I think it's important to understand that where I had been coming from (re: the fork) was not a matter of the schism between east and west, but of a fundamental fork in the earliest recognition of the papal office. Crucially, papal authority is not synonymous with 'the authority of Rome' - to conflate these two is just to already presuppose your conclusion: that a seat of pope was already at the head of the Roman church from the beginning. We cannot assume this: it is precisely what I have meant to challenge.
In fact, I have never intended to challenge that Rome was the authority. There are plenty of reasons which are perfectly obvious that would explain Rome's supremacy within the body of the Church. I wish I didn't like to swear so much, but it's fucking Rome.
Peace, imagine you and I start a club. The Philosophy Club. You start your meeting place for the club in Manhattan, and I start mine out in a rural suburb. Now, give it a decade or so. Even if you hadn't been made the 'pope' of our club, we'd fully expect your installment of the club to have gained the most authority. You're in the heart of the city, the beating heart of culture, commerce, and traffic.
Of course Rome became authoritative! It was the heart of a vast empire. To suggest that a nascent Church forming in this part of the world would just do so totally independently of the existing geopolitical and commercial 'dividing lines' is ridiculous. That's like saying a newly formed restaurant chain would defy all odds and not map to the existing population centers around it, as if its most rural secluded location became the most preeminent one! To use a metaphor, picture the nascent Christian church forming like a tumor inside of the world. There was already a body with existing centers and networks for travel and communication. Tumors don't form their own circulatory system to travel through the body - they use what's there!
If it were the case that the office of pope had never come about, we'd still have plenty of reasons to explain why Rome would have been the center point and 'nucleus' of Christ's Church.
By the time we get to the 5th century, if a papal tradition has been in place for X amount of time, then it shouldn't surprise us that other churches, in seeking the authoritative opinion of Rome, would thus be seeking the opinion of the pope.
What I'm contesting is that this office existed from the beginning. I'm not contesting the supreme status of Rome herself. I'm challenging the idea that (a) Christ commissioned such an office based on the evidence, and whether (b) there is evidence for it existing in the beliefs of the earliest Christians that this was so (that post-5th century beliefs were continuous with the first Christians).
If Rome developed the kind of authority which we can just assume it would have (again, for many reasons), then it becomes fairly simple to explain that according to what I discussed in 6. of my longer argument, the papal office should very reasonably have developed from this confluence of factors, perhaps the greatest reason being the very growth in power and authority which had been accumulating in Rome! Combine this with the theological controversies and heterogeneous discourse happening there, the way this effected the development of early church hierarchy (presbyter-bishop-deacon), how these struggles became a struggle for power even within the earliest Christian sects, the need Constantine had to unite this problematic fact of Christendom with the existing Imperial Cult....etc. etc.
What I find, and what I cannot deny, is that there are far stronger and more numerous reasons supporting the rise of the papal office later, than exist to support that it was there from the get go.
But it must be recognized that what I am saying is still possible and likely in a world where (a) Rome still had the highest authority and (b) Peter was still pre-eminent. Those are both likely things which do not necessitate the eventual pontificate. This is what I have been wanting to shout all along. These facts (Rome's authority and Peter's pre-eminence) are continually being cited as a means for proving the (a) divine commission of the papal office and (b) the earliest Christians actually thought this - but both Rome's authority and Peter's pre-eminence would just be expected to have happened in a world that has both Rome and the Gospels. It doesn't mean there was a pope from the beginning!
Of course Rome became authoritative! It was the heart of a vast empire. To suggest that a nascent Church forming in this part of the world would just do so totally independently of the existing geopolitical and commercial 'dividing lines' is ridiculous
I'm not suggesting it is independent. But this isn't a matter of mere secular power, but spiritual authoritative power, and it is this that the Tradition crucially affirms - both East and West.
in seeking the authoritative opinion of Rome, would thus be seeking the opinion of the pope.
But they weren't seeking the opinion of a city with clout, they were seeking the opinion of the successor of Peter, who is always bishop of Rome.
I'm challenging the idea that (a) Christ commissioned such an office based on the evidence, and whether (b) there is evidence for it existing in the beliefs of the earliest Christians that this was so (that post-5th century beliefs were continuous with the first Christians).
I guess my Cole's Notes response to (a), and by extension (b), is that, by virtue of how the Church tradition is considered, it would not have been possible for the universal beliefs that existed in the 5th, and 4th, centuries to have come about unless they accorded with the beliefs of the 3rd, and 2nd, and first centuries. Yes, novel viewpoints that contradict past tradition arise all the time - this is what heresy is - but they are condemned by the authorities competent to do so shortly after they arise. The anathematization of heresies is documented in the New Testanent and continued into the formalization of belief was advanced such that the papacy was publicly defined for the assent of all the faithful. The Apostles themselves anathematized heresies that would have led the faithful astray, and their successors did the same. This process continues to this day (or at least its potency is retained). That the true Church could have been entirely supplanted by a false Church via schism, not maintaining visibility itself in any form, is untenable and contrary to Christ's promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. That such a significant doctrine as the supreme teaching authority could come about so soon, be universally accepted, and be wrong, is inconceivable.
Maybe that isn't compelling as an argument; rather it is just my impression. Yes, the universality of its acceptance was ended with the schism, but not before it had been universally accepted, at least to more of a degree than the Orthodox today seem to accept it, and that isn't insignificant.
Maybe clarifying points about what the Church teaches on development of doctrine would better address (a) and (b) here. I think first we have to accept the existence of some temporal authority that formed through the Apostles and their successors, which is given this ability to bind and loose, provide exegesis, etc. I think Scripture is clear enough on this point and I don't think any of us are in disagreement there. Given that this is so, that the Church would come to consider a prime role of an individual man - successor of Peter - with respect to this authority is really all the papacy is, and this is clearly what the early Church universally took to be the case, indeed with respect to teaching and jurisdictional authority - that is why there are so many cases of appeals, not to Rome, but to the bishop of Rome on these matters. So, if we acknowledge that there is a real authority in the Church, and that there is considerable evidence of the early Church associatingbthis authority principally with the bishop of Rome, then how does an understanding of "development of doctrine" help explain (a) and (b)?
Therefore, whatever has been sown by the fidelity of the Fathers in this husbandry of God's Church, the same ought to be cultivated and taken care of by the industry of their children, the same ought to flourish and ripen, the same ought to advance and go forward to perfection. For it is right that those ancient doctrines of heavenly philosophy should, as time goes on, be cared for, smoothed, polished; but not that they should be changed, not that they should be maimed, not that they should be mutilated. They may receive proof, illustration, definiteness; but they must retain withal their completeness, their integrity, their characteristic properties.
From St. Vincent of Lerins' of . I haven't read this full text before but intend to tomorrow. The point is, just because certain details or fullness was not explicitly present earlier on, does not mean it was not an authentic oart of the deposit of faith. The deposit of faith does not change, but our understanding of it does - and this understanding in inseparable from the authority I've just described.
I'm excited that you've come back at me with this update. Here is something I can work with. I suppose you could say that, if I was looking for anything, this kind of reasoning is it. It seems as though we have a kind of appeal to a principle of resemblance here - or a 'like begets like' argument, if you will. To me, it's the most compelling thing you've offered even if, as you say, it might not be what you personally judge to be the most compelling of your rebuttals so far. I've been thinking about it for an hour or so since you've brought it to the table, and I think it's more compelling than you give it credit for. The idea would be that if some belief (including its time component) existed in the church, call it T, then it had to resemble a way of thinking which existed at T-1. Of course, the idea of change is present here, and it would be critical that we be able to say that what persisted throughout {T, T-1, T-2.....T-n} never spontaneously added an element called 'vicar of Christ'. Was that unadulterated element there from the start?
We can weight this against what I've suggested as the possibility that the papal office was instituted by the intentional choices of some combination of Roman politicians and Church officials together in concert, or as the direct brainchild of Constantine himself as a means to paganize the Christian church. We'd have to do a serious analysis of these possibilities and identify which was the likeliest. It may be that the idea of Constantine suddenly inserting this facet into Church doctrine is simply unthinkable, given some kind of 'innate immunity' within the Church itself which would have rejected it as a cancer instantly (had it been anathema). That's a real consideration, because although I hadn't considered this, my initial idea from 6. seems to imply that without the Church herself having believed this prior, Constantine made a doctrinally significant and perhaps pagan alteration to the entire Christian church that, for some reason, the entire Church acquiesced to. That could be insanely unlikely, giving us reason to think that at the time this change did become explicit, it couldn't have been altogether outside what the Church had already believed.
That might even be supported by the fact that the schism didn't occur for at least another 5 centuries after the first direct evidence of ubiquitous belief in Papal supremacy enters the record. If the concept of Pope is pagan anathema, why did the Orthodox church take another 5 centuries before it had enough? Why did protestants take another 5 centuries after that? It's difficult to understand how the Orthodox church could have gone this long without accepting the Pope, unless it was simply something they understood totally differently from what the modern Catholic suggests about the tradition - put another way, either something in the Orthodox opinion today has changed, or the extent of the significance of the papacy took 5 centuries to reach the Orthodox awareness.
I will have to think about this more.
(post is archived)