Autor: Murray, John

Buch: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Titel: The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today

Stichwort: Fünf Schlossfolgerung aus Nicäa (Nicea, homoousion); ökumenischer Dialog

Kurzinhalt: ecumenical dialogue; The question is, what are the criteria by which to judge between healthy and morbid development, between true growth and rank excrescence?

Textausschnitt: 51a First, as I have pointed out, the Nicene definition was a rejection of Eusebian archaism and its effort to restrict the Christian faith to the formulas of Scripture. Second, the definition formally established the statute of the ontological mentality within the Church. It was the precedent for the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, which resolved the issue of the internal constitution of Christ, the Son Incarnate, in the ontological categories of nature and person. In doing this the two Councils forbade the freezing of the Christian faith in patristic formulas. This had been the basic issue in the confused Christological controversies that preceded Chalcedon. It was again an issue of archaism. Third, by its passage from the historical-existential categories of Scripture to the ontological or explanatory categories exhibited in the homoousion, Nicaea sanctioned the principle of the development of doctrine-the phrase is Newman's. It is not a sufficiently revealing phrase. One might better speak of growth in understanding of the primitive affirmations contained in the New Testament revelation. What emerges in the course of this growth is not some totally new affirmation but a new understanding of an affirmation already made in another mode of conception or, perhaps, only obscurely, implicitly, confusedly, as a virtuality. Fourth, by thus sanctioning the principle of doctrinal growth, Nicaea established a bridge between Scripture and conciliar dogma, joining these distinct territories into the one country that is the Catholic unity of faith. Scripture states the faith of the Church; so does dogma, but in another mode of conception and statement so organically related to the scriptural didache as to merit the name of growth. Fifth and finally, by sanctioning the status of the ontological mentality in the field of faith, Nicaea also established the statute of the philosophical reason in the field of theology. Thus, it laid down the charter of Scholasticism. Without Nicaea there would have been no Chalcedon; in a different way, without Nicaea there would have been no Thomas Aquinas. Indeed, there would have been no Augustine. (Fs)

52a The reason I record these five aspects of the import of the Nicene homoousion is that they lead to insight into the basic issues that are today crucial in the ecumenical dialogue. The relation between Scripture and dogma, between Holy Writ and Holy Church, or, more generally, between sacred history and sacred doctrine-surely this is a basic issue in the ecumenical argument. Basic, too, is the relation between Christian faith and philosophical theology-more generally, the relation between faith and reason or, in a narrower sense, the relation between the methodological technique proper to secular historiography and the technique proper to the investigation of the unique type of history found in the Old and New Testaments. But the most basic and pervasive issue is the one recognized by Newman: the development of doctrine. Leaving aside the issue of what Catholic and Protestant respectively mean when they say, "Credo," I consider that the parting of the ways between the two Christian communities takes place on the issue of development of doctrine. (Fs)

53a That development has taken place in both communities cannot possibly be denied. The question is, what is legitimate development, what is organic growth in the understanding of the original deposit of faith, what is warranted extension of the primitive discipline of the Church, and what, on the other hand, is accretion, additive increment, adulteration of the deposit, distortion of true Christian discipline? The question is, what are the valid dynamisms of development and what are the forces of distortion? The question is, what are the criteria by which to judge between healthy and morbid development, between true growth and rank excrescence? The question is, what is archaism and what is futurism? Perhaps, above all, the question is, what are the limits of development and growth- the limits that must be reached on peril of archaistic stuntedness, and the limits that must not be transgressed on peril of futuristic decadence? (Fs) (notabene)

53b I am not at all sure that this whole complex issue has yet been recognized as decisive in its import for the ecumenical dialogue. I shall, however, register my own conviction in this regard. I do not think that the first ecumenical question is, what think ye of the Church? Or even, what think ye of Christ? The dialogue would rise out of the current confusion if the first question raised were, what think ye of the Nicene homoousion?