Indicative of Grace - Imperative of Freedom

Essays in Honour of Eberhard Jüngel in His 80th Year

R. David Nelson

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780567667519
• eBook ISBN: 9780567497932
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Theology

This volume is a collection of essays in honour of Tübingen theologian Eberhard Jüngel, and is presented to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Jüngel is widely held to be one of the most important Christian theologians of the past half-century. The essays honour Professor Jüngel both by offering critical interlocutions with his theology and by presenting constructive proposals on themes in contemporary dogmatics that are prominent in his writings. The Festschrift introduces a new generation of theologians to Eberhard Jüngel and his theology. The volume also includes an exhaustive bibliography of Jüngel's writings and of secondary sources that deal extensively with his thought.

Chapter 1

EBERHARD JÜNGEL AND THE INTERNATIONAL LUTHERAN–CATHOLIC DIALOGUE¹

André Birmelé

For the past 50 years, Lutheran theologian Eberhard Jüngel has followed the international ecumenical dialogues with great interest. Even though he has never been a member of any official dialogue commission, his ongoing, critical commentary on the ecumenical movement has played a decisive role. Two of his contributions in this area receive special emphasis in the present essay.

The Problem of an Ecumenical ‘Basic Difference’

Talk of an ecumenical ‘basic difference’ can be misleading. When this idea appears in the present ecumenical discussions, it does not, as it did in past centuries, have to do with the problem of identifying the issues that justify abiding divisions between the separated churches. Rather, the renewed talk of ‘basic differences’ arises in light of the progress of the dialogues and helps to clarify the great diversity of the differences between the churches. It seeks to answer whether there is some particular context that might help to explain these differences, or at least begin to bring them into connection with one another. For instance, in the dialogues between the churches of the Reformation and the Catholic Church, the question emerges if there is some connection between, on the one hand, the various interpretations of the role of the power of the Magisterium, and, on the other, the diversity of approaches to Mariology or sacramental theology. Or, can the different understandings of office or of the doctrine of the church help to explain the divergent approaches in the area of ethics or Christian morality? The hypothesis that there might be a focal point, or common denominator, that connects all of these differences together and thus helps to clarify them – namely, a basic difference – is no matter of mere speculation, but rather a plausible outcome of ecumenical research.

It is crucial to use the expression ‘basic difference’ in a descriptive sense, for it cannot conceptualize anything beyond the quality of this difference. It is indeed conceivable that a single basic difference might bring to light legitimate differences in one area and ongoing, scandalous differences elsewhere. As such, the term will serve to illuminate the current ecumenical situation and to make a methodological contribution leading to progress in the dialogues. It describes, above all, a phenomenon, and it would be unfortunate to understand it from the outset as a negative concept, as is all too often the case within the ecumenical movement. Nowadays, to speak of a basic difference, and, what is more, to comprehend it, makes sense only in the context of the far-reaching theological consensuses between the churches. Only in this new context can such talk have meaning.

Ecumenical research conducted in the 1980s reached the conclusion that there is a common denominator in the area of ecclesiology that encapsulates particular differences. The Catholic theologian and later Cardinal, Walter Kasper, asked already in 1980 ‘whether the holiness of the church is such that it allows her to act in a holy and sanctifying way through her members? Or does the church have this holiness only as a promise or ability?’² To put it another way, does the church, not on the basis of its own initiative, but, rather, sanctified by the grace of God, perform works which are actions done on behalf of others and which sanctify her members in view of their salvation? It is, generally, beyond dispute that the church is the instrument of God for the salvation of humanity. But the nature of the instrumentality of the church in God’s work of salvation remains a matter of dispute between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran churches. This can be demonstrated from a detailed analysis of the results of the earlier bilateral dialogues.³

The dialogue over ‘The Eucharist’ resulted in a broad consensus and demonstrated that the remaining divergence concerns the Catholic understanding of the sense in which the church presents the Eucharistic sacrifice, which is conceived in Catholicism as more than the church’s sacrifice of peace offerings.⁴ There is a consensus on the uniqueness of Christ’s sacrifice, but a divergence concerning the church, which, though fully subordinate to Christ, is yet the author of saving action for believers. The problem of the limits of the sanctifying action of the church and of its ministers is the source of the divergence. The same question emerges in view of the church’s offices.⁵ The consensus is certainly greater than one might first think. The office serves the word and the sacraments in the service of the one mediator, Jesus Christ. Hence, the office is indispensable for the church. However, Catholics contend that the Lutheran office is marked by a defectus sacramenti ordinis, which results not only from the fact that the office is not integrated into the apostolic succession, but also stems from a different understanding of the manner in which the minister is involved in doing God’s work. Protestant theology recognizes a more instrumental participation, whereas Catholic theology recognizes a participation by the ordained minister in the priesthood of Christ.⁶ For both traditions, the minister is totally subordinate to Christ as the only source of salvation. And yet, in the Catholic understanding, the minister is sanctified in Christ in such a manner that he receives a special character that qualifies him to perform sanctifying acts – a quality that allows him to preside over the celebration of the Eucharist. This same problem is reflected in the well-known dispute over Scripture and tradition. It would be wrong, of course, to claim that one side – Protestants – does not know tradition, whereas the other – Catholics – the Scriptures. Rather, the divergence concerns the manner in which Scripture is authoritative, and, particularly, the role of the church and her Magisterium in making authorized interpretations of Scripture. Is the church of God holy to the extent that it is able to determine the truth of the word?

Two clarifications are necessary in order to eliminate any misunderstanding here. (1) It is clear that, in Protestant theology, the church is understood as cooperating with God for the salvation of humanity. This cooperation is not only passive and but also instrumental. Nor is the church merely a visible instrument of the invisible work of God. Rather, when the church preaches, baptizes, grants absolution, and celebrates the Eucharist in the name of Christ, God himself is at work. He has determined to work in and through the concrete actions of the church and through the performative agency of the church’s ministers. Nevertheless, he alone remains the author of grace and of all holiness. The action of the church is fundamentally receptive, characterized by the creative passivity of faith and a reflection of the life and work of Christians who are justified by faith alone. Therefore the work of God, the only source of salvation, can shine through any church action. (2) It is also essential to remember that the differentiation between the primary instrumentality of God and the secondary instrumentality of the church, as well as the pre-eminence of the God’s unique agency, are central themes in Catholic theology. The French Catholic theologian Bernard Sesboüé puts it this way: ‘the church is the subject of the saving action of God in Christ, not in the sense that she possesses a causality of the same kind as that of God, nor in the sense that she can intervene apart from divine action, but insofar as she performs an instrumental causality that is stamped by the primary causality; meaning, then, that she acts by grace’.⁷

It is not easy to grasp precisely what is at stake in the unanswered questions. For both traditions, the instrumentality of the church is secondary in relation to God’s primary instrumentality, and the church’s mediation must never be placed on the same level as the primary mediation of Jesus Christ. The dispute concerns the significance placed upon God’s primary instrumentality and the secondary instrumentality of the church and her ministers within the Christian mystery. Only the use of a comparative allows us to elaborate the difference. In Catholicism, the church takes centre stage and her instrumentality is conceived as being more effective than what is granted in the Reformation traditions, in which the church and her instrumentality are seen as being less primary, though not secondary.

At the invitation of the Lutheran World Federation’s Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, Eberhard Jüngel addressed this very question at a meeting between the Institute faculty and Spanish theologians in Salamanca in the fall of 1982. In order to reach a better understanding of this issue, in 1983 Jüngel raised the question of the sinfulness of the church.⁸ He did not intend to identify this problem as the source of a permanent dissensus. Rather, the question of the sinfulness of the church, he contended, helps to clarify the difference between two understandings of the church’s instrumentality. For the churches of the Reformation, the statement of the sinfulness of the church already means that the church is, in the economy of salvation, never on the side of God over against the sinner, but always on the side of the sinner in relation to God and his word. The church’s holiness consists of the fact that, as the community of the faithful, it receives the grace of God, to which it gives testimony and for which it serves as a vessel for carrying the message of salvation to the world. ‘And so prayer for the forgiveness of its own sins is the criterion by which we decide whether, in representing and presenting the sacramental event, “mother church” understands itself secundum dicentem deum or whether it misunderstands itself as self-representation’.⁹ The idea that the church prays for the remission of sins, not only for its members, but also for itself, is difficult to understand in light of the sacramental understanding of the mystery of the church that marks Catholic theology.

The question of the sinfulness of the church appears to be a better example for the identification of the different approaches to the church than that of the church’s saving action. For Lutherans, it is not necessary to define the sinful Christian over against the sinless church, because the true difference is between the church and the word of God, insofar as the church is always the daughter and never the mother of the word. The only thing infallible in the church is the one word of God. To make this thesis concrete, Luther will say of the church and, in particular, of the councils of the church that they can err and have erred.¹⁰ Luther goes even further by stating precisely not only that the church is subject to the risk of error in her councils, but also that the church, in its nature, is not without sin. Rather, the church is sinful because it is a community of believers who are not without sin. He even asserts that there is ‘no greater sinner than the church’.¹¹ The sinful nature of the church is not to be seen as the opposite of her holiness, nor does it prohibit us from calling her the ‘bride of Christ’ – on the contrary! In the economy of salvation, the church has its place not as another Christ alongside of God and over against humanity. Instead, her holiness consists of the fact that she receives the grace of God as a community of believers, and, as a recipient, bears witness to and transmits this grace.

Catholic ecclesiology also explains, in turn, that the church is subject to the word of God, but this claim is not marked by the radical opposition of word and church that we find in the theology of the Reformers. The Second Vatican Council indeed rediscovered and confirmed the idea of the church as the people of God or the community of believers,¹² though stated also that the mystery of the church cannot be confined to this dimension. The church stands both on the side of God over against believers and on the side of believers over against God. This, the church in all its fullness, is not and cannot be sinner, for, on the contrary, she is, as Pope Pius XII put it in his encyclical Mystici corporis, the pia mater ecclesia who ‘is spotless in her sacraments’.¹³ The church itself is not able to bear the burden of possible imperfections, but rather believers who continue to sin and thus to remain sinners are alone able to do so. This ecclesiological approach entails a different understanding of the nature of the instrumentality of the church. In the celebration of the Eucharist, the church manifests a sanctifying holiness, which, even though it is subordinate to the primary causality of God, has a real and effective dimension that is not recognized by the Reformation churches.

The problem of the sinfulness ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 Eberhard JÜngel and the International Lutheran–Catholic Dialogue
• 2 The Spirit of Freedom: Eberhard JÜngel’S Theology of the Third Article
• 3 The Crucified One
• 4 On the Contrary: Thomistic Second Thoughts on Analogy and Trinity in Eberhard JÜngel
• 5 ‘The Mystery That God and Man Share’: Peter Lombard, Sentences, Liber I, Distinctio 17
• 6 Metaphorical Truth and the Language of Christian Theology
• 7 Eberhard JÜngel’s Soteriologically Minded Doctrine of the Trinity: Some Commendations and Reservations
• 8 A Reformed Theology of Justification
• 9 Love and Death: Christian Eschatology in an Interreligious Context
• 10 The Resurrection as Divine Openness
• 11 The Cautions of Justice: Eberhard JÜngel’S Engagement with Politics and the State
• 12 Eberhard JÜngel on Baptism and the Lord’s Supper: Towards a Hermeneutic for Reading the Texts
• 13 Martin Heidegger: Anstoß for Eberhard JÜngel’s Theology
• 14 Luther’s Dangerous Account of Divine Hiddenness
• 15 Mystery or Sacrament? an Assessment of Eberhard JÜngel’s Cruciform Ontology
• 16 Eberhard JÜngel on the Compatibility of Education and Theology
• 17 God, Theology, Universities
• 18 Some Remarks on Christian Freedom
• Bibliography
• Index of Works
• Subject and Author Index