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Info on the ACPA 2006 Annual Meeting

Hermeneutic of Continuity

From the Christmas address to the Roman Curia last year.

We do not want to apply precisely this dramatic description to the situation of the post-conciliar period, yet something from all that occurred is nevertheless reflected in it. The question arises: Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or - as we would say today - on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call "a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture"; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the "hermeneutic of reform", of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council's deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague.

In a word: it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim.

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one. However, the Constituent Assembly needs a mandator and then confirmation by the mandator, in other words, the people the constitution must serve. The Fathers had no such mandate and no one had ever given them one; nor could anyone have given them one because the essential constitution of the Church comes from the Lord and was given to us so that we might attain eternal life and, starting from this perspective, be able to illuminate life in time and time itself.

On religious freedom:

It was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

and

It is quite different, on the other hand, to perceive religious freedom as a need that derives from human coexistence, or indeed, as an intrinsic consequence of the truth that cannot be externally imposed but that the person must adopt only through the process of conviction.

The Second Vatican Council, recognizing and making its own an essential principle of the modern State with the Decree on Religious Freedom, has recovered the deepest patrimony of the Church. By so doing she can be conscious of being in full harmony with the teaching of Jesus himself (cf. Mt 22: 21), as well as with the Church of the martyrs of all time. The ancient Church naturally prayed for the emperors and political leaders out of duty (cf. I Tm 2: 2); but while she prayed for the emperors, she refused to worship them and thereby clearly rejected the religion of the State.

Complete address
CJD

Gallery; another

Interview with Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P.

Interview with Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P.

Some excerps:

Whom do you consider to be your most important teacher in your thomistic education?

During my first years of Dominican religious life, I was fortunate to meet two masters in Thomism: Father M.-M. Labourdette, who is the author of a monumental commentary on the whole of the Secunda Pars and Father M.-V. Leroy, who taught dogmatic theology, but who, unfortunately, wrote very little. Both of them were profoundly marked by the friendship and the intellectual influence of ´Jacques´, that is, of Jacques Maritain. They have passed on to me and to my Dominican fellow brothers from Toulouse, the doctrinal and institutional heritage of the venerable Thomistic school of Saint-Maximin. It is, in my view, a great privilege to be able to join in this way a living doctrinal tradition. It is true that the masters of Saint-Maximin - without being hostile to it - were hardly sensitive to the historical approach to the works of Saint Thomas. While working in Fribourg (Switzerland) with Father Jean-Pierre Torrell and Professor Rudi Imbach, whose assistant I had the chance to be for one year, I become more and more convinced of the importance of the application of the historical method to saint Thomas.

and

What is the importance of Aquinas-research for our times (especially in your discipline)?

It seems to me that Saint Thomas offers today an adequate model concerning the way of doing theology. Five points seem to me of special importance:
(1) the privileged instrument of the intellectus fidei is a philosophy of being
(2) Theology is the work of intelligence. It does not fear to have recourse to the concept
(3) The theologian elaborates his own doctrine in an ongoing confrontation with the preceding theological tradition. Contrary to the artificial opposition between the quid homines senserunt and the veritas rerum which a certain kind of Thomism wanted to establish, the theological practice of saint Thomas attests that the quid homines senserunt is the privileged way to the veritas rerum.
(4) Theology has a sapiential vocation. The intellectus fidei aims at a contemplative synthesis that is not content with the fragmentation of theological disciplines.
(5) Doing theology presupposes a permanent contact with the living sources of faith (Scripture, Tradition, the life of the Church…) and shows itself to be a source of spiritual life.

More on the Chair of Moses

Pontificator has decided to close down the comments section. It's unfortunate, as there have been many informative posts there. Two from the thread I mentioned on papal primacy (see also the excerpt from Dom Gregory Dix's Jurisdiction in the Early Church):

# 178. William Tighe Says:
September 29th, 2006 at 9:53 am

From Mark Bonocore — A Response to #s 160, 161 and 163:

In answer to Owen’s question, … To my knowledge, Cyprian makes no direct mention of the “Chair of Moses” to support his theology of the “Chair of Peter”; but given the way that Cyprian speaks of the “Chair of Peter” (in a collective sense, referring to the teaching authority of the Church itself), it is fairly obvious that he is drawing from the Jewish tradition of the “Chair of Moses.” In ordinary Christian usage, a “chair” or “throne” referred to a specific episcopal see, not to the larger mystery of ecclesial authority. For example, the Poem Against Marcion, which was written by a contemporary of Cyprian, declares:

“Peter bade Linus to take his place and sit on the Chair whereon he himself had sat.” (III, 80).

But, Cyprian uses the “Chair of Peter” in a much broader, very Jewish sense –the sense of the “Chair of Moses,” in which “chair” applies, not merely to one diocese or one clerical office, but to the authority of the community itself, manifested by many clerics acting together in solidarity. And, even today, the authority of the synagogue is, among Orthodox Jews, referred to metaphotically as the “Chair of Moses” –not as applying to any one particular rabbi, but to the mystery of rabbinical authority viz. the succession of the Jewish fathers. This is clearly that dynamic that Cyprian has in mind, and he is almost certainly not the author of it, but is drawing from the Traditional understanding of the Church on this point.

Yet, it must again be clarified that Cyprian’s theology was not one-sided or pseudo-Protestant. While he believes that all bishops share in the Chair of Peter, both his teachings and actions SCREAM the fact that Cyprian does not believe that all bishops share in the Chair of Peter equally. As metropolitan of Africa, Cyprian obviously felt that it was his duty to quell erroneous bishops and set them straight. He also believed that Rome possessed an authority that was universal in nature and so greater than his own. For example, during his conflict with Pope Stephen (ergo Cyprian’s terse tone, which is dramatically different from his affectionate remarks to Cornelius), Cyprian writes to Rome to inform the Apostolic See that Bishop Marcianus of Arles (in Gaul) had joined the party of antipope Novatian. Stephen would have already been informed of this by Bishop Faustinus of Lyon and by the other bishops of Gaul. Yet, Cyprian urges Pope Stephen to do as follows:

“You ought to send very full letters to our fellow-bishops in Gaul, not to allow the obstinate and proud Marcianus any more to insult our fellowship… Therefore send letters to the province and to the people of Arles, by which, Marcianus having been excommunicated, another SHALL BE SUBSTITUTED IN HIS PLACE …for the whole copious body of bishops is joined together by the glue of mutual concord and the bond of unity, in order that if any of our fellowship should attempt to make a heresy and to lacerate and devastate the flock of Christ, the rest may give their aid…For though we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock.” (Cyprian, Ep. lxviii)

Here, while Cyprian clearly feels that Marcianus’ defection is the concern of all bishops, he attributes to Pope Stephen the authority of deposing Marcianus and ordering a fresh election. In other words, Cyprian does not take it upon himself (or his African synod) to do it, but urges Rome to act. And, to appreciate this, we should compare it to what the anti-Pope Novatian had previously succeeded in doing in claiming the authority of Rome to promote his heresy against forgiving apostates. As Cyprian himself tells us:

“[Novatian] ….sent out his ‘new apostles’ to very many cities; and where in all provinces and cities there were long established, orthodox bishops, tried in persecution, he dared to create new ones to supplant them, as though he could rage through the whole world” (Ep. lv, 24).

And, giving the confusion over whether Novatian or Cornelius was the true Bishop of Rome, Novatian almost succeeded in doing this! For, even the EASTERN bishops who Novatian deposed were recognized as deposed by the locals, until it became clear that Novatian lacked the authority to do this. Writing from the East, Patriarch St. Dionysius of Alexandria (in the first recorded act of Alexandrian primacy in the East) took the side of Pope Cornrlius, and, once Cornelius was recognized to be the true Pope, Dionysius wrote to Rome to report how:

“Antioch, Caesarea, and Jerusalem, Tyre and Laodicea, all Cilicia and Cappadocia, Syria and Arabia, Mesopotamia, Pontus, and Bithynia, have returned to union and their bishops are all in concord.” (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., VII, v).

From this, we can see the wide-range of Novatian’s claimed authority; and so what the authority of Rome actually was. Here, in the mid-3rd Century (before the legalization of Christianity and while the Church was still an underground society), the Bishop of Rome had the authority to depose bishops in far-off provinces. This is not the ecclesiology of the modern Eastern Orthodox Church, which makes no room for Magisterial intervention when extraordinary (or emergency) conditions apply. But, Rome and the churches in communion with Rome have always held fast to this Tradition.

As Pope St. Gregory the Great, 350 years later, succinctly put it his exchange with Bishop John of Syracuse (in Byzantine-ruled Sicily), when discussing the new episcopal candidate for the church of Constantinople, …

“As to what he says, that he is subject to the Apostolic See (Rome), I know of no bishop who is not subject to it, IF there be any fault found in bishops.” (Pope Gregory I Ep. Ad. Joan.)

This is the real issue, which Fr. Bouyer does not account for in his article, and which modern Eastern Orthodoxy fails to consider or address. YES, all orthodox bishops act as one and participate together perfectly in the one Chair of Peter. This is the normal and natural condition of the Church, as Christ desires it to be. Eastern Orthodoxy and Vatican II have that part correct. BUT … “If there be any fault found in bishops,” this is not the natural or normal condition of the Church, for the erroneous bishop has separated himself from the Chair of Peter. And, the one who must ultimately judge whether or not this bishop has departed from the Chair of Peter is the primary custodian of Peter’s own episcopal Chair—the Pope of Rome. THIS is the part of the mystery that Vatican I focused on and was concerned about. And anyone (e.g. an Eastern Orthodox) who finds Vatican I to be alienating or uncomfortable has failed to appreciate THE CONTEXT in which Vatican I is speaking. For, as Cyprian urged Pope Stephen to do, and as antipope Novatian claimed the right to do (and would have succeeded in doing if his illegitmacy were not exposed), and as Gregory the Great claimed the right to do, and as NUMEROUS Popes have done throughout antiquity, the See of Peter DOES possess the right and duty to intervene in the affairs of other churches WHEN there is a pressing need to do so, and when this pressing need threatens the universal communion of the Church. It is not, as one person on these boards has said, that ‘an Orthodox cannot accept Vatican I and still remain Orthodox.” That is simply a silly thing to say. No dogmatic canon of Eastern Orthodoxy denies the teachings of Vatican I, and the historical heritage of the Eastern Church testifies to the truth of Vatican I’s teachings! The issue here is not, and never has been, how the Church should operate under normal and natural conditions—the conditions intended by Christ and the Apostles. The issue is, and always had beem, how the Church (and the Roman Papacy in particular) should operate according to unnatural conditions, stemming from the unnatural compromise between the Church and the secular world. This unnatural compromise began with Constantine, and continues to be an issue for us today—that is, bishops are not always faithful to the Apostolic deposit because concerns for this world (e.g. their own power and success) frequently lead them astray, and this can, and often does, result in formal heresy and similar abuses. However, Christ Himself established a remedy for this, which is the infallible charism of the Petrine ministry; and this is why other bishops are subject to the Pope of Rome. … NOT when they are faithful and shepherding the Church as they should (for, in doing that, they are indeed “Peter” as well, and so just as infallible as the Bishop of Rome). But, when they slip into error, they do need a “bishop of bishops” who can shepherd them on the universal level, and lead them back (if possible) to the sure pastures of orthodoxy. Can their other brother bishops do this as a collective group? Of course! But, among these brother bishops (and especially when the bishops disagree among themselves), there must be one father who holds the final authority for the Family, and who can speak officially for all, settling disputes. This is the voice of Peter, the voice of the Pope of Rome. And this Apostolic Tradition has been neglected among the Eastern Orthodox, primarily because their ecclesiology and their overall view of the Church is not that of the old, illegal, underground society of the martyrs, but of the imperial Church established by Constantine, which has accepted as “normal” the unnatural condition in which the Church is partners with the secular world. This is why the anicent East was so prone to heresy after heresy, and why the imperial Church of Constantinople had to abandon its original fidelity to the (non-imperial) See of Peter at Rome. The theology surrounding our Schism, when viewed realistically, is merely a smokescreen for a secular cultural / quasi-nationalistic agenda—the “one Church, one Empire” agenda of ancient Byzantium, which is unnatural to the Church of Jesus Christ.

So, when Rob Grano cites the well-intentioned book by Oliver Clement, who advocates a “mid position” for the Papacy, which was supposedly its role for “the first eight- or nine-hundred years of Church history,” this is yet another occassion in which Greek East and Roman West are talking past each other and missing each other’s intended context. Oliver Clement is focusing on the natural and normal conditions of the Church, in which individual bishops are faithful Christian men with no secular agendas, but who desire the good of the Church and the promotion of the Apostolic Faith that they all hold in common via their equally-orthodox “sensus fidelium.”. We can all agree that, under those circumstances, the Pope of Rome should not intervene in the affairs of other dioceses, but should merely act as a pastoral example and a final court of appeal. HOWEVER, … What Oliver Clement and modern Eastern Orthodox fail to consider is that the modern Church is not living under the natural or normal conditions of the early Church, but … since the days of Constantine … we have one foot in the secular world, and this PROFOUNDLY effects how bishops relate to one another, and forces the Church to count on the infallible charism promised to Peter’s ultimate and personal successor at Rome. That’s why Vatican I dogmatized Papal Infallibility.

Someone also said that the infallible charism of the Holy See was established by the bloody martyrdoms of Peter and Paul. This is not so. It was established because Peter ended his earthly ministry in Rome (as Bishop of Rome) and passed his Christ-given responsibilities on to his episcopal successor there. This infallible ministry was created by Christ Himself in Matt 16:18-19. And, even if Peter had died a natural death in Rome, this ministry would still have been passed on to his successor. The martys of Rome bear witness to the faith of that church, it is true. But this is something distinct from the infallible office of authority.

God bless

Mark Bonocore

and

1. 181. Michael Liccione Says:
   September 29th, 2006 at 1:09 pm

   Alas, I have seen no new ground covered in this thread. And I entertain no illusions that any minds are going to be changed in a setting such as this. Still, it might be worthwhile for me to try to refine the state of the question for the sake of greater focus and less wheel-spinning.

   The position being taken by the Orthodox is best summed up in #154:

   …there is one area where all the Orthodox authors agree (e.g., Fr. Asanassieff, Fr. Meyendorff, Fr. Schmemann, and even Metropolitan Zizioulas), because they all appear to accept a “eucharistic” or “communion” ecclesiology, and all of them reject as completely incompatible with that ancient Patristic ecclesiology the concepts of “universal jurisdiction” and “supreme power.”

   As I implied way back in #73, that posited incompatibility is exactly what Ratzinger, von Balthasar, Bouyer, and of course little ol’ me would deny. We affirm their compatibility, and I offered a bit of explanation why. The fundamental issues are how doctrinal development is understood and how it is to be understood. Thus if Ratzinger et al are correct, then the mature Catholic doctrine of the papacy is a connatural and thus valid development of what was held in common before 1054, including what is today called “the ecclesiology of communion”; if most Orthodox are correct, then of course it is not, and hence cannot be accounted as even an implicit part of the faith-once-delivered.

   When it receives an Orthodox response that actually engages it—as opposed to merely restating what’s been said countless times before—what I shall call “the Ratzinger position” (’RP’ for short) typically gets the sort of the response given by Owen in #115.

   Addressing me, he writes:

   You state…that the issue underlying this debate is development. But the issue which underlies development is papal authority. As I have been told on a recent thread here, from a Roman Catholic perspective only the Pope has final authority in determining what is and what isn’t authentic doctrinal development (and as VatI states that authority is with regard to all churches and all rites). Thus, we Orthodox state that VatI is not at all compatible with Orthodox ecclesiology and the response from many RCs here is essentially, “yes it is, because Papal teaching says that it is.” We Orthodox, and apparently the Eastern Catholics along with us, do not possess the ability to finally determine what our Holy Tradition means. We are only authorized to assent to what the Pope and his Roman curia deem our Holy Tradition means. In the end, the Latin Catholics here believe that the current and former Popes better understand Eastern Christianity than Eastern Orthodox and many Eastern Catholics do. The thinking follows these lines: doctrine in both East and West has developed, development requires someone with final authority who can arbitrate between true and false doctrinal development. The Orthodox wrongly deny development, and the need for an office which determines the course of proper development, and therefore the Orthodox have no final means to determine what is true and what is false within their own Holy Tradition. But as a matter of historical happenstance, they have not screwed things up too much, and all that they now lack is the acknowledgement that they need the doctrinal and judicial arbitration of the Papacy.

   Two points in that are noteworthy: (1) RC advocates of RP are only said to determine what counts as valid development by appeal to papal authority; (2) as a result of such a move, RC advocates of RP are said to imagine that they understand Orthodox doctrine “better understand Eastern Christianity” than EOs and ECs do. If either point were true, it would be quite telling. But neither is.

   (1) overlooks the significance of the fact that the doctrine whose development is most at issue is precisely that of papal authority. RP advocates are not trying to settle this issue by appeal to authority; indeed, if RP were merely saying that Vatican I’s doctrine of the papacy is a valid development because popes have so taught, its argument would be entirely circular and thus entirely uninteresting even to Roman Catholics. But Ratzinger et al deserve more credit than that. The real point is subtler: granted that V1’s teaching can neither be found in so many words in pertinent first-millennium texts and practices, nor even logically deduced therefrom, that teaching can readily be seen as a connnatural development therefrom. Hence the immediate issue is not by what authority a given development can be ascertained as valid, but rather whether data which both sides agree are data can reasonably be read to support RP. Apodictic proof is neither available nor being sought; what is available and sought is a reasonable way of seeing the common data.

   Perhaps an analogy would help. Since the dawn of Christianity, the Jews have argued that Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah 7:14 as evidence for the Virgin Birth is based on a misconstrual of the original Hebrew. While the Septuagint, which Matthew followed, uses parthenos or ‘virgin’, the Hebrew uses alma, which means ‘young woman’ whether virginal or not; and Jews did not go in for imagining virgins having children. Despite countless attempts by Christian apologists to show that Isaiah really meant ‘virgin’—which continue even to this day—it is indeed rather unlikely that the original author actually had that in mind. We can’t really know for sure what he had consciously in mind, but we do know that that is not how he had been understood; for if he had been, then the idea of the Messiah’s virgin birth would have enjoyed much more currency in Jewish thought than it appeared to enjoy in the few centuries before Christ, which was little to none. It would not have seemed a novelty, which is how it seemed to most Jews at the time, who dismissed it accordingly. Yet as Christians we cannot of course agree with the Jews. What we must say is that even if the original human author of Isaiah did not have some future virgin in mind in 7:14, the Holy Spirit most certainly did. That’s why the Septuagint’s creative translation was prophetic. What the original author might have regarded as fantasy, and most of those who took his work as prophecy did indeed regard as fantasy, is logically compatible with what he wrote and is, in point of dogmatic fact, contained “in germ” within it. One could readily multiply examples of all the ways in which NT writers—and later, the Fathers—saw Christ and the Church in the OT even though the OT writers themselves, and certainly most Jews later, would not have seen things that way at all. Similarly, through the eyes of faith one can see V1 as a valid development from what was “commonly accepted and lived” regarding Roman primacy in the first millennium, without thereby imagining that most Easterners or even most Westerners at the time would have recognized Vatican I as what they believed.

   Given as much, (2) above misstates the issue. One can readily understand why Orthodox do not see V1 in the first-millennium data: V1’s doctrine is neither stated there in so many words nor logically deducible from the sum total of the pertinent data. RP advocates agree. But that is not the relevant question. The relevant question is whether V1’s doctrine can reasonably seen as implicit in those data even if many of those who acknowledged Roman primacy in the first millennium didn’t see it there and even if many Christians today, including the Orthodox, still don’t see it there. That is what RP says. Accordingly, RC advocates of RP do not think they understand Orthodox doctrine better than the Orthodox; we know quite well what the Orthodox doctrine on this question is, which is what they say it is. Rather, RC advocates of RP maintain that Orthodox doctrine fails to recognize the full implications of what both sides believed for nearly a thousand years. Hence the common RC complaint that Orthodox “theological” resistance to the papacy is at root historical, cultural, and psychological.

   Of course that complaint ultimately begs the question. To bulverize Orthodox resistance as cultural and psychological is plausible only if one already assumes the truth of the Catholic teaching on the papacy. But question-begging cuts both ways. Thus the following account of history from Owen:

   As you know, from an Orthodox perspective “doctrinal development” is what one calls the numerous significant changes which occur within an ecclesial system in which one central authority is able to make changes through what is an essentially unilateral governance. VatI may have been a council, but it declared dogma what the Pope had prior determined needed to be declared dogma [of course there have been other councils wherein rulers other than the Pope manipulated the results — but those non-Popes who did the manipulating were not formally granted the authority to manipulate which the RCC grants to the Pope]. When one looks at the list of issues which divide us, one sees matters in which the Rome, more or less unilaterally, went the way of doctrinal innovation (or in some instances disciplinary innovation). We can argue until we both tire of it whether or not those dogmas which were declared in the Ecumenical Councils were “developed.” The point is that while those Councils may have been called for by a secular ruler, and while there may have been a period of theological conflict after each council, the decisions of the councils were finally determined by what (generally speaking ) more or less represented a broad consensus of the Church, and they were ultimately received by the Church as a whole. What Roman Catholics call the doctrinal “development” of the East did not happen through the means of a singular central authority.

   One problem with that is its picture of popes “unilaterally” making changes in doctrine without regard to the sensus fidelium. That picture stems from a confusion of the normative with the empirical. Catholics certainly do hold that a pope’s defining a doctrine for the whole Church suffices to make believing that doctrine normative for and binding on the whole Church; but it does not follow, nor was it ever in fact the case, that popes dreamed up doctrinal “innovations” and then proceeded to impose them on the rest of the Church. Popes have no authority to invent doctrine or even to abrogate previously defined doctrines. Whether the doctrine in question be the filioque, papal infallibility, or any others that have caused divisions between East and West, each of the doctrines in question had undergone a long period of theological development in the West prior to definition and did not face opposition from most of the Catholic Church when they finally were defined. They were far from arbitrary or even new—in the West, and by the time of these alleged “innovations” the West was hardly an underpopulated backwater. Of course they were seen as unacceptable, heretical, or even monstrous innovations by many in the East. But what does that prove? All it proves is that, for a long time, the Eastern part of Christendom has not agreed with the Western about certain questions, including the question how other such questions are ultimately to be settled. It does not prove that popes of Rome have “imposed” certain doctrines on anybody. They had already enjoyed broad support in the West anyhow and, since the time of Photius, the popes have enjoyed rather little de facto juridical or doctrinal authority in the East.

   That’s why the appeal to “reception” by “the Church as a whole” is even more problematic. One question that gets begged here is “Who is the Church?” If one includes all baptized people in the Church, then one would be hard put to make the case that any once-disputed doctrine escapes significant and ongoing dissent even today. If one includes in the Church all bishops of apostolic succession and those “in communion” with them, questions immediately arise: Who has such succession? Can it be lost by a see that once had it? Does everybody who has it or claims it count as part of the relevant consensus? Are all those who have it equally authoritative? If so, why? If not, why not? One can readily see how such questions are pertinent, and one might answer them by appeal to what is called Tradition. But of course the questions then arises “Whose tradition?” and “Whose interpretation of said tradition?”, and the answers always seems to end up as an appeal to the tradition of those who agree with “us,” whoever “we” are. But since what “we” say in the East diverges in some respects from what “we” say in the West, one cannot without begging the question appeal to what “the Church as a whole” has always believed.

   This is why the hoary appeal to “reception” fundamentally question-begging and indeed a bit of legerdemain. Beyond even “Who is the Church?”, the more incisive question is “Who in the Church?.” Which of course brings us back to square one—unless, like the monks of Mt. Athos and not a few other Orthodox, one simply writes Rome out of “the Church” the way the Oriental Orthodox were once written out of “the Church.” But the world’s one billion Catholics can be forgiven for finding in that also not a little question-begging.

   It will not do to say that Orthodoxy, unlike Catholicism, settles questions of doctrinal development by the bishops acting collegially over time. We have synods and general councils in Catholicism too. They are necessary not as window-dressing for papal absolutism, but as expressions of the real authority of the bishops and the nature of the Church as communion, which said authority serves. And as Vatican II recognized, the spiritual experience of the faithful and the investigations of theologians are necessary sources for the Magisterium—not only that of bishops individually or synodally, but even that of the papacy itself. The difference is not that Catholicism has the papacy to settle such matters instead of those other sources of input, but rather in addition to them, in such a way as to adjudicate and give definitive form to their results. Whether one thinks that a good thing or a bad thing depends on how one answers the conceptual question: whether V1’s doctrine of papal authority is compatible with the ecclesiology of communion.

   Well, Ratzinger has long thought they are compatible, as do I, von Balthasar, and all RC advocates of RP. The books of those two great theologians provide the arguments. Even among the disputants here, everybody agrees that the pope may not do all that Catholic doctrine says he can do; we all even seem to agree that the pope cannot always do in practice what he can do in principle. But Owen and STK don’t seem to think helps. As I read them, they hold that the very idea of such jurisdiction as Vatican I ascribes to the papacy is incompatible with Tradition as a whole and with the ecclesiology of communion in particular. This is where the difference clearly emerges. But once again, the question is begged all around. One can always define ‘communion’ in such a way that somebody’s being in authority over everybody is incompatible with communion; but one can also define it so that the same state of affairs enables communion. That is what Ratzinger and his Catholic allies on this question do, and I think we can all agree that the absolute headship of the risen Christ himself is not only compatible with but the precondition for communion. Indeed, given what all acknowledge are the moral and practical limitations on the exercise of papal jurisdiction, especially in the East, there is no reason to suppose that such jurisdiction is incompatible in practice with the ecclesiology of communion. The sole question is whether it’s compatible in principle; that depends on how one formulates the principles; and the question how one ought to formulate the principles is to be settled by Tradition. But that doesn’t serve because the question at issue here is precisely whose interpretation of Tradition is to be accounted normative.

   Once one recognizes that we’re dealing with two plausible but competing paradigms of ecclesiastical authority, neither of which can do more than beg the question against the other, the question becomes how to choose between them. As I have often pointed out before, each is plausible and self-consistent in its own terms. (Such a situation is very familiar to any professional in the field of philosophy.) I have also written about the means an inquirer does well to adopt in making their choice. The most important intellectual task is to avoid caricature as much as possible and get as clear a picture as one can of what each side actually believes. Once the requisite prayer and ascesis are practiced, only then can one decide where truth finds the more capacious home.

Freedom in Aristotle

Dr. Pakaluk discusses Susan Sauvé Meyer's "Aristotle on the Voluntary" in

Aristotle on the Voluntary
Voluntary Everywhere if Anywhere
Distinctively Human Agency
Freedom to Do Otherwise

I think the last one in particular is enough to show that even for Aristotle, only freedom of contrariety is needed in order for one to be reckoned free, freedom of specification is not necessary. (This comes up in such questions as whether the Blessed Mother was free to say "Non" instead of "Fiat," with the implication that she was not free if she could not say "Non.")

The Chair of Moses

Posted at Pontifications:

159. William Tighe Says:

September 28th, 2006 at 10:07 am
A contribution from my friend Mark Bonocore, which he asked me to post here:

I see nothing in Bouyer’s article that is essentially incorrect or unCatholic. Rather, he advocates the ecclesiology of St. Cyprian, which (in large part) is the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, and the ecclesiology that is natural to the Catholic Church. Cyprian, of course, invoked the principal of the “Chair of Peter,” which is not merely the authority of Rome, but the teaching authority of the Church itself –the covenantal successor to the “Chair of Moses” (Matt 23:1-3), which was the teaching authority of Israel. And, in Jesus’ day –that is, in the Mosaic Jewish tradition –the “Chair of Moses” expressed itself in different ways and on different levels. For while the entire presbyterate of Israel (the “scribes and Pharisees”) justly held the Chair of Moses collectively, …

On the local level, the Chair of Moses was held by the rabbi of a village synagogue, but …

On the regional level, the Chair of Moses was held by the leading rabbi of a particular sect or school (e.g. Akiba at Jamnia). But, …

On the universal level, the Chair of Moses was ultimately held by the High Priest in Jerusalem, who was able to render an authoritative judgment binding all of world Jewry (see Acts 9:1-2, Acts 28:21, etc.).

Cyprian regarded the “Chair of Peter” in exactly the same way. For, in Cyprian’s view, …

On the local level, the Chair of Peter was held by the bishop of a given city-church, who was the final authority within that city-church. But, …

On the regional level, the Chair of Peter was held by the metropolitan bishop of a given region, which was Cyprian’s own position as Bishop of Carthage –metropolitan of all Africa and Numinia. But, …

On the UNIVERSAL level, the Chair of Peter was held by Peter’s own direct successor at Rome, which Cyprian called “the womb and root of the Catholic Church” and “the principal church in which sacerdotal unity has its source.”

We Catholics (especially in relation to the Eastern Catholic Churches) still hold to this ecclesiology today –that is, the natural and proscriptive ecclesiology of the Catholic Church. This is what John XXIII meant when, at the initiation of Vatican II, he said how the bishops must be convinced that they are “no longer altar boys” —a reference to the long-held misconception of how Papal authority should naturally manifest itself, which was set in place by Trent in response to the crisis of the Reformation.

This is essentially, I believe, what Bouyer is advocating in his article (although he does not clearly spell out the “stratification” of the ecclesiology of Cyprian, as outlined above).

HOWEVER, …. With all that said, Bouyer (like Vatican II before him) fails to account for a scenario in which the majority of the bishops have “gone bad” or bowed to the “god of this world.” This has of course happened at numerous times in our history (e.g. the Arian controversy of the 340’s-360’s, when over 80% of all the bishops were Arians). Under such conditions, the most important aspect of the Christ-created Papacy comes into play –that is, its character of a “sure Rock” of the Apostolic Faith –a focal point for the sheep, when every other Church authority has failed them. Bouyer makes no room for this in his optimistic viewpoint; and this of course is the fatal flaw of our post-Vatican II Church, in which (for the sake of the Council), Rome permits all manner of liturgical and doctrinal abuses to fester in the other dioceses because it has committed itself to the assumption that the bishops of these dioceses are “Peter” in their dioceses, and should solve these matters on the local or regional level, and that Rome itself should not interfere. The problem with this approach, of course, is that it assumes that these bishops are engaged in the “stuff of Catholicism,” when they are, in reality, introducing (or permitting the introduction of) secular and profane elements that are harmful to the Faith. In this capacity, Vatican II was well-intention by naive –sorely underestimating the influence of the modern secular world, and unattentive to the fact that a particular diocese must possess a strong Catholic culture in order to maintain the Faith on its own –that is, in its own right. Rome, because of its history and cultural traditions, maintains this Faith without much difficulty. The same is true of many of the Eastern episcopates, which can be almost zenophoebic in their fidelity to their native, Catholic/Orthodox ethnic cultures. But, the modern, secular West has suffered greatly because of the absence of Rome’s direct, ancient and Apostolic influence in the decisions and practices of our dioceses. In this sense, we are very much like the 80% of Eastern bishops who embrace Arianism for the sake of the (at the time) pro-Arian imperial court at Constantinople and “new relationship” between Church and ancient secular society, which made it easier to be Arian than orthodox. In this, one must keep in mind that Cyprian’s ecclesiology, while certainly natural to the Church as it SHOULD operate, was articulated in c. A.D. 250 while the Church was still an illegal, underground society, persecuted by the imperial Roman government, and so DISTINCT from the secular world and the temptations to live according to a worldly agenda (I refer to the compromises made by secular-minded bishops). When secular influence is factored into the equation, I would say that Cyprian’s (that is, Vatican II’s) ecclesiogy (largely) flies out the window, requiring Rome and its Petrine charism to exert a more direct and hands-on influence among the other dioceses. In Luke 22:31-32, Jesus says to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, the devil has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail, and once you have turned back, you must strenthen your brethren.” This can easily be applied to our modern condition, or any condition when the faith and the responsibility of bishops is compromised by worldly temptations. (This of course speaks to your own point about the French bishops of the ‘petite eglise’ under Napoleon.) And we make a serious mistake if we take a pollyanna approach to the Church and assume, as does Bouyer and Vatican II, that what is natural to the Church is necessarily beneficial in the modern (secular) context in which we currently live and operate. This is precisely why Christ gave the Church (and Peter in particular) the authority to “bind AND loosen.” There are times when what is natural is not appropriate. We are living in one of those times.

Bill, if it’s at all possible, I would greatly appreciate it if what I’ve written above can be posted on the boards below Bouyer’s article. …because many of those who have responded (aside from yourself, of course) appear to be largely oblivious of this very pressing aspect of the issue.

Thanks

Mark Bonocore

More and this

Fellowship of Catholic Scholars

website; newsletter

RE: Opus Dei Spirituality

While Opus Dei is a orthodox guide and help for Catholics seeking to deepend their spiritual lives, I take issue with the oft-repeated claim that it has given the Church the first authentic lay spirituality. For example, James Martin. S.J. reports in "Opus Dei In the United States":

They all felt that Opus Dei is unfairly maligned. Part of the reason, they said, has to do with their “unique” charism—the spirituality of everyday life. Though lay spirituality has long been a Catholic tradition (St. Francis de Sales wrote his Introduction to the Devout Life [1608] with laypersons in mind), members say there are still many who do not understand their charism. “Opus Dei represents a new concept in the church,” said Bill Schmitt, “and this has given rise to misunderstanding, even, in some instances…slanders.” But he added, “A lot of it comes from bad will.”

Similarly, Dennis Helming says this about Josemaría Escrivá in his Opus Dei founder Monsignor Josemaria Escriva's contribution to modern lay spirituality:

This self-dubbed "anticlerical" monsignor believed so much in us weaklings - quite ordinary, mediocre men and women - that he was able to pull off what no one had ever attempted on such a large scale throughout the sweep of Christianity.

Alas, we find that the claim about a new lay spirituality is repeated even by Albino Cardinal Luciani (before he became Pope John Paul I). In his "Seeking God through Ordinary Work," the cardinal writes:

In less eloquent words, the "everyday realities" constitute the work which one does every day; and the "flashes of divine splendor" are those things which lead to a holy life. Msgr. Escrivá, with Gospel in hand, constantly taught: God does not want us simply to be good, he wants us to be saints, through and through. However, he wants us to attain that sanctity, not by doing extraordinary things, but rather through ordinary common activities. It is the way they are done which must be uncommon. There, in the middle of the street, in the office, in the factory, we can be holy, provided we do our job competently, for love of God and cheerfully, so that everyday work becomes, not "a daily tragedy," but rather "a daily smile."

More than three hundred years earlier St. Francis de Sales taught something along the same lines. A preacher had publicly consigned to the flames from his pulpit a book in which St. Francis had said that in certain circumstances dancing can be permissible; the book also contained a whole chapter on the “worthiness of the marriage bed." However, Msgr. Escrivá went further than St. Francis de Sales in many respects. St. Francis proclaimed sanctity for everyone but seems to have only a " spirituality for lay people” whereas Msgr. Escrivá wants a lay spirituality." Francis, in other words, nearly always suggests for the laity the same practical means used by religious, but with suitable modifications. Escrivá is more radical; he goes as far as talking about "materializing" --in a good sense-- the quest for holiness. For him, it is the material work itself which must be turned into prayer sanctity.

One is disappointed that the cardinal would write this, as if he were ignorant of the history and development of Christian spirituality.

Were not the early Christian martyrs examples of authentic lay spirituality, even before their martyrdom? We are to enliven all our actions with the infused virtue of charity. Let us take into account the different kind of works that people do, the different functions that they have in society--it is clear that the work that bishops and priests are involved in are, by their very nature, of a different order, involving in themselves Holy Things. But what of the temporal work of the Christian faithful. Did they think that it could not be sanctified? Let us take for example the work of monks -- their original opus dei was certainly prayer, sanctifying the hours of the day with the divine office? (See the Rule of Saint Benedict.) Still, the monks also had to do more mundane tasks, in order to sustain themselves, and these were done in the spirit of prayer and charity, so as to make prayer unceasing, even if their minds and hearts were not consciously praying.

Fr. Louis Bouyer states my point better in An Introduction to Spirituality (NY: Desclee, 1961):

Work
Whether his vocation is intellectual or manual, whether he is inclined toward tasks of directing or of executing, or toward the most disinterested kinds of cultural work, he must, therefore, see his work as being ultimately the special form that "faith working through love" is to take in him. This means that he should make of the work for which he feels himself more and more particularly destined his own special way of living charity, that he should make it his self-gift to the creative, the generous design off God Himself which at the same time is being opened out to him by this faith. This shoudl take on a twofold meaning for him, subjective and objective, which cannot be divided in the concrete without thereby making charity unreal.

Under one aspect, each person's work should be for him his special opportunity to live in all his activities that charity which results from faith, arousing in us an act of thankksgiving in which the whole being gives itself to God recognized in Christ. Under the other asepct, which cannot in practice be separated fromt he first, his task is to introduce this charity, from the point of his own insertion in the world, into the life of other men.

Under this aspect, everything that he does, in the most seemingly "profane" orders of activity, must be done in such a way as to break up the present organization of the world in view of the satisfaction of egotistic lusts which cannot help secretly warring against one another even when they provisionally aid one another. For the Christian, on the contrary, even through the very conflicts in which his fidelity to his faith will necessarily involve him with those who refuse it, his whole activity has no final purpose other than that of gathering all men, insofar as this depends on him, into the communion of God's charity. It is by giving this meaning, this ultimate purpose, to all his activities, it is in carrying them out concretely always in the light of this finality, that the Christian will make all his works an achievement of the charity which should be reigning first of all in his own heart.

If this is to be possible, it presupposes that the activity to which he devotes himself willb e one that can be "supernaturalized." Any activity, that is, which in itself involves sin or which leads to it as if inevitably, the Christian must ruthlessly avoid. But those which he may make his own can be consecrated in two different ways. They can be consecrated positively, in their positive human value: teh enrichment that they can give, along [with] their own proper lines, to his capacity and to the capacity of tohers to conceive and to carry out their vocation as children of God, called to live in the presence of the Father in a continual and total "act of thanksgiving." And they can also be consecrated negatively, simply by the abnegation they require, and so by the witness given to the cross, to its fruitfulness "in Christ": a witness which they provide the Christian the opportunity to render by providing him with a cross which is peculiarly his own.

But when we leave the abstract order and come to consider particular cases, we see that in every Christian's activity these two possibilities are always as it were very closely overlaid. Experience shows that the activities whihc are the most positive from the first viewpoint, such as the loftiest cultural pursuits, are endowed with a fearsome tendency to turn themselves into some kind of idol-making. Thus, for the faithful Christian, they cause an internal tension perhaps more painful than any bitterness that might be connected with humbler kinds of work. And, consequently, they involve him in conflicts, in particularly tragic ruptures with those who are pursuing the same tasks without the same faith....

On the other hand, there are servile forms of work which seem at first sight to have nothing but a trial of faith to offer the man who devotes himself to them, so barren are they of positive human satisfaction. And yet frequently they may afford him opportunities for generous contact with others, so clear that faith and its witness can as it were already gain in them some foretaste of the eternal reward. The poor man who gives a cup of water to another poor man may find therein an immediate recompense, of a fullness (because of a purity) certainly surpassing those that the Christian artist, and still more the Christian politician, can find in any of his achievements.

More simply still, the more the horizons of any truly creative work are extended and braodened, the more it requires us continually to go beyond what we have already seen and achieved--a requirement which is without doubt one of the most crucifying forms that the cross can take on in our human life. The most ambitious, the grandest human works are those the achievement of which, even when relatively successful, and in proportion to their success, is the most unsatisfying, if not delusive. For the Christian who measures the always painful hiatus that separates every partial incarnation fo creative charity from its absolute realization, and who knows further that his loftiest achievements, which are at best only provisional, can be changed into even more redoubtable obstracles in the path fo the final realization of charity--this experience of the cross within human creativity knows no limits....

Conversely, for the same Christian who knows the transcendent value of the "love of God poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit," the work most unrewarding from the human viewpoint, when it is th eoccasion for an act of pure charity, may perahsp become more luminous than the most glorious human achievements.

Whatever the task at which he labors, the Christian "in the world" must, therefore, believe that he is collaborating in the coming of the Kingdom of God. But he must believe at the same time that the achievements which at first seem the most brilliant may reveal themselves as the most fragile and even the most deceptive, just as he must be convinced that the failures whihc seem the most irremediable eneter in to the plan of God and its infallible realization. It is here that he finds his cross, the cross which is his own: not aside from his work, but deeply within it. (168-171)

Granted, the state of the Church has been lamentable for a while, though undoubtedly some dioceses have been better than others. But how many of our faithful have been exposed to the spiritual teachings of Christianity? Whether it be the separation of spiritual theology from moral theology in the university, or the perception by many that moral theology and (the Church's moral teachings) was legalistic, one sees the gradual loss of understanding of the spiritual things in many parts of the Church. Those who claim that St. Josemaría Escrivá anticipated the universal call to holiness in Lumen Gentium are merely ignorant of Catholic tradition and history, and why exactly the Church is always in need of continual reform. This teaching had been obscured in the minds of many over the centuries, but it was never completely forgotten, as various bishops, spiritual masters and theologians (like Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P.) took pains to point out.

In their mind, he had a great influence--not a surprising judgment on the part of Opus Dei members, who look at the growth and global presence of what is now a personal prelature. And so how was St. Josemaría Escrivá able to reach out to so many? Through a movement that was able to cross the boundaries of dioceses--a band-aid solution, because bishops were unable to produce the results entailed by the duties of their office. If bishops taught the faithful what they really needed to know about Christian morality and spirituality, would something like Opus Dei really be necessary? I don't think so. In fact, the danger with any movement is that it can lead to a cultish mentality, severing the connection between the faithful and the bishop, between the faithful and the life of the local Church, especially as it is concretized in their parish. Hence, the repeated statements by both the Church (and affirmed by the leadership and priests of Opus Dei) that movements and the dioceses are to have a healthy relationship to one another, and so on.

But if the core teachings and message are nothing other than the Christian message, is there really anything new under the sun? When we look at Opus Dei's evenings of recollections and retreats, we see the use of modern spiritual exercises and devotions, especially paraliturgical devotions. (Whether the practice of meditation in modern Catholic spirituality really differs from that practiced by monks and so on, I will leave unexamined for now.) While they emphasize frequent reception of communion and attendance of Mass, it is not clear to me that fostering an authentic liturgical spirituality is part of the charism of Opus Dei priests. I do not doubt that individual priests may encourage those under their spiritual direction to pray the liturgy of the hours, but I do not believe that it is a prominent or "official" part of their formation. Should the liturgy of the hours completely replace other forms of prayer and practices? No--the latter can certainly supplement the liturgy of the hours. But, the question is whether one has an integrated liturgical spirituality or if it is merely one part of a fragmented prayer life.

I will be surprised if someone in the future were to write about Opus Dei spirituality being a new, separate school. In many ways, there is only one spirituality, in so far as there is one source, the Holy Spirit. Everyone is called to be an athlete of God. But this one spirituality can take many forms, as our roles differ; nonetheless there should be certain core elements--not only reception of the sacraments, but I believe a liturgical spirituality.

See also Jordan Aumann's work on spirituality, Louis Bouyer's book on liturgical piety.

Finally, there is the question or whether all forms of work are morally defensible. There are some acts which are intrinsically incompatible with the love of God--fornication, for example. Similarly, there are forms of work which cannot be sanctified, such as prostitution or robbery. Now if an organization or practice is in some way disordered (as it often is the case in our contemporary capitalistic society), can my involvement in that organization or work be completely free from disorder? Even if I am not responsible from the evil to which my work contributes, should my conscience not be nagging me instead of reassuring me that everything is all right, since I am in the state of grace? If we are unaware of the evils that are present due to a lack of social justice, should we not, as active participants in our community, learn more, and abstain from materially cooperating with those who are responsible for those evils when possible? If there is any group which should be catechizing the faithful on the social teachings of the Church, it should be Opus Dei. But I don't see this being done. We should be questioning our assumptions about the economy and our practices and arrangements. The difficulty of finding answers should lead us to put our trust in God, and not in those deemed to be authorities by the world, and to begin to seek answers in the teachings of the Church, instead of worldly wisdoms (like liberalism).

The message of Opus Dei
More documents about Opus Dei
Opus Dei files.

Abbe Guette

Someone has written a response to his book; evidently it is popular with Orthodox apologists?

Link posted by Diane at Pontifications.

Reminder: dissertation and theses' regulations

Here

I have not met any of the first-year doctoral students, but brief profiles are available at the department website:

• William Britt received a BA from Yale University. He is interested in 19th/20th century continental and its relationship to Christian belief/practice especially Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida.
• Fr. Roy Pereira, S.J. was in the Master's program and has been accepted into the Ph.D. program. Fr. Pereira's area is Philosophy of Science with special reference to the Mind-Body issue.
• Mark Thomas received a BA from Notre Dame. Mark is interested in the continental philosophy of religion, specifically Hegel's philosophy of religion and the relationship of religion with phenomenology and post modern thought.
• Jessica Williams received a BA from New College of Florida. She intends to focus her studies in contemporary continental philosophy. Her areas of interest include phenomenology, existentialism, German Idealism, post structuralism and postmodern/postcolonial studies.
• Jeffrey Witt received a BA from Wheaton College. He is interested in the development of late medieval philosophy, i.e. the transmutation of Thomism through the 14th century, its revival in the 16th century, and its arrival into the modern period.
• Christopher Yates received a BA from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and received an M.A. degree from the University of Memphis. He is specifically interested in 19th and 20th century French and German thought. This would include phenomenology, deconstruction, archival approaches, and the parallel developments in philosophies of religion.

Well... one person interested in medieval is better than none. But he's from Wheaton College. Perhaps he was influenced by Joshua Hochschild.

Scott MacDonald

His paper was on Augustine, examining some paradoxes in the Confessions. Augustine states several paradoxes and then proceeds to answer them. The paradoxes are interesting, though one wonders if they are really that problematic or paradoxical. As for the presentation itself, I found it a bit dry, and somewhat boring--reading the text and examining the paradoxes could have been done on one's own, and it wouldn't have taken an hour (or more?) to do so...

Not enough controversy to keep me awake...

James O'Donnell (U. Penn) came up in conversation afterwards--apparently he's a good philologist, but not so sharp with respect to the philosophy of the texts. (Charlotte Allen's review of his biography of St. Augustine.)

Which reminds me, I still need to get a copy of Peter Brown's biography of St. Augustine. Interview. A lecture by him at Stanford.
"A Life of Learning"
"Augustine the Bishop in the Light of New Documents"

John von Heyking
Mark Vessey

Medieval law

Internet Medieval Sourcebook: Medieval Legal History
Otto Vervaart: Medieval law
Law-related Internet Project: Roman law
Ius Romanum

Canon law
Ius commune

Scots legal dictionary
ius: right recognised by law (also jus)
ius ad rem: right to a thing (personal right) (jus ad rem)
ius in personam: personal right (also jus in personam)
ius in rem: right in a thing (real right) (also jus in rem)
ius naturale: natural justice (alsojus naturale)

SEP on rights

Kenneth Pennington (website)
Tryanny of a Concept; check also syllabus for Roman Law and the Ius Commune
The History of Rights in Western Thought

Check Gratian. What instances of ius are there in actual legal codes? Is it defined by an authority other than the commentators?

The Communitarian Network

An edited version of older post from The New Beginning.

Amitai Etzioni and the Communitarian Network were first brought to my attention by Dr. Jason West at the Garrigou-Lagrange group at Yahoo. Apparently Dr. Etzioni has a blog (which is no longer regularly updated). His biography and publications.

In an interview Dr. West also recommends the work of Louis Groarke at St. Francis Xavier University, especially The Good Rebel: Understanding Morality and Freedom.

I have not read any of these books--but I am interested in reading them, if only to see if I share anything in common with these writers, and if they have any practical recommendations. (How do they compare with the paleoconservatism/communitarianism of Dr. Thomas Fleming?) The problem with political philosophers is that they can be a bit too idealistic (in the popular sense of the word), and fail to appreciate the necessity of coercion because of man's fallen state. [Shades of the debate between the Confucians and the Legalists!] Dr. Etzioni also appears to be an internationalist, like many others (John Finnis, Robert George, Pope John Paul 2). What I mean by "internationalism" is this: the endorsement of international/transnational structures of authority, if not specifically some sort of world government.

Implications of new technologies for individual rights and public safety
Webcast for talk on privacy and surveillance
Key Interviews
BrothersJudd.com links
Critique by Roger Scruton; response by Etzioni, followed by Scruton's rejoinder

In the end, I'll take Catholic social teaching and political theology over any alternative...

Lessons on Christian Dogmatics, by I. Zizioulas

Notes by his students (incomplete).

I gotta read this: “Essence”, “energy” and “persona”

Resources for Christian Theology
"One Single Source"
Open Source Theology
A claim that he does not represent Orthodoxy in his theology

Scott MacDonald info

personal page; faculty page; "In Praise of Norman Kretzmann"

Not by MacDonald, but the IEP entry on Aquinas' Moral Philosophy. I'll have to take a look later.

Bouyer on Hesychasm

From A History of Christian Spirituality, vol. 2.

The Origins of Hesychasm and the "Jesus Prayer"
There is no doubt that Orthodox piety in the following centuries was chiefly nourished by this liturgy; yet it was not in a liturgical Christianity, a mysticism above all ecclesiastical and hierarchical, that the spirituality of Byzantium was to realize itself in its deepest and most intimate form. This other path, a wholly interior one, was that of hesychasm. Its ultimate expression was a prayer as far removed as possible from the magnificent formulas of the Studites, even from the outbursts of personal lyricism that they succeeded in incorporating into the heart of their most hieratic mysteries. The "Jesus Prayer", in which all hesychasm is concentrated, is in fact simply the unwearying repetition of the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me." It may even consist in the name alone: "Jesus!"

Are those dedicated to this form of Byzantine mysticism opposed to liturgical spirituality? I wonder if there is a connection between an extreme advocacy of hesychasm (and a overly "mystical" understanding of the liturgy) and a rejection of the writings of theologians like Fr. Schmemann (who advocate a certain form of the renewal of liturgical piety or spirituality) as being "modernist."

The Fathers of the desert had already recommended the monologistos prayer, whil eth eemphasis on hesychia (the rest in God which is the aim and end of apatheia itself) was certainly one of their major themes. In the preceding volume are quoted two apophthegms attributed to Macarius the Egyptian by a Coptic collectotion. If they are authentic, Macarius must be recognized as the originator of the Jesus Prayer and of its whole spiritual context. Otherwise, as has been said, the first distinct formulas of this prayer are found in Diadochus of Photike. After him, its use was taught by Barsanuphius and John the Prophet. Barsanuphius did not hesitate to put it on a level with psalmody. He did not draw the conclusion, as was done later, that it could with advantage replace the psalmody, but only siad that the two should be practised equally. John advised using it in time of temptation, opposing it to the "antirrhetic" method advocated by Evagrius, which consisted in confronting the temptations and criticising the sophisms they imply. "Nothing remains for us to do, weak as we are," he said, "but to tkae refuge in the name of Jesus."

Not until St John Climacus, however, does one find the "remembrance of Jesus" made into the monologistos prayer to banish the multiple thoughts (logismoi) that Evagrius excludes from pure prayer. Evagrius certainly never foresaw this interpretation of his thought! But, as has been said, it is chiefly in a text from the Ladder that for the first time, so far as we know, these three terms are directly connected: the remembrance of Jesus, the control of the respiration, and hesychia: "Let the remembrance of Jesus combine with your breathing; then you will understand the use of hesychia."

It has also been pointed out with truth that we find in John the theme of "the eye of the heart", which is able to see the divine "Sun of the intelligence" in a vision in which he who contemplates sees himself filled with light. But in the Ladder these two lines of thought are not yet formally associated. Yet the first spiritual treatise which, though not actually one on the Jesus prayer, still begins to concentrate the whole of spirituality on it, also came from Mount Sinai. This was the centuries ascribed to Hesychius of Jerusalem, though there is general agreement that it is to be attributed to an author, or group of authors, belonging to the monastery of Batos (the Burning Bush) on the slopes of the mountain of the theophany. They derive from St John Climacus, from whom they cite the text quoted above, but after "your breathing" interpolate the phrase "and your whole life". This addition si very characteristic of the all-embracing character which the "remembrance of Jesus" was beginning to take on. (576-7)

Ok, on to Gregory Palams...

St Gregory Palamas and the Hesychast Controversy
At about this time there broke out, in connection with hesychasm, a philosophico-theological controversy whose complexity was equalled only by its violence. It led to the thoroughly theological synthesis, by St Gregory Palamas (1296?-1359), who was first a monk of Athos and later bishop of Thessalonia. Unfortunately, the manner in which this controversy has been prolonged or unhappily revived down to our own times hardly tends to shed light on the exact significance of Gregory's spiritual theology. Not until quite recently has there been a scholarly study, patient and serene in tone. Fr Jean Meyendorff's work at last enables us to see the true origins of the Palamite controversy, and consequently to appreciate objectively the merits of this man who was the last great spiritual writer of medieval Athos, and certainly its most powerful theologian.

(J. Meyendorff, Introduction a l'etude de Gregoire Palamas and Saint Gregoire Palamas et la mystique byzantine)

It is impossible to enter here into the details fo the polemic stirred up by the Calabrian monk Barlaam who called the hesychasts Messalians and omphalopsuchoi (that is, people for whom the soul is situated in the navel). The directly spiritual motives involved were mingled with a concern, at least equally strong, for a humanistic philosophy. In addition, sociological problems--even economic ones--played their part in the background. It is enough to say that the first modern scholar in the West who applied himself to the study of these disputes, Fr Martin Jugie, A.A., contributed not a little to obscure their exact import by supposing that Barlaam was in fact an intrepid defender, in the East, of Aristotelian and Thomistic thought.The most obvious result of this simplification was not only to make Gregory Palamas appear, quite gratuitously, a heretic in the eyes of modern Catholics, but also to give the Eastern Christians the most fantastic misconceptions of what authentic Thomism really is.

Indeed, the greatest merit of Jean Meyendorff's study is to have made it clear that Barlaam, though he was a latinizer, was for all that not in the least a Thomist, but rather a Platonizing humanist, radically nominalist and anti-mystical. By comparison, Gregory Palamas appears as a strong realist and, like most of the later Byzantine theologians (despite the cliche reiterated in the West), much more of an Aristotelian than a Platonist. But what strikes us most about him is his defence--very well informed, and at the same time very conscious of the spiritual values at stake--of a spiritual tradition that was not only Byzantine but patristic. Even if his theological system bristles with difficulties for us, we can at last understand the real import, for the Greeks, of the decisions by which the controversy was closed. Barlaam was condemned at the imperial council of Sancta Sophia in 1341. In 1355, the Palamite doctrine was proclaimed as the official doctrine fo the Byzantine Church. Furthermore, in 1351, the council of the Blachernae had incorporated, in the Synodikon for the Feast of Orthodoxy, anathemas against Gregory's other adversaries, including the archaizer Akindynos and the humanist philosopher Nicephorus Gregoras. In these circumstances, it becomes difficult to see, in the canonization fo Gregory Palamas in 1368 by the patriarch Philotheus, a mere anti-Latin manifestation, schismatical and more or less heretical. The Byzantine church itself certainly saw it as a fresh proclamation and more precise definition of a spiritual tradition whose substance comes from the great Greek Fathers, through the intermediary of what was best in Byzantine spirituality.

In the Tomus hagioreticus, which was also signed by all the hegumenoi of the Holy Mountain in 1340-1, Palamaqs sums up as follows against Barlaam's anti-hesychast accusations the arguments that he had already developed in his Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts:

The doctrines which today are a common heritage, known by all and openly proclaimed, were, under the Mosaic law, but mysteries, accesible in advance only in visions to the prophets. On the other hand, the good things of the world to come, whihc are prophesied by teh saints, constitute the mysteries of the evangelical community, for the Spirit makes the saints worthy of this vision. They receive these good things and behold them in advance, as first-fruits.

Some of them, indeed, have been initiated by actual experience: all those who have abandoned the enjoyment of material goods, human glory, and the sinful pleasures of the body, and have preferred the life of the Gospel, and who have furthermore confirmed that abandonment of the world by embracing obedience to those who have attained maturity in Christ. With no other care than themselves, by rigorous attention and pure prayer, having attained to God by a mystical and supra-intellectual union with him, they have been initiated into that which surpasses understanding.... This deifying grace of God is said by th edivine Maximus, speaking of Melchisedech, to be uncreated and eternal, proceeding from the eternal God.

The doctrine that was more and more firmly adopted by teh Byzantine Church, in the course of the conciliar and patriarchal decisions noted above, was, properly speaking, that of this Tomus. It is important therefore clearly to see its significance. The first point to be emphasized is its general affirmation fo the orthodoxy of hesychast spirituality, without going into the details of the technique which had developed, little by little on Mount Athos. The second is the noteworthy statement that mystical experience is the normal counterpart of a properly oriented ascetical life. The third is the very strong consciousness of the continuity of this experience, in monastic tradition, with prophetic experience, and of its character of a foretaste of that experience of heaven which is promised in the gospels. Finally must be mentioned the emphasis placed by the Tomus on the fact that mystical experience, however mysterious it may be, is (as the Fathers and notably St Maximus bear witness) a direct experience of God in himself, and not merely of his created effects.

As for the theology developed by Palamas to defend and illustrate this doctrine, especially in his homilies on the Transfiguration, only such aspects of it as bear directly upon spirituality will be discussed here.

In the first place, it is interesting to note that, unlike his contemporary St Gregory of Sinai, Gregory is not concerned with the details fo the psycho-physiological technique of Athonite hesychasm. He adopts one element of it, and one alone: the possibility of a vision of God, a vision in which the body is in some way involved. This is what led him systematically to connect the luminous vision of "Macarius", Simeon and the hesychasts with the light of Thabor (that is, with the vision of the transfigured Christ) and, more generally, with all the scriptural visions of God that are expressed in terms of light and fire.

It also led him to re-appraise the expressions used in the Macarian tradition, as opposed to the Evagrian, by which religious anthropology was again centred on the "heart" in the biblical sense of the word, rather than on the nous, that is, pure intelligence. What is more, he drew from it not only a very prudent justification fo the idea that a method of spirituality in which the body has a share is entirely scriptural and Christian, but he also developed the more precise notion that, in the mystical vision, our whole being, body and soul, is associated in a manner mysterious but real, with those first-fruits of the resurrection which are constituted by that experience. This idea, it will be remembered, is already found in more than embryonic form in Diadochus of Photike.

At this point, to reply to Barlaam's accusation tha tthe hesychasts claimed to see the essence of God with their bodily eyes, Palamas put forward the famous distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies. He certainly did not invent this distinction, but he developed it and probably gave it a new precision. According to him, no creature can participate in the essence of God, which is invisible not only to the eyes of the body but also to those of the soul itself--indeed, to any created spirit whatever. On the other hand, the energies of God, although they are uncreated and are inseparable from his essence, can be participated in by the whole man. Thus the light of Thabor can be called "uncreated", even though the apostles saw it shining from the very face of the transfigured Christ, as the first-fruits of his resurrection and their own.

What are we to think of this distinction? It must be admitted it is foreshadowed, at least, by teh Cappadocians, particularly St Gregory Nazianzen, in a text which is quoted in the preceding volume and there commented upon. What is more, it seems to be in direct line with the Jewish conception of God's transcendence and immanence. In that conception, God in himself is distinguished (though never separated) from his Face, his Angel, his Presence, or his Word, through which he enters into contact with his creatures.

This is not to say that such a distinction does not raise the thorniest metaphysical problems. We shall not, however, discuss them here, but it seems difficult to deny, after the work of Jean Meyendorff, that Gregory Palamas himself never emphasized the philosophical aspect of his thought. Still less did the Church of Byzantium when it approved his doctrine and canonized him. Like the Cappadocians, or the rabbis before them, all that he sought to affirm was the possibility of a real and immediate contact between man and God in divine grace, whlie rejecting any sort of pantheism or "divinization" which would make us "gods" in the pagan hellenistic sense. (584-8)

Dr. Michael Liccione believes that the essential points of Gregory Palmas' teachings can be reconciled with Latin theology. See, for example, his comments here, in response to Stephen Todd Kaster and Photios Jones.

I wonder if there is an Orthodox equivalent of Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum.

Quick notes on Miller

Answering the Biochemical Argument from Design:

How does a system arise in the first place?

Comparison between eubacteria flagella and Type III secretory appartus.
formal identity versus materal identity
Is materal identity sufficient for formal identity?
Function--> moved to work by presence of object? What is the efficient cause?

The Flagellum Unspun:
Is homology sufficient to show materal identity? Or is this an inference from DNA sequence? (How do we know that protein folding, etc. is the same--resulting in proteins with the same structure and powers?)

Other links:
Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe
Is the Complement System Irreducibly Complex?
Darwin's Black Box
Determing the protein responsible for torque generation in E. coli
The Evolution of Vertebrate Blood Clotting

Michael Behe

Evidently Kenneth Miller was at BC to give a talk about 5 months ago; I vaguely remember that, but I decided not to go... maybe because I could tell what direction he was going to go in, even though I don't think I knew that much about his position. Then again, maybe I had read something by him but just forgot.

I got a chance to take a pic with Dr. Behe; I'll post it over at The New Beginning.

The Lady Downstairs was shocked by some of the rather ignorant questions the undergraduates posed. Some were rather combatative, but what else would one expect on a hot-button issue like this? Attendance was good; mostly undergraduates, plus one or two grad students in philosophy, some grad students in theology, Dr. Kreeft, maybe one other faculty member? But no one introducing himself as a member of the biology faculty at B.C. No interest? Or more important things to do?

In his presentation he didn't address the two articles Dr. Miller has over at his website. (But he did publish a response to one of them last year.)

Afterwards, I asked him about his views on the structuralists and he responded that he was not very familiar with them. I tried to characterized structuralism as the search for laws that govern development (and by extension, evolution), and Dr. Behe did not think that it would be ultimately successful, since he believed that the initial conditions already had design "implanted" in them. (I think I got his response down.) He also thought that an algorithm would not be able to capture the information necessary for the system. (Which presupposes that information can be quantifiable, and a certain understanding of information theory. Does he share the same information theory as William Dembski?)

Dr. Behe said that he has another book coming out this year--I'm looking foward to it. In the meantime, I'll e-mail him for an essay he wrote in response to Dr. Miller last year, as well as for some references to flagellum synthesis.

Some reflections
neo-Darwinists (and scientists in general) must avoid the fallacy of affirming the consequent
evolution --> genetic (or structural) similarities
genetic (or structural) similarities
therefore, evolution

At best, one can argue that it is "probable" that evolution took place. But, in order to make this claim (or even the stronger claim that evolution has taken place), one needs to show that possible explanations have been definitively ruled out.

For example, using a variation of Ockham's razor, one could argue that God as creator keeps things as simple as possible, and hence there are genetic (or structural) similarities.

[Now, this may not be falsifiable (a la Popper).]

If it is the case that a-->b, but x-->b or y-->b, then one needs to show ~x and ~y.
For example, if x-->c or y-->c, then if it can be shown ~c, one might conclude from modus tollens that ~x or ~y. But, is it modus tollens necessary the case for physical causality? Is physical causality necessary, or contingent? (Something else could intervene to prevent the effect from coming to be.) Does modus tollens only apply then to logical necessity or something of the sort?

Is it wise to compare a living thing to a machine? After all, a machine is not a substantial unity, while a living thing is. A machine comes to be purely from an external cause--construction is "received" by the parts. On the other hand, when a living thing reproduces or develops, it itself is a causes of this taking place. (Though how this is so needs to be explained well.) Living things, after all, move themselves, and reproduction of single-celled organisms or development of more complex organisms is a form of self-motion.

Kant apparently compares living things to machines; I recall that W. Carroll and S. Baldner criticized Behe precisely on this point.

If development is a natural motion, and is also natural in the sense that it is not conscious or intelligent, is it not the case that there must be intelligence guiding development? Similarly, for the synthesis or generation of parts like the flagellum? Does the substantial form of a thing provide the plan? It seems not, though development proceeds in accordance with the form or with the nature of a thing and is not counter to it (except "incidentally"(?) if there is a defect in the matter?).

A complex part like a flagellum is not generated simply through a single sequence of DNA being transcribed. (Dr. Behe confirmed this for me.) Hence, my interest in the literature. Rather, different genes are involved, and other proteins come into play as well. I will have to look at the details once I get some articles, but it seems like a good example to use to illustrate my point, so I'll wait until then.

In development, what are the initial conditions? (As determined by the constituents that are first present, or specifically by their virtual powers, or "natures" as it were?) While the First Mover is always "at work," what operations of the organism are first, and which are caused by those? What parts act on other parts to get the ball rolling, as it were? (And I'm not thinking of a domino effect, but at any point in time, if there is some motion taking place, the First Mover is present. The First Mover does not simply push the first domino, with each subsequent domino taking care of the rest of the domino effect by itself...)

How do the Orthodox view Augustine?

Found this on the Medeival Academy calendar:

14-16 June 2007. "Orthodox Readings of Augustine." The First International Conference of the Orthodoxy in America Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University, at the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University in the Bronx. This conference will bring together prominent Eastern Orthodox theologians and historians to offer their own interpretations of Augustine's place in the Orthodox Church. The conference also includes the perspectives of well-known Roman Catholic and Anglican scholars who are knowledgeable about the reception of Augustine in the East and/or the continued theological dialogue between Eastern and Western Christians. Contact George Demacopoulos (demacopoulos@fordham.edu) or Aristotle Papanikolaou (papanikolaou@fordham.edu; conference website).

I wonder what will be said about Augustine.

I learned of this today, during the Philosophy block party--there is a posting of news, honors, and other such things.

John Manoussakis was appointed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, chaired by Walter Cardinal Kasper and the Metropolitan of Pergamos John Zizioulas. The first meeting of the Commission will take place in Belgrade this September.

online source

Curious--I have heard that he was a monk for a time, and I've seen him serve as a deacon during the Divine Liturgy in honor of St. Nicholas at BC. Still, I believe he collaborated with Richard Kearney; and he was an editor of the BACAP proceedings. So is he a post-modern who happens to be acquainted with Greek philosophy? And what would Orthodox such as those over at Energetic Procession make of him.

Some clues about morphogenesis

Not sure if this is the article Dr. George mentioned in his talk at BC several years ago about embryos and cloning, but good nonetheless. (One should be able to find more in-depth information about the unequal distribution of materials/early differentiation in the zygote elsewhere.)

source, via The Hermeneutic of Continuity

This article is from the News Features section of the journal "Nature."

"Your Destiny, From Day One"

The mammalian body plan starts being laid down from the moment of conception, it has emerged. Helen Pearson considers the implications of a surprising shift in embryological thinking.

8 July 2002
Helen Pearson

Our body plan is being defined in the first few hours of life.

Your world was shaped in the first 24 hours after conception. Where your head and feet would sprout, and which side would form your back and which your belly, were being defined in the minutes and hours after sperm and egg united.

Just five years ago, this statement would have been heresy. Mammalian embryos were thought to spend their first few days as a featureless orb of cells. Only later, at about the time of implantation into the wall of the uterus, were cells thought to acquire distinct 'fates' determining their positions in the future body.

But by tagging specific points on mammalian eggs shortly after fertilization, researchers have now shown that they come to lie at predictable points in the embryo. Rather than being a naive sphere, it seems that a newly fertilized egg has a defined top-bottom axis that sets up the equivalent axis in the future embryo. Controversially, one group even claims that the spot on the egg at which the sperm enters determines where the first cell division occurs - and that the resulting two cells already have a bias towards different fates.

This new understanding opens fresh avenues of study for developmental biologists. But it also raises the possibility that any technique that meddles with early human development - such as the removal of cells from an early embryo for pre-implantation genetic testing - might potentially be harmful. "It's possible you could be removing a cell with a predictable fate and causing damage," says Alan Handyside, who studies embryo abnormalities at the University of Leeds, UK.

Biologists have long known that the eventual axes of the embryo in most species are laid down either before fertilization, or in the first hours afterwards. In fruit flies, for instance, the egg inherits a molecule that is more concentrated at one end of the egg than the other, and thus defines the head-tail axis.

Heads or tails?

But mammalian embryos were considered to be a special case. First, they have a striking ability to compensate for damage. Split up the first two cells of a mouse embryo and both recover to make two apparently normal mice. Second, only around 15% of cells in the blastocyst - a hollow sphere of cells that forms some five days after conception - contribute towards the body proper, rather than supporting tissues such as the placenta. These cells reside in a structure called the inner cell mass (ICM). Finally, the first visible sign of a distinguishable head or tail takes 6.5 days to appear in mouse embryos. "All that argued against the idea of there being a map on the egg," says developmental biologist John Gurdon of the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge.

Oil drops place on two-celled embryos (top), are carried into the blastocyst (bottom).
© R.Gardner/Nature

The first hint that the blastocyst was not the unassuming orb it appeared came in the 1980s. Two little-noticed studies from Jean Smith of Queen's College in Flushing, New York, showed that the mouse blastocyst, rather than a being a symmetrical sphere, is slightly distorted and has recognizable axes1, 2. What's more, these axes appeared to match up with those of the fetus, suggesting that the former sets up the latter.

The findings prompted Richard Gardner, an embryologist at the University of Oxford, UK, to repeat the work, drawing similar conclusions3 . But it took another five years before Gardner could make anyone listen. "People were quite hostile," he recalls.

Gardner suspected that the axes present in the blastocyst were there from the moment of conception. But to show that a specific point on the fertilized egg consistently maps to a particular position on the embryo, he needed a way of tagging the egg without disturbing it. He found such a marker in the form of the second polar body, a 'spare' set of chromosomes thrown out of the egg when the sperm enters: it remains glued to the embryo's surface in a set position.

Impossible to ignore

Examining blastocysts, Gardner found that the polar body consistently perched on a line of latitude dividing the upper hemisphere, containing the ICM, from the lower hemisphere4. This suggested that the top and bottom of the egg line up with, and may determine, the left and right sides of the blastocyst. He backed up this idea by using oil drops placed in the jelly-like protein coat of two-cell embryos to trace cell axes more accurately5. "People could no longer ignore that there was patterning information in the egg," says Gardner.

Meanwhile, Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz's team at the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Institute had found that this pattern is retained by the embryo after implantation. The researchers took unimplanted blastocysts and labelled cells at one or other pole of each with a fluorescent protein before transferring them into female mice and allowing them to implant. After 6.5 days, these cells ended up towards either one end or the other of the embryo6.

Dyeing to know: Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz used different-coloured stains to track the descendants of the first two embryonic cells (top).
© M. Zernicka-Goetz/Nature

But how does the initial pattern get there? Zernicka-Goetz suspected the act of fertilization itself was the key, and injected sticky fluorescent beads under the coat of mouse eggs at the spot where sperm had penetrated. In most cases, the bead's position roughly coincided with the equator of the first cell division, implying that the sperm's entry point determines where the cell first divides7.

In subsequent experiments, Zernicka-Goetz painted the first two cells, one red, one blue, using dyes dissolved in olive oil. She then tracked their descendants into the blastocyst. One cell usually gave rise to the region containing the ICM, the other to the region largely destined to make the placenta and other supporting tissues8.

Zernicka-Goetz's conclusion is that the first division of the egg influences the fate of each cell and ultimately, all the tissues of the body. "There is a memory of the first cleavage in our life," says Zernicka-Goetz.

Gardner disputes the idea that the sperm entry point is critical, arguing that Zernicka-Goetz's fluorescent beads are drifting away from the point of fertilization. In recent work, he used components of the sperm's discarded tail to mark its entry position into the egg, and found no association with the equator of the first cell division9. Zernicka-Goetz has countered with a third way of marking the entry site using fluorescently labelled sperm that transfer their label to the egg - and re-asserted her original conclusion10. She is now working on eggs triggered into developing without sperm. If the first cell division in these embryos produces cells that contribute more equally to each half of the blastocyst, it will boost her theory that the point of sperm entry is the key factor.

Patterns pending

Developmental biologists are now keen to work out the molecular mechanisms underlying the patterning information in early mammalian embryos. As in fruit flies, they may contain an asymmetrically distributed 'determinant', a molecule that influences cell fate and is inherited unequally in the first cell division. Jonathan Van Blerkom of the University of Colorado at Boulder has intriguing evidence that two proteins are distributed in this way in human and mouse eggs11. He does not believe that these molecules are the determinants, but rather that their distribution is determined by the action of a yet-to-be-discovered mechanism.

Other researchers suspect that the sperm's entry on one side triggers a complete re-organization of the egg's internal skeleton that then makes cells at different positions in the embryo divide at slightly different times.

Another mystery is how early mammalian embryos retain the ability to develop normally if damaged or split in two, given the existence of patterning information that appears to narrow down cell fate. Most researchers think that the patterning information is quite weak, so that cells become biased towards producing certain tissues, rather than irrevocably committed. Only later are the biases stabilized and cell fates fixed.

Nevertheless, the existence of patterning information in the early human embryo raises the issue of whether certain assisted-reproduction techniques could disrupt the delicate processes of establishing body axes.

Sperm entry may be an important factor.
© GettyImages

If sperm entry point is an important factor, for instance, that throws up questions about intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection, in which sperm from infertile men are injected directly into the egg. Pre-implantation genetic testing, in which two cells are removed from an eight-cell embryo to test for inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis, is another area of concern. "Perhaps we should pay attention to which cells we remove," says Handyside. But other experts believe that the flexibility of human embryos is sufficient to compensate for these manipulations. Damaged embryos may, in any case, spontaneously abort.

What is clear is that developmental biologists will no longer dismiss early mammalian embryos as featureless bundles of cells - and that leaves them with some work to do. "I believe in the new philosophy," says Tom Fleming, a developmental biologist at the University of Southampton, UK, "but there's a lot of detail yet to be understood."

References
Smith, L. J. J. Embryological Experimental Morphology 55, 257 - 277 (1980).
Smith, L. J. J. Embryol. Exp. Morph 89, 15 - 35 (1985).
Gardner, R. L. , Meredith, M. R. & Altman, D. G. Journal of Experimental Zoology 264, 437 - 443 (2002).
Gardner, R. L. Development 124, 289 - 301 (1997).
Gardner, R. L. Development 128, 839 - 847 (2001).
Weber, R. J. et al.Development 126, 5591 - 5598 (1999).
Piotrowska, K. & Zernicka-Goetz, M. Nature 409, 517 - 521 (2001).
Piotrowska, K. et al. Development 128, 3739 - 3748 (2001).
Davies, T. J. & Gardner, R. L. Human Reproduction, (in the press).
Plusa, P. , Piotrowska, K. & Zernicka-Goetz, M. Genesis 32, 193 - 198 (2002).
Antcsak, M. & Van Blerkom, J. Molecular Human Reproduction 3, 1067 - 1086 (1997).

© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002
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