A Catholic Response

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Pneuma 30 (2008) 255-262

A Catholic Response

Ralph Del Colle

Marquette University, Coughlin Hall, 607 North 13th Street,

Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233, USA

ralph.delcolle@marquette.edu

All who are interested in ecumenism will be grateful for this Final Report between Oneness and Trinitarian Pentecostals. Hopefully, it will be the begin- ning of a sustained dialogue between these streams within global Pentecostal- ism. As a Catholic observer to these proceedings I was impressed with the honest exchange that took place over a five-year period and that culminated in this carefully fashioned text. The next step is its reception within both tradi- tions and by those outside Pentecostal circles. The latter, while not privy to this intra-Pentecostal conversation, will be interested in how “orthodox” Trin- itarians are receptive to their “heterodox” Oneness cousins on issues as basic and foundational as our baptismal identity, the core (not peripheral!) dogmas of the faith, and the call to holiness.

I have intentionally employed the theologically loaded language of ortho- doxy and heterodoxy to signify the seriousness and magnitude of this exchange. Situated within the larger camp of the church catholic one must acknowledge that this dialogue exists somewhere on the margins of mainstream ecumenism. It also serves to remind Trinitarian Pentecostals that their fellowship with other ecclesial communities and churches is dependent upon a Trinitarian confes- sion of faith if we take the World Council of Churches as a yardstick with their somewhat minimalist basis for unity.

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfi l together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.1

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Admittedly, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) has a less explicitly Trinitarian statement of faith: “The National Council of Churches is a community of

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2008 DOI: 10.1163/157007408X346393

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Likewise, Oneness Pentecostals who share a “restorationist fervor” (9) with their Trinitarian brothers and sisters have self-consciously tried to restore “apostolic doctrine, experience, and practice” even if it “may contradict estab- lished or historic dogma” (13). In their view of course, their so-called “hetero- dox” position vis-à-vis the historic churches is a matter of being faithful to scripture in contrast to the accretions that have distorted true biblical faith. All of this is much too serious to suggest that one church’s orthodoxy is another’s heterodoxy or vice-versa. However, a historic church observer is certainly interested in the question of the degrees of heterodoxy or orthodoxy that are at stake. Is Oneness heterodoxy cause for a break in communion among Chris- tians?

In fact, the two dialogue teams seem to struggle with this same issue. Despite their shared communion in Pentecostal prayer (13) the Trinitarian team que- ried Oneness Pentecostals on their somewhat exclusivist understanding of salva- tion. Could they recognize a distinction between “salvation” and “full salvation” such that those who do not speak in tongues according to Acts 2:38 may, nevertheless, “have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ based on faith and repentance” (54) — a salvation short of full salvation? This is an extramu- ral question since all around the table were “recognized . . . [as] striving to live by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and that all have been baptized in the Holy Spirit” (8). But what about non-Pentecostal Christians who may not be baptized in the Holy Spirit?

I raised these issues in order to situate this dialogue within the proper ecu- menical context. T ere is considerable diff erence between the heterodoxy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for example, and that between distinctly Christian communions that have made progress in deepening a common faith despite continued doctrinal diff erences. Such is the case between the Catholic Church and various Protestant communions, e.g., the Joint Dec- laration on the Doctrine of Justifi cation by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, and between the historic Chalcedonian Churches (East and West) and the non-Chalcedonian Oriental Orthodox Churches,2 all of which

Christian communions, which, in response to the gospel as revealed in the Scriptures, confess Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, as Savior and Lord.” However, at the global level the WCC is the norm and, in fact, only Trinitarian communions are members of the NCC although some would debate the orthodoxy of some member churches such as the Swedenborgian Church.

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For example, see the Common Declaration of Pope John Paul II and Hh Mar Ignatius Zakka I Iwas in which the Bishop of Rome and the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch agree that “In words and life we confess the true doctrine concerning Christ our Lord, notwithstanding the diff erences in

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once considered the other heterodox. It is my conviction that the same can be said for Trinitarian and Oneness Pentecostals and by extension to the church catholic; namely that Oneness Pentecostals share the same faith as the historic churches. Yet, this is not without some signifi cant dificulties as the Final Report bears witness.

The first dificulty is one that affl icts any discussion of the doctrine of the Trinity when the principle of “Scripture over tradition” (9) is interpreted in a restrictive sense. One need not adopt a “Scripture and tradition” rubric as understood by Catholics and Orthodox. Certainly, the leaders of the magiste- rial Reformation had a great deal of respect for the church fathers. In fact, the most recent Final Report (Fifth Phase, 1998-2006) of the International Catho- lic-Pentecostal Dialogue is entitled, On Becoming a Christian: Insights from Scripture and the Patristic Writings with Some Contemporary Refl ections, clearly suggesting that Trinitarian Pentecostals are moving in the same direction.

The Trinitarian team expressed similar sentiments when they recounted how early Assembly of God leaders sought “doctrinal guidelines [in] continu- ity with scriptural teaching, especially in areas of biblical interpretation valued as dogma by the historic church” (14). Oneness Pentecostals, however, believe that in regard to the dogma of the Trinity “the specifi c teaching of Scripture . . . may contradict established or historic dogma” (13). In principle, this may not constitute an insuperable problem if there is latitude to consider how the bib- lical revelation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not violate God’s oneness while admitting to (at the very least) distinctions in manifestation and func- tion. Granted each tradition possesses its own theology to account for this distinction, but the economic distinction holds for both sides — what One- ness doctrine designates as “God’s redemptive roles or works” (36). Beyond that, further dificulty sets in regarding the terminology employed to adjudi- cate the issues.

Both teams are insistent that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not “three centers of consciousness” (34) or “separable and individual consciousnesses” (45) while agreeing,“God . . . is one without distinctions of essence (33); “abso- lutely one” (34) in the case of Oneness, and for Trinitarians a “oneness . . . that is complex and even involves plurality” (45). The obvious conundrum is the meaning of person. Trinitarians, on the one hand, afirm “three distinct but inseparable persons of one divine nature” (44), while, on the other hand, they

interpretation of such a doctrine which arose at the time of the Council of Chalcedon.” (http:// prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/oo-rc_syrindia/doc/i_oo-rc_syrindia_1984.html)

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quote Reformed theologian Heinrich Ott in the Joint Conclusion that God may be referred to as “one Person” who “exists in eternal threefold self-distinc- tion as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (48). The latter is an irenic attempt to arrive at a consensus on the nature of “plurality in God’s mysterious being” (a “three-ness”for sure) — a quote from Oneness pioneer A. D. Urshan — only to be countered by Oneness restriction of such plurality to “three mani- festations for the work of salvation, but not three eternal persons or centers of consciousness” (48). Add to that the Trinitarian conviction that classical Trinitarian theological terms of “nature” and “person” are “ultimately fallible attempts . . . to understand the unity and relational life of the Godhead” (45), one can appreciate that both sides agreed that there “was not enough time to explore this issue further” (48).

Herein resides some promise despite what appears to be a standoff between the two traditions. Two suggestions for further conversation may be helpful. First, one need not be trapped in the modern subjective notion of person in order to discuss what is meant by personhood. Granting the fallible nature of such language, nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that the distinc- tion between person and nature was an important theological development in the ancient church and one motivated by the gospel, not some concession to Hellenistic philosophy.3

Second, the Oneness afirmation that Pentecostals “(whether Oneness or Trinitarian) . . . do not experience three personalities when they worship” (40) is an overstatement to say the least. It is a given that numerous Pentecostal, charismatic, and Spirit-fi lled believers are aware in their doxological conscious- ness of the distinction between the risen Lord and the Father as they worship the one God in the power of the Spirit. Rather than being “in relationship with one personal spiritual being” or experiencing “three personalities” or receiving “three spirits” (40) they are quite comfortable in confessing and adoring the tri-personal God whose unity is never violated. In fact, more con- versation on this latter point might lead to a distinctively Pentecostal approach to the first issue. In other words, Pentecostal doxology can open the door to a Pentecostal metaphysics of the divine being. And please note, for all those who hesitate to pursue speculative Trinitarian theology, that more precise and illu-

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The following from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, # 251 is worth serious consider- ation: In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineff able mystery, “infi nitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.

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minating terms can be found — for speculative theology proceeds from con- templation — than the ones utilized by the Oneness team in paragraph 40 just quoted. Why “three centers of consciousness” and “three personalities” instead of a tri-personal consciousness grounded in one essence subsisting as three distinct relations?

These critical remarks do not, however, alter the conviction that Oneness Pentecostals share a communion of Christian faith and life with their Trinitar- ian cousins and all Christians. In an unexpected way the sections of the Final Report on baptism and the baptismal formula bear this out. I say unexpected because pressure has increased recently in ecumenical circles to clarify the nec- essary correlation between the validity of baptism and the baptismal formula employed which goes against the Trinitarian team’s afirmation “that God does not bind us to precise formulas” (26). However, an examination of the reasons given for this particular focus is instructive. I will limit myself to the Catholic intervention.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) of the Roman Curia recently pronounced (February 1, 2008) that baptisms utilizing the formulas “I baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Redeemer, and of the Sanctifi er” and “I baptize you in the name of the Creator, and of the Liberator, and of the Sustainer” are not valid.4 The only proper baptismal formulas are the following.

In the Latin Church this triple infusion is accompanied by the minister’s words: “N., I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In the Eastern liturgies the catechumen turns toward the East and the priest says: “The servant of God, N., is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” At the invocation of each person of the Most Holy Trinity, the priest immerses the candidate in the water and raises him up again. (Catechism of the Cath- olic Church, # 1240)

One must consider these prohibitions and prescriptions in conjunction with the rejection of Mormon baptism that is conducted with the traditional Trinitar- ian formula.5 There are several issues involved in the theological judgments

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See, http://vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_ doc_20080201_validity-baptism_en.html

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The CDF answered the following inquiry on June 5, 2001: “ Question: Wheter (sic) the baptism conferred by the community « The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints », called « Mormons » in the vernacular, is valid. Response: Negative.” (http://vatican.va/roman_curia/ congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20010605_battesimo_mormoni_en.html)

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behind these decisions. First, the formula indicates faith in the Holy Trinity and thus theological orthodoxy. The new formulas, although triadic in form, consist in functional titles to indicate the persons and thereby offer no guaran- tee against some form of modalism lurking behind them. This may appear to be bad news to Oneness Pentecostals and in one sense it is, since they own their particular version of modalism proudly. However, there is a Christologi- cal side to the issue as well. The users of these “inclusive language” formulas often are advocates of low Christologies as well, an accusation that cannot be leveled against Oneness Pentecostals. Additionally, the judgment regarding Mormon baptism goes to the intentionality of the Church that baptizes. The doctrine of the LDS church regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is clearly different from that of historic Trinitarianism indicating that formulaic terms are indeed connected with the content of doctrine.6

The Final Report is helpful, despite the criticisms already indicated, in clar- ifying what Pentecostal theological intentionality is, especially for the sake of the historic churches that have little knowledge of the Oneness stream of classical Pentecostalism. Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ, true God and man, and imparted by the Holy Spirit is at the heart of the Pentecostal mes- sage (49-50). The relationship of salvation to water baptism is of particular interest. Of all sections of the Final Report here is where Catholics share more in common with Oneness Pentecostals than they do with their Trinitarian cousins. Conversations between Catholics and Trinitarian Pentecostals have stumbled over the relationship of water baptism and baptism in the Holy Spirit to Christian initiation. Sacramentally, baptism and confi rmation are necessary for Christian initiation of adults, especially since the advent of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) following the Second Vatican Council. Even when these sacraments are separated in time, as is the case for those baptized as infants, confi rmation along with first reception of the Eucha-

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In a little known statement from Henry Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, defi nitionum et declarationum de rebus fi dei et morum , 335 [English translation: Denzinger: The Sources of Catholic Dogma, translated by Roy J. Deferrari from the T irtieth Edition of Henry Denzinger’s Enchiridion Symbolorum, (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loretto Publications, n.d), pp. 134-135.] the fol- lowing is quoted “From the responses to the decrees of the Bulgars, Nov., 866.” “Chap. 104. You assert that in your fatherland many have been baptized by a certain Jew, you do not know whether Christian or pagan, and you consult us as to what should be done about them. If indeed they have been baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity or only in the name of Christ, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles [cf. Acts 2:38; 19:5], (surely it is one and the same, as Saint Ambrose set forth [De Spiritu Sancto I, 3, 42 {ML 16, 714}]) it is established that they should not be baptized again.” I do not know that this has been applied to Oneness baptisms. I suspect not.

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rist in Holy Communion are considered part of Christian initiation. Trinitarian Pentecostals, however, have been consistent in distinguishing Spirit baptism — the non-sacramental equivalent to Confi rmation

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— from conversion although it might take place at conversion. In this regard they diff er from Oneness Pente- costals as the following statements from the Final Report respectively indicate.

Spirit baptism is also regarded among our [Trinitarian Pentecostal] churches as distinct from both conversion and water baptism, as an empowerment for the witness accepted at conversion and expressed at water baptism. (20)

The Oneness Pentecostal team considers water baptism to be a vital part of Chris- tian initiation, along with repentance and Spirit baptism. (21)

. . . the Oneness Pentecostal understanding of water baptism as essential to salvation and the Trinitarian Pentecostal tendency to regard baptism as a sign of salvation that is not essential to it. (17)

Oneness Pentecostals do not necessarily hold to a sacramental understanding of water baptism. Nor do Catholics require the evidence of speaking in tongues for the sacrament of Confirmation. Nevertheless, the integral nature of Chris- tian initiation, so as to include both the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), is essential to these two traditions, which is not the case for Trinitarian Pentecostals. The latter certainly emphasize the neces- sity for water baptism and Spirit baptism for the fullness of Christian life. But they still limit Christian initiation to conversion expressed in repentance and faith. Although more clarification is needed from the Oneness team on the relationship between new birth and empowerment with the Spirit, Catholics can appreciate their account of the events of Christian initiation as “steps of faith [that] are closely associated and often nearly simultaneous, but theologi- cally they are distinct events” (21).

In sum, the Final Report presents to other Christian communions a com- plex picture with which to interact. On the one hand, historic Christian com- munions will easily identify with Trinitarian Pentecostals on the core dogmas of the Trinity and the incarnation. One hopes that they will also recognize that the fellowship between these two streams of Pentecostalism is a gift to be more widely shared by virtue of the Oneness witness to the saving power of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, these communions

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1302 states about Confi rmation: “It is evident from its celebration that the eff ect of the sacrament of Confi rmation is the special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.”

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will also share with Trinitarian Pentecostals reservations about Oneness repre- sentations of the Godhead and the hypostatic union in Christology. At the same time Oneness intuition concerning the integral nature of Christian ini- tiation is consonant with sacramental initiation in liturgically ordered ecclesial communions. Of course, this is no guarantee that Oneness and many Trinitar- ian Pentecostals will recognize the power of God operative in the sacramental mediation of saving and empowering grace. But this is the day of small begin- nings for which we can all be thankful.

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