A CATHOLIC ANGLICAN RULE OF FAITH

https://northamanglican.com/a-catho...P2RMr-YvFizSpDOa0Im7mNtOkRa1bGDGmRHV0EDW-s2f8

A friend once said to me that “all theological debates go back to Prolegomena.” Namely, what is our justification for what we believe? What is our measure of truth in matters of faith? How can we know what God has revealed?

These Questions are vital for those in the Anglican Communion. We have “Anglo-Catholics,” “Anglo-Orthodox,” “Anglo-Lutherans,” “Reformational Anglicans,” and “Evangelical Anglicans.” These groups disagree on almost every aspect of both Doctrine and Liturgy. Who are the “real” Anglicans among these various groups? How are we to judge between them?

This article seeks to answer this question of our Regula Fidei. First, it will analyze various contemporary answers to this question, critiquing various solutions presented in contemporary Anglican discussion. Then, I will give a positive statement of the Catholic Anglican regula fidei. The solution to this question will give surprising results about Catholic Anglican’s relationship to earlier Divines and will show a greater continuity with the Reformed than the “Reformational Anglican” crowd. The Catholic Anglican system is truly the principles of the Reformation consistently applied.




The way I read it is what Anglicanism has always been. The Catholic faith expressed through the Anglican Church.

 

The article does a good job of restating the question, but logically I don’t think any endeavor will be successful that tries to chart a middle path between tradition being authoritative or not authoritative. There is either some external control on how Scripture may be interpreted or there isn’t.

 

Whilst I like AA, I do think that this is the main issue in his work.
We shouldn't try and out-Roman the Romanists.

 

But tradition is authoritative. It's just not inspired, which was the big reason it was something that Anglicans were willing to be martyred for.

The typical dictum from the Anglican divines is, where Scripture is silent, the Church looks to tradition. Where tradition is silent, the Church looks to right reason.

It's not a three-legged stool (which was a mischaracterization by the liberal churchmen). But it is a three-layered pyramid.

 

What I am saying is, either there is an external control on how Scripture is to be interpreted (by us today), or there isn’t. It’s either A or not-A; there is no third option. It makes little difference whether one deems such statuses as “inspired” or “authoritative” or whatnot. It either means what we think it means, or it means what the tradition (prior to us) said it means. Anglicanism never decisively answered this question, and historically has tried to have it both ways. That’s why debates about which school of thought within Anglicanism represents true Anglicanism are largely a waste of time.

 

There is always external control, if nothing else then the rules of grammar, and archeology. They help us understand the scripture’s meaning. I don’t really get your point.

 

I was raising the issue of hierarchy of authority in interpretation. In the Scripture - Tradition - Reason schema, does Tradition “outrank” Reason, or vice versa? I don’t know that this was ever definitively settled in Anglicanism. Things like the rules of grammar and archaeology fall under Reason. If archaeology says the Exodus didn’t happen but Tradition says it did, which gets the last word, as a matter of methodology? That’s what I was referring to.

 

This hasn't been definitively settled from the hierarchy yet, but the moral consensus of theologians is on its side. Scripture outranks Tradition, and Tradition outranks Reason.

No, because the rules of grammar determine everything else scripture, tradition, and reason. I only bundled it with archeology to say, that the idea that "Scripture interprets Scripture" is a puritan concept that isn't Anglican. Scripture is interpreted by outside principles. But that doesn't mean it isn't the highest authority.

Archeology says the Exodus didn't happen, for now. Just like for centuries it said the Hittites didn't exist, until they did. Just like for centuries it said the Kingdom of Israel didn't exist, until it did. Just like for centuries it said there was no King David, until it did. Just like for centuries it said there was no first man, and first woman... until it did.

We are pushing the timeline of archeology further and further into earliest pages of Genesis. The secular archeologists are tearing their hair out.

For centuries it said there was no worldwide apocalyptic flood; the new evidence has re-classified it as [developing]. Secular shriek.

For centuries they said there was no Exodus; the new evidence has re-classified it as [developing]. Secular shriek.

So I'm definitely not waiting around until they get to the place where I know, by faith, they'll get to in another 2-3 centuries from now.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
― Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

 

What are they waiting for? Is 500 years not enough time? Jokes aside, what I’m getting at is this. Most variants of Abrahamic religion (e.g., Orthodox Judaism, Islam, Eastern Orthodox Christianity) have some version of a fixed ranking of authorities, to guide authorized interpreters. So if one were attempting to apply a seemingly obscure OT passage with regard to, say, theft, how ought a bishop exercising his teaching office go about interpreting it? One such order might be to see (1) if Jesus ever addressed it first, and if he didn’t, then to see (2) if the example of his personal behavior casts any light on the subject, and if not, refer (3) to the apostles’ teaching, then (4) their behavior, then (5) the Apostolic Fathers, then (6) the Ecumenical Councils (however defined), then (7) local councils endorsed by an Ecumenical Council, then (8) one of the authorized liturgies, then (9) an individual Church Father, then (10) the consensus of the Church, if it exists on the subject, then, finally, if none of those suffice, (11) the personal judgment of the bishop. At no point in the process would a bishop simply open a Bible, and, using the rules of grammar and his knowledge of the Scriptures as a whole (as well as of their history), simply interpret it de novo. The Anglican rule gives the impression that Scripture wins if it ever conflicts with Tradition, but if we’re employing a truly catholic model of interpretation, since the interpretation of Scripture would always defer to Tradition first (in a very precise, carefully defined way), they simply can’t conflict.

So without some sort of lexical ordering of authorities, I don’t see how an Anglican magisterium could possibly operate, even if we actually acquired one someday. The lack of authority would seem to be the root of many of the ills we face. And I think that’s a serious problem for the future of any Anglican jurisdiction. It is a defect that will continue to be passed on to its descendants, reproducing the same divisions, unless and until it’s resolved.

 

This is an interesting point. The G3 confederation within the Continuing churches initially appealed to conciliarity. In the last year or two talk of a magisterium has proliferated. Some of the lay folks are suspicious of a bait and switch. The change is consistent with the ethos of most of the bishops since Anglo-papalism is strong in their ranks; but is magisterium Anglican?

And it's not just a Continuing issue. The GAFCON folks may not have come to terms with the idea yet but the discipline they would like to see in the Anglican Communion is really only enforceable if the governmental structure moves in a more hierarchical -magisterial- direction than currently prevails.

 

That is my problem with a lot of the continuum. I feel like I could be a better fit there but they are way to Anglo Catholics or at least the people I run across do.

 

I would suggest that it is, if the intention is for Anglicanism to survive. Consensus is desirable; having a clear line of authority is essential. This is becoming clearer to me as I get older. Judaism and Islam have this. Eastern Orthodoxy has it. Roman Catholicism had it until Vatican I. Look at the places and times in the world where these religions have come under truly severe stress...Communism, for example. Islam survived. Orthodoxy survived. Catholicism survived (albeit in diminished form). Protestantism, such as it was, arguably did not.

 

First of all, let's be precise: 'magisterium' is a made-up 19th century Latin word, sort of like 'hocus-pocus' or Haagen-Dazs. It literally has no meaning in Latin (prior to the 1860s), and has had no pedigree in the Roman church or anywhere else. You'll be at a loss to find the word 'magisterium' in all the collected works of Bellarmine, Suarez, and Thomas Aquinas. But once it became invented, attached to it became concepts like the infallibility, 'extraordinary' vs 'ordinary magisterium', the hyper-papacy, and a cobweb of a hundred other Roman errors, that were made-up out of thin air over the last century. Yeah there was literally no such thing as 'ordinary magisterum' in the entire history of the Roman church until the 1800s. And the Popes also weren't infallible, although that's a different story.

So I bristle at the word 'magisterium' mainly because of how fake it is, and how many barnacles of error have grown up around this new and made-up word. I don't believe Anglicans can ever accept the term 'magisterium' if we wish to remain faithful to the apostles, saints, and martyrs.

But.

One of the functions of the Church is to teach authoritatively. The term in dogmatic theology is 'teaching church', or 'ecclesia docens', firmly part of the Anglican tradition. Article 20, the Church has authority to decide on matters of faith, doctrine, and ceremonies. Not infallibly, which wasn't an attribute of the Church for most Christians, but yes authoritatively, which was always accepted by Christians.

Think about it, even you in the Episcopal Church are experiencing the ruling and teaching authority of TEC, for good or ill. They're deciding what the liturgy of the church looks like, what is the theology of gender, what one may think about gay marriage, etc.

This whole idea that the Anglican tradition doesn't have a developed doctrine of church authority is just a silly meme that got spread around in the last 20 years. The Church of England has made definitive rulings for centuries; ACNA is making rulings that bind the faithful, and even the Episcopal Church is constantly today making rulings that bind the faithful.

 

I'm not sure it's essential we call it "magisterium". It's the concept that matters.

The point, though, is what order of authorities was consulted in order to reach those decisions. We both know that the highest authority in the Church of England is and always has been the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Somehow I doubt they went through something like the process I described above (as a hypothetical example) in the Gorham Case. Having such a process is what binds a tradition together. I see the lack of one as a serious problem.

 

The reason it matters is because “magisterium” is a different concept than “teaching church”. If they were the same thing, there would be no reason to coin a new term. We don’t want a magisterium, but we do want (and have) the Teaching Church.

 

I think we’re getting away from our topic. All I meant to say was that we do have an authoritative teaching body. But that is not the same thing as the “rule of faith”. The rule of faith exists in parallel with the Teaching Church. It’s not something the church authorities consult necessarily (although they should). We don’t know how they issue a teaching; we hope it is by using the rule of faith, but the point is, all we see is in the end they issue a teaching, based on the inscrutable processes that take place in the House of Bishops, etc.

The rule of faith is something we here, you and I, have, to have a check on the Church and whether its decisions are orthodox. It is our rule of faith, literally our “ruler of faith” by which we measure the orthodoxy of the church. The Bishops issue a teaching, and then we measure it by the rule of faith. We owe our allegiance to the Church but also to Christ. It is possible for the two to be divergent, and in case that happens, we have to always choose Christ over the Teaching Church. That’s what happened when the orthodox Clergy and Laity in the Episcopal Church found there to be a conflict between the Church and the “rule of faith”. So they chose the rule of faith (ie. Christ) over the institutional church, until the institutional teaching authority was re-constituted in a new setting. You being a conservative in TEC may disagree that they made the right decision, so I don’t know if there is an definitive way to objectively settle for everyone, where that line lies. Just that in principle there are these two core principles: the laity possessing the rule of faith to keep a check on the Church, and the institutional Church which is supposed to abide by that rule of faith.

 

Since the word "magisterium" just means "teacher" in Latin, I'd say that's a distinction without a difference. But I don't want to wrangle over mere words here, as the issue of what we call it is utterly beside the point. The issue is the lack of ranking of authorities that allow binding interpretations to be possible according to a fixed and repeatable rule that an ordained hierarchy can implement. Judaism has this. Islam has this. Eastern Orthodoxy has this. Roman Catholicism has this (kinda). Anglicanism does not. That's a problem, and until it's resolved, I don't care how many different ways Anglicanism splits up and recombines, debates over WO and whatnot are going to continue to recur once the founding generation of the latest split-off dies.

 

Judaism has this, a binding authority to bind all the Jews around the world? Not even the Hasids have an agreement on things. The only locus of authority is within each Hasid community, the teaching authority is only as large as each local Rebbe. Something similar exists in Sunni Islam: the locus of authority is the community Imam, and not wider. The Shia Muslims have the concept of something like a region-encompassing teaching authority, but they’re in a big minority among world’s Muslims.

Rome has this teaching authority, it’s one of the things they do well. But I don’t think the Eastern Orthodox have almost any teaching authority. Some countries like Russia do when they have their Synods, but the vast majority of the EO world is completely rudderless when it comes to a living ruling teaching authority. This actually often draws disaffected RCs to them (“no one can break our religion”), but also causes them to leave in frustration (“this Church gives absolutely no guidance on any contemporary issues”).

Every EO congregant is largely for themselves on questions like gender and gay marriage, and a jurisdiction is less or more progressive solely by the inertia of the adherents who happen to be in it. For example the OCA is more progressive, while ROCOR less so.

Others, such as the Presbyterians also have this concept of the Teaching Church (when and if they choose to exercise it!). The conservative denominations regularly discipline members for orthodoxy, such as for example the Norman Shepherd who was excommunicated for heresy in the 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Shepherd

Another famous example is the recent blow-up of over Westminster Seminary’s professor Scott Oliphant, who was charged (but acquitted) for heresy in 2019:
https://www.theaquilareport.com/a-c...essor-of-apologetics-at-westminster-seminary/

The Anglican tradition is also replete with the exercise of teaching authority, and discipline up to and including excommunication. One of the biggest issues is that in the 20th century that office began to be used less and less. I think the Episcopal Church’s last trial for heresy was around 1912 or something like that. However even today they continue to exercise authority in other ways, namely in their recent persecution of one of the last orthodox bishops, Bishop Love of Albany, against whom the ecclesiastical courts brought trumped up charges, and found him guilty.

So in short, teaching authority has always a big part of the Anglican tradition, and what we mainly see is the failures to exercise it (or exercising it against the orthodox), among the liberal Anglican jurisdictions. Among the conservatives, the ACNA has already flexed its teaching muscles by promulgating the Jerusalem Declaration, then mandating a universal prayer book, and now a universal catechism. So the wheels of authority are in motion here as well.

 

This is not especially accurate, but I’m not going to spend time arguing about that because the particular details of what goes on these communities overwhelmingly relates to matters of practice, not belief, but about both of which there is a substantial amount of mutual recognition of legitimacy between the different groups.

One simply does not find the kind of properly theological controversy within the mainstream of Judaism or Islam that one finds at all times in all places for Christianity. It is remarkable that neither Rabbinic Judaism nor Islam ever had anything corresponding to the Papacy or the Inquisition, yet continuity of belief and practice - even when and where division has occurred - has been virtually self-sustaining. The precision in their respective traditional approaches to scriptural interpretation might - and indeed probably does - have something to do with that. Different effect, different cause.

We can talk until the Lord returns about how we ought to be obeying what “the Church teaches”, but without some fixed rule (law?) to methodically guide the clergy in settling doctrinal controversies - “Scripture, Tradition, and reason” is far too vague - it’s very difficult to see how any sustained unity of teaching can be realized.

 

I’ll put it this way: it’s less vague than Roman Catholicism’s principles of somehow measuring the universal ordinary magisterium which is this nebulous moral majority/consensus, and incorporating “divine tradition” and other principles which appear fuzzy to those of us on the outside. Why don’t those incredibly fuzzy and undefined principles pose problems for them? Because they have experts for that sort of thing, who study those principles, and know how to make them work.

Our principles are a lot more settled and clear than the vague and nebulous RC principles that require 2 PhDs. And guess what, the Episcopal Church has no issue with making decisions and issuing rulings on teachings. Neither does ACNA. Neither does the Church of England.

The only problem is that TEC currently has heretics at the helm, so it is marshalling the entire teaching and disciplinary machinery of the Church to enact the errors. The same is happening in Rome with Pope Francis who isn’t deterred by all the vaunted machinery of the Roman hermeneutics from implementing his errors.

What you may be asking is, how can there be a system that forces Church leaders to make an orthodox choice, against their will. And to that the answer is simple, that doesn’t exist. No amount of hermeneutics or systems of interpretation can prevent ill will.