Nebelsick, Harold Paul

2018-05-22T12:46:12Z

2018-05-22T12:46:12Z

1956

With the publication of Lux Mundi, Charles Gore, head of the Lux Mundi group and editor of the volume, was instrumental in opening a new era in Anglican theology. However, Gore is not only the harbinger of a new theological epoch, he is, in a real sense, a synthesis of the two theological movements, Tractarianism and Liberalism, that were born to English theology nearly a half century earlier; both these movements were a combination of Biblical and philosophical concepts. Tractarianism, though it had its beginnings in Homanticism, in its attempt to give the Church substantiality, adopted both a rationalistic basis for its doctrine of the Church, i_.e. the doctrine of Apostolic ouccession, understood as an unbroken succession of consecrations, and a rationalistic interpretation of the Scriptures which defied Biblical crit¬ icism. Liberalism gave rise to Biblical-criticism and was, in England, integrally bound up with Idealism. This is seen especially in the persons of Coleridge and Jowett, whose philosophical concepts, along with the personal Idealism of T. H. Green, formed a definite influence on Gore. However, in the persons of Coleridge, Arnold, and especially Westcott, Biblical-critical thought was given a strong Biblical-positive attitude which endowed Gore with his great respect for the Scriptures. 'Thus, from the Tractarians, Gore inherited a rationalistic doctrine of Apostolic Succession on which he based his doctrines of the Church and the Ministry, but he combined this with a critical, though respectful attitude toward the scriptures and the then cui'rent Idealism. This combination is basic to the Liberal Catholicism which Gore was instrumental in bringing to birth. Throughout Gore's thought and especially that related to the Church and the Ministry, we see the three factors of his endowment in constant interplay. In his apology for Biblical criticism, Gore maintains the need for criticizing the Scriptures and hence rejects the rationalistic interpretation of them as professed by the later Tractarians. However, his strong respect for the Bible leads him to hold to the historicity of the Lew Testament while his "high" view of the Church causes an ambivalence to prevail between the primacy of Scriptures and Church. Hence, he vacillates between asserting the supremacy of first the one and then the other as the occasion demands. Basic to Gore's philosophical precepts is his adherence to a concept of reason as man's subjective faculty for the apprehension of truth. In spanning both the realms of the natural and the supernatural, reason demands that reality be a unity. Further, Gore accepts Green's epistemological argument for the necessity of a divine mind, along with the concepts of emergent evolution as represented by Bergson and Pringle-Pattison. These he combines with the Judaeo-Christian concept of a revealing God to produce a system wherein Christ can be interpreted either as a result of emergent evolution or direct revelation; all conflicts between faith and reason and knowledge are reconciled because faith is a function of reason; and morality, reasonableness, self-realization and salvation are equated since all are the result of becoming God-like. Hence, sin, which is disobedience to God, prevents moral achievement, and the locus for moral endeavor, i.e. self-realization, i.e. salvation, is the Church. Further, in that man possesses a subjective capacity for the apprehension of truth, Gore maintains that the individual decision is primary, and in line with his preconceiving reality as a unity, he demands a Weltanschauung which comprises all branches of knowledge. In his doctrine of the Church, Gore is very largely Biblical when he is descriptive. 'The Church is designated as a single, visible society, a catholic fellowship founded by Christ. It is the New Israel re-founded from the Old, as well as to a certain extent the embodiment of the kingdom of God. The Church is also the Body of Christ, but when Gore explains this term, he introduces his doctrine of the Church as the extension of the Incarnation which goes hand in hand with his doctrine of Kenosis. Both these doctrines receive meaning from Gore's idealistic notions and the Church is explained as the extension of the Incarnation because Christ is immanent In the members of the Church, activating them to moral achievement. The function of the Church as Prophet is both to teach a moral standard to its membership and to uphold its credal position. As Priest, the Church must be reconciled unto itself in unity and its membership must be morally reconciled to God. The Church acts as King in, enforcing discipline first over itself, its clergy, and members, and secondly over the world in which it acts as moral leader. For Gore, the sacraments of the Church have their roots wholly in Jewish soil. Further, they are not of the nature of fiat because they demand the faith of the individual to receive tnem. Gore gives credence to seven sacraments: Baptists, Holy Communion, Confirmation, Penance, Matrimony, Ordination and Unction of the Sicx, though he gives precedence to the two sacraments- - Baptism and the Eucharist. Baptism, though defined by Hew Testament terminology, has its real meaning only as the rite of admittance to the Church and must be completed by Confirmation wherein the Holy Spirit is bestowed. The Eucharist is the highest act of Christian worship and is the occasion for the partaking of the actual Body and Blood of the glorified Christ. It is also described as a sacrifice, primarily because it is the occasion for the individual to offer himself. The Ministry of the Church was instituted by Christ in the persons of the twelve apostles who were intended to perpetuate their office by ordaining followers by the laying-on of hands. Thus, there was to be a succession of those so ordained, and these are essential to the existence or the Church. Of this succession the present bishops of the Anglican Communion are a part. The ministry functions in conjunction with the Church in fulfilling the offices of Prophet, Priest and King. As Prophet, it acts in a teaching capacity; as Priest, it administers the sacraments- - the bishops, on whom the rest of the ministry depend, have the exclusive function of bestowing the Spirit at Confirmation and Ordination. In its Kingly function, the ministry, with the congregation, enforces discipline. Gore admits that the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, as he understands It, is not explicitly, stated in the Hew Testament, and so he bases his argument for the doctrine on Church authority which argument can be used to destroy the doctrine itself. In attempting to prove his doctrine of Apostolic succession from the evidence of the development of the ministry, Gore begins with Irenaeus and Tertullian because he is certain that they propounded the doctrine as an unbroken succession of consecrations when they refer to the lineage of bishops from the apostles to their own time in order to substantiate the orthodoxy of the Church. when attempting to justify this doctrine by the Hew Testament, Gore finds a general apostolic group who have the power of laying-on of hands and appointing local ministers and successors. He points especially to the instances of the Apostle Paul commissioning Timothy and Titus as his successors, and maintains that the method by which monepiscopacy arose was by the localization of members of the general apostolic group who then became bishops. Though admitting that there is very fragmentary light in the subapostolic period, he puts great trust in Ignatius1 testimony that monepiscopacy was universal. However, he later refutes this statement with evidence from the Didache, Clement, Polycarp, and the Hhepherd of Hernias, whose evidence, at best, can be used to in¬ dicate that the ministry remained much the same as it is described in the New Testament. Hence, Gore really fails to indicate the method by which monepiscopacy arose. In conclusion, we find that Gore's casuistic doctrine of Apostolic Succession goes hand in hand with his definition of the Church as the locus of moral endeavour. This thinking which is the result of an inherited rationalistic doctrine of Apostolic Succession and nis inherent Idealism would seem to have little except its terminology in common with Apostolic Christianity. Also, we find that though the type of thinking represented by Gore is much alive today in the Anglican Church, it is being controverted by theologians who are basing their thought on Biblical theology. However, the historical unity in the Church which Gore believes his doctrine of Apostolic Succession to provide must not be given up. Neither must the concept of Apostolic Succession disappear, but the true APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION necessary for the being of the Church is an historical succession of Believers and witnesses to Christ. Where Christ is with these, there is His CHURCH.

http://hdl.handle.net/1842/30564

The University of Edinburgh

Annexe Thesis Digitisation Project 2018 Block 19

Church and ministry in the teaching of Charles Gore

The church and ministry in the teaching of Charles Gore

Thesis or Dissertation

Doctoral

PhD Doctor of Philosophy