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I’m not so sure that Mephi is in danger of “backsliding into the enlightenment.” I think that his question is just as important for pre- or post- or non- (insert applicable prefix- ) enlightenment people as well. Those who grant the unverifiability of historical events in Scripture and remain believers tend to go the route of demythologization—e.g. it doesn’t matter whether or not the events really happened, because they are just as meaningful as myths.

But think about that.

I’m a fan of mythology and I think it is highly underrated—but not that underrated. Myth is a cultural construct. I’m a sinner in need of grace, and unless there is a savior outside myself and my context, I’m lost. So I think Mephi’s question is not just a throw-back to the enlightenment. As someone who grants the unverifiability of biblical events, but maintains that my belief is grounded in history, I take this question very seriously. I have some work to do if I am going to avoid the charge of fideism.

Electra

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(from “In the Image and Likeness of God,” by Vladimir Lossky’s, pp. 148-152)


If such is the nature of the word, nothing of what is revealed and makes itself known can remain foreign to it. Whether it be the Scriptures, preaching, or the "apostles traditions guarded in silence," the same word Xoyoc; of Xoyioc can equally be applied to all that constitutes expression of the revealed Truth, In fact, this word ceaselessly recurs in patristic literature to designate equally the Holy Scripture and the Symbols of faith. Thus, St. John Cassian says on the subject of the symbol of Antioch: "It is the abridged word (breviatum verb urn) that the Lord has given ... contracting into a few words the faith of His two Testaments, in order for it to contain in a brief way the meaning of all the Scriptures."2" If one next considers that the Scriptures are not a collection of words about God, but the Word of God (Xoyoc, TOU OeoO), one will understand why, above all since Origen, there has been a desire to identify the presence of the divine Logos in the writings of the two Testaments with the incarnation of the Word, by which the Scriptures were "accomplished." Well before Origen, St. Ignatius of Antioch refused to see in the Scriptures merely an historical document—"archives"—and to justify the Gospel by the texts of the Old Testament, declaring: "For me, my archives are Jesus Christ; my inviolable archives are His Cross and His Death and His Resurrection, and the Faith which comes from Him... He is the Door of the Father, by which enter in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Church." 21 If by the fact of the incarnation of the Word the Scriptures are not archives of the Truth but its living body, the Scriptures can be possessed only within the Church, which is the unique body of Christ. Once again one returns to the idea of the sufficiency of Scripture. But here, there is nothing negative: it does not exclude, but assumes the Church, with its sacraments, institutions and teachings transmitted by the apostles. Nor does this sufficiency, this pleroma of the Scripture, exclude any other expressions of the same Truth which the Church could produce (just as the fulness of Christ, the Head of the Church, does not exclude the Church, the complement of His glorious humanity). One knows that the defenders of the holy images founded the possibility of Christian iconography on the fact of the incarnation of the Word: icons, just as well as the Scriptures, are expressions of the inexpressible, and have become possible thanks to the revelation of God which was accomplished in the incarnation of the Son. The same holds good for the dogmatic definitions, the exegesis, the liturgy—for all in the Church of Christ that participates in the same fulness of the Word as is contained by the Scriptures, without thereby being limited or reduced. In this "totalitarian" quality of the incarnate Word, all that expresses the revealed Truth thus is related to Scripture and, if all were in fact to become "scripture," the world itself could not contain the books that should be written (John 21:25).

But since expression of the transcendent mystery has become possible by the fact of the incarnation of the Word, since all that expresses it becomes in some way "scripture" alongside the Holy Scripture, the question arises as to where finally is that Tradition which we have sought by detaching progressively its pure notion from all that can relate it to scriptural reality?

As we have said, it is not to be sought on the horizontal lines of the "traditions" which, just as much as the Scripture, are determined by the Word. If again we wished to oppose it to all that belongs to the reality of the Word, it would be necessary to say that the Tradition is Silence. "He who possesses in truth the word of Jesus can hear even its silence (Tr|C; r]ou)([occ; OCUTOU axousiv)," says St. Ignatius of Antioch (Ephesians 15:2). As far as I know, this text has never been used in the numerous studies which quote patristic passages on Tradition in abundance, always the same passages, known by everyone, but with never a warning that texts in which the word "tradition" is not expressly mentioned can be more eloquent than many others.

The faculty of hearing the silence of Jesus, attributed by St. Ignatius to those who in truth possess His word, echoes the reiterated appeal of Christ to His hearers: "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." The words of Revelation have then a margin of silence which cannot be picked up by the ears of those who are outside. St. Basil moves in the same direction when he says, in his passage on the traditions: "There is also a form of silence, namely the obscurity used by the Scripture, which is intended in order to make it difficult to gain understanding of the teachings, for the profit of readers."" This silence of the Scriptures could not be detached from them: it is transmitted by the Church with the words of Revelation as the very condition of their reception. If it could be opposed to words (always on the horizontal plane, where they express the revealed Truth), this silence which accompanies words implies no kind of insufficiency or lack of fulness of Revelation, nor the necessity of adding to it anything whatever. It signifies that the revealed mystery, to be truly received as fulness, demands a conversion towards the vertical plane, in order that one may be able to "comprehend with all saints" not only what is the "breadth and length" of Revelation, but also its "depth" and its "height" (Eph. 3:18).

At the point which we have reached, we can no longer oppose Scripture and Tradition, nor juxtapose them as two distinct realities. We must, however, distinguish them, the better to seize their indivisible unity, which lends to the Revelation given to the Church its character of fulness. If the Scriptures and all that the Church can produce in words written or pronounced, in images or in symbols liturgical or otherwise, represent the differing modes of expression of the Truth, Tradition is the unique mode of receiving it. We say specifically unique mode and not uniform mode, for to Tradition in its pure notion there belongs nothing formal. It does not impose on human consciousness formal guarantees of the truths of faith, but gives access to the discovery of their inner evidence. It is not the content of Revelation, but the light that reveals it; it is not the word, but the living breath which makes the words heard at the same time as the silence from which it came;" it is not the Truth, but a communication of the Spirit of Truth, outside which the Truth cannot be received. "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (I Cor. 12:3). The pure notion of Tradition can then be defined by saying that it is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church, communicating to each member of the Body of Christ the faculty of hearing, of receiving, of knowing the Truth in the Light which belongs to it, and not according to the natural light of human reason. This is true gnosis, owed to an action of the divine Light (OcLirio^loq TT)C, yvcboecoc; TT]C; &O^T]C; TOU G£OU, II Cor. 4:6), the unique Tradition, independent of all "philosophy," independent of all that lives "according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ" (Col. 2:8). This freedom from every condition of nature, every contingency of history, is the first characteristic of the vertical line of Tradition; it is inherent in Christian gnosis: "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free" (John 8:32). One cannot know the Truth nor understand the words of Revelation without having received the Holy Spirit, "and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (II Cor. 3:17)."' This freedom of the children of God, opposed to the slavery of the sons of this world, is expressed by the "freeness" (TiapprpLOc) with which those can address God who know Him whom they worship, for they worship the Father "in Spirit and Truth" (John 4:23, 24).

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Nice posts, Modes.

So good to see you back.


(Meph, I hope that I did OK.)

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Lossky: "If by the fact of the incarnation of the Word the Scriptures are not archives of the Truth but its living body, the Scriptures can be possessed only within the Church, which is the unique body of Christ."

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Reason is a powerful tool. So powerful that it can point to its own limits. We should heed these limits when we recognize them. I am talking about the implausibility of "proving" that which does not present itself for such scrutiny. This is not to default to myth but rather to recognize that faith does indeed pick up where reason leaves off. We do have to "abduct" some of our convictions without being able to analytically demonstrate the necessity of our conclusions. We are shown how and when to do this by heroes of faith in the Bible. Abraham believed (not "proved") God and it was attributed to him as righteousness Romans 4:1-3. Faith is defined well for us in Hebrews 11:1 it is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things NOT seen. There is an abduction necessary here, we must accept that we cannot prove it, if we could, it would be something other than faith. For faith is the conviction of things NOT seen, not proven, etc. This is not to say that things don't point to faith, they do, but they don't get us all the way there. It is also true that some things don't point to faith. This is why I don't think natural theology does us much good in terms of getting to Christian faith. Christian faith is a revealed faith. Not one that you can get to by following the pointers in the cosmos. You might get to a god of sorts, but it will not, by definition be the revealed God (read "incarnated") that we need.

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I was beginning to wonder if I should go back into hiding. Thanks for the response. Where'd everybody go? Most of my posts seem to be going unnoticed.

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Indeed, it's great to see ya, Modes. And your posts haven't gone unnoticed. I've got APLENTY to say about your responses. (Of course, you knew this.) Just gimme a minute.

Glad yer back, my man!

Holla,

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I do hope that someone responds to the substance of my posts.

Meph (and anyone else!!!), do you think that there are important parallels between what POW and I are suggesting? If so, what? (FYI: I think there are some.)

Do you think it is legit to start (apologetically speaking) with the question of who has the most adequate assessment of the problem rather than the stand-alone provability (or even simple plausibility for this creates lowest-common-denominator type scenarios) of the whole system? If not, why not?

Last question: in the search for truth (or a life lived authenticly), how do these three factor in for you: honesty, humility, commitment. I am guessing that you agree with all three personal values, but how do they intersect?

For me, there is a point at which one needs to make a decision and repeat it. This may seem to favor commitment, and it does, but it does not mean stopping with the honesty and the humility. Your examples of people who are from other religions or are intellectually rigorous agnostics and so forth seem to either have alternate commitments (other religions) or stress the honesty to the point that if they do not have absolute security in a position they will not take it. This may even reflect humility intellectually, but it lacks commitment. The three need to be in balance. I am just curious if this is a interesting triplet of values to you and if you have suggestions about how they ought to weigh in together.

I'd also like to suggest that life is a process, and once we realize this we must enter into with some level of commitment (make a decision and repeat it). This will force us into what will feel like inauthentic situations because life is not "geared" toward our having faith, nor is it geared toward our being atheists/agnostics. There are plenty of challenging problems for both commitments. We do this--enter life with some commitment--with some sort of posture (thank you Luke Jacobs for this insight) and that posture ideally should be honesty and humility before ourselves and before God. This results in a positively stated posture of thanksgiving and worship (insert huge list of passages which speak of giving thanks and continual praise, honoring God in all things, etc.). Not that we don't have honesty and humility before others--we should strive for that--but we cannot be fully transparent to others the way we can (and always ARE from God's angle) with God. At least not in this life. In terms of a life lived, we must lean on commitment. Here's POW's concern as well, I think, the language of prayer is where we are most able (because it is essential to the practice) to articulate the honesty and humility factors and this facilitates God's empowering (typically, though God may have other plans at times) us for continual living in the commitments that we have made.

****Meph, super important note here for YOU****
DON'T take this as my saying you lack commitment, I don't think that that is the case at all, I just am responding to the types of counter-arguments you often bring up and asking: When does your commitment to honesty and intellectual humility get qualified by some other decision that you have made and intend to repeat? Is that fair? This is a question of intellectual activity 'cause I KNOW your life reflects the commitment to God as your Absolute. Just want to make that crystal clear.

Just some random thoughts. [Truly!] Anyone care to comment? This is directed to Mephi but the proposal stands as one anyone can have an opinion about. Let me have it.

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I think the board has reached a consensus:

WE WANT MO’ MODES!

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I will definitely write more when I get some responses to what I have said so far. If I missed a response somewhere maybe someone could "resurface" it.

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[In a fairly decent Canadian "Wolverine" impression]

Yeah, yeah. Keep yer Jockey shorts on, bub. I'ma comin, I'ma comin. Flamin' theologians...


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Edited by - Mephi2K on 07/02/2002 2:12:57 PM