MetaCatholic

(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)

Sometimes, blogging through the articles, I find myself at one where there is very little to say. This is one such.

XXXVI. Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers
The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, lately set forth in the tine of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering: neither hath it any thing, that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites; we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.

What we can see in this article is perhaps the clearest statement of Anglicanism as a via media present in the articles. On the one hand it wishes to maintain against Rome that the ordinal contains “all things necessary” for ordaining men to the historic threefold ministry of the Church. On the other it wishes to maintain against Geneva (the Puritans) that there is nothing “superstitious and ungodly” in the rites provided.

The stubbornness with which Anglicans have clung to the threefold ministry (intensified after the Interregnum) has then and now been a cause of surprise and suspicion to many Protestants, but more than most aspects of the English Reformation has shaped and determined what is involved in the Anglican claim to be Catholic as well as Reformed. Looked at from Rome, the most baffling aspect of this retention of the orders (or at least the same names and claims for them) is the combining of episcopacy with giving the Crown-in-Parliament a role in the lay governance of the Church. Noticeably (and for the first time in the articles) the lay authority of Parliament is noted as confirming the proper validity of the Church’s holy orders.

This role of Crown-in-Parliament has been in all sorts of ways theologically problematic, even when considered as a form of lay participation in church governance. It is hard to produce a particularly strong scriptural, traditional or reasonable case for such involvement of the secular authority. Yet at the time of the articles it was not only a palpable element in constructing and reconstructing the English settlement, it was also in practice the fundamental means by which the via media was established, maintained and enforced.

As the role of Crown-in-Parliament has become increasingly formal and vestigial in England, and most Anglicans world-wide exist in provinces where it has no role at all, it is also observably true that the via media is increasingly hard to maintain. I cannot regret the slow passing of this theological oddity that gave secular power a role in the governance of the Church, although I certainly regret some of the many consequences of its passing.

While I think there have been some outstanding contributions towards an Anglican ecclesiology – most notably Michael Ramsey’s The Gospel and the Catholic Church (out of print)– this article reveals as much as any that underpinning all of Anglicanism’s more recent crises is a fundamental ecclesiological weakness, bound up with what has arguably been its greatest pragmatic strength.

The inerrancy conversation will probably rumble on. For a summary, see Nick Norelli’s post, or the last paragraph of John Hobbins’ reply. For a very slant-wise look at creeping inerrancy see ElShaddai Edwards on translations. In some respects, however, it is less the formal declaration of inerrancy which is the problem, but rather the literal wooden-mindedness of many of those who adopt this badge.

As well as having so thoroughly claimed the idea of inerrancy as to render it entirely impossible to use the term (sorry, John), “fundamentalists” have also overdosed on claims about the literal sense of scripture. Unfortunately, they have created the impression that reading the literal sense of scripture is the same thing as taking it literally.

Despite claims sometimes put forward that the Reformation restored, or even established, the importance of the literal sense of the text, the importance of the literal sense goes back a long way. Here is St Thomas Aquinas:

Thus in Holy Writ no confusion results, for all the senses are founded on one — the literal — from which alone can any argument be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory, as Augustine says (Epis. 48). Nevertheless, nothing of Holy Scripture perishes on account of this, since nothing necessary to faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not elsewhere put forward by the Scripture in its literal sense. (ST 1.1.10)

St Thomas accepts the other traditional senses of Scripture: allegorical (by which the Gospel is found in the Old Testament), moral (by which things and events understood christologically signify how we should behave) and anagogical, by which scriptures are related to the final end of all things in glory. However, he clearly subordinates these to the literal sense, saying that no passage may be expounded by any of the other senses to teach something that cannot be found elsewhere in the literal sense.

More importantly, he goes on to explain the literal sense further:

The parabolical sense is contained in the literal, for by words things are signified properly and figuratively. Nor is the figure itself, but that which is figured, the literal sense. When Scripture speaks of God’s arm, the literal sense is not that God has such a member, but only what is signified by this member, namely operative power.

The literal sense is not taking things literally. It is slightly unclear whether Aquinas is saying they should not be taken literally if they are not intended to be taken literally, or if they cannot be taken literally. It is certainly true for him that it is impossible that God has an arm. It is perhaps less clear that every use of language either Aquinas or most of us would interpret figuratively was entirely figurative for the original authors. The degree to which, say, OT anthropomorphisms are self-consciously metaphorical is open to question.

This means that the “literal” sense of the text is determined both in a theological framework, and by literary sensitivity to language, rhetoric and genre. It is, sometimes, the exact opposite of taking the text literally. By and large the magisterial Reformers are in continuity with Aquinas on this point. However, by moving away from the other senses, they perhaps desensitise their followers to pluriform readings and multiple meanings of the sort that have only started to emerge again through newer forms of literary criticism. Without that wider hinterland of reading, they may have helped pave the way for taking the literal sense literally.

I suggest that our biggest issue with the inerrantists is not per se their professed belief in inerrancy, but they combine it with a preference for reading the text literally, confusing that with the literal sense, and displaying the literary sensitivity of a Dalek.

Thanks to Iyov for drawing my attention to this brilliant little animation Duelity. (You need to click the “Watch” item and then for full effect the submenu’s “duelity” item.) I’m not entirely sure what the authors’ viewpoint is, but the juxtaposition of the biblical creation story told in mock scientific language, and the scientific account of origins told as a mythical narrative is really quite delightful. How very, very post-thingy.