Timothy Gordon's error on Familiaris Consortio

I'm not what you would call a fan of Amoris Laetitia Chapter 8. As I've written before, I don't think it formally contradicts Veritatis Splendor, but it strikes me as a pastoral disaster that undermines the doctrine of Trent on Confession, mostly because it fails to clearly reiterate what that doctrine is. When you are making disciplinary changes, which is primarily what Amoris Laetitia does, reiterating the doctrinal foundation is a basic necessity of clarity. The doctrine that is recited, that of culpability for mortal sin, is mostly irrelevant to the change in discipline, which is why it's been a real challenge to interpret what Amoris Laetitia means. But when conservative opponents of Pope Francis themselves don't know the dogma, that doesn't help the problem. It makes the problem worse.

Timothy Gordon's mistake

It turns out that this misrpresentation of the dogma is the case with Timothy Gordon, who, while asserting that Amoris Laetitia "abrogates" or "contradicts" Familiaris Consortio, makes a clear mistake about what Familiaris Consortio actually teaches:

[58:01] You dream up one scenario that's theoretically conceivable, conceptually feasible, if not plausible. One person under the Sun that might have these odd trolley care circumstances, whereby hypothetically could apply to them, they could be a remarried person who actually needs to have sex, and the principle of double effect would cover them. It just so happens that the one Francis adumbrated is wrong.

So you have remarried adulterers, both of whom have fallen away from the faith. Let's say the wife -- because these guys are feminists, the lady's always the good guy -- she comes back to the faith remarried, has an illegitimate child in her adulterous second union. Francis told us this several times. And she wants to follow paragraph 84 of Familiaris Consortio, meaning we're going to get twin beds, it's not going to be hot and sexy, we're not going to have sex anymore, we're going to live as brother and sister, as Familiaris Consortio paragraph 84 says. 

We have to -- that was JP2, by the way, in 1981, writing Familiaris Consortio and saying "fixed it for you, punks; you want to use a theological problem of moral theology to open the gate, and I just fixed it for you, whereas before remarried adulterers were not allowed to keep living together and receive Communion -- if through something like the internal forum you get together, you put people on notice in your church, including your priest, you can have Lucy and Desi beds pushed together, you promise not to have sex, fixed it for you, that was 1981.

...

[1:14:30] Familiaris Consortio is 1981 -- boom, you guys just have to make a promise -- you remarried adulterers to get bunk beds or twin beds or whatever -- get twin beds and to do your best not to have sex. If they slip up once or twice after making that promise, they just go to Confession, you see. So this has all been adjudicated. That's 1981. Familiaris Consortio. You guys makes a promise; yeah, you're living around each other, you'll probably act not like a brother and sister once a decade or so. You'll give in, just go to Confession, go to Communion, you're good.

...

[1:25:30] If in Familiaris Consortio, after 20 years of living as brother and sister -- by the way, I have a lot of audience members who are actually doing this. I did a show on annulment yesterday, and they're like "we've been doing this for a while." They're heroes, and if they slipped up, once you go to Confession, because you've affixed the promise. That's not what any of this is. That's not what the Kasper plan was. That's not what the family synods were. That's not what Amoris Laetitia was. That's not what the response to Cardinal Duka and the other five dubia cardinals were. That's not what Amoris Laetitia was all about. 

The problem is that Gordon's interpretation of Familiaris Consortio (FC) is a complete fantasy. The teaching of FC concerning the exception in section 84 is that such people can only attend Communion remoto scandolo. That means they must either receive the Sacrament in private or that they must travel to a far-away parish where their marital status is unknown. The authoritative interpretation of FC by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts says the following:

Those faithful who are divorced and remarried would not be considered to be within the situation of serious habitual sin who would not be able, for serious motives - such as, for example, the upbringing of the children - "to satisfy the obligation of separation, assuming the task of living in full continence, that is, abstaining from the acts proper to spouses" (Familiaris consortio, n. 84), and who on the basis of that intention have received the sacrament of Penance. Given that the fact that these faithful are not living more uxorio is per se occult, while their condition as persons who are divorced and remarried is per se manifest, they will be able to receive Eucharistic Communion only remoto scandalo.

The couple doesn't "put people on notice in your church" so that they can go to Communion. The presumption is that they cannot (and arguably should not) put their private lives on public display in this way, so that their private sexual conduct is "per se occult" (hidden from public inspection). There's no equivalent here to Josephite marriage, a public declaration that the people are solemnly vowing not to engage in sexual conduct, because they are not free to vow to the other person and they are under a solemn moral obligation to separate that is at best temporarily excused. One can't vow to unmarriage and cohabitation with a person. Moreover, there's no way to know in a publicly cognizable way whether they are abiding by such a vow anyway. And the priest cannot put himself in the position of publicly indicating his private judgment in the internal forum about the sins for which he has granted absolution. That creates exactly the situation the Pontifical Council goes on to describe:

Naturally, pastoral prudence would strongly suggest the avoidance of instances of public denial of Holy Communion. Pastors must strive to explain to the concerned faithful the true ecclesial sense of the norm, in such a way that they would be able to understand it or at least respect it. In those situations, however, in which these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible, the minister of Communion must refuse to distribute it to those who are publicly unworthy. They are to do this with extreme charity, and are to look for the opportune moment to explain the reasons that required the refusal. They must, however, do this with firmness, conscious of the value that such signs of strength have for the good of the Church and of souls.

There's no discretion there. The pastoral latitude for the priest is exactly this: if someone is divorced and remarried, and this is known in the parish, the priest must refuse Communion even if he has absolved them under FC 84 five minutes before Mass! There is literally no possible way for that couple to take public Communion ever, no matter how sincerely they vow to keep continent and how faithfully they keep that vow. They could have been living in separate rooms for twenty years raising their children and never once in that entire time be allowed take Communion in their own home parish. To the extent that such people were ever admitted to public Communion by a priest in their own parish and not remoto scandalo, that was dissent against authoritative discipline by those priests. (Granted, dissent against Sacramental discipline is now practically ubiquitous, which is why politicians who openly advocate for abortion rights are not barred from Communion, but it doesn't change that it is dissent.) If we are talking about the requirements of FC, though, it's absolutely clear that a priest is not even allowed to admit someone who is publicly known to be remarried, regardless of how sincerely and successfully that couple may be maintaining continence.

And this isn't a close case, as if the Prejean interpretation that FC completely bars such people from public Communion were simply one possible interpretation of the text. It's not only the express teaching of FC but also what was confirmed in an official reiteration of the teaching. Gordon's error is therefore a "2+2=5" error; he says that they can be admitted to public Communion if they somehow "put people on notice," and FC says that they can't no matter what they do. That is simply not the disciplinary rule There's no such process for a "vow" or a "promise" or any other formal process. Even if they do exactly what Gordon says, the priest must ban them from Communion for the simple reason that they are still living together as married people do. It's this completely mistaken idea that FC opens the door to the Eucharist in public in their own parish, even though FC outright says that "the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried" without exception. FC 84 opens up the Eucharist in secret but not in public.

Not understanding this is why Gordon also gets the Buenos Aires guidelines on Amoris Laetitia (AL) wrong. In Gordon's mind, there is the "vow" or "promise" or some other formal procedure that is required for the couple before the accommodation under FC can be made. But all that is actually required by FC 84 is firm purpose of amendment to live in continence by whichever person is coming for Reconciliation. The kind of vow or promise that Gordon has in mind is certainly evidence of firm purpose of amendment,  but it is by no means a sine qua non requirement for firm purpose of amendment. Instead, the sine qua non requirement is the intent to comply with positive moral obligations (the obligation to separate) and to flee near occasions of sin in the absence of reasonable necessity, as Gordon's guest "Classical Theist" clearly and correctly explained in the context of other habitual sins.

So we can distinguish the dogmatic and disciplinary teaching of FC, neither of which include any "vow" or "promise" to remain continent:

1. Dogmatic: Under FC 84, absolution can be granted to those who fail to satisfy the obligation to separate and thus remain in the near occasion of sin for reasonable necessity.

2. Disciplinary: People absolved under FC 84 can only take Communion remoto scandolo, period. They may never take Communion in public where their marital status is known.

The doctrinal "change" of Amoris Laetitia

With this correction, the Buenos Aires guidelines can then be read appropriately:

5) Whenever feasible depending on the specific circumstances of a couple, especially when both partners are Christians walking the path of faith, a proposal may be made to resolve to live in continence. Amoris laetitia does not ignore the difficulties arising from this option (cf. footnote 329) and offers the possibility of having access to the sacrament of Reconciliation if the partners fail in this purpose (cf. footnote 364, recalling the teaching that Saint John Paul II sent to Cardinal W. Baum, dated 22 March, 1996).

6) In more complex cases, and when a declaration of nullity has not been obtained, the above mentioned option may not, in fact, be feasible. Nonetheless, a path of discernment is still possible. If it is acknowledged that, in a concrete case, there are limitations that mitigate responsibility and culpability (cf. 301-302), especially when a person believes he/she would incur a subsequent fault by harming the children of the new union, Amoris laetitia offers the possibility of having access to the sacraments of Reconciliation and Eucharist (cf. footnotes 336 and 351).

These sacraments, in turn, prepare the person to continue maturing and growing with the power of grace.

7) However, it should not be understood that this possibility implies unlimited access to sacraments, or that all situations warrant such unlimited access. The proposal is to properly discern each case. For example, special care should be taken of “a new union arising from a recent divorce” or “the case of someone who has consistently failed in his obligations to the family” (298). Also, when there is a sort of apology or ostentation of the person’s situation “as if it were part of the Christian ideal” (297). In these difficult cases, we should be patient companions, and seek a path of reinstatement (cf. 297, 299).

Guideline 5 deals with the case when the couple makes a "vow" or "promise," which is not a requirement for firm purpose of amendment. It seems impossible, therefore, to construe Guideline 6 as as anything other than a dogmatic teaching that such a "vow" or "promise" is not a requirement for absolution under FC 84. Note that such a resolution is certainly to be commended pastorally, because it enormously reduces the likelihood of sin. That is why it is recommended in Guideline 5 as the first-line approach for these situations. But if that resolution is not feasible, it's not a sine qua non requirement for absolution over and above the normal resolution not to sin entailed in firm purpose of amendment. Guideline 7 then just points out that good cause and sincerity in the reasons for not separating and not fleeing the near occasion of sin need to be seriously assessed, rather than simply assumed. There is essentially no excuse for someone who, for example, remarried last week or who has left the previous family in dire and immediate need not to separate; there needs to be a real necessity. And the obligation to one's living spouse and family must absolutely be considered in evaluating what is considered good cause for mitigated culpability in the failure to separate.

Based on these Guidelines, then, AL is only teaching dogmatically that no such "vow" or "promise" or other resolution with the other person is required. That's not a contradiction. It's an innocuous doctrinal development that is entirely compatible with prior doctrinal teaching to say that there is no special version of firm purpose of amendment that applies to people in this situation, which is arguably not a new teaching at all. It teaches that it is not the case that in addition to firm purpose of amendment, one must also make some sort of promise or vow with the other person to remain continent. It suffices that the penitent sincerely intends to remain continent, combined with having good cause that mitigates culpability for the failure to separate or to flee from the near occasion of sin. And as Gordon pointed out, they correctly cited Pope St. John Paul II for the proposition that anticipated failure does not imply that they do not sincerely intend to remain continent.

[N.B.: As an aside, the moral theology of culpability for less-than-complete consent to sexual acts and double effect, much less mere foreseeability of such consent, is too complex even to assess here. Suffice it to say that we are far beyond the "anything short of utmost resistance to the point of death is formal cooperation with the sexual act" approach. Consider the case of contraception in the 1994 Vadmecum, wherein the act itself was intrinsically immoral, but reluctant consent to the act was not considered "already illicit in itself":

Special difficulties are presented by cases of cooperation in the sin of a spouse who voluntarily renders the unitive act infecund. In the first place, it is necessary to distinguish cooperation in the proper sense, from violence or unjust imposition on the part of one of the spouses, which the other spouse in fact cannot resist. This cooperation can be licit when the three following conditions are jointly met:

1. when the action of the cooperating spouse is not already illicit in itself;

2. when proportionally grave reasons exist for cooperating in the sin of the other spouse;

3. when one is seeking to help the other spouse to desist from such conduct (patiently, with prayer, charity and dialogue; although not necessarily in that moment, nor on every single occasion).]

Of course, if AL were teaching that, not even the firm intent to remain continent were required for absolution, which is the Kasper program, then that would almost certainly be heretical. There are pathological cases involving invincible ignorance where this might be true, but the statement in AL that "more is involved than mere ignorance of the rule" seems to contradict invincible ignorance expressly. So we are talking about people who are at least know presently that they are under a grave obligation to separate and that adulterous sex would be sinful, even if they might not have known this when they contracted the unlawful union. But if the point were to contradict Pope St. John Paul II to remove the firm purpose of amendment, it would make no sense at all to cite Pope St. John Paul II's writings multiple times in AL, including a letter concerning Reconciliation. For that matter, it doesn't even make sense at all to mention Reconciliation in this context if there is nothing from which to repent. Gordon even points this out when he asks why Confession would even be required, but he inexplicably fails to connect the dots that it wouldn't be mentioned at all if they thought Confession weren't required. These repeated mentions of the Sacrament of Reconciliation are the clearest textual evidence that AL is not adopting the Kasper proposal that Confession is not even required, and this seems to be consistent with the widely held opinion that Amoris Laetitia was a rejection of the progressive proposal.

From the doctrinal perspective, it isn't clear that there has been a change at all, because all AL did was to confirm that FC did not teach any special requirements for confession other than the normal requirement of firm purpose of amendment. Moreover, the extensive discussion on culpability for mortal sin could erroneously be taken to say that breaches in continence do not even need to be confessed, even though both AL and the Buenos Aires guidelines explicitly mention Reconciliation. But AL could have and should have reiterated the doctrinal teaching on Confession from Trent, mostly because that is what one does when offering a clear doctrinal explanation. If you are going to write more than a hundred pages, it seems relevant to spend a couple of paragraphs on the existing doctrinal teaching on the point. One might easily suspect that such studied ambiguity is intended to avoid directly condemning Kasper's progressive position, even while implicitly affirming the doctrine that contradicts it, which I think is an extraordinarily dangerous didactic approach. It puts one in mind of Pope Honorius, who, when given an opportunity to condemn heresy, inexplicably elected not to do so, which made his writings "dangerous to souls."

Nonetheless, Gordon still views this as a contradiction, because the requirement of a "vow" or "promise" has allegedly been removed. But this is only because of Gordon's mistaken view that FC requires some kind of formal, public process. That is in turn because he contemplates that this process would allow the couple to "put people on notice" in order to return to public Communion, but FC actually precludes that from happening. In fact, what the discernment process of AL is intended to do is not to remove the requirement of Confession or continence but rather to prevent the remarried from being banned from public Communion for life if they cannot regularize their marriages. In that respect, AL is creating exactly what Gordon mistakenly thinks FC already did: to create a path to public participation in the Sacraments for people who sincerely intend to remain continent. That brings us to the disciplinary question.

The disciplinary change in Amoris Laetitia

By my lights, AL unquestionably was intended to change the discipline of FC that the remarried, even those who remain continent, are banned from public Communion unless and until their marriage is regularized. FC states this as follows:

However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples.

People have, for some reason, assumed that the statement in the second paragraph that Penance would "open the way to the Eucharist" modifies the teaching of the previous paragraph of not admitting such people to the Eucharist in public. This is false. They are still publicly banned as long as they continue to live under the same roof. This does not mean "but if you promise to remain continent, then we can readmit you to public Communion." On the contrary, you can then only be admitted to Communion remoto scandolo, either in parishes where you are unknown or in private.

Matthew Levering takes the position that the previous pastoral practice is necessary to safeguard the doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage. In commenting on this disciplinary change in Engaging the Doctrine of Marriage to allow the remarried to public Communion, Levering says the following:

Some readers have interpreted [Levering's book The Indissolubility of Marriage] as a defense of Amoris Laetitia. Let me be clear, therefore, that I affirm that Amoris Laetitia teaches the doctrine of marital indissolubility and also rightly insists upon the need for compassion toward people whose sacramental marriages have failed and who are in a new civil marriage without annulment. But I think that there are formulations and theological arguments in Amoris Laetitia that are not adequate to the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage. Furthermore, the new pastoral strategy regarding Eucharistic communion runs counter to the reality of marital indissolubility, as I show in the book. In favor of the view that knowingly violating the bonds of an indissoluble marriage should not necessarily be an impediment to Eucharistic communion in charity, a view that is mistaken, see also Cantalamessa, The Gaze of Mercy, 73. Cantalamessa's arguments are uncharacteristically simplistic.

I agree with Levering completely that the theological reasoning of AL ch. 8 provided no additional help to the situation and did not even reiterate the teaching that was already out there. I believe it is thoroughly inadequate to catechize the faithful on the indissolubility of marriages, and as a theological justification for the change in discipline, it is worse than nothing. I've said multiple times that AL, or at least chapter 8, should never have been written, not because it says anything false but because it doesn't say nearly enough of what is true. Like a number of badly-written Magisterial documents (e.g., Unam Sanctum), it will likely end up having made the situation worse. So we agree that while AL doesn't teach any doctrinal contradiction (i.e., it does not teach heresy in a binding or non-binding way), it is practically confusing rather than illuminating, making the teaching harder and not easier to understand.

But Levering's conclusion about the pastoral strategy seems to be at the very heart of what should be the discussion about AL. The problem with Gordon's mistake is that it doesn't even recognize that this is an issue. Gordon (erroneously) thought that people who promised to be continent could go to Communion publicly and didn't have to spend the rest of their lives with their arms crossed in front of their chests in their home parish in front of their own children, in front of the judgmental stares of the entire congregation despite their being in a state of grace. So from Gordon's perspective, this must be all about getting more remarried people to Communion than FC would have allowed, lowering the bar on continence. But that's not the situation that AL is concerned to address or, at least, there is no evidence that this is the situation that it's trying to address. The situation AL seems to be concerned about is that there is literally no path for the remarried to return to public Communion in their own parish. The "heroes" that Gordon described, who faithfully walk the path of continence for decades, never once get to return to Communion.

So the real question, which I have never seen anyone mention, is whether CCC #2384 should be revised when it says that remarriage is "a situation of public and permanent adultery." In other words, merely living in the situation is an active sin against the bond of marriage. Even if the people were not culpable for the original situation, are currently maintaining it only for grave reasons, are remaining continent (and thus not incurring any mortal sin), and are in the state of grace under FC, this "situation" is nonetheless objectively incompatible with the symbology of the Eucharist.  So let's look at Fr. Cantalamessa's argument, which I believe is not careful enough:

Now it is true in the case of believers who are divorced and remarried that their encounter with Jesus already happened in Baptism, and so on the surface they are similar to the Samaritan woman after her encounter with Christ. But there is the problem: was that baptismal encounter really an encounter, a personal encounter? Have these people ever really known the love of Christ? We describe "nominal" Christians today as those who have receive Baptism without ever becoming "real believers" through their own decision, but in fact we act (and the law acts!) as though they were real Christians who were provided with all the means of grace to overcome the obstacles encountered in a marriage.

However, even if at one time these people were "real" Christians, that is, convinced and practicing Christians, is it in line with the gospel to exclude the possibility of a real repentance for them according to the practices during the first centuries whereby people were readmitted to full communion with the Church? The way Jesus deals with the Samaritan woman and, as we have seen, with the sinful woman who clasped his feet -- it is not at least equivalent to what he does in giving himself in the Eucharist? If the Eucharist is "his true body born of the Virgin Mary," then in both cases (the reality and the sacrament), are we not dealing with the same identical Jesus?

We can use the kindest and most encouraging words toward divorced and remarried people who desire to live a Christian life, but the reality does not change. To refuse them sacramental absolution and the Eucharist in every case, even when they are repentant and have resolved to follow a path of reintegration into the community, means saying to them that they are in a state of mortal sin, that is, objectively separated from God, with the consequences we are aware of if they should die in such a state. Given the present increasing trend in society, this would lead before long to having a Christian community that was formed, for the most part or nearly so, of "dead" members, because the Eucharist is the sacrament of the living.

St. Paul recognizes the possibility of divorce and remarriage for people who become believers if a spouse refuses to follow the other person in that decision (see 1 Corinthians 7:15). This is the so-called Pauline privilege, or "privilege of faith," recognized by the Code of Canon Law. That exception does not apply to baptized divorced people in all of its juridical requirements, but there is, nevertheless, an unmistakable analogy that can be made in so many cases of divorced Christians (even if not in all).

According to traditional canon law, at least in the past, simple conversion to the Catholic Church, even from another Christian confession, Protestant or otherwise, authorized people to obtain ipso facto the right to divorce and remarry. Should we not allow the same thing for a person who has had a true and profound conversion to Christ and then cannot live with the first spouse?

I agree with Levering that the answer is "no." If the person has not received baptism from the Church, then it makes sense to consider whether that person has the legal capacity to exercise the full scope of capability, including contracting Sacramental marriages. But if we open this up to every poorly catechized Catholic, then it would defeat the idea that baptism is the process by which the Church fully incorporates members into the Mystical Body, which creates a far more fundamental problem. So Fr. Cantalamessa's argument here, which is essentially the Orthodox argument for oikonomia in cases of divorce, is completely untenable for the Catholic doctrine of marital indissolubility. In any case, there is nothing in AL to suggest this sort of regularization. But that's not the end of the discussion for our purposes.

Fr. Cantalamessa legitimately raises the issue of whether the Eucharist should be denied to people who are not in a state of mortal sin, and we know from FC that it is possible for remarried Catholics who continue to live under the same roof to be in the state of grace and to receive Reconciliation. With regard to public reception of the Eucharist, there is also the matter of Trent concerning the Eastern Rite Christians in Venice, who were in communion with Rome but who were remarried according to the Orthodox tradition. To avoid contention over the matter, Trent did not directly excommunicate those who believed that remarriage was possible but only those who accused the Church of error in Her teaching concerning the indissolubility of marriage. It is hard to see how this was not a practical determination that the remarried were not publicly culpable for adultery in a way that would bar them from the Eucharist. And indeed, we say essentially the same thing with respect to intercommunion with the Orthodox in cases of need today.  

Certainly, one could argue that there's a clearer public sign in membership within an Eastern Rite or an Orthodox church, but there's no reason that such a public sign would be relevant to the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of remarriage as a sign with respect to the Eucharist. So while I see very good reasons why the Sacramental discipline of FC might be better at conveying the indissolubility of marriage and why it might be superior for the parish to support the remarried at bearing this Cross, Levering's assertion that the discipline is simply inadequate to the doctrine seems overstated.

But let's suppose that the objection to AL is not an absolute principle of incompatibility between remarriage and the Eucharist but rather that the exception is being applied so broadly. This is where I would point out that the scope of the exception has not been mandated by AL but rather has been commended to the judgment of the bishops, who are in a better situation to assess whether local conditions (like the one in Venice at the time of Trent) can reasonably allow the admission of the remarried to the Eucharist without undue scandal. The Polish Church, for example, has simply retained the discipline of FC. The problem, and it is no small problem, is that bishops who wrongly interpret AL as permission to excuse the firm purpose of amendment will take the opportunity to do so. 

This is not merely a hypothetical possibility. The Maltese bishops made the heretical assertion in paragraph 10 of their guidelines that "the choice of living 'as brothers and sisters' becomes humanly impossible and give[s] rise to greater harm," which directly contradicts the Second Council of Orange and Trent on the possibility of one constituted in grace to keep the commandments. This is the basis for my strong disagreement with Pedro Gabriel's position in The Orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia, which I see as making exactly the same mistake. But that is not because anything taught in AL contradicts dogma (as Levering admits it does not), but because AL so poorly reiterated the relevant moral teaching that it can easily be abused in this way. For me, it is very difficult to see how papal teaching that was actually interpreted heretically without one word of rebuke from the Pope could possibly be a good thing. So I share Levering's position that I cannot give a defense of Amoris Laetitia; it strikes me as an entirely foreseeable pastoral disaster. Unfortunately, we have no assurance from God that Popes will effectively govern and discipline the Church.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I agree with Fr. Vincent Twomey, who is uniquely positioned in terms of qualifications to assess this situation. As he says, there is an orthodox interpretation of AL, which is about Sacramental discipline and how the Church treats the remarried publicly, and there is a heterodox expansion of the teaching of AL, which would excuse the requirement of firm purpose of amendment and intention to remain continent as a condition for absolution. Gordon's mistake makes it impossible to distinguish the two, and that mistake is based his not realizing that FC has an absolute ban on the remarried from public Communion, even those who are continent. Gordon's mistake is somewhat understandable due to AL itself failing to clearly reiterate prior teaching and the utter lack of discipline against people who have openly made the heterodox expansion of AL's teaching. Lastly, I think that we should have a reasonable discussion about Matthew Levering's position that AL's relaxation of the absolute ban in FC is pastorally inadequate to the doctrine of indissolubility of marriage. But AL was written so badly that it's only forced that discussion to the wayside.

Swallowing the bitter pill

The claim I will make here is not that Church discipline doesn't matter in the absolute sense, as if no one is hurt by the failures of the shepherds of the Church. Rather, what I am saying is that the claim that the Church is "indefectible" is purely supernatural in nature; it pertains to the supernatural aspects of grace and revelation. There is a supernatural reality that is there regardless of time or season. In the liturgy, we see eternity. Compared to that supernatural reality, the mundane things that we see barely exist. It is the ability to grasp that reality that defines the Christian life in faith, hope, and charity.

This is likewise the sense in which the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." It is the quintessential act of faith. The only thing that matters, from a disciplinary standpoint, is that the faithful have access to the Sacrament. That is the respect in which one judges scandal, the idea that a minister would suggest to the faithful that the Church as a whole does not embrace this supernatural reality. This is exemplified by Canon 915: "Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion." But in the end, it is possible for the minister to fail at this task; the Cross that the laity bears is that they must not fail in their faith. When the ministers of the Sacrament fail to protect them from scandal, those in the pews must not lose their grasp on the pearl of great price, for which they have sold their lives.

Divine revelation is likewise preserved supernaturally, but because it comes in written form with the concomitant need of interpretation, the supernatural aspects are not contained in the very thing itself as they are with the Eucharist. Here, there is necessarily a supernatural activity of conservation, and that supernatural activity is what is recognized with the eyes of faith, just as the Eucharist itself is. And just as the Eucharist is the source and summit on the Christian life, the keys given to Peter are the supernatural principle for the conservation of divine revelation. They are capable, by their nature, only of binding to the truth, and this is the principle by which they are capable of sustaining revelation. Perceived by the eyes of faith, the fact that the keys bind only to truth is the visible sign that the Scriptures are what they say that they are. This is why those three things -- the celebration of the Eucharist (Tradition), the oracles of God (Scripture), and the keys of Peter (Magisterium) -- work inseparably for the faithful as the true sign of the God Who reveals. Just as we perceive the Real Presence in the Eucharist by faith, we perceive the God Who reveals in the Church by faith.

But just as the Eucharist can be recognized in the midst of scandal by the minister, so can the power of the keys. St. Bernard of Clairvaux speaks of the Church of his time in Sermon 33 on the Song of Songs.

It was once predicted [of the Church], and now the time of its fulfillment draws near: Behold, in peace is my bitterness most bitter [Is. 38:17]. It was bitter at first in the death of the martyrs; more bitter afterward in the conflict with heretics; but most bitter of all now in the [evil] lives of her members. She cannot drive them away, and she cannot flee from them, so strongly established are they, and so multiplied are they beyond measure. It is that which makes its bitterness most bitter, even in the midst of peace. But in what a peace! Peace it is, and yet it is not peace. There is peace from heathens, and from heretics; but not from her own sons. At this time is heard the voice of her complaining: I have nourished and brought forth children, and they have rebelled against me [Is. 1:2]. They have rebelled; they have dishonoured me by their evil lives, by their shameful gains, by their shameful trafficking, by, in short, their many works which walk in darkness. There remains only one thing -- that the demon of noonday should appear to seduce those who remain still in Christ, and in the simplicity which is in Him. He has, without question, swallowed up the rivers of the learned, and the torrents of those who are powerful, and (as says the Scripture) he trusteth that he can draw the Jordan into his mouth [Job 40:23] -- that is to say, those simple and humble ones who are in the Church. For this is he who is Antichrist, who counterfeits not only the day, but also the noonday; who exalts himself above all that is called God or worshipped -- whom the Lord Jesus shall consume with the Spirit of His Mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His Coming [2 Thess. 2:4, 8]; for He is the true and eternal Noonday: the Bridegroom, and Defender of the Church, Who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Unquestionably, both then and thereafter, the Pope has been part of this failure, in some cases actively participating in it and encouraging it. But the authority of the keys is not different than the Eucharist in this regard; within his charism, the Pope is something more than he is. The keys he bears are more than human, even when wielded "in a human mode," as Johann Baptist Cardinal Franzelin describes the use of disciplinary authority. When the Pope exerts this supernatural power, it is like the case of the priest, a sinful man who confects something altogether beyond his power. The fact that the Pope may be an awful person, even in his exercises of disciplinary power, makes not one whit of difference to the efficacy of this power. He cannot negate his charism by his wrongful behavior any more than the priest can negate his own orders. As long as he has the office, he has the charism of the office. The only way that he can lose it is to leave voluntarily, for no power on earth can depose him.

The question, then, is always this: is the Pope acting with the supernatural authority of his office? If he is, we trust it, not because of the man but because of the Holy Spirit. And this is true whenever the Pope uses the keys, the supreme Magisterium, to bind, even if only "in a human mode." The use of the keys most aligned with the purpose of the office  -- as steward of the deposit of faith -- is that of binding to doctrine. This is why ex cathedra pronouncements have the maximum degree of this personal protection, referrred to simply as infallibility. But disciplinary authority of the supreme Magisterium, which is incidental to this role, is no less supernatural in nature, meaning that it must likewise partake of the same Petrine gift in order to provide us with a rational basis for obedience to the Magisterium. If we could be commanded to adhere to a denial of the deposit of faith by the very power given to preserve it, that would render the faith itself fundamentally incoherent and irrational. It would consign Catholicism to sheer fideism. Therefore, as St. Robert Bellarmine says, "it is gathered correctly that the Pope by his own nature can fall into heresy, but not when we posit the singular assistance of God which Christ asked for him by his prayer" (De Controversiis book IV, ch. 7).

Yet, on the other hand, it would be foolish to claim that what the Mellifluous Doctor has described as a "bitterness most bitter" is easy to swallow. We cannot dismiss the very real harm and pain that is caused by these morally defective pastors. When the priesthood is full of wrongdoers, who "cannot be driven away or fled," that is in some way even worse than persecution or battles with heresy. But we can never go so far as to deny the supernatural power of the keys, which the eyes of faith always must have in sight. Along those lines, I must agree with the comments by "riverrun" here (around 5:30) in discussing the authority of the episcopate (and especially the Pope) over the liturgy:

We have episcopal government in this Church that's fundamental. If you're going to dispense with that to save the liturgy, you've lost everything that was worthwhile in the liturgy to dispense with. It's gone. So help me out. I want priests and bishops before I want to be able to do whatever I want with ritual. 

...

[12:13] "We're the shepherds; we're the guardians." Of course they are! Of course they are! If they aren't, then God help me! I'm doomed. 

And the papal supremacy over the liturgy is simply a specific case of Church discipline. The failure of the shepherds in Church discipline is absolutely a bitter pill to swallow. But if it causes us to vomit up the nourishing food that the faith provides us, then we ourselves will have failed in our calling, although perhaps not due to our fault. Isaiah 38:17 goes on to say why we suffer this: "Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back." Even this bitter medicine -- the failings of our shepherds -- is for our good, if we only recall that the Church is the ark of our salvation with Her visible head who bears the keys of St. Peter. But if we let it lead us to resistance against the supernatural authority of the keys, we will have taken the pill to our own sorrow.

Denial of the unique and personal authority of the Pope, this supernatural power of the keys, is the definition of schism; it is the wrongful failure to submit to the power of the keys. Those who willfully deny this supernatural authority and its concomitant protection from universally binding the Church to heresy have already embraced schism in principle. Obviously, one can question whether this is the case with the Eastern Orthodox or the SSPX, who hold a fundamentally different account of what the authority of the keys entails. If the denial is not willful, then it is only by "blessed inconsistency," because they have done avoiding schism in everything but formal act. But the more troubling case is that of traditionalists who ostensibly accept the power of the keys but who rationalize disobedience by such inconsistency.

In short, to make one's view Church discipline a condition to obedience to the Pope is the same Donatist impulse that makes the moral fitness of ministers a condition to validity of the Sacraments. On the contrary, this supernatural reality is accepted by faith without regard to the failings of the ministers. And in the case of the keys, the supernatural authority does not depend on one's judgment of the job performance of the Pope. The idea that we get to decide what doctrine is, that we can somehow "read ourselves into the Church" by any path other than sheer obedience -- albeit rational obedience with moral certainty -- to Her governmental authority is a Pelagian fantasy. It is only the grace of obedience to the mystical Body of Christ, in whatever imperfect way, that gives us any hope of salvation.

This is not to say that I have no sympathy with those who struggle with the bitter pill. How could we not? It seems inordinately cruel for those who love the celebration of Mass according to the older ritual would be prevented from preserving it. And although we can trust that God saves whomever He will save, so that not even one who is led away from the Catholic faith inculpably will be lost, the shepherds will be the ones to answer to God for their conduct in losing them from the community. But we must -- we simply must! -- avoid the Donatist impulse that would deny the supernatural authority of the Pope, including any suggestion that binding universal discipline over the liturgy or other matters can be heretical.

Gavin Ortlund: apostle of anarchy

Gavin Ortlund perfectly illustrates the paradox of "conservative" Protestantism. In some ways, conservative Protestantism is a good thing because it inculcates (certain) good doctrinal beliefs and respect for holy Scripture. In that way, it is very common for conservative Protestantism to be a bridge to Catholicism or Orthodoxy for those who are open to the Fathers. But there is a long-standing and entirely chimerical tradition in Protestantism of falsely claiming that Protestantism originated in a return to the ancient faith, which burns the escape route from objective error. That might have been (barely) plausible during the time of the Reformation, but patristic support for Protestant distinctives has not been a methodologically legitimate historical thesis since the time of St. John Henry Newman ("To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant"). Indeed, I would argue that it hasn't been a serious historical thesis since the posthumous condemnation of Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 1638 and 1642, which conclusively defeated the idea that Protestant distinctives came from a common tradition with the East, the delusion that both Luther and Calvin sincerely embraced. 

Leaving aside the question of the exact moment when Protestant historical claims were debunked, it remains unquestionable that the neo-patristic revival in Orthodox scholarship has essentially annihilated all of the nineteenth-century Anglican arguments in favor of Protestantism, leaving them with absolutely no historical case. To invoke another sixteenth-century belief that has been entirely debunked, you might as well be a geocentrist today as to be a Protestant claiming that Protestantism existed as an orthodox tradition before the Reformation. The far more plausible Protestant view is the liberal view -- that the subjective disposition of faith can change from age to age based on the meaning of the Gospel in that time, rather than being a fixed body of historical dogmatic teaching, the latter of which is thoroughly untenable if one wishes to remain Protestant.

Ortlund has demonstrated the implausibility of the Protestant position in a recent response to my friend Joshua Charles on apostolic succession in the Fathers. I will focus primarily not on the errors that he makes in interpreting the Fathers but on the methodological errors that cause them.

Ortlund's philosophical position is as follows:

(1) Post-apostolic ecclesial infallibility is a later accretion.

(2) The closure of revelation means that all such later accretions (and all other post-Apostolic developments) must always be subject to correction by Scripture.

(2) necessarily lacks a principle by which correction can take place; it is an explicit concession of the liberal position that the only principle for correction is the personal meaning of Scripture. Ortlund inconsistently claims that he believes in binding doctrine while simultaneously annihilating the only possible principle by which doctrinal correction could be binding, meaning that he has no good reason to believe that Scripture on any other doctrine can be corrupted or changed. That is already the liberal position, but Ortlund's is worse by my lights because he is positively attacking the government of the Church (apostolic succession).

Fortunately, Ortlund has an extraordinarily clear summary of his own argument. These are his words in the last several minutes of the Charles response starting around 27:45 that are directly relevant to this problem:

A third objection is people say "well, if you deny that the Church has post-apostolic infallibility, then what you are saying is that God just abandoned His Church," but this is the fallacy of the excluded middle where people make you choose between two extremes as though the only options on the table are either (A) the Church has infallibility per se or (B) the Church is abandoned. But, of course, those aren't the only two options. Most Protestants hold to the indefectibilty of the church, for example, historically. Basically, our position is pretty simple; we believe the church is alive and well and protected and guided and preserved and watched over by the Holy Spirit, and every nanosecond of church history she is alive, she never dies, her offices are divinely instituted and established, there are authoritative standards within her to be employed like councils, there are expressions of authority within the church like excommunication, but the church is fallible -- that's it. So she's not dead, and she's not abandoned, she's just capable of error so she has to measure herself by the superior standard of God's inspired Word. I think that's a pretty reasonable position.   

The fourth objection is that people say "well, sola Scriptura wasn't in the early Church either," and my response to that is -- because we're saying post-apostolic infallibility is an accretion, they're saying "oh well, sola Scriptura is an accretion, too." My response to that is pretty simple, I would just say "yes, [sola Scriptura] is in the early church." First of all, it's inherent within the New Testament itself, in the Scripture's claims about itself. Scripture claims to be the inspired Word of God, so it is of unique authority. All sola Scriptura is, is the application of that claim to a very specific question, namely, how does the rule of the church work with respect to infallibility? So the idea is derived from the claims of Scripture about itself. It's not fully laid out, and it doesn't need to be. But the idea in the early church absolutely is present.

If you'd like to give the Protestant view a really good shake and really give it consideration, read this book by William Whitaker written back in 1588, I think, and basically from page 670-704, he gives twenty examples of Church Fathers. He starts with Irenaeus, he talks about Augustine who basically -- they don't use the word "sola Scriptura," it's not always fleshed out with every nuance, and there he recognizes "yeah, they're in a different context, but the basic idea that the inspired Word of God is of superior authority to any sort of ongoing capacities within the church -- whether an office, a council, anything like that  -- these things are subordinate under Scripture." We measure ourselves by Scripture, etc., etc. That basic idea is resonant in the thought of early Christians and some medieval Christians as well, and I've talked about that elsewhere. But you could read that as one testimony, and if you want a full case, you can see some of my other videos, like Augustine.

But basically to sum up it up like this, I would say the idea of sola Scriptura does have a good foundation in the Scripture and in the early church, whereas the idea of post-apostolic ecclesial infallibility -- I've got to say this strongly, and I'm not trying to offend anybody or make anybody angry, but I've got to say it strongly, because of the level of triumphalism that comes against us. If you're one of the more gentle critics, let this one slide by you, OK? This is only for the people who are very triumphalist: there is simply no foundation whatsoever for post-apostolic ecclesial infallibility. It is hanging on in midair, off the ground. Jesus and the Apostles who taught abundantly about the offices and nature of the church -- Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12:28, and following the Pastoral Epistles, Hebrews, etc. -- not once is there any hint of this idea that there's going to be offices or capacities in the post-Apostolic church that are infallible. That's simply not present early on in the Apostles or in the early church, so there's just no reason to believe it. It has no foundation. So when you have a claim like the bodily Assumption of Mary impressed upon us on the grounds that it does exist, what can we do but protest? 

If you're wondering when it does come in, that's a complicated question: where does infallibility start evolving? I do have a video on papal infallibility specifically where I try to trace out some of that development on YouTube. If you want to -- I won't put it down in the video description, but you can hunt it down, it's not hard to find.... I haven't addressed other aspects like councils. Maybe I'll try to get to those one say to sum it up. As Protestants, we are not trying to reject the Church, we're not trying to be unruly or unsubmissive to the Church, far from it! We want to submit to the Church. We want to submit to Christ. We want to submit to the Apostles. Our desire is to be faithful to what Christianity is. Our desire is to be faithful to what the Apostles taught over and against that which is a later accretion that doesn't have a foundation in what the Apostles taught. That is what we are trying to do; we are trying to be faithful to Christ. We want to place our trust in that which is of divine constitution, not in later human accretion. And in saying that, we're not saying that the church died when those accretions are are going on, but the church can make errors, and errors come in. So that's the heart posture and desire of a Protestant position. So I hope this video will clarify that and commend that for others to consider.

Being one of the said triumphalists, I have to say equally strongly that Ortlund's claims are completely incompetent even from the perspective of mundane history, whatever good intentions he may have. In fact, if you want to see some brutal honesty about exactly how ridiculous Ortlund's claims are as a matter of mundane history from an ordinary person just reading the sources, I strongly recommend the work of "Agnus Domini" on Ortlund's treatment of the apostolic succession here, here and here. I will instead point out that if we applied Ortlund's historical method in a completely mundane context, the results would be laughable.

Analogy to Supreme Court authority

Let's take an example of completely mundane secular authority. The present government of the United States of America was created by the Constitution in 1789. In that Constitution, the judicial power was granted to the Supreme Court, but nothing specifically provided for the power of judicial review -- to "say what the law is" concerning the Constitution. That power was established in the opinion authored by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison fourteen years after; it was technically a "post-Founding development." But it would be absurd to make the legal argument based on history that every Constitutional decision the Supreme Court has ever made lacks legal authority because the Constitution doesn't explicitly provide for judicial review. That argument would be rejected out of hand as a denial of what actually happened in history: the power of judicial review was never really denied but rather accepted as an essential feature of the judicial power.

A competent historian would look especially at two factors: (1) the common law tradition from which the Constitution emerged, and (2) the subsequent acceptance of the authority of Supreme Court decisions as having binding authority in the entire judicial system. That is because good historians look at the reasons for which people accept authority, not viewing it as an imposition of sheer power of one ruling class over another. (Note that I say "good historians" here because Ortlund's account of episcopal accretion would fit well with liberal interpretations in feminist and critical race theoretical approaches to history.) When one actually tries to understand the reasons for Chief Justice Marshall saying what he did, it hardly looks like a deliberate accretion of power by a self-serving Supreme Court. Rather, it is based on a recognition basic to legal systems generally -- and the common law system in particular -- that inability to render binding judgments concerning the law is anarchy. The judicial function is necessary for the rule of law to persist. If we said that Supreme Court decisions lacked authority because judicial review was a "later accretion," not recognizing its organic connection to the judicial authority and the subsequent incorporation into the law of society, we would negate the rule of law. There are certainly people who have complained about judicial review since, but the historical argument supporting the authority remains unshakeable.

The situation is identical with Scripture; the judicial function is necessary for Scripture to function as a rule of faith. Ortlund tries to appeal to the nature of Scripture to make this situation somehow different, but it isn't. Ortlund says: "Scripture claims to be the inspired Word of God, so it is of unique authority. All sola Scriptura is, is the application of that claim to a very specific question, namely, how does the rule of the church work with respect to infallibility?" He has the question exactly right and gets the answer exactly wrong. The Constitution is clearly of "unique authority"; it describes itself and the laws made pursuant to the Constitution as "the supreme law of the land." But the absurdity of concluding from its unique authority that the Supreme Court lacks authority to render binding decisions concerning its meaning has already been demonstrated, nor does it follow that the Constitution itself is the principle of correction for Supreme Court decisions. On the contrary, without the authority of the Supreme Court to render such binding decisions as a normal judicial function, the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, would not have been able to function as a rule of law.

In significant ways, Ortlund has confused the office of bishops with the exercise of its power, in exactly the way one could confuse the exercise of judicial review with the office of Supreme Court Justice. Ortlund equates the office of bishop with monarchial territorial jurisdiction, but that has nothing to do with the definition of the office. It is only one way in which that power can be exercised. As my Orthodox friend Perry Robinson recently pointed out, the requirements are actually that (1) there are three orders, (2) which are obtained by ordination that confers a spiritual gift through laying on hands and (3) only bishops can perform this ordination. But at 15:00, Ortlund offers a definition of apostolic success that doesn't actually correspond to this definition and which is actually misleading.

Its technical meaning has four components.

1. The office of bishop is distinct from the office of presbyter by divine right by apostolic appointment, and so the bishop rather than the presbyter is the successor of the Apostles;

2. Bishops have a regional jurisdiction in a kind of overarching hierarchical unity with one another;

3. Episcopal succession subsists in the laying on of hands from one bishop to another; and

4. Apart from valid apostolic succession, there is normally no validly ordained ministry and thus no efficacious Sacraments. 

Baptism will often be an exception to that, but the Eucharist --- for example, no valid Eucharist apart from valid holy orders or ministry, and no valid holy orders apart from valid apostolic succession, this very tight and sort of mechanical way of understanding how the church -- how church ministry is transmitted from one time to another.

(1) is false on multiple grounds. In the first place, Ortlund is using this to argue that the use of the term is exclusive, so that bishops cannot also be referred to as presbyters, which is entirely false. The greater order includes the lesser, which prevents the term itself from only and exclusively being used for the lower order. The word "deacon" is typically singled out because it lacks the fulness of priestly ministry, but it does still consecrate the man to service of the Church, which is why the title "servant" (which is nothing other than deacon translated) is applied to deacons, priests, and bishops.  Similarly, both presbyteroi and episkopoi have the fullness of priestly ministry and apostolic succession in this primary sense of Christ's priesthood, which is why it is perfectly acceptable to say that the bishop is part of the priesthood. But it is likewise true that only bishops have the fullness of the apostolic succession in the sense of governance over the lesser orders, which is exactly why the exercise of monarchial territorial jurisdiction is fitting but not necessary for the episcopate. But the true aspect of governance is of the bishops acting collectively in union with one another as the government of the Church. This is why ecumenical councils exemplifying the union of the bishops have final and binding authority in the Church.

(2) is simply false on its face. Regional jurisdiction is entirely inessential to apostolic succession. We could have continued to have multiple bishops governing collegially, as was done in early Rome and Corinth, indefinitely.

(3) is true but misleading, because it fails to point out that not only bishops but all orders are ordained by the bishop. The key feature of apostolic succession is that only bishops ordain others to ministry in the Church, either the ministry of service or priestly ministry of any kind. (Note that election of bishops, which Ortlund mentions at 19:25, has nothing to do with anything; bishop-candidates were elected locally for long stretches of Church history.)

(4) should therefore be stated more strongly: without ordination by a bishop, there is no priestly ministry of any kind, including most especially the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the order of Melchizedek.

With the correct understanding of apostolic succession, then, there is an exact parallel between the office of bishop and the office of Supreme Court Justice:

A. The office is named and described in some detail in the founding documents in a way that clearly conveys governmental authority (the Supreme Court in the Constitution, bishops in Scripture).

B. The process of installation into that office was clearly described, and there are no recorded instances of an office holder being recognized as such without that process (appointment by the President in the Constitution, ordination by laying on hands by an Apostle or bishop in Scripture).

C. Within about a generation after the founding, that office exercised a power that was not explicitly laid out in the founding documents but which was widely accepted as appropriate for the office (judicial review for the Supreme Court, monarchial territorial jurisdiction for the episcopate).

A claim that the power of judicial review was a later ultra vires accretion and that Supreme Court decisions are not valid law would not be taken seriously by any legal historian today, and it is not even three hundred years after the Founding. To say that the analogous claim is ridiculous in the context of the episcopate would be to understate the magnitude of the error; there is vastly more evidence for episcopal government in the centuries since Christ. Denial of this exercise of authority is the same dangerously foolish idea embraced by people who deny the authority of the federal government, such as the "Sovereign Individual" movement that advocates refusal to pay income taxes.

The point is that what Ortlund is doing isn't what we would normally consider "history" at all. Normal history would say exactly the same thing about episcopal authority that it does about the authority of the Supreme Court. The office shows every sign of having been established in the New Testament and operating as intended for its governmental function. Unless we assume that the first century Christian audience simply had no idea what the office was or how it was intended to function other than what was written in epistles, an assumption that is frankly ridiculous to anyone who even reads the plain text of the New Testament, we would handle this historically in the same way we handle any other office. And if we do handle it this way, then the claim that later episcopal authority is an "accretion" is no less absurd than the claim that the Supreme Court power of judicial review is a "accretion" that is legally invalid under the Constitution. That standard for validity would be completely contrary to our ordinary historical understanding of what was believed at the time.

Objections to the analogy

A. Scripture's claims are different than that of the Constitution

The simplest response to that objection is to look at how Ortlund himself characterized the issue: "All sola Scriptura is, is the application of that claim to a very specific question, namely, how does the rule of the church work with respect to infallibility?" I agree; a rule, a law, works the same way in the church as any rule for human beings in any human society. Scripture, qua the supreme law of the Church, works identically with the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land." The written consitution establishes a correlative government, and that is the way in which the written constitution sustains itself as a rule of law. If either Scripture or Constitution failed to do this, it would be a dead letter, incapable of functioning as a rule.

B. Authority is not infallibility

This argument is raised at 15:45; with respect to divine revelation, it is necessarily false for the reasons given in Michael Liccione's argument here -- that is, it would be intrinsically incapable of distinguishing authoritative divine revelation from mere opinion, meaning that it fails to provide a sufficient rational basis for the normative commitment of faith. This is understandable by the same analogy to the Supreme Court within the rule of law.

If one were to argue the distinction that the Supreme Court, as a collection of fallible political appointees is somehow "not infallible," the reply would be the old maxim about the Supreme Court: the Supreme Court is not final because it is infallible; it is infallible because it is final. That is, the Supreme Court cannot fail to be the final authority in the dispute, because that is its function within the rule of law, a rule of orderly behavior in the society. The only difference between rule of law and rule of faith in this sense is that the latter is established by God to lead not only to orderly behavior but also to truth. 

Note that "infallibility" in the sense of being incapable of error, which is more correctly called "inerrancy" in the case of writings like Scripture, is known as a consequence of its normative status within the government viewed as a whole. Human government can fail to achieve true "infallibility" in this sense in that it might be subject to future revision, but divine government as guarantor of truth cannot, which is why what the Church upholds as Scripture can be trusted as the divine law. Ortlund's claim that "receiving a gift of truth and promulgating infallibly are not the same thing" is radically false if Scripture is to serve as a rule of faith. This is why St. Augustine correctly says that his respect for Scripture is on account of the authority of the Church: "If you say, Do not believe the Catholics: you cannot fairly use the gospel in bringing me to faith in Manichæus; for it was at the command of the Catholics that I believed the gospel." 

C. Augustine denies the authority of the apostolic succession

Note that when dealing with Christian heretics who accept the apostolic succession, such as the Arian heretic Maximinus or the Donatists, Augustine will appeal to Scripture rather than councils (including Nicaea), but he does not do so with the Manichaeans who accept Scripture but reject the apostolic succession. The latter are simply being irrational, as Augustine points out, while the former are essentially in an internal debate about the proper authority of the episcopate. Likewise, when dealing with Protestants, the logical approach is not to dispute with them about Scripture, since there is no fundamental agreement about the authority of Scripture, but why they believe Scripture has authority in the first place.

Understood in that context, it is worth pointing out this howler from Ortlund concerning a quote from Augustine against the Donatists, which is thoroughly debunked by Agnus Domini.

But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true but that all the letters of bishops which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of some one who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, by the authority of Councils and further, that the Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world; and that even of the plenary Councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid, and this without any whirlwind of sacrilegious pride.

Ortlund makes the absurd claim, which seems to be motivated not by dishonesty but rather but just how oblivious Ortlund really is to patristics, that this is a claim that "ecumenical councils can err." As Agnus Domini points out, it's not likely that Augustine even knew that there could be ecumenical councils, plural, since it is very likely that he didn't even know that Constantinople had happened. What he's referring to here are councils convened to assess the common faith of the entire Church, formed for the whole but not necessarily out of the whole, which are plenary in that sense of representing more than just local opinions. His argument would be senseless for ecumenical councils in which the whole world is present to share knowledge, and he doesn't even take this position with respect to the appeals to Rome, which Augustine sees as an appeal to the shepherd of the whole Church. 

The point is that when the bishops are lawfully resolving disputes among one another, they should be appealing to Scripture, just as the Supreme Court should be appealing to the Constitution in resolving legal disputes. But he clearly doesn't think he should deal with opponents within the apostolic succession, who actually accept the offices and the government, the same we he treats those entirely outside the apostolic succession. And this goes double for Ortlund's citation of St. Irenaeus.

D. Irenaeus denies the authority of the apostolic succession

Here is the truly vicious irony. If we interpret Ortlund's claim correctly, he has cited direct patristic support against his own ministry! That's not an exaggeration, and the truly stunning part is that he does it in the middle of falsely accusing Joshua Charles of dishonest quotation. This is the quote from St. Irenaeus in Adv, Haer. 4.26, with the part Joshua quoted in bold:

Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church,—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, [looking upon them] either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth. And the heretics, indeed, who bring strange fire to the altar of God—namely, strange doctrines—shall be burned up by the fire from heaven, as were Nadab and Abiud. But such as rise up in opposition to the truth, and exhort others against the Church of God, [shall] remain among those in hell, being swallowed up by an earthquake, even as those who were with Chore, Dathan, and Abiron. But those who cleave asunder, and separate the unity of the Church, [shall] receive from God the same punishment as Jeroboam did.

Those, however, who are believed to be presbyters by many, but serve their own lusts, and, do not place the fear of God supreme in their hearts, but conduct themselves with contempt towards others, and are puffed up with the pride of holding the chief seat, and work evil deeds in secret, saying, “No man sees us,” shall be convicted by the Word, who does not judge after outward appearance, nor looks upon the countenance, but the heart; and they shall hear those words, to be found in Daniel the prophet: “O thou seed of Canaan, and not of Judah, beauty hath deceived thee, and lust perverted thy heart. Thou that art waxen old in wicked days, now thy sins which thou hast committed aforetime are come to light; for thou hast pronounced false judgments, and hast been accustomed to condemn the innocent, and to let the guilty go free, albeit the Lord saith, The innocent and the righteous shalt thou not slay.” Of whom also did the Lord say: “But if the evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite the man-servants and maidens, and to eat and drink and be drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day that he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.”

Such presbyters does the Church nourish, of whom also the prophet says: “I will give thy rulers in peace, and thy bishops in righteousness.” Of whom also did the Lord declare, “Who then shall be a faithful steward (actor), good and wise, whom the Lord sets over His household, to give them their meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing.” Paul then, teaching us where one may find such, says, “God hath placed in the Church, first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers.” Where, therefore, the gifts of the Lord have been placed, there it behooves us to learn the truth, [namely,] from those who possess that succession of the Church which is from the apostles, and among whom exists that which is sound and blameless in conduct, as well as that which is unadulterated and incorrupt in speech. For these also preserve this faith of ours in one God who created all things; and they increase that love [which we have] for the Son of God, who accomplished such marvellous dispensations for our sake: and they expound the Scriptures to us without danger, neither blaspheming God, nor dishonouring the patriarchs, nor despising the prophets.

Ortlund's supplemental quote is from AH 3.3:

For they were desirous that these men should be very perfect and blameless in all things, whom also they were leaving behind as their successors, delivering up their own place of government to these men; which men, if they discharged their functions honestly, would be a great boon [to the Church], but if they should fall away, the direst calamity.

I'll start from the end; the fact that Irenaeus separately enumerates that "they expound the Scriptures without danger" means that Scripture cannot itself be the basis of judging Scripture, because this statement would be superfluous if it were impossible to expound Scripture with danger. So this is an assertion that their authority, their "gift of truth," makes them reliable expounders of Scripture, not the converse proposition claimed by Ortlund that reliably expounding Scripture gives one authority. But the truly important phrase that Ortlund has completely glossed over is that these reliable teachers are "those who, together with the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth." The apostolic succession, which does include both bishops and presbyters, is collectively infallible by their shared faith. Individual bishops and presbyters can fall away through evil conduct, but the apostolic succession as a collective never can, which is the basis for the indefectibility of the Church. Anyone who believes in the indefectibility of the Church apart from the apostolic succession is simply irrational and fideistic.

This is why Irenaeus explicitly condemns "others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever," which is a perfect description of Ortlund's congregation. And if Ortlund were to do so willfully, Ortlund would a man we must "hold in suspicion," among those we should view "either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory." To be clear, I think that Ortlund is clearly oblivious, albeit so prone to engage in "motivated reasoning" that it frankly appears like dishonesty to people who know better.

Along those lines, even with respect to the evil presbyters, Irenaeus tells how we can judge those who are instead good: "Paul then, teaching us where one may find such [faithful servants], says 'God hath placed in the Church, first, apostles; secondly, prophets; thirdly, teachers. Where, therefore, the gifts of the Lord have been placed, there it behooves us to learn the truth, [namely,] from those who possess that succession of the Church which is from the apostles.'" As with the heretics, we judge goodness by unity with the Church, how that presbyter reflects unity with the one government of the Church. We do not judge them by expounding the Scriptures, because that cannot be done without danger by evil men; rather, we judge all things by unity with the Church government, and the Church within that unity judges rightly according to the Scriptures. It is that right judgment of the Church as a whole, as a single government, in which the indefectibility and infallibility subsists. Ortlund's self-contradictory position that "receiving a gift of truth and promulgating infallibly are not the same thing" could only be true if that authority were not intended by God to function as the once-for-all-time means of divine revelation. And that brings us to the Old Testament. 

E. The Old Testament did not have a final infallible authority

But what about the Old Testament lacking final infallible authority? Just as the government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation was in some respects incomplete in its function, which is why the Constitution was written, so Israel was incomplete as a self-sustaining divine government. This is exactly why revelation was open: because the revelation was incomplete at that time. Thus, the principle of correction was subsequent special divine intervention through offices like prophet, judge, and king. But once revelation in closed, the rule of faith, the apostolic government, must be complete. There will no longer be any special divine interventions, but rather the stable presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church founded on Pentecost. Ortlund therefore denies the fulfillment of Israel in the Church of the New Covenant.

If this apostolic succession, the plenary government of the New Testament instituted by Christ and inaugurated in their full office by the Holy Spirit, needed correction about the faith, then there would be no principle by which such correction could take place. This is why Ortlund's position necessarily degenerates into no rule of faith at all. By Ortlund's lights, the Incarnation and subsequent closure of revelation left us even worse off than Israel in the Old Testament, because we have neither self-sustaining government nor divine promise to specially intervene. By contrast, the Old Testament clearly demonstrated that the Scriptures alone were not sufficient to maintain the rule of faith without special divine intervention. In 2 Kings 22, Israel had degenerated into Ba'al worship and had forgotten the Law completely. Josiah's reforms on the discovery of the Book of the Law in chapter 23 were essentially immediately undone by his son, leading to the Babylonian captivity. 2 Kings 24:3-4 says "Surely this came upon Judah at the command of the Lord, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he had done, and also for the innocent blood that he had shed. For he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon." This is an example of God's ongoing special intervention with Israel in the Old Testament, and it demonstrates that with respect to the ongoing application of the rule of faith, Israel was defectible and corrigible, while the New Testament Church is indefectible and therefore incorrigible in principle.

And just as separation from Israel would have been separation from God, so is separation from the one government of the Church. Indeed, without its government, the Church doesn't even exist as a polity. The idea of "Church" in Ortlund's mind is not merely invisible; it's not even real! It's like a square circle, a nonsense object collected from incompatible properties in the Meinongian sense.  At least Israel was a real polity; Ortlund's view of the Church lacks even that level of reality. So we can return to Ortlund's vapid claim on indefectibility:

Most Protestants hold to the indefectibilty of the church, for example, historically. Basically, our position is pretty simple; we believe the church is alive and well and protected and guided and preserved and watched over by the Holy Spirit, and every nanosecond of church history she is alive, she never dies, her offices are divinely instituted and established, there are authoritative standards within her to be employed like councils, there are expressions of authority within the church like excommunication, but the church is fallible -- that's it. So she's not dead, and she's not abandoned, she's just capable of error so she has to measure herself by the superior standard of God's inspired Word. I think that's a pretty reasonable position.

This is far from a reasonable position; it's a sheerly nonsensical position. In the first place, Ortlund doesn't even believe in a real "church"; he believes in a nonsense object that can't possibly exist. To call this nonsense object "she," as if it were some kind of real thing in the sense that we speak about the federal government of the United States, is delusional. There is no "she" to have offices and standards and authority. The idea that this imaginary "she," which does not and cannot possibly exist, has any real properties at all can't even rationally be discussed.

If Ortlund thinks that the Church, like Israel, lacks infallibility, then Ortlund believes that the Church, like Israel is defectible and can only be brought back to the rule of faith by special divine intervention. But if Ortlund thinks that revelation is closed, then special divine intervention concerning the rule of faith is impossible. Those do not constitute a mutually compatible set of properties, so Ortlund believes in something that can't possibly exist. 

Conclusion

If you had someone telling you that the federal government were not actually the federal government but that the United States were actually run by a "shadow government" described by a contradictory and impossible set of properties, you would not accept that person's account as true, and you would likely have concerns about that person's mental health. But when Ortlund makes religious claims that are every bit as delusional, no one blinks an eye. That is a sign of how modernism has turned religion into something like aesthetic taste, like what flavor of ice cream one prefers, rather than real claims about reality. If Ortlund's (or any Protestant's) claims were treated as scientific rather than rhetorical, they would be laughed out of the discourse.

The Reformation is over. "Semper reformanda" is as historically relevant as "the South shall rise again." There are people who believe it, and they are wrong from perspective of brute historical fact. At some point, we need to start dealing with it and not treating these claims as intellectually serious. A Protestant who is not knowingly and consciously liberal is either ignorant or incompetent concerning patristic history. There is no other option.