CHURCH UNITY 7 I CHRISTIAN IRENICS CHRISTIAN IRENICS is that theological discipline which aims to reconcile the discordant elements of Christianity, and to organize them in peace and concord, in the unity of Christ's Church. It is one of those new theological disciplines which have sprung up in recent times on the border-lines of the older theological disciplines, and which refuse to be classified under any of them, unless they are so enlarged as to involve a reconstruction of Theological Encyclopedia. Christian Irenics is indeed the culminating discipline to which all others contribute their noblest results, the apex of the pyramid of Christian theology, to which all the lines of Christian scholarship and Christian life tend, and in which ultimately they find their highest end and perfection. Christian Irenics is usually classed with Symbolics—that theological discipline which studies the official expression of the faith of the Church as it is stereotyped in symbolsthat is, Creeds, Confessions of Faith and Catechisms. From this point of view, Irenics takes the material given by Symbolics, holds forth the consensus of Christianity as the basis of peace and unity already attained, and then studies the dissensus in order to find even there the pathway to complete and perfect peace and unity. It is thus the antithesis to Polemics. Polemics takes its stand upon one symbol or group, of symbols, representing one particular denomination of Christians, or school of theology, and makes war upon everything that differs from that. It aims to overcome and destroy all dissent from that one particular dissensus. On the contrary, Irenics refuses to regard any one of the particular denominational or school statements as final; it rather seeks to discover the truth and right in all this dissensus, and to eliminate them from error and wrong; and then to detect the lines of development which lead on to more comprehensive statements in which dissensus may eventually be transformed into consensus. Accordingly, Irenics cannot be attached to Symbolics as a section of Symbolics or as a mode of using Symbolics. It is much more comprehensive. If it finds Symbolics a convenient base on which to begin its work, it soon outgrows Symbolics and expands on all sides. It is evident that the peace of the Church cannot be effected within the sphere of Christian symbols alone, since in some respects the severer problems are in the sphere of Church government and worship. Liturgies and ecclesiastical canons, therefore, demand historic and comparative study, and irenic use, as well as creeds, confessions and catechisms. Polemics and Irenics thus far have the same reach. It is not sufficient that there should be peace here and war there. Polemics is war all along the line of institution, faith and morals. Irenics is peace-making over the whole field of theology. But Polemics has its limitations. It battles for the denominational or sectarian institution and dogma as the indubitable and the final statement, and with a determination to destroy all that is discordant therewith. It has little, if any, interest in the historical origin of those institutions or dog It is regarded as disloyal to subject them to any kind of criticism. It is counted as downright treason to propose new and better statements. Irenics, on the contrary, searches all the statements thoroughly. It must know exactly how they came into historic being; for only so can it determine how much of them was the, genuine and necessary product of Christianity, and how much was due to human frailty and ignorance, or to unchristian motives and influences. It must study the history of the statements in their use in the Church; for only so can one go back of the traditional interpretation that usually drifts from the original sense through change in the meaning of the words, the unconscious adaptation of old terms to new situations, and the continuous reconstruction of dogma in the treatises of the theologian and the homilies of the pulpit. Irenics is not content with these discordant statements as they are. It cannot say: This one is altogether true; the others are altogether false. It must put them all alike into the fires of criticism, testing them in every way, to eliminate the dross of error from the golden truth, confident that truth is indestructible and imperishable. It tests them by Holy Scripture, by the Reason, by Christian experience, as well as by the decisions of the Church in their original sense. Above all, Irenics looks to the future. Its right to live and work is the confidence that the present dissensus of Christendom will not endure, that those who disagree from us are not ordinarily dishonest or wicked, but rather that the statements which we cherish are not sufficiently clear, evident and convincing; do not adequately express the truth; do not yet fully contain it; but urge to reinvestigation, revision, new and better statements of the faith of the Church. Thus Irenics uses all other theological disciplines. It grasps the past, the present and the future in its comprehensive vision. Its ideal is the loftiest and the noblest. It is sure that the discord and division of Christianity are temporary and transitional. It has unflinching confidence that in the "dispensation of the fulness of the times" God will "sum up all things in Christ" and that Christ's prayer to the Father for his disciples will surely be realised, that "they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us." 1 1 Eph. i. 10. John xvii. 21. I. ITS TASKS (1) The first task of Irenics is to determine the essentials of Christianity; that which originally gave Christianity the right to exist as a new religion in the world; that which has remained permanent in all its evolutions; that which is to be found wherever and whenever and in whomsoever Christianity exists. This essence of Christianity is to be determined by the elimination of all that is local, temporal and formal from that which is universal. Here Irenics and the science of religion come into contact and healthful rivalry; for the science of religion seeks the essence of Christianity by the elimination from it of all that it has in common with other religions. Irenics seeks this same essence by the elimination of all that is special and peculiar to the several types of Christianity. This effort is fundamental to Irenics; for, unless we have correctly defined the essence of Christianity, we may mistake the limits of Christianity. (2) The second task of Irenics is to determine what is Catholic. That is Catholic which is semper, ubique, et ab omnibus; it is more comprehensive than the essence of Christianity. The essence is not only original to Christianity; but it is that without which Christianity does not exist, and it distinguishes Christianity from other religions. The Catholic is that which Christianity stands for as an organised institution, as the Church of Christ in the midst of the world. Christianity may exist, and in fact did exist, with all that is essential, without Catholicity; but Catholicity is an inevitable development of Christianity. It is that which is common to Christianity when it has become mature, self-conscious, an organized institution, knowing what it stands for, and able to vindicate itself in institution and doctrine. This universality is not absolute: it is relative; for it excludes all those, whether as individuals or as organised communities, who cannot or will not know and |