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Performing the Same Score: Repentance, Truth and Doctrine in Ecumenical Theology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
This article develops the fruitful metaphor of musical performance to think about church-dividing conflicts over doctrine. In particular, I show that just as there is more than one way for a score of music to be faithfully performed, so there can be more than one way for shared fundamental dogma to be faithfully articulated in different confessional or doctrinal traditions. When the disagreements between the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches over christological doctrine are reframed as contrasting but not contradictory “performances” of one shared scriptural and Nicene dogma, possibilities for ecumenical reconciliation are strenghthened. Indeed, while not articulating its practice by means of the metaphor of a musical performance, the Roman Catholic magisterium is already approaching doctrinal reconciliation in just this way.
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References
1 Benedict XVI, “First Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI at the End of the Eucharistic Concelebration With the Members of the College of Cardinals” available at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/pont-messages/2005/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20050420_missa-pro-ecclesia_en.html.
2 Walter Cardinal Kasper, “Current Problems in Ecumenical Theology” available at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/card-kasper-docs/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_20030227_ecumenical-theology_en.html.
3 Quoted in In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity, ed. Braaten, Carl E. and Jenson, Robert W. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 22.Google Scholar
4 Kasper, “Current Problems in Ecumenical Theology”. Kasper continues by saying that, of course, individual and collective conversions must be allowed on the basis of decisions of conscience in individual or collective ecclesial parties.
5 Lindbeck, George, “Ecumenical Theology” in The Modern Theologians, vol. 2, ed. Ford, David F. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1989), p. 257.Google Scholar
6 Ibid., p. 257.
7 Kasper, “Current Problems in Ecumenical Theology”.
8 Kasper, Walter Cardinal, “The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification: A Roman Catholic Perspective” in Justification and the Future of the Ecumenical Movement: The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, ed. Rusch, William G. (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2003), p. 18.Google Scholar
9 The Orthodox have effectively made the same declaration. In 1989 an official Joint Commission of Eastern and Oriental Orthodox declared the following: “As two families of Orthodox Churches long out of communion with each other, we now pray and trust in God to restore that communion on the basis of the apostolic faith of the undivided church of the first centuries which we confess in our common creed.” Quoted in Timothy Ware (Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia), The Orthodox Church, New Edition (New York: Penguin, 1997), p. 313.
10 See, for example, the list of anathemas found in the third letter from Cyril of Alexandria to Nestorius included in the official documents of the Council of Ephesus. For a modern translation of this letter see Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 1, ed. Tanner, Norman P., S.J. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown, 1990), pp. 59b–61b.Google Scholar
11 This document is available at http://sor.cua.edu/Ecumenism/RC.html.
12 This is the translation, for example, used by both the Lutheran Book of Worship and the Book of Common Prayer.
13 This document is available at: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_11111994_assyrian-church_en.html.
14 Lutheran World Federation and The Roman Catholic Church, Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, English-Language Edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000).Google Scholar
15 Indeed it may be possible that we as of yet have no adequate resolution or explication of Augustine's (or, more fundamentally, St. Paul's) theology of grace – perhaps because Augustine's theology of grace is an inadequate explication of St. Paul's theology of grace? Perhaps we can say that for now Trent and Augsburg both remain necessary even as each remains problematic in light of the other. On many questions incommensurable doctrines – i.e. interpretations of scripture – may be all we have at present, if Barth's conception of dogma as eschatological in volume one of his Church Dogmatics has some measure of truth, as I believe it does.
16 Nicholas Lash initiated the trope of “performance” in theology in his essay “Performing the Scriptures” in his Theology on the Way to Emmaus (London: SCM, 1986), pp. 37–46. I use the trope, however, in a quite different way.