Robert van Mourik
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to broadly sweep across church history in an attempt to define some key themes influencing the development of theology and dogma. The footnotes reveal the breadth of this review. We seek to help you understand these historical influences and lead you to question some of the beliefs we have been taught, particularly with John Feehan’s remarks in mind:
“When you are confronted by evidence that the faith in which you were brought up no longer provides an adequate explanation for the nature, meaning and purpose of your life, you have three choices. You can refuse to accept the evidence and continue as before. You can abandon the faith you grew up with, because it proved to be inadequate. Or third, you can accept the new knowledge and use it to develop a more mature understanding of what lies at the core of your beliefs.”[1]
We seek to lay a foundation for examining this history with a view to determining a coherent worldview that we can embrace, and a theology that is life-affirming and capable of fulfilling our human potential. We are embarking on a journey.
Consider the following vignettes:
Written about a public figure 2000 years ago, who was he?
“He was proclaimed Son of God, Redeemer, Lord, Saviour of the world, Liberator who brought peace to humankind. He was God made manifest. His birth was extraordinary. He was born of woman overshadowed and impregnated by God; hence he was God from God. His birth marked the beginning of a new era – even a new calendar. His story was glad tidings, good news. He brought down the mighty from their thrones.”
Comment: One’s immediate response to this question is that he is Jesus Christ but O’Murchu identifies him as Caesar Augustus, adopted son of Julius Caesar and first emperor of Rome from 27BC to 14AD [2].
Monarchies & Empires
The agricultural revolution about 10,000 years ago caused a major shift in human consciousness. Foragers became farmers resulting in the need to secure land, its manipulation and commodification. Eventually this led to the rise of patriarchy and monarchies; kings were unheard of 7,000 years ago. Warriors became closely aligned to the king and priests offering sacrifice also aligned with king.
Comment: Monarchies claimed their power on the basis of divine right.
Empires are recent developments dating from 4,450 BCE. The Romans engaged in a constant battle to denigrate peoples who lived closer to the earth, labelling them “barbarians” or “savages” and by definition “uncivilised”. [3]The growth of empires made it necessary to control and manage people with patriarchy its shadow side. [4]
Comment: It wasn’t only the Romans, empires were built by the Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, English and others. Today, there are additional empires such as capitalism, the military/industrial complex, institutions too large to fail, money and other belief systems. The growth of empires led to institutions and bureaucracies which invariably seek to protect themselves.
Greek Philosophies & Original Sin
Our understanding of person is essentially Aristotelian, taught by all educational systems all over the world and the basis of our economics. The anthropology at the time of Jesus was founded in views established by Greek Hellenistic culture promoted by Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. Aristotle’s key features that made a person human were autonomous, self-reliant, separate, rational & individual. Human nature was separate from nature itself, separate from the divine.[5] In addition, women were lesser than men.
Comment: How consistent is this view with the expression of humankind in Genesis, being made in God’s own image?
Pelagius (354-418), one of the early Christian Celtic writers, opposed the doctrine of original sin coined by his contemporary Augustine. Pelagius saw that beginning with the negative - original sin - would damage rather than aid spiritual development. Beginning with the positive instead of a problem is the healthiest and most hopeful way to find wholeness. The Celts saw creation as good and as a theophany or revelation of God’s very being just as Genesis had taught.[6]
Aristotle influenced Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), a Dominican, in the development of his ideas. For many years, the archbishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, judged that his reconciliation of faith and reason was too favourable to the philosophy of Aristotle. However, the Dominican order “stoutly defended Aquinas’s orthodoxy”. He was canonised a saint in 1323 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1567 by the Dominican pope Pius V. Subsequently, a succession of popes, beginning with Leo XIII, in cooperation with the Dominican Order, gave strong support to his teaching.[7] Aquinas was also influenced by Augustine rather than Pelagius.
In the thirteenth century, the Franciscans and the Dominicans invariably took opposing positions in the great debates in the universities of Paris, Cologne, Bologna, and Oxford. Both opinions usually passed the tests of orthodoxy, although one was preferred. The Franciscans often ended up presenting the minority position.[8]
One result of these debates was that the Dominican view, based on Aristotle and Augustine - that the human and the divine were separate and that mankind had to atone for original sin - prevailed over the alternative view founded in original blessings proposed by the Franciscans.
Comment: How might our theology have developed over the subsequent centuries if the Franciscan view had prevailed? What might Church dogma have become if it was based on an alternative underlying assumption of original blessing (as in Genesis – see footnote 6) rather than original sin (as formulated by Augustine)?
Perhaps Thomas Keating sums it up well: “Our basic core of goodness is our true self. It’s centre of gravity is God. The acceptance of our basic goodness is a quantum leap in the spiritual journey.”[9]
Oral Traditions, Heresies & Dogma
Early Christians, Gospel writers, were using the same language to describe Jesus as had been applied to others at that time such as to Caesar Augustus, above. In all likelihood, Jesus did not want these titles, however, the one he self-described was “Son of Man”, i.e., human man.[10]
Following a religious conversion in c. 312, Constantine the Great won a great battle which led to Constantine becoming emperor of both East and West. During his long reign he demonstrated his loyalty to his new faith by establishing Christianity as the state religion. In 325, he convened the first ecumenical council of the Church to resolve differences of doctrine. The Church adopted an imperial model of governance.[11]
In the first two to three centuries the early church developed as a plurality of communities with different emphases and with sacred texts having a history of oral transmission before being reduced to writing. Constantine’s initiatives led to Athanasius (c. 296-373) editing and consolidating these sacred texts as the bible, resulting in some texts being discarded. In the early years there were many Christianities e.g., wisdom, healing and matriarchal. This diversity of thought was lost in the drive to organisational control, codification as canon and the elimination of heresies. Unity and diversity lost out in the drive to uniformity. [12]
Comment: During these years there was spirited debate over the definition of new theological concepts, yet these concepts were developed in the light of current knowledge at that time. How might those debates have evolved in the light of current knowledge of quantum physics, evolution, ecology, sociology and psychology?
In the mid-19th century, the Protestants declared the Bible inerrant while the Catholics declared the Pope infallible. Pius IX (1869-70) defined papal infallibility as dogma although the concept had been acknowledged for a long time. Rohr asks “How did we cope with uncertainty before then?”[13]
Comment: Gospel writers and later theologians could only articulate their understanding in accordance with their worldview. Consequently, themes of divinity, divine right, patriarchy and empire, alignment with state powers, and conformance to historical dogma - otherwise known as tradition - limited the development of alternative theologies. This was also exacerbated by strong ethnocentric characteristics such as a universal church modelled only on elite Western or Roman culture. These ethnocentric views justified slavery and colonisation.
God is undefinable, incomprehensible yet we mere humans have sought to define theology according to our still very limited understanding of the physical and spiritual worlds. Aren’t these institutional responses extraordinarily arrogant? And in their definition of dogma, haven’t the churches lost the initial example set by Jesus (a way to live and a reign of God embracing compassion, mercy and justice for all), and replaced it with a code of beliefs that may alienate some who do not understand or accept them or become isolated? Jesus was always inclusive while religions and churches are not.[14]
When one reads church history, it is sobering to see the schisms that resulted from clashes of institutional and human egos, schisms that have survived to the current day. Another example of institutional arrogance.
Adaption of New Knowledge
Elizabeth Johnson writes: Each of the world’s axial religions arose within the behavioural patterns of the ancient totalitarian epoch, within the still oppressive contexts of nearly 40 centuries of tyranny. Their magic-mythic lens then evolves into the subsequent Rational Age. The question now is whether religions can outgrow the behaviour typifying their origin and move into an integrative and holistic relationship that’s supportive of the planet.[15]
Today, we are much more aware of the large cosmic story of 13.7 billion years as we seek to integrate it with our faith and theology. However, we lack a corresponding human story to match the spiritual elegance of our cosmic and planetary stories.[16] O’Murchu continues: To appreciate our place in the universe and our planet requires a complementary spirituality and theology, requires revisiting anthropology to gain a deeper appreciation of who and what we are as a sacred species. He quotes Teilhard de Chardin: “Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love; and then for the second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.”[17]
O’Murchu asks: “What kind of person was Jesus? Jesus, quoting Isaiah, I am the sum total of all my relationships, that is what gives me my identity; understand my relationships and you will understand my identity.”[18]
Comment: Is this question answered in this way in our catechism? How would this understanding change our thinking?
Historians note that in the years following Jesus’s death there was an incredible energy and growth in consciousness. The early church was known as “The Way” as his followers sought to emulate his example. However, as empires developed and as the church became aligned with the state following Constantine’s example, the growth of the church was arguably influenced more by the growth of empires, rather than the example set by Jesus.
Our understanding of theology and, therefore church dogma, is founded in the development of concepts and ideas by the clerical hierarchy of the church. Evidence of the church shutting down alternative views abounds. For example, St Teresa of Avila, Galileo, Meister Eckhart, and more recently, Teilhard de Chardin, fell into disfavour only to have their views accepted, oftentimes long after their death.
Meanwhile, entrenched in the Aquinas based view of original sin, church leadership has focused on sin management rather than the development of human potential. A search for “sin management” on the cac.org website reveals numerous articles. For example, Rohr points out that sin management does hold a flock together and provides job security for clergy, however, there is little maturity, or even love, in a flock that is glued together in this way.[19]
Are there any other historical influences of which you are aware that have impacted the development of church theology and dogma today? Perhaps, the subjugation of indigenous peoples who actually exhibited a deep spirituality of their own, so often discarded and ignored?
It is only in the last hundred years, encouraged by Vatican II, that the study of theology is embracing other disciplines such as anthropology, science and psychology and is being undertaken by an increasing number of scholars outside the traditional clerical hierarchy of the church. This is leading to new thinking that incorporates our relationship with the planet, our understanding of science and the newer fields of study.
Today there are numerous writers stimulating our thinking incorporating knowledge that promotes a far more expansive and dynamic theology; theology that is coherent and life affirming. Authors such as Richard Rohr, Diarmuid O’Murchu, Ilia Delio, Elizabeth Johnson, José Pagola, Joan Chittester, Judy Cannato, Brian McLaren and Kevin Treston are readily accessible to us.
Conclusion
On his website O’Murchu writes:
“All religions and churches emphasise that humans are:
• weak and sinful while God is strong and holy
• totally dependent on the all-providing God,
• servants of God to whom we owe absolute allegiance,
• children of a Father God and a Mother Church
• called to be humble and obedient to the parent-like divine power.
The metaphor of the child is extensively used in conventional spirituality. Phrases like “childlike trust,” “loyalty,” “obedience,” “under authority” all denote a sense of dependency that is not congruent with adult maturity. The tendency to structure religion in patriarchal-type institutions, with a strong focus on those who govern from on high, breeds co-dependency rather than mutual interdependence. Such metaphors and systems militate against the emergence of wholesome, adult people.
Much more serious and less obvious to the naïve observer, is the tendency of religions to alienate people from the planetary and cosmic web of life. The dualism of the sacred v. the secular truncates nature’s invitation to live in a convivial, cooperative relationship with the earth and its living systems. Properly understood, earth-life systems function best when humans treat other life-forms with a sense of adult care and responsibility. But this experience of being human, in an integrated planetary and cosmic way, is largely unknown to people of our time.”[20]
To close, quoting O’Murchu again: “Faith in our time requires us to grow up and learn to relate with God in a new way. As co-creators with our creative God, we are invited and challenged to relate as adults to an adult God, modelled for Christians in the adult life-example of Jesus.”
As we move forward with our Butterfly series, we will be placing our focus on current Christian thinkers and the implications of their writing for ourselves, our community and Christianity in general. It will become evident that science and religion are not in competition with each other, but merely two sides of the same coin and therefore complementary. We also hope to explore the mystery of creation, the connectedness of all sentient beings to nature and the critical role that all of us play in bringing about God's kingdom on earth, which Judy Cannato redefined as the Field of Compassion.[21]
1 John Feehan, The Singing Heart of the World, 2012, page 148, emphasis added.
3 Wes Howard-Brook, Empire Baptised 2014, page 22
6 Genesis began with six clear statements of original blessing or inherent goodness (Genesis 1:10-31), and the words “original sin” are not in the New Testament. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/original-blessing-2015-07-08/. See also a more comprehensive discussion in Rohr, The Universal Christ, Chapter 4
7 New Short History of the Catholic Church, Norman Tanner, page 129
8 Rohr CAC meditations, e.g., https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-nonviolent-atonement-2017-07-24/
9 Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart, Guidelines for Christian Life, Growth and Transformation #2, page 158
11 The Story of Christianity, David Hart, Chapter 10
12 Cynthia Bourgeault (RvM Wisdom School notes)
13 The Universal Christ (Rohr) – RvM notes
14 See José Pagola, Jesus: An Historical Approximation 2009 for a comprehensive review
15 Johnson & Others, 2012, 268 quoted by O’Murchu https://diarmuidomurchu.com/videos/2-our-human-sacred-story-divine-creativity-at-work
18 ibid
21 Judy Cannato, Field of Compassion – How the new Cosmology is Transforming Spiritual Life, 2010
September 2022
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