Ecclesiology

http://ecc.sagepub.com The DivineHuman Tension in the Ecclesiology of Yves Congar

Douglas M. Koskela Ecclesiology 2007; 4; 88 DOI: 10.1177/1744136607080900 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ecc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/1/88

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Ecclesiology 4.1 (2007) 88106 DOI: 10.1177/1744136607080900 Ecclesiology 2007 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) http://ECC.sagepub.com

The DivineHuman Tension in the Ecclesiology of Yves Congar

D O U G L A S M . K O SKELA
School of Theology, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, USA kosked@spu.edu

ABSTRACT This article examines the significant ecclesiological contribution of the French Dominican theologian Yves Congar. In particular, it is argued that the attempt to account for both the divine and human dimensions of the Church was central to Congars ecclesiological program. Beginning with his early work Chrtiens dsunis , Congar recognised the Church both as an extension of the divine communion ( Ecclesia de Trinitate) and as a human society ( Ecclesia ex Hominibus), united through the mediating work of Christ ( Ecclesia in Christo). This divinehuman tension pervaded his theology of the laity, his treatment of appropriate reform in the church, and his understanding of the appropriate role of Church hierarchy. As he turned his attention increasingly toward pneumatology later in his career, this basic orientation was deepened and enriched. Throughout his career, Congar aimed to maintain fidelity to his tradition while engaging the challenges of the contemporary world. KEYWORDS ecclesiology, hierarchy, pneumatology, reform, Roman Catholic Church, Yves Congar

mong the luminaries who shaped ecclesiological reflection in the twentieth century, the place of French Dominican theologian Yves Congar is secure. In numerous books and articles about the Church throughout his career, Congar sought to do justice to the mystery of the Church as a divine and a human reality. He took great pains to offer his reflections in a manner faithful to the trajectory of earlier Catholic ecclesiology. Yet he was one of a number of French Catholic theologians in the twentieth century to engage the contemporary world and the host of issues it raised for the Church, often

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in an environment of skepticism or suspicion.1 In the realm of ecclesiology, this included taking seriously the tensions that can arise between the divine and human dimensions of the Church. Maintaining both of these dimensions in light of these challenges was central to Congars ecclesiological program. In what follows, I suggest that the orienting concern2 for Congars ecclesiology was the attempt to do justice to both the divine element and the human element in the Church as a changing theological context was bringing those elements into increasing tension. He cautioned against the dangers of hierarchology and ecclesiocentrism, while insisting that the Triune God has chosen to act salvifically in history through the particular community of the Church. The provisionality and historicity of certain forms of the Churchs life as a human entity were recognised, but he refused to diminish the divine source of and presence in the concrete and visible community. As his focus turned increasingly to the Holy Spirit later in his career, he mined the rich territory of pneumatology to extend and deepen this ecclesiological vision.

Conceptions of the Churchs Nature

Over the course of his career, Congar employed a number of conceptual schemes to convey the divine and human character in the Church. One notable example can be seen in his early work Chrtiens dsunis , where he described three angles of vision from which the Church can be explored. As Ecclesia de Trinitate , the Church exists out of the shared life of the three persons of the Trinity.3 Here, clearly, the divine source of and presence within the Church is emphasised. The reality of the Church as a human society is examined under the category Ecclesia
1

A recent issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology (7.4 [2005]) is devoted to Congar and the nouvelle thologie . Among the many valuable essays in that issue are A.N. Williams, The Future of the Past: The Contemporary Significance of the Nouvelle Thologie , pp. 34761, and Brian Daley, The Nouvelle Thologie and the Patristic Revival: Sources, Symbols, and the Science of Theology, pp. 36282, both of which provide helpful discussions of the issues at stake. James M. Connolly provides a helpful (if somewhat dated) survey of five such theologians and their primary concerns in The Voices of France: A Survey of Contemporary Theology in France (New York: Macmillan, 1961). For an important analysis of Congars diaries of this period, see Jared Wicks, Yves Congars Doctrinal Service of the People of God, Gregorianum 3 (2003), pp. 499550. I borrow the notion of an orienting concern from Randy L. Maddox, Responsible Grace: John Wesleys Practical Theology (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1994), p. 18. For Maddox, the term reflects a primary concept that guides the theological activities and judgments of a particular individual or tradition. I am perhaps using the term a bit more narrowly in that I only want to suggest that this concern guides Congars ecclesiology. Proposing an orienting concern for Congars theology as a whole would be a significantly broader project. Yves Congar, Chrtiens dsunis: Principes dun cumnisme catholique (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1937). Translated by M.A. Bousfield as Divided Christendom: A Catholic Study of the Problem of Reunion (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1939), ch. 2.

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ex Hominibus . The unity of these two aspects of the Church is rendered as Ecclesia in Christo, highlighting the mediating role of Christ in extending the divine life to the community of human persons. Let us explore the way Congar developed each of these in turn. Drawing from St. Cyprian, Congar suggested that the communion shared by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is offered by grace to other creatures. It is precisely this movement that constitutes the Church:
The Church is precisely this extension of the divine life to a multitude of creatures, not as a result of their own exertions to develop their religious sense or to lead a life similar to Gods, but by the imparting to them of the very life of God itself, so that they actually share the life and participate in the purposes of God. The Church is not merely a society, men associated with God, but the divine Societas itself, the life of the Godhead reaching out to humanity and taking up humanity into itself.4

Congar understood this gracious initiative to be expressed through Gods covenant with Abraham and revealed fully in Jesus Christ. The community that is drawn by Christ to share in the inheritance promised in the covenant is the Church. This community lives in an eschatological tension, as the benefits of this covenant are experienced imperfectly the full consummation of the Kingdom still awaits. To the extent that the Church shares in the inheritance offered through Christ, it shares in the very life of the Triune God.5 Since the Church finds its very being in the shared life of the one God, its unity is thereby secured. Congar insisted that there is one life the life of God that is communicated to the people of God. To participate in the reality of the Church is thus to share in one fellowship in Christ.6 Such claims certainly do not suggest that Congar ignored or rejected the reality of disunity in the Church. Indeed, Chrtiens dsunis was one of the earliest serious Catholic ecumenical efforts. It is precisely because the one divine life is the ground of the Churchs existence that Christian disunity posed a problem worthy of addressing. Failure on this score (which Congar recognised was not the sole responsibility of those who had left the Catholic Church) indicated a failure to participate in the true essence of the Church. However, Congar made it clear that people who secede or break fellowship with the Church do not diminish its divine reality. Again citing St. Cyprian, he

5 6

Congar, Divided Christendom , pp. 4849, original emphasis. The notion of the Trinity as a model for human relationships within the Church has enjoyed a recent ecumenical resurgence, notably in John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1985) and Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). Congar, Divided Christendom , pp. 4951. Congar, Divided Christendom , pp. 5152.

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contended that those who depart the Church in no way break or weaken the unity shared in Ecclesia de Trinitate .7 Because the benefits of the covenant are yet enjoyed imperfectly, it is also important to understand the Church from the perspective of its human mode. Congar employed the category Ecclesia ex Hominibus to describe the Church as a society of human beings. In our earthly conditions, our experience of the divine life is given us like all other spiritual things through sense, in signs and figures, congenial and connatural to our humanity, and to our state of pilgrimage towards the heavenly realities.8 Thus the Church naturally takes concrete shape as a social community, subject to the conditions of any human community in history. Congar noted that the history of Gods dealings with humanity demonstrates this social character: we are all implicated by Adams revolt, and divine revelation is given to a people rather than addressed to each individually.9 The incarnation of Christ is the ultimate display of the mediation of spiritual reality through concrete forms: God entered directly into the conditions of history for the sake of our salvation. Not only does the Church have a social dimension, Congar argued, but its divine human character parallels to some extent the incarnation itself: Thus the Church on earth follows this law of incarnation, human and corporeal from one end to the other, and divine from one end to the other; theandric, as is Christ.10 As we will see, he came to recognise the potential dangers of incarnational imagery for the Church later in his career. But while he sought to qualify the concept particularly with reference to a robust pneumatology he never left it behind altogether. The centrality of Christ in the mediation of salvation gives particular shape to the community of the Church. Congar suggested that incorporation into Christ is the key to inheriting the benefits of the covenant, rather than merely belonging to an elect people. Recognising that, however, leads to two crucial points regarding the nature of the community that is identified with Christ. First, it was the will of Jesus Christ that his members form a unified people. They would share a visible and sensible unity that continually witnessed to its Lord. Second, the mode of incorporation in Christ is social or, more specifically, ecclesial.11 Through this people, and its particular sacramental and apostolic forms, members are shaped and brought into the divine life. This is a critical point for our understanding of
7 8 9

10 11

Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 59. Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 67. For this reason, John Webster suggests that theology is a necessarily historical undertaking. He writes: part of Congars genius is his resistance both to the naturalisation of the forms of the church and to their eclipse by a separate supernatural realm. See John Webster, Purity and Plenitude: Evangelical Reflections on Congars Tradition and Traditions , International Journal of Systematic Theology 7.4 (2005), pp. 399413 (403). Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 69. Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 70.

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Congars ecclesiology at this stage of his career. It displays his close association of the divine with the human element in the Church as well as the relative dominance of the divine. The Church exists in history as a social community and subject to human conditions, but the social form it takes is precisely that which was and is willed by God. Congar left no doubt about this point:
The Church, as an institution, is the human form of the divine interior unity of the Church as the mystical Body . . . The visible and empirical Church is the visibility and realization under human form of the mystical Body. Christ compared the unity for which he prayed to that which exists between his Father and himself the Word Incarnate : He in his visibility did the work of the Father, and the Father worked through him. So also must the Church spiritual in substance and at the same time visible.12

As the theme of the incarnation is developed, the centrality of the church comes clearly into focus. It is not only that the incarnation suggests that the divine life is experienced imperfectly in the conditions of human history, in which case one might understand the Churchs forms to be relatively fluid. Rather, it also suggests that the particular visible elements of the Church continue the mediating work of the incarnate Word.13 From this perspective, even the human dimension of the Church is decisively determined not by the imperfect conditions in which it exists but by its divine source.14 Congar offered a third category, Ecclesia in Christo, to ground the Churchs divinehuman character christologically. Ecclesia de Trinitate could not possibly be experienced in Ecclesia ex Hominibus were it not for the mediation of Christ. Drawing upon Pauline imagery, Congar contended that we could not share in the inheritance of the Father without receiving the Spirit of Christ who is the Son and heir. We are included in this inheritance by a new covenant, sealed in his blood, which allows us to approach and share in the blessings of God.15 Thus the Ecclesia in Christo is the communion in which we are incorporated into Christ by the new covenant. Congar developed this category in primarily sacramental terms.
12 13

14

15

Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 74, original emphasis. At times, one wonders if Congar emphasised sufficiently the significance of the incarnation for a positive assessment of human nature. The dominant theme with regard to the Church is that the divine source not the fallible, human dimension determines the essential identity of the Church. Yet the theme of the heightened vision of and potential for the human dimension itself as a result of the incarnation remains somewhat underdeveloped. Congar recognised that this is a crucial point of ecumenical disagreement. He criticised Protestants for failing to acknowledge that the divine life is actually given in human history. He argued that Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, understand the Church as so fully experiencing the divine life that its existence in human conditions is often overlooked. See Divided Christendom , pp. 9192. Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 61. In developing these ideas, Congar draws particularly from Romans 8, Galatians 4 and Ephesians 3.

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He suggested that the Christian sacraments bring members into direct contact with Christ, infusing the very life of Christ into their own lives.16 The sacraments serve both as signs and as the effective means of this infusion. Thus through the experience of Ecclesia in Christo, Christians are drawn into the life of the Triune God without neglecting or forgetting their present existence in finite and human conditions. In this sense, the divine communion offered in Ecclesia de Trinitate is joined with the visible social community (Ecclesia ex Hominibus) in Ecclesia in Christo. We can see in this early expression Congars insistence on recognising both the divine and the human elements in the Church. While the manner of expressing this central dialectic was refined throughout his career, it continually shaped and guided his vision of the Churchs nature. Another central category utilised repeatedly by Congar to elucidate the Churchs nature is the dialectic of structure and life.17 This dialectic (and its various equivalents) provided a way for Congar to address the full reality of the Church in both its sacramental and its sociological aspects.18 Congar provided what is perhaps his most lucid explication of the categories in Jalons pour une thologie du lacat .19 It is worth citing the passage at length:
By structure we understand the principles which, because they come from Christ, representing with him and in his name the generative causes of the Church, are the things in her, as her pars formalis , that constitute men as Christs Church. These are essentially the deposit of faith, the deposits of the sacraments of faith and the apostolical powers whereby the one and the other are transmitted. Therein resides the churchs essence. By life we understand the activity which men, made Church by the said principles, exercise in order that the Church may fulfill her mission and attain her end, which is, throughout time and space, to make of men and a reconciled world the community-temple of God.20

By this account, both structure and life are crucial to the reality of the Church. Though he suggested that the essence of the Church is found in structure, the Church does not fulfill its vocation without the activity that constitutes its life. There is an appropriate place and function of each. To consider the Church from
16 17

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Congar, Divided Christendom , p. 62. It is important to note at the outset that the structurelife couplet is not synonymous with the divinehuman category set; they are, as we shall see, quite distinct. Timothy MacDonalds study of Congars ecclesiology takes this dialectic as fundamental to Congars overall vision of the church. The reader will notice that by putting forth the divine human dialectic as the orienting concern for Congars ecclesiology, I am taking a different tack than did MacDonald in his important work, Timothy I. MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar: Foundational Themes (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984). Yves Congar, Jalons pour une thologie du lacat (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1953). Translated by Donald Attwater as Lay People in the Church (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1965). Congar, Lay People in the Church , p. 249.

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its juridical and structural dimension alone would be to neglect the very life that the community exists to extend. On the other hand, to neglect the proper and valid function of the hierarchy would be to overturn the very structural principles that shape the Churchs life.21 It would be fair to contend that the divine element takes priority in the Churchs structure (wherein are given its foundational principles), and the human element takes priority in the Churchs life. However, the divinehuman dialectic is present in both dimensions of the Church: the structure pole takes concrete form in the conditions of human existence, and the life of the Church is enabled and sustained by the active presence of God.22 It is possible to detect in Congars development of the structurelife concept a certain rigidity of ecclesiastical form. In the Introduction to Jalons pour une thologie du lacat , he warned of the various dangers that might emerge in developing a doctrine of the laity (we keep in mind that Jalons was published some six years before the opening of the Second Vatican Council). Among these dangers are the possibility of lay people ignoring the social teaching of the Church, excluding their priest from religious meetings, and choosing a priest based upon the particular agenda of their group. To ease concerns about such developments, Congar appealed to a maxim that was central to his own ecclesiological outlook: the life of the Church must grow in the setting and framework of her structure.23 The intention of such a formulation is to ensure that the fullness of the Church fostered by a theology of the laity is the fullness of the apostolic Church. Yet by insisting that the Churchs life grow within its given and fixed structure, Congar subordinated the former to the latter in essentially every case where there might be tension between them. The structure of the Church provides the shape within which the life can emerge and grow, but there is little or no room for the particular experiences associated with the life of the Church to affect or refine the structure.24 The danger thus emerges that the subordination of the life pole of the

21

22

23 24

Congar, Lay People in the Church , pp. 24950. Congar notes elsewhere the difficulty of defining structure with precision. He uses the term in the singular, referring to that which gives the Church its identity in the order of belief, of the sacraments, and of hierarchical functions (my translation). He cautions that using the term in the plural might misleadingly suggest elements that are more typically associated with life, such as the laity, charisms and councils. See Yves Congar, Ministres et communion ecclsiale: Thologie sans frontires (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1971), pp. 4647. A list of roughly equivalent dialectics, culled by MacDonald, further illustrates the breadth of the dialectic. The equivalents include the Church from above and the Church from below, gift and task, sacramentum and res , Heilsanstalt (institution of salvation) and Heilsgemeinschaft (community of salvation). See MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, p. 207. Congar, Lay People in the Church , p. xxxiv. MacDonald raises this point repeatedly in his exploration of Congars ecclesiology. He argues that Congar privileges structure to the detriment of the life pole, diminishing the full appreciation of the Church from below in history. See The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, p. 266.

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Church to its structure might temper the significant promise of the structurelife dialectic for healthy reform and renewal in the Church. While Congar allowed a great deal of room for reform within the Church under notable suspicion from ecclesiastical authorities his conception of appropriate reform again revealed the ultimate priority of structure over life. To this discussion we now turn.

Reform and Authority in the Church

Congar addressed the potential and conditions of legitimate reform in the Church in Vraie et fausse rforme dans lglise .25 First published in 1950, this work more than any other elicited controversy and suspicion of Congar on the part of ecclesiastical authorities.26 The controversy emerged in part out of Congars willingness to address the historical contexts of particular heresies and the occasional necessity for reform of the human dimension of the Church. Furthermore, he suggested that the central Church authorities in Rome should represent the diversity of the body of Christ, in order that the ecclesiastical leadership might avoid isolation. The succeeding decades, of course, have shown that Congar was prescient in this regard, but at the time the motivation of such a call was questioned by many. Perhaps the most significant criticism of the book focused on Congars critique of what he calls integralism, an uncreative form of conservatism within the Church that recoils from the demands of new historical challenges.27 Though he was careful to express his position within the Churchs historical and theological tradition, Congar came under a notable cloud of suspicion for addressing such issues until the Second Vatican Council ushered into the Church a dramatically different ethos.28 In Vraie et fausse rforme , Congar courageously addressed the need for the Church to face the particular problems of its historical setting directly. Yet he also insisted that there are limits to legitimate ecclesiastical reform.29 Not
25 26

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Yves Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme dans lglise (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1950; rev. edn 1968). Connolly, Voices of France , p. 101. In a recent essay, Avery Cardinal Dulles explores the ongoing relevance of Congars treatment of true and false reform in the Church. Despite the controversy in its day, Dulles suggests that the book has been vindicated as thoroughly orthodox. See Avery Cardinal Dulles, True and False Reform, First Things 135 (2003), pp. 1419. Connolly, Voices of France , p. 102. Critics often failed to notice that Congar was also critical of a liberalism that focuses upon the human element in the Church to the neglect of the divine element. It is notable that Congar occasionally saw signs of such integralism in and around the work of Vatican II. See, for example, Yves Congar, Mon Journal du Concile (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 2002), II, p. 238. In his recent book on Congars ecclesiology, Gabriel Flynn suggests that Congars idea of reform reflects a dual fidelity to tradition and to the Churchs eschatological fulfilment (which eventually overtakes certain concrete forms of the Churchs life). See Gabriel Flynn, Yves Congars Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2004), p. 146. Flynn provides a detailed analysis of Congars notion of reform in chapter 3.

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surprisingly, the appropriate boundaries of reform were developed with regard to the divine and human character of the Church. The relationship between the Churchs divine element and the given principles of its structure was perhaps drawn more closely here than in any other work by Congar. He provided an expanded list of the principles that constitute the structure pole, including: the faith (revealed doctrine) and the sacraments of faith, the apostolic powers derived from the sovereign energies of Christ the king, priest, and prophet relative to the faith and to the sacraments of faith, charisms, the gifts of grace, and finally the gracious design of God, conceived in his wisdom and manifested in his word. 30 These principles are not only given by God, but they represent the very certainty and incorruptibility of Gods own self. Indeed, these gifts participate in the infallibility of God even though they are exercised and extended by human beings. The infallibility is not compromised since this human involvement involves a purely instrumental role. 31 This is a striking claim as to the manner in which the divine and human elements interact at this level of the Church. The essential principles of the Churchs structure are protected from fallibility even though they enjoy human involvement. Therefore, these constitutive elements do not fall under the necessity to be reformed. 32 Once again, the divine element at this stage takes priority over the human element in the Church, resulting not only in a rigidity of structure but also in the claim of infallibility and protection from the impulse to reform. Though the constitutive principles of the Churchs structure are immune to reform, Congar suggested that there is certainly a dimension that is open to legitimate reform. It is here that Congar took seriously the problems that emerge from the Churchs existence in human history. For he recognised that, beyond the constitutive principles of its structure, the Church is a social community of human beings. The gifts of God are given to human beings with their freedom, their weakness, their instability, their essential fallibility. 33 In this sense, the Church is open to abuse and susceptible to the necessity of reform. Such abuse might arise from sin properly speaking or from errors which might emerge out of any given historical-social location. 34 Congar associated this arena of fallibility primarily with the life pole of the Church. MacDonald rightly recognises that this represents a shift in Congars utilisation of the category life. In earlier

30 31 32 33 34

Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 99 (page numbers correspond to the revised edition of 1968). Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 99100. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 100. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 102. In addressing the level at which the Church is susceptible to human fallibility, Congar distinguished between the domain of sin properly speaking and the domain of historical-social error. See Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , pp. 102108.

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works, including Chrtiens dsunis and Esquisses du mystre de lglise , 35 life was regarded as the divine life flowing from the Trinitarian communion and animating the Church. In Vraie et fausse rforme , however, the life pole pertains primarily to the Church as a sociological reality. 36 It includes all of those areas of the Churchs life that are exercised and determined by human interaction, and thus are prone to error or abuse. Further pressing the complexity of the meaning of structure, Congar suggested that certain concrete structures the plural is necessary actually pertain to the life pole of the Church and thus are fallible and open to reform. 37 He made it clear that these structures do not compose the essential structure of the Church, which is given by God and thus not susceptible to revision. Those elements which are associated with the Churchs life, however, may be revitalised and refined, but only under the illumination of a careful review of the appropriate sources.38 Such elements include the style of catechesis and preaching, clerical formation, exterior forms of worship, the composition of parishes, and certain forms that pertain to the visibility of the Church. 39 A line can be detected, therefore, between those elements of the Church in which humans play a purely instrumental role (part of the structure and thus not open to reform) and those elements which are significantly shaped by human involvement (part of the life and thus open to reform). One wonders at this point if this highly schematic account fully captures the dialectical nature of the relationship between the divine and human elements in the Church. In particular, the notion that one of the central structural principles the apostolic powers exercised by the hierarchy can involve human beings yet remain protected from the conditions of social existence introduces an undue dichotomy between the divine and human dimensions of the Church. This was (ironically) the very type of dichotomy that Congar sought to avoid. Still, one should not underplay the step forward that Congar took. He allowed that some elements of the churchs visible form occasionally call for revision. And as the reaction to his work demonstrated, this constituted a significant progression in pre-Vatican II Catholic ecclesiology.

35 36

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Yves Congar, Esquisses du mystre de lglise (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1941). MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, p. 81. This work is thus the closest Congar came to associating the divine dimension of the Church with structure and the human dimension with life. But MacDonald here reaffirms the fact that such a parallel is not applicable to Congars broader use of these ecclesiological categories. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 57 n. 50. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 58. In this instance, we see Congar utilising the theme of ressourcement for which he was well known. Congar provides as examples of such sources the Bible, ancient Christianity, the spirit of the liturgy, and major documents of the magisterium. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 58.

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Congars critique of integralism leads us to consider another of his major ecclesiological concerns: moving from a rigid, pyramidal vision of the Church to one that recognises the proper exercise of the hierarchy within a living whole. He warned consistently of the danger that the Church understood purely as institution could ossify and fail to move into continually deeper experiences of the divine life. Yet in doing so he never diminished the importance of the apostolic powers given by God to the hierarchy. Again we see Congar striving to attend to both the divine and human dimensions of the Church as he addressed these issues of authority. He aimed to take seriously the human dimension by criticising the stifling conservatism that would prevent the Church from growing into a fuller apprehension of the divine life. But the limits of such developments were firmly established by the divine priority in the Church: it is God who has called the Church into being, and God has done so through concrete means. Any suggestions of growth, development or reform that failed to account for the Churchs divine source were rejected outright. The tendency to consider the Church essentially or even exclusively in terms of her hierarchical machinery, which Congar recognised as all too common throughout the second millennium of the Catholic Church, was particularly problematic. He considered the treatise De Ecclesia , which began to emerge around 1300, as particularly susceptible to this temptation.40 In responding to various historical crises, the treatise strongly emphasised the powers and primacy centered in Rome, a tendency Congar designated hierarchology.41 Such a vision of the Church was guilty of a dual neglect: on one side, it failed to address adequately the work of the Holy Spirit within the Church; on the other side, it did not account for the role of the faithful within the life of the community. It was partially in response to this situation that Congar felt compelled to develop a theology of the laity. Congar was convinced that he and a number of his contemporaries were responsible for a significant correction to the hierarchology that had prevailed in ecclesiology through the beginning of the twentieth century. He pointed to the period between the World Wars particularly 1930 as a crucial time in this respect. At that moment, there was a strong enthusiasm for the notion of the mystical body of Christ that emphasised meaningful participation on the part of all the faithful. Congar saw in this movement that people began really to find out again that the Church must develop, and develop through her members .42 Given such a theological ethos, his own aversion to an essentially pyramidal ecclesiological structure was quite understandable. He sought to guard against an exclusive focus on the hierarchy that neglects the living, active communion in which it functions.
40 41 42

Congar, Lay People in the Church , pp. 3739. Congar, Lay People in the Church , p. 39. Congar, Lay People in the Church , p. 49, original emphasis.

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Congar was one of a number of Roman Catholic ecclesiologists of his generation whose exposition of the hierarchy revealed an unprecedented honesty about human fallibility. This became clear in Vraie et fausse rforme when he addressed the dimension of the Church pertaining to the hierarchical persons themselves. He noted that in their ministerial function within the Church, they are susceptible to faults and insufficiencies as human beings.43 The pastoral effectiveness of ecclesiastical leaders will vary and is open to failure, as history attests. As to its teaching function, Congar affirmed the infallibility of the Church under the specific delineated conditions. He also offered an important clarification with regard to this doctrine: infallibility is the result of the assistance of the Holy Spirit not an inspiration . Thus, the final definitions are guaranteed to be free from error, but the work itself is conducted by normal human means.44 It is even the case that the final expression though insusceptible to error bears the mark of its human context and may be open to clearer expression.45 Finally, the governmental function of the Church is characterised by human involvement and all its potential complications. While the order of governing also enjoys the assistance of the Holy Spirit, there is a greater danger for failures in this arena. This is the case because the governmental order operates at a greater distance from the sacramental order where the instrumental causality of human beings operates with more assurance and infallibility.46 While the reference to instrumental causality raises certain difficulties (as we noted earlier), the main point is clear: the Church as institution is a human structure, and as such it is vulnerable to all the hazards of human fallibility. As Congar continued to develop his sense of the Church as a living and integrated whole, the concept of the Church as sacrament of salvation became particularly fruitful. This category was one of the crucial emphases of the Second Vatican Council, and Congar embraced it favorably. The Church, he wrote, is the visible or corporal form which receives Gods Grace when grace is understood not as individually applied, but according to the totality and universality of the divine Plan of salvation. 47 Congar provided an extended treatment of the church as sacrament in Un peuple messianique .48 In that work, however, he noted that the theme of the Church as sacrament also raises a potential danger; namely,
43 44 45

46 47

48

Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 109. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 110. One detects in such admissions great ecumenical promise, particularly as it might apply to the dogma of papal infallibility itself. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 111. Yves Congar, Cette glise que jaime (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1968). Translated by Lucien Delafuente as This Church That I Love (Denville, NJ: Dimension, 1969), p. 47. Yves Congar, Un peuple messianique: Lglise, sacrement du salut. Salut et liberation (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1975).

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ecclesiocentrism. Congar worried that the image might cause some to lose sight of Christ as the ultimate source of salvation.49 He insisted that Christ is the absolute sacrament, and the Church exists as an expression of the salvific mystery offered by Christ alone. Thus any notion of the Church as sacrament that is divorced from Christ as its ultimate source runs the risk of leading people away from the genuine source of salvation.50 This is yet another dimension of Congars consistent attempt to understand the institutional functions of the Church within Gods broader plan of salvation, and thus to orient properly the authority of ecclesiastical leadership. Because the notion of the Church as sacrament naturally evokes incarnational themes, Congar also cautioned against another potential misuse of the image. As we have already seen, Congar himself utilised incarnational imagery, particularly in his early ecclesiological works. However, by the time Un peuple messianique was published in 1975, he had come to recognise some of the potential dangers of viewing the Church as a continuation of the incarnation. He feared above all that it might engender too direct an identity between Christ and the Church, placing not just the essence of the Church but the entire life of the Church beyond fallibility.51 Furthermore, those who employ the notion of the Church as sacrament need to take account of the full range of the salvific mystery centered in Christ. Congar warned that an exclusive focus on the incarnation itself might lead to the neglect of other dimensions of Christ as the ultimate source of salvation, including his life and ministry, his passion, and Pentecost.52 With such precautions in place, he recognised the sacramental image as one with significant promise for correcting the tendency toward an excessive authoritarianism. Congar also recognised the importance of biblical images of the Church in developing a robust ecclesiology. He particularly valued the inclusion of a chapter on On the People of God in Lumen Gentium , between the opening chapter on the Mystery of the Church and the chapter on the Hierarchy.53 The image of the People of God carries in itself such a depth, such a strength, that it inevitably opened up new perspectives.54 One such advantage was a sense of the Churchs continuity with Israel, situating the community of faith within an ongoing history of Gods salvific design with respect to humanity.55 Another advantage was that it helped to correct
49 50

51 52 53 54 55

Congar, Un peuple messianique , p. 32. At the same time, Flynn notes that the idea of Church as universal sacrament of salvation also guards against any attempt to seek union with Christ without the mediation of the Church. See Flynn, Yves Congars Vision of the Church , p. 112. Congar, Un peuple messianique , pp. 4041. Congar, Un peuple messianique , p. 41. Congar, This Church That I Love , pp. 1011. Congar, This Church That I Love, p. 10. Congar, This Church That I Love , pp. 1720.

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an unduly juridical understanding of the Churchs reality.56 Congar noted that the image allows us to affirm simultaneously the equality of all the faithful in the dignity of Christian life as well as their functional inequality as members.57 He also identified the concrete and dynamic character of the People of God image, thus lending an evident pastoral value.58 For all of the richness of this image, however, Congar insisted that the People of God on its own is inadequate to capture the full reality of the Church.59 He noted the crucial significance of the images of the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Spirit in capturing the particularity of the Churchs christological and pneumatological identity.60 As Congars attention turned increasingly to pneumatology in the later years of his career, the Church as the Temple of the Spirit was particularly fruitful in capturing the dynamic presence of God among believers the living stones of the temple.61 We see again in these formulations Congars driving ecclesiological concern: to account for both the divine and the human dimensions of the Church. As regards the institution of the Church, he recognised the realities and dangers involved as fallible human beings exercised their ecclesiastical offices. Specifically, he warned of the tendency to fixate on particular historical forms and thus reject new possibilities for growth and development, as well as the unhappy effects of a purely authoritarian vision of the hierarchy. In fact, he pointed to the existence of various contemporary communities which are devoted to a common leading of Christian life both as an example of the salvific mystery lived directly and as a critique of ecclesiastical machinery that can obscure that mystery.62 On the other hand, he never allowed critique of the hierarchy or calls for reform increasingly common throughout the twentieth century to obscure the divine element in the Church. Congar saw the essential principles of the Churchs structure as fully rooted in God, and thus beyond the limits of legitimate reform in the church. Furthermore,

56 57

58 59 60

61

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Congar, This Church That I Love , pp. 2021. Congar, This Church That I Love , p. 23. In a striking passage from Congars Council journal, he reflected on Pope Paul VIs speech to open the Third Session at Vatican II. The pope had called for theological reflection on the episcopate, but Congar noted (with apparent regret) that he started from the top down rather than starting with the more promising category of the People of God. See Congar, Mon Journal du Concile , II, p. 133. Congar, This Church That I Love , pp. 2627. Congar, This Church That I Love , pp. 3638. See Yves Congar, Le concile de Vatican II: son glise people de Dieu et corps du Christ , Thologie Historique, 71 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), pp. 12022. Yves Congar, Je crois en lEsprit Saint , 3 vols. (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 197980). Trans. David Smith, I Believe in the Holy Spirit (New York: Crossroad Herder, 1983), II, p. 54. His discussion of the church as temple on pp. 5355 offers a mature reflection on this image. See also his earlier discussion in Yves Congar, Le Mystre du Temple (Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1958). Translated by Reginald F. Trevett as The Mystery of the Temple (Westminster: Newman, 1962). Congar, Lay People in the Church , p. 324.

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particularly in his theology of the laity, he recognised the reality of the divine mystery expressed throughout all dimensions of the Church its life as well as its structure.

Pneumatological Enrichment
In the latter part of Congars career, he turned decisively to pneumatology as his primary locus of attention.63 His monumental work Je crois en lEsprit Saint represented the culmination of this focus but he also explored various dimensions of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in a number of other books and articles. It is not surprising that Congars deep reflection on the Holy Spirit engendered significant development in his ecclesiology. He saw the Holy Spirit and the Church as deeply connected and sought to explore their interrelations. Congar noted that even the earliest creeds and confessions of faith linked the article on the Church with the article on the Holy Spirit.64 Congar recognised, however, that such conversations between pneumatology and ecclesiology were uncommon in Roman Catholic theology before the Second Vatican Council. He understood his own work on the Holy Spirit as a contribution to the recovery of the rightful interplay between these two doctrinal loci. Along the way, his own ecclesiological vision was developed and enriched while the guiding focus on the divine and human character of the Church remained in place. As Congar turned his attention to the person and work of the Holy Spirit, he sought to provide balance to his earlier focus on the second person of the Trinity in treating ecclesiological themes. One of the clearest examples of this pneumatological turn involves his understanding of the divine agency in constituting the Church. In his later work, he recognised the importance of both Christ and the Spirit as instituting principles of the Church. This required a movement beyond the common tendency which he had shared earlier in his career to understand the Spirits role as vivifying what Christ had already shaped.65 Thus Congar suggested that an adequate pneumatology goes beyond simply making present the structures set up by Christ; it is the actuality of what the glorified Lord and his Spirit do in the life of the Church, in all the variety of
63

64 65

Interpreters of Congar have commonly categorised his work into two major periods: 193768 and 196991. See Elizabeth Groppe, The Contribution of Yves Congars Theology of the Holy Spirit, Theological Studies 62.3 (2001), pp. 45178 (468 n. 84). Groppes recent full-length study, Yves Congars Theology of the Holy Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press/AAR Academy Series, 2004), offers a splendid treatment of Congars pneumatology. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 5. For example, Congar suggested that, in his own work La tradition et les traditions , the pneumatological aspect, although it is very important, has been rather overshadowed by the christological aspect: I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 23 n. 16. Groppe provides a discussion of Congars attempt to balance the two aspects in Yves Congars Theology of the Holy Spirit , pp. 6979.

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forms that this activity has assumed in time and space.66 The active role of the Holy Spirit in shaping the life of the Church in cooperation with the Son was now emphasised, providing what Congar saw as a fuller and more balanced vision of the community of faith. Drawing upon Irenaeus language of the Son and Spirit as the two hands of God, he described this balance: The Church appears therefore to come both from the Word in his incarnation and from the Spirit or the glorified Lord who is unceasingly active both in men and women and in sacramental or juridical structures.67 In drawing rightful attention to the Spirits role in forming the Church, Congar understood himself to be recovering a principle that had been emphasised at earlier moments in the Christian tradition. His exploration of various dimensions of the Churchs structure revealed that the Holy Spirit did not come simply in order to animate an institution that was already fully determined in all its structures, but that he really is the co-instituting principle.68 While Christ is primarily associated with the initiation of the essential elements of the institution, the particular forms that those elements have taken were shaped by the movement of the Spirit in history. For example, the sacraments were given to the Church by Christ, who infused to particular actions a signification of grace. But the sacramental rites themselves emerged in the life of the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.69 Congar saw a similar phenomenon in the development of the churchs ministries. The gathering and commissioning of the Twelve was the work of Christ though Congar noted that even here Christ worked in cooperation with the Spirit, as suggested by Acts 1:2.70 The emergence of the specific forms of ministry, however, including the episcopacy, is attributed to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Both the New Testament witness and the subsequent reflections of the Church including the Council of Trent affirmed that the institution of various degrees of ministry was the result of the Spirits intervention.71 Furthermore, it is the third person who guides the ordination and empowerment of ministers as the Church continues throughout history. Thus, even particular aspects of the Churchs identity that have clear christological connections are shaped not just maintained by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Congars treatment of the Spirits activity in the Church takes the human history of the Church quite seriously. Congars conception of the hierarchy continued to develop in light of his attention to the person of the Spirit. Indeed, he suggested that the proper role of
66 67

68 69 70 71

Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , I, p. 157. Congar, La Parole et le Souffle (Paris: Descle, 1984). Translated by David Smith as The Word and the Spirit (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986), p. 83. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 9. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, pp. 910. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 10. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 10.

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the hierarchy72 can only be understood in light of the Holy Spirits guidance of and presence in this communion. Congar cautioned against any view that would ascribe a juridical formalism to the institution as such, precisely because such a view would neglect the necessary and ongoing activity of the Spirit. He made this point forcefully in Je crois en lEsprit Saint :
In concrete, this means that the Spirit must actively intervene in the case of any activity that is related to the sacramental or hierarchical institution, whether it has to do with the Word, the pastoral government of the Church or the sacraments in the widest sense of the word, that is, those acts which are concerned with the general sacramentality of the Church.73

Furthermore, the Holy Spirit serves as the principle of unity and life in the Church.74 Despite the tendency of much post-Reformation theology to reduce the unifying work of the Spirit to the institution of the Church, Congar insisted that such a move must be resisted. The Holy Spirits work is best conceived as event, stimulating the church into a fresh and living experience.75 The suppression of that freedom by formal ecclesiastical machinery undermines the possibility for ongoing renewal and deprives the Church of its vibrant character. Toward the end of his three-volume work on the Holy Spirit, Congars efforts to counter both a christomonism and an overemphasis on institution came to full fruition. There he revisited the notion of the Church as sacrament of salvation, which he had developed extensively in Un peuple messianique . In picking up this theme from a decidedly pneumatological angle of vision, he argued that the nature of the Church as a whole is sacramental.76 This is not to eliminate the institutional dimension, but to situate it properly within the salvific work of the Triune God. The Church, including its structures of authority, is part of a sacrament which looks back to its foundation in Christ, mediates grace in the present, and prepares the way for the future. The unity between past, present and future is secured by the Holy Spirit. Congar insisted that this unity cannot be secured by purely human means:
In and for the purpose of all these activities, the part played by an intervention of the Holy Spirit and by an epiclesis is to affirm that neither the earthly
72

73 74

75 76

Elizabeth Groppe notes that Congars use of the term hierarchy diminished significantly in his later work, though it never disappeared completely. Understood in the context of a pneumatological ecclesiology, the term had a place even in Congars mature theology. See Groppe, The Contribution of Yves Congars Theology of the Holy Spirit, p. 473. For an extended discussion of Congars later vision of the hierarchy, see Groppe, Yves Congars Theology of the Holy Spirit , pp. 13943. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , II, p. 45. Yves Congar, Renewal of the Spirit and Reform of the Institution, in Alois Muller and Norbert Greinacher (eds), Ongoing Reform of the Church (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), p. 40. Congar, Renewal of the Spirit, pp. 4041. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , III, p. 271.

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means nor the institution of the Church produces these by themselves. What we have here is an absolutely supernatural work that is both divine and deifying. The Church can be sure that God works in it, but, because it is God and not the Church that is the principle of this holy activity, the Church has to pray earnestly for his intervention as a grace.77

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In this sense, the entire life of the Church can be understood as an epiclesis. The consistent necessity to pray humbly for the guidance of the Spirit among all the faithful, including ecclesiastical leadership serves as a corrective to an unduly institutional vision of the community of faith.

Critical Questions
I have argued that the orienting concern of Congars ecclesiology was to account adequately for both the divine and the human dimensions of the Church. We are now in a position to raise two critical questions regarding Congars conception of the divinehuman interaction in his ecclesiology. In what follows, the value of emphasising both divine and human participation in the Church is not questioned. Rather, what is essentially at issue is Congars consistency in maintaining this balance, particularly in his earlier work. First, are there points at which Congar limited the divine dimension of the Church to its essential structure, thus neglecting the divine dimension in the life pole? As we have seen, Congar generally did not engage this tendency. The life of the Church is animated by the Trinitarian communion which is extended to Gods creatures, as expressed clearly in Chrtiens dsunis . Furthermore, in Jalons pour une thologie du lacat , Congar embraced the image of the Church as mystical body to develop a substantial theology of the laity. Yet in Vraie et fausse rforme , we noted an alarmingly close association of the divine element with the Churchs structure (and, correspondingly, an association of the human element with the Churchs life). Congar stated clearly in that work that there is a divine dimension and a human dimension of the Church, and the divine dimension is associated with the Churchs formal principles.78 The rigidity of this conception actually serves to highlight the value of his more dynamic account in other works. From another angle, it is possible to overstate the divine dimension in the life of the Church as well. In an article published in the wake of Vatican II, Congar offered a strikingly close identification of the actions of a church council (part of the life rather than structure) with the actions of the Holy Spirit: It is Christ and the Holy Spirit who act in the councils and who are the real authors of their decrees, so that the final judgment, that particular act which is strictly speaking the conciliar act,
77 78

Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit , III, p. 271. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , p. 120.

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will be the common act of the assembled college and of the Holy Spirit.79 While he referred to a common act of God and the council, Congars language of authorship gives the divine element the dominant place. We might also ask, with others,80 whether Congar at times neglected the human dimension in the protected arena of the Churchs essential structure. These considerations signal the importance of recognising sufficient interplay between the divine and the human in both the structure and life of the Church. Second, did Congars own sense of the developmental principle in the Church stand in tension with his conception of the essential elements in the church? Strikingly, it was in Vraie et fausse rforme that Congar offered a thoroughgoing account of the notion of development within the plan of God. He suggested that Gods plan is brought to fulfillment through progressive stages of development. Utilising the imagery of a seed growing into a plant, he indicated that the Church will only reach its final goal if it moves through the various stages without stopping.81 It is not surprising that Congar insisted that this development unfolds according to the essential principles of the Church. We might ask at this point whether the concrete elements of the Churchs structure are themselves exempted from this principle of development. If so, it would seem inevitable that these elements would be increasingly isolated from the historicity of the Churchs life. Further, the distinction between that in the church which is open to development and that which is exempted would become (or remain) an issue of tremendous contention.82 Despite these questions, Congars driving interest to account for both the divine and human dimensions in the Church is to be admired. As contemporary ecclesiology continues to appropriate that concern, Congars legacy serves as a valuable reminder of the importance of capturing the full dynamism of Gods interaction with humanity in and through the Church.

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81 82

Yves Congar, The Council as an Assembly and the Church as Essentially Conciliar, in Martin Redfern (ed.), Yves M.-J. Congar, OP (London: Sheed & Ward, 1972), p. 122. Originally published in Herbert Vorgrimler (ed.), One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (London: Sheed & Ward, 1968). MacDonald, The Ecclesiology of Yves Congar, p. 109, and John Stoneburner, The Doctrine of the Church in the Theology of Yves Congar, OP (unpublished PhD dissertation, Drew University, 1969), pp. 37778. Congar, Vraie et fausse rforme , pp. 125 and 131. Flynn notes an inevitable tension between fidelity to tradition and fidelity to the eschatologicallydriven impulse toward reform. See Yves Congars Vision of the Church , p. 146.

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