{"id":228,"date":"2020-02-06T09:53:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T09:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/?page_id=228"},"modified":"2020-02-06T09:53:48","modified_gmt":"2020-02-06T09:53:48","slug":"the-catholicity-report-a-summary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/the-catholicity-report-a-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"The Catholicity report: a summary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To help participants prepare for this symposium, we prepared a summary of the 1947 Report.  As several speakers referred to this summary, it is included here for reference. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aftermath of the Second World War was a watershed in the life of the Church of England: a time for rebuilding, and exploring what part the churches might play in that, looking at tensions both within and beyond the Church of England. In 1946, Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher commissioned a report, CATHOLICITY: A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West<\/strong>, which was published the following year. (Fisher subsequently asked both Anglican evangelicals and the Free Churches to respond.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2017\nis the 70th anniversary of this report, which inevitably reflects the\nunderstanding of its authors. This, though shaped in a different age,\nwas open to fresh developments in Biblical and Patristic study and to\nthe new ecumenical situation brought about by an international need\nfor post-war rebuilding. To some extent, the report foreshadowed\ndevelopments in the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent\necumenical openness which led to ARCIC and its documents. It also\nidentified significant dangers in attempting to bring together\nChristians of different traditions \u2013 Protestant, Liberal and\nCatholic. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nmight seem that the 1947 report inhabits a theological world very\ndifferent to our own. It deals with issues that no longer top the\ntheological agenda: the relationship between Scripture and Tradition;\nthe nature of the episcopacy, grace and free will; authority,\ncreation and the Fall; natural and revealed theology. Today, our\nagenda is dominated by apologetics, mission, the relationship between\nscience and belief, and between community, politics, church and\nworld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the first, the 1947 report was challenged regarding its representation of differences in doctrine. It needs to be seen alongside the response by the Free Churches, The Catholicity of Protestantism<\/em>, edited by R. Newton Flew and Rupert E. Davies, which challenges in some detail the presentation of Protestantism in Catholicity<\/em>. (A report by Anglican Evangelicals, The Fullness of Christ<\/em>, published in 1950, does not comment on the 1947 report.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the authors of Catholicity<\/em> did not envisage were radical developments in the study of Scripture and the Early Church which challenge their faith in ‘the wholeness of the primitive tradition’. Some of us taking part in this symposium learnt our theology at a time when it seemed impossible to know what to believe about the historicity of Scripture, and therefore its place in preaching; when we found it hard to see the ongoing relevance of traditional formulations of doctrine to the life of the modern church, assailed by new challenges from science, secular morality, the rise of feminism; and the rapid numerical decline in both the membership and priesthood of the Church of England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\npurpose of this, the first of what we hope might become a series of\nsymposia, is twofold. First, we want to explore the circumstances\nsince 1947 which affected, often adversely, the Catholic voice in the\nChurch of England. We shall consider this both socially and\ntheologically. Second, we want to look clearly at where we are now.\nWhat are the questions, beliefs, and unresolved issues for\nAnglo-Catholics in 2017, especially for our ordinands? How do these\nrelate to young students more generally? And what are the issues for\nCatholic mission? We do not intend to address comprehensively the\ncontent of what a contemporary Catholic voice might stand for: that\nmight be part of a future discussion. Our purpose now is simply to\nencourage a developing conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who have not read the 1947 report Catholicity<\/em>, we attempt here to summarise the key elements of its thinking. In some instances, we quoted essential sections verbatim.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen\nTucker and Robert Gage<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nSUMMARY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n1. The\nReport starts from a presumption of the ‘Primitive wholeness of the\nChristian faith’ as a balanced collection of theological principles.\nThe fragmentation and destabilising of this balanced wholeness has\nled to the various divisions in the church, each representing a\ndistortion of, or overemphasis on, one particular element within that\nprimitive balance. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n2. Unity today can only be built on a\nrecognition of that primitive unity, not by a patching together of\nthe present fragments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\t‘ We shall in this Report seek first to\ndescribe this primitive wholeness of Christian \tfaith, thought and\nlife; then to examine the chief ways in which distortion and division\n\thave occurred; and finally to consider true and false methods of\nsynthesis.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nPRIMITIVE UNITY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n3. Such unity is based on a way of life\nwhich included belief, worship and morals \u2013 in other words,\n‘sanctification in the truth\u2019. (John 17:17) \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n4. The primitive Church is seen as part of\nthe eschatological event of redemption, prepared for in the life of\nIsrael, and inaugurated by the birth, life, death, resurrection of\nJesus, and gift of the Spirit. That ‘event’ created a unity into\nwhich we are called. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n5. The visible Church, or New Israel, is\nboth the body of Christ and a group of sinful and fallible members.\nParadoxically, the Kingdom of the future and Church of the present\nare one thing \u2013 the place where we will fully become what we\nalready are. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n6. This unity or wholeness is manifested in\nan outward order in which the spiritual and the bodily are not\nseparate. Its component parts are: \n

\n\t(a) The ongoing office of the apostles and\ntheir successors, whose task is to teach, rule \tand ordain.

\n\t(b) Baptism, which brought regeneration and\ninaugurated eternal life, remission of sins \tand sanctification \u2013 a\nnew creation which makes us members of the holy common \tpeople of\nGod, the eternal church. \n

\n\t(c) The Eucharist, which combines \nsacrifice, fellowship, communion meal, adoration, \tintercession,\ncommemoration, and thanksgiving; a memorial of concrete facts and\n\ttheir application to every Christian, making the local part of the\nuniversal. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\td. Out of all this come the contents of\nthe New Testament, which presupposes and \tinterprets the faith and\n‘the Way’ from within which it is written. ‘To abstract them from\n\tthe setting and life and belief which produced them (in other words,\nto oppose \t‘Scripture’ and ‘Tradition’) is wholly artificial and\narbitrary.’ \t<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. ‘The apostolic ‘writings’ reflect and presuppose at every point the abundant many-sidedness and tension of the life of the Apostolic Church and its ‘Tradition’ of kerygma <\/em>and practice: indeed, they are themselves first received and valued as one important part of it. They are ultimately ‘canonised’ in the second century, as ‘inspired Scriptures’ beside and above the Jewish Old Testament Scriptures, which were the only Bible of the primitive Church: canonised rather as an authoritative witness to and standard for the maintenance of ‘Tradition’, than as an independent theological authority in themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n8. The ability of the early Church to\ncontain the many-sided fullness of Apostolic truth is seen in its\neventual acceptance of so diverse a collection, where all alike was\nequally authoritative and ‘inspired’. Only a Church which was not\nafraid of ‘tensions’, which could discern without prejudice the\n‘wholeness’ of the revelation in Christ, would have dared to set side\nby side four differing Gospels, the Epistles of St Paul and St James,\nthe apostolic history of Acts and the eschatology of the Apocalypse,\nand to acclaim them all as normative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n9. Thus, according to the Report, the first\nprinciple of unity is the acceptance of the Church as a Divine fact\nprior to the individuals who comprise its membership; the acceptance\nof its outward order as a part of its being; and the recognition of\nthe authority of ‘Tradition’ together with that of Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n10. There are clearly several tensions\nimplicit in this primitive unity: between the temporal and eternal\ncharacter of the church; between its once-for-allness and its growth;\nbetween the divine nature of the church and the sinfulness of its\nmembers; between the present activity of the spirit and the\nrecognition of tradition. These tensions can give rise to\ntraditionalism and modernism, ecclesiasticism and sectarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n11. Again, there is a tension between the\nChurch’s apartness from the world and its mission to the world \u2013 a\nworld sunk in sin. Yet we all receive the light which enlightens\neveryone who comes into the world; we are created by God; there is a\nnatural law which we can discover; we pray for statesmen, and we see\na positive significance in civilisation \u2013 and yet we all need\nredemption, for without Christ we cannot be saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n12. ‘The main burden of our Report is that\nthe problem of re-union is that of the recovery of the ‘wholeness’ of\nTradition. Of course, there is a sense in which ‘wholeness’ cannot\napply to a national Church, or the Church of any particular\ngeneration. The outlook of the tenth century differs from that of the\ntwentieth: there are diversities of cultures as there are diversities\nof gifts. But there is one Spirit; and it is possible for there to be\nin diverse Churches and cultures the same wholeness or integrity of\nthe Christian Tradition as is exemplified in the apostolic age. It is\nthis wholeness that has become damaged in our divisions, and re-union\nmeans the recovery of it. The movement for the restoration of visible\nunity is at present endangered by the advocacy of patchwork remedies,\non the part of those who have hardly seen what the problem really is.\nThe immediate duty of Christians, therefore, is to become aware of\nthe loss of ‘wholeness’ which characterises the present state of\nChristendom.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE BACKGROUND TO THE WESTERN SCHISMS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n13. Fragmentation and loss of wholeness,\nanticipated in the Chalcedonian schism, begins most seriously in the\ndivision between the Orthodox and Western Church. The Reformation\nexposed fissures already apparent in the late medieval church:\nlegalism, clericalism, theological rationalism, individualistic\npiety, and isolation of the crucifixion as the sole means of\nredemption. The Western tradition which split up in the sixteenth\ncentury was already a defective tradition. ‘The wholeness to which\nChristians today need to return is not that of the West in isolation\nfrom the East; nor yet will it be attained by the mere juxtaposition\nof Eastern and Western traditions. None the less, to make contact\nwith the Orthodox East and understand its mind is not to run away\nfrom the Western problem, but rather to dig in the direction of its\nroots.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nORTHODOX PROTESTANTISM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n14. Its positive truths include: the gospel\nof the living God in direct and personal action; the appeal to\nauthority of Bible as primary source of salvation; the necessity of\nfaith or personal response (not works or correct belief); the\nparticipation of the laity in the life and government of the church;\nthe importance of preaching; the revival of the prophetic spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n15. But some forms of Protestantism contain\nradical errors: the loss of the idea that man was made in the image\nof God and that, though defaced, the image remains in fallen man and\nis restored by baptism; and a deep pessimism about the human\ncondition, identified as total depravity, whereby man’s rational\nnature, his capacity for culture, for a certain achievement of\nnatural justice and civilisation, his very humanity, contain no trace\nof the lost ‘Image of God’.’ This leaves no \u2018point of contact’ to\nwhich the redeeming action of God can address itself without\nviolence. Salvation is of the sovereign, freely-electing grace of God\nalone; and therefore the so-called ‘good works’ done before\nJustification are themselves sinful, as proceeding from a radically\nsinful nature, and merit eternal damnation as much as so-called ‘evil\nworks’ done in the same state. This idea leads underlies the thesis\nof the arbitrary predestination of ‘the elect’ to salvation by the\nsovereign will of God, and the doctrine of ‘Justification by Faith\nalone’.\nEven in the ‘justified’, the image of God is not effectively restored\nby ‘imputed righteousness’. The doctrine of a judgment of individual\nmen by God therefore becomes irrational and tyrannous, and the\nChristian conception of God is altered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n16. Underlying all this is the assumed\nantithesis, anticipated in mediaeval thought, between ‘nature’ and\n‘grace’. In the Reformation, there is an affirmation of the reality\nof ‘grace’ by denying that of ‘nature’. There is also a rejection of\nscholastic Natural Theology and the doctrine of Natural Law, as based\non philosophy and not on the Gospel. Reformed thinkers saw Western\ntheology as unduly rationalistic in its endeavour to express the\nthings of the Spirit in universally valid and rational terms. This\nled to a fear of metaphysics and rational thinking, a mistrust of\nnatural theology, an isolation of the doctrine of redemption, no\ntheology of the created order, a loss of sacramental theology, the\nseparation of matter and spirit, an overemphasis on inwardness, a\ndivision of piety from politics, a lack of ascetic and mystical\ntheology, and a retreat from history (i.e. the period between the\ngospel and the believer). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH AND OF\nAUTHORITY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n17. Emphasis on the church as the place\nwhere, through grace, the Word is preached and sacraments celebrate,\nloses sight of a continuity with the Word made flesh, alive in a\nhistorically continuous society, despite the failings of its members.\nThe Reformation understanding presents a pattern which puts the\nindividual before the church, i.e. Christ \u2013 individual \u2013 church.\nThe Catholic pattern holds to Christ \u2013 church \u2013 individual. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n18. ‘Protestantism has not really come to\nterms with the reality of history as the scene of the continuous\npresence of Divine life that flows from the Incarnation. Partly\nthrough a belief that history is intrinsically sinful, partly through\nthe doctrine of sola fide, <\/em>partly\nthrough a distorted idea of ‘inwardness’, and partly through the\nidentification of Rome with anti-Christ, classical Protestantism was\nunable to conceive of the Church as a Divine life in the context of\nan imperfect and sinful society.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n19. The main issue concerning authority\nseems to be this: the Church is commissioned to declare the true\ndoctrine with authority, through its proper organs, and to point out\nwhat is false; but this authority is rightly exercised only when the\nChurch embodies the Apostolic Tradition in its fullness and balance,\nand is itself in subjection to the Gospel of God. The Protestant\nreformers rebelled against a Church which had too long exercised its\nmagisterium <\/em>without\ndue conformity to these essential conditions; and in the place of the\nauthority of the Church they set the authority of the Scriptures. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n20. This raises the question as to how the\nScriptures are to be interpreted. Lutherans tended to interpret them\nin the light of a particular doctrine. Calvinists tended to treat\nScripture as a self-contained Divine volume, and to overlook its\ninterrelation with the Tradition to which it bears witness. There\nwere, further, the many Protestant Confessions, all professing to\ngive an authoritative interpretation of Scripture, and all lacking a\nclear conception as to who possessed the authority to interpret\nScripture, and why. There was also the frank appeal to the\nindividual’s private judgment, whereby he might interpret the\nScriptures as he would. ‘In all these ways the Authority of the\nChurch was disappearing, and the notion of such Authority has indeed\nbecome virtually eclipsed in modern Protestant Christianity.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n21. ‘It is not enough to appeal, as the\nreformers appealed, to ‘the Bible’ or ‘the Gospel’. It is necessary,\nin appealing to the Bible, to appeal also to the Tradition of the\nprimitive Church as the context in which the Bible had its origin and\nmeaning. And it is necessary, in appealing to the Gospel, to remember\nthat the Gospel involved a series of historical events, an\ninterpretation of those events, and an apostolate commissioned with\nauthority to teach both the history and its true interpretation. It\nis grievously misleading to appeal to Bible or Gospel without\nappealing also to the apostolic Church as the witness and keeper of\nboth; and a distorted form of appeal to Christian beginnings\nunderlies the eclipse of the doctrine of the Authority of the Church\namongst Protestants. This is not to say that the employment of this\ndoctrine in the history of Catholicism has been free from abuse. Far\nfrom it. But the doctrine itself is a part of apostolic Christianity,\nand its right exercise can only be recovered by a return to the\nfullness of the apostolic Tradition.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE RENAISSANCE AND LIBERALISM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n22. The Renaissance emphasised the dignity\nof man, freedom and the progress of history towards enlightenment.\nFrom a Christian perspective its positive elements are: a devotion to\ntruth for its own sake; reverence for man in the image of God; the\ntruth and beauty of God and the positive aspects of human culture; a\nrenewal of Biblical and Patristic scholarship. Its weaknesses arise\nfrom the lack of a sense of our profound dependence on the creator\nand our need for salvation, which results in a belief in man as man\nand the identification of the kingdom with human progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n23. The achievements of 19th century\nLiberalism include: the critical study of the Bible and the\nacceptance that Genesis need not be taken literally and is consistent\nwith evolution and natural selection. Its weaknesses include the loss\nof a sense of the Bible as a living word; a new, scientific\nunderstanding of nature that puts God at a distance; the loss of\nbelief in God as Judge; the rejection of those aspects of Jesus’\nteaching which seem to be incompatible with modern ideas. Man becomes\nthe centre of the picture. There is a new emphasis on feeling and\n‘God consciousness’ and a decline in the sense of evil; a growth of\nmoralism and a decline of metaphysics; a neglect of the being of\nChrist and a focus on him as a good man and symbol of potential\ndivinity in us all. God is seen only as a loving father, and\nredemption is replaced by spiritual progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n24. Renaissance and modern Liberal religion\nresemble the humanistic aspect of the Catholic faith with the\nEvangelical aspect forgotten. And though tolerance is seen as a key\nliberal virtue, it is capable of being highly intolerant of those who\ndisagree with its key elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n25. It is one thing to recover the positive\ninsights of Liberalism within a Catholic and Evangelical faith: it is\nanother thing to take the common and popular sentiments of Liberalism\nas a norm of Christian broadmindedness wherein we can all ‘get\ntogether’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE POST-TRIDENTINE PAPAL COMMUNION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n26. The easy way in which the Reformers,\nalmost from the first, simply ‘wrote off’ the Papacy even as a\npossibility illustrates clearly the extent to which they ignored from\nthe outset both the New Testament doctrine of the ‘universal’ Church\nas an inherent part of the Gospel, and the inherence of the\nDivine-human society in the ‘here-and-now’ of history. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n27. If such an institution as the\n‘universal Church’ is to exist as more than a sentiment and an ideal\n\u2013 as a concrete substantial reality within human history in our\nhighly organised modern society \u2013 then some such central\ninstitution would seem to be more than just a convenience. It is at\nleast a pragmatic necessity, as is shown by the obvious temptation of\nthe modern ‘oecumenical movement’ to try to provide a substitute for\nit. To cast away so lightly an institution with such deep roots in\nChristian history, and with such immense claims on European gratitude\nand veneration, was to prove oneself blind to the profounder\nrealities of what is meant by ‘the universal Church’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n28. Why has the papacy not become a focus\nfor unity? For centuries this is largely explained by its involvement\nin the power politics of Europe. In the 19th century it became\nidentified with the ancien\nregime.<\/em> Only in the 20th century\nhave these problems significantly faded. The Council of Trent focused\nits efforts on a great system of reasoning about Revelation, rather\nthan the Biblical Revelation in itself, presented as the ‘teaching of\nthe Roman Church’ that the convert is required to accept. At the same\ntime, the Roman Catholic Church is presented as the only church, and\nequated with the Regnum Dei<\/em>\nitself. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n29. ‘It would be difficult to devise\nanything more likely to repulse the instructed Protestant at the\noutset. It is a sheer perversion when the process of Christian\nsalvation can be represented as fulfilled by a merely mechanical\nhuman obedience to a human jurisdiction acting in the name of an\nabsentee Christ. This gross misunderstanding of the system was\nundoubtedly present in the Middle Ages, and the evident survival of\nsomething of the same mentality in post-Tridentine Catholicism has\nappeared to most Protestants still to justify outright their\nforefathers’ original protest. The reconciliation here can only come\nfrom a deeper apprehension of the paradox of the Divine life imparted\nand lived through the necessities of living in an imperfect earthly\nsociety.’ \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nFRAGMENTATION AND SYNTHESIS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n30. The tripartite divisions in Western\nChristianity expose a series of opposed conceptions: the splitting\napart of stresses within historic Catholicism, summarised here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Salvation by faith<\/td>\nSalvation by works<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Grace<\/td>\nReason, morals, feeling<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Revealed theology<\/td>\nNatural theology<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Christus pro nobis<\/i><\/td>\nChristus in nobis<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Justification<\/td>\nSanctification<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Man as sinner<\/td>\nMan as imago Dei<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
De servo arbitrio<\/i><\/td>\nDe libero arbitrio<\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Man in contradiction to God<\/td>\nMan in continuity with God<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Salvation as the deliverance of mankind from out of the world<\/td>\nSalvation as the transformation of mankind and the world in a new Creation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Creator and creature incommensurable<\/td>\nCreature and Creator mutually necessary<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Christ as Saviour<\/td>\nChrist as pattern<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
History as sin<\/td>\nHistory as Divinely ordered progress<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Political pessimism<\/td>\nPolitics as the coming of the Kingdom<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
God transcendent<\/td>\nGod immanent<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n

\n31. ‘This table represents not only two\nkinds of theological position, but also two kinds of religious\nattitude towards life amongst ordinary folk. We have seen also that\nmodern Catholicism does not succeed in the task of re-integration of\nthe truth, for modern Catholicism is itself a product of the long\nhistory of dissociation.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n32. In Protestantism there is an inherited\ninability to take the visible Church with due seriousness. But\nCatholics have too often slipped into an identification of the\nvisible Church with the Kingdom of God, and have forgotten the\nChurch’s ultimate subjection to the sovereignty and judgment of the\nDivine Word. If others have neglected the objectivity of the faith as\na body of teaching handed down, Catholics have too often been\nunmindful of the meaning of faith in the Pauline sense. The authors\nof the Report are well aware of the share of their own school of\nthought in these sins of distortion and omission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n33. ‘One result of our divisions has been\nthat a number of theological conflicts have been fought with such\nfaulty presuppositions as to become really battles in a fog. Thus\nthere has been the conflict about the doctrine of Sacrifice in the\nEucharist, in which the upholders of an inadequate conception of\nsacrifice in terms of immolation have fought against those who, not\nwithout reason, were repelled by the idea of sacrifice in the\nEucharist altogether. Another instance has been the conflict between\na narrowly vicarious conception of priesthood, and an individualistic\nand unscriptural interpretation of a priesthood of all believers. Yet\nanother instance has been the conflict between a forensic doctrine of\nthe Atonement, and an exemplarist view of our Lord’s death which, in\nreaction, rejects the apostolic teaching that \u201cChrist died for our\nsins according to the scriptures\u201d. Nor can we forget the conflict\nbetween a fundamentalist view of the authority of Scripture which\nbelittles the human factor in the Bible, and a Liberal view which\nvirtually ascribes inspiration only to those portions which the\nindividual himself finds inspiring.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n34. \u2018In every case, conflict has arisen\nfrom the loss of an original wholeness and a resulting distortion of\ncategories. There is a wholeness of Atonement which includes our\nLord’s Life, Resurrection and Ascension, as well as His Death. There\nis a wholeness of sacrifice which includes far more than an act of\nimmolation. There is a wholeness of priesthood which sets the\npriesthood of the ministry within the royal priesthood of the Church.\nAnd there is a wholeness of Scriptural authority, neither\nFundamentalist nor Liberal, which sets Scripture in the context of\nTradition. In none of these instances can a process of finding the\nHighest Common Factor of rival positions achieve the needed\nsynthesis. In so far as progress has been made towards a synthesis in\nrecent years, it has been made, not by exercises in Highest Common\nFactor, but by going behind the rival doctrines to something which\nthey all, in various ways, misrepresent.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n35. The danger is that we should drift into\nfalse methods of theological synthesis which contain within\nthemselves the seeds of fresh disunity.\n

(a) It is misleading to seek a synthesis by\nway of fastening broken pieces together. For \twhen the unity of truth\nis broken, it often happens that the result is not a number of\n\tfragments of truth, but a number of conceptions which are each\nmisleading, erroneous \tand heretical. We do not arrive at truth by\nfitting errors together.

\n\t(b) It is widely assumed that a synthesis\ncan be reached by taking the agreed elements \tin ‘our common\nChristianity’, and omitting the matters upon which there has been\n\tdeep disagreement. But to do this is to accept our common distorted\n<\/em>versions of \tChristianity as a\nbasis, without attempting to cure us all of our distortions. From the\n\tHighest Common Factor of several erroneous quotients, we get, not a\ntrue solution, \tbut a result more erroneous still.\n

(c) Another popular method is to separate\nmatters of faith and matters of order, and to \ttreat the latter as\nsecondary. But its weakness is that a sharp division between faith\n\tand order is itself the product of a disintegrated theology and was\nunknown to the \tprimitive Church. To build upon an antithesis between\nfaith and order is therefore to \tpromote not unity but further\ndissociation. Indeed, every attempt at synthesis must \twatch lest it\ntake as its basis some misleading presuppositions which belong to\nsome \tpassing phase of Christian thought, and in consequence make\nconfusion worse \tconfounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n36. The true way of synthesis is not to\ntake our contemporary systems or ‘isms’ or Church traditions and try\nto piece them together, either as a whole or in selected items, but\nrather to go behind our contemporary systems and strive for the\nrecovery of the fullness of Tradition within the thought and worship\nand order and life of each of the sundered portions of Christendom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n37. The divisions in Christendom are bound\nup with cleavages in social and religious habit, and in politics and\nculture, as well as in theology, and the hope is often expressed in\ndiscussions on re-union that, while theology has its clarifying\neffects upon life, life may have its clarifying effects upon\ntheology, so that the bringing together of Christians in a common\norganisation may help the solution of theological differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n38. ‘Sinking our differences’ lightly means\ntearing up the roots; and ‘closing our ranks’ too readily means\nabandoning the elements of dogma which remain imbedded in the various\ntraditions, and substituting a vague and undogmatic faith which is at\nthe mercy of those very secular notions which Christians are uniting\nto combat. For where the elements of dogma, and the patterns of life\nmoulded by it, have become weakened, the way is opened for\npragmatist, nationalistic and man-centred ideas of religion to worm\ntheir way in. And they do. The idea of unity in the truth of the\nGospel is displaced by the idea of a unity, Christian in name, but\nnationalist-secularist in its motive and its assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTHE ANGLICAN COMMUNION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n39. Within the Church of England a drastic\ntheological reconstruction is taking place. The study of the Bible\nand of early Christianity is leading to the correction of many\nfamiliar presuppositions, including those which have been held by our\nown school of thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n40. The fruits of this Anglican way can be\nseen in our own history. In spite of party conflicts, there has been\na true Anglican unity, a blending of the old traditions with a desire\nto interpret the faith in terms of contemporary life, a piety in\nwhich a love for the Church’s forms mingles with a sturdy sense of\npersonal responsibility, an ability to avoid sectionalism and to\ntouch the life of the English people widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n41. In the stricter field of theology there\nhas been a like fruitfulness. Work has been done to which the word\n‘synthesis’ can justly be applied. One instance is the treatment of\nHoly Scripture. Here, Anglicans have been able to do what neither\nRoman Catholics nor continental Protestants were free to do. In\nLightfoot, Westcott and Hort their successors, we see a treatment of\nthe Bible which is free from the assumptions both of post-Reformation\nsystems and of modern rationalism, and does justice both to the\ndivine and to the human elements in the Bible, both to the unity of\nScripture and Tradition and to the modern perplexities consequent\nupon the revolution in historical method in the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n42. Yet the possibilities of synthesis\nwithin the Anglican ideal are still largely unrealised. Often the\nvarious parties have jostled side by side, unreconciled and openly\nantagonistic. The three chief schools have represented not only\ncertain positive elements of truth, but also the post-mediaeval\nlop-sidedness and distortion of those elements. It is by no means\ntrue that their mere juxtaposition produces the theological synthesis\nwhich is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n43. Today [1947] it is only too apparent\nthat, notwithstanding the genuine achievements of Anglican synthesis,\nthe forces of disintegration are strong. There are those who,\nvirtually omitting the doctrine of the Church from its place in the\nGospel, replace it by a doctrine of the spiritual vocation of the\nEnglish community. There are, on the other hand, those content to\npractice an introverted and pietistic ecclesiasticism under the name\nof ‘Catholic’ churchmanship. There are those who, intent upon the\nidea of Christian leadership in the march of progress, have twisted\nthe Gospel into a sort of pragmatist panacea for human ills, instead\nof a Gospel of God’s truth, <\/em>which\nmakes its demands upon mankind just because it is true. There are, on\nthe other hand, those eager to preach Divine Redemption who ignore\nthe doctrine of Creation which is its groundwork. The fullness of our\ntradition is often far to seek, and it is idle to be content that the\nChurch of England includes a ‘rich variety’, if that variety\nrepresents distortion and fragmentation of the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n44. The Anglican Communion is wont to refer\nto the Lambeth Quadrilateral<\/em>.\nIt is upon the Quadrilateral that it insists as the condition of\nAnglican fellowship and the basis for the re-union of Christendom.\nBut there are two ways in which the Quadrilateral can be used. It can\nbe used as a set of separate items, necessary for re-union partly for\nreasons of principle and partly for reasons of expediency. It can\nalso be used as a symbol of the undivided wholeness of the primitive\nTradition that lies behind. And it is only in the latter sense that\nit points the way towards unity in the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n45. It is not, however, as four items, but\nas a symbol of the fullness of Tradition that the Quadrilateral can\npoint towards unity within the Anglican Communion, towards synthesis\nin theology, and towards the healing of schism in the Church at\nlarge. Thus the appeal to Holy\nScripture <\/em>and the Creeds\n<\/em>will mean the recovery of the\npattern of the Biblical faith in God as Creator, Redeemer and Judge.\nAppeal to the sacraments of the\nGospel <\/em>will mean recovery of the\nprimitive fullness of Christian initiation by Baptism into Christ and\nthe sealing with the Holy Spirit in Confirmation and the primitive\nfullness of the Eucharistic life. Appeal to the historic\nEpiscopate <\/em>will mean recovery of\nthe true place of the Bishop in the Church, not as organiser of a\nvast administrative machine, but as guardian and exponent of the\nfaith, the bond of sacramental unity, and an organ of the Body of\nChrist in true constitutional relation to the presbyters and people.\nIn itself, the Quadrilateral is a bony skeleton: clothed in the flesh\nand blood of the fullness of the Tradition it may be used by God to\nbring unity in the truth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To help participants prepare for this symposium, we prepared a summary of the 1947 Report.  As several speakers referred to this summary, it is included here for reference. The aftermath of the Second World War was a watershed in the life of the Church of England: a time for rebuilding, and exploring what part the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-228","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/228\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catholicity.societyofthefaith.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}