Errors of Time

So what do the Lutheran debates about the "moment" of consecration (or the endurability of the enduring Eucharistic presence) have in common with the current Anglican/Episcopalian angst that they are no longer--or are not--Church? I believe, with Fr Hogg, that there is a common thread and, with him, also connect that thread to other errors. In fact, I'll press the point a bit further--ultimately the errors that Fr Hogg identifies are rooted in a form of Nestorianism. (You see, in the end its all about Christology.)

Let me suggest that, at root, Nestorianism, as well as the other errors, are errors of time. That is, they are errors because they are attempts by man to bind eternal divine mysteries to a particular point of time. Time, of course, is a creature, and the passing (or winding down) of time is an indication of death. Hence, by binding eternal mysteries to a particular point of time, the divine is forced to be a creature, and life is forced to deal with death on death's terms.

"Forced to be" is a specifically chosen phrase in order to indicate that man is insisting that God and His mysteries answer to our way of thinking. But that is not the right order of things. The right order is that God assumes humanity, and life swallows up death. Hence, moments of time are transformed into eternal realities--rather than eternal realities being confined to time. Therefore, the mystery of Christ's incarnation, His mystical Supper, His mystical Body, etc. are divine mysteries which, by locating themselves within time, thereby transform time.

The clearest indication of this is the sacrifice of Christ which takes a particular moment (the crucifixion) and "crashes it down" at all times and in all places during the Mass/Divine Liturgy.

Much of this, as you'll notice, depends upon St Augustine's brilliant analysis of time, by which He shows that events in time can become, by God's mercy, the "eternal now."