Quench Not The Spirit

When looking at any ecumenical council, to understand its declarations, one must move beyond the written letter and look to the spirit behind those declarations if one wants to understand what the council is teaching. It is easy to misconstrue a dogmatic declaration if you look only to what the councils had written down as all the council was declaring. What a council teaches extends beyond the written word, indeed, often the written word can confuse the reader and lead them to erroneous beliefs if they do not understand and follow the spirit behind the words being used. The letter can be easily misconstrued, especially as time goes by and the words change their meaning; but even if the meaning behind the words does not change, the words being used cannot fully express the truth which is being pointed to by them. This means we must not be legalists and ignore what is being pointed at by the words. The words are signs, what is it they signify? They do not signify themselves, as the legalist thinks they do. To avoid this mistake, we must be reminded that even in Scripture, St Paul tells us to follow the spirit and not just the letter of the law, for the letter alone kills (cfs. 2 Cor 3:6). The history of the church, and the reception of the earliest, and most important, dogmatic teachings, proves this point.

At the Council of Nicea, the fathers of the council had a very difficult time generating a creed which they felt properly propped up their Trinitarian beliefs.  Even though it has taken a central place in Christian history, nonetheless, we must understand that the creed from Nicea would later need modification. Indeed, its ending was later to be dropped, so that many people do not know of its existence. In it, we read:

And whosoever shall say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, or that before he was begotten he was not, or that he was made of things that were not, or that he is of a different substance or essence [from the Father] or that he is a creature, or subject to change or conversion–all that so say, the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes them.[1]

In Greek, the words behind “substance or essence” are “hypostasis” and “ousia.”  Hypostasis, at the time the creed was written, did not have the technical meaning it would later have, a meaning which would equate it with the concept of person.  Rather, it was seen as an equivocal word for ousia. The spirit of the anathema is to deny anyone from saying the Father and the Son are different in essence; it is not disputing their personal distinction. However, it should not surprise anyone that this definition can be – and has been – used by modalists as a way to try to prove Christianity does accept three persons in the Godhead. They would easily point to the anathema, point to the words used, and say we should “stick by the letter,” while ignoring how the meaning behind the words changed and the words themselves were only pointers to a doctrine beyond themselves. The early defenders of Nicea understood this, pointing out that the creed was written to help defend a faith which transcends words:

But the errors of heretics and blasphemers force us to deal with unlawful matters, to scale perilous heights, to speak unutterable words, to trespass on forbidden ground. Faith ought in silence to fulfill the commandments, worshiping the Father, reverencing with Him the Son, abounding in the Holy Ghost, but we must strain the poor resources of our language to express thoughts too great for words. The error of others compels us to err in daring to embody in human terms truths which ought to be hidden in the silent veneration of the heart.[2]

One must be careful and not close oneself from the spirit by pointing to the letter of the text. The letter without the spirit is dead, and is easily manipulated and turned against its original purpose. The words used must be understood properly as pointers, not ending points, and the spirit behind them must be followed so that one can receive the transcendent teaching being defended by, and enclosed by, words.  The words are not the teaching, but the vehicle by which the teaching is expressed, and it is not the only way the teaching can be promoted (as should be obvious by the many sound theological treatises we find on the Trinity). By ignoring the spirit of the creed, one can easily be led astray, and actually enter heresy.

This, however, is not just true with the Nicene Creed. Early Christological definitions also follow through with a similar problem. Trying to define the unity of the person of Christ, we find St. Cyril of Alexandria, the leading theologian behind the Christological definition of Ephesus, consistently talking about the “one incarnate nature” (physis) of Christ.[3]  This, of course, created the means by which another schism was to take place in the Church, with those who follow Cyril’s wordage as being unable to see or appreciate the words used at Chalcedon as promoting the same faith about Christ: one person who is God and human, who, as God and human, finds his divinity unchanged and his humanity remaining entirely human like our humanity. The spirit behind St Cyril’s words helps us understand why he can talk about the divine person suffering at the cross, but not according to his divinity; if there was only one nature as nature was to be understood at Chalcedon, this would promote a self-contradiction in Cyril’s theology. Nonetheless, as Cyril himself expresses, the unity of Christ is a transcendent mystery, and again, one must understand the limitations of the human mind in expressing that mystery:

He suffers in his own flesh, and not in the nature of the Godhead. The method of these things is altogether ineffable, and there is no mind that can attain to such subtle and transcendent ideas. Yet, following these most correct deductions, and carefully considering the most reasonable explanations, we do not deny that he can be said to suffer (in case we thereby imply that the birth in the flesh was not his but someone else’s), but this does not mean that we say that the things pertaining to the flesh transpired in his divine and transcendent nature. No, I have said, he ought to be conceived as suffering in his own flesh, although not suffering in any way like this in the Godhead. The force of any comparison falters here and falls short of the truth…[4]

We see Cyril understands the limitations which hinder his exposition; while there would be a better, more refined terminology which develops after his death, this does not mean the terminology is perfect or that we are to be limited by it and think all that is said using it is the fullness of the doctrine being discussed. We must acknowledge that, as with the Trinity, so with Christology we are dealing with a transcendent truth, that we are revealed a mystery which cannot be properly expressed by words; there must be the ineffable silence behind the words, the silence led by and directed by the spirit, in order for those words to lead us to the proper understanding. The point is, Cyril, like Hilary, understood that the truth of the faith, while it can be defended and pointed to by words, is not grasped by them. If one settles with specific words, and thinks they represent the fullness of the doctrine, one actually finds oneself in error, for the spirit behind the words which gives them life has been abandoned, making one’s faith less than was intended by the words themselves.

This problematic relationship between spirit and letter remains throughout all of theology. Scripture, itself, suffers from many of its readers not comprehending this basic point. The text is to lead us to the truth which transcends the text. The text is, by itself, a dead letter; without the spirit, it does not lead to truth but a dead end:

Everyone who does not apply himself to the spiritual contemplation of Holy Scripture has, Judaic-wise, also rejected both the natural and written law; and he is ignorant of the law of grace which confers deification on those who are obedient to it. He who understands the written law in a literal manner does not nourish his soul with virtues. He who does not grasp the inner principles of created being fails to feast his intellect on the manifold wisdom of God.[5]

Theologians have long known the apophatic silence which lies behind all positive pronouncements. It is behind the analogia entis (analogy of being) which is central to scholastic thought. Words are important as signs, and they indicate something real, but that reality must be allowed life, life in and of the spirit, in order for it to be real and not a construction placed over the real.

The whole world, limited as it is by its own inner principles, is called both the place and age of those dwelling in it. There are modes of contemplation natural to it which are able to engender in created being a partial understanding of the wisdom of God that governs all things. So long as they make use of these modes to gain understanding, they cannot have more than a mediate and partial apprehension. But when what is perfect appears, what is partial is superseded; all mirrors and indistinct images pass away when truth is encountered face to face (cf. 1 Cor. 13: 10 -12).[6]

Human wisdom, at its best, points to the truth and allows one, through struggle, to be united to it, but once that wisdom is misconstrued and the ineffable nature of the truth is ignored, people fall short of the truth and turn words into idols, and they sacrifice to those idols all that their imprisonment by words does not allow of the truth. They make for themselves a simpler, and easily described, illusion of reality. They sacrifice, in their impiety, the truth of God. To cut off the spirit of truth from a text which is meant to help lead us to the truth is to cause grave error and is capable of leading one to eternal perdition. For it is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, a refusal of being open to the spirit, which is the sin which cannot be forgiven, not because God is unwilling to forgive, but because the blasphemer closes themselves off from the spirit which brings the grace needed for such forgiveness.

This need to follow the spirit, and not the mere dead letter, remains with us today. Vatican Council II, like every other ecumenical council, can only be understood if one follows the spirit behind the Council’s teachings. Obviously, we might find many people claiming something is in the spirit of Vatican II which is not, but that does not neglect the need to understand the way to follow the council is to follow the spirit behind the council and not to be limited merely by the words used by the council itself. “Do not quench the Spirit,” as St Paul said (1 Thes. 5:19 RSV). We, who want to live life more abundantly, want to be guided by the spirit of the council, so that its decrees, established to help the church in the present age, do not suffer due to legalists who want to bring the church to a standstill.

When the work which the Father gave the Son to do on earth was accomplished, the Holy Spirit was sent on the day of Pentecost in order that He might continually sanctify the Church, and thus, all those who believe would have access through Christ in one Spirit to the Father. He is the Spirit of Life, a fountain of water springing up to life eternal. To men, dead in sin, the Father gives life through Him, until, in Christ, He brings to life their mortal bodies. The Spirit dwells in the Church and in the hearts of the faithful, as in a temple. In them He prays on their behalf and bears witness to the fact that they are adopted sons. The Church, which the Spirit guides in way of all truth and which He unified in communion and in works of ministry, He both equips and directs with hierarchical and charismatic gifts and adorns with His fruits. By the power of the Gospel He makes the Church keep the freshness of youth.[7]

To follow the spirit of Vatican II is to follow the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. In the middle of the wounded nature of the world we live in, in the middle of great, uncharitable strife we find in the church itself, we need the guidance of the Spirit now more than ever. Let us not quench the spirit, but let us heed where it lead, for the glory of God, amen.