Venn diagram, four intersecting sets
Warning strong symbolic logic and philosophical content ahead.
We all know that there are areas of commonality and divergence between all who call themselves Christian. The problem comes in how to describe those convergences and divergences. There is no simple way to describe it. All Christians overlap in the area of the First through the Fourth Ecumenical Councils. [Actually, I would argue that we overlap in the area of the First through the Sixth Ecumenical Councils, but I do not want to discuss the whole area of the Oriental Orthodox and history and current updates.]
However, after that, the situation becomes more complex. For instance, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans have common theological opinions in various areas. But Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans fully diverge in other areas. Start throwing in the other Christian groupings, and you can imagine how complex it gets to try to figure out all the inter-relationships.
But, is there a way to analyze and visualize this confusion? Well, actually, there is, although no one has done it because the complexity required is significant. The way to analyze it is set theory, and there are a couple of ways to diagram it, either a Venn diagram or an Euler diagram. For instance, the image on this post is a Venn diagram. If you think again of the Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans, the Venn diagram pictured is one way to visualize the interrelationships between their theologies. Of course, one would have to fill in all those different colored segments you see! But, if one wanted to take the trouble, one could do that type of analysis.
Now, imagine the complexity of a Venn diagram which would contain all the faith groups. Actually, I cannot imagine such a Venn diagram. But, I know that they could theoretically exist, although there may be no way to print them in an easy visual form. The problem would be in how to fill in the sets correctly. The other problem would be in whether this would be considered a worthwhile exercise. My mathematical, logical, and philosophical leanings would consider it a worthwhile exercise, but then that is just me.
But, this type of complexity is what makes it so hard to work through to being One Church again. The people who wrote the original fundamentals, the predecessors of the fundamentalists, thought that they could set a basis for Christian unity by simply describing the set of all intersecting sets. But theological systems are much more than a minimum set of beliefs. They have an internal logical coherency, and the areas of overlap are only part of the story. More than that, theological systems describe our relationship to God Himself. They speak of how God expects us to properly relate to Him, and what He has asked us to do. That is serious business that cannot simply be compromised easily for the sake of unity.
We have modern versions of the people who wrote The Fundamentals. But, rather than trying to work the theology, they try to claim that we do not need to do so, we just need to have this, uhm, sort of inner belief in God, and that if only we would concentrate on L-O-V-I-N-G Jesus then we could all be one. Unfortunately, they do not realize that even that statement, in and of itself, is a statement of theology. Worse, because they do not wish to think through the implications of their belief, they often end up in a totally incoherent place which is not likely to convince anyone who like to think through their beliefs.
At the other end, we have the purists who forget that our limitations as human beings preclude us from having full knowledge. And, thus, they not only work their theological systems, they work them through into minutiae that go far beyond what has been given to us by Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the writers of the Epistles, the Holy Traditions, and the Ecumenical Councils. And, having gone so far beyond, they become like the Gnostics who insisted that only correct belief would let you grow in the Holy Spirit.
For the rest of us, we have to have two attitudes. On the one hand, we need to have the humility to know that we cannot know everything. In fact, we have to recognize the reality that our reasonings can never let us know God at all, ever, even after we are saved. We are totally dependent on the revelation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by both written Word and Holy Tradition. On the other hand, we are called to grow in the likeness of God, and we can only have some success in that, if we know who our God is and what He wants from us. St. Paul calls St. Timothy to study Scripture, to cultivate a right internal attitude, and to do holy works so that he may grow in the likeness of Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Peter admonishes us to be able to defend the faith.
And, finally, we are called to belong to Holy Mother Church, not because she is perfect, but, because, like Israel, God has chosen her and promised to preserve her. There is no merit nor reason to belong to the Church other than that Our Lord has requested that of us. There is no reason to obey the Apostles other than that Our Lord appointed them. The sacraments would be meaningless had not Our Lord invested them with the Holy Spirit. Works are important because Our Lord expects us to behave like Him. And we study theology and grow in it because Our Lord expects us to follow Him correctly.
 ===MORE TO COME===
My two favorite topics, Orthodoxy and math!
Actually, father, I’m not sure you could chart all of Protestantism with a Venn diagram. I’m thinking specifically of what I call “one-verse theology” churches, such as the snake handling group of Pentecostals, churches that have very little clear, defined theology beyond one verse they have grasped and built their identity around. How does one represent them on a Venn diagram?
They would fit. Remember that over 90% of Pentecostals are Trinitarian and believe in the two natures of Christ in the one nature. They also believe that God is almighty and created heaven and earth, that Our Lord will return again to judge the earth, and so on. You do not catch all their theology unless you specifically ask. They may have an emphasis on one part of their theology to the point that it seriously affects their preaching, but they are still within the theological beliefs that define core Christianity.
Now, here is some set theory content for you. Theoretically anything can be graphed onto a Venn diagram. So, for instance, even Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses could be as well, since they claim to be Christian. However, some of their intersection points would be empty or null sets.
In my opinion, it would be on an Euler diagram that the fact that they are not truly Christian would be best shown. Because they reject the Councils, they would be diagrammed as separate from the rest, even though they would have similar sounding theology in certain areas.
What is interesting is that for all the power in America, as you well know, the three largest branches of Christianity have next to nothing in common with American Evangelicalism.
I’ve read with great interest the ecumenical interactions of Anglicans and Orthodox and, culminating in the third, longest, and most grand agreed statement; there seems to be very significant overlap between the two.
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/ecumenical/dialogues/orthodox/index.cfm
As a charismatic catholic anglican I find more and more in common with Orthodoxy the more I look.
Thanks for that URL. I briefly glanced at it, and will return to it later to read it more in depth. I suspect that as the split within Anglicanism continues the meetings may be suspended for a while. Both the Lutherans and the Orthodox had meetings with the Orthodox back at the time of the Reformation. The Lutheran meetings were the more extended ones.
But, you make a good point. The overwhelming majority of Christians in the world belong to non-evangelical groupings. In spite of that, American Evangelicalism somehow sees the faith as revolving around themselves. We Americans have inherited the “remnant theology” and the “city on a hill” theology of the Puritans and keep it going with a vengeance in both theology and world affairs. American Evangelicals make the argument that the growing number of Pentecostals around the world mean that it is the evangelical expression of the faith that will triumph. Oddly enough, many missiologists tend to classify Pentecostals as separate from “regular” Protestants, but that is a small quibble on my part.
There is indeed a very significant overlap between Anglicans and Orthodox.
When we talk theology, the agreements often are solely in intellectual formulations, while current practices may be very divergent, and incompatible. Anglicans and Orthodox each have a variety of structures in which they live.
What would be helpful is a mathematical structure which could manipulate theory as modified by practice. I have not the foggiest as to how that might be accomplished.
Your diagram needs to include actual practice, rather than just logic symbolism.
Leaving aside the actual definition of “validity” in orders, I think it’s interesting that the Romans think the Orthodox have valid orders – but no one else. Some (but not all) Orthodox think the Romans might, but then so might everyone else. But the definition is different: the Orthodox say if Anglicans call a man a bishop that man *is* a Bishop – for Anglicans. If he wanted to become Orthodox he’d have to be Ordained.
If a Roman wants to become Orthodox, some bishops will ordain him, some bishops won’t.
if an Orthodox wants to become Roman, he won’t get ordained.
If an Anglican (or a Methodist, or a Baptist) becomes Roman he’d have to get ordained.
But as to parallels with Anglicans…
Let’s see: overlapping and feuding jurisdictions (check)
Foreign Bishops that want to run the show locally (check)
American bishops who want to tell the foreigners to get stuffed (check)
Conservative Fundamentalists and more-liberal sorts (check)
Liturgy wars (check)
On the issues of gender and sexuality the Orthodox in the USA are now where the Anglicans were 50 years ago…. I make no predictions, but (check)
Yep, Orthodox and Anglicans have a lot in common.
Huw, there is no way that I can think of to include actual practice. 😆 The reality is that actual practice need bear little relationship to what is proclaimed in creeds and statements of belief. And, there is more than one popular religiosity present, which complicates the issue. And, what I was writing was a thought exercise to lead us to be a little more flexible rather than a formal classification.
However, read tomorrow for another implication that I draw from the Venn diagramming.
But, I have also been thinking recently of doing one or two postings about popular religiosity, so, we shall see what I write about it in the future.
I realise it’s hard. But I suggest that “where the rubber meets the road” is much more important than what exists on paper. And, even there, you’re not comparing like to like: the Roman community, for example, has an extensive code of canon law and a mega-document called the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Both can be (and are) cited in a rather legalistic way to indicate that X and not Y is the Official Teaching™ of the Church. The Anglicans haven’t either (although each local church has both) and they, at least as yet, have no ability to impose one or the other interpretation on anyone. And, although the Anglicans claim to accept the first four ecumenical councils, they do so with the qualifier that any such doctrine must be proved by scripture which means, of course, that each Anglican is his own pope, comparing his reading of the scripture to his reading of the canons and making a choice. The Orthodox have the canons from the first 700 years or so of the insitutionalised church (the first 7 councils – Largely now online) but no one official catechism and arbiter of what the canons mean outside of local option (parish priest, most often, but also local Bishop).
There is no spokes-hierarch who has the floor anytime he wishes. There is no way for Orthodoxy to say which of those local options is the better or best or worst way to apply the canons. And any reading of the texts which proposes to be the only reading is setting oneself up as this arbiter – something that doesn’t exist.
Where the rubber meets the road is – except for the Roman ecclesial community – the only real theology you can compare.
I would suggest that the relationship of “where the rubber meets the road” to what is the generally understood theology of that group(s) is the relationship of flesh to bones. That is why we have that saying about fleshing something out.
BTW, you seem to be getting caught up in the argument of the Romans, that if beliefs are not written down in a specific juridical way then they do not truly exist and that there must be a “spokes-hierarch.” That is a particularly hierarchical view of theology.
Cultural anthropologists will make the exact opposite argument, that regardless of what is written, they can observe what is done and tell you the actual existing beliefs. They would tell you that they could observe Baptists or Methodists or Eastern Orthodox and tell you within a reasonable time what are the enforceable core beliefs of that group. And, they would say, the enforceable core beliefs may or may not match the written beliefs.
I think that both the Romanist and cultural anthropologists positions are extreme and that the reality is somewhere between the two, but if I were forced to pick one of the two, I would go with the cultural anthropologists. I would not need a formally written set of beliefs in order to talk about the enforceable theology of a particular movement.
“if beliefs are not written down in a specific juridical way then they do not truly exist”
Nope – not at all. I’m simply saying that they are not as uniform, much more “big tent” and harder to pin down. The legalistic issue is “here’s the code, thou must match it”. The other issue is “the code’s a bit more flexible, harder to pin down from the outside, but in relationship (confessor to confessee) it’s very important.
I will agree with you in one respect: “if beliefs are not written down in a specific juridical way then…” they can’t be treated in the same way as those beliefes that are “written down in a specific juridical way”. These two animals are not the same animal at all.