Ecclesiology: Introduction
Introduction
In Chapters 12,
13, and 14, Pannenberg presents his theology of the church, or Ecclesiology.
The Nicaean Creed presents the marks of the church as its unity, holiness,
apostolicity, and catholicity. In light of the obvious diversity and weakness
of the church, theologians wrestle with how we, in our time and place, can
still affirm this portion of the creed. He will also interact throughout these
chapters with Vatican II and official ecumenical texts regarding the church,
doctrine, ministry, and sacraments. The New Testament also offers several
images or themes that provided the basis for theological reflection. In Paul,
the foundation of the church is Jesus Christ and a favorite emphasis is the
church as the body of Christ. Luke presents the church in its origin and
continuing growth as occurring in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We
can see a similar emphasis in the Gospel of John. Holding together the Son and
Spirit in terms of the history and functioning of the church becomes an
important theological them. Further, the Spirit is an eschatological gift. “Everything
in Christianity is some kind of anticipation of something that is to be at the
end of the world.”[1]
This means that “in some way” the redemption of creation and humanity promised
for the end of history is present in a provisional way in the church and in
believers. If we take seriously the Trinitarian history of God, the Spirit is
the one who will accomplish this redemption while at the same time bring glory
to the Father and the Son. The church anticipates its communion in the
fellowship of the Trinity. This fellowship reaches its goal with the redemption
of the creation and humanity. On the way to this redemption, the Spirit gathers
a provisional community of believers. The provisional community is a
worshipping community. As such, theologians will reflect upon baptism and the
Lord’s Supper as expressions of the life of the community. The provisional
community will form the character and values of its members. Consideration of
the moral exhortations of the Bible, but especially the apostles, becomes
important here. The provisional community will need organization. The gifts of
the Spirit are the primary ways the Spirit moves the fellowship of believers
toward the destiny of humanity. The role of leadership at local, regional, and
global levels becomes a consideration here. Maintaining the notion of the
church as a “sign” of the destiny of humanity with humility is a matter of much
thought and discernment. Another biblical term that deserves theological
reflection is “people of God.” This term relates the church to Israel and
Judaism. As a result, it raises the difficult theological issue of election or
predestination. It raises the question of the relation between the elect
community and world history. It raises the question of the nature of the
prophetic word in the course of world history in both the comfort and judgment
it may bring.
Karl Barth has
presented his view of the Holy Spirit awakening individuals and the community
to the reconciling work of God in Christ in Volume IV of Church Dogmatics (1953-9). Knowledge of Jesus Christ as the one who
atones for human sin and reconciles humanity involves the work of the Holy
Spirit in gathering (IV.1, 62), upbuilding (IV.2, 67), and the sending (IV.3,
72) of the community. The knowledge of Jesus will develop the being of
Christians toward faith (IV. 1, 63), love (IV.2, 68), and hope (IV.3, 73). He
wants to be clear that the being and work of Jesus Christ is the being and work
of the Holy Spirit. He will develop a notion of the Spirit that is something
like the notion in physics of the strong force, the unifying force of God in
the world. Christ as the guarantor of truth has its ground in the being and
work of the Holy Spirit. He stresses that the work of the Holy Spirit is still
lacking in the world at large. Although atonement and conversion have their
accomplishment in Christ, the hand of God has not touched all in such a way
that they can see, hear, and receive all that God has done for them. If they
receive, they could exist, think, and live in its light. The hand of God has
touched Christians in this way. In this way, only they have converted to
Christ. The Holy Spirit, far from being a private spirit, is the one who
assembles a community of those who recognize the divine power in their lives.
Again, we see the Spirit as a unifying force. While the subjective apprehension
of the atonement by individuals is indispensable, he will discuss the work of
the Spirit in the community first. The Spirit awakens the faith of the
community in justification, awakens the love of community in its
sanctification, and the witness of the community in its calling. The Spirit is
the unifying force behind the exposition he will offer of faith, love, and
hope. The being of the Christian indicated by these theological virtues is a
being in relation, that is, in community. Faith, love, and hope in this
relation to Jesus Christ are primarily the work of the Spirit in community, and
then in the individual Christian.
One notion of Paul
Tillich has had an effect upon me. The opening of Volume III of his Systematic Theology (1963) is a
masterful re-working of “life and the Spirit.” He writes of the differing
dimensions of life, leading from the inorganic, organic, and spiritual
dimensions. He then considers the various ambiguities of the self-actualization
of life that he finds in self-integration (sacrifice and moral law),
self-creativity (culture and meaning), and self-transcendence (religion). He
then considers spiritual presence as it shows itself in the human spirit,
especially in faith and love. Considering the spiritual presence in history, he
finds a place for the religions as anticipation of the New Being he sees in
Jesus as the Christ. He writes of the Spiritual Community, which he views as
far broader than simply the church or even religion. As he sees it, the
Spiritual Community exists in religion, culture, and morality. It remains
latent in humanity, the fragmentary and anticipatory sign of its presence being
the presence of faith and love. It remains hidden, but it determines the nature
of the visible church. In any case, this Spiritual Community is present in
religion, morality, and culture, and in that sense does not exist alongside
other groups, but has a power and structure within. This suggests that
“Spiritual Presence” and “Spiritual Community” are broader than the
organizational life.[2]
In other words, pastors and churches are not working to lay onto human life
something alien to such life, but rather are seeking to find ways for people to
express what is already present in them. Viewed properly, this notion can be
liberating in that pastors and churches exist to direct properly what is
already present in our neighbors and in our culture.
For Tillich,
“Spiritual Presence” is a primary theme.[3]
The divine Spirit manifests itself in the human spirit. The human spirit
expresses itself in morality, culture, and religion. Spirit is a dimension of
life that unites the power of being with the meaning of being. One cannot have
an understanding of the Divine Spirit apart from a dimension of the human
spirit. The spirit is a dimension of finite life driven toward successful
self-transcendence, grasped by something ultimate and unconditional, an
experience to which he refers as ecstasy or revelatory experience. Such an
experience is the nature of the saving experience. The Spiritual Presence
creates an ecstasy drives the human being beyond the self without destroying
the rational structure. Such an experience does something to the human spirit
that the human spirit could not do by itself. In that moment, the Divine Spirit
grasping the individual has created the unambiguous life. The human spirit is
asking the question of the unambiguous life, but only the creative power of the
Spiritual Presence is an answer. One cannot compel the divine Spirit to enter
the human spirit. One can think of this dimension as that of depth, the
ultimate, or the eternal. Such a dimension is the ground of being for all other
dimensions and the aim toward which self-transcendence aims. Everything finite
has a qualification in its relation to the Infinite. A phenomenology of the
Spiritual Presence in the world would include such ecstasy as the work of the
Divine Spirit disrupting structure, without destroying it. The Spiritual
Presence is universal and has an extraordinary character. One can think of it
as inspiration, infusion, breathing, and pouring. The Spiritual Presence is not
a teacher, but a meaning-bearing power that grasps the human spirit in an
ecstatic experience. He refers to Paul as a theologian of the Spirit. He refers
to the institutionally profane and the secularly profane manifestations of
Divine Spirit. His notion of Spiritual Presence will keep one from devotion to
only rational structures and allow for the freedom of the Divine Spirit. He
wants to defend ecstatic manifestations of the Spiritual Presence against
critics who want to defend the institution. For him, the New Testament, and
especially Paul, is the best defense of these movements of the Spirit. He
likens ecstasy to intoxication, which give temporary release from the burden of
personal and communal existence, even if, in the end, it lacks spiritual
productivity and creativity. He sees ecstasy as productive enthusiasm in one
who pronounces the divine Word, one who contemplates, one who prays earnestly.
Jürgen Moltmann (The Church in the Power of the Spirit,
1975, 1977) has offered his contribution to the theology of the church, one
that Pannenberg respects. I will mention here that his discussion of the church
of Jesus Christ, the church of the rule of God, and the church in the presence
and power of the Holy Spirit is a powerful discussion. He also provides a
thoughtful reflection on the marks of the church as a balance of unity and
freedom, catholicity and partisanship, holiness and poverty, and apostolic in
suffering.
Jürgen Moltmann
has said it well. The first word of the church is not “church,” but Christ. The
final word of the church is not church, but glorifying the Father and the Son
in the liberty that comes from the Spirit. In that sense, any reflection on the
church begins with insight into the Trinitarian history of God in dealing with
humanity.[4]
He will stress that focusing on this history makes those in the church aware
that the mission of the church is not the saving of the world. Rather, the
mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father is the saving of the
world, and this Trinitarian history creates the church in its historical forms.
It glorifies God in creation, it participates in reconciling humanity with
creation and with each other, and it participates in the loving history of God
with those who suffer.[5]
Robert W. Jenson
stresses that if the church understands itself as founded in events prior to
Pentecost and not in Pentecost as a divine initiative commensurate to the
resurrection, the church will have the temptation to seek its self-identity
through time in a sanctified by still worldly institutionalism, in a
hierarchical sacramentalism. What he stresses is that the church will
experience unease if it does not hold together the founding experiences of
Christ and the Spirit, for then, neither the institutions of the church nor her
charismatic reality can have their proper congruence.[6]
[1] John
Wesley, Sermon 141, “On the Holy Spirit,” 1736.
[2] Systematic Theology, Volume III, 152-61.
[3] Systematic Theology, Volume III, 111-20.
[4] The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 19-20.
[5] Ibid,
64-65.
[6] Systematic Theology: Volume 2, The Work of
Christ, Oxford University Press: New York, 1999, 180-81
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