How do we receive our faith?

Christians have always understood our faith to be one revealed by God and most especially revealed through the life and teachings of his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. This entails that our faith has a quality of givenness appropriate to being the gift to us that it is. Moreover, this is no ordinary gift, since it offers nothing less than salvation and eternal life, when we accept it. 

The sense of awe and wonder appropriate to the utterly unique character of this is especially well conveyed to us at Christmas, when we unite in spirit with those who first gathered in adoration before the newborn child Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem. Like those first witnesses, ranging as they did from shepherds to wise men who had travelled from afar, we come before the reality of Christ with a profound sense of humility and gratitude, dispositions whose appropriateness we should note as we reflect further on the magnitude of what is involved here. 

One of the most important aspects of the church and our life within it by God’s grace, is our understanding of how we accept, interpret, integrate and live out the authoritative teaching that expresses the content of this ultimate gift which we have been given. 

Holy Scripture, the decisions of early church councils and the creeds, along with our historic formularies and liturgy, each and severally express and define cumulatively, the living faith and practice of the Church as we have received it – as Episcopalians and members of the Anglican Communion. Reflecting upon this, brings out in turn the highly practical importance of our theology of reception. 

The early church perspective on the theological process that is reception framed it within an understanding of the Church (ecclesiology) that was rooted in a theology of communion (koinonia) wherein churches were united through their common apostolic faith, shared sacraments, and mutual recognition. Within this framework, ecumenical councils served to articulate and formally express the faith that the whole Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, already possessed implicitly – a perspective later set out in the ideal of the Vincentian Canon wherein faith is expressed most authoritatively as comprised of what has been believed “everywhere always and by all.” 

Later Medieval theology developed the formula of consensio antiquitatis et universitatis (consensus with ancient tradition and with the whole Church) to expand upon this. The consensus antiquitatis — referred to the vertical continuity of a teaching with Scripture and apostolic Tradition; while the consensus universitatis — denoted the horizontal consensus of the entire communion of churches.

These aspects were seen as vital to the authority of early church council decisions and as making clear that the authority of these councils did not thus derive merely from the status of their declarations –– as formal pronouncements –– but rather from the Church’s recognition that the decisions made cohered with the apostolic faith and also proved vital in their fruits (which is to say generative) for the Church’s continuing life. 

This points to a central dynamic of restraint and constraint which we see recurring throughout the history of the Church, especially in respect of such central institutions as have been seen as vested with a particular normative dogmatic capacity (or charism). Thus, Council Fathers were never seen as at liberty to come up with any doctrine that was novel, and even the Roman papacy at its nineteenth century zenith (with the proclamation of Infallibility) was always viewed as constrained by the corpus of the prior magisterium. Similarly, the individual believer, however much the right of private judgement has been stressed in certain traditions, has never been seen as able to come up with a faith of mere private devising. What emerges thus from the lessons of history is a powerful sense that what can be theologically prescribed has a force closely related to the degree of consensus the teaching has enjoyed, both vertically through time and horizontally across the whole body of the faithful (a point which acts as a deep constraint upon the legitimacy of any merely local claims to authentic innovation). 

A paradigmatic early illustration of this unfolding process was offered by the Council of Nicaea (in the year 325), whose Christological affirmations subsequently underwent over fifty years of careful later reception, discussion and dissemination, before attaining to the status of broad and normative consensus across the wider communion of churches. Another and yet wider instance was the formation of the biblical canon, which required an extended process of reception during which Christian communities gradually recognized and adopted those writings which rose to the authoritative status of true testimonies to the earliest apostolic faith.

Within this early history, an important aspect to note was the way that the concept of reception represented far more than a juridical mechanism for securing and requiring obedience; rather, it had a constitutive dimension whereby divine revelation was recognised and understood to have been transmitted and appropriated through history by the whole company of the faithful (which is to say the Church) in communion with a leadership in apostolic continuity going back to the first apostles of Christ.

History however, also shows that it has been a recurring temptation within parts of the church to move prematurely from an authentic process of reception to one where that process is foreclosed, leading to premature demands for submission and obedience, and demanded consent. Such episodes point to the constant need for humility and mutual acceptance on the part of those with opposing views during any given process of reception prior to its conclusion. This is especially true when a new insight is proposed that would overturn a prior understanding of perhaps centuries duration. 

In such a circumstance, the legitimacy of an historic view must be deserving of a respect proportionate to its prior duration. Gravity must especially attend the temptation to impose new insights upon the consciences of others who continue to uphold a long established prior ecclesial consensus of the wider church and Communion. This remains true however compelling proponents of new thinking may be in their quest to have that consensus set aside as now transcended. Christianity after all, has never been understood to be driven by the commercial model of seeking to meet the latest ever changing consumer expectations! It is time alone that can allow an authentic process of reception to unfold –– as the earlier historic examples cited above make clear. During that time, all sides on the contested matters should recognise the terrible dangers attendant upon saying to fellow Christians “we have no need of you.” There is, moreover, a profound irony if proponents of the progressive would effectively reduce the process of reception to one of securing juridical obedience.

Willingness to temper what may seem locally imperative for the sake of the wider ecclesial context always needs to be weighed –– even when this has quite sharp individual implications here and now. The need for attentiveness to wider obligations goes to the heart of the growing travails of the global Anglican Communion itself in recent years. For it is clear that the sense of mutual obligation upon all the Provinces to respect the mind of the whole (as the price to be paid for having the global Anglican identity as an actual Communion) has sadly frayed. At the same time, those Provinces that have been desirous of theological autonomy from the global Communion have sometimes sought to limit theological diversity within –– which is itself again rather paradoxical.  

All this experience and travail surely points toward the need for an Anglican recovery of genuine conciliar practice. In doing so it is likely to find much in common with Eastern Orthodox thought and its emphasis upon the role of the Holy Spirit in preserving the Church in truth and as enabling it to recognize and receive authentic teaching, as exhibited in the first ecumenical Councils. 

In this perspective, Church teaching (dogma) does not derive merely from the Church’s consensus; rather, the Church’s reception of teaching attests that conciliar decisions cohere with the dogmatic truth that the Spirit has already preserved in the Church’s worship, prayer, and faithful living.

In the words of the twentieth century Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky, the Church possesses an “ecclesial mind” or ecclesial consciousness (phronema) through which it discerns truth in continuity with apostolic Tradition. This ecclesial mind does not operate definitively through majority voting or juridical procedures, but manifests itself as the Church’s unified instinct for truth under the Holy Spirit, grounded in its sacramental life and most especially the Eucharist, together with the Spirit-guided experience of the whole community of believers. This is not altogether remote from the perspective of Richard Hooker and the Caroline Divines, and later strands of Anglican theology, where the Church’s authority and teaching derives not from any single, isolated source in the manner that Rome would have us suppose, but rather from the rich interplay of Scripture, the witness of the Fathers, councils and our Anglican formularies, and the discernment of the faithful who are able together to engage “redeemed reason.”  

These latter perspectives point to real potential for ecumenical advance towards a common understanding with real depth that sees authentic Christian doctrine as emerging from, and being sustained within, a living Communion of the faithful, guided by the Holy Spirit, anchored in apostolic faith, and expressed through the worship and witness, of the church of the ages –– a goal for which at this time of manifestation that is the Season of the Epiphany it seems highly appropriate to pray.

End note:

An extremely informative text,  which expresses very powerfully the continuities between aspects of Anglican and Eastern Orthodox thought about the theology of reception is the Cyprus Statement of the Anglican-Orthodox theological dialogue of which an excerpt is set out below.

Section IX:  Subsection – The Reception of Faith in Communion  Page 106 -108

i. In defining a new dogma the Church has always built upon an already existing one. There can never be innovation in an absolute sense: there must always be some continuity with what has been received by previous generations. That is why, in the doctrinal disputes of the patristic period, all parties sought support for their views in the Scriptures: they were concerned to demonstrate continuity. The Fathers made no distinction between the binding nature of the authority of Scripture and that of the Tradition expressed through the Councils: for them both were equally inspired by the Spirit. What mattered was continuity as the ground on which innovation or change could be acceptable in formulating a new dogma. The Council of Chalcedon built upon Nicea’s Christology in order to extend Christ’s consubstantiality with the Father to his consubstantiality with humanity, while the Sixth Ecumenical Council appealed to Chalcedon’s two natures Christology in order to teach the doctrine of two energies and two wills in Christ. In this way the Church’s authoritative teaching was extended, while its new articulation was consistent with what had already been received. New definitions could only be received by the Church if they were in conformity with accepted dogmas.

ii. Two attitudes to reception are equally wrong and dangerous. One is that of the revolutionary innovator who, by appealing to the freedom of the Spirit or the demands of inculturation, refuses to consider whether the new stands in continuity with the old. The other is that of the conservative formalist who rejects the inculturation of the Gospel and its application to the contemporary needs of humanity. True and proper reception avoids both these dangers and, in a balanced synthesis of Christology and Pneumatology, seeks to respond to new demands of human culture in faithfulness to what has been transmitted from the past.

iii. Faithfulness to the past can be both formal and essential. By formal we mean adherence to the letter of what has been transmitted, such as the definitions of Ecumenical Councils. By essential we understand the intention and soteriological concern underlying such definitions. At all costs we should be faithful to the latter, while when necessary exercising discretion with regard to the former….

iv. In receiving the truth the Church is called to discern the spirits and exercise a prophetic ministry, which will enable her to see whether the demands of inculturation can be satisfied without prejudice to the soteriological content of what has already been received. … conclusions are finally expressed by the heads of the local churches as the common faith which, in accordance with the well-known rule of St Vincent of Lerins, has ‘been believed everywhere and always and by all. Until this point has been reached, the process of reception is not completed; we can speak neither of dogma nor of heresy, in the sense of a deviation from the truth which would justify or even necessitate the rupture of communion. On a sharply controverted issue touching salvation, it may be that only an Ecumenical Council, as the voice of all the local churches, could determine what has been held “everywhere and always and by all”. Only then could it be said that the process of reception had been completed.

v. While the process of reception continues, the theological debate remains open. In this process critique, affirmation or rejection are all possible. Discussion of proposed new doctrine or practice will address two concerns. One is whether what is being proposed in response to the demands of culture contradicts what has already been received as the rule of faith. The other is whether the challenges posed by culture relate to genuine existential human needs, or spring from motives which are not in accord with the Gospel. Reception is a complex and creative process, which can be completed successfully only by the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

vi. During the process of reception two further things must be kept in mind. First, all must seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit and submit to it. Secondly, no one should claim the authority of the Holy Spirit for accepting or rejecting any new doctrine or practice until the process of reception is completed. Only then is it legitimate to say with St James, ‘ …it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…’ (Acts 15.28).

The Church of the Triune God, 

The Cyprus Statement agreed by the International Commission 

For Anglican – Orthodox Theological Dialogue, 2006