Whenever I teach a course in theology, on any topic, I prefer to begin with an overview of the major components of the faith and how they all relate together. I do this because I believe it is important to see the part in light of the whole. Even more, I think it is dangerous to treat a part without reference to the whole.
This brings me to the meaning of the term 'catholic' itself. Many people already know that the word 'catholic' comes from Greek and has the connotation of 'universal.' That is true, but that is not the only connotation. The original Greek word means something like: whole, integral, containing all essential elements in their proper relation. Here's a good analogy for you: Mr. Potato Head. When you open the box, all of his parts are completely dis-integrated. Part of the fun is putting him together in strange ways that are, in some sense, monstrous. When one does so, he may have all the parts, but they aren't put in proper relation to one another. That's fine for a toy, but having all parts in proper relation and in their proper place is more important for physical health.
Thus, I think it is important to show how all the various doctrines of the faith are related to one another. After all, they aren't--at bottom--separate, isolated questions; they are all part of one unified history of salvation. The ultimate source of their unity is--of course--God. God is also the goal of everything. He is the origin and the end, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. All things proceed forth from God, and all things find their fulfillment in God. Therefore, I'd like to show how the multiplicity of doctrinal topics are related to the Triune God and thus to one another. Without claiming to be an exhaustive list, I think these topics will suffice to make the point: the Trinity, Creation (including Man), the Fall/Sin, the Incarnation and Redemption, the Church, the Sacraments, the Moral Life, and Eschatology (the last things).
First and foremost, the revelation that God is not a monad but a Trinity of Persons--1 Divine Nature subsisting in Three Divine Persons--was a drastic revelation that has vast implications for our understanding of Theology in general. It is also a major corrective and complementary response to the otherwise quite brilliant and often correct insights of early Greek Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. God is the source of all things and the end or goal of all things, and God is, in his intra-Trinitarian life, the perfect loving communion of Three divine Persons. Thus, unity-within-distinction is the very basis and perfection of all existence. The communion of the Trinity is the source and goal of all reality.
This brings us to Creation. God creates in order to enable creation to share in His own goodness. In a particular way, with the creation of humanity, God makes creation capable of knowledge and of love by installing man with an intellect and a will. Thus, man is made in God's own image, imbued with the ability to know and to love. As an added reflection of this, God made man to be incomplete without relation to an other: male and female He created them. (When I say 'man' it does not mean male; English does not have a neutral form of the word like some other language, but words like 'humanity' and 'mankind' don't quite cut it either.) Thus, within human nature itself, there is the hallmark of inter-relatedness, of an orientation towards intimate union of those who remain distinct but are united as one: 'and the two become one flesh.' Inter-personal relation, which has its origin in the Triune God, is thus reflected in human nature itself.
Yet, God does not force Himself on us. Like a would-be bridegroom, he proposes and invites, He does not coerce. Therefore, before the union between God and man (again, meaning both individual men and women and humankind collectively) can be complete, man must say 'yes' to the union. If the yes is not freely given then no true covenant can be established, no real union; without assent there is no authentic marriage.
Enter sin. As the negative--but necessary--corollary and possibility of man's whole-hearted and unwavering 'yes' to the divine proposal, there is the possibility of a 'no.' In essence, that is what sin is: a no to God in some way, shape, or form. There's one major problem: apart from God there is no truth, goodness, or beauty. Apart from him, there is no actual knowledge or prefect love. Therefore, the radical 'no' of sin represents a departure from God as well as from truth, goodness, and beauty. While none of those is completely eradicated, sin distorts man. Since God is a relation of persons, it should be no surprise that the result of the rejection of God is a breaking of relations, the division of relationships. And this happens on at least three levels. Sin leads to the division of man from God, of person from another (human division), and even from within a single man (disintegration within oneself). Thus, sin has separated us from God, form one another, and even from ourselves. Within the depths of our own individual beings, there is a dis-integration: our bodies war against our souls, our appetites and desires threaten to control our choices against what we know; our intellects and our wills often work in conflict rather than in concert. If man is to be redeemed, saved, all three levels must be restored and elevated to a new, higher, and indissoluble level. Thus, salvation must involve a complete and total union of man with God, humans with one another, and each individual human person within himself or herself.
Enter Christ. Man cannot redeem himself. He already owes everything to God. Thus, simply saying "I'm sorry" does not make up for the damage done. Man himself would not be happy without the insult to God being overcome by something greater than what was perpetrated (St. Anselm of Canterbury). In order for man to be saved, it requires divine power and merit and yet also human payment. Even more than that, human nature itself must be renewed from within (St. Athanasius of Alexandria). To both ends, we have the Incarnation: God became man! As God, His dignity is infinite and His deeds have infinite weight or merit. As man, he can provide what no other can: an offering on behalf of us all that can fully satisfy justice and provide infinite grace! (By the way, the Incarnation itself required human cooperation and acceptance, otherwise, we can't have the Incarnation: thus the importance of Mary's complete and total 'fiat': 'let it be done unto me according to thy word!" Mary's yes reverses the 'no' of Eve and enables the total self-sacrifice of Christ as the new Adam to undo the selfishness of the first Adam.) Along with some theologians, I tend to believe that even if man had never sinned, the Incarnation would have happened anyway as the goal of all creation: the Incarnation is the unsurpassable event of God's union with man. And if God's union with man is the goal of creation, then the Incarnation is the ultimate instance and source of union between God and man: the hypostatic union of one Divine Person (God the Son) in two complete natures (Divine and human). That is Jesus Christ, without whom redemption is literally impossible.
The reestablishment of the vertical communion with man and God is the most important aspect of salvation. However, it is no the only aspect, and for a complete understanding of the saving work of Christ, one cannot overlook (as we sinful creatures often do) the communal and individual dimensions of salvation. Christ came to save man not only abstractly but concretely both as a common species and as individuals and not just one or the other! The three levels of separation must all be overcome. They flow from the reestablishment of communion between God and man, but they cannot end there. Complete salvation must manifest itself in the union of men with one another (the Church) and the reestablishment of internal integrity in holiness (individual sanctity). And it isn't just one or the other. It isn't just "me and Jesus." Jesus came to save you: yes. But He didn't just come to save you, and He didn't just come to save you as an individual. He came to save us all as one and to unite us all together as one. As the Nicene Creed states, we believe in the "communion of Saints." The communion of saints are not just a collection of individuals in union with God; they are person united with God and therefore also united with one another. Vertical communion (between God and man) calls for, leads to, and effects the horizontal communion of men with one another: the communion of Saints.
Many scriptural passages witness to this fact; we shall limit ourselves to just a few. First, in the story of Adam and Eve, eve is taken from the side of Adam such that Adam can say that "this one at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" and "the two become one." On the cross, from the side of Christ pour forth water and blood, which are references to baptism and the Eucharist: two of the sacraments of initiation that incorporate (which literally means to bring into the body of) one into the Church, which is the bride of Christ! The Church, in the New Testament, is referred to as both the body of Christ and as the bride of Christ. This should be understood nuptially. The Church and Christ remain distinct and yet somehow inseparable, just like man and woman become one flesh. Christ is the head of the body, the Church. St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians makes this very clear. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, he also makes it very clear that this union as the body of Christ--the Church--takes place through the reception of the most Holy Eucharist: "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a communion [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we though man, are one body, because we all partake of the one loaf" (1 Cor 10:17). This led the great theologian Henri de Lubac to state: "the Eucharist makes the Church!" It is the common reception of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist that effects the supernatural unity that is the Body of Christ, the Church. Akin to a marriage, the reception of the Eucharist--Holy Communion--is the consumption of the sacrament that is the Church! We receive Christ's body and thus become Christ's body after the manner of a bride becoming one with her husband. The two become one flesh! They are now inseparable. Furthermore, in John 17, we have perhaps the most heartfelt prayer of Jesus in the entire New Testament, when He prays: "That they may be one, as You and I are one" (John 17:22) He prays that the Church may not be divided but remain united "so that all may believe in me "through their word" (verse 20). This reveals schism as a direct sin against the prayer and will of Christ Himself. It is an intolerable act of disobedience and of the dis-integration of the body of Christ.
Thus, the breaking apart of ecclesial (church) communion is not the work or the will or the desire of God, but it is the result of sin and division, the opposite of grace and truth. Christians are called together as ONE! As then Ratzinger (now, Pope Benedict XVI) once wrote: "Belief in the Trinity is communio; to believe in the Trinity means to become communio. . . . The oneness of the believing subject is the necessary counterpart and consequence of the known 'object', of that 'Other' who is known by faith and how thereby ceases to be merely the 'Other'." Belief/faith in the communion of the Trinity leads to and demands the communion of the Church as one. The effect of salvation must come from and lead to its cause: perfection Communion. Thus, denominationalism does not work, for it is utter separation. Neither does non-denominationalism work, for it is the opposite of the point. Non-denominationalism correctly despises the divisions and as a result and with good intentions seeks to avoid the divisions by rebuking the divisions. The problem is, its solution is counter-productive: non-denominationalism is, at bottom, ultimate disunity: no other non-denominational congregation is in actual unity with any other. The solution is not NO denominations but ONE Church, which Christ Himself established on earth on the foundation of the Apostles.
Note that, to ensure that His message and work of salvation would be spread to the ends of the earth for all of time, Jesus never said: "Go therefore and write 4 Gospels and numerous epistles!" He never commanded even the writing of the New Testament! What Christ did do was establish the Church, which then, as part of its early work, wrote and ratified the New Testament. What Christ did do was tell 12 Apostles (who represent the reestablishment and perfection of the 12 Tribes of Israel as one nation) to go and baptize all and preach with His own authority. And to Peter, as the point of unity amongst the 12, He gave the power of the keys to bind and loose on earth in a manner that God ratifies in heaven.
And to this one Church that Christ instituted Himself, Christ gave the sacraments (Sacramental Theology), which are individual instances in which His grace is conveyed in various ways for various purposes, for the sanctification of the community and of the individuals so that they can progress on the path to the salvation enjoyed by the Communion of Saints in Heaven (Eschatology), in which all are brought together in unity with one another through union with God, irrevocably and forever. And that is Eternal Life, where God is All, in All.
It is now, obvious, then, that individual questions or areas of doctrine are not trivial and they are not separable. They are all part of one grand history of Salvation that God has willed and to which we are called, both individually as Saints and collectively as the Church, the bride--and thus body--of Christ.
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