The heretical "or" and the Catholic "and"

SDG here with part one of some musings related to an apologetical discussion I’m having in another forum.

One of the most helpful insights I’ve ever gotten into the nature of divine truth comes from one the 20th century’s most interesting theologians, Henri de Lubac. It has to do with the sense in which all of the great theological questions could be phrased as “or” questions — and how these questions inevitably falsify the issue. For example:

  • Is Jesus human, or is he divine?
  • Is Jesus both God and man, or is he one person?
  • Is the Father God, or is Jesus God, or is the Holy Spirit God?
  • Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one, or are they three?
  • Are human beings noble, created in God’s image, or evil, steeped in sin and corruption?
  • Is salvation by grace alone, or do we cooperate in our own salvation?
  • Does God predestine, or do men choose freely?
  • Is the author of scripture God or human beings?
  • Is God all-powerful, or is he all-good, or is evil unreal?

And so on. And of course everyone knows that historically Christian orthodoxy has always said “Yes” to BOTH sides of all these questions, while all of the great heresies involve pitting the two sides against one another and affirming one while rejecting the other.

For this reason, heresies often come in ordered pairs of opposites, each of which affirms one truth while denying the complementary truth, while catholic orthodoxy affirms what is affirmed by each heresy, but also affirms what the heresy denies.

For example, if you affirm Jesus’ humanity but deny his divinity, you wind up with a form of Arianism; if you affirm his divinity but deny his humanity, you wind up with Docetism. OTOH, if you affirm that he is both God and man, but deny that he is one person, you wind up with Nestorianism; if you affirm that he is one person but deny his dual natures, you wind up with Monophysitism (though whether historically the groups associated with Nestorianism or Monophysitism actually materially denied the oneness of Christ’s person or his dual divine and human natures is another question).

Again, if you affirm only the human aspect of responsibility and working out our salvation, you end up with some form of Pelagianism; if you affirm only the divine aspect of predestination and sovereignty, you end up with some form of (hyper?) Calvinism. Likewise, if you affirm only God as the author of scripture, you wind up with Fundamentalist hyper-literalism; if you affirm only human beings as its authors, you wind up with modernist relativism.

This is why the very word “heresy” is derived via Latin from a Greek word meaning to take or to choose, suggestive of the English idiom “picking and choosing,” while truth is always seen as “catholic” or universal, pertaining to the whole. Catholic orthodoxy is always defined in terms of affirming BOTH the truth that each heresy affirms AND ALSO the truth that the heresy denies (but is affirmed by some other heresy that denies the first truth).

The essence of catholic orthodoxy is in this “both / and,” this repudiation of the heretical “either / or” alternative. Catholic orthodoxy always involves fidelity to the whole, the ability to maintain both this truth over here and that truth over there, and not to allow any element of the truth to be pitted against any other element. Catholic orthodoxy insists that the truth is always larger, more comprehensive, more complete, more catholic than any heretical alternative; heresy always essentially involves denial of one aspect of truth — not adding some novelty to the sum total of Christian truth.

There is a tendency, therefore, for Christian truth to have a paradoxical appearance to finite, mortal creatures. And this is not the case because God has a fondness for sending us doctrine in neat ordered pairs of alternatives, but because divine truth is too large for us to apprehend in its totality, or understand how it all fits together, and so the most we can do is to affirm both this aspect of it and that aspect, and to distinguish the sense in which (say) God is One (i.e., in substance) from the sense in which he is Three (i.e., in number of persons), so that we see that there is no formal logical contradiction — though no one pretends thereby to have made the mystery comprehensible.

More later….

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."

4 thoughts on “The heretical "or" and the Catholic "and"”

  1. While catholic orthodox Christianity does use the “and” rather than the “or,” it’s interesting to note that certain groups emphasize one side of the or over the other (without denying the other half). For example, Lutherans emphasize salvation by grace, Presbyterians emphasize predestination, etc.

  3. Ontario, with Lutherans and Calvinists, however, it’s more than just emphasis. Classical Protestantism actually denies that man has free will at all, and that there is any cooperation whatsoever in salvation on the part of man.

  4. Fr. Hardon, SJ, in his preface to his great Catechism made much the same point, emphasizing the *paradoxical harmony* (my words) of Catholic truth as one of its greatest strengths. You are in good company, then, SDG.

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