The Secularization of Christianity Part II - Changing vs. Changeless

In exploring Mascall's writings, we will begin here with Chapter One of The Secularization of Christianity, which I will also address in lieu of other material.  That being said, this series on Mascall's work doesn't constitute a book review, but rather Mascall's work serves as a guide for further reflection on an addressed issue.

The opening paragraph of the chapter entitled "The Changeless and the Changing" Mascall states the core issue by saying this:

"One of the most imperative duties with which the Christian theologian is confronted is that of relating the revealed datum of Christian truth, final, absolute, and fundamentally permanent as he must by his Christian commitment believe it to be, to the essentially incomplete, relative, and constantly changing intellectual framework of the world in which he lives." (E.L. Mascall, The Secularization of Christianity.  New York:  Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1965. p. 1)

What Mascall is saying here, to simplify, is that the important task a Christian theologian has is to relate immutable revealed truth in a world in which changing intellectual trends are evident.  This is where many are faced with some serious problems, as in many cases theologians are often prone to redefining "orthodoxy" within the context of contemporary culture, and thus that is where problems are created.  Cultural relativism has no real place in theology or philosophy, except in one area - as new issues arise, they have to be evaluated as to how they conform to or contradict the historical Magisterium of the Church.  When one allows the whims and fancies of the popular culture to color theology, one is at risk of compromising Christian conviction for cultural conformity rather than taking the effort to truly understand and evaluate current trends in light of established doctrine and faith.  What happens then is a trend that goes back to pre-Enlightenment philosophical positions, notably some such as William of Ockham and Marsilus of Padua, who laid a foundation in both theology and Biblical studies which steered the West toward secularism by instead implementing a this-worldly focus that fosters a hermeneutic of suspicion.  It also reduces God to the Averroist view that He is limited to being bound to the order of creation and thus it rules out the supernatural (Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker, Politicizing the Bible. New York: Herder and Herder, 2013. pp 50, 57).   The importance of the task of relating immutable revealed truth in a changing world, for Mascall, has three reasons:

1.  Christians, however well-instructed or thoughtful, share inevitably in the intellectual climate and perspective of their time, despite inconsistencies between that culture and their Christian beliefs. (catechetical)

2.  It is also concerned with the apologetic and evangelistic work of the Church - we speak words to those outside the Church in language they comprehend. (apologetic)

3.  It is important for Christians to have the ability to see the relevance of their faith in relation to the issues and problems of contemporary culture, bringing to bear their influence upon the solution to those problems in accordance with orthodox Christian beliefs about human nature, anagogical situation, and his predicament and resources. (social)

In regard to the last, I return to Pentecostal scholar Kenneth Archer's discussion of what are called central narrative convictions, in that these do address those issues with questions, and here they are also in light of the traditional four-fold hermeneutic of Scripture as proposed by the Church.  Archer notes that there are some important questions that central narrative convictions address, and these include the following:

1. Where are we?
2. Who are we?
3. What's wrong?
4. What's the remedy?

As Archer defines central narrative convictions (hereafter called CNC's) they are essentially those things that essentially comprise the primary story used to explain why a particular community exists (in Archer's context, he is referring to his own Pentecostal tradition, but it applies to Catholics as well).  Although Archer says they cannot be reduced to presuppositions or preunderstandings, I would disagree in saying that as Catholics our faith has already been presupposed and established, and it is therefore the Deposit of Faith that shapes our understanding of such (Kenneth J. Archer, A Pentecostal Hermeneutic: Spirit, Scripture, and Community.  Cleveland, TN:  CPT Press, 2009. pp. 156-158).  What does this mean then?  Philosophically, it means that there are some norms which have what is called incommunicability - they are unchanging, presupposed by both faith and reason, and is irreplaceable.  Although often associated with personalist philosophy, nonetheless the concept of incommunicability applies theologically as well, given the fact that God's truths are eternal.  Although we live in a communicable culture that often seeks to coerce individuals to conform to what society sees as "good" or "bad" (which, as an school of thought called proportionalism asserts, doesn't mean such things are "right" or "wrong," and these definitions are fluid for someone holding those views) it must be understood that we have as Christians an incommunicable faith which is not subject to the times and changes of the world around us.  However, that doesn't mean our response isn't.   Let me explain that using some issues in today's society.

The issue of "same-sex marriage" has gained momentum in recent years as a newly-defined "norm" in secular society.  As a Christian addresses this "norm," one thing that must be taken into account is how the Church views similar issues.  Since God established natural law at creation, there is a natural order which presupposes that certain types of behavior deemed unnatural are not to be practiced or sanctioned by one who follows God precisely because it goes against the natural order of things.  In the case of "same-sex marriage," therefore, a communicable issue can be responded to with incommunicable faith and truth.  Going back to Mascall's premise, the challenge for Christians is the fact that such "norms" exist, that they must necessarily be addressed in contemporary context, and they must be evaluated in the light of unchanging faith and beliefs regarding human nature, etc.  This in itself can be challenging, as often such "norms" are so radical and unnatural that many Christians don't want to face them, but as Mascall notes, the daunting task of the Christian theologian in particular is to relate an unchanging Gospel to a changing society, and in doing so he makes a very profound statement on page 4 of his text - "But I would draw attention to the fact that I have said 'the Church....in the twentieth century,' not 'the twentieth century Church.' There are twentieth century Christians, but there is not, in the strict sense, a twentieth-century Church, any more than there is a twentieth-century Gospel.  The Church, like the Gospel, is one throughout the ages, however much its forms of speech, worship, and life may vary from time to time."  To simplify, the Church doesn't change although the world does, but in basic relationship things can be adopted that aid in evangelization and discipleship of the 20th-century person.  This therefore both affirms and disagrees with Archer's idea on CNC's that they are not presupposed or preunderstood - the Church, and the Gospel, were presupposed from the foundation of the world, and the Church itself transcends temporal bounds as it comprises all who were, are, and will be in Christ.  That transcendant, supernatural perspective of the Church also explains her sacramental life as well - the sacraments are supernatural in that they transcend time and space, and they are a "mystery of faith" precisely because of that - when we Catholics partake of the Eucharist, we don't "recrucify Christ," but rather we are transported to Him.  The incommunicability of moral law in particular can also be seen in the Ten Commandments - despite changing times and places, it is still wrong and socially stigmatic to steal, murder, lie, cheat, and do other things which either violate the dignity of personhood of others or diminish God.  Although there are some who seek to even redefine those things - those who advocate abortion, for instance - at the end of the day those same people who want to murder the innocent child in the womb will in turn do what they can to preserve their own lives, and thus it creates for them a very serious problem.  And, abortion is one of those things which apologetically is addressed by the Church in the modern age, not so much because it suddenly is popular (abortion and infanticide were practiced throughout history to some degree) but because it is the same sin in a new context - whereas in the past the infant was murdered on the altar of a pagan god with a dagger and a fire pit, nowadays it is a scalpel and saline solution in the sterile confines of the operating room, but it is still murder regardless.  And, that is the point I believe that Mascall is making in the opening pages of the chapter.

The next part of this chapter, beginning on page 5, is the separation of philosophy and natural science from theology, and while Mascall focuses on Barth's role in this as well as that of his disciples (notably in the text Karl Heim and W.A. Whitehouse), it goes back much further than that.  We see it early on in the writings of Ockham and Marsilus of Padua, but it is more pronounced as time progresses by Niccolo Machiavelli, who in his work The Prince establishes this rationalistic thinking by asserting that what is should define what "ought" (Hahn and Wiker, p. 130).  In other words, conformity to culture, when applied to Biblical and theological realms, defines interpretation.  This is further developed in later centuries by Rene Descartes, who advanced that only what is rational is what is real, and thus the supernatural, by virtue of its intangibility, cannot be understood as rational. For Descartes, this means a mechanized universe where supernatural creation was not possible - developed later by Spinoza and D.F. Strauss, this essentially means that the miraculous is not real, but merely a misunderstanding of natural events.  The supernatural and the miraculous deny rationalization, so they cannot be real, in the minds of such people.  It entered theology and Biblical scholarship via the Reformation, which in rejection of the Scholastic approach of St. Thomas Aquinas, which affirmed that natural law and a supernatural God were complimentary rather than contradictory, eventually led to the Protestantization of all theology, leading instead to it being confined to an ambiguous group of "experts" rather than the Church, and those "experts" could range from merit of baptism alone (as Luther proposed) or in true Machiavellian tradition they were appointed to advance an agenda.  We still see it that way today.  Protestants continued this negative separation of philosophy from theology, for instance, as Mascall notes on page 9, by essentially rejecting the former as merely a seductive artifact of fallen man.  This led to a very dangerous disconnect between philosophy and faith, as embodied in later secular philosophers such as Heidegger and Nietzsche.  Likewise, theology was also divorced from faith by secular-minded theologians such as Schleiermacher and later those like Tillich and Moltmann who asserted that the life and teachings of Christ were to be radically reinterpreted and "demythologized" to make them more palatable to contemporary man.  Mascall also critiques Bultmann as well, whose ideas were so radical that they will be discussed in the next part of this series.

Mascall's bottom line in this whole discourse is really quite simple - the Church, her message, and the Gospel are all unchanging in that the proclaimed truth of all is timeless and transcends all time.  However, that being said, time does change, and the Church must be able to draw upon her eternal deposit of faith to address any and all new questions that arise in a way that communicates to the society she finds herself in.   This can be tricky, and one has to really be cognizant of the fact that a fine line exists between relevant language and cultural conformity, a fine line we as Christians must take care not to cross.  Too many have already crossed that line, and it has led to either a denial of faith and rejection of truth or to a conforming of the Gospel and Church Tradition to the passing whims and fancies of the times.  That is also why a study such as this one is vital, in that it addresses a vital issue in a day and age when so much chaos in society dictates so many things that contradict universals.  We must transcend the norms of the times, in other words, while at the same time appropriating the language of the times to communicate timeless truth.  We'll pick up on this in the next segment.