Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions
How Divine Initiative Works Through any Intentionally Attuned Mediator
Introduction: The Language of “Ordinary” and “Extraordinary”
Salvation History as the Development of Ordinary Means of Grace
Desire, Will and Parallel Structures
Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions
The Blessings of Extraordinary Religions
Conclusion
Introduction: The Language of “Ordinary” and “Extraordinary”
When speaking of how humans seek God, there is no wrong seeking, only wrong methodologies. Seeking itself is what we are built to do. When St. Augustine speaks to God in The Confessions, he famously says, “you made us for yourself and we are restless until we rest in you”. That God seeks us is a given for religions that operate on the principle of divine revelation, and obviously any desire or methodology God uses cannot be labeled wrong. The purpose of this paper is to mitigate the attitude in the Catholic Church of “right” religion and “wrong” religion by exploring language that will facilitate a view of the other world religions as co-workers with Christ and the Church to bring all men to God through Christ as opposed to defunct movements, or counter powers to the divine plan.
The language we will use will be that of “ordinary religions” and “extraordinary religions”. The words ordinary and extraordinary have particular meanings in the Catholic Church, especially as used technically with regards to the effectiveness of actions in a sacral sense. The term “ordinary” is used in common parlance to mean normal or regular way that things are done in the church verses extraordinary, which indicates some sort of parallel way that is an exception to the general rule.
For example in 2007 Pope Benedict XVI allowed for unrestricted use of the Tridentine Liturgy, which is the older form of the Latin mass. It was supplanted by a new edition in 1970 and the newer edition is called the “ordinary form”, the form to be used as a matter of course. But, the old Latin mass is still effective and it was allowed with restrictions until Benedict lifted all restrictions. Now it is referred to as the “extraordinary form” of the mass, because all things being equal the 1970 edition should be used as preferential. Benedict preferred the ordinary / extraordinary language to the old / new language because “old” and “new” made one seem superior to the other, whereas “ordinary” and “extraordinary” makes them part of a unit.
Another way that these terms are used refers God’s action and our cooperation. The church usually uses the terms ordinary or extraordinary to distinguish between two ways or means of the flow concerning grace in a sacrament. The ordinary form would be the standard and reliable way to sacramentally access grace from God. This way, according to traditions of the church, is institutional, reliable and steadfast. These forms are usually very clearly defined by the church. For example, baptism is performed by a priest and confirmation is performed by a bishop. They are the ordinary ministers of the sacrament.
However, there are also extraordinary ministers to these sacraments. In this way there is some sort of parallel means by which the sacraments are effected. For example, a priest can perform confirmation with permission of the bishop. Thus, at the Easter Vigil all RCIA catechumens and candidates are confirmed in parishes across any given diocese. The Bishop cannot multi-locate to each parish for this mass, so the parish pastors are granted the ability to perform this sacrament. Similarly there are extraordinary circumstances where a layperson can administer baptism. “In imminent danger of death and especially at the moment of death, when no priest or deacon is available, any member of the faithful, indeed anyone with the right intention, may and sometimes must administer baptism”. (Rite of Baptism, No. 16)
The ordinary form of baptism relies on the priestly office as ordained by Christ and the matter and form of the sacrament. When an extraordinary minister is used for baptism this is not the case. The matter and form must be the same, but the minister is not duly ordained. This baptism relies not on the sacral hierarchy, but the circumstances at hand, the intention, the volition and the desire of the lay minister performing the sacrament. Extraordinary forms are a recognition that God’s power to bring people to himself is not subject to any institution, even one that represents his complete revelation on earth. God can convey grace whenever, wherever, and however he sees fit, especially that grace that particularly binds one to him through Christ. So for example, there is an implicit blanket exemption offered to a certain group of lay Christians to baptize whenever they see fit. That group would be Protestants. By recognizing the baptisms of Protestant denominations who do not have a sacral ecclesiology as valid and effective, the Hierarchy has given recognition in a massive way the validity of lay sacral baptism.
One of the most interesting aspects of lay baptism that must be explored later is that, apparently according to the rite, the person administering in such an emergency baptism does not even have to be Christian. The “indeed anyone” portion of the above quote shows that circumstances, desire, intention and volition can be effective even for a non-Christian. This brings up the question, how is this possible? How can an unbaptized person be an effective minister of the sacrament of Baptism? To understand this one must have a grasp of the scope of salvation history and realize that God can use any means suited to his pleasure to convey grace to the world.
Salvation History as the Development of Ordinary Means of Grace
The idea that God can convey grace when and where he pleases is not at all foreign to the Catholic tradition. It is classically Christian to interpret the first creation story in light of John’s prologue and understand that when God says, “Let there be light” the “saying” is The Word, the second person of the Trinity through whom all things are made. An interesting thing about the image of the Son as the Word through whom creation is made, is that it makes creation itself a communication system of God. This is why creation itself is considered one of the “primordial sacraments” creation has “form” (the Word of God that created) and it has “matter” (the physical world) and in it’s entirety it is meant to convey grace. The role of humanity in that communication system is to be the perceivers of God’s self communication. Thus Saint Paul is able to say in Romans Chapter 1
For what can be known about God is evident . . . because God made it evident . . . Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.
Thus, it is obvious that, from Saint Paul’s point of view, we can come to know God from observation of nature, and that through nature God has a relationship with us. This is certainly the path of natural theology and the way that humans for all of history have been able to seek God. Every religion one encounters is an attempt by humanity to listen to God’s voice. From the Catholic point of view, some are more in tune with what God is trying to say than others, but that the attempt is, almost universally, made by humanity is, in itself, a great good. Still there are people who like to focus on the fact that there is a right way to understand what God is saying, which opens one up to God’s graces, and there is a wrong way to understand what God is saying, which seems to close one off to God’s graces.
This right/wrong dichotomy can be traced all the way back to Cain and Abel. In this story the two brothers bring sacrifice to God, one is accepted and one is rejected. Once Cain’s sacrifice is rejected he acts out in anger and murders his brother. It would seem from this that Cain was on the wrong side of the divide between those who are attuned to God and those who are not. Especially given that his younger brother born after, Seth, was the ancestor of Enoch, one of the few people whom God has taken bodily into heaven and the great-grandfather of Noah.
This same dynamic is set up in the story of the new creation and the new fall with Noah (Gen 9). In his fall story, Noah lays drunk in his tent naked and is shamed by his son Ham, while the other two sons, Japheth and Shem, protect his honor by covering him. So that even after the flood there is clearly a side of humanity that is seeking to do God’s will and a side that is not.
In the next phase of salvation history God’s patience is manifest by his restraint concerning the destruction of humanity. This time God decides to work “within the machine” so to speak and choose one man, form a relationship with him and his family and try, by this route to bring all of humanity back to himself. God promises Abraham in Genesis 12:2-3,
I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the families of the earth will find blessing in you.
As Abraham’s family is growing, once again, there seems to be a “right place” to be,
among the Israelites, and a “wrong place” to be, among the Gentiles.
In this brief thumbnail of salvation history we finally come to the fulfillment of the promise in Genesis 12, the Incarnation. With the coming of Jesus, God completely reveals himself to humanity and offers salvation to all mankind. The only requisite being acceptance of the Messiah. The fact that there is a “requisite” does imply a dichotomy between those who objectively accept Jesus as their savior, and those who do not, once again dividing humanity into two camps.
That thumbnail is how most Christians probably view the flow of salvation history in a nutshell. But the purpose of this paper, and often the plot devices of the Bible, is to cast the light of vaugery onto what seems a simple breakdown. Even in the Old Testament there are often characters that prove that the either/or breakdown is not adequate. What actually seems to be the case is that there is a parallel set of structures developing, an ordinary form of accessing God’s revelation and grace (according to plan) and an extraordinary, according to circumstance and intention. Concerning that the Jewish religion understands that gentiles who follow the seven Noahide Laws, the laws concerning God’s covenant with Noah and therefore with all humanity, are doing well in however they organize their various religions. Also, even though the Jewish people see themselves as having a special part in God’s plan, there are many examples through scripture and history of righteous gentiles, that is, gentiles who are somehow effectively seeking God.
A first example of this would be Ruth, the righteous Moabite, whose loving fidelity for the Israelite Naomi lead to a lineage for King David. A second example would be Uriah the Hittite, who followed the levitical codes of war even as David had him abandoned to death in battle fighting for Israel so that he could steal Uriah’s wife. Again there is Job whom the first verse of that book describes thusly, “In the land of Uz there was a blameless and upright man named Job, who feared God and avoided evil.” Uz is in Edom not Israel and Job’s name could easily be interpreted as “enemy”, yet at the same time, in the theodicy presented in the book and by definition of the opening verse, Job is the righteous one.
We will move through other examples below, but these will suffice to make the point that there are people on what would be considered the “wrong side” of the myopic view of salvation history that are acting according to God’s will. The possibility of this is actually necessary for the culminating event of salvation history to be effective. How would one expect the Gentiles to accept Jesus as the fullness of God’s revelation if they were completely bereft of any sense of God’s saving action or any influence of the Spirit of God. The rapid spread of Christianity as portrayed in Acts of the Apostles could only be possible if God had been working in these people and opening himself to them all along, as shown time and again in the Hebrew Scriptures.
As the Spirit moves among these gentiles we get a sense of a parallel plan for salvation history, a firm cultivation on the one hand of an ordinary form and a subtle preparation on the other for reception of that form by extraordinary means. Thus the intent of this paper; to extend that parallel plan up to and including the present age and redefine the world's religions not as “right” and “wrong” but as ordinary and extraordinary.
Desire, Will and Parallel Structures
So by our earlier definitions, the ordinary forms of religion would be those that work by the objective plan of salvation history. That plan is a line from Noah, to Abraham and Israel, to Jesus and Christianity. Ordinary religion is the standard reliable way to access God’s revelation and grace. Explanation of its development is an explanation of salvation history. However, people like Job, Ruth and Uriah the Hittite are indicative of what we are going to call “extraordinary religion”. That is, religion as it is effective outside of the scope of the ordinary or objective plan. Once again, the extraordinary religion relies on the circumstances at hand and the intention, volition and desire of the practitioner. It is a recognition that God’s power to bring people to himself is not subject any perceived plan or any institution, even one that represents his complete revelation on earth.
There seems to be two ways that people outside ordinary religion do the work of God. One is people who are unaware that God is working through them. Such people in the Bible would include Pharaoh, who God used to demonstrate his power to the Israelites in slavery, or how Assyria and Babylon were used to chastise Israel in Isaiah.
But apart from those outside of Israel who do bad things out of which God brings good, there are also those gentiles who purposefully do manifest good and cooperate with the will of God by intention. In traditional Catholic thought these people would have received what is called a baptism by desire. The reader will remember that the church distinguishes three types of Baptism. The first could be described as the ordinary form, that would be baptism by water. This is obvious and objective baptism. It must be freely chosen for by an adult but that freedom can be mediated through parents and community (symbolized by godparents) for an infant. Thus will is not even a requisite for receiving this sacrament through the ordinary practices of the church.
The second type of baptism is baptism by blood. This type of baptism is affected when one makes a willing donation of their life, by means of their death, out of the love of God (martyrdom) or their neighbor. Interestingly this type of baptism is completely dependent on circumstances intention and will, though not knowledge. So having the correct idea of who God is is not necessary. Clearly the early Christians who were rounded up and sent to the coliseum previous to their “water baptism” had not finished their catechesis, therefore did not have adequate views of God according to the faith. Indeed Christianity is in no way a gnostic religion, knowledge is not required for an effective water baptism under the ordinary form either, or else infants could not be baptized. In the case of baptism by blood, their intentional act of perfect charity is a willing following in agapic love, just as Christ did for humanity. That it is agapic love shows that the goodness comes from Christ as the Word of God, and from the Spirit in whom love abides. This would be the case even if the practitioner was not “Christian”. In fact, the two extraordinary forms of baptism assume the recipient is not nominally Christian; otherwise they would have received baptism under the ordinary form (water) and could not be “re-baptized”. If they had received baptism by water then an act of martyrdom or giving one’s life for a friend would simply be cooperating with baptismal grace, not a baptism itself.
Much of the same is true of the third type of baptism, baptism by desire. The conception of this form of baptism starts at the beginning of Christian history, where people sometimes delayed baptism for a time as they were catechized. If they died prematurely, and never received baptism by water, and baptism is necessary for salvation, then the math says they are received into perdition. However, even so early in church history it was noted that the desire for baptism, which is in effect a desire for God’s saving action, is a form of baptism itself. Once again this is not dependent on knowledge of God, but on the circumstances, intention, or desire, and will of the recipient. A narrow view of this applies it to only those among the catechumenate who die prematurely. However, the church extends this type of baptism to “every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it.” The catechism asserts that such a person can be saved through baptism by desire. (CCC 1260)
But once again, knowledge here is a very interesting term. For something to be known, it must be true, for it is not proper to say one “knows” things that are not true. We will assume the truth of the necessity of baptism for salvation. Then, two epistemological qualifiers kick in, 1) that the person be cognitively aware of the possibility of the truth, and 2) that the person believe the content of that awareness. If you don’t believe something you do not know it. Regarding the epistemological categories and the baptism of desire, people often focus on the first, the awareness of the possibility. It is often people's belief that if someone were at all exposed to any information about Christianity then baptism by desire is off the table for them. But if I am in a religion other than Christianity and someone tells me that Jesus died for my sins and baptism is the way to access the grace afforded, the simple proclamation in my presence only gives me the cognitive awareness of its possibility. It does not mean I believe it, and if I don’t believe it I don’t know it. In fact imagine a situation where Christianity is mostly reviled by the dominant cultural forces, and a missionary tells someone about the gospel. The force of cultural weight which biases the listener against Christianity would probably not put them in a place to believe such a statement without a lot more personally specialized support from the missionary.
The epistemological concerns are particularly important when considering the baptism by desire and how expansive it can be. When speaking of a person invested with this type of baptism the catechism says that “it may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.” (CCC 1260) Well who wouldn’t desire it if they know under both epistemological requirements of knowledge. Poor evangelization that does not, or possibly cannot, convince should not be the reason for a person’s damnation. “They should have known” is not a good enough excuse for someone truly seeking God to end up in hell, simply because some missionary did a half job at best trying to convince them. What this means is that any person who is truly seeking God to the best of their ability, investing their will and desire, receive the grace of this baptism. To object that they don’t believe in Jesus is simply to reaffirm that they are not receiving baptism in the sacramental form, but as baptism by desire. What they are seeking is God, and Jesus is God, so they are seeking Jesus, they just aren’t quite as far along as some in their knowledge of the objective phenomenon, but their intention may be more pure than some who are aware and believe the objective phenomenon.
A last point of interest about the baptism by desire is when it applies. It is often connected with death because when it is brought up it is couple with baptism by blood in an explanation of extraordinary forms of baptism. Also the standard example of the catechumen going to the coliseum is almost universally employed because it demonstrates both the antiquity and righteousness of such a baptism. Lastly the context for discussing baptism by desire is most often connected to how one who is not baptized by water can enter salvation after death. But it bears pointing out that baptism by desire is not affected by death the way baptism by blood is. Baptism by desire is an effective baptism in extraordinary form that has impact on the recipient's life as it is lived and is not simply a mortuary affair. The graces that flow from the ordinary sacrament are available through the extraordinary forms as well. One of these effects is the ability to enter paradise, but there are many baptismal graces that will need to be explored later.
So we have examples in the Bible not just of people and cultures used without their knowledge or will to do God’s will, but also people who by intention and volition act according to God’s will and are seeking to align themselves with God, but their knowledge is limited and they are seeking the truth. They would be participating, once again, in that parallel structure of grace outside the sole ordinary form of religion at the time, Judaism. Examples would be gentiles such as Rahab or Naaman the Assyrian. Recall that Rahab was the Canaanite in the city of Jericho, who helps the spies of Joshua on their reconnoiter of the city (Joshua 2). She helps because she has heard of the power of God in the victories of the Israelites over all armies they oppose. She has the equivalent of a conversion in that she marries one of the spies and also becomes Boaz’s mother and mother in law of Ruth, thus the great great grandmother David according to the lineage of Matthew’s gospel.
Another example is Naaman the Assyrian, the commander of the king of Aram, who had control of Israel at the time. He sought the help of Elisha, who healed him of leprosy. After an act of humility Naaman was cured. But the interesting thing for our purposes is his assertion to Elisha after his cure,
But may the Lord forgive your servant this: when my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down there, as he leans upon my arm, I too must bow down in the temple of Rimmon. When I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord please forgive your servant this. Elisha said to him, “Go in peace.” (2 Kings 5:18-19)
Typical of Judaism, Naaman is not required to convert, but to follow God in ways appropriate to him as a gentile. The awareness of a parallel structure of righteousness is strong in the pre-messianic stage of human history. It seems that his knowledge of the true God does not require Naaman to worship only in the temple of Jerusalem.
Less important to our purposes but related to these stories is the fact that each of these examples is counterbalanced with a hebrew that breaks faith with God (each time due to greed) and suffers the fate that should have been reserved for the gentile in the story. For Rahab the counterbalance is Achan who is killed for collecting spoils during warfare and for Naaman the counterbalance is Gehazi who contracts leprosy for demanding a fee from Naaman. It is a not so subtle reminder that belonging to the “wrong” religion does not bring a certainty of perdition and belonging to the “right” religion does not bring a certainty of salvation.
With the coming of Jesus, the fullness of God is revealed. The parallel workings of the Spirit in the Gentile communities seems to be manifestly obvious in the Acts of the Apostles with the mass conversion of the pagans to the messiah of Israel. It could be thought at this point that any parallel structure becomes useless. Christianity is not a pluralistic theology of multi-covenantal relationships with God the way Judaism is. We assert that belief in and conformity to Christ is the best way for all people. But the parallel structure, the extraordinary form of religion, is still necessary because given the effects of original sin and the dimming of the intellect to moral and sacral goods, not everyone is to the point of objectively accepting Christ even though they may have heard proclamations concerning him. One could easily begin a critique of this paper by noting that there seems no impetus for conversion or evangelization if baptism by desire is effective. But one must remember that there is the possibility of an equally dangerous sin being on the ordinary side of the religious divide. If the sacraments are objectively effective means of grace, then intention, desire and will are meaningless and the sacraments become vending machines of God’s grace. Of course a true seeker recognizes the necessity of a holistic view, that intentional cooperation with God’s grace is required, and that God’s grace is not exclusive to ordinary means, though they are preferable.
The Roman Catholic Church’s ordinary sacramental structure is keenly aware of the remaining need for a parallel structure. Remember there are three sacraments of initiation in ancient Christianities. In the east each is given to the baby, but in the Roman West they have been split along young adulthood. There seems to be Baptism which effectively bonds one to Christ and then Eucharist where one is nourished and sustained and lastly confirmation where one conforms one’s adult will to Christ. If one is received into the church as an unbaptized adult, one receives all three at once. If one is received as an infant, the process is protracted across young adulthood because coming into all that is required to be a fully developed Christian takes time and wisdom. This temporal awareness is also evident in the “candidacy” of a Protestant Christian who enters the Catholic Church. They are not re-baptized, but simply confirmed as a full adult member of the Catholic Church, receiving the graces of that sacrament that allow the gifts of the spirit personally present to in the recipient to cooperate with the initial baptismal grace. For Protestants who don’t practice infant baptism the entire process happens in one go at the “altar call”. The adult recognizes desires, accepts and receives. But for the Roman Church, there is the allowance of a progressive development toward full acceptance into the church, a development that extends after confirmation in the form of metanoia, and the rest of one’s life as one grows with God. One can add to this entire developmental process the stage of baptism by desire before the reception of ordinary sacramental baptism.
So if the question is asked, when does an adult start to become a Christian according to the Roman sacral understanding? The answer is, the moment they begin to focus their desire outward toward transcendence. If the question is, when does the Christian conversion process end according to the Roman sacral understanding? The answer is, upon their reception into paradise. Thus, the existence of a parallel structure of “religion in an extraordinary form” does not negate the previously quoted statement from the catechism, “it may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.” Because the assumption is, the true desire to find God will lead the practitioner to a point where if evidence is presented in a relatable way they would not, through pride, reject baptism, but accept it because of their desire for God. And all of this is part of natural flow of seeking God for both humanity and for the individual human.
Ordinary and Extraordinary Religions
The Purpose of this paper is to redefine the world religions and move away from an understanding of right and wrong religions, moving instead toward and understanding of ordinary and extraordinary religions. As noted before, when Pope Benedict XVI relaxed the restrictions on the use of the latin mass he referred to the two rites as ordinary and extraordinary forms, because he wanted them to be presented as both effective and both forming a unit, but one is the more standard, default mode of the mass. For this same reason we can look at the world religions in this way. The ordinary forms of religion the forms that God works objectively through to present the grace of salvation throughout salvation history. These would be Judaism and Christianity.
Some Catholics may balk at considering Judaism an ordinary form of religion alongside Christianity. But remember that before the arrival of the messiah, Judaism was the ordinary form of religion according to the standard narrative of salvation history. To suggest that Judaism has been supplanted and its effectiveness as a religious system has been eradicated by Christianity goes against Nostra Aetate, which states, “Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.” This document puts to rest any form of supersessionism in the Catholic Church. It only makes sense to view Judaism as a unit with Christianity as part of God's plan for salvation.
When speaking of Jewish Christians, St. Paul reminds the Gentile Christians in Rome, “In respect to the gospel, they are enemies on your account; but in respect to election, they are beloved because of the patriarchs. For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.” (Rom 11:28-29). The entire work of Romans seeks to reconcile the factional rift between Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome in advance of Paul’s visit, and the musings Paul makes concerning Judaism remind us that God is still active in his chosen people even if they have not accepted the messiah. Note that the blessings mentioned in verse 28 are on account of the patriarchs, not upon these Jews for having accepted the messiah. It can be deduced that Judaism and Christianity form a unit, making two ordinary forms of religion by which God is objectively working in the world, one available to the physical and spiritual descendents of Abraham, and one to Abraham’s descendants simply by spiritual means.
Christianity forms the cutting edge and completeness of salvation history. But it is pertinent to reiterate that our sonship of Abraham is spiritual, that is, it is by desire to know God and then effectively by sacrament, but the desire comes first, just like Abraham’s faith comes before the Law (Romans 4) and the effective baptism by desire comes first for an adult before the sacramental baptism made effective by water. The children of Israel are sons of Abraham by descent, and that allows access to the promises of God to the patriarchs, but like all grace cooperation is necessary, hence it is important for Jewish people not to “presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” (Mt. 3:9). Conversely it is important for those of us on the cutting edge, and indeed the completeness of revelation now not to presume that our own religion is the only means by which God can work his wondrous salvation. This was the presumption of the Jews coming to John the Baptist for baptism, and he felt the need to remind them that lineage is not the all important factor. So for us, theological lineage and even sacramental lineage does not exclude others from participating with graces God offers.
What we seem to have now, then, is a parallel structure to the two types of ordinary religion. This parallel structure stands in the face of the “us/them” tribalism which was so prevalent among the Jews in the gospels and is prevalent among Christians today. As noted before, all this seems to start with Cain and Abel, who set up a dynamic of the “right way” and the “wrong way” to do things. However, upon closer inspection of that story it may be important to note at this point that, even though one sacrifice was acceptable and one was not, this was not a problem for God vis-a -vis Cain. Cain was the one with resentment and bitterness, not God. God offers Cain encouraging advice concerning his sacrifice in order to bolster his resolve and inflame in him the desire for righteousness. This compassion on God’s part extends beyond Cain’s murder of his brother. The reader will remember that “the mark of Cain” was actually meant as a protection against judgment in order to allow Cain to continue with his life. Cain seemed to have needed to find his own way back to God, given that he was the one with the problem not God, he was the one who felt judged, not that God was judging him. The parallel lineages of Seth and Cain seem to denote two ways of of going about living. One is certainly preferable, but the other is not completely rejected until the flood.
At the flood, Cain’s line is destroyed, and then we have a new set of lines to follow. In Genesis chapter 9, as mentioned earlier, we have a second fall story once again involving themes of clothing and nudity, suspicious fruit, and some kind of loss of innocence. At the end of this story once again humanity seems to break down into two camps, but this story is filled with interesting twists, not the least of which is the number of sons involved in this part of the story. This time, when humanity seems divided between the “right” and the “wrong” way to be, you have three sons. One son, Ham, does actions not suiting respectability, and two sons, Shem and Japheth, act in accordance with decorum. Ham, the father of Canaan is cursed, whereas Shem and Japheth are blessed. It is important to note that in the blessings Shem is a dominant force as blessed by God, but Japheth dwells with Shem. It is Shem’s descendents that will produce the nation of Israel and thus bring the Messiah, but Japheth is there and is somehow to be taken as a righteous person. Why have two good sons? You only need one son if salvation history is a linear affair where sheep and goats are easily distinguishable here and now. But for some reason sacred scripture doesn’t play out that way. The entire history of humanity is God’s garden and that garden is a mixture of weeds and wheat. The location of the plants may facilitate how well either grows, but at the same time, remember that the farmer has no problem scattering upon good soil as well as thorny soil, rocky soil, or the path. And in the latter parable, wheat grows on each type. What we seem to have set up with the brothers Shem and Japheth is the beginnings of a means of ordinary and extraordinary paths of righteousness.
This same parallel theme is continued during the patriarchs. When Sarah decides to grasp God’s plan from him and use the procreative powers of the Egyptian slave Hagar the result is Ishmael. Abraham is assured that Isaac will be the one through whom God’s blessing will pass, but Ishmael will also be a great nation. When Hagar flees from Sarah’s abuse she is given promises tantamount to Abraham’s, “descendants too numerous to count” though he is to be a “wild ass of a man” with his “hand against everyone”. The counterbalance of this promise being given to a male patriarch and female Egyptian slave girl is one of the many great truths that the book of Genesis teaches, that God works in his own time and in his own way to bring about his plan for goodness, righteousness, and salvation.
Similarly, when Esau and Isaac realize the ruse played on them by Jacob, Esau weeps and begs for a blessing, but there is only one formal patriarchal blessing to be given. However at Esau’s insistence Isaac does give him a blessing. “See, far from the fertile earth will be your dwelling; far from the dew of the heavens above! By your sword you will live, and your brother you will serve; But when you become restless, you will throw off his yoke from your neck.” (Gen 27:39-40). The blessing is very similar to the advice God gives to Cain before he became a restless wanderer. “If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.” All three of these situations are outside of the ordinary lineage according to salvation history. Yet, all three of these paths of restlessness end in some sort of goodness. Like the ordinary and extraordinary means in the Catholic Church, who wouldn’t want to go with the ordinary means, it is reliable and clear. The extraordinary means is unreliable and fraught with hardship. It is meant to facilitate one’s acceptance of the ordinary form, but it is a possible way in and of itself to God’s grace as each of these stories makes clear.
Now the question remains, since the coming of the Christ and the conversion of the gentiles, isn’t any parallel extraordinary religious structure rendered pointless? The answer is yes if the fullness of revelation is coupled with the fullness of time. However, we are not at the end, we abide in an inbetween time spanning the first and second coming, between the incarnation and the eschaton. In this time it is assumed that everyone in the world is a possible convert to the true church, yet at the same time, they have not done so, thus we still have a state of affairs where they would need the grace to recognise God’s presence, hence the possibility of such a parallel structure. Not to mention the fact that all the way up to this point God has made it quite clear that he does not work in the simple confines of our imagination nor upon the expectation of our time line.
It must now be remembered that each of these religions is an attempt, to the best of the sincere practitioner's ability, to connect with transcendence. To think that all of these structures instantly lost their effectiveness at this limited attempt because perfection has been made manifest elsewhere to some seems off. It negates the first step of a life of conversion as described above, a life experience that only ends in death and acceptance into your reward. The parallel structure would have been needed to be operative for several centuries for the Roman empire to catch up with salvation history. And though the Western mind may see the Roman empire as the summation of history, God most likely does not. The other empires in existence then and up until today also need time to recognize God’s good work in Christ. In order for this to happen any non believer must have access to that grace of baptism by desire. Thus, this paper maintains that the effectiveness of an extraordinary religion, in cooperation with any given practitioner’s graces from baptism by desire, is still operative. It would need to be, at the very least, so that such a practitioner could recognize the truth when well presented by a proselytizer and seek ordinary sacramental baptism by water. The minimal grace which affords that baptism by desire is still available from the Father through the Son and in the Spirit, though the practitioner himself may not be aware that all these things are so. This was the opinion of C.S. Lewis. When speaking of his character Emeth in The Last Battle Lewis said,
I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god, or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow. In the parable of the Sheep and Goats those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ.”
The concept of a “very imperfectly conceived true God” applies to everyone who practices religion, Christian or otherwise. None of us know God in God’s essence, and knowledge of God is not required for salvation. Christianity certainly has a great angle on God’s plan and knowledge of this as well as knowledge of our relationship with God is the summit of Christian knowledge through the revelation we have received. If these are presented in fruitful ways to a practitioner of extraordinary religion, the feeling is that the grace afforded by the baptism by desire would effectively stir in them a draw to the ordinary sacrament.
This same understanding that all religions and people of goodwill are seeking God because he made us to do so allows for Nostre Aetate to state,
The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-cultural values found among these men.
(Nostra Aetate 2).
The attitude exhibited here, in fact in the entire document, shows that there is good in these religions. The goodness is the parallel structure which is set up, just as it was between Israel and the Gentiles in the pre-messianic age, in order to facilitate all people and peoples coming to the truth in the time appropriate to them and God. Thus the quote talks not just of socio-cultural and moral goods in the non-Christian religions of the world, but of “spiritual” good. The idea that non-Christian religions can have “spiritual goods” is why calling them “extraordinary religions” is beneficial. It allows one to know that there is a standard reliable way according to the plan of God for salvation history. Just like there is a standard, ordinary, minister of baptism, the priest, and a standard, ordinary, form. These ordinary forms are reliable and effective as is known through revelation made evident in scripture and tradition. However, there are also less objectively reliable but still effective extraordinary ministers of baptism, lay persons, and forms of baptism, desire and blood. These forms and ministers rely not on the rubric or the rite of the defined sacral system, but on intention and desire of the minister and recipient as well as the circumstances present. Who wouldn’t want an objective sacrament, but God is not limited to these in need. This leads us to ordinary and extraordinary religions. Who wouldn’t want the fullness of revelation coupled with the established church of the Son of God. But circumstances the dimmed imago dei coupled with the current of dominant culture do not always allow for it. So you have extraordinary religions, a parallel structure which is effective but not preferable, much like lay baptism or baptism by desire. This only leaves the necessity of attempting to explain how such religions could be effective. The following is an attempt to fit extraordinary religions systematically and theologically into the umbrella of the Catholic Church.
The Blessings of Extraordinary Religions
Once again Nostre Aetate implies that there is spiritual goodness present in the all of world religions. When most Christians conceive of the “goodness present in a non-Christian religion it is usually only three fold. First that often basic moral codes line up with the Judeo-Christian moral code, so that’s good. Second, that there are cultural phenomena that are possibly synchronistic with the Catholic faith, such as art, music, prayer techniques, etc. Lastly, often there are at least tidbits of truth present in each of the world religions. For example, Islam believes in one God. This is also a fact of Christianity. But the fact that we share knowledge is seen as good for Islam, but does not help Christians because we have the fullness of revelation. But “spiritual goodness” could imply that there are spiritually effective ways that the world religions operate with regards to the conveyance of grace from God. Such a possibility is intriguing and would once again further the merit of the name extraordinary religions.
Theologically there is a way to fit the effectiveness of a religious service of an extraordinary religion quite comfortably into a Catholic sacramental framework. The effectiveness would be present for practitioners of the extraordinary religion and one could easily make a biblical and theological case for some sort of effectiveness for a Catholic too. All of this hinges on the sacramental worldview inherent is ancient Christianities.
The reader will remember that there are seven sacraments, which are outward signs of form and matter that convey the invisible graces of God. The backdrop of these seven sacraments is one of the three primordial sacraments, Creation. As noted earlier, creation itself is a visible sign or form (the speaking of The Word at creation, making creation instituted by Christ) and matter (physical creation). Creation was made as a free gift of God in order to draw us to himself in free love through grace. But the seven sacraments are particularly instituted because our fallen state disallows us to clearly see the sacral investiture of creation itself. However in catholic culture there is a host of what are called “sacramentals”. Sometimes these are formally defined, but often they are specific to times and places, cultures and even families. Thus these are not instituted by Christ during his earthly mission as a set rite for the complete span of church history. Sacramentals are more fluid and work through the sacramental nature of reality as adapted to the time and circumstance. They dispose one toward reception of and cooperation with the grace offered in a sacrament proper. Where as a sacrament is effective by form and matter, a sacramental is effective emotively and operates upon the existing spiritual disposition of the recipient. Thus once again, you have a breakdown that draws a line between a formal, objective and reliable instance versus an informal, emotive, desire based and less reliable instance, a secure system and a parallel supporting system.
One example of a sacramental is a blessing, and it is through this sacramental that we shall explore possible avenues for the “spiritual goodness” and effectiveness of the services and practices of extraordinary religions. It is almost comical at this point to note that blessings also break down into ordinary and extraordinary forms by ordinary and extraordinary ministers. The ordinary forms of blessings would be defined by the magisterium of the church and the ordinary ministers of such blessings would be priests who have been ordained into the sacral system of the Catholic Church. These blessings are, once again typical of ordinary means, effective by means of the ordination of the priest. Graces are granted that properly dispose one toward the greater sacramental system simply by the office of the priest.
However the Church does recognize extraordinary ministers of blessing and blessings by extraordinary means. According to the catechism Sacramentals derive from the baptismal priesthood: every baptized person is called to be a "blessing," and to bless. Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons). (CCC 1669). Thus the more peripheral a blessing is to the seven sacraments proper the more it is under the ability of a layperson to impart, as long as they are participating with their baptismal grace in the conveyance. In fact the effectiveness of the blessing is correlative to the amount to which the lay person participates with their baptismal grace. This is why, even for an informal blessing, a priest may be preferable. Even if the priest is spiritually infantile and morally bereft, his blessing is effective by means of his sacral ordination. For a lay person, the effectiveness of their blessing is reliant on their cooperation with their baptismal grace.
From everything that preceded here it is not hard to find a theological path effectiveness of services and practices of extraordinary religions. If one were to have a minister in a service of an extraordinary religion who is truly seeking God, they are baptized in an extraordinary form, by desire. They therefore have graces afforded them by this baptism, though the baptism works on intention and circumstance and not objectively as a sacrament. If such a person cooperated with that grace and offered, what according to the Catholic Church would be, informal rites and blessing to a congregation according to the form of their own religion, by their participation with that baptismal grace they would be “a blessing” according to the catechism. In fact they are “called” to be that blessing. If a person on the receiving end of that service is truly seeking God, they are baptized in an extraordinary for, by desire. They therefore have graces afforded them by this baptism, though the baptism works on intention and circumstance and not objectively as a sacrament. If such a person cooperated with that grace and received the blessing from the presider, each would be participating with Christ through the sacramental system of the Catholic Church, but in a completely extraordinary way, and absolutely bereft of the knowledge of said participation. Once again, C.S. Lewis,
I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god, or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know him.
The very least of the effect of such a blessing would be a shift in disposition toward a greater openness to the Truth of God and the greater Truth offered in Christianity. What a greater grace may mean for such a blessing is only known to God, who can bestow his graces by any means or mediator he sees fit. We do know, though that the effect can be much greater than a simple emotive disposition. Remember, the baptismal rite asserts,
In imminent danger of death and especially at the moment of death, when no priest or deacon is available, any member of the faithful, indeed anyone with the right intention, may and sometimes must administer baptism.
This passage unambiguously asserts that a “non-baptized” person with right intention seems to be able to effectively administer ordinary sacral baptism if they are possessed of proper intention. How would this ever be the case? Well here’s a complex hypothetical, if a non-Christian person found an obviously Christian dying mother in the process of birth to a dying baby and there was no priest around and that non-Christian, out of goodwill baptized the baby for the dying mother in an attempt to be a decent human being who is seeking God himself (i.e. a recipient of the baptism by desire), that baptism would be not just intentionally, but sacramentally effective. This scenario is extremely unlikely, but the wisdom of the church points out its possibility. It reminds one of the effective use any good will by God, and the ability of any person to cooperate with the graces of their particular kind of baptism to effective means beyond our average expectation.
With regards to a more common effective “blessing” given by a practitioner of an extraordinary religion, how such blessing would be effective would of course depend on the type of service one attended. The openness one would get during a Salat ul Jummah in a mosque, which center on submission to the absolutely transcendent God, would be quite different that the openness one would get at a Hindu Puja, where transcendent reality as mediated through physical signs and symbols. The Hindu methodology queues into the observable sacramental structure of the Catholic Church, whereas the Islamic methodology calls one to submit to the transcendent mystery. Both of these are important blessings and important emotive dispositions to possess.
Such a parallel system can be validated by the attestation of scripture. In order to do that it may be helpful to take a look at two more righteous gentiles, Melchizedek and Balaam. Melchizedek is king of Salem and a Priest of God most High. He is obviously not Jewish, even though at this time he is king of what would become Jerusalem. The only Jews in existence at the time of this story are Abraham and his very small immediate family. In Genesis Chapter 14, Melchizedek offers a sacrifice of bread and wine in a much noted prefiguration of the Eucharist and offering a blessing upon Abraham. At this point the ordinary form or religion is the Family of Abraham, but apparently Melchizedek is also able to offer effective blessings. The same is true of Balaam in the book of Numbers. The Princes of Moab tried to pay Balaam to curse Israel, who were infesting the land, and stay their advance. But Balaam, though not of the ordinary religion, was attuned to God and was able to see the will of God. He was able to offer four effective blessings. An interesting point here is that his first three seem to be blessing from God directly, however the fourth seems to be the cooperative initiative of Balaam himself. Both of these men offer effective blessing based on their openness to the God Most High, and they are effective even though they are not included in the ordinary form of God’s plan for salvation history.
For New Testament attestation one can turn to Mark chapter 9 Verses 38-41,
John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we
tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.” Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.
This passage is always a wakeup call for those who think they hold the monopoly on God’s grace. The passage hints at a parallel structure where the power God is demonstrated through Christ and through some sort of extraordinary minister, not among the twelve or the disciples. A critical eye may point out that that extraordinary minister was using the name of Jesus Christ, but I would reply that the second person of the Trinity is God Most High. To invoke the name of God, even if you don’t fully understand God (after all, once again, who does?) and to have that invocation be effective would be a sign that one were doing the will of God. This can be applied to a practitioner of extraordinary religion who is baptized by desire cooperating with the grace of that baptism and performing rites or services that bring peace and/or healing to another practitioner also cooperating with the grace of their baptism by desire. In this rather complicated, but probably commonplace scenario, these people are working under the auspices of Christ and are maneuvering in the milieu of the Holy Spirit, though these things may not be known to them.
When the scribes accused Jesus of driving out demons by means of the prince of demons in Mark 3, Jesus curtly reminds them that demons can do no good, and that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The takeaway seems to be that any good act comes from God. Thus any spiritual good that is done by means of an extraordinary religion can only the work of God. Jesus goes on to inform the crowd in Mark 4 that the the only unforgivable sin is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. This sin is traditionally broken down into three categories, first to liken the works of God to works of evil, second an unrepentant heart (because God cannot forgive those who will not be forgiven), and lastly rejection of the gifts of the Spirit, particularly charity, so the third form boils down to a malicious heart. If one were to look at the spiritual good done by a person or rite of an extraordinary religion and account it an evil you would be committing this unforgivable sin. It is possible for someone to do this out of ignorance, but if one were to recognize a spiritual good as beneficial, but then reject it out of malice because its temporal source was of extraordinary religion, the moral conclusion seems to be the commitence of the unforgivable sin under two of the defined forms.
The last angle to be considered is whether or not the effectiveness of a blessing performed by a practitioner of an extraordinary religion could be effective for a practitioner of ordinary religion, especially a Christian. At the outset it would seem the answer was no, but, we have already seen that the answer to this question is affirmative, in that any well intentioned person has the ability to baptize in the extraordinary form. It is also beneficial to explore the way blessings work according to the Roman rite. The first thing one may note is that the greater blesses the lesser. So traditionally a bishop blesses a priest, priest blesses a lay person, a parent blesses a child, etc. Formally and objectively such power dynamics are easily definable, for example, in the hierarchy or the fact that Christianity is the fullness of revelation, thus it is the greatest religion. But when looking into the heart it becomes harder. So you sometimes have dramatic scenes in ancient stories where some cleric, after a conversion experience, falls before an unordained hermit or some such person and begs a blessing. The point in such a scene is that even though the priest's blessing is effective by ordination, it is obvious that this proverbial hermit’s cooperation with his or her baptismal grace is so manifestly powerful, that the priest recognizes them as a greater. So for example in some African cultures, a bishop who has newly ordained priests asks them to impart their first blessing upon him as a sign of humility in his office. As a parent I bless my children and it is not at all odd in my house that my children with sincerity bless me from time to time. In Christianity it is not easy to tell who is the greatest because Jesus reminds us that, “the one who is least among all of you is the one who is greatest.” (Luke 9:48b)
Let’s revisit Melchizedek and Balaam. Both of them were righteous gentiles who offered effective blessings. At this point it is proper to focus on the fact that those effective blessings were offered from the extraordinary religious practitioner to the ordinary religious practitioner(s). In fact, one may take the story of Balaam s donkey in Numbers 22 as a prequel to the extraordinary blessing power dynamic in the story itself. There is an ordinary master, the rider Balaam, and there is an extraordinary leader, the Donkey, who sees something divine that the one who is the presumed leader should see. The donkey tries to act effectively but is beaten for its action by the ordinary leader. At a critical moment, the one who is expected to utterly lack speech, the donkey, is given the gift by God so as to enlighten the ordinary leader of the situation, Balaam. The donkey points Balaam toward the messenger of God who directs him according to God’s will. So to Balaam in his blessing of Israel. He would be expect to be silent concerning God’s way, being a gentile, but he was the one who was able to pronounce effective blessings upon Israel, first as the mouthpiece of God, then, as noted, of his own accord, by participation with his previous divine commerce.
Now to we have extraordinary religions. As “world religions” on the wrong side of salvation history we would expect them to be speechless with regards to us. Any blessings they have the power to bestow would seemingly be for their own practitioners and they are regarded as lucky that God is merciful toward them. Those blessings would simply prepare the recipient to move toward the ordinary representative of the fullness of revelation, Roman Catholicism. But reconceiving them as extraordinary religions reminds us that they also abide in the backdrop of the primordial sacrament of creation. In it they are able to participate with the grace of their baptism by desire and offer blessings. Given Christian power dynamics, one would be foolish to reject grace that flows from a perceived “lesser”. To hear the good word or receive the good wishes, through rite or through prayer, of a practitioner of an extraordinary religious form is by no means to be rejected, such a rejection is rejection of God’s grace and blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. If accepted, such blessings, though not of the seven sacraments, are effective sacramentals, if the person is participating with the grace of their baptism by desire and the recipient is cooperating with their baptismal grace (afforded by the ordinary form; water). However, the cooperation of the ordinarily baptized with these graces will, at the least, better dispose them to reception of the sacraments, and possibly through the power of God almighty, by means of Christ and in the love of the Holy Spirit do far greater things than that.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper is to remind the reader that the grace of God flows sacrally through creation. Regarding that flow, there are ordinary and objectively effective ways that the grace can be accessed. These ways take the form of ordinary revelation (salvation history), the seven ordinary sacraments, and ordinary sacral ecclesiology whose job it is administers most of those sacraments, and ordinary forms of religion, which are the preferable places to navigate one’s relationship with God. But there is also a parallel system by which God conveys grace. It does not operate on according to objective rules, rites or knowledge, but on desire and circumstance. The parallel structure offers its access to the grace that flows from Christ by means of baptism by desire which envelopes one in the Holy Spirit even if one is not aware of their Trinitarian commerce. The parallel structure allows for the possibility of grasping some truths of God, the possibility of an acceptable moral code, the possibility of a compatible culture with the ordinary forms, but most importantly the possibility of spiritual goodness and effect grace, especially through effective blessings offered and received by practitioners of those extraordinary forms of religion. These effective blessings certainly better dispose the recipient to understand and properly react to the call of God, especially in the motion of their soul toward the fullness of revelation in Christ as present in his Church and her Sacraments. But, lastly, God is almighty, and to conceive of the goodness of these extraordinary forms of religions as simply instrumental is to misunderstand the continual process of conversion and seeking that is the lot of every human in this world, and to devalue the beauty power of grace offered at every moment of the journey to God.
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