Private Judgement

Finally, questions of orthodox faith - the faith which we believe is revealed by God - are decided by the authority of the whole Catholic Church, East and West, the Church of the first millennium in which all Christians were united in faith and practice.

Private judgement, however necessary it may be in an initial decision to accept and embrace the faith through conversion and to work out the faith in our daily lives and experiences, can never ultimately replace the teaching authority of the whole Church, the clear content of Scripture fulfilled and interpreted by Sacred Tradition. It is not up to us personally to decide what is orthodox doctrine or not - that is given to us by the Church, which is Christ's visible and sacramental presence on earth authenticated and guided into the Truth by the Holy Ghost.

Private judgement depends on subjective belief and discrimination and is only as reliable or free from error as the individual person who exercises it. We are duty-bound to inform and educate our consciences. Private judgement can be moral relativism in the sphere of determining and establishing saving truth and doctrine. It is often reduced merely to personal experience, a limited experience used consciously or not to trump the Church's authorised dogma. When it comes to the Faith, it is for us not a matter of what 'I' believe, but rather of what 'we' believe, such as in the corporate recitation of the Creeds. In faith, hope and love, and in submission and subjection, we accept what the Church herself teaches as doctrine necessary to orthodox Christian profession and life. We are commanded to avoid private judgement in Scripture (II Thessalonians 2.15, II Thessalonians 3.6, II St Peter 1.19-21) and Tradition (Article XXXIV).

This is point 7 in the my work Authentic Catholic Anglicanism: 'The Obedience of Faith' - Fidelity to Holy Tradition and Avoidance of Private Judgement. Catholic Christianity is a revealed Religion. Human convention or philosophy has not contrived the Gospel, for the Christian Faith is a divine revelation directly communicated by God. The fullest expression of the Gospel is located in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, one divine revelation communicated to the Church in two modes but containing the same Rule of Faith. As Saint Basil the Great professes, 'Holy Scripture is fulfilled, clarified and interpreted by Holy Tradition.' The Anglican axiom is: the Bible and the primitive Church. For Anglicans, the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Tradition and the Holy Church are absolutely inseparable and together transmit the saving Word of God for mankind's salvation. If we are faithfully to live the Gospel and receive it in its entire truth, we must submit all private judgement in matters of doctrine, faith and morality to the authority of the universal, ancient and consentient Tradition of the Undivided Church. We are the children of the Church, called to live, worship, work, obey and pray in the heart of the Church. We are Churchmen, not sectarians. We are called to what Saint Paul characterises as the obedience of faith (Romans 1.5, 16.26).

This area is particularly important for those who offer themselves for ordination to the Sacred Ministry. The Ministers of the Church, deacons and priests alike, are ordained to teach the Catholic Faith which comes to us from Our Lord and the Apostles. The ordained are the official agents, organs and teachers of the Church, and they possess the greatest responsibility to teach and instruct the faithful only what the Church, for which they are ordained, holds as true. The ordained are called upon to set aside their personal theological views and opinions and to teach only that which bears the authority and approbation of the Church in which they serve. The failure of clergy to teach the Apostolic Faith contained in the Scriptures, Creeds and Prayer Book led to the disaster that is now the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, and so traditional Anglican clergy should be especially concerned to transmit only that which we have received in the Anglican patrimony, which in turn is the faith of the whole Church. The ordained are the living conduits and instruments of Holy Tradition, and are accountable to God and the Church to be 'faithful stewards of the mysteries of God' (I Corinthians 4). Those of us called to Holy Orders must strive in an intensive way to hold, teach, profess and catechise only that which we are certain the Church, One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, informs us is revealed by God.

I know this all sounds very strange and different to those of us who come out of evangelical protestantism, but this regula fidei, the Rule of Faith, is terribly important. It is our mandate, our joy and privilege, and our greatest urgency. It ensures that we will not impose our own personal or idiosyncratic views on the faith, views which may not have as their basis the collective wisdom and knowledge of the whole Church of the Apostles, Fathers and Saints throughout the ages. In short, Holy Mother Church knows more than any individual can - she knows more and has tested her faith and her teaching more thoroughly than we are able. The faith of the Church is based on the consensus fidelium, the common sense of the People of God, the collective consent, belief and received teaching of the Church in all places, in all ages and times, in all the nations of the world. We are the guardians, defenders and teachers of this Deposit of Faith, deposited in the Church by the Holy Spirit. Such a role is an ominous task, but it is precisely the task given to those who are ordained.