Holiness

It should go without saying that this post won’t even approach a comprehensive take on this topic. Nevertheless, I think that Francisco Suarez’s (d. 1617) views on this topic are of interest because they indicate that the “goalposts” are not being moved as we address recent events and commentary about the Roman Catholic Church.  In his treatise on theological faith, he dedicates Disputation IX to the Church. (Actually, it turns out that Disputations IX-XI were supplied by an editor from elsewhere in Suarez’s writings. But I’ll set aside these textual issues for now.)

There he asks whether we rightly profess that the Church is holy. Apparently, there was some controversy about how to explain the holiness of the Church in light of the obvious sinfulness of many Christians. A position was ascribed to the Spanish Dominican theologian, Melchior Cano (d. 1560), that Christian sinners (or sinful Christians?) were parts of the Church but not members. By contrast, Suarez argues that sinners are members of the Church because the Church of God is a “certain political or moral body composed of those human beings professing the true faith of Christ” (245). It is faith, not sanctity, which is the form of the members of the Church.

To uphold his position that faith has this role, Suarez must reply to an objection based on the Creed’s reference to the holiness of the Church. He says that the Church is holy “in profession, religion, and doctrine” (248). The Church can be called holy because it is the Church’s proper role to “create saints”–sinners are contrary to its purpose and intention. Of course, the Church Triumphant in heaven is holy without this sort of qualification. Suarez quotes Augustine’s Retractions, bk. 2, where he says that purity is the telos or goal of the Church, which is not obtained in this life. Nonetheless, even for the Church Militant, one can refer to its parts or members as holy because the just are the “principal parts” of the Church. Even though the just or righteous or those in a state of grace and charity have venial sins, they are still sometimes referred to as “immaculate” in Scripture (Psalm [18:20-26, esp. 24]).

In his more sustained discussion of the Church’s holiness, with direct reference to the Creed or Symbol, he says that this profession is true for a number of reasons (270):

1. A thing is named with reference to its better part. He does not refer here to the clergy but to those who are just. Bringing about the existence of such human beings is in accordance with the “intention and plan (institutum) of the Church” (270), even though the righteous are “fewer in number than the sinners.” Suarez makes the noteworthy claim here that “a single (unicus) just person is of greater value before God than a multitude of sinners.”
2. The end, means, laws, sacrifices, sacraments, and all that is directed to the worship (cultus) of God are holy. The whole of the Church is dedicated to such holy worship.
3. The Church can be called holy (sancta) in the sense of being sanctioned (sancire), safeguarded, firm, and so on. Suarez invokes Matthew 16 and says that the Church is founded on a rock (super petram) and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Suarez quotes Chrysostom who says that the Church is more firm than heaven and earth. It would be easier for the sun to be extinguished than for the Church to be darkened, concealed, obscured. Indeed, Christ Himself, Suarez says, is the “sun of the Church,” with reference to Rev. 21.
4. The lasts point leads to the fourth one, which is that the Church is holy because of its Head, which is Christ. Christ’s holiness does not pertain to the Church in a merely extrinsic way; indeed, the Church participates in His merits through intrinsic sanctity. Along these lines, one can say that Christ is the “heart of the Church, who vivifies and sanctifies her.”
5. The Church can be called holy because “outside of her there is no sanctity.” And anyone who is seeking holiness can find it there. The Church is like Noah’s Ark. This is where salvation and true holiness is found. Again, the holiness found here is, as noted above, the Church’s doctrine, its worship–the ordination and plan for which it was created by Christ.

The main objection to this position is, of course, the sinfulness of Christians. Suarez’s objector says that the Church cannot be called holy, simply speaking, if there is not an “integral holiness” or holiness in its wholeness, completeness, and so on.

Suarez replies that “the whole” of something is often named by “a form” or some characteristic or attribute which only resides in some of its parts. And he thinks that there are many who have been made holy or who have been sanctified. But what if there were a time when none of the Church’s members on earth had true holiness and charity? Interestingly enough, Suarez says here that this aspect of the Church’s holiness–that of some of its members–is not an essential feature of the Church as such. Faith is sufficient for uniting the members of the Church.

Nonetheless, though holiness of this sort is not an essential element, the Church as instituted by Christ has never faced and never will face a time when true holiness ceases to exist “in the body of the Church and thus in some of its members.”  It is promised in Scripture that Christ and the Holy Spirit will perpetually dwell in the Church. The sacraments will never lose their efficacy, and the “true use” of Christ’s sacraments will never cease in the “true Church.” Some will thus be truly sanctified–baptized infants, at the very least. What about the period before the Incarnation? Suarez thinks that there may have been times when there was no holiness on earth. As evidence of this possibility, he refers to the period immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve (271).

We can see here the modesty of Suarez’s claim that some of the Church’s members on earth will always be holy.

Authority

Now, I want to turn briefly to Suarez’s discussion of the Church’s authority, partly in reply to Darryl Hart’s comment on the previous post. Suarez’s Disputation V addresses the need for an “infallible rule of faith” and Disputations X and XI deal in a more specific way with the papacy and general councils. Suarez believes that “the certitude of faith essentially depends on the infallible authority of God alone.” Nonetheless, because the object of the faith does not “descend” to individual believers from God in an immediate way, there needed to be some way through which this doctrine might come to be known infallibly.

Suarez links the need for infallibility to his account of the Church as formed by faith. Faith, not perfect sanctity, is the form and bond of the Church. Suarez also has argued elsewhere that the Church is one and perpetual. The Church’s faith should, therefore, be one and perpetual. But Suarez thinks that “it is impossible that the unity of faith be conserved in the Church unless there is in it some infallible rule which all the members fo this Church are bound to follow in belief” (140). Without an infallible rule–and these arguments will of course be familiar–there will be a significant number of sects and a reliance on fallible teachers–everything will eventually depend on “human opinion.” He continues, “So that the Apostolic faith can be conserved in its purity and certainty without new revelations and miracles to confirm it, some infallible rule is necessary, which we embrace in upholding and following it” (141).

An “infallible rule” is distinct from God’s own authority because such a rule merely “applies” the divine authority. Such a rule can still be infallible especially because it is tied to a divine promise. An ordinary theologian or an individual bishop does not receive a promise that his definitions will be free from error. There are only five rules that are associated with such a promise (along with the other marks of having the authority to “apply” the authority of God that is proper to God Himself):

1. Scripture
2. Sacred Tradition
3. The Universal Church
4. General and Legitimate Councils, which represent the universal Church
5. The pope

Suarez thinks that the “hinge of all controversies” with the Protestants is whether Scripture is sufficient. They do not think, he says, that a “living rule of faith is necessary” (152). Here Suarez is contrasting a living, animate, or personal rule of faith with an “inanimate” one like Scripture or Sacred Tradition. Basically, he is saying that Scripture does not interpret itself. He thinks that the third, fourth, and fifth rules are required because Christ wanted the Church to have such an “animate” rule throughout its history.

But how can a council of bishops or a pope be trusted to carry out this role when they have proven themselves throughout history to be (at times) immoral or unwise? Though not in a direct answer to this question, Suarez clarifies that, though Christ gave bishops the task of governing and teaching the Church, individual bishops and even particular councils (whether provincial or national) are not infallible rules of faith (158). He gives historical examples, but the theological basis for this claim is that particular councils are not the universal Church, nor do they represent the universal Church, nor can they obligate the universal Church to believe what they teach “because [such a council] does not have jurisdiction over the universal Church.” Moreover, Suarez says that we do not find any promise given to such particular councils which protects them from error.

What about individual bishops? Suarez actually asks the question whether “all the bishops of the Church could agree on some error” (157). He treats this issue as an open question. Some deny that this is possible because the “whole Church would be constituted in great danger of error.” (But note that the whole Church would not actually be in error.) Some think that this would be possible because “no promise is found” protecting individual bishops–even all of them (besides the bishop of Rome) at once–from error. Suarez gives his own judgment: “it seems to me that neither is sufficiently investigated. But it is probable that it pertains to the providence of Christ not to permit such a thing.” The key, though, is that for him only the pope, general councils, and the universal Church have this sort of authority to be an infallible rule of faith; they are the only entities which are tied to this sort of divine promise throughout the Church’s history.

Concluding Remarks

I want to be clear that I’m not affirming Suarez’s ecclesiology in all of its aspects. And, of course, I haven’t discussed Suarez’s arguments which support the notion that the papacy and general councils have received such divine promises. Nor have I addressed how a significant number of Roman Catholic theologians in this period, including Suarez, tend to ground the legitimacy, etc., of general councils in the papacy.

But I think that it is still useful to see that a theologian of Suarez’s stature grounds our profession of the Church’s holiness in much more than the sanctity of its members (whether clergy or lay). And even his account of the holiness of the Church’s members is not a matter of percentages–recall Suarez’s statement about how God values one righteous man much more than the multitude of sinners. The Church is holy, inter alia, because its holy teaching and holy forms worship–both given to it by God–direct human beings to the perfect holiness of the union with God enjoyed by the Church Triumphant. Suarez believes that the essence of the Church–and what makes one a member of the Church–is not holiness as much as the unity of faith. Our (supernatural) belief in God’s revealed truth is the bond of union.

Suarez’s view of faith’s importance to understanding the Church’s essence leads him to emphasize the need for infallible rules for propagating that faith. Of course, God alone is infallible by His very nature. The certitude of faith depends on the truth of His word. But, according to Suarez, Christ gave Scripture, Tradition, and the Church as infallible rules because He does not present us with all elements of the object of faith in an immediate way. Because Scripture and Tradition do not interpret themselves or address new controversies, etc., an “animate,” speaking, personal rule is found in the Church, and the role of defining what Christians are bound to believe is given to the pope and general councils.

Immorality and a lack of wisdom and prudence in bishops has historically led some to lose confidence in them as divinely instituted “rules.” Suarez, however, thought it acceptable to say–even if he believed it to be an improbable view–that all of the bishops in the world could hold the same erroneous position. It is not the wisdom or holiness of bishops that make their teaching infallible. Indeed, as his discussion of all the bishops in the world seems to make clear, he does not believe that the authority of bishops as such–or their role as successors of the apostles–makes them infallible. It is, for Suarez, the divine promise to the universal Church, general councils, and the popes that makes them the “animate” infallible rules of faith.