What is the Goal of Ecumenicism?

I must admit that I am not well read in the area of ecumenics. Several works I have read have been implicitly or explicitly ecumenical (e.g. Robert Jenson's two volume Systematics, Pannenberg's Systematics, George Lindbecks monograph 'The Nature of Doctrine,' Zizioulas' 'Being as Communion' etc...) but at the same time I have not yet found a simple (If such a thing exists) thesis about what the goal of ecumenical dialogues are, and what the Church would look like should ecumenicism be 'sucessul'.

One of the interesting divides that I have seen is between the confessional and the ontological. Some ecumenicism seems to assume that all interior differentiation within the church (be it the numerous Protestanism/s/s/s/s that exist, or the more pronounces seperations between Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholocism...) needs to be overcome by some sort of confessional unity that can genuflect the dialogical seperations between disparate traditions to a higher ordering of unity. In many ways some conservative theologies could be (charitably) interpreted to believe that ecumenical unity is confessional (propositional) unity, so that the basic goal of ecumenicism is the elaboration of proper doctrine. The positive side of this, of course, is that Jesus did command certain things, and His works, His life and death and resurrection, and His relationship to the Father through the Spirit in association with the Israelic covenental history, imply certain things and not others (for instance, Christianity cannot abide by any 'religious' infilitration that would allow an understanding of non-communal, non-personal Nirvanic salvation). One can easily see this tendency in discussions amongst 'in house' debates throughout various strands of Calvinism, Arminianism, and the other isms that often (though, of course, not always) attempt to reach a critical consensus through 'proper' exegetical methods, appeals to correct interpretation of the bible, and all too often a fairly nieve appeal to unity over-against plurality. A difficulty (and not necessarily a 'problem') arises through this method because doctrinal-confessional unification can only come when the various interpretations of doctrine are seen mutatis mutandis, that is to say transformed via an eye towards structural unity, and cannot remain as they are now. This is not necessarily a negative, as truth must overcome falsity, but ecumenical unification via confessionalism has the tendency both to make the unity of the Church a structural one inherently exterior to the ontological constitution of the Church itself, and it also can often (though again, not always) take a fairly simplistic stand that any plurality of confessional schema automatically results in sectarianism. Moreover, because of the tendency towards a unity of confession, one is almost led to believe that we are somehow "creating" the unity of the Church; in the same way negatively, one must then conclude that the appropriation of the term 'Church' to those outside or prior to this ecumenical consensus of confession has, at best, tenuous grounds (if any).


On the other side is the tendency towards an idea of ontological unity through, say, the abiding structure of the Eucharist as Christ's presence through the Spirit continually constituting the community as church in the local assembly (e.g. Zizioulas, though again this is a rough take, as he obviously values confessional similarities as long as they take their impetus through the eucharistic communion of saints). The overwhelmingly positive side of this is that, naturally, we cannot understand the Church as self constituted, or in fact, constituted as an aggregate of people who then take communion, or who are-first believers and then come into communion with one another. The tie between the ontological constitution of Jesus through His Spirit in relation to the Father and the existence of the church is a fundamental. Moreover, the very nature of "ecumenical dialogue" assumes that "Church" exists on both sides of the debate, and as such the confessional divides cannot themselves be the only or the ultimate adjudicator of authentic Christianity, lest the point of 'ecumenicism' itself be defeated. The problem here comes when we see that the intepretation of what and how the Church is constituted is itself in a manner confessional understanding. We have no direct access or pure immediacy to the ontological constitution of the church outside of a confessional schema (though, of course also, strictly speaking, we have no confessional schema outside an ontological constitution of some sort). Moreover, if indeed the ecumenical impetus towards unity is to realize the ontological constitution of the unity of the Church through, say, the Eucharistic presence of Christ, then the actual dialogue itself (can) be undervalued. The dialogue itself then turns into a debate on the church structure as an implication of authentic Eucharist, or a somewhat flacid plea to 'understanding' and an attempted shift to the polar opposite of an explicit 'confessionalism' demanding (ironically demanding) confessional variegation and often (though not in these words) a resignation towards 'furthering' dialogues, because these imply 'automatically' a nieve fall back to modern 'monlogism' and sometimes in the more sophisticated discussions a despicable comeback to (gasp!) ontotheology.

My question is then, to all the more ecumenically attuned out there, what is the goal of ecumenicism? What would the Church look like should ecumenicism succeed? How can we maintain unity and plurality? Confession and ontology? Is this even possible now? I look forward to any insights people might have!