That uncertain newness

That uncertain newness.

There is a mood to any age, and this one has its own. On the one hand, it is a temper infatuated with the new, as if newness itself were a virtue by the simple merit of innovation regardless of nature or consequence. This in turn gives birth to a vague longing for the past, for tradition and continuity, but without truth as the standard and measurement of what we find there, no reason to think it better or of greater value. The old is not better for it’s age; the new no greater for its novelty.

This is as true in theologies as in anything else. The ancient has no special authority due to a simple preceding. Every theological poison peculiar to Christian thought was mixed in the infancy of the Church. Sabellianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, Apollonariansim; names famous and infamous crowd the field of historical theology. It seems the early Church had little room for good solid thoughts measured carefully by Scripture, and a great deal of latitude for anything else. The days of Athanasius and Augustine were no Golden age though it contained a few men of golden spirit. It was a time of absurdity coupled with heady confusions of varied description. All we need to do is read Origen to see how confused a “Church Father” can be. There is a reason we say “athanasius contra mundum”, “Athanasius against the world”. Because the world was against him and he suffered horribly before a Church and State not satisfied with decency of thought or theology. The two carry together.

Four times he was exiled, thrice deposed. We might romantically look on his stripes as given to an eventual success, but they were stripes none the less and he never knew days of peace in this life. The Bishop of Rome and Emperor Constantine himself were almost always of an unorthodox bias against a more sober theological sense and tended to persecute the Christians against all sound reason and defend the Arians with favor and the force of State. Athanasius had only Scripture and sound reason to work with against the powers of the earth, but that was enough.

Augustine eventually held the day against the Pelagians, but not without many years of Church and Pope swayed marvelously in Pelagian favor, even to the point of Pope Zosimus restoring Pelagius to the office of Bishop against the standing counsel of the corporate Church, because he had no theological discretion. How the Churches of North Africa and Alexandria stood in the gap against the tide of strange doctrine though smaller in number and lesser in temporal power. They held, through the strength indefatigable certainty and the power of the Spirit of God renewing them daily, the truth of the Word against all the powers of the earth, and in the end, by God’s own hand, were victorious. (For a time and to a degree.)

But should we see this as Golden? As a Church mature and discerning? Pelagius was the Church, was in the Church, and of the Church. The Church was sick and rife with errors of and incredible magnitude. Those in power often had no good intent, those persecuted often true and brave, those succeeding often malicious, those failing often pure. The early Church found in the histories is not one to be confused with an infallible temple, but a worldly scheme, in which night and day co-exist thorough peril and pride in that ongoing battle for an often obscured Truth.

The modern Church, because it is Modern, never lacks the taste for some newness, because they are inventing themselves on a daily basis. A church that will not fail in re-creating all that they think needs be re-created, and it will be done in their own newness of image, because, for them, that which has the smell of age, must also be lacking in vigor and value. If it has been done before it could hardly be worth doing now, and how could it be worthy of honor if we do not do it? That we do not do it, or teach it, or believe it, shows by definition its poverty. Isn’t this the age of knowledge and wisdom? Haven’t we visited the stars?

In fact, if it has been said or believed before, that lends it to a special scrutiny and raises suspicion in the eyes of we of proud intellect and superior achievement. No Church Father, could have foreseen Hegel, or Heidegger, or Pinnock. Had they, they would have saved themselves from writing stuffy old creeds and confessions and viewed themselves in the light of their own temporal conditionedness, saving our theologies, our glory, for us to create. Ever new, never the same. That is the credo. The Roman Church says “Semper eadem”, “always the same”. The Reformation, finding that to be true in theory but not in practice, said, “Semper refomanda”, or “always returning to the beginning”. Always repenting. In every age and in every grace finding our pathway back to the source which does not change, so that all thing can be judged by that eternal unchanging Word that truly is ever new, not in novelty or process, but in power and glory.

There is a place for newness, a place for progression, in that history is linear and advances in ranks, as God by His holy providence carries forward an eternal plan toward that eschatological event. There is a good end that will be achieved through good means and the historical situatedness is the means to that end. But truth is not changing. Not by leagues, not by inches. And that which has once and for all been delivered to the saints will neither change nor lose its luster in those He has foreknown and called according to His purpose.

There is a Truth that stands above and judges history that is the same in all ages and without transforming transforms the ages themselves, and we as a Holy Church stand as witnesses and ambassadors in that blessed unfolding. Days are only a timepiece in the hands of God and the continuity of Theology is rooted in the timelessness of His endeavor. New insights might arise, but if they are irreconcilable with what has come before they are already irrelevant, just not yet recognized as such by history. They are distractions, destined to be footnotes in histories centuries hence that will look back with a mixture of amazement and mild amusement, that anyone ever said the things they say now and that people took them seriously. As the eternal truths of the Gospel continue for untold ages always telling the same story regardless of fascination, fad, mood, and temper.

Christopher Neiswonger