The Wisdom of the Church

The new Pope brings exceptional theological skills to the
highest office within western Christendom. Ratzinger is
clearly a Pope who will defend the doctrine of the Catholic
Church. Recently, he claimed that, in matters of faith, it
simply is his duty to obey. In fact, he claims to assume
that "the Church is wiser than he is." While most
Protestants are uneasy with these sentiments, I applaud
Pope Benedict XVI for his candor. After all, it makes
theological sense for a Catholic to say these things.

The Catholic Church has a long and rich theological
heritage, and the richness of this tradition should disquiet all who seek to change or negate it. For Catholics, the Church is, and should be, wiser than any member or teacher within it. Because the tradition is presumed to be true, a teaching magisterium based on that tradition exists to sniff out heretical error. Clearly, it makes sense to defer to the wisdom of the Church if you are Catholic.

This is, however, not so for Lutherans. While Lutherans
have confessions, they do not possess an institutional,
normative, ecclesial teaching authority parallel to the
Catholic magisterium. Lutherans simply have no one to keep Lutheran teaching pure. When the winds of change blow, traditional interpretations of the Scripture and the
Lutheran Confessions are easily exchanged for those having perceived social and cultural relevance. Theologians with differing hermeneutical stances arrive at quite different readings. It is all very messy.

Perhaps Lutherans enamored of Rome wish they too could say that their church is wiser than they. Unfortunately, this is not possible, for Lutherans simply do not understand "church" in the same way as Catholics. While Catholic doctrine and law exist regardless of the number of individual Catholics holding these doctrines and laws, the individual opinions of Lutherans can and do affect official teachings of Lutheran churches. Because Lutherans have multivalent readings of Scripture and Confessions, Lutheran teaching varies to a greater degree than Catholic teaching.

While it makes sense to say, "The Roman Catholic Church
teaches 'p,' even if its leading theologians and members no longer believe it," it is problematic to claim, "The
Lutheran Church teaches 'p' though the teachers and members of the church reject it."

While Roman Catholic social policy can be deduced from
church doctrine and law apart from the views of the
individual Catholics in the pews, Lutheran social policy
must, finally, be a reflection of the views of individual
Lutherans whose consciences are supposedly bound by
Scripture and Confession. While a Lutheran could perhaps
defer to Scripture and the Confessions as "wiser than she," she would also need to defer to a particular hermeneutic on Scripture and the Confessions as the correct one.

Furthermore, while she might acknowledge that the
traditional hermeneutic is proper, she would still have to
justify its propriety without appeal to ecclesiastical
authority. But in absence of ecclesiastical authority, upon
what ground arises this choice of an appropriate
hermeneutic? Does she simply pick the one that "seems" to be right?

For Lutherans, the visible church gathers around Word and
Sacrament. Its social policy statements are not deductions
from a normative doctrine of faith, but are a collective
expression of those persons gathering around Word and
Sacrament. There is no Church in the Catholic sense to have an opinion, an intent or a theological position. There are only individuals who can have these things.

Lutherans hold (or should hold) an ecclesiastical "class
nominalism": The true church is the association of those
with faith and Holy Spirit in the heart (Apology, Art.
VII). Logicians would say that C (the church) = {x | x is a
person & x has faith and Holy Spirit in the heart}. This
makes it very clear that the real church is reducible to
individuals having the dyadic [dual] properties of having
the Holy Spirit and faith in the heart. All expressions
such as "the Church believes," "the Church teaches," "the
Church confesses," must be given a primary analysis in
terms of individuals teaching, believing and confessing.
There is no church qua church in the same way as the U.S.
Federal Government qua Federal Government.

For Lutherans, the visible church is the hidden church as
it gathers around Word and Sacrament. "Church" only can be improperly predicated of the visible church because only some members of the visible church really are members of the hidden church. Lutheran Orthodoxy understood that "church" could be predicated of this visible association only by synechdoche, that is, only by a figure of speech where a word is applied to the whole of a thing because it can properly be applied to a part of the thing. "Church" can properly be applied only to the hidden church subsection of the whole visible church. The visible church contains no ecclesial being above and beyond that afforded to the hidden church, and thus no being above and beyond that of individual members.

Much of the confusion in the present Lutheran ecumenical
context derives from different understandings about the
nature of "church." For Catholics the church has
independent ontological status apart from those who
comprise it. It is real. Just as whiteness is in (or
instantiatable in) each and every white thing, so too is
church in (or instantiatable in) each and every Catholic
ecclesial institution and activity.

But this is not so for Lutherans. Lutherans have not
usually believed that the church was a real thing that
could be instantiated in different ecclesial institutions
and activities. To think that the church is a thing apart
from its instantiations is to be guilty of a pernicious
category mistake. Just as a parade is not more than the
floats, bands and horses comprising it, and just as the
team spirit is not more than the a particular set of
activities, events and dispositions of a group of players,
so too is the visible church no more than the activities of
people and the congregational actions of which they are
part. I speak here of a truly Lutheran deflationary
ecclesiology.

Philosophers are wont to speak of the problem of universals and particulars. Do universals exist apart from the particulars in which they are instantiated? Does whiteness exist? Those holding that universals can exist either apart
from particulars, or somehow in and through those
particulars, are realists in their ontology. The Catholic
tradition is realist in its ecclesiology.

Those holding, on the other hand, that only particulars
exist, and universals are somehow abstractions from the
concrete reality of particulars, are nominalists in their
ecclesiology. My claim is that Lutherans are, or should
properly be, nominalist in their ecclesiology.

In regard to ecumenical endeavors, this understanding makes all the difference in the world. The Lutheran Church can no more sustain causal relations with other things than whiteness, parades or team spirits can. (Only concrete entities can be the relata of causal relations.) The Lutheran church can have no position that is not finally an expression of individual Lutherans bound by their reading of Scripture and the Confessions. There is no
transcongregational "church" with which to enter into
causal connection. Lutherans cannot say that the "church is wiser than they" for there is no church apart from the set of those "with faith and Holy Spirit in the heart" of which they are part. While Lutherans can be normed by particular confessions, they cannot be normed by the abstraction known as "church."