One hope -- National Organization for Women at UH

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Date Posted: 14:04:18 11/29/04 Mon
Author: Carol
Subject: One hope

In the following article an account is given of Christianity as a religion, describing its origin, its relation to other religions, its essential nature and chief characteristics, but not dealing with its doctrines in detail nor its history as a visible organization. These and other aspects of this great subject will receive treatment under separate titles. Moreover, the Christianity of which we speak is that which we find realized in the Catholic Church alone; hence, we are not concerned here with those forms which are embodied in the various non-Catholic Christian sects, whether schismatical or heretical.

ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY AND ITS RELATION WITH OTHER RELIGIONS

Christianity is the name given to that definite system of religious belief and practice which was taught by Jesus Christ in the country of Palestine, during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius, and was promulgated, after its Founder's death, for the acceptance of the whole world, by certain chosen men among His followers. According to the accepted chronology, these began their mission on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 29, which day is regarded, accordingly, as the birthday of the Christian Church.

THE DIVINE PURPOSE IN CHRISTIANITY

It remains now to set forth, as far as we can determine it from the sacred records and from the course of history itself, the purpose of God in establishing Christianity. We gather that the Divine founder meant Christianity to be (1) a universal religion, (2) a perfect religion, (3) a visibly organized religion.

Universality includes both space and time

As regards space, we see that Christianity is intended for the whole world (a) from the prophecies that foreshadowed it in the Old Testament. Among these were the promises made to Abraham and his descendants, the constantly recurring note of which is that in them "all the nations of the earth shall be blessed". (b) From the plainly expressed purpose of Christ Himself, who, while proclaiming that His personal mission concerned only the "lost sheep of the House of Israel" (Matt., xv, 24), announced the future extension of His Kingdom: "Other sheep I have who are not of this fold" (John, x, 16); "Many from the east and the west shall come and shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven (Matt., viii, 11); "And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached throughout the whole world in testimony to all nations" (Matt., xxviii, 19). (c) From the actual conduct of the Apostles, who, though they required the special inspiration of the Holy Spirit to bring home to them the practical bearing of this commission, did finally leave the synagogue and proclaim the Faith to all without distinction of race or country. The universality of Christianity, in time as well as space, is implied in Christ's promise, "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world" (Matt., xxviii, 20). It follows, furthermore, from the next element in God's purpose to be considered.

Christianity is meant to be a perfect religion

A priori, we should expect that a religious system which was revealed and instituted, not by a prophet or even an angel, but by the personal action of God Himself, and was designed, moreover, to supplant an imperfect and provisional form of religion, would lack nothing of possible perfection in end or means. Christ's own teaching satisfied this expectation, and precludes the notion entertained by some early heretics, and still alive in the minds of men, of a fuller and more perfect revelation to come. First of all, He, its Founder, is God, and therefore had all the knowledge and all the power requisite to establish a perfect religion. Secondly, He promised His Apostles the abiding presence of the Spirit of Truth, who should teach them all truth. Thirdly, He promised that the body enshrining this deposit should never be vitiated by error � "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt., xvi, 18; cf. Ephes., v, 27). Fourthly, the same truth is insinuated by St. Paul's words: "God, who at sundry times . . .last of all . . .hath spoken to us by His Son" (Heb., i, 1), and by the expression, the fulness of time, used in Gal., iv, 4, to indicate the epoch of the Incarnation. Fifthly, by the character of the Christian revelation itself and the Christian ethical ideal which is the imitation of Christ, the Perfect Being. No possible development of mankind can be thought of which should not find all that it needs in Christ.

We are compelled, therefore, to believe that the Christian revelation closed with the death of the last of those originally commissioned to set it forth. We are thus brought counter to a modern view regarding revelation which has lately been condemned as heretical by Pius X (Encyclical, "Pascendi Gregis", Sept., 1907). It is to the effect that revelation is nothing external, but a clearer and closer apprehension of things Divine by the Christian consciousness, which in each particular age is the expression of the experience of the best men of that age. Consequently, revelation grows, like a material organism, by waste and renewed supply, and therefore what is truth for one age maybe quite different from what is truth for another. The error which has these developments is ultimately philosophical, being based on the false assumption that the finite mind can know only the phenomenal and can have no certainty of what is beyond experience. Were that so, any external revelation would be impossible, for its guarantees � miracle and prophecy � could not be grasped by human intelligence. These errors were long ago exposed and condemned by the Vatican Council. The most casual glance at the history of Christianity shows that there has been development of doctrine; the Creed grew only gradually; but that development is merely logical, produced by analysis of the content of the original deposit.

God intended, in the third place, that Christianity should be a visible organization.

Christ established a Church and, in a variety of parables, sketched many of the features of its character and history, all of which point to something external and perceptible by the senses. It is the "house built upon a rock" (Matt., vii, 24), showing the security and permanence of its foundation, and "the city set upon a hill" (Matt., v, 14) indicating its visibility. Its doctrine works in the three great races descended from Noe's sons like the leaven hidden in three measures of meal, silently, irresistibly (Matt., xiii, 33). It grows great from humble beginnings, like the mustard seed (Luke, xiii, 19). It is a vineyard, a sheep-fold, and finally a kingdom, all of which images are unintelligible if the bond that unites Christians is merely the invisible bond of charity. The old distinction between the body and soul of the Church is useful to prevent confusion of ideas. Christian baptism constitutes membership in the Visible Church; the state of grace, membership in the Invisible. It is obvious that one membership does not necessarily connote the other. Some of these parables apply only to the Church fully developed, and so they indicate Christ's ultimate purpose. History shows us that, in establishing Christianity as an institution, He was content that on its human side its organization should be subject to the same laws of growth and development as other human institutions. He did not give His Apostles a draft scheme of the Church's constitution beforehand, to be worked out in the course of ages, prescribing the various stages of progress, and indicating the final term. But the organization which existed in germ in the consecrated hierarchy of the apostles was left to unfold itself under the guidance of the abiding Spirit, according to the needs of time and place. The presence of the Holy Ghost and Christ's promise sufficiently guarantee that the result, however obtained, is in accordance with the original design. It may well be that the development was very largely natural,, modelled, first of all, on the synagogue, and then on the existing civil government; its progress may have been hastened or retarded by the passions of individuals, but any account of it that ignores the directing finger of Providence cannot be true.

This, then, is Christianity, a supernatural religion and the only absolute one; in a sense (developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews), the oldest, for the Church is not an afterthought, but instituted by God in the fullness of time, and containing a revelation of Himself, which all to whom it has been adequately presented are bound under pain of eternal loss to accept (Mark, xvi, 16), offering to all, who are sincere in seeking, the solution of all the world's problems; enabling human nature to rise to the sublimest heights and "to play the immortal"; full itself of mysteries and Divine paradoxes, as bringing the Infinite into contact with the finite; the one bond of civilization, the one condition of progress, the one hope of humanity. Its fortunes have been the fortunes of its Founder; "not all obey the gospel" (Rom., x, 16). The Jews rejected Christ in spite of the evidence of prophecy and miracle; the world rejects the Church of Christ, the "city set upon a hill", conspicuous though she be through the notes that proclaim her Divine. What men call the failure of Christianity is no proof that it is not God's final revelation. It only makes evident how real is human liberty and how grave human responsibility. Christianity is furnished with all the necessary evidence to create conviction of its truth, given goodwill. � "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear".

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