2. THE HOLY SPIRIT,
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE AND AUTHORITY
23.
Still bearing in mind the signs of the work of the Spirit which
we believe to be discernible today (cf above para. 6) we pass from
general agreements on the Holy Spirit to considering Christian experience
(seeing it as the Spirit's guiding and ordering work in the Church).
A.
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE
Christian
experience is a rich field largely unexplored at least in ecumenical
dialogue.
We
agree that "Life in the Spirit is human life lived out...to
its utmost in consonance with God's gracious purpose" (cf above
para. 13). It is faith's awareness of the Holy Spirit's initiative
within the human heart, stimulating and guiding the believer to
yet more faith and hope and love. Such awareness sees both the world
and history as interpersonal, as lying within God's care and providence.
This awareness is focused in God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ
and directed toward life together in the Church, in which the Holy
Spirit presides, indwelling, inspiring and conforming Christians
to the mind that was in Christ (Phil. 2,5).
24.
Christian religious experience includes the assurance of God's unmerited
mercy in Christ, the inner witness of the Spirit that we are indeed
children of God, pardoned and reconciled to the Father (Rom. 8,12-17).
The same Spirit also guides the faith ful to a knowledge of all
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, and to an ever more faithful
obedience to God's righteous rule within the human community at
large. Despite our inability to manifest it perfectly, the fruit
of the Spirit (Gal. 5, 22-23) is ever a potent factor in drawing
others into Christian fellowship.
25.
Both Catholics and Methodists have found in John Wesley's Christian
experience and his comments on "experimental religion"
an edifying instance of that to which we are pointing. After a full
dozen years of faithful ministry in Christ's name and to the needy
(in Oxford, in Lincolnshire and Georgia) Wesley's heart was "strangely
warmed" and he came into an "assurance" that God
had taken away his sins and had saved him from the law of sin and
death (cf. Journal, May 24, 1738).1
Significantly, it was this deeply personal experience that led Wesley
into a yet more effective ministry, still more deeply grounded in
his awareness that it was the Holy Spirit who enabled him to communicate
to others the gospel of salvation by faith and holiness in heart
and life. Thus, the doctrine of the "witness of the Spirit"
(i.e. the hinge of any idea of Christian experience) looms large
in Wesley's teaching, early and late (Discourse 1, 1748, and Discourse
Il, 1764). It must be acknowledged that later Methodist theologians
have tended to be more "rationalistic" or more "pragmatic".
However we have found new meanings in the evident similarities between
Wesley and the mainstream of Catholic spirituality. This convergence
could have significant implications for our own growing spiritual
awareness of "oneness in Christ" and for the future of
the cause of Christian unity. Thus we have agreed that a reclamation
of our complex heritage by both sides would benefit our respective
communities and also enhance our present experience of unity in
the Spirit.
26.
In the Post-Reformation Roman Catholic tradition generally, it has
been the saints and spiritual masters, rather than the scholastic
theologians, who have stressed the centrality of Christian experience.
In this matter, however, Vatican II appears as a turning point.
The Council documents speak frequently of the transforming activities
of the Holy Spirit, in persons, in the Church, in the world. They
stress the task of discerning "the signs of the times"
and of the Spirit's leading in these shadowed, changing times. It
is not an exaggeration to say that these post-conciliar years have
witnessed a rediscovery within the Catholic fold of Christian faith
as "experience", understood afresh as intimacy with Christ
in prayer and as liberating presence in persons and communities.
The most evident signs of this "new spirit" include the
rise of various centers of spirituality, houses of prayer, the charismatic
renewal, cursillos and marriage-encounter movements, Bible study
groups, new ministries, more active roles for women in the church,
new efforts in the promotion of justice, new missionary ventures.
These "signs" might quite properly remind Methodists of
how their early "class meetings" could look if they, too,
were updated.
27.
We are able, therefore, to affirm together the crucial importance
of "heart religion" since we agree that Christianity is
a communion of believers, a "fellowship with the Father and
with his Son Jesus Christ" (I John I,1-3 ; for the Spirit's
role in this, cf. III, 24, IV,13). We form a mystical body whose
Head is Christ (Eph. IV). Our common aim is to live together, in
the Spirit, that Christ may be formed in us, our hope of glory,
to the end that the Father's righteous will may be done on earth
as it is in Heaven. The Holy Spirit is the prime artisan of our
Christian experience, since it is lie who "completes the work
of Christ by placing himself as the innermost reality in each human
being" (P. Evdokimov, in "Panagion et Panagia", BSFEM,
27, 1970, p. 61). It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to pray "Lord
Jesus" and "Abba, Father"; it is he who fashions
us in the image of Jesus; it is he who calls us into obedience to
the Father's righteous rule on earth and beyond all this to our
very first duty of glorifying God and enjoying him forever.
28.
Together, then, we affirm that the Christian experience toward which
we aspire as one includes mystery and clarity, feeling and reason,
individual conscience and acknowledged authority, charisms and sacraments,
spiritual exercises and service, individual and communal "discernments
of spirits", local community and worldwide mission, fidelity
to the past and openness to the present and future. We are agreed
that Christian experience requires for its development the disciplines
of prayer and devotion, the truth accessible in Holy Scriptures,
the nourishment of the sacraments, the encouragement that comes
from God's abundant gifts of grace and wisdom, for witness and service
in the world.
29.
Further, since it is in our totality as human persons that God joins
us to himself, we are agreed that our affective states are also
subject to the Spirit's absolute "prevenience". As we
seek to be instructed by the Scriptures and by the spiritual treasures
of the Christian tradition, our "spiritual senses" are
developed to greater and greater keeness. In the Spirit, we see
the Lord, hear his voice, taste his sweetness, breathe the fragrance
of his presence, experience the healing power and the gift of new
life of him who dwells in our hearts and speaks to us through the
witness and need of others. At the same time, this experience is
open to the rule of reason and to all responsible uses of practical
knowledge. "Knowledge and vital piety" belong together,
as correctives to imbalances from either side. By the same token,
there must be careful balancing between the voice of individual
conscience and the voice of legitimate external authority, in church
or society by the constant acknowledgment that both conscience
and all external authorities are regulated by the Word of God, by
the faith of the Church and by the shared experience of the Christian
faithful.
30.
Catholics and Methodists agree that progress in purification from
sin and its effects as well as growth in holiness, namely love of
God and neighbor, requires the development of our God-given powers
of spiritual discernment in individual and social experience. We
rejoice in our mutual discoveries of significant resources in our
respective traditions which aid such development, such as the Sermons
and spiritual directives of John Wesley and, say, the Spiritual
Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola. We are convinced that as we recover
and reclaim this rich mutual heritage for ourselves, we might grow
closer to each other on a deeper level.
31.
We also rejoice to recognize the emergence of new communities of
fellow Christians who are seeking to support each other in their
Christian witness and service as what St. Ignatius spoke
of as "friends in the Lord". These experiences in community
demand of all who share in them unfeigned fidelity in faith, voluntary
moral discipline and sacrificial service. They call us all to a
livelier concern for more apt understanding of Holy Scriptures as
we are guided by the same Spirit who inspired them. Equally, we
acknowledge ourselves as under the imperatives of love that follow
from the summons to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
in our lives and in his world. The Holy Spirit is God's first gift
to those who believe and to all who confess Jesus Christ as Lord
to the glory of the Father. Out of these shared convictions, we
call upon all our sisters and brothers in Christ to join in more
ardent pursuit of these higher levels of Christian experience and
more effective ways of expressing our faith, hope and love in and
to the world for which Christ died. In this way we shall be drawn
into an actual communion in Christ and, as we may hope, more readily
thereafter into communio in sacris, full sacramental fellowship.
32.
Our respective liturgical traditions give expression to this common
faith:
"Almighty
God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from
whom no secrets are hid: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love
thee and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord"
(Methodist Service of Holy Communion: and Roman Missal, Votive
Mass of the Holy Spirit).
"Father
all-powerful, and ever living God, we do well, always and everywhere,
to give you thanks; in you we live and move and have our being.
Each day you show us a Father's love; your Holy Spirit, within
us, gives us on earth the hope of unending joy. Your gift of the
Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is the foretaste and promise
of the Paschal Feast of heaven ..."
(Roman Missal, Preface VI for Sundays in Ordinary
Time).
B.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND AUTHORITY IN THE CHURCH
33.
To men and women sealed by the Spirit in baptism, gathered in the
Church, in the communion of Christ's gift of himself, Christ's authority
is mediated through the Spirit, who is Love, and hence all authority
that flows from this source is part of God's good gift. Whether
it be the personal authority of holiness or the charisma of episcope
conferred by the Spirit on the ordained ministry, whether it be
teaching or disciplinary, authority implies that what is propounded,
commanded or recommended ought to be accepted on the ground that
it comes from this source.
33.
To men and women sealed by the Spirit in baptism, gathered in the
Church, in the communion of Christ's gift of himself, Christ's authority
is mediated through the Spirit, who is Love, and hence all authority
that flows from this source is part of God's good gift. Whether
it be the personal authority of holiness or the charisma of episcope
conferred by the Spirit on the ordained ministry, whether it be
teaching or disciplinary, authority implies that what is propounded,
commanded or recommended ought to be accepted on the ground that
it comes from this source.
34.
There is no disagreement that the Church has authority to teach.
In the Church, the revelation of God in Christ comes to us through
Scripture, and to maintain God's people in the truth is the loving
work of the Spirit in the Church. But this maintenance is not a
matter of mere repetition of formulae. The Spirit moves the Church
to constant reflection on the Scriptures which he himself inspired
and on their traditional interpretation, so that she may speak with
undiminished authority to men in different times and places, in
different social and cultural settings, facing new and difficult
problems. This is not of course to question the abiding importance
of credal statements and such Conciliar pronouncements as the Chalcedonian
definition. The enduring validity of these does not restrict the
power of the Spirit to speak in new ways to the Church, whose living
voice never speaks in isolation from its living past. It stands
under the living word of God. The old oppositions of Scripture and
Tradition have given way to an understanding which we share, that
Scripture in witness to the living tradition from which it arose
has a normative role for the total tradition of the Church as it
lives and is guided still by the Spirit of truth.
35.
Ours is not the only dialogue in which special difficulties have
been voiced, and persist, in the matter of papal claims and the
character of dogmatic definitions (Paul VI's address to S. P. C.
U. plenary 1968). We should take notice of the progress of other
dialogues, but we believe that emotions surrounding such relatively
modern terms as infallibility and irreformability can be diminished
if they are looked at in the light of our shared doctrine concerning
the Holy Spirit. The papal authority, no less than any other within
the Church, is a manifestation of the continuing presence of the
Spirit of Love in the Church or it is nothing. Indeed it should
in its exercise be pre-eminently such a manifestation. It was declared
at Vatican I to be "for the building up and not the casting
down of the church" whether of the local Church or the
communion of local Churches.
36.
This primary aspect has been obscured by the emotions and polemics
surrounding such terms as infallibility and universal and immediate
jurisdiction. As with other dogmas, the terms which express the
dogma of 1870 belong to their time, and must be understood in the
context of that time and of the debates of that era. The truth behind
them is capable of fuller understanding in new settings by all concerned.
Already Vatican II's Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium,
and other documents have done something to adjust an imbalance left
by the unfinished business of Vatican I.
The terms referred to are not to be explained away: from different
standpoints we are agreed that this would be neither useful nor
honest. Yet they are not claims about human qualities or glorifications
of an office. They are to be understood in the light of the total
conception and the total responsibility of teaching and disciplinary
office in the Church a pastoral office mirroring the constant
presence and solicitude of the Spirit within the Church, leading
into truth and disciplining in love. Thus, and thus only, whatever
its forms and nomenclature, can any authority be understood and
legitimized.
However the claims implied in such terms are circumscribed and clarified,
it is unlikely that Methodists in the foreseeable future will feel
comfortable with them. But Methodist awareness of the papacy has
enlarged and greatly altered in recent times, and the general idea
of a universal service of unity within the Church, a primacy of
charity mirroring the presence and work in the Church of the Spirit
who is love, may well be a basis for increased understanding and
convergence.
37.
We have said above that the personal authority of holiness (para.
33) also shows the Spirit present and at work. This points to the
question of a relationship which we discussed as long ago as Denver
(1971) that of authority and conscience. This has often been
seen less as a relationship than as a Protestant/Catholic antithesis.
If what we have agreed so far is true, this view can only be a distortion.
That authority is a service of the Gospel, that the assent of faith
is free or nothing, that the one witnesses to the other, no Catholic
will deny: that Christian conscience is formed within the life of
the Church, which is life in the Spirit, no Methodist will dispute.
More questions on this relationship must arise in our next phase
of work, on practical, ethical and moral judgements, but these agreed
principles will apply.
38.
We have agreed that:
"The coming of this Kingdom involves the transformation of
the human community now marred by sin with its resultant oppression
and poverty into a community of justice, love and peace" (n.
22 above).
We
are not under the illusion that the signs of the activity of the
Holy Spirit we started by pointing to are signs to be found everywhere.
There is much cause for disquiet, in the impatience and contempt,
not for tyrannical and arbitrary authority but for the fundamental
authority which alone makes ordered life possible. The contempt
for human life, for diplomatic immunity, for our natural inheritance,
are saddening signs of the times. What we said above about the criteria
by which alone authority can be understood or legitimized clearly
applies, for Christians, to all authority ecclesiastical or secular.
Hence, it is that we see concern for the poor and the oppressed
and for the conservation of God's gifts as one test by which all
authority is to be judged. All arbitrary and absolute authority,
denying the respect due to human beings and to creation, is unchristian.
ENDNOTES
-
"About a quarter before nine, while he
(the reader of Luther's Preface to Romans) was describing the
change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ,
I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ,
Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that
he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from sin
and death" (cf Dublin report, note 6 to no. 12, which recalls
that Methodists do not see "assurance" as "a
form of certainty which removes the need for hope".
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