. Joseph Ratzinger, Called to Communion, Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 137. 16. Joseph Ratzinger, God and the World; A Conversation with Peter Sewald (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 361. 17. Ungar, Mystery of Christian Faith, 265–267. 18. M. J. Havran, “The Church” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second ed., Vol. 3 (Berard C. Martin, Ed. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale in association with the Catholic University of America, 2003), 583.

CHAPTER TWENTY CONCLUSION

In June 2012 a physicist gave a presentation in Vancouver BC, entitled ‘I found the God particle’. Public interest in the presentation was enormous; people camped all night to secure a place in the auditorium. Apparently, interest in knowing God is paramount. But one could assess from the audience’s excited discussion that most of them had never thought of turning to the Church for information. The Church-alienated sceptic world is uninterested in the answers that the Revelation, Scriptures, or theologians could offer to the challenging discussion of the “God particle”—a tool God used when creating the world. It is not only the positivist mental climate but also past and present ecclesial institutionalism which is to blame for the massive exodus from the Church. A moral renewal through a self-scrutinizing lifestyle proposed by Pope John Paul II is a “do or die” task for the people of God today. The visible Church of the future must be the pillar and foundation of a Christlike forgiveness, unselfishness and love. As such, acting as a genuine foretaste of God’s kingdom, the Church will have an attraction for an apathetic world incomparably greater than the discovery of any God particle. However, if such moral renewal does not occur, then segregation from the world will escalate and these institutionalized institutions will have no purpose to exist in the postmodern Western world at all. Equally urgently, the people of God need new and appropriate tools to enhance evangelization. The medieval apologetic proofs, though logically correct, simply do not touch postmodern positivists. The Church needs to give the world what no logic, science or material well-being could give. The Church needs to speak a language that will touch the hearts, minds, conscience and souls of postmodern people. Humanity needs a theology validated by biblical purpose, joy, peace, trust and optimism springing from the Church’s logic of love, as demonstrated in Jesus. Unity with Jesus will then necessarily lead to unity in His Church. Then Jesus’ petition that His disciples become one—as He is one with the Father—to the end that the world may believe (John 17:21–22) will be granted. The Church will overcome its current challenges as it has

174

Chapter Twenty

throughout history. However, in the future as in the past, the Church will continue to encounter new as yet unforeseeable trials by evil and by sin. This will undoubtedly be the case until the end of days. This is exactly what proves that the Church is the genuine body of Christ.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Accatoli, Luigi. When a Pope Asks Forgiveness, The Mea Culpa of John Paul II. Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1998. Adrianji, Gabor. Az Egyhaztortenet Kezikonyve, Masodik Kiadas. Munchen: Aurora Konyvek, 1975. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2005. Balthasar, Hans Urs von. Church and World. Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1967. Barnes, Robert. Theories in Counseling. Abilene, TX: Department of Counseling and Human Development, Hardin Simmons University, 1994. Bekwith, Francis J. and Gregord Koukl. Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid Air. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. 1998. Benedict XVI. Benedictus, Day by Day with Pope Benedict XVI. Yonkers, NY: Ignatius Press/Magnificat, 2006. —. The Church in the Modern World: Essays in Communion, Volume I. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2010. Bitter, Wilhelm. Psychotherapie und Religiose Erfahrung. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1963. Bouyer, Louis. The Church of God, Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982. Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ottawa: Publications Service, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1994. Cerfaux, Lucien. The Spiritual Journey of St. Paul. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968. Coffin, Charles M., Ed. The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne. New York: Modern Library Classics, 2001. Congar, Yves. After Nine Hundred Years: The Background of the Schism Between the Eastern and Western Churches. New York: Fordham University Press, 1959. Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy, Volume II. Garden City, NY: Doubleday/Image Books, 1985. Cross, F. L., and E. A. Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the

176

Bibliography

Christian Church. London: Oxford University Press, 1974. Dulles, Avery. Models of the Church, Expanded Edition. New York: Doubleday/Image Books, 2000. Dofour, Leon Xavier. Bibliai Teologiai Szotar, ed. Szabo Istvan. Budapest: Szent Istvan Tasulat, 2009. Dorcy, Mary Jean. Saint Dominic. Rockford IL: Tan Books and Publishers, 1982. Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. Erdody, Janosi. Requiem Firenzeert. Budapest: Szepmuveszeti Kiado, 1977. Fenichel, Otto. The Psychoanalytic Theory of Neuroses. New York: Norton, 1972. Flannery, Austin, Vatican Collection, Volume I, Vatican Council II, The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents. Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1992. Frankl, Viktor E. Aerztliche Seelsorge. Wien: Franz Deuticke, 1968. —. Anthropologische Grundlagen der Psychotherapie. Wien: Hans Huber, 1976. —. Man’s Search for Meaning, Revised and Enlarged. New York: Washington Square Press, 1984. —. The Doctor and the Soul, From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy. New York: Vintage Books, 1986. —. Unconscious God. New York: Simon Shuster, 1975. Franzen, August. Kleine Kirchengeschichte. Freiburg: Herder Bucherei, 1968. Freud, Sigmund. Interpretation of Dreams. New York: Macmillan. 1914. —. Introduction to Psychoanalysis. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. —. Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis. New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 1913. Fossier, Robert. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages Vol. III 125–1520. Cambridge. MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Fucak, Jerko Marijan. Dogadjaj Isus Krist. Zagreb: ITKL, 1989. Geisler, Norman. Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2000. Hague, William. Evolving Spirituality. Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1995. Harrington, J. Winfried. Uvod u Novi Zavjet. Spomen Ispunjenja. Zagreb:

Flawed Institution—Flawless Church

177

Kršüanska Sadašnjost, 1975. Hastings, Adrian, et al., Editors. “Schism,” The Oxford Companion of Christian Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hauser, Arnold. Socijalna Istorija Umetnosti i Knjizevnosti. Beograd: Kultura, 1966. Havran, J. M. “The Church,” New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition, Volume 3. Berard C. Martin, Exec. Editor. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale w/Catholic University of America, 2003. Heussi Karl, Kompendium de Kirchengeschichte, Sechste Auflage, Tubingen: Verlag von J.C.B. Mohr, 1928 Hindson, Ed, and Caner, Ergun M. The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics. Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2008. Hyman, Arthur, and James J. Walsh. Philosophy in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1967. James, William. Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: American Library, 1958. Jarosevski, Mihail. Istortia Psihologii. Moskva: Izdateljstvo Misl, 1966. Johnson, Paul. Art and History. London: W&N/Orion Publishing Group, 1994. Kelly, Matthew. Rediscovering Catholicism. Cincinnati, OH: Beacon Publishing Co., 2002. Kenny, Anthony. “The Unknown God” Agnostic Essays. London, New York: Continuum Press, 2004. Kox, Ronald. It Is Paul Who Writes, Ronald Knox, tr. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956. Lucas, Elizabeth. Meaning in Suffering. Berkley, CA: Institute of Logotherapy Press, 1998. MacGregor, Geddes. “Soul” Encyclopedia of Religion, Second ed., Lindsay Jones, Ed. in Chief. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson/Gale, 2005. Mackenzie, John L. “Biblical Theology of the New and Old Testament” The Jerome Biblical Commentary, Brown R., J. J. Castelot, and J. L. Mackenzie, eds. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968. Morbai, Matildka. A Hirhedt Inkvizicio. Ujvidek: Kincses Kalendarium, 2008. Nemeshegyi, Peter. Egy Hit es Sokfele Teologia. Budapest: Magyar Papi Egyseg, a Tavlatok Melleklete, 1998. Mendez, Maria. A Life with Meaning: Guide to the Fundamental Principles of Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2004.

178

Bibliography

Murray, Andrew. With Christ in the School of Prayer. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1981. Owen, John. “Overcoming Sin and Temptation” Three Classic Works of John Owen. Wheaton IL: Crossway Books, 2006. Packer, J. I. God’s Plans for You. Wheaton IL: Crossway Books, 2001. Paul II, John. Crossing the Threshold of Hope. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. Pegis, Charles Anton. Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. New York: Random House, 1945. —. St. Thomas and the Problem of Soul in the Thirteenth Century. Toronto: St. Michael’s College, 1934. Rahm, Bernard. Principles of Reading the Bible—Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1970. Rahner, Karl. Theological Investigations Volume II, Man in the Church. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1964. Ratzinger, Joseph. Called to Communion, Understanding the Church Today. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996. —. God and the World, Believing and living in our time A Conversation with Peter Seewald. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002 Reardon, Martin. “Unity” in The Oxford Companion of Christian Thought, Adrian Hastings, et al., eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Robinson, Paschal. “St. Francis” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume Six, Charles G. Haberman, et al., eds. New York: Bert Appleton. 1909. Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel According to John. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968. Schwarz, Joseph. Argumente fur Gottes Existenc. Eisenstadt, 1988. Soll, Jacob. Publishing the Prince, History, Reading, and the Birth of Political Criticism. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Spengler, Oswald. Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Frankfurt, 1927 Stoljijkovic, Srboljub. Psihijatrija sa Medicinskom Psihologijom. Beograd: Medicinska knjiga, 1975. Szabo, Ferenc. Ember es Vilaga. Roma: Self-publsihed, 1967. Tarnay, Bruno. Jezus Krisztus Isten Kinyilatkoztatasa. Budapest: Pazmany Peter Romai Katolikus Hittudomanyi Akademia Levelezo Tagozata, 2003. Thiessen, Henry C. Lectures in Systematic Theology, Rev. by Vernon Doerksen. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2000. Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence, How Christianity is Changing and Why. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2008. Tucker, Aviazer. “The Mind” New Dictionary of the History of Ideas,

Flawed Institution—Flawless Church

179

Volume 2, Marianne Cline Horowitz, ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005. Ungar, Maria. Viktor Frankl’s Meaning Oriented Approach to Counseling. Edmonton, AB: Doctoral Dissertation, Department of Educational Psychology, 1999. Ungar, Paul. The Mystery of Christian Faith: A Tangible Union with the Invisible God, an Apologetic on Borderline of Theology, Medicine and Philosophy. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008. US Census Bureau. “Religious Composition of US Population” Statistical Abstract of the United States:2009, 128th Edition. Washington DC: Berman, Subsidiary of the Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. Vaihinger, Hans. Die Philosophie des Als Ob. Berlin: Reuter & Reichard, 1911. Vitz, Paul C. Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism. Dallas, TX: Spence Publishing Company, 1999. Weismayer, Joseph. Dogmatic VII Kapitel, Hofnung Auf Vollendung. Wien: Fernkurs fur Theologische Laienbildung, 1985. Whitehead, Kenneth D. One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic: The Early Church was the Catholic Church. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2000. Wilk, Annette. “Mysticism” Brill Dictionary of Religion Volume III, Kocku von Stuckard, ed. Leiden-Boston: Brill Publishers, 2006. Wolf, Paul Robert. Philosophy: a Modern Encounter. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1976. Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. New York: Random House/Pantheon Books, 1994.