Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi This phrase is sometimes used by liturgists to explain the priority of worship in the formation of theology. I have certainly argued that people learn more theology from worship than from any other source; I absolutely believe that to be true. This phrase is different. This phrase argues that worship is an authoritative source of theology. Granted, the liturgists don't mean just any act of worship (any prayer, any song) but rather an official written liturgy of some official church or another. These liturgies stand above theological critique, they would say. A key component of their argument is the difference between primary theology and secondary theology. Primary theology is an act of theology itself - people speaking of or to God. Secondary theology is any reflection on primary theology - people discussing what was spoken of or to God. Some liturgists, Aidan Kavanagh included, believe that primary theology cannot be corrected by secondary theology (in other words, it is meaningless for someone to try to point out a theological flaw in an act of worship because that act is its own theology). I said that very clunkily, so it sounds a bit worse than what he means. I referenced his On Liturgical Theology in my last post, and here is what he says about primary and secondary theology in worship:
Buuuuuuuut . . . According to Kavanagh and other liturgists, the authoritative experiences of worship are conditioned by the written liturgies. Again, we're not talking about just any act of worship, but the "official" acts handed down through the church for centuries. That worship is true theology. (I want to make that clear so that someone doesn't try to use this argument to validate any and every private experience of worship; such an approach would envelope mutually exclusive experiences.) And here's where I'm going - "The Lex" - Lex orandi, lex credendi; The rule of prayer is the rule of faith. That is the phrase used to justify that approach. The theology that is produced/understood within the worship experience is not just more real, it is more right. Sadly, that phrase is a poor summary and gross misunderstanding of the man who first coined it. One day I'll figure out how to write this clearly and concisely in book form, but for now let's just establish the facts. The original author of this idea is Prosper of Aquitaine; the source is his Defense of Augustine, specifically in his summary of Roman pronouncements on the matter of divine sovereignty and free will (Praeteritorum Sedis Apostolicae Episcoporum Auctoritates). The background of the discourse is actually quite simple. People are arguing (and this is loosely in the context of the ongoing debate between followers of Augustine and Pelagius) whether people are saved by virtue of an act of free will or solely by the sovereignty of God. Obviously, they didn't settle the matter. Prosper, an apologist for Augustine, points out that churches everywhere pray for God to save lost sinners. That means that the people believe God is sovereign in salvation because that is how they pray, and that is tacit proof that Augustine must be right. From a modern free church perspective, I might say along those lines, "So many people of God, guided by the same Spirit of God, say and believe this to be true that it must be true - God's Spirit would not allow so many of us to go astray." Now, that's not how Prosper is arguing, but I'm not dismissing his conclusion out of hand. What exactly did he say? Praeter beatissimae et apostolicae sedis inviolabiles sanctiones, quibus nos piissimi patres, pestiferae novitatis elatione dejecta, et bonae voluntatis exordia, et incrementa probabilium studiorum, et in eis usque in finem perseverantiam ad Christi gratiam referre docuerunt, obsecrationum quoque sacerdotalium sacramenta respiciamus, quae ab apostolis tradita, in toto mundo atque in omni catholica Ecclesia uniformiter celebrantur, ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi. (J. P. Migne, ed. Paterologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, tomus LI) As far as I can tell, liturgists stopped reading his original Latin a long time ago and switched to the now-ubiquitous gloss that is the "lex". Here's my translation: Besides the imperishable laws of the blessed apostolic See by which our holy fathers, carrying out the bringing down of this destructive novelty, have also taught us to attribute to the grace of Christ the beginnings of good will, and the growth in commendable zeal, and the perseverance unto the end/goal, let us likewise consider the sacraments/rites of the priestly supplications which have been delivered by the apostles and are uniformly celebrated in the whole world as well as the entire universal/Catholic church, in order that the law of that which must be prayed should establish/decide/settle the law of that which must be believed. There are two options of meaning: Prosper could be saying that the content of the people's prayers "settles" how a theological question should be answered in the midst of multiple but equal possibilities, or that such content actually establishes those answers. That sounds a whole lot like what the liturgists are arguing for in their "lex". But read the context and know the history. the early church had faced many "destructive novelties" in terms of theology and ecclesiology. People had proposed many variants of belief over the years. How did the bishops defend their view of orthodoxy? They appealed directly to the chain of truth that in their words connected them with the Apostles (apostolic succession). And they believed, blindly or not, that they were carrying on the message and mission of the Apostles without deviation. Hopefully you can appreciate how important it would have been for them to keep people on the path they believed was laid out before them.
That's very important to keep in mind because that informs his entire argument. Prosper argues
What's Prosper saying? The law of prayer has authority over the law of belief only inasmuch as it accurately reflects the apostolic tradition (which he assumes it does). That's a very big difference. Now, what can we say to debunk its modern connection with primary theology? I haven't been able to come up with a better way to say this than Martha Moore-Keish: "Meaning does not exist independently prior to practice. Lex credendi does not exist prior to lex orandi. Before any normative judgments about Eucharistic practices can be made, therefore, one must first live and worship with a community." [Do This in Remembrance of Me, 69] In other words, people always bring their preexisting theology into their worship. And people's experience of worship always influences their theology. There is no such thing as "pristine" theology or pristine worship, as if they could exist independently of one another, because one is always present in the other. The idea that anyone could say that their worship is as authoritative as, say, the theology of the Bible is both foolish and naive. Why? Because all worship is conditioned by innate theology. From whence that theology? That is the question every worshiper must answer. There is a theology behind every word and action in worship. I am actually sympathetic to Prosper's belief that the supposed apostolic origin of those prayers did in fact make them authoritative. If I knew how the Apostles worshiped, I would want to do things as close to the same way as possible. But I also want to be very careful about that investigation, to make sure that I am being honest about those theological sources. To make a long story short, the Rule of Prayer is NOT the Rule of Belief by any interpretation of origin or belief. But any theologian who believes that the practice of prayer / worship is not immensely influential in a person's belief is just out of touch.
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