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The Multiple Dimensions of the Church Towards an Explanatory Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

John Dadosky
John Dadosky*
Affiliation:
Regis College
*
15 St Mary Street, Toronto, ON M4Y 2R5, Canada. E-mail: john.dadosky@utoronto.ca
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Abstract

This paper offers a survey and proposal concerning Catholic ecclesiology in the post-Vatican II context. As a survey, it addresses the attempts by four major Catholic thinkers, de Lubac, Congar, Rahner and Balthasar to articulate dual dimensions of the Church. In the last century, the surge in biblical studies and empirical methodologies has wrought numerous ecclesial images, dimensions and models for understanding the various aspects of the Church. While many of these attempts are descriptive, or even symbolic, there is a need to move to an explanatory method for a more systematic apprehension of the various dimensions of the Church. The proposal of this paper will argue that such an explanation lies in how the Church understands itself with respect to each of the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit as developed from the thought of Bernard Lonergan on the two dimensions of the Church. This will allow for a plethora of images, but simultaneously it will provide for some normative control of meaning over these various dimensions.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 91 , Issue 1033 , May 2010 , pp. 267 - 285
Copyright
Copyright © The author 2009. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009

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References

1 Lubac, Henri De S. J. The Church: Paradox and Mystery, Dunne, James R. (tran.) (New York: Ecclesia Press, 1969), 23.Google Scholar

2 Lubac, Henri de, The Splendor of the Church, trans. Mason, Michael (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999), 125Google Scholar.

3 Dulles, Avery, Models of the Church, (New York: Doubleday, 1987)Google Scholar and O’Meara, Thomas, ‘Philosophical Models in Ecclesiology.’ Theological Studies, 39 (1978): 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Lonergan, Bernard, Method in Theology (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1985), p. 81Google Scholar.

5 Henri De Lubac, The Splendor of the Church, 103–04.

6 Splendor, 106–107.

7 In a lecture at Boston College, Joseph Komonchak draws on this distinction in de Lubac with reference to St. Augustine illustrating this double mystery in the image of the Church as Mother. ‘Lonergan and Post-conciliar Ecclesiology’, Lecture delivered at the 34th annual Lonergan Workshop, Boston College, June 18th, 2007.

8 De Lubac, Splendor, 110.

9 Lubac, Henri de S.J. Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind (New York: New American Library, 1964), 38Google Scholar.

10 De Lubac, The Church: Paradox and Mystery, 21.

11 De Lubac, Splendor, 153.

12 I am grateful to Joseph Komonchak for turning my attention to this important distinction in de Lubac. As a result, I have developed my own thoughts on this issue and realized that there is a twofold aspect to the Church's authentic self-mediating identity. On mediation as Lonergan invokes the term see Lonergan, Bernard, ‘Mediation of Christ in Prayer’, in Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958–1964 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 160–82Google Scholar and the important development by Doran, Robert in What is Systematic Theology? (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 45, 57–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On mediation as I have developed it from Lonergan and Doran, see Dadosky, John, ‘The Church and the Other: Mediation and Friendship in Post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Ecclesiology’, Pacifica 18 (October, 2005), p. 302–322CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Zenit News Service, February 1, 2007.

14 One such distortion occurs when the official Church overemphasizes the role of teaching without sufficient attention to learning. See the valuable article by Crowe, Frederick E., ‘The Church as Learner: Two Crises, One Kairos,’ Vertin, Michael (ed.), Developing the Lonergan Legacy: Historical, Theoretical, and Existential Themes (University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 370–384CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Congar, Yves, Lay People in the Church, Attwater, Donald (trans.) (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1965), pp. 22–3Google Scholar [Jalons pour une théologie du laïcat (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1953)Google Scholar]. However, Congar does not link the distinction to the active-passive meanings in term ecclesia as de Lubac does. I will focus on his distinction between structure and life because it has received more attention by subsequent scholars.

16 Congar, Lay People, 25.

17 Congar, Lay People, Chapter 2.

18 MacDonald, Timothy I, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes (University Press of America, 1984)Google Scholar; Koskela, Douglas M., ‘The Divine–Human Tension in the Ecclesiology of Yves Congar’, Ecclesiology 4.1 (2007), pp. 88–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Congar, Yves, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’église (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1950; rev. edn. 1968)Google Scholar.

20 Congar, Lay People in the Church, p. 249.

21 Congar, Lay People in the Church, p. 249.

22 Ibid., p. 250.

23 Ibid., p. 252.

24 Congar, Lay People in the Church, 253.

25 Neil Ormerod raises this question in his recent article ‘On the Divine Institution of the Threefold Ministry’, Ecclesiology 4.1 (2007), pp. 38–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am sympathetic with his argument that the structures of the church originate in practical intelligence. It is an interesting question to speculate whether the establishment of apostolic succession itself has its origin in practical intelligence. Can practical intelligence preserve the transcendental mystery that is mediated in the Church?

26 Congar, Lay People in the Church, p. xxxiv.

27 Congar, Yves, Vraie et fausse réforme dans l’église (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, rev. Edn 1968), 111Google Scholar.

28 Macdonald, 80.

29 See Lonergan, Method in Theology, pp. 237–234; and his ‘Theology in its New Context,’ in A Second Collection (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), pp. 55–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The psychological component of conversion in Lonergan's thought was developed by Robert Doran. See his Theology and the Dialectics of History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), Chapter 6Google Scholar.

30 Macdonald, 81.

31 Lonergan states: ‘…theology was a deductive, and it has become largely an empirical science.’‘Theology in its New Context,’ 58.

32 See Flynn, Gabriel, Yves Congar's Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Burlington, VT, Ashgate: 2004), 180–186Google Scholar.

33 Flynn, 182.

34 Congar, ‘Forward,’ in MacDonald, p. xxii.

35 Rahner, Karl, ‘The Charismatic Element in the Church,’ in The Dynamic Element of the Church, Questiones Disputatae, Vol. 12 (Frieburg Herder/Montreal: Palm, 1967), 42Google Scholar.

36 Bouyer, Louis, The Church of God: Body of Christ and Temple of the Spirit (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1982), pp. 7–10Google Scholar.

37 Rahner, ‘The Charismatic Element in the Church,’ pp. 42–3.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid., pp. 46–7.

40 Ibid., p. 48.

41 Ibid., p. 50.

42 Ibid., p. 56–8.

43 Ibid., p. 62.

44 Ibid., pp. 63–4.

45 Ibid., p. 66.

46 Ibid., p. 69.

47 Ibid., p. 70.

48 Ibid., pp. 72–3.

49 Ibid., p. 74.

50 Ibid., p. 76.

51 Ibid., p. 77.

52 Ibid., p. 80–1.

53 Ibid., p. 82.

54 Rahner, Karl, ‘Observations of the Factor of the Charismatic in the Church.’ Theological Investigations, Vol. 12, pp. 81–97Google Scholar.

55 Ibid., p. 83, n. 2.

56 Ibid., p. 85.

57 Ibid., pp. 93–96.

58 Balthasar, Hans Urs Von, ‘Official Church and Church of Love (According to the Gospel of John)’, in The Balthasar Reader, Kehl, Medard and Löser, Werner (eds.), (New York: Crossroad, 1997), pp. 277–276Google Scholar.

59 In The Glory of the Lord, Vol. I, Balthasar speaks of distinct ‘archetypal’ experiences that embody traditions of church such as the Petrine, the Marian, the Pauline and the Johannine, pp. 350–365. To make matters more complex, he also distinguishes between Peter, representing pastoral office, James, representing the law—tradition, John representing love, and Paul who represents freedom in the Holy Spirit in The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church, Emery, Andrée (trans.) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. 308–13Google Scholar.

60 See Dadosky, John, ‘The Official Church and the Church of Love in Balthasar's Reading of John: An Exploration in Post Vatican II Ecclesiology,’ Studia Canonica, 41(2007): 453–471Google Scholar.

61 Ibid., p. 276.

62 Balthasar, Hans Urs Von, The Office of Peter and the Structure of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1896), p. 225.Google Scholar

63 Balthsar, ‘Official Church and Church of Love’, p. 277.

64 See Komonchak, Joseph, Foundations in Ecclesiology (Boston: Boston College, 1995)Google Scholar and Ormerod, Neil, “The Structure of Systematic Ecclesiology,” Theological Studies 63/1 (2002): 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Lonergan, Bernard, ‘Mediation of Christ in Prayer’, in Philosophical and Theological Papers 1958–1964 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2004), pp. 160–82Google Scholar.

66 Doran, Robert, What is Systematic Theology? (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2005), pp. 45, 57–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 This is a summary of my argument in John Dadosky, “Towards a Fundamental Theological Re-Interpretation of Vatican II.”