More on Catholicism and Orthodoxy

SDG here with Part 3 of my series of posts on Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (following up on Part 1 and Part 2).

In reply to my comments in part 2, my Orthodox-leaning Protestant friend wrote the following:

That does seem like a rather clever way of stating the Catholic position. The Orthodox, of course, incline more towards what I call the “Goldilocks” approach, i.e., Catholicism added too much to the faith, Protestantism subtracted too much, but Orthodoxy is Just Right.

Here’s my reply.

And here is why the Goldilocks paradigm doesn’t work.

It might work if religious truth and error were a three-layer sandwich — if there were three options called Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism — or, failing that, if there were roughly comparable errors of “too much” and “too little” on the one side and on the other, and Orthodoxy were anywhere near the middle. If Orthodoxy looked anything remotely like a Golden Mean among the available extremes, then the Goldilocks paradigm might indeed have some persuasive power.

But in fact, as even the short lists in my earlier post suggest, nothing like that is now or has ever been the case. Quite the contrary, the long history of heresy, schism, and religious error offers an embarrassment of riches of evidence of a frighteningly consistent dynamic in one specific direction. The “too little” error is overwhelmingly the error of choice of the heretic and schismatic, if indeed the “too much” error has EVER been committed.

Indeed, the history of heresy could persuasively be characterized as a history of all the different “too-little” options one can possibly take — all the ways that divine truth can be split up, with one truth set in false opposition to another truth, and one affirmed and the other denied. Divine truth is so large and mysterious, and our finite minds can understand so little of how it all fits together, that the temptation to fixate on one element of it to the exclusion of others is almost irresistible.

That, indeed, is what heresy essentially IS. It’s even what the word means [as discussed in my first post].

In a word, the full truth ALWAYS seems like “too much” to the heretic, and heresy always seems like “too little” to the one who has the full truth, or even a fuller truth than the heretic. (I wrote about this dynamic previously in my post on “the heretical ‘or’ and the catholic ‘and'”.)

As you probably know, the 1054 schism of East and West, while it was certainly the most serious split among the ancient Churches, was hardly the first. Bishops and Churches have been split apart by numerous heresies and schisms, some of which remain to this day.

For example, I have close friends who belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, one of the non-Chalcedonian Oriental Churches, which split with the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church over issues of Chalcedonian Christology all the way back in the fifth century. (Besides the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Oriental Churches include the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and several others.)

Among Catholics and Orthodox the Oriental Churches have frequently been called “Monophysite,” because they have historically and theologically rejected Chacedonian christological language. Specifically, while they affirm that Christ is one Person, they deny that he has two natures, a human and a divine. Now, the Oriental Churches themselves reject both the language and the teaching of Monophysitism, which they regard as a heresy as much as we do. Their Christological formulation, sometimes called “Miaphysitism,” is semantically different from the Chalcedonian formulation, but appears to affirm substantially the same divine truth.

Be that as it may, the Oriental Churches reject the Council of Chalcedon and subsequent Councils. By their enumeration, there have been only three Ecumenical Councils. They count three, where the Orthodox Churches go up to seven, all in the first millennium. (By Catholic reckoning, there are 21 and counting, the most recent of which was Vatican II.)

Then there’s the Assyrian Church of the East, which counts only the first two general councils and split with the One Church over the Council of Ephesus, a couple of decades earlier than the Oriental Churches. Where the Oriental Churches are sometimes unfairly considered Monophysite, AFAIK (and I’m open to correction) the Assyrian Church appears actually to endorse the opposite heresy of Nestorianism, or something much like it. (The Nestorians affirm Christ’s two natures but basically deny his oneness as a person, making Christ an amalgamation or juxtaposition of two persons, one human and one divine.)

And of course the Assyrian Church wasn’t the only breakaway Church of the first millennium to fall into the Nestorian heresy (though it may be the only such Church to have so long persisted in that heresy and schism). Likewise, the Monophysite heresy, though it may not have claimed the Oriental Churches, was certainly believed in some Churches and responsible for some schisms.

And of course both the Nestorian and Monophysite heresies involve on the one hand affirming something that is true while on the other hand DENYING and REJECTING a corresponding truth. The Nestorians deny that Christ is one Person; the Monophysites deny that he has two natures. In effect, they create a false dichotomy between two aspects of divine truth, insist on a fractured “either-or” dialectic rather than an integral “both-and” synthesis, and then line up behind one or the other of the two false alternatives.

By contrast, the Catholic faith of the One Church of the first millennium, and of the Catholic and Orthodox communions today, insists on BOTH the oneness of Christ’s person AND on the twoness of his natures. In response to the heresies of Nestorianism and Monophysitism, the Church say that they are each right in what they affirm, but wrong in what they deny. In the language of the Goldilocks paradigm, both heresies are “too little,” rather than “too much.”

And essentially the same dynamic applies to all the other major heresies and schisms of the first millennium and afterward. They are all essentially predicated on leaving something out, not putting something in.

Many of the early heresies were christological in nature. Docetism and Apollinarianism were heresies that affirmed Christ’s divinity but denied his true humanity, claiming that he only appeared to be like a man but was not truly human. The opposite temptation is embodied in, e.g., the Arian and Socinian heresies, which affirm Christ’s humanity or creatureliness, but deny his divinity.

Then there are soteriological heresies. For example, the Pelagians affirmed the reality of human aspect of responsibility and working out our salvation, but denied the necessity of divine grace. (As far as I know, the opposite error, that of affirming the necessity of divine grace to the exclusion of human freedom and responsibility, was not an issue until after the Reformation. Not all possible permutations of denial were explored in the first millennium, or likely have yet been explored.)

Then there are ecclesiological and sacramental heresies. For example, the Donatist heresy affirmed the real power of the sacraments, but denied that the sacraments are valid and have the power to give grace independent of the moral character of the minister of the sacrament.

All of these heresies produced splits and schisms among the Churches, some of which have remained to this day. And then of course with the second millennium come all the various varieties of Protestantism, all of which also fall into the “too little” category, from the Catholic / Orthodox perspective.

So, the simple three-layer sandwich of [1] Catholic (too much), [2] Orthodox (just right), and [3] Protestant (too little) turns out instead to be a Dagwood Bumstead special, with Orthodoxy claiming “just right” status, not in the middle, not anywhere near the middle, but in the penultimate place.

From an Orthodox perspective, if we were to apply the Goldilocks paradigm to the history of heresy and religious error, we might come up with a rough-and-ready chart that might look something like this (caveats, quibbles, corrections welcomed):

1. Too much? – Catholicism (“adds” pope, 14 general councils, filioque, etc.)
2. Just right? – Orthodoxy
3. A bit too little – The Oriental Churches (reject all but three ecumenical councils)
4. Too little (heresies that retain certain basic Christian beliefs) –
   • Donatism
   • Iconoclasm
   • Traditional Anglicanism
   • Traditional Protestantism
5. Much too little (heresies that retain monotheism and other historic Christian beliefs) –
   • Apollinarianism, Monothelitism
   • Arianism, Adoptionism / Ebionism, Psilanthropism / Socinianism, Monarchianism, etc.
   • Docetism
   • Macedonianism
   • Modalism, Sabellianism
   • Monophysitism, Eutychianism
   • Nestorianism (including Assyrian Church?)
   • Pelagianism, Quietism
6. Much, much too little (extra-Christian or pre-Christian monotheism) –
   • Deism
   • Judaism, Islam
   • Sikhism, Baha’i
   • Zoroastrianism?
7. Much, much, much too little (sub-theistic religious options, including sub-theistic Christian heresies) –
   • Dualism (including Gnosticism, Manichaeism and Marcionism)
   • Monism, pantheism
   • Polytheism (including Mormonism)
   • Animism, spiritism, magic, etc.
8. Much, much, much, much too little (non-religious options) –
   • Materialism, atheism, secularism, etc.

My, my. All those varieties and gradations of “too little” errors — just about every religious error ever committed, really — all in the “too little” direction. And in 2000 years, exactly how many “too much” errors?

From a Catholic perspective, the answer is NONE. Heresy is ALWAYS essentially predicated on denial. But naturally from an Orthodox perspective there’s that one really gigantic exception. Just one. It really is remarkable.

Of course, those lower on the list can always play verbal games and try to define those higher on the list as “rejecting” their key principles. For example, Protestants can say that the Orthodox and Catholics err by “rejecting the solas,” and write off the sacraments, the priesthood, and so forth as mere ancillaries to that fundamental error.

But this is obviously false. The solas themselves are denials, not affirmations — sola scriptura MEANS “scripture AND NOT tradition or Church authority.” The Catholic / Orthodox position of sacred scripture and sacred tradition interpreted authoritatively by the Church is clearly the more comprehensive view, the Protestant view the less comprehensive one.

Likewise, the Docetists, for example, would accuse Incarnational Christians of denying Christ’s true divinity and falling into the the Socinianist error, while Socinianists accuse us of denying Christ’s true humanity and falling into the the Donatist error. It’s not true, of course, but they perceive a dichotomy where we don’t, and so they say it.

Likewise Calvinists sometimes accuse us of denying God’s sovereignty and effectively falling into the Pelagian heresy, and the Pelagians could accuse us of denying human freedom and responsibility. To a Modalist, a Trinitarian is someone who denies monotheism; to a Mormon, a Trinitarian is someone who confuses separate divine persons.

And in the same way the Orthodox say that Catholic ecclesiology rejects the principles of conciliarity and collegiality, which they say are contradicted by the Church’s Petrine teaching. It’s a very familiar type of charge, and it always comes from one direction.

And in fact it is possible that historically some Catholic theologians or polemicists really did fall into the error that the Orthodox charge, and denied collegiality and conciliarity, just as some opponents of Docetism probably really did fall into the Sociniarian error, etc. I don’t know.

But the facts are that we have these two principles, collegiality on the one hand, Petrine unity on the other. The Orthodox affirm one and deny the other; and the Catholic teaching is that both are true. The Orthodox SAY Catholics reject their truth, of course, but the correct solution, as in the case of every other major heresy, is the view that integrates the conflicting claims and rejects the denials, the view that is larger, more comprehensive, more catholic than the alternatives. Collegiality is true. Petrine unity is true. We must affirm both truths, not pit one against the other.

That’s how you answer the heretical theologies of too little.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin