LOL, The Lutheran World Federation just canceled The Nicene Creed in The West

Rev. Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation

 

The Lutheran World Federation just resolved the problem of the insertion of the filioque with a reactionary surrender to the Orthodox, jettisoning reason for emotion.

"Let's just recite The Nicene Creed without 'and the Son' and then we can be friends". 

. . . we suggest that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions . . ..

Here.

Is there a better example in the long history of Christian theology of the failure of the church to be guided into all the truth?

The Protestant schism is only 507 years old, the East-West now 970.

The filioque was a reasonable development within Trinitarianism, stubbornly resisted by the church in the East because it wasn't explicitly Nicene (325). Its first known promulgation at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 in a context of Arianism, the primarily Eastern heresy from the early fourth century, spread in the West but rankled the East, so much so it became a red line by 1054.

They got tired of their reputation for mistakes, I guess.

The first Protestant Reformers insisted generally on the text of Scripture to guide into all the truth, in keeping with the thinking of ancient fathers of the church such as Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who specifically on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father "and the Son" thought it was the plain teaching of the New Testament.

The Reformers thought that the New Testament Scriptures were the result of that process described by Jesus in the Gospel of John, that the Spirit would guide into all the truth. To them the filioque was obvious.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

-- John 16:13ff.

To contemporary Lutherans? Not so much.

Intellectually, if we may use that term elastically, the liberal Lutherans now have more in common with the enthusiasts, the Schwärmer, the 16th century's charismatics and radicals, than they do with the Protestant Reformation.

To them the Spirit is still revealing truths to all and sundry: His truth, her truth, my truth, your truth, hir truth, their truth, but the more important thing is the feeling of unity. Besides, most Christians today have no clue about an obscure topic like the filioque. It's a speedbump, not a roadblock.

The way for this in liberal Lutheranism was prepared for by their enthusiastic embrace of modern critical scholarship of the Bible, with the result that everything has been up for grabs: The theory of evolution, women's ordination, homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hey, why not the filioque? "Just take it . . . to the limit . . . one more time."

The origins of that, however, ironically enough, are in the Enlightenment rediscovery of . . . reason. What goes around, comes around, you might say, as the phonograph needle scratches across the vinyl.

Ultimately speaking, neither the well of human reason nor the well of human feeling produces rivers of living water.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 

-- Ecclesiastes 1:14

The Arminian Roger Olson, hostile to Augustine, does not believe God is "infinite" and is therefore outside the catholic faith

Here, already from a young age, which ought to tell you something (enthusiasm dies hard):

I long ago rejected the notion that God is “infinite.” I rejected it when I first heard it articulated which was probably in some seminary class. I immediately thought that the concept itself was beyond comprehension (except perhaps in mathematics) and that attributing it to God led away from thinking of God as personal, present, involved, loving and able to be affected by us. With Brightman (who I only learned about later) I thought of that attribute of God in traditional theology as an inappropriate expansion of the concept of God brought into Christian thought through philosophy, not the Bible.

Compare the Athanasian Creed:

And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; Neither confounding the Persons; nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite [et unus immensus]. 

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Councils (composed in 359), thought it was a mark of safety to employ expansion in theology in order to avoid error (unlike Olson), and that the profusion of definitions appropriately mimics the boundlessness of God:

The infinite and boundless [infinitus et immensus] God cannot be made comprehensible by a few words of human speech. Brevity often misleads both learner and teacher, and a concentrated discourse either causes a subject not to be understood, or spoils the meaning of an argument where a thing is hinted at, and is not proved by full demonstration. The bishops fully understood this, and therefore have used for the purpose of teaching many definitions and a profusion of words that the ordinary understanding might find no difficulty, but that their hearers might be saturated with the truth thus differently expressed, and that in treating of divine things these adequate and manifold definitions might leave no room for danger or obscurity.

The reductionism of the Reformation is a contrary tendency.

Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia praises pope's anti-fanaticism and Athanasius all in the same breath

Charles Chaput, here.

It's always amusing to listen to fanatics have their cake and eat it too.

The pope can travel to Egypt and "speak eloquently against religious fanaticism" while these priests never consider that their own vows of celibacy just might be a sign of an extreme obsession of their own. Muslims who kill in the name of their religion are fanatics, they say, but Christian clergy who won't be fruitful, multiply and contribute new lives like normal people do somehow get a pass. There is active killing, but apparently not passive. Mortal and venial anyone?

Anyway, to the mind of Chaput the pope visiting Egypt suggests Athanasius, 4th century bishop of Alexandria, whom Chaput without the slightest whiff of embarrassment holds up as someone who zealously lived his faith, believed deeply, and courageously stood against the whole blasted heretical world. His name became attached to a creed which anathematized Arians, etc., condemning them to "everlasting fire". Wow. Nothing to see in the way of fanatical there, no sir. Move along. 

Religious founders are by definition fanatics. They have to be in order to be successful at founding something. That's why we remember them and follow them. Some are worse than others (I'm talking about you, Muhammad), which is to say some are better than others (your choices are any, except Muhammad). The also-rans in the competition don't found whole new world religions. Typically they become "saints" or their equivalents. Like the rest of us, they have mixed human natures, with some admirable qualities and frankly, some not so admirable, either in their own lives or because the law of unintended consequences yielded something awful from what they taught or from an understandable misunderstanding of what they taught. You know, like jihad, or pacifism, communism or apocalypticism.

Generally speaking, the more fundamental they are, the more kinda mental they are.

So a Paul of Tarsus tamed the wild beast who was Jesus, and a Martin Luther tamed the wild beast that was Paul. And now the Western world, at least, is a sort of circus of tamers.

But there's no one yet to tame Muhammad.