In Greek legend, Theseus, the King of Athens, rescued the kids of Athens from King Minos of Crete after slaying the Minotaur. He then escaped from Crete on a ship heading to Delos. This ship was preserved at Athens and brought on an annual pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollos.
As time went on, increasingly bits of the unique ship were replaced as they decayed. This raised an issue amongst ancient philosophers which has come to be referred to as the ‘Theseus paradox.’ If a stage was reached when all of the pieces of the unique ship were thus replaced was the present ship still the Ship of Theseus? If not, at what point did the unique ship stop to exist?
The discussion about this issue was first noted by the Greek author Plutarch in his Life of Theseus. Plutarch writes: ‘The ship on which Theseus sailed with the youths and returned in safety, the thirty-oared galley, was preserved by the Athenians right down to the time of Demetrius Phalereus. They took away the old timbers sometimes, and put latest and sound ones of their places, in order that the vessel became a standing illustration for the philosophers within the mooted query of growth, some declaring that it remained the identical, others that it was not the identical vessel.’
Philosophers today still discuss the Theseus paradox, namely, how much can something change and still retain its identity? Philosophers differ on this point, but the reply appears to be that identity could be said to persist within the face of change if there’s some essential type of continuity.
Thus, within the case of Theseus’ ship, the very fact of its having a continuous history even while a growing variety of its parts were replaced signifies that it may very well be said to be the identical ship. In an analogous way a human being could be said to be the identical person although billions of cells of their bodies are replaced every single day.
The issue of continuity and alter can also be raised by the study of Christian doctrine. This is because Christians have historically held two convictions concerning Christian doctrine. The first is that the content of Christian doctrine is unchanging. The second is that Christian doctrine rightly develops.
The classic statement of those two convictions could be present in a book called the Commonitory which was written by Vincent of Lerins within the fifth century. In this book Vincent addresses the query as to how we determine what’s Catholic orthodoxy and what’s ‘heretical depravity’. The famous answer he gives to this query has come to be referred to as the ‘Vincentian canon’ (canon meaning ‘rule’).
It states: ‘… all possible care should be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed in all places, all the time, by all. For that is really and within the strictest sense ‘Catholic,’ which, because the name itself and the explanation of the thing declare, comprehends all universally. This rule we will observe if we follow universality, antiquity, consent. We shall follow universality if we confess that one faith to be true, which the entire Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity, if we in no clever depart from those interpretations which it’s manifest were notoriously held by our holy ancestors and fathers; consent, in like manner, if in antiquity itself we adhere to the consentient definitions and determinations of all, or at least of virtually all priests and doctors.’
The point that Vincent is making is just not that Christian tradition replaces Scripture because the source of orthodox Christian teaching. It is somewhat that when deciding easy methods to interpret Scripture rightly we’d like to take care of what CS Lewis later called ‘mere Christianity,’ the essential pattern of Christian teaching that has existed in Christian churches world wide since apostolic times and which is summarised within the Catholic Creeds.
Noting Paul’s words in Galatians 1:8: ‘Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach another Gospel unto you than that which now we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.’
Vincent further adds: ‘To preach any doctrine due to this fact to Catholic Christians aside from what they’ve received never was lawful, never is lawful, never might be lawful: and to anathematize those that preach anything aside from what has once been received, all the time was an obligation, all the time is an obligation, all the time might be an obligation. Which being the case, is there anybody either so audacious as to evangelise another doctrine than that which the Church preaches, or so inconstant as to receive another doctrine than that which he has received from the Church?’
On the idea of quotations just like the two just given, Vincent is usually viewed as an arch conservative who believes that Christian doctrine must remain entirely static. However, to view him on this light is to disregard the proven fact that he goes on within the Commonitory to reply to the query ‘Shall, there, then, be no progress in Christ’s Church?’ with the reply that there’s ‘all possible progress.’
However, this needs to be ‘real progress, not alteration of the religion’.
‘For progress requires that the topic be enlarged in itself, alteration, that or not it’s transformed into something else. The intelligence, then, the knowledge, the wisdom, as well of people as of all, as well of 1 man as of the entire Church, ought, in the midst of ages and centuries, to extend and make much and vigorous progress; but yet only in its own kind; that’s to say, in the identical doctrine, in the identical sense, and in the identical meaning.’
The issue that Vincent’s work leaves us with is how there could be doctrinal progress (and due to this fact necessarily some sort of change) with none doctrinal alteration.
Over the course of Christian history this issue has been much debated by Christian theologians, but what seems to me to be essentially the most persuasive account of how there could be change without alteration is provided by the nineteenth century Church of England author Jacob Mozely in his book The Theory of Development. Mozley argues that the sort of doctrinal progress advocated by Vincent needs to be seen by way of what he calls ‘explanatory progress’.
He writes: ‘Development is explanation; explanation is development. A person in conversation makes an assertion, which one other misapprehends; in reply, he explains the meaning, or develops the meaning of his assertion. His meaning is precisely the identical with what it was before; it’s with a view to show what it was before that the reason is given; the meaning before the reason or development of it, and the meaning after, are by the very nature and aim of the method the identical.’
He continues, ‘The case is just not infrequent of a single arguer having to keep up in conversation a selected point against an entire circle of opponents. He adheres firmly, consistently, and with all unity and ease, to the one point which he defends, and is simply bent on defending it. But, with that one object in view, what an enormous formation of language does he raise as he goes on! What distinctions accumulate, and what protests and safeguards grow up out of, and surround the unique statement! He can be surprised at the tip of the argument to see the edifice he had built. And yet no one would say that his idea had altered, and was not only similar to it was when he began.’
This explanatory understanding of the event of doctrine helps us make sense of Vincent’s claim that doctrine could be ‘novel but not latest’ (noviter non nova). If the event of doctrine means explaining the old truths of the Christian revelation in latest ways, then it makes perfect sense to say with Vincent that to develop doctrine means to ‘designate by latest and appropriate words some article of religion, which is, of itself, traditional’.
To explain something means precisely to designate something by way of ‘latest and appropriate words’. That is what explanation is. Explanation doesn’t involve novelty within the sense of adjusting an accepted truth. Rather, it involves clarifying through using latest language what that truth is. This, for instance, is what the Fathers did on the Council of Nicaea after they declared for the primary time that the Son is ‘consubstantial’ (homoousios) with the Father as a way of safeguarding the reality set down by John that ‘the Word was God’ (John 1:1).
This understanding of the event of doctrine also helps us to make sense of the present debate within the Church of England about whether the Church can introduce some type of recognition of same-sex marriage without changing its doctrine (something that General Synod has ruled out).
The suggestion made by supporters of same-sex marriage is that it will probably be seen as a legitimate type of doctrinal development. The Church’s Faith and Order Commission is as a result of report on this issue within the autumn, however it seems clear to me that if we follow Mozley in seeing doctrinal development as ‘explanatory progress’, recognising same-sex marriage can’t be seen as a legitimate development.
As Darrin Belousek writes in his book Marriage, Scripture and the Church, ‘Scripture, consistently, presents a single picture of marriage and approves a single pattern of sexual relations: male-female union. Jesus summarizes this witness: ‘the 2’ of ‘female and male’ joined into ‘one flesh.’ The Holy Spirit has woven this pattern of holy union throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, in the shape, function, and figure of marriage.
‘Tradition, East and West, also has consistently taught a single standard of sex and marriage: marriage is man-woman monogamy; all sex outside man-woman monogamy is sin. This doctrine has been taught all the time by the church, starting with the apostles’ testimony to Jesus teaching; it has been proclaimed throughout the worldwide church, amongst all people in every place and epoch, as God’s will for sex and marriage; it has been articulated by apologetic writings and theological treatises, transmitted through baptismal catechesis and canonical discipline, celebrated in monastic vows and nuptial rites.’
The Church of England’s view of marriage, authoritatively outlined in the wedding service within the Book of Common Prayer and in Canon B.30, reflects the exact same Scriptural and Catholic teaching summarised by Belousek. To recognise same-sex marriage wouldn’t be to elucidate this teaching but to depart from it. In Vincent’s language it could not be doctrinal progress but ‘heretical depravity’.
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