Since @ThomasdelVasto has made a couple "main-Motte" religious posts I thought I'd join in the fun.
I'm a Protestant with strong Reformed leanings. My wife, on the other hand, has just converted to Catholicism. This has led me to explore aspects of Catholic teaching, though necessarily at a surface level given the rich history. Aquinas alone would take months if not years to digest. I expected to disagree on Mary (perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, assumption) and the Pope (infallibility); and I still do (though I was surprised how recently these have become "dogma": I would have found it much easier to be a Catholic in 1800 than today). I am pleasantly surprised at how much weight they place on Scripture, Christ, and Assurance: there are far more shared hymns than I had anticipated, as as an example.
What follows is some of the reflections I had to this surface exploration. I would be thrilled to be corrected or critiqued by any of the Motte's Catholics, if nothing else to better understand my wife's flavor of the Christian faith. Many of these are reactions to "Catholicism" by Bishop Robert Barron, which my wife kindly bought to introduce me to the titular topic. While I presume he is orthodox Catholic, his interpretations may not be universally accepted by Catholics. If I challenge particular arguments from Barron, it should not be interpreted as an argument against Catholicism unless Barron is arguing for Church Dogma. His "Catholicism" is also meant as an introduction and for popular consumption, and his actual beliefs may have more nuance.
As part of this journey (which is certainly not over yet!), I also read (the dense and repetitive) "Divine Will and Human Choice" by Richard Muller and "Christus Victor" by Gustaf Aulén. These, too, have varying degrees of rigor. Muller and Aulén were both Protestants.
God’s freedom
While Reformed theology would affirm that God predestines both those who are saved and those who are damned, Catholics balk at this concept; arguing that this implies a God who would cause sin. God cannot will that which is against his nature. Catholics would appeal to God’s provision and common grace that allows humans consciences to (partially and weakly) discern good and evil. Yet we cannot perfectly discern this apart from divine revelation (scripture). And scripture states multiple times in the Exodus narrative that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Aquinas (as if often the case) provides the most rigorous Catholic argument I’ve heard for this hardening. God through an act of his will withdrew what grace was granted to Pharaoh. Absent God’s grace Pharaoh drew more into his sin. While Aquinas argued this case for the individual case of Pharaoh, it seems consistent to assume that were God to withdraw his common grace more broadly that all would fall into a state where our consciences are no longer capable of even partial discernment of good and evil. This is also consistent with God giving humans over to their lusts in Romans 1.
So far, this interpretation is consistent with scripture, though I am discomfited by the constraints this threatens to place on God: constraints that come perilously close to being primarily informed by our own interpretation or perspective of scripture and sin. God works and wills, including in sin.
Barron, if I read him correctly, goes a step further. He puts the "problem of sin" as one of the best arguments against God. I’ve never understood this as a problem for Christians. It is a deep problem for atheists, who have to explain or excuse their visceral (though often mis-aligned) desire for justice despite no objective basis for these judgments. Christians have no such need to explain or excuse: of course we are all deeply desirous for justice since we have (again, weakly and with great room for error) a sense of what transcendent goodness could be. A consistent perspective on the problem of evil would be that God defines good, and if we don’t understand his actions to be "good" that is a fault (a mis-calibration) of our fallen nature. The fact that Barron does not take this tack hints that he believes humanity’s desire for a "good" God is compatible with humanity’s definition of "good". This runs the grave risk of putting ourselves as a "judge" or external arbiter of God’s behavior.
Barron continues to put a soft face on hard truths. Later in the book, Barron says "God sends no one to hell, people freely choose to go there". This sharply contradicts scripture. Jesus talks about casting sinners into the outer darkness. Peter says the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. John’s Revelation describes those who receive a mark on their forehead drinking the wrath of God, mixed in the cup of his anger, and tormented with fire and brimstone. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Again, God is not passive: he works and wills.
How does God work and will (1)? Does God have a an array of potential actions, any of which he can actualize? Yet this runs the risk of these potential actions being "outside" God. Does God create the potentials as he actualizes them? Thus no "possibles" exist for God, simply "actuals"? This also could be seen as a constraint on God and limit his radical freedom. Both these potential concepts of God’s will and freedom (of which I’m sure there are hundreds of alternative concepts) seem to be operating at a level above how Barron conceptualizes God’s freedom. Put crassly, Barron seems to be hinting that God could not "make a triangle a square", that is, that God is constrained by logical impossibilities. But this is such a small view of God. God creates our minds and universe. Our minds invent or discover things like logic, or define things like squares or circles. Whether spawned by our intellect or embedded in the structure of the cosmos, these concepts (including logic!) are part of Creation itself. God created the conditions under which we can model physical reality with math, structure, and logic. Logic is a model. Logos is Truth. Logic is created. Logos is the Creator.
God’s atoning work
The freedom God enjoys in his omnipotence has implications for a theological understanding of Atonement. The "big two" theories of Atonement, Satisfaction and Substitution, emphasize the sacrificial nature of the cross. This sacrificial interpretation retains God’s complete sovereignty with Christ’s death being an act of perichoretic propitiation. The incarnation and death was necessary because of God. It was not necessary because of anything external to God.
Catholics consider Substitution theory, which is the most common concept of Atonement in Reformed circles, to be heresy. Belief in the other concepts of Atonement are allowed. In the Satisfaction theory, which my understanding is that most if not all Catholics affirm, Jesus is our great high priest and a perfect offering, but does not receive the judgement of God. Christ died for our sins, but not in our place.
"Christus Victor" makes the historical case for Ransom theory. In principal, this theory could bring Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox together: the church Fathers at least strongly hinted at Ransom theory being the primary lens through which they interpret the cross, and the church universally recognizes the importance of the church Fathers. Aulén makes the case that Luther was also an adherent to Ransom theory. Yet this theory risks making God subservient to morality or law, proposing that Jesus was paid to Satan in exchange for humanity (2). Uncharitably, this theory makes God beholden to the "laws" of commerce, even transaction with a brigand.
However, I do find Ransom theory to have its merits. In heavily Reformed theology Satan is almost considered an afterthought. Satan plays no necessary role in the arc of human redemption and salvation. Ransom theory, on the other hand, puts Satan in a prominent place: he is either the kidnapper of human souls or is the (legitimate, in some sense) owner of human souls. The exchange of Christ for humanity and the subsequent torture and murder of Christ was simultaneously Satan’s crowning achievement and his destruction. This interpretation echos Jesus’ parable of the landowner who sent servants to collect from the tenants only to have them beaten or killed. The frustrated landowner finally sent his own son, but the tenants murdered him hoping to take his inheritance. At the conclusion of the parable, the chief priests react that the landowner will bring the tenants to a “wretched end”. Christ’s death and resurrection was the ultimate victory over Sin, Death, and the Devil, bringing this triumvirate to a “wretched end”. Indeed, this victory can be interpreted as more complete than Satisfaction or Substitution theories: it not only removes the penalty of sin, but defeats the sin itself.
Conclusion?
I plan to read and think more on this topic. Next on my list is "Deification through the Cross" by Khaled Anatolios. Any other book recommendations are welcome. I'm particularly interested in Catholic perspectives Atonement that go deeper than Barron's book.
(1) As I read "The Divine Will and Human Choice" I had to continuously bite my tongue. My mathematical training was screaming "But Kolmogorov!". Yet Kolmogorov is but a model, and Muller was trying to describe reality. Muller, though, had merely words to try to describe reality and I kept mentally begging for a more rigorous algebraic representation to more clearly and concisely communicate. Of course, the algebraic representation is itself a model, but so are words: anyone who uses ChatGPT or Claude is implicitly recognizing that words are not reality but just a map or model of reality.
(2) In CS Lewis' The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan (representing Christ) is beholden to the "deep magic".
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Notes -
Going from memory here, the Severus of Antioch passage requires that he think that they were actually presbyters, not merely called such (he's talking about how ecclesiastical law here is mutable, if I remember correctly). I believe the History of the Episcopate of Alexandria also discusses when there first began to be bishops beside the Alexandrian one.
You're correct that sources disagree on when this ended.
Agreed that Athanasius was ordained by a bishop, but I would expect that if you traced back the ordinations you'd get to people whose episcopal consecration was not done by any bishops.
Is it this one?
I would suggest he was wrong, simply because the presbyters were given the ability from a bishop to do what a bishop can do from the very beginning. He also wrote between 518 and 538, which is far enough from the times that he's hardly speaking from experience here.
It's also striking that there were 12, just like there are 12 apostles. Were these 12 the only presbyters in all Egypt for the first couple hundred years? Or were they a council of 12, set apart from ordinary presbyters? The evidence points more to the latter from what I've seen. It really does feel like the situation was more complicated and that we cannot draw inferences from this.
No, because if the bishops who corrected the Alexandrian church thought there was an issue, they would have ordained all those effected. Like we do with Anglican priests who convert, some may actually have valid orders but we can't rely on it so they often get an ordination from a Catholic bishop when they convert.
I recommend looking at the history of the episcopate of Alexandria (page 267 and following here), which is considered to be earlier than Severus, likely 4th century.
Note:
in 4, it contrasts it being done by presbyters vs. bishops
in 15, there were no bishops in the region, apart from the one in Alexandria, who alone consecrated presbyters
in 16, bishops are first appointed by Demetrios. Wikipedia puts him from 189-232.
in 3, this practice of presbyterial ordination continued until Petros. Wikipedia says he was in office from 300-311. Nicea enacted its canon on ordination in 325. (I know other sources disagree on the dates of when this practice stopped, I'd have to look back and compare.)
I'd assume that it's talking about chief presbyters of the city itself, and not the surrounding regions. But this document, like Severus, seems to indicate that they were indeed presbyters, since it contrasts them with bishops.
Regarding your comments on reordination, I don't see why that would be the case. When Alexandria switched to the Nicene practice, I don't think there's any sign that they thought that the prior practice was invalid—Severus, though yes, late, would be one witness against them thinking it invalid—and they had other bishops from the surrounding Egyptian regions who could perform the episcopal ordinations. But those bishops' ordinations themselves would trace back to earlier Alexandrian bishops.
You're putting too much emphasis on the words used in an isolated area who's tradition began before the terminology was standardized elsewhere.
The point I am making is that if a Bishop Mark came over to Alexandria and ordained 12 "presbyters" who he gave the authority to select and ordain bishops, then Bishop Mark really did ordain 12 bishops. This rule came from Mark directly when he ordained them, it wasn't something they came up with after their last bishop was dead and they needed a plan. They then selected one head bishop, or overseer, who then acted as the leader of the church in Egypt.
My point is that the document seems to conceptualize them as presbyters, and not bishops. It contrasts them with bishops, and elsewhere speaks of other presbyters, who I believe you only consider presbyters.
I suppose some of this just depends on the level of confidence you have in your framework. You are saying that they cannot have been bishops, because you've been taught from whatever other sources that presbyters cannot ordain (let's set aside the fact that there were plenty of medievals and so on who thought they could in the right contexts). But that's just to import your view of what the episcopal office entails.
Both Jerome and Severus are citing the example in order to make theological points that are incompatible with your own position. In Severus, it's because it is different from the post-Nicene bishops ordaining. In Jerome's case, it's because it shows presbyters possessing the power of ordination. This indicates that neither of these patristic authors follow your understanding of what it means to be a bishop and the connection of that with ordination, but take it to be a mutable feature of church law, and that is the very purpose that they are bringing it up. To say that differently: Severus and Jerome are both bringing this up in order to argue that your position is wrong. I suppose I can understand from your perspective why you personally would be motivated to necessitate the interpretation that they were really just bishops, but the sources are pretty clearly arguing to the contrary, and would not grant your "definitionally, a bishop just is such and such, so therefore" argument.
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