Here
is the text of the third ECT document as it appeared in FIRST THINGS,
August/September 2002 issue. I will post my comments separately. (font
added)
In the spring of 1994, a group of Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants issued a much-discussed statement, “Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium” (FT, May 1994). That statement, commonly referred to as “ECT,” noted a growing “convergence and cooperation” between Evangelicals and Catholics in many public tasks, and affirmed agreement in basic articles of Christian faith while also underscoring the continuing existence of important differences. The signers promised to engage those differences in continuing conversations, and this has been done in meetings of noted theologians convened by Mr. Charles Colson and Father Richard John Neuhaus. At a meeting in the fall of 1996, it was determined that further progress depended upon firm agreement on the meaning of salvation, and especially the doctrine of justification. After much discussion, study, and prayer over the course of a year, the statement “The Gift of Salvation” was agreed to at a meeting in New York City in October 1997, and published in the January issue of this (FIRST THINGS) journal. The next question taken up by ECT participants was the relationship between Scripture and tradition. The following statement, “Your Word Is Truth,” is the product of intense and extended deliberation and was first published this summer by Eerdmans in a book by the same title. The participants express the hope that those responding with critical evaluations of the statement will consult the scholarly papers prepared for their deliberation and to be found in the book. The ECT project continues and is currently studying Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant understandings of “the communion of saints” (communion sanctorum).
--The Editors
We
thank God for the years of prayer, study, and conversation in the project known
as “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.” Among the many blessings resulting
from this cooperative effort, we note especially our common affirmation of the
most central truths of Christian faith, including justification by faith, in the
1997 statement, “The Gift of Salvation.” From the beginning of this venture,
and at each step along the way, we have insisted that the only unity among
Christians that can be pleasing to God is unity in truth. Therefore, we have
understood it to be our duty to note, carefully and clearly, matters both of
agreement and of disagreement between Evangelicals and Catholics.
God
gives His people full and final knowledge of His plan of salvation through Jesus
Christ. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the
prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed
the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world” (Hebrews
1:1-2). The Son sent and sends the Holy Spirit who, bestowing the gift of faith,
creates the community of faith for whose unity Jesus prayed. Christ himself is
the head and cornerstone of his Church, which is built on the foundation of
apostles and prophets. In its understanding, believing, celebrating, living, and
proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit
(Ephesians
Both
Evangelicals and Catholics affirm the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,
as set forth in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, but they define the Church
and its attributes in distinctive ways. Evangelicals stress the priority of the
gospel over the Church whose primary mission is to herald the good news of
God’s salvation in Christ. For Evangelicals, the church as the one body of
Christ extending through space and time includes all the redeemed of all the
ages and all on earth in every era who have come to living faith in the body’s
living Head. Everyone who is personally united to Christ, having been justified
by faith alone through his atoning death, belongs to his body and by the Spirit
is united with every other true believer in Jesus. Evangelicals maintain that
the one Church becomes visible on earth in all local congregations that meet to
do together the things that, according to Scripture, the Church does.
Catholics
hold that the Church is the body of Christ, a sacramental and mystical communion
in which Christ is truly and effectually present and through which his
justifying and sanctifying grace is mediated. While Christ is the unique
mediator of salvation for all humanity the Church
of
While
Catholics and Evangelicals have not been able to reconcile these different views
of the Church, with both communities finding serious aberrations in the
ecclesial understanding of the other, as individual believers we do recognize in
one another, when and where God so permits it, the evident reality of God’s
grace expressed by our trust in Jesus himself as Master and divine Savior. All
who truly believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord are brothers and sisters in
the Lord even though they are not in full ecclesial fellowship.
In
communion with the body of faithful Christians through the ages, we also affirm
together that the entire teaching, worship, ministry, life, and mission of
Christ’s Church is to be held accountable to the final authority of Holy
Scripture, which, for Evangelicals and Catholics alike, constitutes the word of
God in written form (2 Timothy 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:21). We agree that the phrase
“word of God” refers preeminently to Jesus Christ (John 1:1,14). It is also
rightly said that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the word of God, as is the
faithful preaching of the gospel (Acts 6:7; 8:4). Then the canon, the listed set
of writings making up the Bible, is recognized by the community of faith as the
written word of God, possessing final authority for faith and life. On the
extent of the canon we do not entirely agree, though the sixty-six books of the
Protestant canon are not in dispute. In every form – the gospel, the preaching
of the gospel, and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments – the word of
God is in service to Jesus Christ, the Word of God preeminent.
The
divinely inspired writings of the New Testament convey the apostolic teaching,
which is the authoritative interpretation of God’s revelation in Christ. The
early Christian community recognized the authority of the first apostles who
planted local churches and urged them to be faithful to the teaching they had
received. Still today we possess that apostolic teaching in the New Testament,
which, together with the Old Testament of which the New is the authoritative
interpretation, is the written word of God. This entire process of the reception
and transmission of God’s revelation is the work of the Holy Spirit (John
14:26; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21).
Evangelicals
and Catholics alike recognize the promised guidance of the Spirit in the
elucidation and unfolding of apostolic teaching that took place as historic
Christian orthodoxy emerged. This continuing work of the Spirit is evident in,
for instance, the formulation of the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds,
and in the conciliar resolution of disputes regarding the two natures of Christ
and the triune life of God. Such development of doctrine, typically in response
to grave error and deviant traditions built upon such error, is to be understood
not as an addition to apostolic teaching contained in Holy Scripture but as
Spirit-guided insight into the fullness of that teaching. In this way, the Lord
has enabled faithful believers both to counter error and make explicit what is
implicit in the written Word of God.
In
the course of that same history, and in the context of crises posed by
philosophical and cultural changes as well as manifest ecclesiastical
corruptions, the question of how to determine authentic apostolic teaching came
into intense dispute. The mainline Reformers of the sixteenth century posited
what is called the “formal principle,” which holds that the Scriptures are
(in the words of the 2000 Amsterdam Declaration) “the inspired revelation of
God…totally true and trustworthy, and the only infallible rule of faith and
practice.” The Reformers vigorously protested what they viewed as deviations
from biblical teaching, but they never used Scripture to undermine the
Trinitarian and Christological consensus of the early Church embodied in the
historic creeds that had come down from patristic times. The Reformers stoutly
resisted the charge of innovation: they did not seek to found new churches but
sought simply to reform the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church on the
basis of the word of God.
We
who are Evangelicals recognize the need to address the widespread
misunderstanding in our community that sola scriptura (Scripture alone) means
nuda scriptura (literally, Scripture unclothed; i.e., denuded of and abstracted
from its churchly context). The phrase sola scriptura refers to the primacy and
sufficiency of Scripture as the theological norm – the only infallible rule of
faith and practice – over all tradition rather than the mere rejection of
tradition itself. The isolation of Scripture study from the believing community
of faith (nuda scriptura) disregards the Holy Spirit’s work in guiding the
witness of the people of God to scriptural truths, and leaves the interpretation
of that truth vulnerable to unfettered subjectivism. At the same time, we insist
that all Christians should have open access to the Bible, and should be
encouraged to read and study the Scriptures, for in them all that is necessary
for salvation is set forth so clearly that the simplest believer, no less than
the wisest theologian, may arrive at a sufficient understanding of them.
We
who are Catholics must likewise address the widespread misunderstanding in our
community that tradition is an addition to Holy Scripture or a parallel and
independent source of authoritative teaching. When Catholics say, “Scripture
and tradition,” they intend to affirm that the lived experience (tradition) of
the community of faith through time includes the ministry of faithful
interpreters guided by the Holy Spirit in discerning and explicating the
revealed truth contained in the written word of God, namely, Holy Scripture.
Together
we affirm that Scripture is the divinely inspired and uniquely authoritative
written revelation of God; as such it is normative for the teaching and life of
the Church. We also affirm that tradition, rightly understood as the proper
reflection of biblical teaching, is the faithful transmission of the truth of
the gospel from generation to generation through the power of the Holy Spirit.
As Evangelicals and Catholics fully committed to our respective heritages, we
affirm together the coinherence of Scripture and tradition: tradition is not a
second source of revelation alongside the Bible but must ever be corrected and
informed by it, and Scripture itself is not understood in a vacuum apart from
the historical existence and life of the community of faith. Faithful believers
in every generation live by the memories and hopes of the actus tradendi of the
Holy Spirit: this is true whenever and wherever the word of God is faithfully
translated, sincerely believed, and truly preached.
We
recognize that confessing a high doctrine of the nature and place of Scripture
is insufficient without a firm commitment to the intense devotional,
disciplined, and prayerful engagement with Scripture. We rejoice to note that in
our communities, and in joint study involving people from both communities, such
engagement is increasingly common. In this engagement with Scripture, Evangelicals
and Catholics are learning from one another: Catholics from the evangelical
emphasis on group Bible study and commitment to the majestic and final authority
of the written word of God; and Evangelicals from the Catholic emphasis on
scripture in the liturgical and devotional life, informed by the lived
experience of Christ's Church through the ages.
There
always have been, and likely will be until our Lord returns in glory, disputes
and disagreements about how rightly to discern the teaching of the Word of God
in Holy Scripture. We affirm that Scripture is to be read in company with the
community of faith past and present. Individual ideas of what the Bible means
must be brought to the bar of discussion and assessment by the wider fellowship.
“The
church of the living God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Timothy
Evangelicals
and Catholics alike are concerned with these questions – What does the Bible
authoritatively teach? And how does Christ’s Church apply this teaching
authoritatively today? Catholics believe that this teaching authority is
invested in the Magisterium, namely, the Bishop of Rome, who is the successor of
Peter, and the bishops in communion with him. Some Evangelicals see the communal
office of discerning and teaching the truth in the covenanted congregation of
baptized believes, while others see it in a wider synodical or Episcopal
connection. In either case, however, Evangelicals believe that a true
understanding of the Bible is achieved only through the illuminating action of
the Holy Spirit. For this reason, all attempts at discernment and teaching must
rely on prayerful attentiveness to the guidance of the Spirit in the study of
Scripture.
While
Catholics agree that the entire community of the faithful is engaged in the
discernment of the truth (sensus fidelium), they also believe that Evangelicals
have an inadequate appreciation of certain elements of truth that, from the
earliest centuries, Christians have understood Christ to have intended for his
Church; in particular, the Petrine and other apostolic ministries. While
Evangelicals greatly respect the way in which the Catholic Church has defended
many historic Christian teachings against relativizing and secularizing trends,
and recognize the role of the present pontiff in that important task today, they
believe that some aspects of Catholic doctrine are not biblically warranted, and
they do not accept any claims of infallibility made for the magisterial
teachings of popes or church councils.
With
specific reference to the subject of the present statement, we are not agreed on
the exercise of teaching authority in the life of Christ’s church. To
Evangelicals it appears that, in practice if not in theory, the Catholic
understanding of the Magisterium, including infallibility, results in the Roman
Catholic Church standing in judgment over Scripture, instead of vice versa.
Catholics, in turn, teach that the Magisterium exercised by the successors of
the apostles – which they believe is intended by Christ, is guided by the Holy
Spirit, and is in clear continuity with the orthodox tradition – enables the
Church to explicate the truth of Holy Scripture obediently and accurately. We
both recognize that judgments must be made in the life of Christ’s Church as
to what is and what is not scriptural truth. We are not agreed on how such
judgments are to be made, nor can either group accept all the decisions that
have resulted from what they regard as a flawed way of deciding.
Among
the Catholic teachings that Evangelicals believe are not biblically warranted
are the eucharistic sacrifice and transubstantiation of the elements, the
doctrine of purgatory, the immaculate conception and bodily assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, and the claimed authority of the Magisterium, including
papal infallibility. Catholics, on the other hand, believe that Evangelicals are
deficient in their understanding of, for instance, apostolically ordered
ministry, the number and nature of the sacraments, the company and intercession
of the saints, the Spirit-guided development of doctrine, and the continuing
ministry of the Petrine office in the life of the Church. On these and other
questions of great importance, we are not agreed. Nor do we agree on how we view
our differences. Catholics view Evangelicalism as an ecclesially deficient
community that needs to be strengthened by the full complement of gifts that
they believe Christ intends for his Church. Evangelicals see Catholicism as
centering upon an idea of the Church that clouds the New Testament gospel, and
so needs to be brought into greater conformity with biblical teaching. The
contrast here is far-reaching, and goes deep.
At
the same time, we recognize that, during the past five hundred years, the Holy
Spirit, the Supreme Magisterium of God, has been faithfully at work among
theologians and exegetes in both Catholic and Evangelical communities, bringing
to light and enriching our understanding of important biblical truths in such
mates as individual spiritual growth and development, the mission of Christ’s
Church, Christian worldview thinking, and moral and social issues in today’s
world. We praise God for His faithful work within each community as He has
provided instruction and guidance in these and other important areas of
Christian faith and life.
As
Evangelicals and Catholics we are agreed on what we have said together in the
statement “The Gift of Salvation” and on what we have been able to say
together in the present statement on Scripture and tradition. The theological
disagreements that still separate us are serious and require prayerful
reflection and sustained mutual engagement. But in the face of a society marked
by unbelieving ideologies and the culture of death, we deem it all the more
important to affirm together those foundational truths of historic Christian
orthodoxy that we do hold in common.
We are confident that the Lord is watching over His gospel and over those who have been called by the gospel, and we are sure that the forces of hell will not be able to thwart His divine purpose. By God’s grace, we will continue to pray for one another, to seek greater mutual understanding in continuing conversations, and, in accordance with our deeply held convictions, to work together to bring the love and light of Christ to all persons everywhere. We earnestly invoke the Holy Spirit’s continuing guidance in further establishing and making manifest our unity in the truth of Jesus Christ, so that the world may come to believe (John 17:21). In union with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we together pray, “Sanctify us in the truth; Your word is truth.” (John 17:17).
EVANGELICAL
PROTESTANTS
Dr.
Harold O.J. Brown
Reformed Theological Seminary
Mr.
Charles Colson
Prison Fellowship
Dr.
Kent R. Hill
Eastern
Dr.
Frank A. James
Reformed Theological Seminary
Dr.
Cheryl Bridges Johns
Dr.
T.M. Moore
Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church
Dr.
Thomas Oden
Dr.
James J.I. Packer
Dr.
Timothy R. Philips
Dr.
John Woodbridge
ROMAN
CATHOLICS
Dr.
James J. Buckley
Avery
Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
Father
Thomas Guarino
Father
Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J.
Father
Francis Martin
John Paul Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
Father
Richard John Neuhaus
Institute on Religion and Public Life
Father
Edward T. Oakes, S.J.
Dr.
Robert Louis Wilken