Monday, 4 May 2009

Responding to Guyer’s Theses on Anglicanism Part 7

I recently came across Guyer's Weblog and wish to respond to his Theses on Anglicanism all  42 of them 1 by one.
VII. There is nothing uniquely Anglican about avoiding theological extremes, for these extremes are contextual to the ecclesial community in question. The perfect illustration of this is the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility, which sought to avoid the extremes of ultramontanism, which saw the pope as God’s own mouthpiece, and conciliarism, which saw the pope as nothing more than the first bishop among other bishops of equal standing. For Roman Catholics, papal infallibility is a via media doctrine. On the one hand, papal infallibility rejects two radically different understandings of the papacy; on the other hand, papal infallibility synthesizes these two extremes beyond themselves into its own centrist position. This is representative of how practically every sociologically identifiable group seeks to manage itself: avoiding, at particularly tense moments, potentially damaging extremes within the community and working out these differences through some sort of compromise. For Anglicans to claim that they are the via media and that this locates the history of Anglican theology as the history of occasional compromises between extremes is to simply state that which is sociologically obvious for every other group as well. Thus, via media – when conceived of merely as the avoidance of “extremes” – is not a uniquely Anglican definer.
This is an interestering reflection on what the "via media" is and in part I do agree with it. However, I think it fails to take into account that the Anglican Communions understanding of the "Via Media" is much fuller, that it sees itself as being the between the extremes of the whole Church and therefore not defined purely by itself but in relationship with the rest of the Church. This though has a weak underbelly.
I therefore wonder if it is possible for Anglicanism to define this beyond the phrase "via media" and thus overcome the weak underbelly?
Rather than being the "Via media" we accept that we are part of the Christian Churches that hold to the Creeds and simply say that we seek to have relationship with those who also hold the Creeds. That indeed we are but part of the wider Church. That rather than the "Via media" we could seek relationship?
I'm sure a more able theologian could run with this...

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