3. Who is Jesus?
Do the Outline and Articles have the same estimate, doctrine and evaluation of Jesus? Or are there differences? Obviously if the claim is that Jesus is really the Saviour of the whole world then who he really is counts, and counts tremendously.
In section six of the Outline, “Jesus is the only Son of God” in the sense that he “is the only perfect image of the Father and shows us the nature of God,” and that nature is love. “By God’s own act, his divine Son received our human nature from the Virgin Mary, his mother”. And “the divine Son became human, so that in him human beings might be adopted as children of God, and be made heirs of God’s kingdom.” By his obedience to God, Jesus “made the offering which we could not make; in him we are freed from the power of sin and reconciled to God.” And “by his resurrection, Jesus overcame death and opened for us the way of eternal life.”
In contrast, Article II (following Article I on the Holy Trinity) describes Jesus as he is presented in the decrees of the ecumenical councils of the Church. He is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and as such, as the Incarnate Son & Logos (Word), he is One Person with two natures. That is, he possesses the identical, same deity as does the Father and also he possesses the same human nature as his earthly mother, the Virgin Mary. And as this One Person, this Christ who is very God and very Man, he truly suffered, was dead, was buried” in order to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice not only for original guilt but also for the actual sins of men.” He then rose from the dead and in his body he ascended into heaven.
Whilst the Articles clearly commit the Church to the dogma of the Trinity set forth by the Ecumenical Councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon (see Article I & V), it is not clear at all what doctrine of the Trinity the Outline assumes or commends. There is no section on God as Trinity but the last question in section eight on the Creeds asks, “What is the Trinity.” The answer is based upon the innovatory, opening Acclamation of the Eucharist and other Rite Two services. It reads: “The Trinity is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Now this statement because of its form and its content can be read in a variety of ways, virtually all of which produce a doctrine that is different from the Catholic dogma of Articles I & II & V.
It may be read as stating that God as Trinity means that the One Person of God makes himself known in three essential Ways or Modes of Being – as Father, as Son and as Holy Spirit. This is Modalism or Sabellianism or Unitarianism. It may also be read as stating that God is a Threesome, in the sense that he is the unity of Three beings of equal or similar nature. This is Tritheism. Or it may be read – but this requires a great act of imagination and charity – as a careless summary of the patristic doctrine. This is: God is a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in Trinity, and that the Three Persons of the Trinity are one God, in that they all share and possess the one identical Godhead and are thus of identical substance/essence/being as and with each other.
Nowhere in the Outline is Jesus as Son of God said to be homoousios with the Father and the Holy Spirit, that is of the one, same identical divine nature. Further, although in section nine on the Holy Spirit, the Spirit is called “the Third Person of the Trinity”, this is immediately defined as “God at work in the world and in the Church”, whereas the primary reference in Trinitarian discourse is normally to his position within the Trinity, as proceeding from the Father through the Son (see Article V).
If the Nicene Creed is removed from the Rite II texts, then it may be reasonably claimed that they do not possess, clearly teach or affirm week by week the biblical and catholic doctrines of the Trinity and the Person of Jesus Christ. Regrettably the translation of this Creed within the same Rite II texts is faulty at various points (e.g. in stating that Jesus was conceived “by the power of the Holy Spirit” when the original is that he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Third Person himself!) and so the orthodoxy of the Rite II texts is further in question with the use of this Creed. Only on Trinity Sunday with the special Preface and Collect is there any real sense of the presence of Catholic dogma and teaching.
In contrast, the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity permeates the text of the Book of Common Prayer (1662/1928) and the Ordinal.
October 11, 2005
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