Catechesis · Inquirer
Dogma, Canon, and Theology
Catechesis · Inquirer
Dogma, Canon, and Theology
Dogma is what is settled: the formal definitions of the Ecumenical Councils, received by the whole Church as the irreformable expression of the apostolic faith. The Trinity. The I…
Question
What is settled and what is open in Orthodox theology?
Dogma is what is settled: the formal definitions of the Ecumenical Councils, received by the whole Church as the irreformable expression of the apostolic faith. The Trinity. The Incarnation. The two natures and two wills of Christ. The veneration of icons. These are not subjects for revision. The canons are the disciplinary and organisational decisions of the councils -- important and authoritative, but subject to pastoral adjustment in ways that dogma is not. Theological opinion is everything else: the vast territory of legitimate exploration, disagreement, and development within the boundaries the dogma establishes.
The atonement is the most frequently cited example of a theological topic where genuine disagreement exists within the tradition. The Orthodox tradition has never defined a single theory of atonement. Christus Victor (the Resurrection as victory over death and the devil), the satisfaction theory (in a modified form), the moral influence theory, the deification account -- all have patristic roots, all have been developed by Orthodox theologians, none has been defined as the exclusively correct account. This is not a weakness but a strength: the mystery of the Cross exceeds any single theory, and the tradition's plurality of accounts is more adequate to the mystery than any single formulation.
The teaching
The limits of theology -- where the apophatic tradition applies
The apophatic tradition does not only apply to statements about God's essence. It applies to dogmatic definitions as well. The Chalcedonian definition says what cannot be said about Christ's natures -- not confused, not changed, not divided, not separated -- without claiming to explain the mystery. The canons of the councils set the boundary of the mystery rather than exhausting its content. Theological humility before the defined dogma is not an admission of ignorance but an acknowledgment of the incomprehensibility that the definitions protect.
The danger of over-definition is as real as the danger of under-definition. The Roman Catholic tradition has defined far more than the Orthodox tradition -- Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, papal infallibility, the Assumption of Mary -- on the basis that the Magisterium has the authority to define what was implicitly contained in the deposit of faith. The Orthodox position: these definitions exceed what the apostolic consensus warrants. They are theological opinions elevated to dogmatic status by a unilateral act of a single episcopal see. The discipline of not defining what has not been definitively received is itself a form of theological faithfulness.
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.
This formula (from the 17th century, often misattributed to Augustine) captures the Orthodox instinct about the scope of doctrinal authority. The necessary things are few and clearly defined: the Trinity, the Incarnation, the defined Christology. The doubtful things are many: theories of atonement, eschatological speculation, hermeneutical approach, liturgical form. In the doubtful things, the tradition expects freedom -- the freedom of genuine theological exploration within the boundaries the dogma establishes. And in everything, the charity that knows the difference between heresy and theological disagreement.
Traditional formula
On the scope of doctrinal authority
The Filioque
How a single word became the deepest division in Christianity
The Filioque ("and the Son") is the addition made by the Western church to the Nicene Creed: instead of "the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father" (the original text), the Western church recites "the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son." The addition was made gradually in the Frankish church (8th-9th c.) and eventually adopted by Rome (1014). It was rejected by the Eastern church as a unilateral alteration of an Ecumenical Council's definition without the authority of the whole Church.