Chapter 21 3 min read
Augustine and Genuine Goods Beyond Visible Unity
From the minimally refined research manuscript
The patristic tradition already possesses categories for recognizing something genuinely Christological outside full visible communion without vindicating separation itself.
A deeply informed Catholicism is especially useful at this point because it can hold ecclesial fullness together with real participation in Christ outside full visible communion.
Catholic ecclesiology does not say:
Everything supernatural and salvific must occur exclusively inside the sociological boundary of registered Catholic membership.
It says something subtler.
The Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, but authentic elements of sanctification and truth exist outside her visible boundaries. Vatican II explicitly names Scripture, faith, hope, charity, the life of grace, gifts of the Holy Spirit, sacraments, prayer, and other Christian realities. It goes so far as to say that the Spirit of Christ uses separated Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, even though Catholicism claims the fullness of the means of salvation.
So there is no Catholic reason whatsoever to adopt:
miracle outside Roman Catholic visible communion = impossible.
Indeed, such a position would sit rather badly with Catholic ecclesiology.
The better formula is:
The fullness is ecclesially Catholic without every operation of grace being geographically or sociologically confined to visible Catholic boundaries.
This might be called Catholic fullness without monopolistic divine causality.
God belongs to no institution as its possession.
The Church belongs to God.
The participatory grammar matters here: partial participation is real participation, but participation need not imply fullness. Elements genuinely deriving from Christ and the Spirit can be present beyond full visible communion without rendering ecclesial division itself normative. Recognition of grace outside visible unity and the Catholic claim to fullness are therefore not mutually exclusive.
Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels IV.5 — partial participation without full ecclesial unity. Commenting precisely on the outsider performing mighty works in Christ's name, Augustine says:
“so far as this man was working miracles in His name, so far was he with them.”
Augustine's logic is especially useful for the problem of rival miracle claims. He can distinguish the respect in which the outsider genuinely participates in Christ from the respect in which he remains outside ecclesial unity. The supernatural good does not vindicate the separation.
Augustine, On Baptism VII.39.77 — the principle stated almost abstractly.
“there may be something which is Catholic outside the Catholic Church.”
This is an extraordinary patristic precedent for what this study calls Catholic fullness without monopolistic divine causality. Augustine's immediate subject is baptism and Christ's name, not modern comparative religion. Nevertheless, the metaphysical/ecclesiological principle is clear: something genuinely belonging to Christ can exist outside complete Catholic communion without making the separation itself good or true.
Augustine, Answer to Petilian the Donatist II — miracle does not establish personal sanctity or ecclesial correctness. Speaking explicitly about those who perform miracles, Augustine observes:
“very many do them who do not belong to it.”
His referent is the Kingdom of God. This is devastating to any simplistic “our miracle-worker must therefore be holy and our faction correct” argument. Augustine explicitly uses this against Donatist ecclesial boasting.
Augustine, City of God XXII.9 — miracles can testify to specifically Christian content.
“To what do these miracles witness, but to this faith which preaches Christ risen in the flesh.”
Here Augustine moves from merely extraordinary occurrence to what the miracle witnesses to. This is nearly the language of “semantic scope” in patristic form. The miracle has an intended theological referent.
Mark 9:38–40; Augustine, Harmony of the Gospels IV.5; On Baptism VII.39.77; Answer to Petilian II; City of God XXII.8–9; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium §8; Unitatis Redintegratio §3.
A closer look
Questions raised here.
Can sinners, heretics, schismatics, non-Christians, or people outside visible Catholic communion be involved in genuine miracles?
Yes, at least in principle. The manuscript draws upon Augustine, Aquinas, Lambertini, and Catholic ecclesiology to distinguish God’s freedom to act through or for a person from divine endorsement of that person’s entire religious situation. Lambertini explicitly entertains divine miraculous action involving pagans, heretics, or schismatics when some true good or truth is thereby served. Divine agency is not sociologically confined to Catholic membership. What remains restricted is the content of divine attestation: God does not certify error as error.
If genuine miracles occur outside Catholicism, does that count as evidence for the religions in which they occur?
Potentially, but only according to what the event actually attests. A Muslim, Hindu, Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Mormon, and Catholic might each pray for divine mercy and receive extraordinary healing without God thereby endorsing six incompatible ecclesiologies. The events might attest that God is merciful, hears prayer, or providentially cares for human beings. A more specifically religious conclusion would require correspondingly greater semantic and attestative specificity. Thus a miracle in a religious context can provide evidence relevant to that context without functioning as an unrestricted divine endorsement of the whole system.