Audio only:
Joe examines C.S. Lewis’s argument for male-headship, and how that applies to Christianity and the Papacy.
Transcript:
Joe:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer and I want to share a fascinating argument that CS Lewis made one that I agree with and one that I think points to the truth about the Catholic church and particularly about the papacy in ways that even he didn’t recognize at the time. Now many of Lewis as the author of works like the Chronicles of Narnia and his space trilogy, in which he presents Christian themes through the lens of fiction. But he’s also one of the finest modern Christian apologists and I want to explore some apologetic arguments today. Now, he was an Anglican, but his focus was to affirm what he called mere Christianity, presenting a case for why someone should believe the Christian Gospel to be true without getting into all of the particular disputed points between Catholics and Orthodox and the various denominations of Protestantism.
And in fact, the argument that I’m focused on today is from his book Near Christianity, which was itself adapted from a series of radio talks that he gave during World War ii. Before we get into that, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t grateful for all of my wonderful supporters over@shamelessjoe.com. Just know that your support is what keeps this show going and helps us to keep improving For as little as $5 a month, you can get access to the show notes with all the sources used in each episode and a PDF digest of the major points. You can also get early access to ad-free videos, exclusive q and as and much, much more. So thank you very much to all of our patrons and if you’re not already a member, please come join us over@chijoe.com. Alright, so first to give some context to the argument that he’s making. Lewis is defending the Christian belief in male headship. This is a theme I’ve explored a lot lately, but I want to point out what he says because he recognizes that when we’re talking about the idea of male headship, there are two questions which come up.
CLIP:
Something else even more unpopular remains to be dealt with. Christian wives promised to obey their husbands in Christian marriage. The man is said to be the head. Two questions obviously arise here. One, why should there be a head at all? Why not equality two, why should it be the man?
Joe:
It’s the way that Lewis answers the first of these two questions that I want to focus on. Why should a family have a single head at all instead of being governed by two co-equal parents? And here’s how Lewis answers that question.
CLIP:
The need for some head follows from the idea that marriage is permanent. Of course, as long as the husband and wife are agreed, no question of a head need arise. And we may hope that this will be the normal state of affairs in a Christian marriage, but when there is a real disagreement what is to happen, talk it over of course, but I’m assuming they have done that and still fail to reach agreement. What do they do next? They cannot decide by a majority vote. For in a council of two, there can be no majority, surely only one or other of two things can happen. Either they must separate and go their own ways or else one or other of them must have a casting vote. If marriage is permanent, one or other party must in the last resort have the power of deciding the family policy.
Joe:
I think Lewis’s argument makes sense here. The Christian vision of marriage is that it’s made to last for life. Jesus quotes Genesis two about how the two become one flesh in marriage and says, what therefore God has joined together. Let men not put a under, but anybody who’s married knows that even when you love your spouse, there are going to be times that you don’t see eye to eye. Now hopefully you can talk through it and work out whatever issues come up, but what if you’re still at an impasse? Maybe it’s a big decision like whether to move across the country for work. You’re both wanting the good of the family, you’ve both considered all the facts, and yet you’re still coming out on opposite sides of the question. Then what? Well, at a certain point, one of you is going to have to have the final say or else the two of you’re going to go in opposite directions, literally or figuratively.
And this Lewis argues is why there needs to be a single head within marriage. Lewis and Anglican is pointing towards that same truth that Pope Pius II highlighted around this same time, namely that every well ordered society requires a head and all authority in a head comes from God. Or if you’d prefer to hear it from St. Paul, the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband and the head of Christ is God. Now that doesn’t mean that women submit to their husbands instead of Christ. Jesus is the head of all Christians and as many as you were baptized and to Christ have put on Christ. Rather, it’s a pragmatic point and a theological point being made here. Practically speaking, whether we’re talking about the family or the church, any well-ordered society, someone should have the last word to preserve unity and to allow decisions to be made.
And theologically, this oneness points to God’s own unity and his headship. But if all of this is true in a marriage and in a society, why not also in the church after all the biblical teachings on marriage and on the church are inseparable. Even when St. Paul lays out his teaching on ship in Ephesians five, he describes it in terms of the teaching on marriage. Christ is the head of the church, his bride, he tells husbands to love your wives as Christ loved the church. He quotes the exact same line from Genesis two that Jesus had quoted about marriage and divorce, about the two becoming one flesh. But Paul applies it mysteriously to the one flesh union of Christ in the church. Now this oneness is critical. St. Paul mentions it at least 10 times. The church is one body. What does it mean to say that the church is one?
In a sense it means that the church is completely united with Jesus Christ. That two become one. You should no more try to have Jesus without the church than you would try to separate a man from his wife or a person’s head from their body. But Paul is also clear that the oneness of the church means that we are to be united as one church. Jesus only has one bride and we though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. So just as the two Christ in the church become one, so also do the many. Each of us become one with each other in the one church. And so it’s important that like the family, the church has a head. Now here, in one sense, all Christians are going to agree Jesus is the ultimate head of the church. St. Paul could not be clearer about that point.
In St. Peter’s words, Jesus is the shepherd and guardian of our souls and he is our chief shepherd. What does this look like at the local level? Should a parish have a single head like a pastor? Should a diocese have a single head like a bishop? Should the church on earth have a single head like a pope? Well, let’s follow Lewis’s reasoning. The church is the household of God as Paul says, and like our own Christian households, it means it’s to be a place of unity. But sometimes households, even those of God have squabbles. We disagree over big decisions sometimes on questions infinitely more important than moving across the country for work. What happens next? Well, hopefully we can talk it out and sure enough, sometimes there’s some plain answer to be found in the Bible or common sense or research or something like this is going to point to a sufficiently clear answer to settle the controversy.
But often even after a good faith investigation, we find ourselves at an impasse. And when that happens, you can find people on both sides of some of these big questions who clearly are well-intentioned. Clearly you’re trying to serve God and trying to serve their Christian family. They’re considering all the facts at their disposal and yet they’re coming out with different conclusions. Maybe you’ve got a congregation, they’re reading the Bible together and half of them come away convinced that the Bible supports the baptizing of infant and half of them come away convinced that it’s inappropriate to baptize infants. What are you going to do in that case? On some stuff you can just take an agree to disagree attitude, but on big issues you really can’t do that. So you ultimately are going to have to either put the doctrine up to a vote or else
CLIP:
Only one or other of two things can happen. Either they must separate and go their own ways or else one or other of them must have a casting vote.
Joe:
But the point here isn’t just pragmatic, there’s also the theological side. Back in 1 0 7, Saint Ignatius praised the Christians and trialists for being subject to the bishop as to Jesus Christ. And he reminded the Christians of Ephesus that as the Lord did nothing without the father being united to him, neither by himself nor by the apostles. So neither do anything without the bishop and presbyters. He called upon them to run together as into one temple of God as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ who came forth from one father and and has gone to one. Now, in contrast, consider how strange it is that there are denominations on earth today that don’t follow this pattern. They’ll talk about the importance in a marriage for there to be one head, the husband, but then these same denominations will be led by a committee instead of by a single head.
Well instead, the headship of the family that Lewis points to should logically lead us to support the headship of the bishop and his church. Now, as an Anglican Lewis might’ve been perfectly comfortable with the implications, but what about the rest of the on earth? After all, you could have a thousand local churches that are in lockstep with their own bishop or their pastor, but each of them disagrees with one another. But that would hardly be one church in the sense that St. Paul speaks about when he talks about how there is only one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope belonging to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all who is above all and through all. And in all that is one of the reasons that the church is one, is because there can be only one true church since there’s only one true Christian faith.
And so just as the early Christians recognize, the one bishop is key for the unity of the local church, we find early Christians pointing to the papacy is the key for the unity of the global church. St. Optatus of Milevis, for instance, writes in the three hundreds about how Christ set St. Peter above the other apostles and how Peter’s unique authority passed on to the church he founded in Rome. Now he refers to this seat of authority as the Cathedra. That means seat is where we get the word cathedral from. And he says that you cannot then deny that you do know that upon Peter first in the city of Rome was bestowed the episcopal Cathedra on which sat Peter the head of all the apostles and why. So that in this one Cathedra unity should be preserved by all lest the other apostles might claim each for himself separate Cathedras so that he who should set up a second Cathedra against the unique Cathedra would already be amatic and a sinner.
So even if your local church is completely in union with your bishop, and even if your bishop is a successor of the apostles, Optatus says that’s not enough because the true church needs to be won throughout the world, whereas every schematic and heretical group is local and so on. Global conflicts as with local ones to borrow from Lewis once more, one or other of them must have a casting vote or else the global church is going to descend into schisms. And that’s exactly what we’ve seen. It’s not just a case of Protestant groups breaking off from the church to practice some new form of Christianity. We’ve also seen countless schisms throughout church history where Christians in one region like North Africa and Egypt or Eastern Europe and what’s now Turkey, will split off from the global church and break off communion with the sea of Peter. So why be Catholic instead of Eastern Orthodox or Oriental Orthodox? I explained all of that right here, including how these Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches affirmed the authority of the Pope as recently as the 15th century in the Council of Florence. For Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer. God bless you.