Dr Beckwith: Catholicism as the Great Tradition

Philorthodox today celebrates the return of a prominent and gifted theologian and philosopher to the Sacraments of Mother Church: as has been now widely published in the blogosphere, Dr Francis J. Beckwith, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, has been restored to the Roman Rite after a long hiatus.

Here is a marvellous and theologically crisp and precise quote from Dr Beckwith -

'There is a conversation in ETS that must take place, a conversation about the relationship between Evangelicalism and what is called the “Great Tradition,” a tradition from which all Christians can trace their spiritual and ecclesiastical paternity... At the suggestion of a dear friend, I began reading the Early Church Fathers as well as some of the more sophisticated works on justification by Catholic authors. I became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant and that the Catholic view of justification, correctly understood, is biblically and historically defensible. Even though I also believe that the Reformed view is biblically and historically defensible, I think the Catholic view has more explanatory power to account for both all the biblical texts on justification as well as the church’s historical understanding of salvation prior to the Reformation all the way back to the ancient church of the first few centuries. Moreover, much of what I have taken for granted as a Protestant—e.g., the catholic creeds, the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the Christian understanding of man, and the canon of Scripture—is the result of a Church that made judgments about these matters and on which non-Catholics, including Evangelicals, have declared and grounded their Christian orthodoxy in a world hostile to it. Given these considerations, I thought it wise for me to err on the side of the Church with historical and theological continuity with the first generations of Christians that followed Christ’s Apostles.'

In this beautiful synopsis of catholic theology and ecclesiology, there is not one mention of that crucible on which the historic Apostolic Churches have been divided, the Papal Claims. The definition of the Traditio Apostolorum supplied by Dr Beckwith is one that all Anglican Catholicism eagerly and vehemently endorses and applies to herself. The distinctives of the papal system, the dogmatic pronouncements of Vatican Council I, papal infallibility and papal universal jurisdiction, do not enter into the initial description of re-discovery of the Faith provided by Dr Beckwith. I do not doubt that he would freely reaffirm his belief in papalism, which is, after all, the sine qua non of communion with the See of Rome, but quite interestingly such a credo is excluded from his introductory apologia for his return to Catholic communion. More interestingly perhaps is the fact that the basis of his reversion to the Church (properly termed) is a conviction regarding the unique authority of the Holy Catholic Church as the Ark of Safety and Truth, the divinely-guided and Spirit-possessed Body of Christ, which through Apostolic Succession of doctrine and ministry authentically guards, protects, teaches, transmits and interprets the Gospel. In his blog entry, at least, Dr Beckwith could pass for an orthodox Anglican!

In sum, Dr Beckwith's profession of faith articulated in his article is a faith in the Church of the Great Tradition, of the whole Church possessed of ancient Christian orthodoxy, what Saint Vincent of Lerins describes as universality, antiquity and consent. What matters is the Church of the Apostles, the Church of the Fathers, the Church of the Ecumenical Councils and Creeds. That Church thrives today and receives as her inheritance from the Lord the Holy Scriptures and Apostolic Creeds and the Holy Sacraments and Apostolic Order. Such a stand corresponds exactly with the Catholic Faith as received by and practised in the Anglican Tradition. I rejoice with Dr Beckwith as we all pray for him and his family. His good words echo concepts found in a favourite description of the Catholic Faith of the Anglican Church written many years ago by our old friend Dr NP Williams:

'The doctrine of the Great Church, as it stood on the eve of 1054, includes, first of all, the main fabric of Trinitarian and Christological dogma, including, of course, the beliefs in our Lord's virginal Birth, bodily Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven; the presuppositions of Christian soteriology known as the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin; belief in Christ's Atoning Death as objectively bringing within our reach that salvation which we could never have earned for ourselves; the doctrines of the Sacraments as the means of grace, of the Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice; of the grace of Orders and the necessity of the episcopal succession from the Apostles; of the Church's absolving power in Penance; of Confirmation and Unction; of the Communion of Saints; and of the last things, Heaven and Hell, and the intermediate state, and the Last Judgement.'

-1920 Anglo-Catholic Congress