Week 9: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church (¶748-975)

“The Kingdom”
By R. S. Thomas

It’s a long way off but inside it
There are quite different things going on:
Festivals at which the poor man
Is king and the consumptive is
Healed; mirrors in which the blind look
At themselves and love looks at them
Back; and industry is for mending
The bent bones and the minds fractured
By life. It’s a long way off, but to get
There takes no time and admission
Is free, if you will purge yourself
Of desire, and present yourself with
Your need only and the simple offering
Of your faith, green as a leaf.

1. The Trinity and the Church

The Church is connected to each of the three Persons of the Trinity. According to the Catechism, the Church is “born in the Father’s heart,” is “instituted by Christ Jesus,” and is finally revealed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit (¶759, 763, 767). Later, the Catechism speaks of the Church as (1) the People of God, (2) the Body of Christ, and (3) the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Here again we see the Trinity reflected in the Church’s identity.

2. The Marks of the Church

2.1. Visible and Invisible (¶771): The Church is both visible and invisible, because while she is “in history,” she also transcends history. The combination of visibility and invisibility means that the Church is both a social institution and a spiritual community. As a social institution, the Church is hierarchically structured with physical buildings and social orders. In its visibility, then, the Church is made up of many individual congregations who all join in one liturgy and share in the basic physical tasks of evangelization, feeding the hungry, and carrying on the work of the Apostles, for example. As a spiritual community, the Church is bound together by the Spirit in the person of Jesus Christ. The invisible Church is united in both time and space. While we commune physically with those who are in our immediate community, we commune spiritually with those who are on the other side of the world as well as with those who have already died and those who have yet to be born. The Church, as the Catechism tells us, “is essentially both human and divine, visible but endowed with invisible realities.”

2.2. One (¶813-22): The Church is one because God is one. The oneness or unity of the Church is truly and primarily a mark of the visible Catholic Church, but it is also a spiritual reality which includes those who have been incorporated into Christ through Baptism. While the Church condemns past division, she also celebrates the common faith in Christ.

2.3. Holy (¶823-29): The Church is holy because God is holy. The Church is holy by being sanctified in Christ and by living in love. The holiness of the Church does not mean, however, that those in the Church are not still sinners, and in this sense we have to distinguish between the Church as pilgrim and the Church as the final eschatological Kingdom, represented by Mary.

2.4. Catholic (¶830-56): The Church is catholic because God is catholic. The word “catholic” means “universal,” but it has a particular nuance: whereas “universal” suggests spreading out, “catholic” suggests gathering together. Universal suggests the spread of something everywhere; catholic suggests the connection of all things to a particular center. Both words thus identify the nature of the Church: she is sent out to the whole of the human race, but she then gathers them together and binds them to a specific center, namely, Jesus Christ.

2.5. Apostolic (¶857-65): The Church is apostolic because God is apostolic and has founded the Church on Christ’s apostles. Jesus is Father’s Apostle (¶858), who then instituted human apostles to carry on his mission of reconciliation through the proclamation of the gospel and the celebration of the sacraments.

2.6. Sacrament of Union and Unity (¶774-76): A “sacrament” is a visible sign and instrument of an invisible mystery. Christ himself is the primary sacrament, whose saving work is made present through the sacraments of the Church. But the Church herself is a sacrament, in that she is the sign and instruments of our union with god and our unity together as the human race. The Church binds us together and binds us to God, and thus she is the sacrament of God’s invisible grace.

3. The Relation Between Christ and the Church

3.1. Prophet, Priest, and King (¶783-86, 901-13)

3.2. Body and Bride of Christ (¶790-96)

3.3. The Missionary God and the Missionary Church (¶849-55)

4. The Relation Between Mary and the Church

4.1. Mary the Mother of the Church (¶964-70)

4.2. Mary the Icon of the Church (¶972)

5. The Relation Between the Church and the World

5.1. The Church and Other Religions (¶836-44)

5.2. The Call to Evangelism (¶846-48)

5.3. The Church and the World’s Future (¶845)

Week 8: The Holy Spirit—The Power of New Life (¶683-747)

1. “On the Holy Spirit”
By Scott Cairns

If, upon taking up this or any scripture,
or upon lifting your one good eye to inspect
the faintly green expanse of field already
putting forth its late winter gauze of grasses,

you come to suspect a hushed conversation
under way, you may also find sufficient grounds
to suspect that difficult disposition
we call the Ghost, river or thread drawn through us,

which, rippled as any taut rope might be, lifts
or drops us as if riding a wave, and which fends
off, for brief duration, our dense encumberment
—this flesh and its confusions—if not completely,

if only enough that the burdens be felt, just
shy of crushing us.


2. The Self-Effacing Spirit

While the Father and the Son are both very “public” persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is “self-effacing.” Whereas the Father and the Son call attention to themselves, so to speak, the Spirit calls our attention away from himself and toward the Son. Like John the Baptist, the Spirit points away from himself to the person of Jesus Christ. The Spirit does not speak about himself but about the Word made flesh. But the Spirit’s self-effacement is also the occasion for the Spirit’s ubiquity. The Spirit is ever-present as the one who directs us to Christ and, through Christ, to the Father. The Spirit is involved in every dimension and aspect of the gospel—from creation to Israel to the prophets to Christ to the Church to the new creation—and we see this ubiquity reflected in the Spirit’s presence throughout the Catechism. Like a stagehand who keeps a theater running, the Spirit is essential to the drama of salvation, though never as the main actor on the stage.

3. The Work of the Spirit

The Spirit’s work falls into the following broad categories:

(1) preparation,
(2) revelation,
(3) communication,
(4) participation,
(5) actualization, and
(6) consummation.

4. The Trinitarian Mission of God

St. Irenaeus writes: “For those who bear God’s Spirit are led to the Word, that is, to the Son, and the Son presents them to the Father, and the Father confers incorruptibility on them. And it is impossible to see God’s Son without the Spirit, and no one can approach the Father without the Son, for the knowledge of the Father is the Son, and the knowledge of God’s Son is obtained through the Holy Spirit.” (¶683)

Week 7: Jesus Christ—Savior of the World (¶571-667)

1. How It Was
By St. Melito of Sardis (Scott Cairns, Love’s Immensity)

The earth trembled; its foundations
shook like silt; the sun, chagrined,
fled the scene, and every mundane
element scattered in retreat. The day
became the night: for light could not endure
the image of the Master hanging on a tree.
All creation was astonished, perplexed
and stammering, What new mystery is this?
The Judge is judged, and yet He holds his peace;
the Invisible One is utterly exposed, and yet
is not ashamed; the Incomprehensible is grasped,
and will not turn indignant; the Immensity
is circumscribed, and acquiesces; the absolutely
Unattainable suffers, and yet does not avenge;
the Immortal dies, and utters not a word;
the Celestial is pressed into the earthen grave,
and He endures! What new mystery is this?
The whole creation, I say, was astonished;
but, when our Lord stood up in Hades—
trampling death underfoot, subduing
the strong one, setting every captive free—
then all creation saw clearly that for its sake
the Judge was condemned, et cetera.
For our Lord, even when He deigned
to be born, was condemned in order
that He might show mercy, was bound
that He might loose, was seized
that He might release, suffered
that He might show compassion, died
that He might give life, was laid in the grave
that He might rise, might raise.

2. The Redemptive Mission of Christ

2.1. Incarnation (¶456-83)
2.2. Life (¶516-21, 606-07)
2.3. Passion and Death (¶608-30)
2.4. Descent into Hell (¶631-37)
2.5. Resurrection (¶638-58)
2.6. Ascension (¶659-67)
2.7. Return/Second Advent (¶668-82)

3. The Atonement

3.1. Metaphors for the Atonement

- recapitulation
- ransom
- satisfaction
- victory (of Christ)/defeat (of Death)
- sacrifice (Paschal Lamb)
- Suffering Servant

3.2. Conceptual Models

- Legal: the Lawgiver who fulfilled the Law
- Forensic: the Judge who was judged
- Cultic/Priestly: the High Priest who was sacrificed
- Royal: the King who became the servant and was victorious in death

4. The Cross as an Event of Love

“It was as a humanly dead man that the Son descended to the dead, and not as a victorious living one with an Easter banner, such as is depicted in Eastern icons through an anticipatory projection of the Resurrection onto Holy Saturday. The Church has forbidden the singing of hallelujahs on this day. And yet this new dead man is different from all the rest. He has died purely from love, from divine-human love; indeed, his death was the supreme act of that love, and love is the most living thing that there is. Thus his really being dead . . . is also an act of his most living love. Here, in the utmost loneliness, [his love] is preached to the dead, indeed, even more: communicated (1 Pet. 3:19). The redemptive act of the Cross was by no means intended solely for the living, but also includes in itself all those who have died before or after it. Since this love-death of our Lord, death has taken on a quite different meaning; it can become for us an expression of our purest and most living love, assuming that we take it as a conferred opportunity to give ourselves unreservedly into the hands of God. It is then not merely an atonement for everything that we failed to do, but, beyond that, an earning of grace for others to abandon their egoism and choose love as their innermost disposition.” (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Credo, 53-54)

5. Closing Prayer

Gracious God, give to us a renewed understanding of the salvation accomplished through the death and resurrection of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Grant to us joy as we live our lives in faithful obedience to your calling. And give us peace through your Holy Spirit as we recognize our own mortality. Help us to live in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Week 6: Jesus Christ—True God and True Man (¶422-570)

“On the Mystery of the Incarnation”
By Denise Levertov

It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.

“Who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20)

1. Jesus, Christ, Only Son of God, Lord (¶430-55)

a. Jesus: He is the Savior of the world who delivers us from sin
b. Christ: He is the Messiah who fulfills the promise of redemption
c. Son of God: He is the eternal Son of the Father
d. Lord: He is the divine and sovereign king

2. Both divine and human, God and man (¶464-83)

a. The mystery of the incarnation is entirely rooted in the question of salvation. What must be true about Jesus for us to be saved by his life, death, and resurrection? This is the question that the church was forced to ask by the various controversies in the church.

b. On the one hand, Jesus must be truly divine, truly God in the flesh, because God alone is able to save. The church rejected Arianism, therefore, because it resulted in a Christ who is incapable of redeeming humanity. There are many different ways that the church has understood this mystery of salvation, and none of them has been accepted as the official doctrine of the church, so we can and should make use of them all. One view is that in Jesus, God conquered Satan and the forces of sin and evil. Another view is that in Jesus, God paid the debt of our sin. Another is that in Jesus, God reversed the disobedience of Adam and inaugurated a new humanity. These are all views that we find in Scripture, and they are just a few of the ways that the church has thought about the mystery of salvation. The important element is that in each view, salvation can only be accomplished by God. Humanity needs to be saved, and God alone is the Savior.

c. On the other hand, Jesus must be truly human, truly God in the flesh. The reason for this is expressed well in an axiom of the early church: “That which is not assumed is not saved.” Only what is brought into union with Christ is redeemed by Christ. If he only appeared human (Docetism), then our humanity is not healed. If he only took on a human body but not a human soul (Apollinarianism), then the center of our human identity is not healed. If he only indwelled in a human person but did not assume humanity to be his very own (Nestorianism), then our humanity is not healed. If human nature is dissolved into his divinity or if the divinity and humanity combine to form a composite nature (Monophysitism), then our humanity is not healed. If his human nature does not have its own activity and will (Monenergism, Monothelitism), then our humanity is not healed.

3. Fulfillment of the covenant (¶422, 489, 497, 522)

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants, beginning with God’s covenant with Abraham and including the covenant at Sinai with Moses and the covenant with King David. Jesus came as the one in whom all the promises of God converged and found their ultimate fulfillment.

4. Born by the Spirit and of the Virgin Mary (§2: ¶484-511)

a. Christ’s birth “by the power of the Holy Spirit” affirms his eternal divine origin, as the Son of the Father within the eternal Trinity. The Spirit is involved through the life of Christ: at his conception, at his baptism, in his miraculous works of healing, and in his life of obedience unto death, and as the power of his Resurrection. The Spirit always accompanies the Son as the two “hands” of the Father.

b. Christ’s birth “of the Virgin Mary” is a mark of his purity and holiness, his freedom from corruption, and his redemptive mission. The virgin birth is also a sign of Christ as the New Adam: just as Adam came from virgin soil, so too Christ came a virgin woman. Mary herself is caught up in this redemptive reality of Christ. Her Immaculate Conception, her life of faithful obedience, and her final Assumption are all part of the overflow of Christ’s life to those around him—to Mary first and foremost, then to his disciples, his church, and to the whole world.

5. His whole life is the mystery of salvation (¶512ff.)

The Catechism very nicely tells the story of Jesus’ life by reading the Scriptures in the light of Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. In other words, it reads the life of Christ in light of his beginning and end, his origin and telos. The Catechism thus affirms that his entire life is salvific, and not just the events captured in the creed. What the creed affirms is that the whole of Christ’s incarnate existence is integral to the mystery of our redemption.

6. Sacrament of salvation (¶515)

Jesus’ humanity is the first and true sacrament, in that his human nature is the visible manifestation of the invisible grace of our salvation. In his humanity, we encounter the “sign and instrument” of his eternal identity and divine mission. In the Eucharist, we partake of this humanity as Christ’s gift of grace to the church.

7. Revelation of God (¶516)

Jesus is the revelation of God. The Son reveals the Father, not only in his resurrection but in his entire life of obedience to the will of his Father in heaven.

8. Recapitulation of the human race (¶430, 518, 538-39)

Jesus is the New Adam, the recapitulation of human history, and the one who reverses our fall so that in him we might partake of the divine life.

9. “For us,” pro nobis (¶519-21)

According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, “The ‘pro nobis’ contains the innermost core of the interplay between God and man, the center of all theo-drama.” Only on the basis of the pro nobis is there a stage in the first place or actors upon this stage. The pro nobis stands at the center as the controlling principle of the Christ-event; it “sums up the covenant” as the basis for divine and human action “in a way that does not blur the distinction between Christ’s preeminence and his followers.” The christological pro nobis, moreover, does not merely indicate that what Christ accomplishes is “for our benefit,” but it also indicates that Christ achieves our reconciliation “from inside,” “in our place.”

Week 5: Sin and Evil (¶385-421)

Original Sin: A Disputation
By Edward T. Oakes
Copyright (c) 1998 First Things (November 1998).

No doctrine inside the precincts of the Christian Church is received with greater reserve and hesitation, even to the point of outright denial, than the doctrine of original sin. … [T]he doctrine of original sin is met with either embarrassed silence, outright denial, or at a minimum a kind of halfhearted lip service that does not exactly deny the doctrine but has no idea how to place it inside the devout life. Even the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church, surprisingly enough, calls original sin a "sin" only in an analogous sense (#404), because unlike other (presumably real?) sins it is only contracted and not committed-a concession that would certainly have surprised Augustine, who had a vivid and almost physical/biological understanding of the First Sin.

Should We Believe in Original Sin?

Videtur quod peccatum originale non sit credibile: It would seem that original sin is not believable, and for the following three reasons. First of all, not only is the doctrine intolerably paradoxical, it is never once mentioned, as such, in the Bible, not even where it is taken to be most evident: in chapter 3 of Genesis and chapter 5 of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Secondly, our understanding of both evolution and biblical science makes it even more obvious than before how far from the intent of the biblical authors was any doctrine of original sin (careful exegesis of Romans 5, for example, has led many scholars to hold that Augustine developed his view of original sin based on a mistranslation by the Vulgate of a verse in this chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans). Thirdly and finally, the doctrine damages souls. Belief in original sin leads to pessimism: it results in a resigned fatalism about changing those sinful structures that actually can be changed but which go unchallenged because they are all too lazily attributed to the effects of original sin, which by definition is a given and cannot be changed. (Hannah Arendt was rightly annoyed when she returned to Germany after World War II and discovered Germans were blaming Hitler, as well as their own romance with Nazism, on Adam and Eve, a subterfuge scarcely less vulgar than the common criminal’s pretext, "the devil made me do it.") …

Sed contra: on the contrary, the Psalmist says: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). Or, for those who would deny the authority of the Bible but need to be brought up short so as to question the seeming plausibility of all of the above, I cite Reinhold Niebuhr: "The truth is that, absurd as the classical Pauline doctrine of original sin may seem to be at first blush, its prestige as a part of the Christian truth is preserved, and perennially reestablished, against the attacks of rationalists and simple moralists by its ability to throw light upon complex factors in human behavior which constantly escape the moralists."

Respondeo: And therefore, to all of the above, I respond as follows: First of all, the doctrine of original sin is … an inference that arises from reflection on the reality of evil when considered in the light of ethical monotheism. John Henry Newman, for one, always insisted that original sin is the only way believers can make sense of the world when they contrast that world to their faith in God. … Ad primum: as for the first objection, it is not necessary for the Bible to mention the name of a doctrine for it either to be true or for it to be located there in so many other words. … Ad secundum: as to the second objection, as we have seen, the doctrine in its essence does not depend on the historicity of Genesis 1-3 (very few Christians in the world now refuse to admit the figural language of the first three chapters of the Bible). In fact, to historicize it, to read it "literally" (and it is doubtful that even fundamentalists think God takes afternoon strolls in His garden), distorts the point of the doctrine and forces Paul to contradict himself about the physical body being naturally mortal. … Ad tertium: as to the third objection, we must take seriously the testimony of those raised in, and later reacting against, Augustinian strains of Christianity who claim that a stress on original sin leads to a morbid preoccupation with and fear for one’s salvation. But this concern must be coupled with a sober reflection on the immense harm that has been unleashed on humanity by a denial of this doctrine. …

Finally and in conclusion, I would like to add my own version to this argument: to deny this doctrine is … to warp the very core of the Christian gospel: that God so loved the world that He sent his only Son to save that world from its sin.

Week 4: Creator, Creation, and Humanity (¶268-384)

1. The Mystery of the Triune Creator

1.1. The mystery of God’s power and will (¶270-72)

1.2. The mystery of God’s love and goodness (¶293-95)

1.3. The mystery of God’s transcendence and immanence (¶300)

1.4. The mystery of God’s providence and the reality of evil (¶302-314)

2. The Mystery of Creation

2.1. The mystery of creation’s origin and end (¶282-89, 345-49)

2.2. The mystery of “creation out of nothing” (¶296-98)

2.3. The mystery of angels (¶328-36)

3. The Mystery of Humanity

3.1. The mystery of the “image of God” (¶299, 356-57)

3.2. The mystery of human unity and distinction (¶344, 360-61, 369-72)

3.3. The mystery of body and soul (¶362-68)

3.4. The mystery of humanity as the mystery of Jesus Christ (¶359)

Week 3: The Holy Trinity (¶185-267)

God’s triunity: the central mystery of the Christian faith

“The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them” (¶234)

1. God’s oneness and threeness are both equally basic to the being of God.
The oneness of God goes back to the origins of Israel and the Jewish faith. The most famous verse in the Old Testament is called the Shema, and it begins with, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD …” God is one because God is utterly unique; divinity belongs solely and exclusively to him. God’s threeness is revealed by Jesus Christ who both affirms that God is one and identifies himself with this one God by identifying himself as the LORD (¶202). When Jesus ascended to be with the Father, he sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as the Giver of Life, the Comforter, and the Counselor. The Spirit’s descent at Pentecost revealed that God is not simply two persons but rather three persons. God is not binitarian but rather trinitarian: God is triune. God is thus one-in-three and three-in-one. Oneness and threeness are both equally basic to the being of God. We must understand the oneness of God in light of his threeness, and we must understand the threeness of God in light of his oneness. The triunity of God is a deep mystery which human reason cannot penetrate (cf. ¶206, 237), but it is a mystery which God reveals to us by grace and with which God brings us into perfect union and communion (¶259-60).

2. We must distinguish between the immanent and economic Trinity.
In ¶236 the Catechism discusses the distinction between “theology” and “economy.” Theology here means the study of who God is in and for himself, whereas the economy refers to what God does in time and space. In church theology, we use the terms “immanent Trinity” and “economic Trinity” to say the same thing. The former refers to God’s inner triune life, while the latter refers to God’s external triune life. Some theologians think we can only speak about God’s economy, but this means revelation is not really revelation of God. According to the Catechism, the immanent Trinity is revealed by the economic Trinity, while conversely the immanent Trinity “illuminates” the economic Trinity. We know who God truly is in himself through what God does for us in time. As a result, the incarnate Son reveals the Father, and the Holy Spirit reveals both Father and Son (¶240, 244). The nature of God’s being in time reveals the being of God in eternity. Consequently, the Catechism instructs us that Jesus’ relation to the Father reveals the eternal relation between the Father and the Son in the immanent Trinity (¶240). Similarly, “the eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time” (¶244). The immanent Trinity is revealed by the economic Trinity. Karl Rahner, an important 20th century Catholic theologian, established a rule for thinking about the Trinity: “The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity, and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity.”

3. The Trinity is unified in both being and act.
The Holy Trinity is not only unified in one divine substance (the “consubstantial Trinity”), but the Trinity is also unified in one divine mission. Each of the divine persons “is God whole and entire” (¶253). The divine being is not shared between but is rather common to each of the three persons. Similarly, each of the divine persons is involved wholly and entirely in the divine mission: “The whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine persons. For as the Trinity has only one and the same nature, so too does it have only one and the same operation” (¶258). The being and act of the Trinity are indivisible and inseparable: “Inseparable in what they are, the divine persons are also inseparable in what they do” (¶267).


God’s oneness: implications for Christian life (¶222-27)

1. We must come to know God’s glory. God is majestic and holy, and we are called to serve this one God who reigns over all creation.

2. We must live in thanksgiving. If God is one, then everything else comes directly from him and him alone. We must be ever grateful and thankful to God for all that he provides.

3. We must acknowledge the unity of all humanity. If God is one and no one else is God, then in comparison to him, all humanity is equal. We are all equally unworthy of God’s grace and equally dignified by God who created us in his image.

4. We must make good use of creation. Since all of creation comes from God but is not God, we must recognize the dignity and worth of creation. We must use everything in accordance with the fact that God alone is God, which means caring for the world around us, always discerning when things can help bring us closer to God and when things might turn us away from him.

5. We must trust God at all times. Since the one God rules over all things, we must trust God alone for all things and at all times.


The language of faith: understanding what it means to talk about God (cf. ¶239)

1. God transcends human language.
When we speak about God, we must always be aware that our words are always in themselves inadequate to speak about God. This does not invalidate all talk about God, but it means that we need to let God define our language, rather than try to make our language define God. This is especially important when we use male or female imagery. The Bible uses both male and female language to talk about God, and we traditionally use the male pronoun to talk about God. But we must remember the statement from the Catechism: “God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God” (¶239). Our human language is gendered, but that doesn’t mean God is gendered.

2. All language about God depends upon analogy.
Our language about God is not literally or univocally descriptive of God, nor is it doubtfully or equivocally descriptive of God. Our language describes God analogically. An analogy has both similarity and difference. There is both likeness and unlikeness when it comes to our language about God. The primary rule is that God defines what language is proper to God. The difference does not consist in the fact that God is unlike us, but that we are unlike God. In the same way, the similarity does not consist in that we are similar to God, but that God is similar to us.


The divine attributes in the Catechism

1. God is one (¶200).
2. God is triune ¶202).
3. God is living (¶205).
4. God is “I AM” (¶206).
5. God is hidden (¶206).
6. God is faithful (¶207, 211-12).
7. God is holy (¶208).
8. God is merciful and gracious (¶210).
9. God is unique (¶212).
10. God is the fullness of being (¶213).
11. God is truth (¶215).
12. God is love (¶218-21).


Appendix: A Survey of the First Seven Ecumenical Councils

1. Council of Nicaea (325) lasted two months and twelve days. Three hundred and eighteen bishops were present. Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, assisted as legate of Pope Sylvester. The Emperor Constantine was also present. To this council we owe The Creed (Symbolum) Of Nicaea, defining against Arius the true Divinity of the Son of God (homoousios), and the fixing of the date for keeping Easter (against the Quartodecimans).

2. First Council of Constantinople (381), under Pope Damasus and the Emperor Theodosius I, was attended by 150 bishops. It was directed against the followers of Macedonius, who impugned the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. To the above-mentioned Nicene creed it added the clauses referring to the Holy Ghost (qui simul adoratur) and all that follows to the end.

3. Council of Ephesus (431), of more than 200 bishops, presided over by St. Cyril of Alexandria representing Pope Celestine l, defined the true personal unity of Christ, declared Mary the Mother of God (theotokos) against Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, and renewed the condemnation of Pelagius.

4. Council of Chalcedon (451): 150 bishops under Pope Leo the Great and the Emperor Marcian defined the two natures (Divine and human) in Christ against Eutyches, who was excommunicated.

5. Second Council of Constantinople (553), of 165 bishops under Pope Vigilius and Emperor Justinian I, condemned the errors of Origen and certain writings (The Three Chapters) of Theodoret, of Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia and of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa; it further confirmed the first four general councils, especially that of Chalcedon whose authority was contested by some heretics.

6. Third Council of Constantinople (680-681), under Pope Agatho and the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, was attended by the Patriarchs of Constantinople and of Antioch, 174 bishops, and the emperor. It put an end to Monothelism by defining two wills in Christ, the Divine and the human, as two distinct principles of operation. It anathematized Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, Macarius, and all their followers.

7. Second Council of Nicaea (787) was convoked by Emperor Constantine VI and his mother Irene, under Pope Adrian I, and was presided over by the legates of Pope Adrian; it regulated the veneration of holy images. Between 300 and 367 bishops assisted.

For more on the Councils of the Church, click here.

Week 2: Scripture, Tradition, and Faith (¶74-184)

Review

We began last week by discussing the content of revelation. I used the metaphor of a drama as a way of describing the relationship between the different elements in this complex picture. To summarize, we have God who acts throughout world history to reveal himself to humanity. God is the central actor, the world is the stage, and God’s primary role in the drama takes the form of Jesus Christ who is the Word of God made flesh. Christ is the definitive revelation of God.

Today we are looking at Scripture and Tradition as the means instituted by God to communicate God’s revelation to future generations. We will then discuss the nature of faith as the climax of this section before we discuss the creeds.

1. The Transmission of Revelation

1.1. What is apostolic tradition?
Christ passed on his teachings to his apostles in order that they might pass them on to others. The word “apostle” comes from a Greek word meaning “messenger” or “one who is sent forth.” Christ, in that sense, is the one, true Apostle who was sent forth from God. Before Christ, the prophets of the Old Testament were apostles in their own way. We, too, are apostles in that God sends us forth into the world as his messengers, the bearers of God’s good news. But we do not bear our own news, but rather the gospel that was authoritatively handed on by Christ’s apostles and is preserved in the Church. The apostolic Tradition thus includes not only the content of the faith—the “sacred deposit” of the faith (¶84)—but also the authority to interpret the faith, which we call the “teaching office” of the Church or the Magisterium.

1.2. What is the relation between tradition and Scripture?
Scripture is the written testimony to God’s revelation. Tradition is the living or liturgical testimony to God’s revelation (¶78). Both exist in and for the Church, since it is God who “remains present and active in the Church” (¶79). Both have the same origin in the triune God and both “move towards the same goal” (¶80). Scripture and Tradition thus form an indissoluble unity, rooted in the singularity of revelation in Jesus Christ. In other words, because the content of revelation is the same, the forms of revelation can be multiple without resulting in contradiction and confusion.

1.3. What is the relation between faith and the Church?
Faith not only depends upon the work of the Spirit, but it is also strengthened and matured through the influence of biblical study, theological research, spiritual experience, and the preaching of the Word (¶94).

1.4. What is the role of the Holy Spirit?
The Spirit is the operative agent within the community of believers. In dramatic terms, we might say that the Spirit is the bond that ties the drama together; the Spirit is the actor who pushes the drama forward toward its proper conclusion. The Spirit gives unity to the story and keeps the story going. We see the Spirit’s role in the story through the Catechism. In this section alone, the Spirit has a central role: teaches and inspires the apostles (¶76, 83), part of triune self-communication (¶79), leads the Church to the full truth (¶79), breathed out Holy Scripture as the speech of God (¶81), enlightens the apostles of the Church (¶81), enables the teaching of the Magisterium (¶86), anoints the faithful (¶91), arouses and sustains faith (¶93), assists in understanding the faith (¶94), unites and empowers the different modes of transmission in order that they might be effective for salvation (¶95):

“It is clear therefore that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls” (Dei Verbum)

The Spirit, therefore, is the one who enables the being and life of the Church. The Spirit is the agent who establishes, sustains, and perfects the Church. Without the Spirit, there would be no Scripture, no tradition, and no faith.

2. Holy Scripture

2.1. The Word of God and the words of Scripture
Through Holy Scripture, God speaks “only one single Word” (¶102), and that Word is Jesus Christ: “All Scripture is but one book, and this one book is Christ” (¶134). The words of Scripture are thus grounded in and determined by the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ, God’s Son in the flesh. The Word of God is thus the heart and center of the words of Scripture; or, to be more accurate, the Word of God incarnate is the heart and center of the Word of God written. According to the Catechism, Holy Scripture is a unity because “Christ Jesus is the center and heart” of the Scriptures (¶112).

Moreover, the Church views Holy Scripture as a kind of sacrament: “the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body” (¶103). In Scripture, “the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength” (¶104), not unlike the way the Church receives nourishment from the Sacrament of Communion. The Catechism thus says that “God’s Word and Christ’s Body” form “one table,” from which the Christian faithful receive “the bread of life” (¶103).

2.2. Scripture and the truth
The basis for Scripture’s truthfulness is found in its divine authorship (¶105). The Holy Spirit divinely inspired the text of Holy Scripture by working through the human authors to compose a text that faithfully attests to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. We can thus speak of the Bible as infallible or inerrant: the books of Scripture teach the truth about God “without error” (¶107).

Consequently, Christianity is a religion of the Word, not a “religion of the book” (¶108). The missiologist Andrew Walls makes the astute point that Jesus Christ is to Christianity what the Koran is to Islam. Just as the Koran is viewed by Muslims as the divine Word come down from heaven, so too Christianity sees Christ himself as the divine Word from heaven. Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, is the center of the Christian faith, not the text of Scripture. We worship a person, not a book. Our faith is grounded in the Word made flesh, not the Word written. As a result, our faith need not be shaken by historical research into the text of the Bible, because our faith is grounded in the person of Jesus Christ himself to whom the words of Holy Scripture faithfully witness by virtue of the Spirit’s inspiration.

2.3. Scripture and the Spirit
The Spirit is the true author and interpreter of Holy Scripture, which does not override or nullify human authorship and interpretation (¶111). On the contrary, the Spirit grounds and establishes the proper place of human involvement in the writing and interpreting of Scripture. All of this simply means that humans are not independent from God in their involvement in the composition and interpretation of Holy Scripture. The Spirit is involved prior to, during, and after both the composition of Scripture and its interpretation.

2.4. How to read Holy Scripture
We must read with a kind of threefold hermeneutic: (1) first, we interpret Holy Scripture by reading the text in light of Jesus Christ, the “center and heart” of Scripture; (2) second, we read within the living Tradition of the Church; (3) third, we read canonically, which means we read each passage in light of the whole text; and (4) we must read prayerfully in the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit who guides the faithful into the truth of Scripture (¶112-14).

In addition to reading in the light of Christ, the Church’s Tradition, and the Holy Spirit, we must also keep in mind the two “senses” of Scripture: the literal and spiritual. By the literal sense, the Catechism means those events and actions which the Bible describes and which we accept as true; in other words, we don’t search for any hidden meaning beyond the words on the page. The spiritual sense, on the other hand, refers to a way of reading which investigates the text for meanings that go beyond the literal words on the page. Within the spiritual, there are three subdivisions: allegorical, moral, and anagogical (¶115-17).

2.5. Diversity and unity in the canon
The use of typology is an ancient practice of reading the Old Testament in light of its fulfillment in the New Testament. “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New” (¶129). Typology rests on the conviction that Holy Scripture is one book (¶134) that witnesses to one single plan of God for salvation, a plan that changes shape and form throughout history but finds its unity and fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ.

2.6. Scripture and discipleship
We are called to read Scripture faithfully and regularly, as well as to hear and receive the ministry of the Word faithfully and regularly. As Jesus himself said, “One does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

3. I Believe – We Believe

3.1. What is faith?
God’s revelation in the Word of God demands an obedient human response, and this response is faith. Faith is the free submission to the Word of truth. Faith obeys the God who encounters us in the Word of revelation (¶144). According to letter to the Hebrews, faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1; ¶146).

3.2. Who has faith?
Throughout the history of God’s people, from Abraham until today, God has granted faith to those least likely. The story of Scripture is a story of people graced by God for faith against all odds. Faith is not a sign of intelligence or special ability; it is not an indicator of any human capacity. It is rather a mark of God’s special grace given to unworthy human persons. Faith is thus a gift given to us by God, who seeks out the least of all people—those who are neglected, ignored, oppressed, poor, and weak—and grants them faith. St. Paul writes the following in his first letter to the Corinthians:

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. . . . God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:25, 27-29)

3.3. Where do we place our faith?
We place our faith in God alone, which means we place our faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—revealed to us in Jesus Christ by the power of the Spirit. It is common to hear today people speak about belief in God, without specifying what they mean by this. To believe in God is, for many people, to believe in the God of all religions, a kind of abstract deity who includes all religious faith. But the Christian faith declares that to believe in God means “believing in the One he sent,” Jesus Christ (¶151). Faith in God means faith in Jesus Christ as God incarnate. It also means faith in the Holy Spirit as the one sent by Christ after his ascension, and the one by whom we participate in God (¶152).

3.4. What are the characteristics of faith? (¶153-65)
(1) Faith is a grace, which means it is wholly a gift of God (¶153); (2) faith is a free human act in cooperation with the power of the Holy Spirit (¶154, 160); (3) faith is reasonable—i.e., not irrational (¶156, 159); faith is certain because it is founded on the trustworthy and true Word of God (¶157); faith pursues knowledge and understanding, not in a rationalistic sense but in a relational one, like a person who seeks to know his or her friend (¶158); faith is necessary for salvation (¶161); faith is a gift that can be lost if we do not persevere in our faith (¶162); and faith is a foretaste of the future enjoyment of God (¶163).

3.5. What is the relation between faith and the Church?
Faith is first and foremost a communal reality in the body of the Church and only then is it an individual reality. The Church “believes first, and so bears, nourishes, and sustains my faith” (¶168). There is only one faith because there is only one Church—and there is only one Church because there is only one Lord. But while there is only one faith, there are infinitely many ways to articulate and describe this faith in theology, liturgy, and practice (¶170).

Week 1: The Revelation of God (¶1-73)

1. Prologue

1.1. What is the meaning of life?
The most ancient and ubiquitous question—“what is the meaning of life?”—is the one which the Catholic Catechism answers in ¶1. The answer: to share in the divine life; to seek, know, and love God. We come to experience the life intended for us in the place which God has chosen to be the location where men and women seek, know, and love him: the Church. In other words, the meaning of life, here and now, is to be part of God’s family on earth—the Church. The meaning of life is found in the fact that God has graciously called us to share in the blessedness of God’s own abundant life. To put it simply, the meaning of life is grace, which means that life’s meaning is not something that we can discover on our own or bring about through our own human powers. Rather, life’s true meaning is something which we discover when we discover the God of love and grace. The rest of the Catechism is an attempt to explore and explain the depths of this grace as revealed by God.

1.2. What is a catechism?
According to the Catechism (¶4-5), catechesis is “an education in the faith,” which means that the Catechism itself is the comprehensive teaching of the Church which facilitates this education. The Catechism is “an organic presentation of the Catholic faith in its entirety” (¶18). The Catechism has four parts or “pillars”: the profession of faith (the Creed), the sacraments of faith, the life of faith (the Commandments), and prayer in the life of faith (the Lord’s Prayer).

1.3. What is the goal of catechesis?
“The whole concern of doctrine and its teaching must be directed to the love that never ends. Whether something is proposed for belief, for hope or for action, the love of our Lord must always be made accessible, so that anyone can see that all the works of perfect Christian virtue spring from love and have no other objective than to arrive at love” (Roman Catechism).

Catechesis is not about brute facts or building up knowledge. Instead, we study the Catechism in order that we might “arrive at love.” As the Apostle Paul puts it, “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). Knowledge puffs up the one who claims to have knowledge, while love builds up others. Love is a virtue which supports and strengthens the community. When we gather together to study the Catechism, we gather not simply to gain knowledge but to grow in love. The goal of catechesis is to become a person of love by entering into a community of love in order to worship and serve a God of love.


2. Man’s Capacity for God (I.1.1.)

2.1. What is faith or belief?
Faith, according to the Catechism, is a “response to God.” In this first part of the Catechism, the emphasis is on our knowledge of God. The focus is thus on belief, which is an aspect of faith—viz. the aspect related to knowledge. Faith is not limited to belief, but rather includes it. We will discuss faith in more detail when we arrive at Chap. 3: “Man’s Response to God” (¶142-84).

2.2. What is the basis for belief in God?
The Catechism lists a number of things as the ground for religious belief, in particular: innate desire for God and proofs from the world and from humanity for the existence of God. We might call these cosmological and anthropological proofs. In theology, these belong to the category of thought known as metaphysics, which is just a fancy word meaning that which concerns things beyond the physical world. (To be more precise, the word itself comes from a Greek phrase meaning, “after the Physics,” referring to Aristotle’s treatise. After physics, Aristotle treated abstract topics such as being, substance, knowing, and time. These were later classified under the heading of “metaphysics,” and with the rise of Christianity, this field of knowledge became centrally concerned with the knowledge of God.) The cosmological and anthropological proofs for the existence of God have fancy Latin names in metaphysics. A cosmological proof is knowledge via causalitatis, while an anthropological proof is knowledge via eminentiae. There is one other way of knowing—viz. via negativa, or the “way of negation”—that is briefly referenced in ¶43.

2.3. What enables our knowledge of God?
The Catechism does not always make this clear, but we might list the following: (1) the existence of God as a given; (2) the acts of God in creating and in communicating with creation; (3) the created capacity of human reason (the “image of God”); (4) the faithful witness of others; and (5) the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. The Catechism also states that “this search for God demands of man every effort of intellect, a sound will, ‘an upright heart,’ as well as the witness of others who teach him to seek God” (¶30).

2.4. What gets in the way of our knowledge of God?
According to the Catechism, our knowledge of God is hampered first and foremost by original sin, which disorders our human desires (including our desire for God) and causes confusion regarding truth and falsity. In addition, we are hampered by “the impact of the senses and the imagination” (¶37). This is another way of saying that our senses can distract or deceive us: they can distract both because our senses are exciting and because God is not sensible like the rest of the world, and they can deceive because our mind can be confused by them. In addition to sin, a major obstacle regarding the knowledge of God is the fact that “God transcends all creatures” (¶42). This means that God is not an object alongside other objects in this world. God is a mystery. God is transcendent and mysterious, and thus not something we can control or manipulate or define willy-nilly.

As a result of the fact that God is transcendent and we are sinful, the only way we can truly come to have knowledge of God is if God graciously makes himself known to us. This brings us to the heart of this week’s study: The Revelation of God.


3. God Comes to Meet Man (I.1.2.1.)

3.1. What is revelation?
When we speak about revelation on an everyday level, we say things like, “I had a startling revelation today…” Revelation means that we now know something which we did not know before. It is something new and surprising, and it affects how we go about living in the future. All of this is true in relation to God’s revelation. When we speak about revelation in relation to the Christian faith, we are referring to something new and surprising that has huge implications for our life. We aren’t speaking about something that was there all along which we simply have to discover for ourselves. Revelation does not refer to some general religious principle or something resident within the world; it refers rather to a new event. Revelation is not simply a novel interpretation of the world; it is rather a reality which forces to see the world in a whole new way. Revelation is thus a divine reality, a divine event, a divine appearance which shatters the old and ushers in the new. In short, revelation means that we aren’t making this up. God has really arrived on the scene. God has appeared on the stage.

The drama portrayed by the Bible is God’s initiative, and so between man’s blueprints of existence and God there is not a continuous transition but a leap. (H. U. von Balthasar, Theo-Drama II, 53).

God is the actor, the world is the stage, and revelation is the dramatic event. Scripture is the written testimony of this drama. And humanity is the other actor which God’s revelation brings on to the stage. Revelation is therefore not a piece of knowledge or a text; it is first and foremost an acting person, Jesus Christ. God appears on the world-stage in the person of Jesus. God is not some abstract or distant deity who has no concern for the world. On the contrary, the Church confesses that God loves the world, interacts with the world, forms relationships with people and communities in the world, and will one day dwell together with all the redeemed of the world. And at the heart of this divine action is the person of Jesus, who is God in the flesh.

According to the Catechism, “Christ, the Son of God made man, is the Father’s one, perfect, and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one.” The Catechism discusses revelation using linguistic metaphors, and this is also very helpful. Revelation is a dialogue, and Jesus Christ is the Word of God that communicates to us who God is and what God has done. But it is also helpful to use a dramatic metaphor, because revelation is not just information or speech; it is also and perhaps primarily a divine action. God really does something. Or, to be more precise, God has done something, God is doing something, and God will do something. The drama is ongoing and eternal. Revelation is drama, and like any good drama, God’s revelation includes dialogue. Action and speech are both involved in the revelation of God. As Balthasar puts it,

In the Christian drama God does not speak in monologues. He engages in conversation, shared speech. This shows once again that Christianity is not (like the Koran, for example) a ‘teaching’ that has fallen from heaven but an interaction, a kind of negotiation between two parties. . . . In contrast to the world, which is closed in on itself, does not want to listen to him and distorts all his words even as he utters them, God is the One who allows himself to be most profoundly affected by this partner so unfit for speech. . . . And only on the basis of the Cross is faith given to the disciples and all subsequent believers, rendering them capable of dialogue with God. (TD II, 71-72)

As we noted before, the Christian life is not primarily about knowledge but about love, and love is an action. This is why we can speak about revelation properly as a drama. God demonstrates his love toward humanity by redeeming us and adopting us his children. The Catechism says that in revelation, God seeks to “communicate his own divine life to the men he freely created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten Son” (¶52). Revelation is thus the drama of our reconciliation and adoption. This drama of revelation is both ontic and noetic in nature—that is, it concerns our being (ontic) and our knowledge (noetic). Our redemption and adoption are ontic realities, but the communication and explication of this redemption are noetic realities. The dramatic metaphor emphasizes the ontic dimension, while the dialogical metaphor emphasizes the noetic. When we bring these two dimensions together, we can say that through the testimony of Scripture and the Church (noetic), we come to understand both who God is, as the one who redeems and adopts, and who we are, as those who are redeemed and adopted into God’s family (ontic).

In this section we are dealing with God’s part in the drama. Later on, when we discuss the Church and the life of faith, we will discuss humanity’s role in the drama. But it’s important to remember that God’s action is always primary, and human action secondary. God makes us into actors; in the event of revelation, God welcomes us onto the stage. According to Balthasar, “human activity is embraced, directed and accompanied by divine activity” (TD II, 68). We will talk about this human activity at a later point. For now, we are concerned with the divine activity in which God makes himself known to humanity.

3.2. What is the “divine pedagogy”?
The “divine pedagogy” simply means that revelation is a relationship between God and humanity that occurs over time. Revelation is not instantaneous, because we could not possibly handle the knowledge of God all at once. We are finite, temporal creatures. The Bible calls us children who are easily blown about by different teachings and doctrines. What we need is a loving, caring teacher, and this is precisely what we find in the God of the Scriptures. The Catechism calls it “divine pedagogy” because God is our teacher, and he instructs us in a way that is suitable for our understanding.

3.3. What about other revelations of God?
We have to make an important distinction between sources and norms in relation to knowledge of God. There are many different sources of knowledge of God that God can and has used: trees, animals, books, friends, movies, politicians, etc. But there is only one norm, and that norm is Jesus Christ. According to the Catechism, “Christian faith cannot accept ‘revelations’ that claim to surpass or correct the Revelation of which Christ is the fulfillment…” (¶67). And later, “The Son is his Father’s definitive Word; so there will be no further Revelation after him” (¶73).

RCIA Syllabus

What is RCIA?
The RCIA, which stands for Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, is a process through which non-baptized men and women enter the Catholic Church. It is also for those baptized in a different faith tradition who wish to become Catholic, or baptized Catholic, but never confirmed. It includes several stages marked by study, prayer and rites at Mass. Participants in the RCIA are known as catechumens. They undergo a process of conversion as they study the Gospel, profess faith in Jesus and the Catholic Church, and receive the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Holy Eucharist. Here at the Aquinas Institute, the Tuesday meetings will focus on the study of the Catholic Catechism in preparation for your initiation into the Catholic Church. At the end of this period of study and prayer, you will partake of the sacraments during the Easter Vigil Liturgy.

Required Text
U.S. Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Doubleday, 1995)

Recommended:
Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The Companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: A Compendium of Texts

Schedule

Week 1: Revelation, Jesus Christ, and the Word of God (¶1-100)

Week 2: Scripture and Tradition (¶101-84)

Week 3: The Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (¶185-267)

Week 4: Creator, Creation, and Humanity (¶268-384)

Week 5: Sin and Evil (¶385-421)

Week 6: Jesus Christ: True God and True Man (¶422-570)

Week 7: Jesus Christ: Savior of the World (¶571-667)

Week 8: Holy Spirit: The Power of New Life (¶683-747, 1987-2029)

Week 9: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church with an Excursus on Mary (¶748-975, 2030-51)

Week 10: Forgiveness of Sins, Resurrection of the Body, and Life Everlasting (¶668-82, 976-1065)

Week 11: Liturgy & Sacraments (¶1066-1209, 1667-90)
Week 12: The Sacraments of Initiation (¶1210-1419)
Week 13: The Sacraments of Healing and Service (¶1420-1666)
Week 14: Christian Ethics (¶1691-1876)
Week 15: The Christian in the World (¶1877-1986)
Week 16: The Ten Commandments (¶2052-557)
Week 17: Prayer (¶2558-758)
Week 18: The Lord’s Prayer (¶2759-865)

Welcome to RCIA!

Welcome to the blog for the 2007-2008 RCIA conducted by the Aquinas Institute at Princeton University! This blog will serve as a resource for those reading through the catechism. Each week I will post updates and notes for the readings. If you have any questions or comments, you can contact me at dwcongdon-at-gmail.com.