What is it in the Church's teaching that has 'never changed'?

[Dave Ferguson]

The question I want to ask is a fairly simple one but I think it is one that can be answered more clearly by those who have some knowledge of the history of Christian doctrine. The Orthodox people I have talked to so far have either told me that most Orthodox Christians are not interested in the teaching of the Fathers but rather in the liturgy or that while they think the Fathers are important in Orthodoxy they have not read any of them.

Orthodox Christians claim (or at least some do!) that the true Church has never changed. My question is simply this: what it is that it is alleged has not changed? I have been given two answers to this.

The first was that it is the doctrine of the Church has never changed. I have to admit this seems incredible to me. But if this is the answer it would raise the following questions:
Where is this unchanged doctrine located? Where can I find a set of true and unchanging propositions that constitute true Christian doctrine? Is it in the fathers? - And is it therefore being asserted that all the fathers teach the same doctrine. That the works of say St. Justin Martyr and St Athanasius contain the same dogmas? Or is it the councils - is it being asserted that the council of Chalcedon is somehow a repetition of the Council of Nicea? In which case why have two councils? Or is it being held that Chalcedon makes explicit what was implicit at Nicea? (Still an implausible claim in my opinion)

The second answer I was given is that it is the liturgy that has not changed. However, he did not claim that it is the words that have not changed or even the underlying content but the action of moving from time into eternity. I can see what this second answer means. I can also see it is quite different from the first answer. I cannot see quite why such a movement should be exclusive to the Orthodox Church. Is the liturgy the only way this movement can take place? And in whatsense can it be said that this action or series of actions is unchanging?

[Herman Blaydoe]

I guess it can be said that certain circles have neglected or failed to see the relevancy of the Fathers, but these people do not speak for the Church. I find the comments you claim were made to be rather misinformed.

What does not change? God does not change. His revelation does not change. Our understanding of that revelation may progress as we grow closer to Christ and that revelation has had to be better defined in Ecumenical councils. But the first thing a successor council did was affirm the preceeding council, not contravene it, so I am having trouble with your comments. How we express God's Truth has changed to better fit the culture but the Truth has not changed. To say that the Church has not changed is a misstatement. She has changed as necessary to preserve the Apostolic Witness which has not changed since it was revealed in Christ our Lord.

[Andrew]

I guess it can be said that certain circles have neglected or failed to see the relevancy of the Fathers, but these people do not speak for the Church. I find the comments you claim were made to be rather misinformed.

What does not change? God does not change. His revelation does not change. Our understanding of that revelation may progress as we grow closer to Christ and that revelation has had to be better defined in Ecumenical councils. But the first thing a successor council did was affirm the preceeding council, not contravene it, so I am having trouble with your comments. How we express God's Truth has changed to better fit the culture but the Truth has not changed. To say that the Church has not changed is a misstatement. She has changed as necessary to preserve the Apostolic Witness which has not changed since it was revealed in Christ our Lord.

Yes. Please forgive and correct me if I am wrong on anything below.

The revelation of God is God Himself. The theologians of the Church, through living out the grace filled ascetical-sacramental life of the Church, come to see and participate in God, to know Christ personally, and from this encounter and relationship they themselves are changed. They then try to bring us into this relationship with God... the Liturgy, the dogmas, the prayers, everything is an outgrowth of this knowledge of God. The various extensions of this experience take different forms, appearances, sounds, etc, but they are all at the core the same in that they are a means of drawing man closer to God. Dogma is a theologican conceptual icon. It is true in itself, but it points beyond its own limitations of being in the language of created man, to the uncreated infinite Triune Divinity. Because dogma is written in the fallible and fallen language of man, which can and does change, dogma sometimes is expressed in different ways. But still, it points to the same thing, it expresses the same thing, and it is the same thing.

[Matthew Namee]

My question is simply this: what it is that it is alleged has not changed?
Certainly, if you study history, it appears that the Church has undergone many changes, both in liturgical and ecclesiastical forms and in theological expression. However, I would argue that in its essence, it has indeed remained unchanged. The principle at work here is the assertion that what was proclaimed by the Apostles lacks nothing and is in no way deficient or in need of improvement. The "mind of the Church," which I would argue is the Holy Spirit, is immutable and uncreated. The same Spirit who came down upon the Apostles remains with the Church.

However, the Church does exist in the world, and as a result, it has been acted upon by external historical forces and events. As it moved into new societies and cultures, it naturally adopted languages and forms respective to those societies, while at the same time retaining the mind of the Church. When dealing with theological questions and disputes, the question has always been, what is the apostolic teaching? What is in conformity to the mind of the Church? It is not necessary for the Apostles themselves to have used the term homoousion for homoousion to be an acceptable theological term. What is necessary is that homoousion accurately convey the truth which was revealed by God and preached by the Apostles.

One should not hold it against the Church that it has functioned as an historical entity. This is inevitable. The question is not whether the outward forms have undergone any evolution (obviously they have) but whether that evolution has been consistent with the eternal mind of the Church. Heresies were condemned not because they were new ways of expressing theology, but because they were innovations, novelties which are inconsistent with revealed truth. Orthodoxy is unchanged in that it has (many times in spite of its own members and leaders) preserved intact the apostolic faith and the divinely-revealed mind of the Church.

This is why Orthodoxy rejects the notion of the development of doctrine. Doctrine does not develop in the sense that it does not change; we do not know more about God today than we did 1000 years ago, or in the time of the Apostles. We do not and cannot hold to a view which is not in strict conformity with the original apostolic deposit of faith.

[Rick James York]

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My question is simply this: what it is that it is alleged has not changed? I have been given two answers to this.The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church consists in all her members: clergy; monastics and laity on earth and the saints and angels in heaven.

God never changes. Christ is God together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Church is the Body of Christ and as such never changes. It is the relationship to God that never changes in the Church.

Members come and go. Someone may leave the Orthodox Church for some reason and another may become a member but the Church does not change in essence nor in relationship to God.

Groups of individuals have broken away and followed their own will, but that is no different from a single member leaving the Body of Christ. They change but the Church does not. Even if her members dwindle down to a single person, the Church lives on. Though in such an extreme case, she would last for only one generation, unless that person were a bishop.

The Church of God is the bearer of the Holy Spirit. It is the spiritual aspect that remains unchanging no matter what color clothes its members where, they are members in the Body of Christ who is unchanging God.

[Dave Ferguson]

I want to thank you all for some very lucid answers. To be fair to my friend who made the comment about people not being interested in the fathers he was talking mainly about the local congregation he is involved with. And he has only recently returned to Orthodoxy. Years ago when we were both evangelicals we had a lot of disagreements about the importance of the fathers: I would insist they were important he was more of a Bible only man (a misunderstanding of the protestant position that has become very common)

I wonder of the real issue here is one of epistemology: what constitutes knowledge and how, in so far as we can know, we can know? How does specifiable knowledge relate to unspecifiable knowledge? Could it be said for example that in the original Apostolic witness certain things were known but not specified and that in the later creeds these things were specified. Or would it be truer to say that they were always specified but had to be respecified in a different idiom. Some of the replies above seem nearer to the first view and some to the second.

Anyway I thank you again and I will take time to think about what you have said.

[Rick James York]

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How does specifiable knowledge relate to unspecifiable knowledge? Could it be said for example that in the original Apostolic witness certain things were known but not specified and that in the later creeds these things were specified. Or would it be truer to say that they were always specified but had to be respecified in a different idiom. Some of the replies above seem nearer to the first view and some to the second.I have a third view to offer. I believe that Holy Scripture was written in a spiritual code. As time progresses, people are born and mature with the God-given ability to interpret this code. These people are theologians. (Mat 11:15)

God chooses when we are ready for the next stage of spiritual revelation. That is why, in the very Old Testament, we read "An eye for an eye..." but in the New Testament, we read, "Turn and offer the other cheek..." and "Love thine enemy..."

It is evident that God's people were once morally primitive, as can be seen by the laws they were given in the Old Testament. For example, they had to be taught not to have physical relations with family members.

Now we accept this naturally and are repulsed by the thought of such acts but we owe thanks to the fact that this was drummed into our ancestors first, long ago until the morals became second nature to us.

There is still a little bit left to be interpreted for us by these theologians who today, may appear as ordinary Church laity without any apparent saintly qualities (because, perhaps, they are not saints but just possess this one gift alone as their attribute for the multi-functional membership in the Body of Christ).

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Ferguson, you wrote:


My question is simply this: what it is that it is alleged has not changed? [...] Where is this unchanged doctrine located? Where can I find a set of true and unchanging propositions that constitute true Christian doctrine?

There have been some very thoughtful and helpful responses to your query already, which have been welcome reading. I wanted only to add a brief highlight to the specific words from your post, that I've quoted above. In the attempt to seek for 'a set of true and unchanging propositions that constitute true Christian doctrine', the quest begins on the wrong foot. One discussion that has been had many times here in the Discussion Community, is that surrounding that nature of the Church's truth not as a series of propositions, but as a Person, Jesus Christ; and her existence not a definition of acts, but a life of authentic engagement with this Christ.

This feeds in, I think, with some of the above comments made by others. I might suggest you search the forum's archives a bit, as there have been a number of threads over the years that have addressed this in some depth.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Father David Moser]

I have a third view to offer. I believe that Holy Scripture was written in a spiritual code. As time progresses, people are born and mature with the God-given ability to interpret this code. These people are theologians. (Mat 11:15)

This seems contrary to the Orthodox belief that Jesus Christ is the complete revelation of the Truth that there is nothing left to be revealed and known for ll has been revealed in the incarnation. Also being a theologian is not some "gift" that is "inborn" but rather a theologian is one who sees God clearly. To see God is achieved through the cleansing of the heart and mind by ascetic labor, prayer, fasting and most importantly the grace of God (which receive most purely in the Holy Mysteries).

There is nothing left that is "hidden" that remains to be revealed, there is no "gift" of theology apart from the perception of God and a theologian is indeed a saint - that is one who has struggled in prayer and fasting and in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.

Fr David Moser

[M. Partyka]

It is not necessary for the Apostles themselves to have used the term homoousion for homoousion to be an acceptable theological term. What is necessary is that homoousion accurately convey the truth which was revealed by God and preached by the Apostles.What's especially interesting about the acceptance of the word "homoousion" by the Nicene Council is that this same word was explicitly rejected by an earlier council. Why? Because Paul of Samosata used it to promote his heretical doctrine that Jesus was born a mere man whom God the Father later infused with the Divine Essence (thereby making Jesus "of one essence" with the Father). So, in the earlier council the word "homoousion" was rejected because it was being used to communicate an adoptionist heresy, whereas in the Nicene Council the word was accepted because it was being used in a Trinitarian sense to safeguard the truth of Christ's Divinity (i.e., by declaring Him "of one essence" with the Father by way of His eternal generation).

[Rick James York]

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Also being a theologian is not some "gift" that is "inborn" but rather a theologian is one who sees God clearly.
Rick James York (http://www.monachos.net/forum/member.php?u=8606)

As time progresses, people are born and mature with the God-given ability to interpret this code. These people are theologians. (Mat 11:15 (http://biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&version=NKJV&passage=Mat+11%3A15))(Joel 2:28) (Luke 1:41-44) (1 Cor 12:27-31)

[Herman Blaydoe]

This is why it is good that we have the Church to help us understand Holy Scripture and we are not left to our own faulty reasonings.

[Dave Ferguson]

In the attempt to seek for 'a set of true and unchanging propositions that constitute true Christian doctrine', the quest begins on the wrong foot. One discussion that has been had many times here in the Discussion Community, is that surrounding that nature of the Church's truth not as a series of propositions, but as a Person, Jesus Christ; and her existence not a definition of acts, but a life of authentic engagement with this Christ.

While true this seems to me to introduce an obfuscation. I was responding to claims made by some Orthodox that the doctrine of the Church has never changed. So my argument at that point was an ad hominem argument: if it were the case that the Church's doctrines had never changed then those doctrines must exist somewhere in propositional form. Since people have said that it is not the case that the Church's doctrines are unchanging, it follows that there is no need to suppose the existence of such a set of propositions. Now if saying that the Church's truth has never changed simply means that the person of Christ and the type of relationship with him that is open to us since his ascension has never changed, which Christian would want to disagree?

I do agree very strongly with Augustine when he says dogma is the fence around mystery, and I assume he means a fence that keeps us within the mystery not outside it.

Secondly it seems to me there has been some confusion about the difference between saying that something has never changed and saying our understanding of it has not changed. Let me give a comparison. The force of gravity has been unchanged for at least 12,000,000,000 years. But even in the last couple of centuries human understanding of this unchanging phenomena has developed considerably. So it would be quite possible to say God has never changed but doctrine has developed. Now this development has been denied here so let me give a couple of examples from early Church history that seem to indicate development.

Justin Martyr does not believe in creation ex nihilo; this is very clear from his writing. Athanasius and all theologians after him do believe in this. (the exceptions I can think of like John Milton are not Orthodox) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo ceases to be optional after Athanasius. This seems to me to be a development.

Some of the teachings of Origin were condemned but this did not happen within his lifetime. If there had been some unchanging body of truth to refer to surely Origin's errors would have been immediately apparent and immediately condemned.

Now this raises a third point which fits in nicely. Origin was the first person to use the concept of the word's eternal generation. When Justin talks of the generation of the word he talks of the word (reason) which was always latent within God becoming manifest when God creates the cosmos, a temporal process or at least a process originating with time. This concept of Origin's is adopted by later theologians but the universal affirmation of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo makes it clear that this cannot be understood as a kind of creation, an act of God's will as Origin seems to have supposed it was.

All of that certainly looks like development to me.

[Tim Grass]

Rick James York: Your last post wasn't a post.... just a string of Bible references. If you want to contribute in a helpful way, perhaps some discussion rather than just Protestant-style proof citations?

--tim

[Rick James York]

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Let me give a comparison. The force of gravity has been unchanged for at least 12,000,000,000 years. Sorry to blunder in, but this statement touches on one of my pet theories. Since the force of gravity is governed by the attraction of mass it is also altered in magnitude by the neutralizing effect of centrifugal force.

Before the great flood, the earth was rounder than it became after the ice caps formed and the topography of the earth became rough (mountains and valleys increased). So the earth spins slower now than before the great flood which means it has a weaker centrifugal force acting to neutralize gravity making everything heavier.

After global warming melts the ice caps, the earth will spin faster and all will become lighter again. That's only a theory. What do you think? Can it be true?

In +, James

[David Lemont]

I would say this about the Orthodox faith. What will never change say until Christ second coming is that we can expect every moment of every day to expect struggle. Struggle to remain true to the faith once and for all delivered. Why individually we may fall down, like the Church it is Christ who perfects us and not the reverse.

I get uneasy talking about the faith of others. I am Orthodox because where else could I go? Experience has shown me that the rule of most of Christianity is the exception of Orthodoxy.

[Antonios]

While true this seems to me to introduce an obfuscation. I was responding to claims made by some Orthodox that the doctrine of the Church has never changed. So my argument at that point was an ad hominem argument: if it were the case that the Church's doctrines had never changed then those doctrines must exist somewhere in propositional form. Since people have said that it is not the case that the Church's doctrines are unchanging, it follows that there is no need to suppose the existence of such a set of propositions. Now if saying that the Church's truth has never changed simply means that the person of Christ and the type of relationship with him that is open to us since his ascension has never changed, which Christian would want to disagree?

I do agree very strongly with Augustine when he says dogma is the fence around mystery, and I assume he means a fence that keeps us within the mystery not outside it.

Secondly it seems to me there has been some confusion about the difference between saying that something has never changed and saying our understanding of it has not changed. Let me give a comparison. The force of gravity has been unchanged for at least 12,000,000,000 years. But even in the last couple of centuries human understanding of this unchanging phenomena has developed considerably. So it would be quite possible to say God has never changed but doctrine has developed. Now this development has been denied here so let me give a couple of examples from early Church history that seem to indicate development.

Justin Martyr does not believe in creation ex nihilo; this is very clear from his writing. Athanasius and all theologians after him do believe in this. (the exceptions I can think of like John Milton are not Orthodox) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo ceases to be optional after Athanasius. This seems to me to be a development.

Some of the teachings of Origin were condemned but this did not happen within his lifetime. If there had been some unchanging body of truth to refer to surely Origin's errors would have been immediately apparent and immediately condemned.

Now this raises a third point which fits in nicely. Origin was the first person to use the concept of the word's eternal generation. When Justin talks of the generation of the word he talks of the word (reason) which was always latent within God becoming manifest when God creates the cosmos, a temporal process or at least a process originating with time. This concept of Origin's is adopted by later theologians but the universal affirmation of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo makes it clear that this cannot be understood as a kind of creation, an act of God's will as Origin seems to have supposed it was.

All of that certainly looks like development to me.

Dear David,

I think that while various peoples have had various thoughts on the mysteries of God, the 'doctrines' which are considered eternal truths and unchanging are those which do not contradict the collective mind of the Church from its very beginning. Thus, while one saint may offer their understanding of a mystery, another may offer a different understanding. This may mean one is wrong, one is right, or maybe both are wrong! Orthodox Christian teaching does not subscribe to infallibility as an absolute and fixed condition as long as we live in this fallen world, whether sinner or saint. Thus, even saints may be wrong and simply because of the time and the place, this wrong could not be corrected- this wound could not be healed.

In short to your question about developments in doctrine, there is no 'development' in the sense that truths are created or extrapolated, but rather that these eternal truths are clarified and illuminated to reflect the mystery of man's encounter and relationship with God.

In Christ,
Antonios

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

This thread has proved an interesting source for various comments, which I've enjoyed reading. Having read back over it this morning, a few thoughts stood out, which I offer for further reflection and discussion.

What is the relationship of doctrine/dogma and truth?

There were, to my mind, some comments in the initial query that raised interesting questions. In my earlier response (http://monachos.net/forum/showpost.php?p=63337&postcount=8), I took up this particular set of questions:



Where is this unchanged doctrine located? Where can I find a set of true and unchanging propositions that constitute true Christian doctrine?


My response there was to the effect that the Church's truth is not propositional, but personal: it resides in, and is, the person of the incarnate Son. The confession of this Truth (this Christ who said, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life...') constitutes the Church's unchanging wisdom and unaltering substance; not the technical wording (which can and does alter over time, as any, even cursory, engagement with the councils and writings of the fathers shows), but the very nature of such doctrines as engaged in the authentic reality of God, in whom, as St James writes, 'there is no variation or shadow due to change'.

(As an aside, there has been some good discussion on this topic in several threads in the past, but perhaps most obviously in 'Development' of doctrine and preserving Orthodoxy (http://monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1655).)

However, in response to my comments, Mr Ferguson wrote -- quite fairly -- that this in some sense got round his real interest. His recapitulation:


I was responding to claims made by some Orthodox that the doctrine of the Church has never changed. So my argument at that point was an ad hominem argument: if it were the case that the Church's doctrines had never changed then those doctrines must exist somewhere in propositional form.

I'm grateful for the focussing-in of your thoughts, here. I would say that such a position (which is not yours: which you're noting is held by some) represents a kind of superficial engagement with the true tradition of the Church. There are, perhaps, certain contexts in which it is helpful to stress the unchanging nature of propositional statements of the faith (for example, in defending the creed of Nicaea-Constantinople against insertion of the Philoque clause); but to make general statements that there is some propositional body of dogma that has not changed over history, is to simplify into a kind of scientific formality the mystery of an unchanging Christianity. This desire to define 'unchanging' as bound up in an unaltered collection of theological propositions, is in some real sense a product of the englightenment and post-enlightenment mind; and again, while there are some contexts in which it has merit, as an overarching view of the Church's nature and truth it does not accurately represent the vision of the fathers.

Discussions about this become difficult, because very often statements by the fathers are read through this modern, propositionally-based notion of what 'unchanging' means, and so taken to serve as 'proofs' of it, thus making false demands of the fathers and inaccurate representations of the Church's living tradition. A good example of this might be a quotation from St Irenaeus. Having summarised at some length a great variety of theological and philosophical interpretations current amongst groups in his environs, he offers a summation of the key points of Christian confession (his regula fidei, 'rule of the faith'), and then writes of the Church's doctrine:

"As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same."
Such a passage (which comes from St Irenaeus' monumental work, On the refutation and overthrow of knowledge, falsely so-called), is often taken by modern-day readers to 'prove' that the saint, and thus the Church, believe some set of propositional doctrinal statements exists that does not modify. This, when combined with his emphatic insistence that there is nothing hidden in scripture, and as such it openly and un-concealingly reveals its every content, is often taken to support the kind of definition of what is 'unchanging' in the Church, that you identify in your post.

But such a characterisation is made without really knowing St Irenaeus, or engaging with the whole of his work. This is the same father who insisted, in his correspondence with his former bishop, that differing definitions of Paschal practice should be accepted in peace; who read (and perhaps knew) St Justin the Philosopher, engaged with his comments on creation ex nihilo (which Justin does believe, though he believes what God created out of nothing was amorphous, unformed matter, which he then fashioned into the cosmos), and then differed from in terms of his own articulation. This is the same saint who read St Theophilus of Antioch on the nature of the prohibition against eating of the Tree of Knowledge, accepted much in the Antiochene's articulation, and in then offered an exegesis quite different in some key doctrinal and anthropological details (e.g. Theophilus understands the prohibition to have been a test given by God to Adam and Eve; Irenaeus insists it was not a test, but a viaticum for growth).

In actual point of fact, St Irenaeus' assertion of the unity of the faith throughout the world, is grounded in his insistence that the whole Church, through the succession of the apostles, engages with Christ in the authentic manner revealed by the apostles, and so encounters and proclaims this same Christ who is the Truth. The apostles, and their successors, guide the Church throughout the world to a true encounter with the true Christ, and since Christ is the source of truth as truth himself, the testimony of the faith of these is one and the same - even though Irenaeus nowhere insists that this unity or commonality resides in some collection of propositional statements, written or otherwise (and this coming from one of the early fathers to defend the strength of scriptural testimony more strongly than almost any other). This is in fact precisely his point when he speaks about the succession of the apostles amongst the Church. Having spoken of the 'proofs' of the truth residing in the authentic living testimony of the successors to the apostles, he says:

"Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man depositing his money in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth: so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. For she is the entrance to life; all others are thieves and robbers. On this account are we bound to avoid them, but to make choice of the thing pertaining to the Church with the utmost diligence, and to lay hold of the tradition of the truth. For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient Churches with which the apostles held constant intercourse, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question? For how should it be if the apostles themselves had not left us writings? Would it not be necessary, in such a case, to follow the course of the tradition which they handed down to those to whom they did commit the Churches? To which course many nations of those barbarians who believe in Christ do assent, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God."
I raise these points as but a single example of one source in the fathers that is often misused in our present day. If one takes as a starting point of understanding and reading, an enlightenment position that something 'unchanging' must reside in an unaltered set of propositions, it is easy to pick up a text from the fathers -- such as the above by St Irenaeus -- and insist that it proves this position. But this chiefly represents a thrusting of a modern scientific paradigm upon the fathers, who are then called upon to prove the paradigm.

Developmental articulation of confession.

The manner in which articulations / written statements of Christian truth differ over time, is often used to 'prove' that there is no unchanging truth (since such developments effectively rubbish an argument that there is an un-altered set of propositional statements defining the Church's unchanging truth); to which some in the Church rush to respond by insisting that there is, in fact, no development of any sort, even of articulation. But this abuse of the fathers, while grounded in the first (above), is in fact worse still, since it now takes a prevalent-yet-false modern intellectual conception (that 'unchanging truth' must reside in unchanging propositions), sees its inverse being argued to disprove the truth of the Church (i.e. that since it is clear that the fathers speak differently on certain subjects, the propositional test of 'unchanging' fails), and responds by insisting on an even more stringent application of the modern intellectual paradigm (i.e. that since one knows, as a matter of confession, that the Church's truth does not change, it must therefore be the case that the same propositional statements are held by all the fathers). The problem here is that this is patently false, and those who would oppose the Church as haven of unchanging, unaltered truth, know it is false. Those who wish to defend the Church against the various intellectualising attacks it faces in the modern world, who generally do so out of entirely pious, faithful motives, unwittingly give a great edifice of authenticity to such critics, by attempting to force the Christian mystery into the intellectual paradigms of contemporary society.

You raise a number of very decent examples:



Justin Martyr does not believe in creation ex nihilo; this is very clear from his writing. Athanasius and all theologians after him do believe in this. (the exceptions I can think of like John Milton are not Orthodox) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo ceases to be optional after Athanasius. This seems to me to be a development.

While I would take certain issue with this (I do believe that it is in unstated, yet clear, implication of his discussion in 1 Apology 10, on creation from formless matter, given St Justin's insistence that only God exists eternally -- therefore the 'formless matter' that he declares God used to fashion the cosmos, had itself to be created by God), nonetheless you are quite right in noting that later fathers insist explicitly not only that God God created everything ex ouk onton, 'out of non-existence', or 'out of nothing', but also explicitly that he did not fashion the cosmos/earth out of 'formless matter', which St Justin explicitly states that he did ('We have been taught that God in the beginning did of his goodness, for the sake of man, create all things out of unformed matter').

You also point out:


Origin was the first person to use the concept of the word's eternal generation. When Justin talks of the generation of the word he talks of the word (reason) which was always latent within God becoming manifest when God creates the cosmos, a temporal process or at least a process originating with time. This concept of Origin's is adopted by later theologians but the universal affirmation of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo makes it clear that this cannot be understood as a kind of creation, an act of God's will as Origin seems to have supposed it was.

You are quite right in pointing out the advent of the phrase 'eternal generation' in Origen (NB: spelling), which is taken up by the fourth-century fathers, despite Origen's having used it as part of the emanationist/participatory paradigm by which he attempted to articulate the unity-yet-multiplicity of the Father and Son (a paradigm that was rejected). In some sense, Origen's usage attempted precisely to respond to the Logos endiathetos / Logos prophorikos articulation of St Justin, given that -- as you note -- it raised theological questions about a 'temporality' of their relation (for which reason it was abandoned already by St Irenaeus and many others, almost within Justin's own lifetime). Origen's response avoided the problem of introducing temporality into a definition of the relation of Father and Son, but introduced others of its own (most notably, an essential dependence). So it is altered by St Athanasius.

The point in both examples is that, if the 'truth' of the Church is believed to be bound up in a given, fixed, unaltered and un-alterable set of propositional statements, then none of these -- not Origen, nor St Justin, St Theolphilus, St Irenaeus, St Athanasius -- teach the truth, since all of them write statements that differ from what has been written before, and all of them write statements that will be changed in later statements by the councils. So the fathers 'fail' the test of 'unchanging truth'; and in response to such characterisations, those who piously wish to defend the faith today in the face of such accusations, too often respond, not by engaging with the deep wisdom of the fathers as to unchanging truth met in conciliar articulations that build on the revelation of authentic engagement with the God who is Truth, but by accepting and supporting the very intellectual paradigm used to malign them.

To be clear, it is the confession of the Church that truth is unchanging, and that the Church is herself unchanging in her clear presentation of the truth. However, propositional statements are not the truth: they are articulations of it, and truth itself remains the personal reality of the Son of the Father, known in the Spirit. Man encounters truth in the living engagement with the holy Trinity; and in its proclamation of the engagement, and its provision for the human approach to it, the Church has not changed. How it articulates this mystery has, and there is no statement anywhere in the Church's sacred writings that insists it hasn't. The conciliar nature of the Church's articulation means that articulation is considered together, consolidated as accurately exposing the true mystery to the world: and so the councils were frequent in an early period, lesser later, and at the level of ecumenical counciliar consideration, now over a millenium on. One of the points of these councils was to confirm that current articulation exposed not a new 'truth', but the unchanging Truth.

In terms of your discussion with your friend, perhaps one of the key points is to address this matter of just how 'unchanging' is defined, even at a doctrinal level. The fathers represent a wonderful mystery to the modern mind: but it is one that remains closed if we, in our true desire to see the genuine, unchanging nature of their testimony, in fact force change upon them by defining them in modern intellectual terms.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Dave Ferguson]

Thanks very much for that very full response. It will need some time to take in but it does seem to adress the issues I was raising. There has been a tendency in protestantism and catholicism to move in with modern rationalism. Descartes says truth is found in clear propositions. Locke says the Bible is a set of such propositions. Liberals say revelation is non-propositional and conservatives respond by saying revelation is propositional and even in some cases by adopting Wittgensteins idea of atomic propositions mirroring atomic facts. The whole thing is probably a dead end even in describing science.

I just wonder if you ever read Michael Polanyi - a philosopher of science and, although this is not always realised, increasingly mainstream Christian (he followed Tillich for a while but shifted away from that). He tries to clarify the difference between knowing something and being able to formally specify it. He concludes that all knowledge is personal knowledge rather than objective knowledge. We are always engaged with what we know.

Anyway thank you very much again for taking the time to respond to my questions.

[Anthony]

Incidentally it is not such a straightforward matter where unchanging truth is to be located even in terms of propositions. It is arguably not in the language that describes them (this bears on points that have been raised already regarding apparently inconsistent terminology), nor simply in their real-world extensions (a la Wittgenstein). There are a small minority of propositions, such as logical or mathematical truths, which might be claimed as exceptions in their apparent changelessness, but one might doubt whether these are predominant in theology.

I don't know if this leads us anywhere, but it might be worth bearing in mind that there is not just one modern view of propositions, but many.

[Rostislav]

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My question is simply this: what it is that it is alleged has not changed?A simple question deserves a simple answer. The Church is it's members.

We the members of the Church must strive to be like Christ, who does not change. He is the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last... He is the same in the beginning and the end.

Christ said, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, ..." Be like Christ.

For He is neither pompous nor verbose, but simple like a child. "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Be like Christ.

Christ is unchanging and simple. The Church is also so. We as individuals, are changing from hour to hour but we must strive to become simple and unchanging.

The Holy fathers teach us to look upon each day as the same, whether it brings good fortune or bad, all is by God's providence unto our salvation.

So no matter how intelligent or educated we may be, thanks to God's mercy and not our own doing, we must not become pompous or verbose. When one tries to make an impression, that's the impression one makes. We must strive to acquire the simplicity of a young child.

[Matthew Namee]

However, propositional statements are not the truth: they are articulations of it, and truth itself remains the personal reality of the Son of the Father, known in the Spirit.
This is crucial. I think it is essential to remember that all propositional statements are (obviously) composed of words, and words are only man-made symbols of realities. The Church is attempting, using flawed human words, to describe the perfect divine reality of the person of Christ, his Father, and the Spirit. The words of various fathers and councils may differ, but the subject remains the same. I sometimes get the sense that we are groping about with words.

God is essentially unknowable, and he is known only insofar as he reveals himself to humans. The ultimate self-revelation of God is Christ, crucified and risen. This was followed by the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. I cannot accept that there has been additional divine self-revelation since then; that is, God has not shown to men new things about himself which he (for some reason) hid from his apostles. Since only self-revelation (not human reasoning) can make the unknowable God knowable to his creatures, it follows that for doctrine to "develop" in an essential sense requires new and deliberate divine self-revelation.

I recently read an outstanding book, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Robert Wilken, which discusses early pagan engagement with Christianity. I don't have the book with me, but I recall an interesting passage about the doctrine of creation out of nothing. Wilken says that the pagans (I think it was Celsus, but I could be mistaken) first noticed that this doctrine was implicit in Christian theology; the Christians themselves had not yet realized that their theology necessarily implied such a doctrine. Of course, it soon became a standard dogma of the faith, but it had always been a standard element of the faith.

This, I suppose, is what I am trying to say. The elements of the faith are already present, already implicit in the apostolic witness. All doctrines -- the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, the divinity of the Spirit, the dual ousia and single hypostasis of Christ, etc. -- are already present in the apostolic deposit. Only in the face of upheavals are many of these beliefs clearly defined and articulated. Extenuating circumstances lead to the further articulation of the faith. But that faith, that apostolic deposit, remains the same. We simply must articulate it; it must be a living faith, able to be spoken of to whatever context in which the Church finds herself, yet remaining ever consistent with the original deposit. Words may change, but innovation is forbidden.

[John]

Dear Deacon Mathew:

Thank you so much for your post. It has really helped me understanding something I've been struggling with for a long time. It always gets said, but I've never had someone help me understand it!

Yours,
John

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Fr Dn Matthew wrote:



To be clear, it is the confession of the Church that truth is unchanging, and that the Church is herself unchanging in her clear presentation of the truth. However, propositional statements are not the truth: they are articulations of it, and truth itself remains the personal reality of the Son of the Father, known in the Spirit. Man encounters truth in the living engagement with the holy Trinity; and in its proclamation of the engagement, and its provision for the human approach to it, the Church has not changed. How it articulates this mystery has, and there is no statement anywhere in the Church's sacred writings that insists it hasn't. The conciliar nature of the Church's articulation means that articulation is considered together, consolidated as accurately exposing the true mystery to the world: and so the councils were frequent in an early period, lesser later, and at the level of ecumenical counciliar consideration, now over a millenium on. One of the points of these councils was to confirm that current articulation exposed not a new 'truth', but the unchanging Truth.

One great source of unease about whether the truth of the Church is unchanging or not concerns how we know this truth. If the truth of the Church changes in expression then we are concerned that our own understanding of this truth is relative & even arbitrary. So much the more is this issue critical when we see that this is exactly the interpretation that changing expressions of the truth are often given.

Again we know that within the Church there is great stress placed on spiritual vision and of a life lived in accord with the Church. This is so that we see that heavenly reality for what it is instead of our own worldly delusions. As part of this we see from the time of the early Church that stability is ascribed to this noetic and purified way of seeing while instability is ascribed to the worldly way of seeing.

Thus there is something powerful within the life of the Church itself which could lead us to maintain that doctrine is unchanging which in a very important sense it is. However along with what you & others have already described in your posts I would also say that within the life of spiritual growth -as referred to by St Irenaeus in one way and many other ascetic fathers in a practical way- developed understanding is strongly referred to & implied. In other words this is part of the way in which God leads us.

Apart from the ascetic advice of the Church where one can often meet this sort of advice about a step by step approach to life within the Church (ie our expression of this would necessarily develop to reflect this) the first Patristic reference I have come across about this is found in St Gregory the Theologian.

In his Fifth Theological Oration (Oration 31) which appropriately enough is on the Holy Spirit, he refers to the three 'shakings'. By this St Gregory means three stages of development whereby God has revealed & unfolded His universal economia to us.

Thus:


There have been two remarkable transformations of the human way of life in the course of the world's history. These are called two "covenants," and, so famous was the business involved, two "shakings of the earth." The first was the transition from idols to the Law; the second, from the Law to the Gospel.

Then very interestingly, St Gregory continues:


The Gospel also tells of a third "shaking", the change from this present state of things to what lies unmoved, unskaken, beyond.

Thus a fundamental aspect of what St Gregory refers to here is the gradual unfolding of God's plan:



An identical feature occurs in both covenants. The feature? They were not suddenly changed, even at the first moment the changes were put in hand.

And that St Gregory refers not just to the unfolding of God's plan on the historical plane but on that of our understanding of this, he writes:


It was so that we should be persuaded, not forced. The unspontaneous is the impermanent- as when force is used to keep streams or plants in check. The spontaneous both lasts longer and is more secure.

Thus in a crucial way, St Gregory turns around the whole stable/unstable equation to explain how stability of knowledge is actually arrived at in accordance with the way in which God gradually reveals His dispensation. And just in case one might think St Gregory is only referring to a past & future which are a bit abstract, the whole context of the oration implies that he actually refers to the understanding of the Holy Spirit which previously had not received such clear expression of its being one in essence with the Father & Son.

In other words in accounting for this 'new development' in understanding the Holy Spirit, St Gregory implies that this reflects the gradual manner of God's revelation.

Thus I would say that this understanding accords very well with what has already been explained here about the Patristic manner of knowing. The Fathers express what they have been given to see. This knowledge is true because it is grounded in the Truth of Christ. But yet it never is full since these expressions of truth are never identical to the Truth itself.

In a sense this refers to our own weakness but in the positive sense of how God works with this weakness over time in order to reveal & lead us to Himself.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Father Raphael,

I'm very grateful indeed for your post. The quotations from St Gregory, together with your own comments, make very clear the way in which ascent in engagement with the Truth, Jesus Christ, is part of the ascetical encounter with God in the spiritual life.

I'll have to ponder for a bit!

INXC, Dcn Matthew