While Bryan Cross and others shrug their shoulders about Vatican 2’s significance, practically everywhere you go in other Roman Catholic venues you find acknowledgement that something changed in the church and it was disruptive. Bryan likens this line of attack to an accusation of bait and switch — such that when he blogs about the virtues of Rome he doesn’t mention the elephant in the room that Vatican 2 became for conservatives and traditionalists (but of course, according to Bryan, conservatives don’t exist — you’re either Roman Catholic or you’re not). Well, try as I might, I am having trouble finding other Roman Catholic apologists or scholars who are as reluctant at JATC (Jason and the Callers) are to talk turkey about Vatican 2.
So in the spirit of the season, here are a few servings:
It is hard, from these standpoints, not to stress the discontinuity, the experience of an event, of a break with routine. This is the common langauge used by participants and by observers at the time — the young Joseph Ratzinger’s reflections after each session, published in English as Theological Highlights of Vatican II, are a good example. It is from this perspective that James Hitchcock calls Vatican II “the most important event within the Church in the past four hundred years,” and the French historian-sociologist Emile Poulat points out that the Catholic Church changed more in the ten years after Vatican II than it did in the previous hundred years. Similar positions are held by people along the whole length of the ideological spectrum. Whether they regard what happened as good or bad, they all agree that something happened. (Joseph A Komonchak, “Benedict XVI and the Interpretation of Vatican II,” 108)
I do find it odd that the very institution that is supposed to govern interpretations within the church — the papacy, the office that protects Rome against Protestantism’s opinions — can’t even control the interpretation of such a central feature in church life.
Then comes this from Eamon Duffy:
On every front, then, the Council redrew the boundaries of what had seemed to 1959 a fixed and immutable system. For some Catholics, these changes were the long-awaited harvest of the New Theology, the reward of years of patient endurance during the winter of Pius XII. For others, they were apostasy, the capitulation of the Church to the corrupt and worldly values of the Enlightenment and the Revolution, which the popes from Piux IX to Pius XII had rightly denounced. And for others, perhaps the majority, they were a bewildering stream of directives from above, to be obeyed as best they could. Many of the older clergy of the Catholic Church found themselves sleep-walking through the Conciliar and post-Conciliar years, loyal to an authority which called them to embrace attitudes which the same authority had once denounced as heresy. Pope John’s successor would have to do with all this. (Saints and Sinners, 274-75)
Bryan is wont to shrug at such quotations from historical works, but I’m not sure how he doesn’t feel the weight of the change of authority — the very authority that he uses to show Protestantism’s inferiority — that Duffy notes. He can hide behind the claim that no dogma changed at Vatican 2. Yet, the line between sin and heresy and dogma and discipline was never so clear that the priests Duffy mentions knew how to sort it out and instruct the faithful on what was no longer required and why it wasn’t even though it had been sinful before not to perform certain acts of obedience.
Even for those hopeful of a restoration of Rome’s conservative posture — hard to believe given stories about conservatives’ perceptions of Pope Francis — Vatican 2 was a ecclesiastical bowl of confusion:
Of course, the fact remains that none of the documents of Vatican II are taught ex cathedra. Therefore, none of the teachings of Vatican II are formally pronounced as dogmas by the Second Vatican Council itself. So, very strictly speaking, a person can dissent from Vatican II itself without being a formal heretic. However, to dissent from an ecumenical council is no small matter. To put it informally, one may avoid being a heretic, but still may be a “bad” Catholic.
How did this confusion take root? It can best be explained as rising from the concept of conciliar self-verification. In other words, the Second Vatican Council teaches that the fathers at an “ecumenical council” are teachers of faith and morals, and their “definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith.” The problem is, the ecumenical council making this statement is itself an ecumenical council—and, therefore, is making statements about itself and not making it with the highest authority, i.e., ex cathedra.
In other words, one might say this is the conciliar version of chasing one’s own theological tail. The fallout has been that, for several generations of Catholics, from academics and Church leaders to the laity in the pews, the lasting impression is, “Vatican II said it was okay to disagree with the Pope.”
Thus began the era of “taking sides.” It was as if the Catholic faith became no more than a grand game—Pope and established Church teachings versus the dissenters—and individual Catholics could simply pick which team to root for. Some called themselves liberals (the “left”) while others called themselves conservatives (the “right”). Each group dissented from Vatican II, but for different reasons.
Many liberal nuns in the U.S., for example, continue to sympathize with anti-life groups that claim they are helping the poor by promoting the poor’s right to funds for abortion and contraception. They claim to be supporting social justice by defending, or, at least, sympathizing with, the gay agenda. They are especially vocal in demanding that the Church ordain women to the priesthood—even after John Paul II informed them that the Church teaching on an all male priesthood is infallible and, therefore, cannot be changed.
On the other hand, the Society of St. Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, continues to err on the side of utter conservative rigidity. They reject the Second Vatican Council as a movement of the Holy Spirit, and cling to the minutiae of 500-year-old rituals as necessary, for their own sake. The change of the liturgy from Latin to English, or the vernacular of each particular country, is their most well-known objection.
Therefore, today, 50 years after the opening of Vatican II, the misinterpretation of one of its most salient documents, Lumen Gentium, continues to drive a number of Catholics in the United States into one of two camps, the “right” or the “left.”
So the next time Bryan wants to call conservative Presbyterians to communion, he might want to go through the fine print with those he’s calling.
Old Life 
This, indeed is the rub:
I do find it odd that the very institution that is supposed to govern interpretations within the church — the papacy, the office that protects Rome against Protestantism’s opinions — can’t even control the interpretation of such a central feature in church life.
Why hasn’t the Magisterium stepped in and given a definitive interpretation of the council? Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that said interpretation would then have to be interpreted. Let’s just ask the question as to why it hasn’t really even been tried. If Rome can do this, is it not at the very least pastorally indefensible that she hasn’t done this?
My Protestant brain doesn’t understand.
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According to Trent, which is binding RC doctrine (I think), Protestants are anathema. Believing otherwise would be heresy.
According to Vatican II, the Catholic Catechism, and the pope, Protestants are separated brethren and those of us who sincerely pursue God can find salvation. Disbelieving this makes you a bad Catholic.
So I guess the choice is between being a bad Catholic or being a heretic? And nothing has changed??
Cross’s “logical” gymnastics doesn’t have me fooled — I know denial when I see it.
I think that I will take option C, being a good Reformed Protestant.
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Szia Mad Hungarian,
There’s a difference between anathema addressed to RC members vs those already outside, personal heresy, culpability of said heresy given circumstances and time/context, and heresy of a doctrine itself. There’s also a difference between “can find” and “will find”. There’s also a difference between being possibly saved because of contra-Catholic teaching, or possibly being saved despite contra-Catholic teaching.
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Cletus,
I think that the papacy is an anti-Christ. I also am a lifelong Protestant. Is it your in your professional opinion that I am a separated brother (in Christ) or am I anathematized? Or both?
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CVD,
OK, I see some of these distinctions, but I believe the underlying issue still stands, that is, the apparent difference between how Trent sees Prots and how Vatican II, the Catholic Catechism, and the pope see Prots.
You have to admit that there is a difference there, no? As I recall, Fiorenza and Galvin wanted to reinterpret Trent as a purely historical phenomenon with no theological binding on contemporary Catholics.
If you want to hold Trent and its anathemas of Prots as binding, how can you also hold to the very favorable treatment of Prots expressed in contemporary Catholicism? There is no give in Trent and modern Catholicism wants to sweep in sincere atheists, let alone sincere Prots — how can CtC not admit that there is some change, at least some dissonance here?
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Joel,
Anathema is a form of excommunication – it applies to those in the Church – it’s a penalty (and the associated ceremony of it was done away with in 1983 code of canon law). Similarly, it is not a pronouncement of salvation or damnation (though of course it’s not a great thing and is meant to drive repentance). So you could not be anathematized/excommunicated. Strictly speaking, you would be holding heretical belief, but that doesn’t mean you’re culpable for it (although you could be) or if you are, to what degree.
Szia MH,
Yes I believe there was a change in RCC’s practice and doctrine (important to distinguish the two) of religious liberty. I do not believe the notion of *possible* (not certain, not even necessarily likely) salvation outside of the church or the fact that non-Catholic religions have elements of truth was unknown to RCs until 1960. I do not believe the doctrine of “No salvation outside the church” cannot develop without negating it as Darryl seems to think. I do not believe practice equates to doctrine, as Darryl also seems to think. I do not believe CtC claims there was no change at Vat2. What they deny was there was cataclysmic rupture. As did Benedict, who according to Darryl must have been dishonest and fooling himself and should’ve gotten with the program.
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How about the other part of the question? Am I a separated brother in Christ according to your opinion?
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CVD,
Thank you for your straightforward answer. Just a question of clarification — what was the change in doctrine that you mentioned above in the first sentence? My understanding was that doctrine didn’t change.
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Joel,
Separated bro.
Szia MH,
The doctrine did not change in terms of negation, but of development of understanding. It is still true there is no salvation outside the church (Vat2 even says so). Unpacking the ramifications of that relative to non-Catholics has gone on over the centuries.
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CvD–
This is kinda a cop out. Bryan wrote a nice post on religious liberty: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/10/on-religious-liberty-an-objection-considered/
The argument being made is that there is some distinction between indifferentism and freedom from coercion. I.E. the state has an obligation to teach but should not force. That would be a fine consistent doctrine. However, what needs to be addressed with such an argument is the history through the 16th century where
When people are being routinely burned at the stake for membership in sects, whole villages slaughtered… that is coercion. The Catholic church didn’t oppose religious coercion they insisted on it. To use modern language, prior to later 16th century the Catholic position was that leaders in Christendom had an obligation engage in a sustained campaign of state terror up to and including genocide so as to achieve a situation where all public religious functions were Catholic. In other words that Christian leaders were obligated to achieve a Catholic uniformity in much the same way that Stalin achieved a communist uniformity. The total and complete opposite of religious liberty.
If one is going to consider a doctrine and its total opposite to be “developments and not a rupture” then you are simply declaring the bar so high that no rupture can possibly take place. All ideas evolve in time and the seeds of an idea are always present in an earlier era. The changes that Luther proposed were far less drastic shifts than the ones Vatican 2 proposed. You can’t rule out one based on their degree of change and not the other.
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Darryl,
There has been no shoulder shrugging about VII’s significance on my end.
No, I’ve never claimed that the notion that the changes implemented at VII were in some respects disruptive is an accusation of bait and switch. Nor is that my position.
And the rest of your post consists as usual of quotations interspersed with snarky ad hominems and sophistry devoid of argumentation. There is no possibility of fruitful or profitable dialogue in that approach.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Clete, since a baptism made in the name of the Trinity is valid when not performed by a priest — think Edgardo Mortara — then aren’t Protestants and Orthodox in “the church”? Insert anathemas here. (BTW, when did Rome ever pretend to speak only for Roman Catholics? It’s universal, baby.)
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CvD, but Bryan also limits the meaning of freedom of conscience in that piece to very specific historical moments. What Vatican 2 affirmed in the 1960s was a very different and much more liberal notion than even what Pius IX contemplated. Bryan’s reading doesn’t really hold up. It is Jesuitical, though.
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Bryan, please don’t tell the teacher. She might tell the principal (if you haven’t already).
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CD-Host,
Is there a difference between a doctrine and its practice/prudential application?
“If one is going to consider a doctrine and its total opposite to be “developments and not a rupture” then you are simply declaring the bar so high that no rupture can possibly take place.”
I dispute your example is a doctrine. I had a similar discussion with Darryl over Jews wearing badges and book banning in the discipline thread. Here’s an example of a rupture with the doctrine we’re discussing:
“There is no salvation within the Catholic church” or “The Catholic church is not an instrument of salvation”
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Darryl,
In a sense – that’s why “no salvation outside the church” is true even for Protestants/EO – they are imperfectly united through baptism. So they are “in the church” in one sense, outside another – if a Protestant/EO becomes RC, they still undertake membership vows. But of course they don’t get rebaptized.
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CvD, you really mean to bring up that idea? Once upon a time Rome taught (Boniface VIII) there was no salvation outside the Roman Catholic church. Now Rome teaches there is salvation outside the Roman Catholic church. Huh?
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Darryl,
The development is what exactly does it mean to be inside or outside the Church. Vat2 said:
“Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation.” Not that it was unnecessary or optional. The doctrine persists, the understanding of its parameters and essence develops.
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Bryan, Cletus, Anyone,
Imperfectly united? That’s a hair close to almost pregnant. Man up, damned or not? My attempt at profitable dialogue. Where do I stand eternally if not in communion with Rome? Am I a heretic if I am Protestant?
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“The doctrine persists, the understanding of its parameters and essence develops.”
So today’s Catholic theology is a variant of Bultmann’s “kernel/husk” routine? Difference is what? A paradigm?
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Dr. Hart,
Good luck with these guys. One RC has told me that it doesn’t matter what Innocent III thought it meant to be united to the church. It’s a completely de-historicized faith. The words on the paper are all that matter. As long as you can make them fit contemporary Roman doctrine, it’s all good.
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Protestants,
if you are not INVINCIBLY ignorant of the Catholic faith and formally accept the heretical and innovative doctrines of the reformers you will go to hell for eternity.
DGHART,
its not enough to say “something happened and now things have changed”. You need to show that “what happened” was a formal contradiction of Church doctrine. We are all here ready to play ball. This is your chance. Step it up and get specific already.
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Clete, so if I am imperfectly united, the anathemas of Trent apply.
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wjw, almost anathematized. What’s that mean? Purgatory?
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KENLOSES, this is always the response from JATC. You put together quotations that show the church changed and how what previous would not tolerate are now officially tolerated by the church and the response is, “okay, so what’s your point?” The church tolerates modernism (as defined by an infallible pope) even though it once did not tolerate modernism but “what do you mean?” “You haven’t made an argument.” “Now’s your chance.”
Are you guys wives?
Even you say, “equivocation and religious tolerance were definitely not on his list of things we should do.” But when you say it, it’s all nothing has changed. But when we say it, “well, what’s your point?”
Well, the point (for the guhzillionth time) is that if Bryan is going to recruit conservative Protestants for whom battles with modernism is still a wound, he needs to show why his own church is not now modernist. Maybe Bryan doesn’t know the history of twentieth-century Protestantism. But he is failing to disclose adequately the state and condition of the Roman Catholic church.
And since Rome now tolerates modernism, how exactly is it superior to Protestantism? Oh, that’s right. You have all that stuff — encyclicals, art, Vatican city, fancy clerical garb, National Catholic Reporter. But remember, Bryan is a stickler for logic. A cannot be non-A. If Rome is going to affirm and defend the truth, and modernism is an error, then where does that leave Rome today.
BTW, are we invincibly ignorant of Rome?
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Bryan –
Darryl,
“While Bryan Cross and others shrug their shoulders about Vatican 2′s significance,”
There has been no shoulder shrugging about VII’s significance on my end.
Erik – Darryl mistook Bryan’s twitch for a shrug and was thrown out at second in a misguided steal attempt. He also forgot that the shrug needed to be accompanied by the indicator of Bryan first stroking his chin.
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Darryl & Bryan’s conversations always seem to resemble something like this:
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CvD
Yes to a limited extent. But this doesn’t stretch infinitely far. Practices and applications with opposite goals do not arise out of consistent doctrines.
In chess the goal is to capture the opponents king. In suicide chess you must perform all legal captures and the goal is to lose all your pieces. Moves that are good in chess are bad in suicide chess. Someone who is making moves consistent with suicide chess, can be inferred to not have the same goal as someone playing chess.
I don’t see the discussion. But the treatment of Jews shows pretty clear differences
Benedict VIII: Judaism because it is blasphemous causes earthquakes. Thus Jews need to be either forcibly converted or expelled from Christian countries.
Gregory VII: Jews should never have power over Christians (i.e. no Jewish employment)
Innocent III: Jews cannot hold any public office and must wear distinguishing clothes
Benedict XIV: Jews were involved in ritual murder of Christian children and should be killed.
Leo XIII: anti-semitism (like Dreyfus affair) is to be encouraged
And then
Paul VI:
Jews even if they remain in the Jewish religion are reconciled through Christ
anti-semitism is sinful
That’s a 180.
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Erik, I’m the giddy wife, I hope.
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CD-H, but when the pope’s agree with us they’re infallible. When they don’t, not dogma, no problem.
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I had Bryan as Ben and you as skeptical dad. I guess Jason must be mom.
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Hip, enthused, not too concerned with the details. Yep, that’s Jason.
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Sounds kinda protestant…
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@DgH
Exactly. CtC in that sense is no different from Nancy Pelosi’s position: traditions I agree with are the infallible traditions of the Catholic Church which the current magisterium is corrupting by inappropriate disciplines. The only meaningful difference is CtC disagrees with John XXIII and adores Benedict XVI while Pelosi disagrees with Benedict XVI and adores John XXIII. They both excuse all the doctrines in my negative list as not being dogma.
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Jeremy “Big Church” Tate (on another thread) –
Andrew,
Let me apologize. I don’t mean to rail on your church, but I get why it may sound that way. If you go to the home page and read the “about” over at CtC you’ll see that the reason the site exists is because we feel indebted to the Reformed tradition.
There is nothing I love more then when a Reformed brother comes home to the Catholic Church. It’s also incredibly frustrating in these debates when people keep repeating things they’ve heard (but haven’t looked at first hand) or when people refuse to actually consider an argument.
The Catholic Church satisfies the hungers generated in Reformed Christianity. Reformed Christians want a Church with real authority, but have none. Reformed Christians know the sacraments matter and are sick of having it tacked on as an addendum at the end of a service once a month. Reformed Christians care deeply that Scripture is interpreted rightly. Reformed Christians are sick and tired of the evangelical model of pathetically trying to be relevant. We could go on and on.
The Catholics I know who were formerly Reformed are some of the happiest Catholics I know.
Erik – “Reformed Christians are sick and tired of the evangelical model of pathetically trying to be relevant.”
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Darryl,
No anathemas for you bro – only if you’re a formal member.
CD-Host,
You have offered papal endorsement that was anti-semitic. I do not dispute that. Jews wearing badges was wrong, as were the other practices. But you have not offered how “Jews cannot hold public office” or “Jews can’t have jobs” and the like is actually some type of unchanging eternal principle rather than an application of the principle – a practice (indeed how can something tied to temporal/contingent affairs like the existence of “public office” or “jobs” or “wearing badges” even get off the ground to become a timeless unchanging principle?). Applications can be quite wrong – the church was wrong in those applications. Practice, even with moral components, is not doctrine. The doctrine related to those applications was there is a separation between Christians and Jews.
Here’s what I said to Darryl,
“Doctrines are principles, eternal unchanging truths. Practices simply cannot teach doctrine; practice by definition deals with specific cases, and one can’t define an eternal unchanging principle from a single case. The Jews with badges cannot in itself be a doctrine – it might be a practice that is reflecting a doctrine or moral precept, but there is a difference between moral precepts and the prudential application of those precepts. So if you want to argue that there was some doctrinal teaching given that inexorably resulted in Jews wearing badges, that would be a better avenue than simply claiming the act itself of Jews wearing badges was a doctrine.”
“The church can change practices which have moral concepts – they can change the prudential application. The person who was giving Jews badges was performing a moral action. That was wrong – just like we agree many actions by godly Protestants was wrong in hindsight when we are much farther removed and in a different time. Can we charge those godly Protestants with the same culpability as if they lived now, or do we judge their culpability according to the context in which they lived?
Jews wearing badges does relate to the doctrines that separate Christians and Jews, you said. Exactly right. That’s the unchanging doctrine – there is a separation between Christians and Jews. Now as I said before, does the doctrine that Christians and Jews are separate lead *inexorably and necessarily* to Jews wearing badges? Obviously not – the prudential application here is governed by fallible men in their own context and time (here driven partly by the traditional conclusion drawn from Matt 27:25 at the time). In history, it just took a long time to figure out how to view this “other” appropriately, given the deepest Christian principles – just as it did in the case of slavery or religious liberty.”
Similarly with book banning/censoring. The banning of books or reading of them was a prudential application. The condemnation of the heresies that led to the banning is the unchanging doctrinal principle.
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Erik, and Reformed Protestants want truth. No equivocation please. We already had the Auburn Affirmation. We don’t need another one called Vatican 2. (I think Jeremy missed the lectures on the Presbyterian controversy of the 1920s.)
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When you heed the call a package arrives in the mail. In it is a signed photo of Bryan and Jason, a statue of Pope Francis, a membership card, and most important, rose colored glasses for interpreting church and world history.
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You can also upgrade to the Jeremy “Big Church” Tate level and they’ll throw in pom-poms, a megaphone, and a fraternity paddle. All it costs is 10 Hail Mary’s and a pledge to harangue 10 more Presbyterians a month than you otherwise would.
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@CvD —
Are Pope’s able to distinguish between doctrines and applications at the time they make rulings or is that only knowable in hindsight. So for example if a knowledgeable Catholic were to go through the CCC couple thousand statements would they be easily be able to sort out application from doctrine?
Or let’s take Catholic’s for Choices position that the Catholic doctrine has always been that human souls are created by God and not sexual intercourse and thus ensoulment cannot be a direct result of fertilization. Are they disagreeing on doctrine or application?
Where does a Catholic find a list of doctrines without any of those fallible human applications?
On the specifics of Jews. How does a doctrine that Jews and Christians are separate lead to a doctrine that Judaism causes earthquakes, Jews were involved in ritual murder or that false charges (like Dreyfus) should be encouraged? Your theory of the doctrine underlying the application doesn’t make sense. It explains the clothes it doesn’t explain the rest.
For more consistent with those applications would be the doctrine, which the Pope’s repeatedly expounded and called doctrine that Christian leaders were obligated to engage in state terror so as to convince their population to participate in the Catholic faith. There was nothing particular special about the Jewish case, the Catholic church wanted all religious minorities persecuted into non-existence.
The doctrine that secular leaders were to object to heresies but not take direct action against heretics was discussed and refuted in encyclicals. What you are arguing is that multiple Pope’s over centuries in the most authoritative Christian doctrines can misunderstand the applications of the deposit of faith so deeply as to promote the exact of the doctrine.
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Cletus,
So being a fallible schlub in the pews, how do you figure out which present Catholic practices suck and which are great, being that even the Pope has to have the benefit of hindsight to figure it out?
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Uh-oh. CD & I are thinking alike.
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CdH,
When the Assumption was defined, the Pope knew he was defining a doctrine. Do you think a pope or council saying “Jews should wear badges” considers itself to be defining a doctrine?
“Catholic doctrine has always been that human souls are created by God and not sexual intercourse and thus ensoulment cannot be a direct result of fertilization. Are they disagreeing on doctrine or application?”
So Catholics can be LDS now?
“How does a doctrine that Jews and Christians are separate lead to a doctrine that Judaism causes earthquakes, Jews were involved in ritual murder or that false charges (like Dreyfus) should be encouraged? Your theory of the doctrine underlying the application doesn’t make sense. It explains the clothes it doesn’t explain the rest.”
The doctrine that Jews are separate led (but not *necessarily or inexorably*) to the view of them as the “other” and to anti-semitic views and anti-semitic actions. That’s what I mean. However, by that, I do not mean that therefore any possible practice or thought related to Jews necessarily means it is an application of the doctrine. Not everything the pope endorses must directly tie to a particular doctrine.
Do you think “Judaism causes earthquakes” or “Jews commit murderous sacrifices” or “falsely charge Dreyfuss” is a doctrinal principle that’s part of the deposit of the faith? Those statements are tied to contingent, temporal, specific cases and scientific knowledge – none of which can form the basis/essence of doctrinal principles.
As for persecution, that’s why I mentioned slavery and religious liberty, not just Jews.
“What you are arguing is that multiple Pope’s over centuries in the most authoritative Christian doctrines can misunderstand the applications of the deposit of faith so deeply as to promote the exact of the doctrine.”
This is precluding the notion of development of doctrine. There are 2 issues – the prudential application of doctrine given a particular time/context, and the state of development of said doctrine at that particular time/context. Both must be kept in mind when analyzing prudential applications of doctrinal principles in the past so as to not anachronistically import current state of doctrine to that past context.
Erik and Cdh,
Certainly the church can teach an erroneous application, but as I said above, the culpability of a particular soul is tied to the context/circumstances in which they follow that application. For example, you would fault godly Protestant leaders for their endorsement of state religion/torture or slavery given their time, but not in the same (harsher) way you would fault someone who held it now. A schlub in the pew is not morally obligated to anticipate the judgment of the Church that a particular moral teaching or practice was, in fact, erroneous. The shepherds of the flock have to answer for what they teach and are held to a higher stander for sure, but we should indict the teachers only if it can be fairly said that the hierarchy had no excuse for not knowing better, and were therefore culpable for misleading Catholics in general. It seems easy to judge and indict from our historical vantage point, but it’s not that easy. Culpability is not a simple binary affair.
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Sez Pope Eugene IV
So maybe this is doctrine, maybe this is discipline, I don’t see that it matters much; if it is discipline, this discipline is still decreed and ordered (what’s the difference?) from now on, and for all time (again, what’s the difference? doesn’t repetition suggest an intention to ex cathedra?) that Christians cannot associate with Jews, and Jews should be segregated from Christians. When did that change? Or was this a fallible (and indeed incorrect) statement about Jews+Christians? (Or was “for all time” the only incorrect part; it was forbidden then but it is ok now?)
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Note, I took that Eugene IV quote from a discussion on a catholic website about whether a catholic can attend a bat mitzvah. So this is still getting play today (for all time)
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DGHART,
KENLOSES, this is always the response from JATC. You put together quotations that show the church changed and how what previous would not tolerate are now officially tolerated by the church and the response is, “okay, so what’s your point?” The church tolerates modernism (as defined by an infallible pope) even though it once did not tolerate modernism but “what do you mean?” “You haven’t made an argument.” “Now’s your chance.”
Well, let me explain. You have showed the the Church did not tolerate modernism and now modernism has infiltrated the Church. OK Arianism once infiltrated the Church as well. I can imagine things were often confusing back then too. That should give you a good idea that modernism infiltration is not going to accomplish what you want it to. It has no effect on infallibility and thus no effect on why RCs is superior to the sectarians (called protestants). You need to raise the stakes and show that not only has modernism infiltrated the Church but said infiltration has caused to the Church to contradict itself dogmatically or else to out right teach heresy. Either will suffice. I can provide you with a HOST of heretical quotes coming from various cardinals and bishops…. but that wont cut it Mr. Hart. I need official magesterium pronouncments. Why should such limited evidence be admitted and considered? Because the CC claims to infallibility are in fact limited and do not extend to discipline, off the cuff interviews, sinful actions, etc.
Are you guys wives?
LOL! no, but maybe mine is rubbing off on me?
Even you say, “equivocation and religious tolerance were definitely not on his list of things we should do.” But when you say it, it’s all nothing has changed. But when we say it, “well, what’s your point?”
I agree with you that the Church of times past was far more reliable and efficient in areas of discipline. I just dont think that has anything to do with our conversation. (although I love having that conversation with my neocatholic brothers and sister) However, I still hold to my opinion that nothing at all has dogmatically changed. The “change” wrought by V2 is a facade that he faithful have bought into. I think that once the council fathers die off and stop attempting to salvage their legacy (who wants to have been a part of a disaster…. of course they are still looking for development) and all these liberal norvus ordo babies washout we will see the health of the Church continue to rise. Its already happening. I contend that there is NOTHING stopping us from behaving as if vatican 2 never happened. We could all decide tomorrow that the documents merely repeat age old teaching in ambiguous and unhelpful language and default to more clear pronouncments. If you think otherwise cite the page and line of whatever council document you like and we can see whats what.
Well, the point (for the guhzillionth time) is that if Bryan is going to recruit conservative Protestants for whom battles with modernism is still a wound, he needs to show why his own church is not now modernist. Maybe Bryan doesn’t know the history of twentieth-century Protestantism. But he is failing to disclose adequately the state and condition of the Roman Catholic church.
I think Bryan is focusing on the issues that matter. One shouldnt convert because of the “state of the Church”. They should convert because of theological conviction. If Christ established the RCC then whether or not the Church is currently healthy and prospering is irrelivant.
And since Rome now tolerates modernism, how exactly is it superior to Protestantism? Oh, that’s right. You have all that stuff — encyclicals, art, Vatican city, fancy clerical garb, National Catholic Reporter. But remember, Bryan is a stickler for logic. A cannot be non-A. If Rome is going to affirm and defend the truth, and modernism is an error, then where does that leave Rome today.
Well, as I have already explained, the RCC posses the mechanisms needed to cure modernism within the body of Christ. These mechanisms do include encyclicals, councils, excathedra pronouncements etc. The Church hasnt yet decided to use those things…. but she will. The only mechanism the protestant has to combat modernism is the sin of sectarianism and division. Not good.
BTW, are we invincibly ignorant of Rome?
No. Hence, my constant (and Im sure annoying) prostelytizing.
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Ruby Tuesday,
Again – what doctrinal principle does Eugene’s statement reflect? Jews are separate from Christians.
It was a prudential application of a doctrinal principle. Practice and application can be right, wrong, or indifferent. It can change, it can also persist for centuries before changing.
The “We decree and order that from now on, and for all time” is often used in documents. It is also often used by popes who themselves abrogated/modified practices issued by their predecessors couched in similar language. Such language does not preclude revision by their successors; nor can such language when applied to practices mean practices are infallible, since by their very nature they cannot be infallible – only doctrine can.
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Then why do popes bother to say it?
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So that bishops and princes/kings don’t try to jack around with the pope’s statement. It’s meant for emphasis and obedience.
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So it’s mean for emphasis and obedience, not to mean “from now on and for all time”? Is “from now on and for all time” just code for “from now on until another pope overrides?” I mean, words have meaning. Either a pope intends “for all time” when he says it (and is thus when a subsequent pope overrides at least one of the popes is WRONG), or a pope does not intend “for all time” when he says “for all time” and is thus lying.
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Sorry, spelling and grammar was atrocious enough I’ll paste and fix:
So it’s meant for emphasis and obedience, and it’s not really meant “from now on and for all time”? Is “from now on and for all time” just code for “from now on until another pope overrides?” I mean, words have meaning. Either a pope intends “for all time” when he says it (and thus when a subsequent pope overrides at least one of the popes is WRONG), or a pope does not intend “for all time” when he says “for all time” and is thus lying.
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Ruby Tuesday,
Not anything a pope says in a bull or encyclical is infallible/perpetual. Popes often played political power games in that era when the papacy and temporal power were so intermingled. So when a pope uses that strong language, it often needs to be understood in that context, and the context of other popes’ statements. But forget all that, let’s say you’re right and Eugene really meant it was to last forever, regardless of future papal perogative. Does he have any right to do that? No, because what he is espousing is a practice.
Here’s a conciliar statement from Lateran :
“We decree that truces are to be inviolably observed by all from after sunset on Wednesday until sunrise on Monday, and from Advent until the octave of the Epiphany, and from Septuagesima until the octave of Easter.”
Now could a pope issue a bull saying, “We decree from now on and for all time that truces are to be….” He could say it, but it’s not binding in that manner, because by its very nature its a practice. Unless you want to posit the scheduling of truce observation is part of the deposit of faith.
That same council also said:
“Jews and Saracens are not to be allowed to have christian servants in their houses”.
Again a disciplinary, not doctrinal matter. If a pope then issued a statement saying “We decree from now on and for all time that Jews are not to be allowed to have christian servants” he could say it, and even mean it, but it’s not binding as a doctrinal matter – because it’s not doctrine.
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OK, so (a) popes that said “for all time” and were later contravened were in fact wrong, (a.5) how do you know the later contravening pope wasn’t the one that was wrong? (b) You say “needs to be understood in that context” — but the very words “for all time” demand to be extrapolated beyond the immediate context, (c) the other examples you give are irrelevant, because they don’t say “from now on and for all time”, and are much easier to understand in the sense of “this is what we’re doing right now, not because it’s an eternal principle, just cuz I’m the pope and I said so”
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Ruby Tuesday,
Later contravening pope could be wrong. As I said practice can change (so for example, Pope could issue a ban on books again – doubtful he’d do it, but possible) and I talked about culpability and teacher/flock relationship a few posts back.
Here’s a statement from encyclical “Papal Protection of the Jews” from 1272 a bit before Eugene:
“Inasmuch as the Jews are not able to bear witness against the Christians, we decree furthermore that the testimony of Christians against Jews shall not be valid unless there is among these Christians some Jew who is there for the purpose of offering testimony.”
That’s GOOD practice! But it’s still practice. Could’ve been abrogated or ignored by a future pope. I’m equal opportunity about practice being revoked/changed.
“For all time” can have a context-related meaning if other writings have used similar language and been abrogated.
How is the example of Jews shouldn’t have christian servants much different from “Christians shall not eat or drink with the Jews, nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor bathe with them”?
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Only if faith in infallible tradition requires violation of the fundamental meaning of words.
Besides, the whole point is that language like “we decree and order that from now on and for all time …” seems to be “I’m not just talking about a temporal practice here, I’m taking extra care to use all the authority I have to lay this down as a timeless principle aka doctrine”. I mean sure, this is before the 1800s when the special codewords to trigger the magical spell of Ex Cathedra were laid down (made up?), but if special, occasional, intentional, infallible authority times was truly a feature of all popes, isn’t this how it would look?
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KENLOSES, first your comparison to Arianism is a big bowl of wrong. Arianism was a debatable point to which the church responded and called it heresy. Modernism was a debatable point to which the church responded and called it heresy. Your church no longer thinks modernism is a heresy. What could be bigger proof that Rome has changed? And what could be a greater refutation of the notion that Rome has the mechanism to defeat error. It is your own magisterium that lightened up on modernism. Did it debate modernism explicitly? No. It just threw a big slobbering kiss at modernity.
Where’s your mechanism now?
And by the way, a church that tolerates modernism is a modernist church. At least, that is what conservative Presbyterians believe. We have the denominational battles to prove it. So if Bryan is not letting on that Rome tolerates modernism, FOR SHAME!
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Cletus, this comparison of our critique of godly Protestant leaders’ past view is sheer hypocrisy. Our leaders have never claimed to be infallible. And our Protestants have never said that the witness and integrity of our churches depended on the record of our godly leaders.
You guys raised the stakes, and you can’t bear the tension.
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Rube, now you’re being logocentric. For Rome, words are plastic. Just ask Christian Smith — that is, until the popes want you to assent to papal infallibility. But Smith is clear. He thinks the papacy is overrated.
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Cletus, you mean popes don’t play politics anymore?
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Guys,
Rome’s doctrine of infallibility is easy: The Magisterium is infallible except when it’s not.
Easy, huh?
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Darryl,
Sure popes play politics. They just don’t go around trying to make alliances and promises to princes and kings anymore like Eugene was doing. That whole temporal power thing.
The point about Protestants of the past had nothing to do with infallibility, and solely to do with the notion of culpability.
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Ruby Tuesday,
Does the Vat1 definition say whenever a pope attaches “We decree from now on and for all time” to anything, that makes it infallible? So if a pope were to say “We decree from now on and for all time that Catholics should observe truces on these days” that means it’s infallible? A doctrine of faith and morals attaches to infallibility/irreformability. Not a practice. Not even a practice with moral components. A doctrine of faith and morals to be held universally. Vat1 fathers debated all the big cases (Honorious, Liberius, Vigilus, etc.) – they were careful in how the words were crafted. The pope “can change practice into doctrine” or “can make perpetually binding practice” wasn’t part of the decree.
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DGHART
KENLOSES, first your comparison to Arianism is a big bowl of wrong. Arianism was a debatable point to which the church responded and called it heresy. Modernism was a debatable point to which the church responded and called it heresy. Your church no longer thinks modernism is a heresy. What could be bigger proof that Rome has changed? And what could be a greater refutation of the notion that Rome has the mechanism to defeat error. It is your own magisterium that lightened up on modernism. Did it debate modernism explicitly? No. It just threw a big slobbering kiss at modernity.
is it your understanding that as soon as Nicea condemned Arianism the heresy vanished and all the bishops of the world immediately submitted to this teaching? Of course not. Nicea was (in my opinion) ultimately the death blow to the heresy…. But it didn’t immediately end the problem. The issues are different but the parallel is striking. Even at the height of Arian popularity the Church never dogmatically declared error and neither will the present Church no matter how popular modernism and no matter how far it has infiltrated.
your mechanism now?
in the Church where it belongs.
by the way, a church that tolerates modernism is a modernist church. At least, that is what conservative Presbyterians believe. We have the denominational battles to prove it. So if Bryan is not letting on that Rome tolerates modernism, FOR SHAME!
Real men don’t jump ship when the going gets tough. Patriots don’t move to Canada when the economy dips and the war vets come home after a hard battle. Catholics don’t cut themselves off from mother Church when she needs us the most.
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Robert, don’t forget the other doctrine of infallibility: Scripture is infallible except when it’s not.
Darryl: Rome is just as much a modernist church as the PC(USA). In fact, I would say that the classic Reformed arguments against Rome are still true, but secondary. The thing I would explain to a PC(USA) or a Roman Catholic are pretty much the same, adjusted to a different flavor of neo-orthodoxy.
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Kenny,
Nicea condemned Arianism and Vat2 condemned those who would condemn modernism. Capiche? It sure didn’t condemn modernism.
It ain’t apples to apples.
Neither did the catholic reformed jump ship. They were thrown overboard, exed and killed.
Neither have the catholic reformed cut themselves off from all contact with the Roman church, who at this late date is making nice, but still doesn’t want to admit to any of the fundamental errors that precipitated the Reformation.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. Anathematizing JBFA/all who hold it is a discipline, not a doctrine.
And Mr. Gumby is IronMan.
I tink da takeaway is liars should have good memories and papists should have good excuses. They’re gonna need ’em.
And how do we know your explanation of the infallible interpreter is, you know, uhm flammable?
Meanwhile Clete makes the argument that the popes finely crafted their words in order not to be mistaken as saying something was a decree, when it wasn’t a decree though after a fashion it is said to be one.
Not to worry though. Just like with arianism, the Pope Pius will see the light and condemn Newman along with modernism. (His letter to Johhny wasn’t ex cathedra, remember.)
The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), no. 25, presents a far different answer from the dissenters. This carefully reasoned Vatican II document states that, even though the bishops of the Catholic Church are not individually infallible, they do teach infallibly the Church’s doctrines of faith and morals “when, gathered together in an ecumenical council, they are teachers and judges of faith and morals for the universal Church, whose definitions must be adhered to with the submission of faith.”
But Vat2 is not about doctrine, only morals and it is neither binding nor infallible because the trads are gonna rise again and overthrow Vat2/the perverters thereof.
It just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice.
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Clete, you keep invoking literalism, as if certain practices — like putting Jews in ghettos or power politics — were not part of the popes’ own self-understanding as God’s vice regent on earth. You keep wanting to hold on to the vice regent part but then decide which acts or rulings of the vice regent you like. You have a much bigger problem — it is papal supremacy and papal infallibility. As long as you continue to affirm those — which you must because your magisterium says its so — you then have officers who will do things that cannot stand up to the claims of supremacy and infallibility. Jason likes to use the analogy of Scripture. The authors were imperfect. Sure. But the canon is closed. The magisterium is always open and so it is always going to embarrass you.
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KENLOSES, you better hope your cardinals, bishops, and pope are real men.
Of course, Arianism didn’t vanish. It still exists. But the church maintained that it was wrong. You yourself have admitted that Rome is no longer maintaining that modernism is wrong. Your church doesn’t even know what modernism is. Or, it’s a relic of the past. Get it? Relic?
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@CvD
No I don’t but when the Pope’s or councils stated that Christian political leaders were obligated to suppress heresy and religious minorities by force yes they did believe they were defining doctrine and said so.
I’ve lost you.
Those anti-semitic views were called by Popes doctrine. You are still skirting around the issue that in your cavalier approach the church can’t successfully distinguish doctrines from disciplines historically. And since you didn’t answer my question about the CCC I think you know you can’t do it today. Which means there isn’t really a distinction. There is a huge overlap with discipline just becomes a term for old stuff they decided to change while doctrine is the word for old stuff that they currently don’t want to change.
The people making those statements did believe in a deposit of faith and did believe that deposit of faith supported religious suppression. That’s why secular leaders who refused to use violence against their population in support in the Catholic faith routinely were excommunicated not merely disagreed with on tactics. Who cares what I believe about the deposit of faith? The question is whether the magisterium has some special insight into the deposit of faith. That’s what you are arguing.
Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine gives a 7 point test on how to test if a doctrine is a development or corruptions / innovation. The test is rather easy to apply. The doctrine of religious liberty fails:
Preservation of Type — yes
Continuity of Principles — no
Power of Assimilation — no
Logical Sequence — no
Anticipation of Its Future — no
Conservative Action upon Its Past — no
Chronic Vigour — yes.
So you are 2 for 5 against. I’m fine with development, but development is meant to allow for minor changes (the quintessential example being the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome or the changes to the liturgy) not complete reversals. Luther’s changes to the doctrine of justification are far less drastic than the changes of the last 4 centuries on religious liberty.
Seriously take a breath, stop with the platitudes and come back with a genuine answer that address the issue of complete reversal on matters the Pope’s believed to be doctrine.
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Cletus,
When the hierarchy gets it all figured out, give me a shout. Until then I’ll stick with the circumspection of Reformed Protestantism.
The Callers should maybe suspend the Call until Catholics can put forward a system that doesn’t entail endless qualification and hair-splitting.
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I marvel at this Catholic system that looks like an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine on one hand, and people like the Callers with their “pious nonsense” (as Pope Francis would describe it) peddling the notion that people must either embrace it all or risk hell. Audacious, indeed.
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CD-H, well done — that application of Newman. BTW, do you know why the RC custom is to put the title, Cardinal, between first and last names?
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Regarding the Callers, does anyone know what has become of Andrew Preslar? He was one of their more eloquent (and strident) contributors. He has not written a piece there since May.
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@DgH
Just to reiterate a point I made on Jason’s blog. The authors of scripture use prophetic voice. A true prophet is never wrong about when they are speaking for God and when they are speaking from their own authority. Which means a single error ever in a prophetic pronouncement proves a prophet false. That’s scripture’s standard. Deut 18:14-22. Because of that a prophet has a positive obligation to make sure when he’s stating his own opinion and not an opinion given to him from the Lord in visions to make sure that the difference is clear.
IMHO if Popes want prophetic authority (which they do), and they want to claim continuity with the God of scripture (which they do) then they should be held to the prophetic standard. Protestant ministers (with some very few exceptions) don’t claim prophetic authority they claim merely to be teachers of the word.
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Erik,
I think it was mentioned somewhere here, but Andrew posted in one of the comment boxes that he was not going to be participating for a while on CTC. I seem to recall someone speculating that it had to do with having to deal with Francis off-the-cuff statements undermining the paradigm promoted there, but that may just be speculation. Evidently, Bryan is still on board. In the peace of Christ, of course.
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Thank you for the Newman comment!
The reason for the title going after is for signing documents. Cardinals are “princes of the church” and thus sign like royalty.
(document)
(seal) John
Earl Blackfork meaning Earl of Blackfork
So for a Cardinal
(document)
(sign of cross / seal) John
Cardinal Smith
That’s still used today. The vatican hates the new Cardinal John Smith since it is an implicit denial that John is a “prince”. But they understand even educated Americans don’t understand how to properly handle royalty so they’ve come to terms with it. Also most cardinals don’t come from royalty anymore themselves so…
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Erik,
The Callers should maybe suspend the Call until Catholics can put forward a system that doesn’t entail endless qualification and hair-splitting.
But don’t you see that the genius of the Roman system is that they could, with some bare amount of plausibility, say that the only infallible statements are V1’s definition of papal infallibility, the bodily assumption, and perhaps the Immaculate Conception. Everything else was defined or promulgated before V1, including the Christological councils of the early church.
Granted that it’s unlikely Rome will ever overturn those, but since their pronouncements weren’t prefaced with the magic words or whatever it is that is supposed to signal infallibility, why would be surprised if they ever turn their back on them. After all, we still don’t have an infallible list of infallible teachings. That should be rather easy to produce if they possess the infallibility charism. Why don’t they? Would that not be of great help to RCs to know everything what they must believe for salvation?
Aside from that, it seems puzzling at times how Rome can be defined as a Christian body when its only surefire pronounced infallible doctrines have to do with papal authority and the blessedness of Mary.
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Cletus the Slack-Jawed Cat’lick,
You keep clinging to this practice vs doctrine distinction as a magic talisman to defend against embarassing errors that did their best to assert infallibility in their own time.
What I’ve learned from all this is that the real point of Vat I is not to to establish infallibility and ex cathedra, but to make it so technical and restrictive, thousands of years of problems can be swept under the rug. That totally explains why there’s so little stuff out there that Cat’licks can point to as infallible, in particular an infallible list of infallible statements.
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DG HART,
Of course, Arianism didn’t vanish. It still exists. But the church maintained that it was wrong. You yourself have admitted that Rome is no longer maintaining that modernism is wrong. Your church doesn’t even know what modernism is. Or, it’s a relic of the past. Get it? Relic?
Ahhh…. so it is your opinion that the Church maintained that Arianism was wrong and there was no more debate after Nicea (from within the Church)? What was Jerome talking about when he said the world “awoke with a groan to find itself Arian.” Was there no need for the Council of Sardica in 343, the Council of Sirmium in 358 and the double Council of Rimini and Seleucia in 359? You think the East immediately jumped in line with Nicea? Your history is foggy bro. Living up to that protestant stereotype of no history before the reformation! And your going to teach us about the ECF bumper stickers? puh-lease! From a theological standpoint Nicea was authoritative and binding but there was still a great upheaval of confusion and heresy going on WITHIN THE CHURCH for about a hundred years after the fact. This kind of thing historically has always happened after ecumenical councils. So whats the comparison? Well, previous Popes warned that modernism was creeping (the historical beginning of the problem) and rightly condemned it. Modernism didn’t really invade until the Church “opened its windows for a fresh breeze” and came out of the “fortress Church mentality” with the second Vatican council. Its only been 50 years Dr. Hart. That’s a long time for those of us that have to live through the crises…. but its not very long considering previous crises the Church has gone through and come out victorious. The gates of hell shall not prevail sir. Your criticism is shallow and does not in the least bit undermine Catholic teaching on infallibility and assurance of doctrine. The fact is that we all are struggling with modernism and heretical teaching…. the difference is that we have the mechanisms necessary to correct them (remember not preventative like a vaccine to small pox but a cure like a surgeon to a tumor) and you do not. in the next 50 years i fully expect to see the RCC return to full health and vigor….. what do you expect Protestantism to look like? God only knows how wacked out mainstream protestant teaching will be at that point. Perhaps communion with doritos and root beer? baptism in your bathtub? tongue speaking at the dinner table? lol!
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Kenneth,
Which papal or magisterial teaching did Nicea overturn? That is Dr. Hart’s point. V2 overturned previous papal and magisterial teaching on the evils of modernism, embracing modernist methods of biblical criticism, and so much more.
I guess you could say there was no magisterial teaching before Nicea, but since that undermines the RC doctrine of the church and its particular notion of neccessity (in RC terms), I don’t think you want to go there.
V2 has come and gone, and the news is not good for traditionalists.
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Darryl,
“Clete, you keep invoking literalism, as if certain practices — like putting Jews in ghettos or power politics — were not part of the popes’ own self-understanding as God’s vice regent on earth. You keep wanting to hold on to the vice regent part but then decide which acts or rulings of the vice regent you like. You have a much bigger problem — it is papal supremacy and papal infallibility. ”
Here’s the definition for papal infallibility:
“when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.”
You just admitted ghettoes and political plays were “certain practices”. The definition does not say infallibility applies when he promotes a practice. The definition does not say popes cannot have a private misunderstanding/self-understanding of a doctrine’s level of authority or even its truth. Rome has made claims for itself regarding infallibility, and set specific criteria for those claims. The specific criteria was informed by cases in the past – hence all the debate and discussion by the Vat1 faces over past papal decisions. So to show contradiction, you must work according to the criteria it set forth for itself.
Question – does Scripture teach differences between doctrine and prudential application of doctrine? If so, how do you distinguish the difference?
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CdH,
What is the *infallible doctrine* you say the church did a 180 on? Is it “Jews cause earthquakes”?
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Cletus, Scripture implies a difference. But then the Bible doesn’t teach the practice of papal supremacy. It is a practice, you know. The Archbishop of Canterbury also has the mojo of apostolic succession (doctrine) according to Rome.
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Darryl,
Cool so how do you distinguish when Scripture is teaching doctrine versus a prudential application of doctrine that can be changed/abrogated? Was Paul teaching doctrine when he said women should cover their heads? Why isn’t OPC still obeying that?
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Robert,
If that is Dr. Harts point I need him cite page and line where modernism is taught. Or where the Church contradicted it self. Either one will do. You cant just take an ambiguous statement that could mean multiple things and say “See here! Modernism!” because those same ambiguities (compromise formulas) can be read in continuity. Thats the whole thing the Rhine theologians were trying to accomplish. V2 has been hijacked to teach modernism but in, in fact, does not.
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you guys have a charming habit of cherry picking liberal theologians and cardinals in a time of controversy and then proclaiming “according to V2 the church now teaches such and such”. Thats the whole point of the Arian comparison. Imagine someone telling Athanasius after Nicea “well NOW the Church teaches such and such” or “sorry bud, Nicea has come and gone and it doesnt look good for your side”. Thats garbage. The Church has already spoken on modernism and it will never be over turned. If you want to tell me that the Church is TEACHING modernism perfect….. all you need to do now is cite the page and line and make your case.
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Cletus, we have an interpretive community. We negotiate it all the time.
But this is not about us. It’s about how superior your communion is and all those mechanisms YOU have to prevent the modernism that Ken says is coursing through the church. The papacy gives you infallible access to truth. It’s not mediated or subject to interpretation the way Protestantism is.
So you tell us where all that interpretive stability is if the average Roman Catholic (who reads) needs a crib sheet to know when the church means what it says. You still haven’t interacted at all with those quotations by Roman Catholics themselves about what Vatican 2 did to the confidence of the laity in the magisterium.
But go ahead, blame us.
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KENLOSES, how’s this for modernism?
Trent anathematized better than that.
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“Faith or Morals”. Sounds like “Doctrine or Practice” to me. What’s the difference between Eugene IV’s statement and “We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, it is immoral for Christians to eat or drink with the Jews, admit them to feasts, cohabit with them, or bathe with them.” I’m also curious about what doctrinal discussion preceded the quote I’ve been able to find; what principles did he assert that led up to this practical result? If anybody can come up with a link, I’d love to check out the fuller document.
LOL, you show me a protestant church in the US that has women’s head coverings, and I’ll bet you a dollar it’s an OPC…
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Kenneth,
What is garbage is pointing to Nicea, which didn’t overturn a magisterial or papal pronouncement, and then acting as if it is somehow analogous to the modern situation. For years, centuries even, the RC Church rejected at the magisterial level modernism and its fruits such as “Americanism,” religious freedom, and higher criticism. For centuries Rome terrorized all those who would not bow the knee to the Vatican. V2 is a complete 180 on all of those. Some of the most liberal biblical scholars in the world are Roman Catholics in good standing with the church. Today, I’m just a separated brethren. Before V2, I was a heretic.
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Darryl,
“Cletus, we have an interpretive community.”
Thanks. Now you and CdH can extend RCs the same courtesy instead of criticizing from some external criteria that the church does not hold for itself in terms of infallibility.
“what Vatican 2 did to the confidence of the laity in the magisterium.”
I’ve said this before, and Kenneth just talked about it above – there is always “major ripples” after every council. That again doesn’t mean rupture. Culpable or non-culpable misunderstanding or even dissent does not affect teaching of councils.
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I admire Clete & Kenneth’s willingness to come here and mix it up. Bryan is probably wishing that they would come train in his gym for awhile to learn how to bob & weave, though.
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Oh they’re weaving all right — but the resulting sweater is too ugly and full of holes for me to ever wear…
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Ruby Tuesday,
Infallibility does not apply generally to anything that has to do with faith and morals. Again, the actual definition of papal infallibility speaks to doctrines – principles, eternal unchanging truths. Do you think the Vat1 fathers were ignorant of the many statements of past popes against Jews, or of the Crusades? No, they weren’t – the decree was crafted accordingly. Interpretive community, as Darryl says.
Also interesting that you are pinning all this on this statement of Eugene when you cannot even locate the full document.
You also might want to consider “Papal Protection of the Jews” issued in 1272 (which is fully online) and was based off the earlier papal bull Sicut Judaeis which had been endorsed by popes from the 12th – 15th century.
CdH claimed before the “Jews committing ritual murder” was a doctrine. PPotJ says:
“Since it happens occasionally that some Christians lose their children, the Jews are accused by their enemies of secretly carrying off and killing these same Christian children and of making sacrifices of the heart and blood of these very children….
And most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jews have secretly and furtively carried away these children and killed them, and that the Jews offer sacrifices from the heart and the blood of these children….
We decree, therefore, that Christians need not be obeyed against Jews in a case or situation of this type, and we order that Jews seized under such a silly pretext be freed from imprisonment, and that they shall not be arrested henceforth on such a miserable pretext, unless — which we do not believe — they be caught in the commission of the crime. We decree that no Christian shall stir up anything new against them, but that they should be maintained in that status and position in which they were in the time of our predecessors, from antiquity till now.”
Seems odd that a doctrine CdH claims was taught as doctrine by numerous popes, was contradicted by an encyclical of the same era endorsed by many popes (Eugene wasn’t one of them it seems to be true). But I guess the popes were ignorant of each other’s teachings, or maybe just maybe it was indeed the case that they did not consider themselves defining binding infallible doctrine, but rather practice and thus could revise/abrogate/endorse as desired.
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Cletus, come now. You are better than that. Just ask JATC. You don’t interpret. You — I mean your hierarchy — rule. Up until 1960 the Vatican thought it had a lot of external criteria. The “ripples” of Vat 2 are Rome’s coming to terms with not having that external criteria any more.
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People who are defining something which they understand to be revisable/abrogatable/(un)endorseable, do not use the words “from now on and for all time”. Words have meaning.
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Ruby Tuesday,
Yes, words have meaning, in an interpretive community to which they are addressed. Paul said women are to wear head coverings. Words have meaning. Why isn’t your congregation enforcing that?
Now, as I’ve said before, let’s divorce the words from the interpretive community and just assume Eugene really fully meant that it should be practiced “from now on and for all time”. Just because he said that with that meaning, does not mean he has any right to do so, because it is not a doctrine. It is a practice. It was legislation. It was not a doctrinal principle. Some popes immediately before and immediately after him were not as prejudiced and much more lenient/tolerant of Jews. The tolerant popes after him understood that even if he did mean it to last forever, he had no right to do so.
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So what you’re saying is, Pope Eugene IV had an erroneous view of the doctrine of infallibility.
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Rubalicious,
Eugene knew he had power. All the popes knew they had spiritual authority. To what extent and with what parameters developed and unfolded over time. The Vat1 definition did not happen in Eugene’s time for a reason – the doctrine was still developing. That’s why the conciliarism movement also happened – the doctrine was still developing. That’s why at the time of Vat1 you had Ultramontanes who thought basically everything the pope decreed was infallible (which seems to be the tact you and CdH are taking) or that temporal/state power was also tied to infallibility (again what you guys seem to think), and the more moderate cautious contingent. The moderate contingent won out, for a reason.
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OK, but Eugene’s statement is an implicit doctrinal assertion that he had authority to issue infallible decrees about practice. And if the doctrine of infallibility was later defined to deny that popes can make infallible decrees about practice, that’s not development of the doctrine of infallibility, that’s a reversal of the doctrine of infallibility.
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Never touch another man’s rhubarb,
Where did Eugene issue forth a teaching to the universal church saying Popes can issue infallible binding decrees about practice? He didn’t. Therefore, it does not impact the definition of papal infallibility that was set forth at Vat1. And how could it – the very experience of Eugene and others was what informed and helped shape the precise definition of the Vat1 decree itself!
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Clete, I’m glad it works for you. But to lots of RC’s at the time of Vat 2, it wasn’t all this clear. Mind you, KENLOSES thinks modernism is on the loose. So who are we to believe?
But here is how Vat 1 put it:
Was it not a matter of morals for Christians not to associate with Jews? Was it not a matter of morals for governments to grant freedom of religion to citizens?
I mean, you define infallibility so narrowly that you give it all away. And you wonder why anyone pays attention to the papacy? And yet, that doesn’t prevent the popes from speaking so much on almost everything. Why do they keep talking if their infallibility is so narrow? And why do you care what they say?
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Guys,
As another RC told me. It doesn’t matter if the pope thinks he’s infallible when he says something. He’s not infallible about when he is infallible, at least prior to V1. Get it?
But apparently, even though the pope wasn’t infallible when he thought he was infallible, Cletus can infallibly determine that the pope was fallible when he thought he was infallible and fallibly made an decree he thought was infallible.
Get it?
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Ding for DGHART.
Said pope was speaking *as pope* (in exercise and in vritue); he defined a doctrine (that one shouldn’t associate with Jews); it concerned morals (that is is wrong to contravene said decree); and I don’t think he was just talking to the saints residing in Alabama.
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[Attention: a virus took over my computer ex opere operato at lengthio with the result below. I disavow all fiducial knowledge thereof.]
After all, we still don’t have an infallible list of infallible teachings. That should be rather easy to produce if they possess the infallibility charism. Why don’t they? Would that not be of great help to RCs to know everything what they must believe for salvation?
Erik, we sees that you two hav bitten the forbidden appel. Not only are you thinking rationally/reasonably and much more culpably ignoring the
ignorantimplicit faith, Luther stole your thunder a long time ago. He asked why the pope didn’t, out of his great wealth, just bail everybody out of purgatory. You know, the kindness and generosity of his charitable charism.No dice was the implicit reply. The explicit was a bull of excommunication. Testy, testy, were those Reformation popes. They really believed in discipling the separated brethren with anathemas.
You cant just take an ambiguous statement that could mean multiple things and say “See here! Modernism!” because those same ambiguities (compromise formulas) can be read in continuity. Thats the whole thing the Rhine theologians were trying to accomplish. V2 has been hijacked to teach modernism but in, in fact, does not.
Bingo, dingo, ringo. Ambiguity is of the essence of modernity. Confuse the rubes, baffle ‘em with you know what and when all else fails, deny, deny, deny. Sort of like what’s going on here. Hmmm. Ya think?
And a nother thing. According to my Geo. Orwell Definition charism, in Kenneth’s understanding Nicea = Vat1. Vat2 which waffled, ambiguated and allowed will be disallowed when the trads convene another infallibel (sic) ekumenical counsil like Vat2. Maybe we will learn of the Assumption of the Apostolic Bones. (Hey, why not? Maybe that’s why we can’t find them at the CtC website. Sounds unfalsifiable to me.)
I admire Clete & Kenneth’s willingness to come here and mix it up. Bryan is probably wishing that they would come train in his gym for awhile to learn how to bob & weave, though.
Bryan’s pretty steamed. Darryl is supposed to throw the match whenever the infallible charism is implicitly invoked, but he and the rest of the Ornery Prot Cultists are having none of it. The occult adepts in training – aka canon fodder – have been thrown into the gap, since the Big B figured they or their feelings/self esteem were expendable and he wasn’t returning on the basis of the rampant hermeneutic of suspicion, sarcasm and smart alecks at OLTS. So yeah. Mega props to the human punching bags. (Bryan really has your best interests at heart. If you are a Jesuit, you don’t have to flagellate yourself for spiritual discipline. Just put in your time here.)
All the popes knew they had spiritual authority. To what extent and with what parameters developed and unfolded over time. The Vat1 definition did not happen in Eugene’s time for a reason – the doctrine was still developing. That’s why the conciliarism movement also happened – the doctrine was still developing
But ahem, we don’t even infallibly know who all the popes were. AAMOF this sounds suspiciously self serving to me (see above). But in that Rome denies the good & necessary consequences of Scripture and substitutes DevelopDoct in its place, well Bryan can go pound sand in the peace of his phd. The pope gets to dress like Cinderella and have a nose like Pinocchio’s. Just because.
And those who have not denied/are not aware of their implicit faith in development of doctrine have not necessarily forfeited their charism of purgatorial inflammability.
Just so you know.
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Darryl and Daniel,
I presume Darryl agrees with Daniel’s assessment:
“Said pope was speaking *as pope* (in exercise and in vritue); he defined a doctrine (that one shouldn’t associate with Jews); it concerned morals (that is is wrong to contravene said decree); and I don’t think he was just talking to the saints residing in Alabama.”
and so this proves it was infallible. 4 things:
– Because a pope speaks as pope to the church on a matter, that does not mean he is speaking as “teacher of all Christians” and “in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority”. Not every exercise of a pope’s primacy involves his office and apostolic authority as “teacher of all Christians.” Just because Eugene says “We decree and order” in no way means apostolic authority was being invoked. If it did, practically any statement by any pope would fall in that category, making 2 of the 3 distinctions/criteria laid out in Vat1 absolutely useless and superfluous.
– No one has yet shown the actual document this statement comes from, so we still don’t know if it was actually issued to the universal church, or applied to just the papal states (“saints in Alabama”), or what exactly. Not a critical point, but it’s odd to be positioning ones self so strongly without an actual full document.
– Thirdly. Again not a doctrine. Daniel says it’s a doctrine because it says “don’t associate with Jews”. How is that a doctrine? Here’s a statement from Lateran IV – “We forbid all clerics to hunt or to fowl.” Is that a doctrine? Doctrines are principles.
– I would also point out Daniel’s “it concerned morals (that is is wrong to contravene said decree);” makes discipline/practice infallible as well. It is wrong (even schismatic depending) for the faithful to contravene disciplinary canons of a council – there is a moral quality there. Doesn’t make disciplinary canons eligible for infallibility.
Darryl gives the vat1 defn:
“when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church”
and asks
“Was it not a matter of morals for Christians not to associate with Jews?”
Yes. But as I said before, infallibility does not apply generally to anything that has to do with faith and morals. If it did vat1 defn would say “he defines a doctrine or a practice or a discipline” – practice absolutely can deal with morals. Doesn’t mean it is infallible or doctrine to be held by the whole church. And if the rejoinder is, “well what if that practice turns out to be judged wrong later”, I’ve addressed that previously in this thread.
“I mean, you define infallibility so narrowly that you give it all away.”
Not true. Isolated ex cathedra papal statements are not the only source of infallible doctrines.
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Robert, there is something here that resembles our cat playing with her tail.
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Clete, I get it. Infallibility is like pornography. You know it when you see it. A burning in the bosom?
The more you explain, the more mystical it sounds. Nothing wrong with mysticism, I guess. But the point — for the guhzillionth time — is that you have the mechanism that Protestants don’t. But it turns out you don’t because infallibility means everything and nothing.
For instance:
Or:
Or:
Or:
So either infallibility is a reaction to something you ate, or trump that the papacy and apologists use whenever they need it even if the entire suit has been played.
You want conservative Protestants to take this call seriously? I get it. You have to believe this. But why make Christianity harder to believe than it already is?
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@CvD
I didn’t say infallible. I said doctrine. Infallible is another qualification you’ve been added. Before you were discussing practice vs. doctrine. The doctrine is the doctrine of religious suppression, that Christian leaders are morally obligated to suppress other religions.
Infallibility is an entirely separate apologetic. Essentially it plays a game that the church can be routinely and completely wrong on matters of faith and morals but this doesn’t matter because it has a few infallible doctrines and those are right. Then anytime two doctrines are in conflict one is “infallible” and the other was just corrected.
This approach by conservatives limits the content of the Catholic faith more than any Catholic liberal ever does. Moreover as others are pointing out the same problems that one encounters on doctrine are encountered on infallible doctrine. Pope’s most certainly issue rulings they take to be infallible and the CtC just argues the Pope is wrong. So thus, under the CtC’s theory of infallibility Pope’s themselves aren’t able to tell when what they are saying is infallible, nor are the people of the time able to determine what’s infallible. Which means that contemporary Catholics can’t tell what’s infallible because their current pope could be wrong and their current understanding could be wrong.
Either the church is infallible on maters of faith and morals or it isn’t. If it isn’t infallible then the hierarchy are nothing more than guys with opinions. One can choose to listen to them, they are often well thought out well considered opinions, or not since as of late they are often quite politicized opinions. If you want them to be more than opinions, divine doctrines, then they get held to higher standards across time.
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CD,
Either the church is infallible on maters of faith and morals or it isn’t. If it isn’t infallible then the hierarchy are nothing more than guys with opinions. One can choose to listen to them, they are often well thought out well considered opinions, or not since as of late they are often quite politicized opinions. If you want them to be more than opinions, divine doctrines, then they get held to higher standards across time.
As Dr. Hart would say,
Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!
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DGHART,
how superior your communion is and all those mechanisms YOU have to prevent the modernism that Ken says is coursing through the church
for the guhzillionth time the magesterium does not always PREVENT controversy. It gives us a principled means to end controversy and settle.controversial matters definitively. The Church has spoken on modernism… Yet, modernism still has its influence here and there (but certainly not everywhere) despite those condemnations. Similar to the Arian heresy continuing to thrive even after Nicea decided the matter.
Dr. Hart nothing wrong with that statement as far as I can see….
Robert,
What is garbage is pointing to Nicea, which didn’t overturn a magisterial or papal pronouncement, and then acting as if it is somehow analogous to the modern situation. For years, centuries even, the RC Church rejected at the magisterial level modernism and its fruits such as “Americanism,” religious freedom, and higher criticism. For centuries Rome terrorized all those who would not bow the knee to the Vatican. V2 is a complete 180 on all of those
Neither did Vatican 2 overturn any pronouncements you old cod fish. Vatican 2 did not do a 180 on modernism, Americanism, religious liberty etc. It is correct to say that “after Vatican 2” those things sprung up again. It is not correct to say that “Vatican 2 taught a 180” on those topics. Again, if you think otherwise…. Page and line please. Btw, you are still heretical that hasn’t changed. If you have been baptized you are in the body of Christ but (unless you are invincibly ignorant) you are a dead member.
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All of this mock awe at a nuanced view of infallibility is mind boggling to me. As if you couldnt possibly imagine believing something with that many qualifications and nuance. Go back and read the Chicago statement again and then come and tell us how nuance and qualifications are goofy. SELECTIVE SKEPTICISM IS WACK
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Kenneth,
Point 15 on the Syllabus of errors condemns this:
Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.
Vatican 2 overturns it:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.html
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KENLOSES, got it. The magisterium doesn’t prevent confusion or controversy. But when the argument is that the magisterium makes Roman Catholicism superior to Protestantism because Protestantism is rife with confusion and controversy, why? Rome is no better than Protestantism. Now that would be an honest call to communion.
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KENLOSES, no one hear believes the Chicago Statement. We are confessional Protestants. Our churches have creeds.
Gullibility is even more wack.
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Kenneth,
The Chicago Statement merely exists to tell people that biblical truth is not to be measured by standards of modern scientific precision but according to the intent of the authors. What did the authors of Scripture intend to teach.
We know what Unam Sanctaum intended to teach, and it wasn’t the quasi-universalism of V2. We’re all for nuance. What we’re not for is pretending that the historical background of historical documents is irrelevant to their interpretation.
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Darryl,
Just because there is no infallible list (indeed how could there be given the subject matter) – it does not mean we can’t know some infallible teachings. It’s not hard to list some out; it won’t be exhaustive though. That doesn’t make it a burning in the bosom. Is it a burning in the bosom that the Assumption or Christ is divine are infallible doctrines?
I’m glad you quoted LG 25. Others could be added to it such as canon 752 of current code, Donum Veritatis, Professio Fidei (and Ratzinger’s associated CDF commentary), Vatican 1 itself (“faithful…are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church”), and Ad Apostolorum Principis which was a few years before Vat2
(“The faithful are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience not only in matters which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church.”)
Just because there are different levels of teaching, and different levels of associated assent does not mean it’s open season on obedience. The faithful are not supposed to be theological positivists that only obey infallibly defined teaching. There are ways to discuss/challenge certain teaching without openly dissenting – that’s part of theology (Donum Vertitatis was addressed to theologians) and how doctrine develops. But if things get out of hand, Rome can step in, as it did with Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
“why make Christianity harder to believe than it already is”
No offense but Protestantism is doing just fine doing that on its own.
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CdH,
“The doctrine is the doctrine of religious suppression, that Christian leaders are morally obligated to suppress other religions.”
Good – I’m glad we’re finally past “Jews cause earthquakes” and “Jews are guilty of ritual sacrifice” are no longer being offered as doctrine. Suppress in what way? I take it you mean by force/violence? If what you say is true, that this was always understood to be an unchanging principle, why does “Papal Protection of the Jews” and “Sicut Judaeis” exist in the same time period (and endorsed by various popes over 400 years) as the examples you have offered of prudential application of this doctrine of suppression?
“Either the church is infallible on maters of faith and morals or it isn’t. If it isn’t infallible then the hierarchy are nothing more than guys with opinions. One can choose to listen to them, they are often well thought out well considered opinions, or not since as of late they are often quite politicized opinions. If you want them to be more than opinions, divine doctrines, then they get held to higher standards across time.”
If the church or pope is teaching something as universal pastor to be followed by the church, the faithful are to obey, even if it isn’t infallible, just as I said to Darryl. If the pope or bishops are not teaching something, but offering insights or even recommendations, faithful are not bound to it.
As to “Either the church is infallible on maters of faith and morals or it isn’t” – okay so no distinction between doctrine and practice. So are you obeying Paul’s command for women’s head coverings? Darryl has said there are such distinctions (to be determined by the “interpretive community”) – so are you or him right?
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Clete, it’s a papal tiger you have, all growl, no bite.
And since you brought up male clergy, is that a dogma or discipline? Is celibacy of priests a dogma or discipline?
Protestantism isn’t all that hard. All you have to do is believe Jesus.
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Clete, how do you know when they are teaching or just offering opinions? Your clergy make a lot of public declarations. Do they carry a yellow flag when teaching, but red, green or white ones when they’re “just saying”?
One advantage of the Bible only is that the canon is closed.
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Dr. Hart,
The celibacy issue is easy. Right now, we should assume that it is an infallible dogma. When it is changed, then it will be obvious that it never was a dogma infallibly defined but an infallible practice that was fallibly enforced until the Magisterium infallibly recognized that it was losing market share in certain Western countries, at which point the fallibility of the Magisterium on this matter will be recognized infallibly by the fallibly infallible faithful.
Get it yet?
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Darryl,
“it’s a papal tiger you have, all growl, no bite.”
One instance of infallible teaching is enough to disprove that. Assumption. Done.
As for clergy – OS ain’t gonna be changed. It’s irreformable. Celibacy is a discipline – you’re sharper than that – the Anglican convert and Eastern rite priests can be married. Even Ratzinger back in the 70s was part of a movement to open up discussion about celibacy.
“Protestantism isn’t all that hard. All you have to do is believe Jesus.”
Oh brother. Mormons and JWs can say the same thing.
“Clete, how do you know when they are teaching or just offering opinions?”
This is ignoring language and the interpretive community. It’s the same reason Daniel thought because a pope said “we decree” that therefore meant that 2 of Vat1’s criteria for ex cathedra just mean nothing.
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Darryl,
“One advantage of the Bible only is that the canon is closed.”
Really? How do you know that?
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Cletus: We know the Canon is closed because the Apostles died and left no successors. No pope, no Lady of Guadalupe bringing enlightenment to Mexico, not even Oral Roberts’ 900-foot-tall graven image has continuing revelation. You will then claim an oral tradition and I will respond that another oral tradition predates yours, one that is written down as the Talmud and says nasty things out about Lord.
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WS,
I’m not claiming anything. I’m just wondering what you would do if the other letters of Paul were discovered, or if further textual criticism showed that the contents of your current canon had later additions to it as it already has done with some passages, or where contents of your current canon claim no further relevation, or where those contents claim no successors have been/will be left.
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Clete, you mean you actually think a true Christian needs to believe in more than Jesus? Like Jesus and the Pope?
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Clete, the Bible tells me so.
How do you know the pope is infallible?
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Clete, but with Rome more letters have been discovered. The popes can’t stop blabbering. If they ever stopped, you’d be out of work as an apologist.
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Darryl,
No, what I mean is a nice pious “just believe in Jesus” is superficial. Word-of-Faithers and Mormons say they same thing. Are they believing in Jesus? “Jesus” means something.
The Bible tells you that the canon is closed? Where is that?
Yeah the popes can’t stop blabbering. Doctrine will develop until the end of time and popes and magisterial teaching are part of that process. Jesus isn’t some nicely boxed set of propositions with a bow that was given to us when the canon somehow mystically got closed in Protestantism. He is a divine Person whose depth is inexhaustible.
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DGHART,
KENLOSES, got it. The magisterium doesn’t prevent confusion or controversy. But when the argument is that the magisterium makes Roman Catholicism superior to Protestantism because Protestantism is rife with confusion and controversy, why? Rome is no better than Protestantism. Now that would be an honest call to communion.
OK getting better. At least you remembered the first part of what I had to say that time. Lets try again
1. The magesterium doesnt always prevent controversy from arising from within the Church
2. The magesterium does function as a mechanism to resolve disputes authoritatively and finally.
3. Protestant “churches” also do not prevent controversy from arising from within their sect
4. Protestant “churches” do not have any mechanism to resolve controversy authoritatively other than schism.
5. Therefore, no protestant can ever have certainty of dogma nor make sense of heresy and dissent.
(i can loan you some flash cards if you need help keeping up)
Question: If a lost letter from Paul was discovered today… say, another letter to the church in Corinth…. how would you know if it was inspired or not? lets say for the sake of argument the community that had recieved the letter read it out loud in their liturgy and treated it as inspired etc. and it completely conformed to the other gospels and the other things we have in our new testiment. Let us also say that roughly half the reformed community is pro 3rd corinthians and the other half being against it. Who decides? These types of things come up all the time to a lesser extent with the long ending of Mark being an excellent example. Who decides?
KENLOSES, no one hear believes the Chicago Statement. We are confessional Protestants. Our churches have creeds.
Oh, im sorry. That was recommended to me by Robert in a different thread. Guess he is confused.
Robert,
The Chicago Statement merely exists to tell people that biblical truth is not to be measured by standards of modern scientific precision but according to the intent of the authors. What did the authors of Scripture intend to teach.
We know what Unam Sanctaum intended to teach, and it wasn’t the quasi-universalism of V2. We’re all for nuance. What we’re not for is pretending that the historical background of historical documents is irrelevant to their interpretation.
If you think the only qualification and nuance the Chicago Statement brings to the table is intent of author and scientific method you are lost. There are a whole host of super detailed qualifications to the claim that the bible is innerrent. Since we have already talked about this multiple times I am forced to assume you are being dishonest.
In regaurds to Unam Sanctum dont you find it at least a tad bit dishonest that on the one you reach for the most traditionalist uber conservative staunch and unyielding interpretation imaginable….. and then on the other you look to a Cardinal Kasperish extreme liberal quasi universalism? There is no quasi universalism being taught in the concilliar documents.If you think that there is then I want PAGE AND LINE where this is taught. You guys keep coming up short on the specifics.
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The Bible tells you that the canon is closed? Where is that?
Shaking my head…. face palm… tripled…
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kent,
Here’s a recap:
-One advantage of the Bible only is that the canon is closed.
-Really? How do you know that?
-the Bible tells me so.
I’m only following Darryl’s premises. Feel free to disabuse me of my stupidity though.
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Clete, Jesus isn’t some neatly boxed set of propositions, but infallibility sure is, except the box never opens.
As if you think just believe in Jesus is nice and pious, have you been listening to Francis (he rivals Mr. Rogers):
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Clete, disabusing you — impossible.
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Incidentally I have no wish to get into some long boring protracted discussion about the canon. It will just end up being a rehash of the same old arguments and “paradigms” and “principled distinctions” and someone will bring up Kruger and we’ll get nowhere. Doctrine/practice and development and the general spirit of this thread are more interesting. But I’m just following Darryl’s lead on this for now.
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Darryl,
That was pretty funny actually. I’ve seen some youtube vids of you – you don’t seem nearly as snarky in them – I think you should add some more snark to your public persona. But feel free to answer the question whenever you get a chance.
Wait a minute – Francis is talking about the mystical body of Christ? As you’ve said, FOR SHAME (Paul didn’t get the memo).
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Why is CvD impugning simple faith in Jesus just because false religionists and sectarians do? Jesus said believing like a child was the only way to the kingdom of God. So what if Mormons and Word-of-faithers say the same? His faulting doesn’t seem too unlike the disciples a man “not of us” doing miracles in Jesus’ name, which earned a little rebuke.
After all, Catholics around here seem to think being in the visible church of God is necessary for salvation (leaving aside the “separated brethren” wrinkle that undermines an otherwise high view of the church, ahem). They’re quite right. Impugning that view just because they have it would seem like a form of religious bigotry.
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Kenneth,
You’re not paying attention, not to mention ignoring the difference between the Syllabus of Errors’ teaching on religious liberty and V2s. Oh well.
For the last time, our problem with infallibility is not that there is nuance. Our problem is that Rome has changed its mind and then tries to cheat by saying, “that wasn’t an infallible declaration.”
We believe everything the Bible teaches is infallible. Rome believes only what the pope teaches at 3 am on Tuesday during a leap year when he’s wearing his special hat is infallible, and then it depends on whether we are counting days based on Greenwich mean time.
Look, you can tell me that V2 doesn’t teach a quasi universalism, but when Francis is telling people that the most important thing is to follow whatever their notion of the good is, you’ve got problems rooted in a council that is supposed to be infallible. Frankly, I don’t know why you even try to defend V2 given that you’ve wanted to stress it didn’t really teach anything and was just a pastoral council. But whatever.
According to V2, I’m a separated brother and fully golden. Heck, if even Muslims who hate the Trinity and the incarnation are getting into heaven, we’re fine around here.
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I have been told that Papal elections are not infallible.
Does there exist some sort of “canon of valid Popes”? If so, is it infallible? and when/what council was it defined?
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Robert,
Don’t want to disrupt your and Kenneth’s convo since it’s fun to watch, but thought I’d chime in.
The condemnation of
“Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.”
is not overturned by DH.
DH is concerned with freedom from coercion and gives disclaimer it is not overturning anything:
“Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore [this Council] leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.”
But religious freedom is not absolute – it must be “within due limits” and “exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.”
and
“In the exercise of their rights, individual men and social groups are bound by the moral law to have respect both for the rights of others and for their own duties toward others and for the common welfare of all. Men are to deal with their fellows in justice and civility. Furthermore, society has the right to defend itself against possible abuses committed on the pretext of freedom of religion…Its action is to be controlled by juridical norms which are in conformity with the objective moral order.” (fun fact – JP2 demanded “objective” be added to qualify “moral order”, given his experience with Communism.)
and
“Religious freedom therefore ought to have this further purpose and aim, namely, that men may come to act with greater responsibility in fulfilling their duties in community life.”
So, right there they are already reconciled. But if you want more:
The syllabus was concerned with the notion of indifferentism which affirms no religion is better than another and there’s no true religion, and because of this, the government/society has no right to guide/defend/promote one religion over another (or oppose/restrict religious errors) – indeed the obligation of society is *not* to do that given the first principle.
DH does not say government/society should not play any role in defending truth.
And DH again affirms traditional teaching of one true religion:
“First, the council professes its belief that God Himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve Him, and thus be saved in Christ and come to blessedness. We believe that this one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church, to which the Lord Jesus committed the duty of spreading it abroad among all men….On their part, all men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and His Church, and to embrace the truth they come to know, and to hold fast to it.”
The freedom the syllabus is condemning is not DH’s qualified freedom of religious liberty.
Also, you keep saying “According to V2, I’m a separated brother and fully golden.”
Where do you get from the documents saying non-Catholics “can” be saved that they will be saved? Culpability is person-variable.
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Clete, you can say nothing changed and interpret away all you want (even though interpretation is not your paygrade). The fact remains that John Courtney Murray had to write under a pseudonym during the 1950s for views that would become those of the Roman Catholic church at Vat. 2. Lots of ink spilled by mainstream Roman Catholic historians on that one.
Why can’t you admit what most Roman Catholics admit? Maybe you’re working with a Protestant paradigm.
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@CvD
Sicut Judaesis is early 12th century. It is objecting primarily to forced conversions which has always been Catholic policy. How to handle forced conversions when they do happen has been an area where practice has changed. So there you do actually have a consistent doctrine.
But in 1120 (when Sicut Judaesis was written) you still have the dark ages policy of letting local leaders deal with the Jews as they see fit. Mostly the Pope is commanding his troops (the crusaders) not to handle the Jewish problem via. extermination or mass forced conversion.
Innocent III is where you get the change in policy towards religious minorities that Darryl and I have been speaking of. With the slaughter of the entire population of Béziers he sees how massive violence can achieve his theological aims. As a result of his successes he is the one who introduces massive state terror as the means of resolving theological disputes when one of the parties won’t yield to the Pope. This works for three centuries. When Catholics talk about how unified Western Christianity was, Innocent III is the source of that unity.
In the case of the Jews his bulls give us a timeline:
Post Miserabile in 1198 starts canceling Jewish protection orders
Etsi non displiceat in 1205 is when the explicitly calls on the King of France to engage in state terror against his Jewish population.
And of course Innocent III is the one who creates the Inquisition which after dealing with the Cathars will turn its attention to the Jews thought that doesn’t happen during his papacy.
Prior to Innocent III there isn’t much systematic terror against Jews. What actions are taken are taken by local leaders either for against Jews. Church organized persecution starts under Innocent III and picks up steam. The change in Catholic doctrine in favor of large scale state terror happened during Innocent III. You are just picking a bull from before the change in doctrine.
Darryl likes to focus on modern changes of doctrine but doctrine what changing during the high middle ages just as much.
I’m not saying that. I understand Catholicism makes a distinction between doctrine and practice and I wasn’t addressing that. You are the one who is shifted into infallible papal pronouncements and that shift I was rejecting. The church is not supposed to be able to err on matters of faith and morals. So when Popes speak about the church’s doctrines on matters of faith and morals and contradict each other there are possibilities:
a) Popes can err in their teachings regarding the church’s doctrines (a Catholic liberal positions)
b) Popes can lie and teach wrongly on matters of faith and morals conflating their own opinions with the church’s inerrant position (something close to what you want to argue for)
c) The church is inerrant but God changes his mind
d) The church is errant on matters of faith and morals (my position)
We are discussing faith and morals not papal infallibility. When a Pope states that X is a doctrine of the church either such a statement is trustworthy or it is not. If those statements are not trustworthy then Catholics have no system for solving doctrinal disputes that Protestants don’t have.
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KENLOSES, the flash cards would be helpful as long as you get the last edition from Pope Francis. He doesn’t talk about Protestantism the way you do.
And is your characterization of Protestantism that is the problem with you, Cletus, and JATC. In a pre-Vat 2 world, points 3, 4, and 5 make sense. After Vat 2 it doesn’t except among former Prot’s trying to make sense of their new world. That is likely one of the biggest changes introduced by Vat 2 — Rome’s attitude toward Protestants. The Catholic Encycl of 1910 has us down as heretics and schismatics. Vat 2 doesn’t.
With all the qualifications that you give yourself (and Cletum s), Protestantism also prevents controversy and has mechanisms for eliminating it. In fact, I know that the OPC and the Free Methodist Church have more discipline than Rome does. We have not Garry Wills or Nancy Pelosis.
It sure looks to me that the mechanism you have for addressing controversy doesn’t really care about it the way that you do.
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@CvD
Many Protestants believe that the last 4 verses of the bible Rev 22:18-21 apply to the entire bible and not just the book of Revelation. That’s why they are saying the bible says the canon is closed.
___
CtC doesn’t deal well with the dominant Protestant position (Baptist) that there is no authoritative canon in the Catholic sense because the church cannot have authority over God’s Word. So instead “God raises up a bible for his faithful”. And thus our current canon is situational. I haven’t heard CtC address the position that the majority of Protestants hold.
The Protestants that try and argue for self evident will mostly will make all sorts of false historical claims about how the canon was self evident to people of the time. When that happens and the Catholic knows his stuff, lights out.
You do have some Conservative Reformed that will agree the process was a political process among various factions of the church and we ended up with a “fallible list of infallible books”. You also sometimes see it where the Catholic doesn’t know that his current canon came only finally stabilized in the 1970s but thinks it is some teaching that everyone quickly agreed to. Then if the Protestants knows about the different Catholic canons at different times and places the roles reverse and lights out.
So …. I don’t think it is explored yet. But I think the problem is your side’s arguments here mostly are designed to prey on the ignorant.
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Cletus,
I don’t mind you jumping in. It’s always possible I’ve misunderstood things.
But this will not fly:
DH is concerned with freedom from coercion and gives disclaimer it is not overturning anything:
DH has to say it is not overturning anything given the doctrine of Roman ecclesiastical infallibility, but the fact is that the same person who issued the Syllabus of Errors kidnapped Edgardo Mortara. Clearly he believed that coercive methods were correct in at least some cases.
Coercion was an official policy of the Roman church for centuries. Why else threaten Protestants and others with death? There is a change at V2. Perhaps Rome had been moving in that direction already, but it is a theological commitment to say it is alright to forcibly remove secretly baptized persons to raise them as RCs against their parent’s wishes. You can’t get around it.
You simply cannot separate doctrine and practice as neatly as you are wont to do. If it is a doctrine that baptism works ex opere operato and the baptized person’s best chance at salvation is to be raised in the church, then forcible kidnapping and even conversion makes theological sense. It is theology.
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Darryl,
“Clete, you can say nothing changed and interpret away all you want (even though interpretation is not your paygrade).”
I’m not saying my interpretation is infallible. I’m showing how statements can be reconciled. And the general ideas in my reconciliation are not new – you can find stuff online from theologians writing in the 80s making similar points analyzing DH – I didn’t come up with some amazing insight. Feel free to counter it if you like.
Look I’m not saying development makes everything just peaches and cream. There’s work in discerning what is true/essential from what is not and that takes time and theological effort. Here’s what Donum Veritatis says concerning development and doctrine/practice:
“Finally, in order to serve the People of God as well as possible, in particular, by warning them of dangerous opinions which could lead to error, the Magisterium can intervene in questions under discussion which involve, in addition to solid principles, certain contingent and conjectural elements. It often only becomes possible with the passage of time to distinguish between what is necessary and what is contingent. ”
“When it comes to the question of interventions in the prudential order, it could happen that some Magisterial documents might not be free from all deficiencies… In fact, the theologian, who cannot pursue his discipline well without a certain competence in history, is aware of the filtering which occurs with the passage of time. This is not to be understood in the sense of a relativization of the tenets of the faith. The theologian knows that some judgments of the Magisterium could be justified at the time in which they were made, because while the pronouncements contained true assertions and others which were not sure, both types were inextricably connected. Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.“
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CdH,
Papal Protection of the Jews ( here ) is after Innocent and was issued in 1272 and was endorsed by various (not all, some are more prejudiced than others) popes up through the end of the 15th century. It specifically prohibits violence against the Jews or forced conversions. Sicut Judaeis was not the only bull around – I was using that to show that both before and after (with PPotJ) the time period you specify, there is not this universal state terror against other religions you claim the church saw as doctrine (unless it was schizophrenic and popes just had no idea what each other taught).
“The church is not supposed to be able to err on matters of faith and morals. So when Popes speak about the church’s doctrines on matters of faith and morals and contradict each other there are possibilities:”
You are once again presupposing that all matters of faith and morals are doctrines on faith and morals.
“b) Popes can lie and teach wrongly on matters of faith and morals conflating their own opinions with the church’s inerrant position (something close to what you want to argue for)”
Pope’s can wrongly apply doctrinal principles in their prudential application. That why JP2 apologized for the actions of church members. That’s also why DH says:
“In faithfulness therefore to the truth of the Gospel, the Church is following the way of Christ and the apostles when she recognizes and gives support to the principle of religious freedom as befitting the dignity of man and as being in accord with divine revelation. Throughout the ages the Church has kept safe and handed on the doctrine received from the Master and from the apostles. In the life of the People of God, as it has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there has at times appeared a way of acting that was hardly in accord with the spirit of the Gospel or even opposed to it. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Church that no one is to be coerced into faith has always stood firm.”
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Robert,
First, you were claiming there was a contradiction between the syllabus’ statement and DH. I presume you are now satisfied that they can be reconciled.
“but the fact is that the same person who issued the Syllabus of Errors kidnapped Edgardo Mortara. Clearly he believed that coercive methods were correct in at least some cases.”
Sure, he believed it was right in that case. And perhaps it was – I’m not going to get into Mortara but Bryan interacted with Darryl over this and another fellow in the Religious Liberty article he wrote over at CtC. Again I’m not going to judge culpability when we are far removed from his context and the complexity of that case. And again DH does not say the government/society has no role in promoting/defending the faith or influencing consciences nor that it is obligated to be silent. But even if he was completely unjustifiably wrong, it would not touch the doctrine. Specific actions/cases *cannot* be doctrine.
“Coercion was an official policy of the Roman church for centuries.”
Please cite from church documents endorsing/teaching this as doctrine and not practice. “Hey King whatever, torture these protestants” from a pope is not a doctrine. I just showed CdH above that during his claim of 300 continuous universal teaching of violence and forced conversion, there were documents contradicting such teaching.
“You simply cannot separate doctrine and practice as neatly as you are wont to do.”
It’s not always neat as DV admits. But there is a distinction nevertheless as all Protestants are admitting here as well. I guess Scripture can’t be consistent or infallible because there was widespread Protestant endorsement of slavery and religious torture/persecution. Of course not. Time has permitted deeper discernment.
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Robert,
You’re not paying attention, not to mention ignoring the difference between the Syllabus of Errors’ teaching on religious liberty and V2s. Oh well.
page and line Robert. Page and line.
For the last time, our problem with infallibility is not that there is nuance. Our problem is that Rome has changed its mind and then tries to cheat by saying, “that wasn’t an infallible declaration.”
skeptics always view nuance as “cheating”. An atheist could easily say something very similar about the bible “everytime I show you and error you cheat by calling it a scribal/transmissional error, different genre, possible allegory, not the intent of the author, etc etc”. We aren’t “cheating”. We are explaining the nuance and qualifications of papal and ecclesiastic infallibility. If you don’t mind the Bibles nuance you shouldn’t have any beef with ours.
We believe everything the Bible teaches is infallible. Rome believes only what the pope teaches at 3 am on Tuesday during a leap year when he’s wearing his special hat is infallible, and then it depends on whether we are counting days based on Greenwich mean time.
But you don’t believe that everything the apostles (or their traveling buddies and friends) wrote is infallible. Was every single thing that Luke wrote inspired? No? So only what he wrote at 3am on Tuesday leap years while standing on one leg Greenwich time? Gotcha. You believe all the bible infallible…. We believe all papal pronouncements ex cathedra are infallible along with any dogmatic definitions produced by the magesterium. I don’t see the difference.
Look, you can tell me that V2 doesn’t teach a quasi universalism, but when Francis is telling people that the most important thing is to follow whatever their notion of the good is, you’ve got problems rooted in a council that is supposed to be infallible. Frankly, I don’t know why you even try to defend V2 given that you’ve wanted to stress it didn’t really teach anything and was just a pastoral council. But whatever.
Pope Francis gave a sloppy statement in an interview that may or may not be the actual words that he used (according to the journalist) and therefore Vatican 2 teaches universalism? Page and line Robert. Page and line.
If you are baptized you are actually in the body of Christ. If you formally accept heresy without being able to hide behind invincible ignorance you are a dead member of the body. That simple.
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CdH,
Sorry missed some of your post so you get a two-fer.
“We are discussing faith and morals not papal infallibility. When a Pope states that X is a doctrine of the church either such a statement is trustworthy or it is not. If those statements are not trustworthy then Catholics have no system for solving doctrinal disputes that Protestants don’t have.”
This is the same point Darryl brings up about solving doctrinal disputes. One example of infallible teaching is enough to disprove it. Many such examples could be offered. The Councils all disprove it.
If we’re discussing faith and morals, not infallibility – then any arguments about “contradictions” are moot. Where does RCism claim non-infallible teaching is infallible? That’s why I brought up infallibility because you kept going there in the first place with “contradictions”.
As to Revelation closing the canon, there are a few points:
– Using GHM, those words apply to the book itself. You can use a “canonical hermeneutic” but it’s not self-evident in the book itself.
– OT books have similar “do not add” language. Obviously the NT was added to it – same argument Mormons use to justify BoM
– Revelation’s inspiration was one of the most disputed amongst NT books. Seems odd a book critical to closing the canon was one of the most disputed.
– Textual criticism shows that passages were indeed added to the contents of the canon. No guarantee therefore that more adding may not have happened that has so far gone undetected, or may not happen in the future (Paul’s missing letters).
Maybe Darryl was making some subtle point that is flying over my head.
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Cletus,
I guess Scripture can’t be consistent or infallible because there was widespread Protestant endorsement of slavery and religious torture/persecution. Of course not. Time has permitted deeper discernment.
The difference is that Protestants have never claimed to be infallible. The cases are not parallel. Scripture is infallible. Our understanding of it is not. If you want to say that as a RC that the church is infallible but the church’s understanding of its doctrine is not, that’s fine. But that’s not what JATC are essentially promoting. You guys start out with the assumption that the Bible is terribly unclear and needs an authoritative interpreter, but then that authoritative interpreter can’t even understand itself sometimes. Sorry, that’s not an improvement over Protestant “confusion.”
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Clete, thanks for Donum Veritatis. I cannot believe Ratzinger would make that kind of concession: “Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.” He just gave the game away (to the modernists). And I’m not sure he could have taken Pius X’s oath:
I’m sure you have some fancy explanation. But this sure seems to involve more than differences between dogma and discipline and leads me to think that Ratzinger thought Pius wrong.
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KENLOSES, why do you keep comparing popes to the authors of scripture? This is one of the weakest parts of your arguments and I don’t think Trent or Vatican 1 would go anywhere near a comparison of the papacy to apostle.
Plus, the problem for you is that you have no canon of papal writings. If your council gave us the biblical canon, surely your council can work on a papal canon.
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Robert,
If the church could not understand itself, development would be impossible. And as I’ve said before, just a single example of infallible church teaching is enough to show an improvement over Protestant confusion.
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Kenneth,
skeptics always view nuance as “cheating”. An atheist could easily say something very similar about the bible “everytime I show you and error you cheat by calling it a scribal/transmissional error, different genre, possible allegory, not the intent of the author, etc etc”. We aren’t “cheating”. We are explaining the nuance and qualifications of papal and ecclesiastic infallibility. If you don’t mind the Bibles nuance you shouldn’t have any beef with ours.
No dice Kenneth. We still care about the intent of the original author. I’ve had RCs admit that popes sometimes issued decrees and believed they were infallible even though the decrees really were not. Just ask Jonathan Prejean, he has told me that the popes have sometimes been fallible about when they are infallible. Maybe that is not your position, I don’t know.
The point is that with Rome, it doesn’t really matter what the author of a decree meant, it only matters what the church today says it means today.
But you don’t believe that everything the apostles (or their traveling buddies and friends) wrote is infallible. Was every single thing that Luke wrote inspired? No? So only what he wrote at 3am on Tuesday leap years while standing on one leg Greenwich time? Gotcha. You believe all the bible infallible…. We believe all papal pronouncements ex cathedra are infallible along with any dogmatic definitions produced by the magesterium. I don’t see the difference.
The difference is this: We believe that the apostles were infallible whenever they were exercising their apostolic ministry. So, if Luke wrote something in the exercise of his apostolic ministry that did not make it into the canon, that statement is still infallible. Infallible doesn’t necessarily mean God wanted his church to have it for all time. All we have from the apostles in the exercise of their apostolic ministry is the Scriptures. We don’t have anything else they said or did. Even Rome has not infallibly defined the things the apostles said and did that never made it into Scripture.
Presumably, Francis is exercising his apostolic ministry whenever he speaks or writes, but not everything he says is infallible but only those things he pronounces with an ex cathedra before them. What I am saying to you is that EVERYTHING Peter taught while he exercised his apostolic ministry is infallible. That’s the difference. In the course of one council for Rome, you can have a mixture of infallible and fallible statements that get published in the same canons, disciplinary rules, doctrinal formulations, etc. What I am saying is that there is no mixture of truth and error in Scripture.
The main reason I am a skeptic of Rome’s claims is that Rome wants to say it is exercising, essentially, the same ministry as the apostles but then hold itself to a different standard and say not everything it teaches is infallible. That’s the problem. As the apostles taught, they didn’t turn on and off their infallibility.
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Darryl,
Once again, evolution condemned by Pius X is not development. Once again, the very same Pius X wrote to defend and praise Newman after Pascendi and defended his work on development from modernists who were hijacking Newman to make “something of their own invention”. Once again, we just throw nuance (not “fancy explanation”) to the wind and go for easy narratives.
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Cletus,
And as I’ve said before, just a single example of infallible church teaching is enough to show an improvement over Protestant confusion.
Actually, no it is not. In the first place, I don’t know how you prove empirically or otherwise that what the church has said is actually infallible. Second, just because you say something is infallible doesn’t make it so. According to this standard, the Mormons and the JWs are improvements over Protestant confusion, but even Rome still won’t accept their baptisms. I don’t think you meant to, but you’ve just put Rome, the Mormons, the JWs, and the crazy guy down the street who keeps getting infallible visions all on the same level. All of those have “infallible teachings.”
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Robert,
That’s exactly what I meant to do. JWs and Mormons and EO and the crazy guy are improvements over Protestant confusion because they claim to be able to teach infallibly based on divine authority. Protestantism make no such claim, and indeed shuns it. That’s why it doesn’t even get out of the gate. Of course that claim is not the only standard used in evaluating the truth of a body’s claims – it’s not a single-stage process of evaluation. This gets off track though into boring protracted “interpretive paradigms” and the like which people can go to CtC if they want.
But yes the point stands – one example of an infallible teaching from a body claiming the ability to teach such is enough to improve Protestant confusion inherent in its system. If you want to claim “well wait a minute it has to be proved what they’re saying is infallible!” is evading the point, and equally applies to Protestantism – Protestantism isn’t just true by default relative to other systems.
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Cletus,
It’s not an improvement because the infallible statement made still has to be interpreted by fallible people.
Protestants of a confessional stripe agree that the Bible is infallible, they just disagree on its interpretation at points.
Conservative RCs agree that there is a certain body of Church teaching that is infallible, they disagree on its interpretation at points. Issuing a new infallible declaration isn’t going to change this. There’s always going to be disagreement.
You guys add an extra infallible statement and think you’ve solved the epistemological condition that afflicts us all. You haven’t, and you can’t. You just give people more infallible stuff to disagree over.
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DGHART,
KENLOSES, the flash cards would be helpful as long as you get the last edition from Pope Francis. He doesn’t talk about Protestantism the way you do.
Pope Francis loves ecumenism (sigh). The practice of focusing on agreements and playing patty cake with heretics and pagans. I guess the opposite of ecumenism would be the hell fire and brimstone approach…. Neither one is incorrect (although they aren’t equally helpful either) They both stress a different side of the coin. You really are a separated brother…. We really do have alot in common…. But you will still go to hell if you don’t accept the call to communion. Formal acceptance of heresy is an impediment to grace. Pope Francis thinks its best for the body to continue the “Church of Nice” policy. OK. Whatever. I think that causes more harm than good. By constantly stressing agreement we get statements like these from our protestant brothers
“According to V2, I’m a separated brother and fully golden. Heck, if even Muslims who hate the Trinity and the incarnation are getting into heaven, we’re fine around here”
-Robert
facepalm
And is your characterization of Protestantism that is the problem with you, Cletus, and JATC. In a pre-Vat 2 world, points 3, 4, and 5 make sense. After Vat 2 it doesn’t except among former Prot’s trying to make sense of their new world. That is likely one of the biggest changes introduced by Vat 2 — Rome’s attitude toward Protestants. The Catholic Encycl of 1910 has us down as heretics and schismatics. Vat 2 doesn’t.
See above on ecumenism. 3 4 and 5 still make sense… The Church today just prefers to
emphasize agreement (sigh)
With all the qualifications that you give yourself (and Cletum s), Protestantism also prevents controversy and has mechanisms for eliminating it. In fact, I know that the OPC and the Free Methodist Church have more discipline than Rome does. We have not Garry Wills or Nancy Pelosis.
what is the mechanism of eliminating heresy or controversy? I’m not sure if I agree that Prot micro denominations than the RCC. If all the rad trads and trads broke communion with Rome would we then have better discipline? Or would we have just stacked the deck with like minded individuals? Schism and sectarianism seems useful for creating unity and remaining pure…. But only for so long until the next group splits off. Seems like chaos. How do you defend against this accusation?
It sure looks to me that the mechanism you have for addressing controversy doesn’t really care about it the way that you do
you are probably right about that! However, the mechanism is still there…. And if any issue grows pressing enough I’m confident the magesterium will act.
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Kenneth,
Pope Francis thinks its best for the body to continue the “Church of Nice” policy. OK. Whatever. I think that causes more harm than good. By constantly stressing agreement we get statements like these from our protestant brothers
“According to V2, I’m a separated brother and fully golden. Heck, if even Muslims who hate the Trinity and the incarnation are getting into heaven, we’re fine around here”
-Robert
facepalm
But who are YOU to be making this evaluation. You’re not the pope, a cardinal, or a bishop. You’re not even a priest. Are you even a deacon? Why does it matter what you think under Roman ecclesiology. As a Protestant, I need to be trusting those who officially speak for the truth, and they’re going around telling us to follow our conscience, kissing Qur’ans, and so forth. If they’re confusing us, why in the world would we want to follow them?
Dr. Hart’s point is that you are trying to have it both ways. You want the church to be infallible, but then you all go about interpreting the Magisterium, often in ways that seem to run very contrary to the Magisterium’s teachings and actions. No dice. If Rome is infallible, we should listen to the infallible organs of Rome. And none of the infallible organs of Rome are telling Protestants that they’re going to hell. Heck, they’re not even telling Muslims and atheists that. This is a big problem for your view.
However, the mechanism is still there…. And if any issue grows pressing enough I’m confident the magesterium will act.
I’m sorry, but this is the “somewhere out there” doctrine of ecclesiastical authority. At least in the OPC, a minister who teaches universalism is going to get excommunicated. Isn’t going to happen in Rome. In fact, such a person might get to be a distinguished professor of theology.
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Robert,
“It’s not an improvement because the infallible statement made still has to be interpreted by fallible people. ”
Yep – RCs aren’t robots it is true. What is hard to interpret about the Assumption happening, or Christ is divine, or Mary was a perpetual virgin? Those are 3 infallible doctrines. Not much difficulty interpreting them. As I said, just a single infallible teaching shows the improvement over Protestantism.
Further, if all this infallible teaching was so difficult to interpret (*not* difficult to dissent from) how in the world did Protestants write for 500 years against RC teaching claiming it was utterly wrong and apostate? I mean, it’s all just interpretation right – you guys must just be misinterpreting RC teaching. No – don’t play coy – you know what we teach just as much as RCism knows what it teaches.
“Protestants of a confessional stripe agree that the Bible is infallible, they just disagree on its interpretation at points.”
Yes, and no Protestant body claims divine authority to bind the others to their interpretation. They actively and deliberately shun infallibility. And I notice you qualified Protestantism as “confessional” – not a valid move in this discussion of infallibility vs non-infallibility – own up to your non-confessional brothers.
“Conservative RCs agree that there is a certain body of Church teaching that is infallible, they disagree on its interpretation at points. Issuing a new infallible declaration isn’t going to change this. There’s always going to be disagreement.”
After Nicea, people disagreed on exactly what things meant or they actively dissented and remained Arians. Another council clarified with more infallible teaching to eliminate further erroneous interpretation/heresy. Not a new or weird process in RCism.
“You guys add an extra infallible statement and think you’ve solved the epistemological condition that afflicts us all. You haven’t, and you can’t. You just give people more infallible stuff to disagree over.”
I’m not talking about epistemology. I’m talking about just a single clear infallible teaching from a body claiming divine authority (indeed so that the assent of faith is *warranted* so that a person can actually believe such a teaching *by faith*, rather than just believing an opinion that may just happen to coincide with something *of faith*) is enough.
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DGH,
I’m not comparing or equating inspiration vs infallibility. What I want to show is that the level of nuance that you decry as unreasonable when it comes to our paradigm is the same level of nuance and qualification that you accept without question when it comes to your own.
Consider
1. Scripture is inerrant and infallible
nuanced qualifications A,B,C,D,E,F
2. The magesterium is infallible
nuanced qualification A,B,C,D,E,F
an atheist that doesn’t accept either might say “bogus! Those qualifications don’t add up to my own personal idea of what infallible inerrancy should look like so I reject both.”
Fine. He has decided that a religious claim to inerrancy is to be rejected if it is nuanced and qualified. But then how can it be that a protestant can accept 1 with A-F but reject 2 BECAUSE of A-F. “oh only infallible sometimes? Only infallible on dogma and not discipline? Still sinners? Unbelievable! To many qualifications!” selective skepticism.
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Clete, that’s pretty glib. Whatever the discrepancy between Ratzinger and Pius, the idea that time lets us see the difference between the kernel and the husk is downright Whiggish. Say hello to liberal Protestantism.
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Darryl,
Let’s get down to brass tacks. Are you claiming Pius X Oath and Pascendi are incompatible with Newman and development? Are you claiming that Vat2 did not rely on Newman’s influence? Are you claiming that Newman and development are incompatible with Ratzinger and DV?
You seem fixed on this idea that any notion of development inexorably leads to modernism, rather than entertaining that modernism is illegitimately hijacking development to support its errors. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s the link to Bishop O’Dwyer’s defense of Newman from the Modernists and harmony with Pascendi –
link
Here’s Pius X letter (note the date is a mere 6 months after Pascendi and less than a year after Lamentabili Sane) commending O’Dwyer’s essay and praising Newman (including celebrating his predecessor’s decision to make him a cardinal) and his theology and idea of development in the face of his modernist hijackers.
link
Modernism and development are not the same. Full stop. I don’t know how much clearer the evidence needs to be.
Heretics of every stripe throughout history have twisted orthodox writers to support their heresies. Nothing new.
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Clete, well according to Vatican documents, a pope ranks above a cardinal and a prefect of a congregation in the Vatican. The latter two serve the former.
I am saying — not suggesting — that Ratzinger’s view the “time” allows us to see doctrines more clearly is at the heart of liberal Christian — Protestant or Roman Catholic. Once you do that, game, set, match. And I do believe that’s what Pius X saw — his political letters notwithstanding.
I mean, you do have this problem of knowing when the pope is speaking infallibly or not. You cite a letter, an encyclical, a cardinal but it’s all infallible or consistent or harmonious or insert appealing adjective here as long as YOU say it is.
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Darryl,
Newman and development assume at its object a revealed deposit of faith, which does not change as it develops, while Modernists, as condemned by Pius X, maintain no revelation, no objective truth, no deposit of faith – hence their claim that religious truth can and does change. This is one of O’Dwyer’s points in his essay. Modernists hold the source and origin of religion is within human nature itself, Newman and Pius hold revelation to be directly communicated by God with definite truth, not in just some religious sense that ever changes.
Read the oath in light of Pascendi’s condemnations:
“Dogma is not only able, but ought to evolve and to be changed. This is strongly affirmed by the Modernists”
“To the laws of evolution everything is subject under penalty of death – dogma, Church, worship, the Books we revere as sacred, even faith itself.”
I think it’s clear how that differs from genuine development as understood by Newman, Pius, and the RCC in general.
In fact the Oath even affirms development in its condemnations:
“I also reject the error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion.”
Yes liberals can hijack that type of thought for their own means and absolutely relativize religion (pun intended). But such thought does not *necessitate or inexorably lead* to liberalism/modernism. Sure it might be wide-spread and could be more disciplined, and hopefully it shall at some point, but the point is it is by no means some logical consequence of development – it is a corruption and illegitimate use of it. So no, it’s not inexorable, it’s not game, set, match. Pius X letter (along with other RC writing at the time defending Newman – it wasn’t just O’Dwyer) which you cavalierly dismiss disproves that.
It wasn’t just ME claiming harmony between say for example Vat2’s DH and pre-DH. DH affirmed it itself as cited earlier. That “interpretive community” thing again you fully embrace on your side as well.
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Kenneth,
You wrote:
We answer very simply: The work of our committee continues:
Or said another way, “we press on.”
Regards,
Andrew
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Kenneth (5:29pm),
Comparing our understanding of the infallible Word of God to your understanding of your church’s infallibility is comparing apples and oranges. It won’t work, so stop trying. The issue is not nuance, but rather, what we see happening in history. It is possible for a fallible church leadership to declare the gospel anathema, like what we see at the council of Trent. What isn’t possible is for the Word of God to fade.
Regards,
Andrew
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Cletus,
Yep – RCs aren’t robots it is true. What is hard to interpret about the Assumption happening, or Christ is divine, or Mary was a perpetual virgin? Those are 3 infallible doctrines. Not much difficulty interpreting them. As I said, just a single infallible teaching shows the improvement over Protestantism.
We have infallible teaching. It’s called the Scriptures. What’s so hard about seeing that Christ is the incarnate Son of God? I don’t need an infallible declaration to tell me that.
Further, if all this infallible teaching was so difficult to interpret (*not* difficult to dissent from) how in the world did Protestants write for 500 years against RC teaching claiming it was utterly wrong and apostate? I mean, it’s all just interpretation right – you guys must just be misinterpreting RC teaching. No – don’t play coy – you know what we teach just as much as RCism knows what it teaches.
I didn’t say that Rome’s teaching was necessarily difficult to interpret. That’s not the point. The point is that you whine about Protestant division as if Rome was fully united. It ain’t. Kick out all your heretics, then you can talk.
Yes, and no Protestant body claims divine authority to bind the others to their interpretation. They actively and deliberately shun infallibility. And I notice you qualified Protestantism as “confessional” – not a valid move in this discussion of infallibility vs non-infallibility – own up to your non-confessional brothers.
Sure, as soon as you accept the Most Holy Family Monastery, Feeneyites, Nancy Pelosi, and John Kerry as fully orthodox Roman Catholics whose views are as legitimate as Francis’.
After Nicea, people disagreed on exactly what things meant or they actively dissented and remained Arians. Another council clarified with more infallible teaching to eliminate further erroneous interpretation/heresy.
Yeah, and then another council followed by disagreement, and another, and another. Same as in Protestantism.
I’m not talking about epistemology. I’m talking about just a single clear infallible teaching from a body claiming divine authority (indeed so that the assent of faith is *warranted* so that a person can actually believe such a teaching *by faith*, rather than just believing an opinion that may just happen to coincide with something *of faith*) is enough.
Sure you are. You are criticizing Protestantism’s epistemology as being defective because we don’t claim infallibility.
The only infallible teacher is God. If you want to say Rome is in some way the voice of God, fine. Just be consistent and stop dodging around those inconvenient portions of teachings where the pope certainly thought he was speaking God’s Word. It’s all or nothing.
We have many clear teachings from the infallible body of the Apostles. It’s called the New Testament. Do Protestants disagree on things. Sure. A new body of infallible teaching from Rome isn’t solving that problem, and it isn’t giving anyone more warrant to believe except the bare minority of Romanists who actually care what their church actually teaches.
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@CvD
That letter doesn’t prohibit violence against Jews. It deals with Blood libel. Gregory most certainly was a good guy in this regard. That doesn’t prove anything like religious tolerance.
Just a few months before Gregory X wrote that letter when he was still Theobald Visconti, had been with Edward (later to Edward I of England) fighting and corrupting the Muslims. He spent his papacy raising money for crusades. After he died the money was “redistributed” to other nobles but his intent most certainly was not religious tolerance.
It’s entirely possible that Gregory was a guy who wanted to focus Christians on the Muslim threat and didn’t care about Jews. What’s not possible is that he had the tolerant attitudes towards other religions expressed by later popes. If he did he wouldn’t have spent his entire life, including his papacy focused on establishing Christian states. Rather he would have spent it trying to broker peace with the various Muslim factions.
No I’m not. I’m presupposing that things that are objectively doctrines and not practices and whose subject matter is faith and morals are doctrines of faith and morals.
JP2 ducked the issue. The issue is not individual members doing things morally wrong against the teaching of the church. The issue is members doing things morally wrong under the direct instruction, oversight and supervision of the church. The question is one of wicked policies based on wicked doctrines not merely wicked acts.
When Arnaud Amalric gave his famous “kill them all and let God sort them out” order for southern France he was doing exactly what the Pope, the church wanted him to do. He sent his report on the activities, “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt” and he got promoted!
The inquisitors were not a bunch of rogue Catholics. When inquisitors worked to make sure every last Cathar was killed, that tens of thousands of Jews were tortured to death. These were not individuals going rogue. These were people implementing the practices so as to advances the doctrines of the church on matters of faith and morals.
When I open my CCC and see the 2865 items in it are they doctrines or practices? Either practice covers virtually everything and Catholics for Choice just disagrees with you on matters of practice; or the church has changed doctrine.
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KENLOSES, “Pope Francis loves ecumenism (sigh). The practice of focusing on agreements and playing patty cake with heretics and pagans.”
If Francis did that in a conservative Presbyterian church, he’d be in big trouble. Maybe you need to join a different church where modernism is not the norm.
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KENLOSES, first you say you’re not comparing and then you compare. Am I dealing with Pope Francis, here?
Why not compare papal infallibility to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s rulings are final and need lots of nuance. No inspiration.
But your comparison indicates you elevate the pope to the status of scripture’s authors. I’m betting the early church fathers would find that heretical.
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Clete, but what you give Vat 2 takes away. If development assumed a revealed deposit of faith, Vat 2 taught that revelation is in flux:
And here’s the back story on Vat 2:
So the question you have to ask yourself is whether post Vat 2 RC’s have the same view of papal infallibility AND of divine revelation as pre Vat 2 popes who condemned higher criticism and sacralized neo-Thomism.
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Catholicism, the Obamacare of Religion:
Why New Health Law Is So Complicated
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303755504579205800232065892
The Need for Multiple Pieces to Work in Harmony Explains Why its Introduction Has Been Problematic
Updated Nov. 18, 2013 2:11 p.m. ET
The rollout of the Affordable Care Act is in trouble, functionally and politically, and the simplest critique of the new health law is that it’s simply proving too complicated. Indeed, its complexity—the need for multiple pieces to work in harmony from the outset—is the single best explanation of why its introduction has been so problematic.
What’s less recognized is why the new law is so complex in the first place: It represents what may be the biggest attempt ever to weave together big-government impulses with free-market forces.
The White House is playing catch-up in the race to rectify the glitchy Obamacare rollout. What does it mean for the future of the program? Also: Iran may still strike a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear stocks, despite the failure of talks in Geneva.
That is what sets Obamacare apart from other big efforts at social engineering. The effort to improve health care would be much simpler—though no less controversial—if it instead took the form of the dream system that either liberals or conservatives would love to create.
For liberals, that ideal would be a single-payer system in which the government simply bypasses the health-insurance system and provides coverage for everyone. For conservatives, the dream system would place health care firmly in the hands of the private sector, with insurers and doctors handling decisions and the government providing aid directly to those without the resources to buy their own coverage.
Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, left, is steering a law that melds government and market forces. Associated Press
What Obamacare represents, though, is an attempt to weld those two ideas together into one whole that doesn’t rely entirely upon either government or the marketplace.
In that sense, it is an even grander experiment than commonly recognized. Whether it ultimately works or is seen as a hopeless Rube Goldberg machine may well determine whether such an effort, on such a scale, will be attempted again.
To see the challenge, consider how the Affordable Care Act incorporates elements of both worlds. It is built on the back of the current, private employer-based insurance system.
Two of its fundamental components—health-insurance exchanges and the individual mandate—actually began as Republican ideas, conceived as ways to better put market forces and the conservative notion of personal responsibility to work in the health sphere.
Exchanges are simply health-insurance marketplaces that, while organized by law, are meant to foster competition within the private sector by bringing together multiple insurance companies and their policies to jockey for consumers’ business.
Early exchanges were created by two Republican governors, Jon Huntsman in Utah and Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
And the idea of an individual mandate—that every individual be required to acquire health insurance to improve the efficiency and fairness of the broader system—was advanced in a 1989 publication by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. It argued that requiring every household to have coverage would ease the burden on businesses, and prevent any household from placing an undue obligation on society to provide it with health care.
If exchanges and the individual mandate represent two pillars of Obamacare, the others come out of the playbooks of Democrats and liberals.
The dream of insuring millions more Americans is possible only with significant expansion of a classic government benefits program, Medicaid. It provides government health coverage directly to the poor and many of the elderly—and is the very route by which the largest number of Americans are taking advantage of the new law. Other coverage expansion comes through direct government subsidies to the working poor.
In addition, the dream that health care be made not merely available but robust for all is to be achieved through a basic liberal impulse, which is to simply impose new standards that all health policies have to meet.
This regulatory impulse, of course, is what pulled President Barack Obama into a nasty trap over the past two weeks, and it presents a classic illustration of why it is so hard to reconcile market forces and regulatory impulses at the same time.
The idea, oft articulated by Mr. Obama, that “if you like your insurance you can keep it” under the Affordable Care Act neatly captures the free-market impulse behind the plan: No, the government isn’t supplanting your private insurance. And in theory it isn’t. But the law’s imposition of standards for acceptable policies—and the unavoidable reality that some people will lose policies that don’t meet them—sends government mandates running smack into free-market impulses.
Is it possible to weave together big-government ideas and free-market forces? In smaller ways, it has been done. States already intervene in both the health and auto-insurance markets, though in more limited ways.
The explosion of 401(k) retirement programs is, in a sense, also an example of government power and market forces working in tandem: Government sets the rules and provides the incentives, but private investment firms handle the money, the risks and the rewards.
Can merging the two impulses be done successfully on this scale? That’s the big question hanging over Obamacare, and the answer will determine its fate.
Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com
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There are any number of things to be said watching the theological adepts in training mash things up the way they do, but for one:
Newman and development assume at its object a revealed deposit of faith.
This from someone who has told us that not having a list, never mind infallible, of the infallible teachings of the pope which are binding upon the faithful is No Big Deal. (Mega Dittos the canonical index of lost apostolic oral traditions.)
Like, where is this revealed deposit of faith then, if we are being told on the other hand it doesn’t exist when it comes to what the pope – unbeknownst to him when it happens – sucks out of his golden thumb?
Long story short, cause we got work to do today, is that Rome is in principle, modernistic, as well as opportunistic, if not fideistic (that gnashing sound you hear is Bryan’s teeth) and ALWAYS has been.
Again, modernism has always been the genius of Romanism even before Pius, off the ex cathedra clock of course, praised Johnny Newman.
As regards the Warstreet Journal article, what it fails to note is that Geo. W. Obamacare is fascism, i.e. indirect control of the economy by govt. (as opposed to direct (ownership) control or communism). But it’s stil socialism, the Tea Party, Soc.Security and Medicare not withstanding.
One supposes the case can be made that Romanism, in that it blends church and state, can be said to be a sterling example of theological fascism, but hey. Let’s not short out the mental circuits for those carrying holywater for the Tiberian El Duce. They’re still sorting out the nuances between comparing Scripture- which the Reformers believed prophesied of the apostasy of Rome – to the same synagogue of Satan.
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Robert,
No dice Kenneth. We still care about the intent of the original author. I’ve had RCs admit that popes sometimes issued decrees and believed they were infallible even though the decrees really were not. Just ask Jonathan Prejean, he has told me that the popes have sometimes been fallible about when they are infallible. Maybe that is not your position, I don’t know.
Everyone cares about the intent of the author. But if there is controversy over what the author intended who decides?!? Well, of course, the Church would. Who else would you recommend do the job? Your every-man-for-him-self protestant slip is showing Robert. When you read the book of James in isolation it sure doesn’t appear that the intent of the author is to teach sola fide! Yet, you will consider all apostolic teaching taken together as a whole and not just the one document correct? It is the same with the The Church. Perhaps, in isolation, any Church document can be seen to be saying something that it really isn’t….. but taken as a whole the teaching becomes more clear. And one should also keep in mind that we leave room for development which is another animal all together.
The point is that with Rome, it doesn’t really matter what the author of a decree meant, it only matters what the church today says it means today.
The point for you is that with Rome it doesn’t really matter what your private interpretation is…. and thats exactly what you cant handle. You don’t want any other authority other than Robert and Roberts interpretation of history and scripture.
The main reason I am a skeptic of Rome’s claims is that Rome wants to say it is exercising, essentially, the same ministry as the apostles but then hold itself to a different standard and say not everything it teaches is infallible. That’s the problem. As the apostles taught, they didn’t turn on and off their infallibility.
Protestants and Catholics BOTH think we are carrying on apostolic ministry. We just have different views of what that means. You think you are carrying on the ministry but without the assistance of infallibility of any kind. You also claim that the infallible words spoken by the apostles but never written down “weren’t meant for the whole church to know”. We believe the Word of God abides forever and will never pass away. That means ALL apostolic teaching is preserved in either sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture. Part of that Tradition is apostolic succession. the passing on of the keys. The passing on of binding and loosing. Those are different things being passed on than “inspiration” and thus are described differently. So while it might be true that the apostles were always “inspired” every time the exorcised their apostolic ministry that is irrelevant as inspiration it self isn’t being passed on! The ability to bind and lose and forgive and retain sins is different altogether than the gilt of divine inspiration.
Dr. Hart’s point is that you are trying to have it both ways. You want the church to be infallible, but then you all go about interpreting the Magisterium, often in ways that seem to run very contrary to the Magisterium’s teachings and actions. No dice. If Rome is infallible, we should listen to the infallible organs of Rome. And none of the infallible organs of Rome are telling Protestants that they’re going to hell. Heck, they’re not even telling Muslims and atheists that. This is a big problem for your view.
You are dead wrong on this. Pope Francis and the entire tone of his papacy is not what you think it is. Rorate Caeli is one of the most critical trad blogs of Pope Francis. They have received alot of flack for this by many in the Church and are often the cite that breaks news on the Holy Father before anyone else. Read the last few headlines
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/pope-personally-calls-traditional.html
(Pope Francis personally calls Traditionalist Catholic writer, says he considers it important to be criticized.)
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/francis-endorses-hermeneutic-of-reform.html
(Francis endorses the “hermeneutic of reform in continuity”
Papal letter praises critic of “Bologna School” as “best interpreter of the Second Vatican Council”)
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2013/11/francis-writing-on-council-of-trent.html
(The letter affirms the continued importance of the doctrine of Council of Trent…. this letter has the significance of being the very first occasion that Francis has directly and explicitly invoked the authority of Benedict XVI’s “‘hermeneutic of reform’….. we now have something “quotable” from this Pope about the continued importance of Trent — not just as a historical event, but in its doctrinal heritage)
it appears that my neocatholic friends stand vindicated…. this pope might not be so bad after all….. terrible news for the protestant apologetic
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oh and this from sandra magister
….even the pope critiques himself…. and corrects 3 errors?
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350668?eng=y
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KENLOSES, Remember writing this? “Pope Francis loves ecumenism (sigh). The practice of focusing on agreements and playing patty cake with heretics and pagans.”
Do we need a hermeneutic of continuity for KENLOSES?
And let’s just say that Rorate Caeli has not exactly been quick to raise questions about the pope. (Do you ever consider your sources?)
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Robert,
PS,
if Rome is infallible, we should listen to the infallible organs of Rome
well duh! We do listen to the infallible organs of Rome. The problem is that YOU DONT KNOW WHAT THEY ARE! *hint* its not the pope giving an off the cuff interview*
educate yourself good sir
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm
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DGHART,
I don’t expect Pipe Francis to be the guy to pass on ecumenism…. B16 didn’t want to give up on that either…. Oh well. The point is that it is far from clear that he is going to be the crazy liberal pope that protestants and Nancy Pelosi were hoping for
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JW’s most certainly do not make claims to infallibility. They like other Protestants hold to sola scripture and defend their beliefs and practices based on their interpretation of scripture. They acknowledge their leaders and founders can err and did err on some matters of biblical interpretation.
Mormons have the notion of prophets and the idea that the upper reachers of their leadership have prophetic authority. They don’t grant them infallibility. The bible is true in so far as it is correctly translated and interpreted. Statements at General Conference are true in so far as they upheld by later statements. The Book of Mormon is the most perfect book in the world, but still needed redaction after its first edition…. I’d say in the Protestant sense Mormons don’t believe in infallibility at all.
So no on both counts.
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Btw DGH,
all trad blogs are reading the same as of late…. Go check out Fr Z and read him hyperventilate on Pope Francis apparent adjustments. It won’t be long before CA trots out a triumphant “we told you so” banner. Remember 10-20 years from now KENLOSES called it…. Were on the way out if this mess. Adjust your polemics accordingly
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@Kenneth —
If the church is traditionalist in 10-20 years there has been a major schism. Cardinal Dolan got a taste of that just recently on his fight against Obamacare where the nuns refused to back his position openly in their negotiations with Obama / Biden / Sebelius and the Catholic faithful backed the nuns not the hierarchy.
The traditionally Catholic party which still goes almost 2:1 (which BTW is not the party Catholic traditionalists support which shows how out of step you all are) elected as their majority leader and thus for 4 years to Speakership of the House of Representatives a women who openly and at great length argued the position that the hierarchy misunderstands and misrepresents the traditions of the Catholic church on matters of faith and morals to the point that they are preaching heresy from the pulpit.
Young Catholics are well to the left of the older Catholics, and Pelosi is even more popular with them.
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Cdh,
the trad catholic movement is a young people movement. Although “catholic” lay people might be out of step with the hierarchy they do not attend mass. They do not go to seminary. they dint give or take an active interest. they are “catholic” by heritage and thats about it. these people are leaving the Church in droves and all the while the FSSP, SSPX and Fransiscans boom globally in both ordinations and attendance. The clock is ticking…
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SSPX = 120 priests
FSSP = 244 priests
364. But I’m undercounting, let’s throw in another hundred + and round up to 500 traditionalists priests. Heck make it 1000. Let’s say you grow to 10x that size over the next generation.
number of priests in Catholic church = over 400k, need is closer to about 500k
The last thing in the world you want is to lose all the non-traditionalists.
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Kenneth,
It need only be added here that not everything in a conciliar or papal pronouncement, in which some doctrine is defined, is to be treated as definitive and infallible. For example, in the lengthy Bull of Pius IX defining the Immaculate Conception the strictly definitive and infallible portion is comprised in a sentence or two; and the same is true in many cases in regard to conciliar decisions. The merely argumentative and justificatory statements embodied in definitive judgments, however true and authoritative they may be, are not covered by the guarantee of infallibility which attaches to the strictly definitive sentences — unless, indeed, their infallibility has been previously or subsequently established by an independent decision.
Which is why its specious for you to whine that Protestants have a nuanced definition of biblical infallibility and can’t accept the Roman notion of ecclesiastical infallibility. We don’t believe infallibility turns itself on and off in the span of one sentence. Apples and oranges my friend.
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CdH,
“That letter doesn’t prohibit violence against Jews. It deals with Blood libel. Gregory most certainly was a good guy in this regard. That doesn’t prove anything like religious tolerance.”
Here’s some statements of the encyclical:
-“..inasmuch as [Jews] have made an appeal for our protection and help, we therefore admit their petition and offer them the shield of our protection through the clemency of Christian piety. In so doing we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors of blessed memory, the popes of Rome — Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, Innocent, and Honorius.”
-“We decree moreover that no Christian shall compel them or any one of their group to come to baptism unwillingly”
-“Moreover no Christian shall presume to seize, imprison, wound, torture, mutilate, kill or inflict violence on them”
-“In addition, no one shall disturb them in any way during the celebration of their festivals”
Not just blood libel. Tolerance.
“It’s entirely possible that Gregory was a guy who wanted to focus Christians on the Muslim threat and didn’t care about Jews. What’s not possible is that he had the tolerant attitudes towards other religions expressed by later popes. If he did he wouldn’t have spent his entire life, including his papacy focused on establishing Christian states. Rather he would have spent it trying to broker peace with the various Muslim factions.”
Gregory wasn’t the only pope expressing tolerance for Jews from 1100-1500. You were making a blanket statement about no religious toleration for non-Catholics whatsoever. Now you are shifting from Jews to Muslims. I never denied the existence of the Crusades or Inquisition. What I deny is there was no witness at all to the practices endorsing religious toleration from the hierarchy. A single example suffices for that, and disproves the universality of this so-called doctrine.
Or as the Cath Encyclopedia notes concerning Sicut Judaeis (which PPotJ was based from):
“This charter reissued and confirmed as it was by some twenty or thirty pontiffs during a period of 400 years is certainly of much more weight as laying down the Church’s view of the duty of toleration, as an abstract principle, than any persecuting edicts evoked by special circumstances or coloured by the prepossessions of the individual legislator.”
“No I’m not. I’m presupposing that things that are objectively doctrines and not practices and whose subject matter is faith and morals are doctrines of faith and morals.”
Great, I agree something is objectively doctrine and not practice whose subject matter is faith and morals (doctrine couldn’t be anything else) are doctrines of faith and morals.
“JP2 ducked the issue. The issue is not individual members doing things morally wrong against the teaching of the church. The issue is members doing things morally wrong under the direct instruction, oversight and supervision of the church. The question is one of wicked policies based on wicked doctrines not merely wicked acts.”
Wicked policies, direct instruction and supervision of those policies do not equate to wicked doctrines. JP2’s apology did not exclude the hierarchy from criticism. Dignitatis Humanae also does not exclude the hierarchy from its criticism of past practices as I cited earlier.
Amalric got promoted. And? Inquisitors did horrific things. And? I never said or implied such actions meant those catholics were rogue. The hierarchy did and enabled some horrific things back then. And?
The nature of the relationship between state and church during that time was so intertwined that heresy was viewed practically as we view terrorism today – it was a clear and present danger to the state and so was thought must be suppressed by violent means. Given the reality of Christendom, it just took RCs and Protestants in general a long time to figure out that religious violence is counterproductive and thus never advisable.
“These were people implementing the practices so as to advances the doctrines of the church on matters of faith and morals.”
Practices again are not doctrine. Not all teaching again is doctrine. This is what I was getting at with my previous reply to your complaint that I was the one who brought infallibility into the discussion. No, you brought it in by the direction of your posts – if the both of us don’t need to care about infallibility, then when has the Church said non-infallible teaching is irreformable?
“When I open my CCC and see the 2865 items in it are they doctrines or practices? Either practice covers virtually everything and Catholics for Choice just disagrees with you on matters of practice; or the church has changed doctrine.”
When I open my Bible and see all 66(72) books in it, are all the items pertaining to faith and morals in it doctrines or practices?
I have already cited Ratzinger and Donum Veritatis to Darryl – it could indeed be the fact that it is not clear in certain areas what the “neat” division between doctrine and practice is. Time permits discernment. That does not mean there is no such disctinction, nor does it mean one should just disobey the hierarchy because it thinks something it has taught really isn’t doctrine or infallible and is just temporal practice. Faithful are to submit (to differing degrees) to both practice and doctrine.
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Darryl,
You quote from Vat2:
“This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. (5) For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down… For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.”
The bolded terms indicate “revelation is in flux” how? Where does it say the deposit of faith was not final and fixed when delivered? Deepening understanding is not transforming the deposit. Development is uncontroversial – or do you really think conservative Protestantism claims no historical development and only liberals do? Of course it does – our understanding is not some frozen statue. Ott sums it up decently:
“The Liberal Protestant concept of dogma (cf. A. von Harnack) as well as Modernism (cf. A. Loisy) assumes a substantial development of dogmas, so that the content of a dogma changes radically in the course of time . . . In this view there are no fixed and constant dogmas; their concept is always developing.”
Development is not evolution. Development is not relativism. If you want to see an analog of the difference between development and modernism in RCism, just look at the difference in Protestantism between notions of orthodox development by conservative bodies versus those held by liberals. Do the conservatives holding to development believe “revelation is in flux”?
As for pre and post Vat2 discrepancies. Let’s examine Popes from since modernism became an issue till Vat2 to see if there’s consistency. It’s a Pius merry-go-round.
Piux IX who convened Vat1 (hardly a liberal methinks) in his letter opening Vat1:
“Pontiffs have not neglected to convoke General Councils in order to act with and unite their strength to the strength of the bishops of the whole Catholic world . . . to provide, in their foresight and their wisdom, for taking the most efficacious means to procure in the first place the definition of the dogmas of the faith, the destruction of widespread errors, the defense, illumination, and development of Catholic doctrine…”
Dogma and development are not antithetical.
Or since you’re a fan of Pius X – from Pascendi itself citing Vat1:
“It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church… On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ”Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason”; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ”The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.” Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: “Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries — but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.”
or Pius XI in Mortalium animos:
“For the teaching authority of the Church, which in the divine wisdom was constituted on earth in order that revealed doctrines might remain intact for ever….has also the office of defining, when it sees fit, any truth with solemn rites and decrees, whenever this is necessary either to oppose the errors or the attacks of heretics, or more clearly and in greater detail to stamp the minds of the faithful with the articles of sacred doctrine which have been explained. But in the use of this extraordinary teaching authority no newly invented matter is brought in, nor is anything new added to the number of those truths which are at least implicitly contained in the deposit of Revelation, divinely handed down to the Church: only those which are made clear which perhaps may still seem obscure to some, or that which some have previously called into question is declared to be of faith.”
Development can happen in response to heresies (“called into question”) or for clarification or fittingness (“obscure”).
or Pius XII in Munificentissmus Deus:
“Since the universal Church, within which dwells the Spirit of Truth who infallibly directs it toward an ever more perfect knowledge of the revealed truths”
and Humani Generis:
“For, together with the sources of positive theology God has given to His Church a living Teaching Authority to elucidate and explain what is contained in the deposit of faith only obscurely and implicitly.”
So I *hope* it’s clear now that a fixed deposit of faith and immutable dogma is not antithetical to development. And that evolution/transformation and modernism is not development. And that all popes who were in the thick of dealing with modernism espoused development as well.
As for the citation of Vat2’s background dealings with its statement on revelation, not entirely sure what point you would like me to address. Higher criticism is not inexorably antithetical to a conservative/anti-modernist view of revelation and Scripture/Tradition. (And just a throwaway point, but strictly speaking Pius XII and Divino Afflante Spiritu is obviously pre-Vat2).
Let me ask you a similar question – does the practice of textual criticism and historical criticism detract from a conservative Protestant view of revelation and Scripture? Surely not. It doesn’t lead inexorably to a conservative or liberal side. If it did, everyone would be Bart Ehrman or would be Dan Wallace. But both those guys exist, and both are certainly well-experienced in those fields. There are other factors.
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Cletus,
Where does it say the deposit of faith was not final and fixed when delivered?
I just had a RC tell me that the church fathers didn’t believe in a fixed deposit of faith or a fixed body of apostolic teaching but rather that they were always trying to figure out the phronema of the apostles. That doesn’t sound very final and fixed to me. I’m not saying the RC interlocutor was correct about the church fathers belief but rather that he has no view of a final and fixed deposit of faith once delivered to the saints. Who’s correct here?
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Robert,
If you came across an RC who denied the Assumption or the Real Presence, would that make you rethink your view that RCism teaches the Assumption or the Real Presence?
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@CvD
You are quoting Gregory way out of context, the context is blood libel. For example
Moreover no Christian shall presume to seize, imprison, wound, torture, mutilate, kill or inflict violence on them; furthermore no one shall presume, except by judicial action of the authorities of the country, to change the good customs in the land where they live for the purpose of taking their money or goods from them or from others.
That was part of the blackmail mail schemes of blood libel. And then of course there are sections where he is quite explicit
And most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jews have secretly and furtively carried away these children and killed them, and that the Jews offer sacrifices from the heart and the blood of these children, since their law in this matter precisely and expressly forbids Jews to sacrifice, eat, or drink the blood, or to eat the flesh of animals having claws. This has been demonstrated many times at our court by Jews converted to the Christian faith: nevertheless very many Jews are often seized and detained unjustly because of this.
By ignoring the context, the author’s intent you are shifting Gregory X to mean something totally unlike what he meant or what the people in his cultural context understood him to mean to support a position which you don’t even really believe.
You are defining toleration to mean the opposite of everything is permitted, in which case I never said anything remotely like that. What I said was there was a policy of state terrorism. I explicitly had it starting a century after I didn’t have it starting ending in 1500. Stop misstating what I say, honest dialogue requires you don’t deliberately misrepresent what others state.
No it does not. I freely admitted that the inquisition first focused on Cathars before going after Jews. During World War II the Americans focused their efforts on Germany more than Japan believing that was the correct order. A shift in priorities regarding enemies is not a policy of peace. Gregory’s life long focus on Islam does not prove that he supported religious diversity. If you want a single example of someone who supported religious diversity in the papacy you need an actual example of such a person. Gregory X is not such a person.
When they are stated as doctrine, yes they do.
That’s called a change in doctrine. It also contradicts your point above. You can’t have it both ways. There are one of a few possibilities:
a) The doctrine has always been one of violently enforced Christiandom, and the current practices aren’t in conflict because …. (the CtC position). This one falls apart because the hierarchy unambiguously claims that it is not lack of power but Christian doctrine that prevents them from violence.
b) The doctrine has always been one of tolerance and the middle ages practices were violations. The problem with that is that Pope’s and the magisterium for centuries unambiguously declared themselves to be acting on doctrine.
c) The doctrine was totally misunderstood. Which means the hierarchy is not a reliable source of doctrine.
d) The doctrine changed.
If you want to argue the doctrine is one of toleration, Gregory X who spends his entire papacy raising money to forcibly retain lands for Christianity doesn’t help your case he hurts it. It is not “so what” if you are going to argue that popes didn’t believe in using the military as the primary means of fulfilling the Great Commission that Gregory X spent is papacy raising money for armies in the name of the Great Commission.
Stop ducking my questions about the 2865 paragraphs in the CCC. You get the point. You are contradicting yourself in how you are defining practices in the present. If you can’t distinguish in real time, there is no difference.
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Clete,
You’re still not really addressing the quicksand of history that Ratzinger affirmed. If TIME allows us to see which dogmas are unchanging and which aren’t, what happened to the Holy Spirit, the pope, the magisterium? History is the great leveler and you quoted Ratzinger approvingly. The Modernists (RC and Prot) understood the challenge of history. You don’t appear to.
Also, despite your riff on development, whenever Protestant claim that they developed doctrines RC’s respond with the great whammy of “Protestants changed” dogma. In fact, Trent on one level is a rejection of development.
As for higher criticism, popes from Pius X to Pius XII saw higher criticism as a threat. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But how can you trust pope who are charged with protecting the church from error getting it so wrong and needing other bishops to correct them? It really doesn’t do justice to Protestantism’s original challenge to papal supremacy. If Trent had been as flexible as Vat 2, do you think W. Christianity would have broken apart the way it did? Where’s JPII’s apology to Prot’s? I WANT MY MAYPO!
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CD-H, “you can’t have it both ways.” Not according to the hermeneutic of continuity. Apply it to the Affordable Care Act, and the Bishops should be able to support it. Doh!
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@DgH
I do I think the breaking apart was inevitable. I think without the ever increasing violence Western Christianity goes through the reformation with something like the political reforms of the Italian Pataria, the ethical reforms of the Cathars, the social reforms from Aquitaine…. A glorious renaissance centuries before. But one that probably splits Christianity into a variety of affiliated sects with an expectations that members flow between them: more like Hinduism or American Protestantism than the middle ages. Trent is tail of the rejectionism of the 12th century.
By the 1540s I don’t think there was anything the Catholics could have done to avoid the split at least into national churches. The very nature of the Catholic church would prevent it from ever supporting a split into national churches. On doctrinal issues Trent could have endorsed sola fide and sola scriptura would have been an issue.
The time for compromise had passed. The opportunity for compromise I think died in the 12th century. By the 16th it would be like the North Korean regime trying to compromise with their population to retain control today.
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@DgH
True. I’d love to see if Bryan’s argument for continuity on this topic ( http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/10/on-religious-liberty-an-objection-considered/ ) has any legs. Philosophically it works. Historically though I don’t see how you can possible make the facts fit the idea that the church was opposed to indifferentism rather than genuinely opposed to other religious expressions.
Burning people alive for intermixing primitive paganism with Catholicism in approved mixtures is not a mild statement of disapproval. One can always just assert as a matter of first principles there must always be continuity ….. I’m too much of an empiricist to go for that. At a certain point is stops being a hermeneutic and becomes a fantasy.
As an aside, as far as I know the Bishops mostly do support the ACA. They disagree with a few clauses like contraception. But overwhelming they support the goal of universal access. I suspect if one were to put full repeal to an up or down vote of the Bishops they would vote against repeal. Cardinal Dolan is a real outlier on banding together with Republicans on this issue, and even he frequently hedged regarding how much he liked about the bill.
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CdH,
This will be lengthy because I take challenges of mischaracterizing sources seriously, so apologies.
“You are quoting Gregory way out of context, the context is blood libel.”
First, you just said “That letter doesn’t prohibit violence against Jews.” Do you concede now it prohibits violence against Jews?
Secondly, Are you are saying every statement of Gregory’s encyclical is directly tied to blood libel? No, he is reiterating the previous statements of Sicut Judaeis (issued by Gregory I in 6th century which had *nothing* to do with blood libel), as others did. Because blood libel became an epidemic issue in his reign, he then *added* the condemnations of blood libel.
Am I taking it way out of context or off the mark with my previous sentence? Let’s see how others view it.
From The Jew in the Medieval World by Jacob Rader Marcus (a Jewish history scholar and rabbi) – the passage is available on google books:
“In the last decade of the sixth century, Pope Gregory 1 laid down the principle that, though Christianity was to protect itself against the “evil” influence of the Jewish religion, it nevertheless had the obligation to preserve Jewry from the attacks and encroachments of Christians.This sentiment of the Church was prompted both by humaneness and by the desire to preserve jewry as a proof of the truth of Christianity…
This principle of tolerance … became basic in the relations between Catholicism and Judaism. The Church … frequently issued decrees in defense of Jewry. Beginning with Pope Calixtus II (1119-1124), if not before, and going down into the 15th century, a whole series of bulls appeared, threatening Christians with excommunication and other penalities if they converted Jews by force, exercised violence illegaly against them, robbed them of their posessions, attacked them at their devotions, desecrated their cemeteries, or dug up and carried off their dead…
If the Jews were confronted by an unusual peril, the pope would repeat the usual stereotyped phrases of protest taken from the original bull of Calixtus II and would then insert a special paragraph to cover the specifc problem of that day. Thus in 1247 and 1253 Innocent IV strongly discredited the ritual murder accusation …In 127 Pope Gregory X … incorporated two significant statements…the second was a most vigorous denunciation of the ritual murder charge.”
Blood libel is added, what came before is not therefore meant to be abrogated or limited to just blood libel.
Jewish Virtual Library on Pope Gregory 1 from 6th century who issued Sicut Judaies the medievals developed upon (and is another witness in contradiction to this so-called universal doctrine):
“Although approving of the initial stages of the reactions against the Jews in Spain under the Visigoths, nevertheless he insisted that the Jews should be treated with humanity and endeavored to have their legal rights confirmed and respected.The Jews of Italy and other countries frequently appealed to Gregory for protection. He was indignant when synagogues were destroyed and ordered them to be rebuilt. One of his epistles, beginning with the words Sicut Judaeis, emphasized that the Jews must be protected in the enjoyment of those rights guaranteed to them by law, and this phrase was prefixed (from the 12th century onward) to the traditional protective bull generally issued by every pope on his accession.
Nothing to do with blood libel in the same bull later popes/Gregory renewed.
Same source:
“GREGORY X, pope 1271–76; one of the popes most kindly disposed toward the Jews. Renewing the bull of protection Sicut Judaeis in 1272, he added an important clause: an accusation against Jews based solely on the testimony of Christians was invalid; Jewish witnesses must also appear… It should be noted, however, that Gregory also renewed the bull of Clement IV, Turbato Corde, which delivered the Jews (relapsed converts and their accomplices) into the hands of the Inquisition.”
Agrees with Marcus’ assessment. Blood libel is added. Previous statements in bull stand on their own.
Also note even individual popes like Gregory themselves shifted around in their posture towards the Jews, which has been one of my points about this issue.
Jewish Encyclopedia: “The popes have always condemned, theoretically at least, (1) acts of violence against the Jews, and (2) forcible baptism”
No “blood libel” qualification with condemnation of acts of violence.
Again:“The relations of the popes to the Jews in the subsequent two centuries [after Innocent III] present a rather monotonous aspect. They issued occasional warnings against violence, threatened the princes who allowed the Jews to disregard the canonical laws concerning badges or concerning the employment of Christian servants, but conferred minor favors on certain Jews…”
Doesn’t seem like Jews were suffering from constant state terror but rather “monotonous” papal sanctioned discrimination.
So, no I submit you are wrenching Gregory out of context, not me.
“By ignoring the context, the author’s intent you are shifting Gregory X to mean something totally unlike what he meant or what the people in his cultural context understood him to mean to support a position which you don’t even really believe.”
Did you read PPotJ – the associated commentary reiterates what I said last post and further supports my view, not yours. Here’s some statements of PPoTJ again:
“Even as it is not allowed to the Jews in their assemblies presumptuously to undertake for themselves more than that which is permitted them by law, even so they ought not to suffer any disadvantage in those [privileges] which have been granted them”
“We decree moreover that no Christian shall compel them or any one of their group to come to baptism unwillingly.”
“Moreover no Christian shall presume to seize, imprison, wound, torture, mutilate, kill or inflict violence on them…”
“In addition, no one shall disturb them in any way during the celebration of their festivals…”
Then it comments: [Up to this point Gregory X has merely repeated the bulls of his predecessors.]
Then it gets into blood libel stuff.
The Jewish Virtual Encyclopedia, Rader, Jewish Encyclopedia, and commentary on encyclical agree with how I presented Gregory. Feel free to offer sources supporting your view of Gregory or universal state terror against the Jews.
“A position which I don’t even really believe?”
What are you talking about? I think Jews should be forcibly converted or violently persecuted? If you mean I don’t believe all religions are the same or that governments/societies are not obligated to be neutral or agnostic about religious truth, then yes (as DH also states). Toleration does not mean thinking all religions are the same or there’s no duty/obligation of society to inform consciences of the truth.
“You are defining toleration to mean the opposite of everything is permitted, in which case I never said anything remotely like that.”
No – I’m defining toleration to mean protection of a people against forced conversions and violence. This is why I asked you for clarification about what you mean by suppression. Part of your response included:
“Prior to Innocent III there isn’t much systematic terror against Jews. What actions are taken are taken by local leaders either for against Jews. Church organized persecution starts under Innocent III and picks up steam.”
Gregory X after Innocent disproves it. The Cath Encyclopedia’s note of 30-40 popes endorsing Sicut Judaeis from 1100-1500 disproves it. Jewish Encyclopedia characterizing 2 centuries after Innocent to be “monotonous” disprove it.
“What I said was there was a policy of state terrorism.”
You were citing popes from 11th-19th century endorsing anti-semitic action to partly justify your point. You cited Benedict VIII, Gregory VII, Innocent III,Benedict XIV,Leo XIII and said “Those anti-semitic views were called by Popes doctrine.”
If there was a constant policy/doctrine of state terrorism, why were Jews not being forcibly converted and being protected from violence (not discrimination)?
No, my observation on the relationship between religious violence and the state is not a contradiction. It’s not a contradiction in doctrine. Here’s the doctrine I agree with Brian Harrison that DH espouses and was bringing to light: ” all human persons as such (including, therefore, non-Catholics) have a natural right to immunity from coercion in publicly expressing their beliefs, in circumstances where this does not violate public morality, public peace, or the rights of other citizens.” To those last 3 criteria Harrison drew from DH could also be added “objective moral order”. DH bases it on natural law – that is doctrine.
To prove the contrary – the negation of the above doctrine – official universal teaching would have to be offered that espoused the doctrine that public religious error may always and everywhere be repressed without injustice, simply because it is erroneous; that is, without any regard for the social consequences of either repression or non-repression. That seems difficult; past popes certainly *did* have in mind social consequences and intended to curtail rights.
Now practice – in this case ecclesiastical public law which is changeable legislation.
– Before Vatican II: in a Catholic society, the public practice of non-Catholic cults may, as such, be judged a sufficiently serious threat to the rights of other citizens as to justify legal repression;
– After Vatican II: even in a Catholic society, the public practice of non-Catholic cults may not, as such, be judged a sufficiently serious threat to the rights of other citizens as to justify legal repression.
The change in legislation should be seen as due to a change in the Church’s practical judgment as to the relative weight of the social goods and evils involved in repression or non-repression respectively.
Bishop De Smedt, official relator for the schema on religious liberty at Vat2, told the Council Fathers that the concept of the “common good” is to be understood as “something relative: it is linked to the cultural evolution of peoples and has to be judged according to that development”. In other words, the fact that the Church does not judge non-Catholic propaganda as such to be a punishable violation of others’ rights in today’s Catholic countries does not imply that she acted unjustly by making (and acting upon) the opposite judgments in former times.
Harrison again:
“With Vatican II, Catholic doctrine, or divine law, remains as always that societies and their public authorities are morally obliged to act, legislate, and govern in accordance with the principles of the true religion. (The Council’s Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity also reaffirms that teaching in its article 13, which says that Catholics should “strive to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures” of their community). This same unchanging divine law entails the right and duty of public authorities to penalize those who attack the true religion – to the extent that the common good requires.
But to what extent, precisely, does the common good require such coercive measures? That can vary a great deal according to historic, social, and political circumstances; and the Church’s infallibility does not extend to this area, which is one not of basic principle, but of deciding on proportionate means towards a given end. The Church’s pre-conciliar public law applied the above doctrinal principles by ruling that in overwhelmingly Catholic countries, all non-Catholic religious activity in public should, as such, be considered a danger to the common good, and hence as deserving of legal prohibition.
Vatican II, however, in highlighting another aspect of divine law – the natural right of all men to be left free (within due limits) to practice their own religion without human interference – has in effect substantially changed this earlier ecclesiastical law (not doctrine). In the same way, the Church has often changed many other aspects of her previous legislation or discipline when they no longer seemed appropriate, or appeared to be giving rise to injustices in practice.”
I hope this clarifies things showing there is no doctrinal contradiction or that I contradict myself with my observation on religious violence and the state. I believe such sentiments are in-line with Bryan’s article as well.
“A shift in priorities regarding enemies is not a policy of peace. Gregory’s life long focus on Islam does not prove that he supported religious diversity. If you want a single example of someone who supported religious diversity in the papacy you need an actual example of such a person. Gregory X is not such a person.”
We’re not talking about people. I’m talking about policy endorsed by people. A person could endorse policy at one point, negate at the other. Which has been my *entire* point about popes during this time and the question of tolerance – it shifted back and forth, ebbing and flowing – that’s not an unchanging doctrinal principle and to claim popes viewed it that way when they were shifting *themselves* back and forth does not fly. If the policy was endorsed at one point, for a people, that shows the universality of endorsement of state terror simply is not true.
“When they are stated as doctrine, yes they do.”
First part is yet to be proven.
“It is not “so what” if you are going to argue that popes didn’t believe in using the military as the primary means of fulfilling the Great Commission that Gregory X spent is papacy raising money for armies in the name of the Great Commission.”
Let’s go over it again. Practice is not doctrine. Not all teaching (even with moral components) from the hierarchy is doctrine. Not all teaching (even with moral components) applies universally throughout both to the geographic Catholic world and the anthropological faithful as a whole. Irreformable teaching on faith and morals is that which meets vat1 criteria (one of the criteria is the previous sentence). RCism does not teach non-infallible teaching is irreformable. RCism does teach development of doctrine can happen, in which the essence of the infallible doctrine is retained, but what was implicit is brought out more fully. Crusades, Innocent, Inquisition do not touch this.
“If you can’t distinguish [differences between doctrine and practice] in real time, there is no difference.”
That’s completely wrong. First, just because one cannot distinguish *all* differences between doctrine and practice in real time, does not mean one cannot distinguish *some*. Secondly, I am not dodging the question by asking it back to you – Protestants in the past did not distinguish correctly between doctrine and practice in certain matters. Did that mean there was no difference at that time?
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Darryl,
“If TIME allows us to see which dogmas are unchanging and which aren’t, what happened to the Holy Spirit, the pope, the magisterium?”
Development is guided within time, not solely a slave of time. Means, not just ends, work themselves out accordingly.
“Also, despite your riff on development, whenever Protestant claim that they developed doctrines RC’s respond with the great whammy of “Protestants changed” dogma. In fact, Trent on one level is a rejection of development.”
If by Trent rejecting development, you mean it rejected notions contradicting it, then yes. How can different contradictory development all be authentic? Did the WCF or Dordt reject development when condemning errors? Truth matters of course.
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In the FWIW category:
The Roman Catholic Socialist Agenda
Compassionate Fascism
As regards other various loose ends:
Still looking for that revealed deposit of faith – which presumes it can be objectively and quantitatively listed.
CVD wants to authoritatively declare that the Assumption is an infallible dogma, saving himself some argument no doubt, which thereby proves the efficacy of the Roman system over and against protestantism.
Problem is, one, the same is not found in Scripture, history or reason, which leaves him with an appeal to implicit faith, i.e. fideism to shore up its credibility among the gullible faithful who believe it because Rome/CVD says so.
Two, there are overlooked alternatives to his explanation. One correct promulgation of an infallible doctrine does not make papal infallibility a slam dunk. As it stands and as above, the pope is playing blind man’s buff when it comes to Scripture, history and reason and only those who are pre-committed to the pope’s authority will buy in. Ahem, a foregone conclusion is not an argument in either the real or the protestant world.
Further the existence of Mormonism and its claim to an apostolic office and the insufficiency of the NT, never mind it’s denial of the trinity for one, place it outside of Christianity proper. IOW CVD doesn’t understand the protestant doctrine of Scripture, which contra the Roman lip service to a “revealed deposit of faith”, positively and objectively identifies the Word of God as something not open to further expansion by papists or mormons.
Of course, that Mormonism is the bete noire of Bryan and precipitated his crisis of faith is to be expected. That we walk by faith and not by sight, much more faith in the Word of God become flesh, which faith cannot be divorced from the Word written, is antithetical to his philosphical predisposition to reason/philosophy, i.e the “it seems reasonable that Christ would not leave his church without an infallible interpreter”. Well yes, Christ has left us an infallible record of the apostolic traditions/teachings in the NT, but if you insist on an ideal, pristine and prefect certainty, than you had better stick with syllogisms and papal hand waving which are to be taken purely on faith of the baldest kind.
In short, though CVD denies it, epistemology is the name of the game and Scripture is the justification of knowledge for protestants. In it is taught all that is necessary for salvation and a godly life as clearly as he thinks he explains his own arguments and justifications for his papal fideism.
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Compassionate Fascism
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Cletus,
If you came across an RC who denied the Assumption or the Real Presence, would that make you rethink your view that RCism teaches the Assumption or the Real Presence?
No. My point in bringing up the example of a RC who denied a fixed deposit of faith once for all delivered was merely to show that I’m not sure Rome is settled on the matter.
If there is a fixed deposit of faith, where is it? Rome has never infallibly defined it as far as I know. I mean, we have a biblical canon, but no defined list of revealed facts given outside of the canon. It would be easier to buy the RC idea of further understanding of the deposit of faith if we actually knew what it was.
Look, I can respect your position that the deposit of faith was once for all revealed, but now you have to show me where it is. It seems to me that actual Roman practice is to add to the deposit of faith, not merely understand it. The Assumption of Mary being perhaps the best example of something no one heard of for hundreds of years.
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Clete, that’s not what Ratzinger said: “Only time has permitted discernment and, after deeper study, the attainment of true doctrinal progress.” Pius X would have said what you did about being “within time.” Who wouldn’t unless you were some kind of mystic. But historicism is a different animal and if you’re not troubled by it you’re not troubled by modernism.
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Robert, you are onto something here, You asked: If there is a fixed deposit of faith, where is it? Rome has never infallibly defined it as far as I know. I mean, we have a biblical canon, but no defined list of revealed facts given outside of the canon. It would be easier to buy the RC idea of further understanding of the deposit of faith if we actually knew what it was.
If you check the section of the CCC that deals with this (approx. 74 ff), you’ll find this note in CCC 86: “All that [the Magisterium] proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.”
So, the “deposit of faith” is encompassed by everything that is in Scripture and Tradition. However, “all that the Magisterium proposes” seems merely to be a subset of “the entire deposit of faith”
So they are lacking two “canons” – the first is “what is proposed by the Magisterium as being divinely revealed …” – this certainly has no “infallible canon. But one step back beyond that is the “entire deposit of faith” which knows of no boundaries.
It is simply a wax nose to be formed and shaped by whomever in whatever capacity.
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John,
I had one RC interlocutor tell me that there is no single deposit given once for all but that it basically grows. He said that the patristic view was that they were adding to the tradition given by the apostles. Of course, I don’t believe he is correct on that reading of the fathers, but such a view does seem exactly what Rome practices. They aren’t coming to a fuller understanding of the deposit of faith—that’s actually the Protestant position! They’re adding to the deposit of faith by being unwilling to be corrected by the deposit itself.
Kenneth, who has been commenting here, told me that the way we know what the church fathers taught is according to what the Magisterium tells us they taught. If that isn’t a view that leads to an ever-growing deposit of faith, I don’t know what is.
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Darryl,
I’m not troubled by modernism with Ratzinger’s statement in the same way I’m not troubled by by modernism with development. Could modernists use that single sentence to support their view? Maybe, but just as they did with Newman and development, they would be in error to do so and illegitimately using it. I don’t know if I really have to prove Ratzinger believes in development of doctrine the same way non-modernists have the past 150 years, or that he thinks “true doctrinal progress” does not by its very nature necessarily involve the assistance of divine assistance – I would think that could just be assumed given his body of work (I never knew anyone who called Ratzinger leaning liberal) – the burden would be on the opposing party to offer more than one sentence.
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@CvD
It prohibits particular types of violent or coercive acts in particular circumstances it is not a general prohibition and is far less general then you are characterizing it as being. I’ll hit your points below.
I’m saying that’s the theme of the bull and extrapolating beyond that context introduces the reader’s opinion. This context is Catholic historians title the letter “Against the Blood Libel”. Gregory himself gives the context multiple times opening with, “we therefore admit their petition” indicating he’s responding to a petition. He then lists specifics.
For the first 6 paragraphs he restates doctrine.
3rd-4th paragraph: No forced conversions
5th paragraph: No interference in festivals or slavery.
Then in the 7th paragraph, “And most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jews have secretly and furtively carried away these children and killed them” . The 8th paragraph he states, they should not be imprisoned for this silly pretext. So as soon as he does more then restate previous popes he ties this directly to the blood libel again. The 9th is an extension he prohibits a type of grave robbing extortion. The 10th paragraph is a signature block.
That the contents of the letter. The context is clear: here is existing law, this new situation has arisen and he considers it to be BS because it is silly and false. The Catholic church has always been opposed to false conversion, it has always been opposed to dishonest testimony and charges… He is not asserting a change in doctrine but rather a specific application.
Innocent III the Pope who liked the “kill them all and let God sort them out” was also opposed to desecration of Jewish cemeteries and forced conversions. Heck, the German Nazis were opposed to Lithuanian Nazis pulling Jews off trains and murdering them right there in public. They ordered instead that they be sent to concentration camps. Under the definition you are applying the German Nazis would be protectors of the Jews.
Yes.
The Jewish virtual library quote is about Gregory I not Gregory X, 6 centuries earlier.
Jacob Rader Marcus: also has a lot about about Gregory I not Gregory X. Not relevant. The rest of the quote talks about illegal violence, blood libel, grave robbing, … which I agree Gregory and the church was opposed to.
Or how about trying this one on for size. Gregory X meant what he says 2 years later in his renewal of Turbato Corde (which you admit he did). He isn’t an anarchist and disapproves of random violence, extortion…. But in no way does he have anything but full support for a regulated system of state terror against Jews. He has a consistent policy during his 5 year papacy, he’s not floating back and forth he means what he directly says he means. He also happens to consider Islam the much greater threat and focus his attention there. Just read his letters in the context he explicitly indicates they should be read in.
Just as Jews in the American South during the 20th century benefited from the fact that the Klan was more interested in going after Blacks than Jews, Jews did well under Gregory X because he was more focused on Muslims.
Fair enough, something like this. Organized religious suppression is any state policy designed explicitly to prevent the public expression of religion. State terror goes further and is a state policy designed to put so much pressure on a religious group as to cause their membership to change opinion and thereby move the population towards adoption of one religion over another.
No, to prove the contrary you would just need to see the magisterium directly ordering or encouraging repression on a regular basis towards minority religious groups, and defending it on doctrinal grounds. Which is what you do see.
That’s religious repression. As an aside the church also very aggressively went after private / secret practice. They set up and funded an entire investigative organization to do so.
John Paul II doesn’t agree with you. He most certain did object to the belief of the Reichsgau Wartheland (Polish Nazi Occupation Government) that they had the right to suppress Catholic propaganda and that such actions were unjust even though the priests were a threat to the public order. Or to pick another example when Switzerland banned the Jesuits as a threat to public peace and raided their monasteries that would have also been just under the public order doctrine. Or to pick a post Vatican II case the Catholic church objected on moral grounds when the Sri Lankan government closed the Catholic schools under the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government because they taught doctrines in opposition to the local Buddhist culture.
Catholics were in favor of religious suppression when they were the ones doing the suppressing. Their attitude changed when other groups gained that power. They no longer believe that threats to the public order justify repression.
No, it doesn’t show there is no doctrinal contradiction. Doctrines claim to be moral. Morality requires that rules that are applied are applied generally not specifically. It cannot be moral for me to have the right to take your property but if you take my property that’s stealing. So unless the doctrine really boils is “it’s OK when we do it but not when other do” which isn’t a moral doctrine then Harrison is a complete copout. The objections in those 3 cases prove that the magisterium does not agree with Harrison.
Of course we are talking about people. Catholic doctrine in year X is whatever Catholics think the doctrine in year X is. That’s the whole point of the theology of a visible church. Otherwise, you revert to the Protestant theory of an invisible church where “Christian theology” of “the theology of Christians” could very well be entirely distinct.
They excommunicated people for refusing to obey orders to oppress. That is a declaration of doctrine.
Here we disagree. I’ve discussed that earlier in the thread. The church’s claim is that its statements about faith and morals are correct. If they aren’t then the CCC is mostly just a collection of opinions. You can’t have it both ways.
Yes. When a Protestant church claims X is a doctrine of the faith that becomes a doctrine of that church. So for example the OPC split with the PCUSA over how denominations should fund missionary boards. Both sides agreed this was a doctrinal dispute, once they were disagreeing about ends and not just specific application.
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Robert,
“I’m not sure Rome is settled on the matter”
If you would like to offer witnesses from history or church teaching to the contrary, feel free. Is Protestantism settled on the matter of their recognition of the canon and contents therein being closed?
“If there is a fixed deposit of faith, where is it? ”
Well, you know the standard reply – in Scripture and Tradition as protected and expounded by the Magisterium.
“Rome has never infallibly defined it as far as I know. I mean, we have a biblical canon, but no defined list of revealed facts given outside of the canon. It would be easier to buy the RC idea of further understanding of the deposit of faith if we actually knew what it was.”
2 issues. You cannot reduce faith to rationalism – if we have to “prove” everything to our satisfaction before accepting, you have eviscerated the notion of faith (did you prove the inspiration of every book and every passage you recognize to yourself before accepting the canon?). Immediately I add that does not mean the options are limited to blind fideism or skeptical rationalism (where the supernatural would be accepted by natural means which is nonsensical). There is a mean between the two – faith and reason working together.
Secondly, yes you have a biblical canon. Does that mean you have an infallible exhaustive list of essential teachings contained therein that can be enumerated? I do not think Protestantism posits such a notion. And this touches on the first point – is the recognized biblical canon and contents therein you have infallible or has Protestantism never infallibly defined it?
“Look, I can respect your position that the deposit of faith was once for all revealed, but now you have to show me where it is.”
In Scripture and the Tradition/life of the church. It’s not some gnostic secret RCism hides from the world.
“It seems to me that actual Roman practice is to add to the deposit of faith, not merely understand it.”
No, it is developed. The word “deposit” itself indicates something to be reflected upon and mined and plumbed – the “deposit of faith” is by its nature inexhaustible – development will continue, what is implicit can be made explicit (deeper understanding). But that does not mean it is added to or subtracted from or transformed/mutated. Protestantism affirms development – no one then, assuming Protestant principles, accuses Protestantism of adding to the deposit of faith because of developed doctrines.
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CVD,
Where do we find the Assumption of Mary in the deposit of faith. Which apostolic traditions once-delivered are reflected upon to give us this doctrine. There’s no reference to it that I know of before Nicea.
Again, if the deposit of faith is fixed, where is it? Where is the list of fixed oral traditions that the apostles gave that are not recorded in Scripture? Saying it’s in the life of the church is not good enough. Anything can come into the life of the church and then be called tradition.
Where is papal infallibility? The East rejects it as a part of the deposit of faith once delivered.
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Cdh,
you have left out quite a number of trads my good man. When in doubt…. Check wikipedia
Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP)
Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICRSS),
Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer
Institute of the Good Shepherd (IGS)
Servants of Jesus and Mary (Servi Jesu et Mariae, SJM)
Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem (CRNJ)
Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius (SJC)
Canons Regular of the Holy Cross
Fraternity of Saint Vincent Ferrer
Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney (PAASJV)
Miles Christi (MC)
Franciscans of the Immaculate
etc.
etc.
etc.
There are also multiple monastic communities, including
Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation of Clear Creek
Monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia
Monks of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount
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Just as an aside, I find it not a little bit ironic that the same group(CDF) who made all sorts of interpretive conclusions based on Bultmann’s word/event dichotomy and ‘historical discovery’ of the ‘historical Jesus’ of which Ratzinger was one as advisor to the German bishops during the council. Now, come back under Ratzinger, as head of the CDF in 1978, and borrow from the ‘other side'(conservative) protestant exegetes; PRESUMING upon the originalness/uniqueness of a cultic word, that, in Kantian fashion, is impervious to philosophical preconditions against the supernatural. AGAIN, whatever ‘progress’ the RC exegetes, including Ratzinger made, either liberal or conservative, was made on the backs of protestant, logocentric exegetes. The RC has been following the protestants around the bible since at least 1962.
So, if you wanna know where the next round of RC development is coming from, keep a close eye on what’s prevalant in protestant hermenuetics.
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Robert,
Generally not great practice to ignore the bulk of a person’s replies in a discussion.
“Where do we find the Assumption of Mary in the deposit of faith. Which apostolic traditions once-delivered are reflected upon to give us this doctrine. There’s no reference to it that I know of before Nicea.”
The Assumption developed in part from Christological and Mariological doctrines before it, from which the implicit could then be made explicit, and from subsequent deeper developed insights into Scripture. You’re right about Nicea – of course there was witness to it in feasts and writings from the 5th century with no sustained or stark opposition I’m aware of. If it was all just evil papacy corruption, odd that the East holds to the Dormition.
“Again, if the deposit of faith is fixed, where is it? Where is the list of fixed oral traditions that the apostles gave that are not recorded in Scripture?”
The fact that such Scripture is indeed inspired is itself part of Tradition. Was the church operating before all scripture was recorded?
“Saying it’s in the life of the church is not good enough.”
Let’s take a secular/natural example. America has a tradition right? Would you agree that American tradition is encapsulated in the life of America? And included in this life are various witnesses to that tradition (our government, constitution, founding fathers, liberty, americana (apple pie, baseball)), etc). Would you then say “Saying America’s tradition is reflected in the life of America” is not enough?
“Anything can come into the life of the church and then be called tradition. ”
I already spoke to this a bit in last post. You are asking me something akin to asking you where is the exhaustive list of all essential doctrines from the canonical books located. Saying everything is just “in the bible” is not good enough. Anything can come down as a proposed teaching of the Bible (or proposed addition/subtraction from the canonical books or contents therein) and then be called scriptural teaching.
Saying “Anything can come into the life of the church and then be called tradition” is presupposing RCism’s notion of Tradition and the Magisterium is false, which is precisely what is in question.
“Where is papal infallibility? The East rejects it as a part of the deposit of faith once delivered.”
PI was developed from Petrine primacy, amongst other things. Yep, the East rejects it, as does Protestantism. Doesn’t mean it’s false because of that. This is a red herring anyways – on things the West and East do agree as part of the deposit of faith, you would still disagree with.
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CdH,
“For the first 6 paragraphs he restates doctrine…That the contents of the letter. The context is clear: here is existing law, this new situation has arisen and he considers it to be BS because it is silly and false”
Great. Yes I agree he was addressing blood libel which he focuses on after the first 6 paras. That doesn’t mean when he “renews” the older bull, he therefore means all the previous condemnations now need to be viewed in light of this addition – their original sense remains which was one of the points of my outside citations.
“The Jewish virtual library quote is about Gregory I not Gregory X, 6 centuries earlier.”
I cited both Gregory I and Gregory X entries. The point of the Gregory I quote was two-fold. First, to show universal state terror or repression of the Jews was not universal throughout history and indeed contradicted at times (unless rebuilding synagogues was state terror), which is enough to show it cannot be some doctrinal principle. Secondly, the bull that the 30-40 medieval popes including Gregory X “renewed” was the informed by Gregory I in 6th century and Calixtus in 12th, which of course had nothing to do with blood libel.
“Jacob Rader Marcus: also has a lot about about Gregory I not Gregory X. Not relevant.”
Gregory I is relevant as stated above. Rader’s quote also indicates Gregory I’s “principle of tolerance” became basic in Catholic-Jewish relations, and then Rader makes the point again about how popes would add to the bull; that does not therefore change the context/meaning of the previous 6 paragraphs.
“He has a consistent policy during his 5 year papacy, he’s not floating back and forth he means what he directly says he means.”
So you should be able to cite from his entire reign documents that remain in effect the entire time ordering persecution of Jews at all times and everywhere by judicial means right?
Jewish Encyclopedia again: ““The relations of the popes to the Jews in the subsequent two centuries [after Innocent III] present a rather monotonous aspect. They issued occasional warnings against violence, threatened the princes who allowed the Jews to disregard the canonical laws concerning badges or concerning the employment of Christian servants, but conferred minor favors on certain Jews…”
It’s not constant active policy of state terror and persecuting Jews.
“Just as Jews in the American South during the 20th century benefited from the fact that the Klan was more interested in going after Blacks than Jews, Jews did well under Gregory X because he was more focused on Muslims.”
Right – so if it was a universal doctrinal principle, how could it be relaxed at times for a particular religious group? My point is I don’t need to show toleration for all groups at all times, I just need to show some degree of toleration for some particular group at some particular time.
“Organized religious suppression is any state policy designed explicitly to prevent the public expression of religion.”
Gregory I: rebuilt synagogues
PPotJ from Gregory X (and the 30-40 other popes endorsing it for 4 centuries): Let Jews practice their festivals.
So religious suppression is not universal.
“State terror goes further and is a state policy designed to put so much pressure on a religious group as to cause their membership to change opinion and thereby move the population towards adoption of one religion over another.”
See above.
“That’s religious repression. As an aside the church also very aggressively went after private / secret practice. They set up and funded an entire investigative organization to do so.”
I *agree* the RC engaged in religious repression. The part you quoted from was where I was citing ecclesiastical law/practice which obviously changes. The unchanging doctrinal principle is again: “All human persons as such (including, therefore, non-Catholics) have a natural right to immunity from coercion in publicly expressing their beliefs, in circumstances where this does not violate public morality, public peace, or the rights of other citizens.” Circumstances and the “common good” vary from time and place and are reflected in the changing ecclesiastical law, as the official relator at Vat2 on this issue said which I cited.
“John Paul II doesn’t agree with you. He most certain did object to the belief of the Reichsgau Wartheland (Polish Nazi Occupation Government) that they had the right to suppress Catholic propaganda and that such actions were unjust even though the priests were a threat to the public order.”
That’s why John Paul II demanded “objective” qualify “moral order” in the statement on religious liberty.
“Harrison is a complete copout.”
Feel free to interact with my citation of him. He distinguishes the doctrine from practice/discipline.
“They excommunicated people for refusing to obey orders to oppress. That is a declaration of doctrine.”
Please cite from Church documents where excommunication is proposed as doctrine. I’ll save you the trouble – you cannot.
“Here we disagree. I’ve discussed that earlier in the thread. The church’s claim is that its statements about faith and morals are correct. If they aren’t then the CCC is mostly just a collection of opinions. You can’t have it both ways.”
After all this, perhaps we’ll just agree to disagree. I don’t know how a system can be accused of contradicting itself unless you show that it fails to meet its own criteria of irreformable teaching.
“Yes. When a Protestant church claims X is a doctrine of the faith that becomes a doctrine of that church. So for example the OPC split with the PCUSA over how denominations should fund missionary boards. Both sides agreed this was a doctrinal dispute, once they were disagreeing about ends and not just specific application.”
Wait – how missionary boards should be funded is an unchanging doctrinal principle? It’s not practice/discipline? Seriously?
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CVD,
Not ignoring your response, just dealing with the matter at hand.
I already spoke to this a bit in last post. You are asking me something akin to asking you where is the exhaustive list of all essential doctrines from the canonical books located. Saying everything is just “in the bible” is not good enough. Anything can come down as a proposed teaching of the Bible (or proposed addition/subtraction from the canonical books or contents therein) and then be called scriptural teaching.
Wrong. When you ask me where the deposit of faith is located, I can tell you “the Bible.” When I ask you, you want to tell me the “Bible plus x.” What is the x? Where has Rome defined that? Where is the body of material that it works with that is the once-for-all delivered deposit. Is it everything Augustine wrote? Is it half? What about Origen?
If the life of the church is tradition, then everything is tradition and there is no fixed deposit of faith.
I understand that the assumption is a “developed doctrine” that the East also accepts. I’m looking for the particular item in the delivered apostolic tradition from which it is birthed. The NT doesn’t mention it or any of the specific RC Marian doctrines. It certainly isn’t a good and necessary deduction from the biblical material.
I’m presupposing that the RC view of tradition is false because there’s nothing you can point to. When you can give me a list of writings, traditions, etc. from the first century besides the NT that constitute the fixed apostolic deposit of faith, then you can tell me there is a fixed body of material the apostles gave under the RC paradigm. Until then, you just have a wax nose where tradition can be anything Rome says it is.
Where do the Apostles teach the assumption? What in the NT or whatever the oral material is that they gave outside the NT teaches it or is foundational so that it is an inevitable deduction?
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Clete, except that you’re not doing justice to Ratzinger’s fingerprints on Vat 2. It’s not as if he was all about maintaining Pius X’s views then. But when post-Vat 2 happened, folks like Ratzinger became like politicos like Neuhaus. They got mugged by reality and so a liberals became neo-cons.
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@CvD
You are assuming what you are trying to prove. I asserted pretty clearly the doctrine changed under Innocent III and then starting changing around 1618 to evolve into what we see with Vatican II. You don’t disprove the change from the middle ages popes to Vatican II by showing pre-middle ages popes had yet another different doctrine.
I’ll pick the example you mentioned it yourself in your November 24, 2013 6:00 pm post, Turbato Corde. Christians who participated in Jewish rites were to be considered heretics (i.e. to be subject to state terror). There was no conversion out of Christianity under Gregory X. That’s asymmetrical of course because under Gregory Jews who engaged in Christian practice were not only not held liable but the state was obligated to give them a stipend and their property had extra legal protections attached to it. Those were in effect during his entire rein and upheld.
CCC 1461-7 Defines excommunication as a moral act indicting a judgement of moral status.
Summa S.21.2.A The judgment of the Church should be conformed to the judgment of God. Now God punishes the sinner in many ways, in order to draw him to good, either by chastising him with stripes, or by leaving him to himself so that being deprived of those helps whereby he was kept out of evil, he may acknowledge his weakness, and humbly return to God Whom he had abandoned in his pride. In both these respects the Church by passing sentence of excommunication imitates the judgment of God. For by severing a man from the communion of the faithful that he may blush with shame, she imitates the judgment whereby God chastises man with stripes; and by depriving him of prayers and other spiritual things, she imitates the judgment of God in leaving man to himself, in order that by humility he may learn to know himself and return to God.
An excommunication constitutes a moral claim.
Let’s rephrase the claim ,”doctrines defined how Catholics normally use the term have changed over time”. The word tends to get defined down apologetically when discussing things like anti-semitism, but then gets used in its normal sense for arguing that Catholics for Choice don’t really represent Catholicism. There never was a claim that irreformable teaching or infallible teachings have changed overtime. The argument is and always has been about about whether the church is consistent on its teachings about matters of faith and morals. Right next to the CCC I have Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. I’d bet almost every Protestant on here loves that book and it’s 784 pages of well reasoned well argued opinions on biblical matters almost all of which even Berkhof believes are potentially errant. Catholics normally claim the CCC is fundamentally different. That’s the standard we are discussing.
I didn’t say unchanging I said doctrinal. Protestants make no claim to having unchanging doctrines. And yes, Machen made doctrinal claims that moral issues were at stake.
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“Look, I can respect your position that the deposit of faith was once for all revealed, but now you have to show me where it is.”
In Scripture and the Tradition/life of the church. It’s not some gnostic secret RCism hides from the world.
Yeah, and “you can keep your current healthcare plan and doctor if you want to”.
IOW what are they juicing up the holywater with nowadays that our papist interlokewter can make such a brazen faced comment and think he can get away with it?
We want a list of the
lost apostolic oraltraditions and infallible statements of the pope to which the souls of the faithful are bound, if we/they don’t take the implicit faith routeto hell.Like why have an infallible spokesman, if you don’t have a record, never mind infallible, of what he opined upon? Once again, upon examination, yet another of the vaunted Roman advantages to protestantism is seen for what it is, superficial and shallow, if not a blatant fraud.
Ah, but we are authoritatively instructed that it is “Generally not great practice to ignore the bulk of a person’s replies in a discussion”.
Snicker/hoot/howl. When the bulk of one’s post is idiotic/irrelevant/highly irrational, guess what pal?
Stop leading with your chin and maybe people won’t poke you in the kazoo, however uncharitable you think their reaction to your twaddle is.
The problem is the Roman church as a vicious, despicable and stupefying superstition, thinks it can usurp the power, position and place of the Holy Spirit in lording it over the sheep.
After all, as we are told elsewhere, by another self appointed and fallible purveyor of papal poop,
“The Mark of Unity is found primarily in the relation of the episcopate to the papacy.”
So there you have it, boys and girls. The sheep, for whom Christ came to save, and whom the officers of the church are to serve, are not even in the picture. It’s all about the bishops and the pope. Keep writing the checks though. The German bishops are used to the condos and Mercedes. Let’s not disappoint them.
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CdH,
“I asserted pretty clearly the doctrine changed under Innocent III and then starting changing around 1618 to evolve into what we see with Vatican II. You don’t disprove the change from the middle ages popes to Vatican II by showing pre-middle ages popes had yet another different doctrine.”
I see – so this universal doctrine was not really in place till middle ages and contradicted by pre-middle ages. Then it became universal doctrine in middle ages. Then Vat2 changed it again. And this proves Rome viewed it as an unchanging doctrinal principle somehow and contradicted itself.
“Christians who participated in Jewish rites were to be considered heretics (i.e. to be subject to state terror).”
So now we’re not saying all non-Catholics suffered universal/constant state terror, only converts out of Catholicism. But this doctrine is still universal to all non-Catholics somehow.
“An excommunication constitutes a moral claim.”
An excommunication is a disciplinary measure kicking someone out of the Church and calling them to repentance. Disciplinary measures are not doctrine.
“1463 Certain particularly grave sins incur excommunication, the most severe ecclesiastical penalty, which impedes the reception of the sacraments and the exercise of certain ecclesiastical acts, and for which absolution consequently cannot be granted, according to canon law, except by the Pope, the bishop of the place or priests authorized by them….”
Church has never claimed ecclesiastical acts/canon law are doctrine or unchangeable.
“There never was a claim that irreformable teaching or infallible teachings have changed overtime. The argument is and always has been about about whether the church is consistent on its teachings about matters of faith and morals.”
Teachings and application are different. And within teaching itself, there are distinctions and levels (for example, a teaching to a king or a particular region or a particular people is not at the same level as a teaching given to the universal church, and not all teaching is claimed as divinely revealed truth, and there are other such distinctions). RCism makes these distinctions. So that’s what needs to be claimed in mind when charging inconsistency.
“Right next to the CCC I have Berkhof’s Systematic Theology. I’d bet almost every Protestant on here loves that book and it’s 784 pages of well reasoned well argued opinions on biblical matters almost all of which even Berkhof believes are potentially errant. Catholics normally claim the CCC is fundamentally different. That’s the standard we are discussing.”
I don’t know any Catholic who claims every thing taught in the CCC is divinely revealed and irreformable. They will claim that some teachings in there are divinely revealed and infallible. They will not claim every teaching in there is potentially errant. Which is what you’re claiming with Berkhof and I assume the confessions. That’s the “fundamental difference”.
“I didn’t say unchanging I said doctrinal. Protestants make no claim to having unchanging doctrines. And yes, Machen made doctrinal claims that moral issues were at stake.”
Doctrine has a specific meaning in RCism – it’s not just general “any random type of teaching on faith and morals in any context”. The fact that you equate “how to fund missionary boards” to doctrine speaks to the differences between our systems and why we may be talking past each other.
And, again, seriously? Protestantism makes no claim to have any unchanging doctrines? I thought Protestantism subscribed to divine revelation.
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Robert,
“Wrong. When you ask me where the deposit of faith is located, I can tell you “the Bible.””
Really? Which books? And what passages contained therein?
“When I ask you, you want to tell me the “Bible plus x.” What is the x? Where has Rome defined that? Where is the body of material that it works with that is the once-for-all delivered deposit. Is it everything Augustine wrote? Is it half? What about Origen?”
The Bible itself is a product of Tradition. It is written tradition, but tradition nevertheless. As I said before, the knowledge that Scripture is indeed inspired and not just a bunch of writings about what people thought is itself a product of Tradition. So it’s not “Bible plus x”. It’s Bible as interpreted in the light of Tradition. And in fact I could agree that the deposit is “the Bible” in a materially sufficient sense.
Tradition includes the common teaching, life, and worship of the church that has been passed down through history. There are various witnesses to such Tradition throughout history – these would include the creeds, the councils, the liturgy, the fathers. No it’s not everything the fathers wrote. The fathers writings could disappear tomorrow. They are not Tradition itself, they are witnesses. It is also a living tradition, not static, and develops.
As Dei Verbum stated:
“And so the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved by an unending succession of preachers until the end of time. …Now what was handed on by the Apostles includes everything which contributes toward the holiness of life and increase in faith of the peoples of God; and so the Church, in her teaching, life and worship, perpetuates and hands on to all generations all that she herself is, all that she believes.
This tradition which comes from the Apostles develop in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts (see Luke, 2:19, 51) through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through Episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her.
The words of the holy fathers witness to the presence of this living tradition, whose wealth is poured into the practice and life of the believing and praying Church. Through the same tradition the Church’s full canon of the sacred books is known, and the sacred writings themselves are more profoundly understood and unceasingly made active in her; and thus God, who spoke of old, uninterruptedly converses with the bride of His beloved Son; and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, and through her, in the world, leads unto all truth those who believe and makes the word of Christ dwell abundantly in them (see Col. 3:16).”
“If the life of the church is tradition, then everything is tradition and there is no fixed deposit of faith.”
If everything was Tradition, there’d be no distinctions between levels/types of teachings.
“I understand that the assumption is a “developed doctrine” that the East also accepts. I’m looking for the particular item in the delivered apostolic tradition from which it is birthed.”
The liturgical feast for the Assumption was universal by 6th/7th century in both West and East. A universal liturgical feast does not pop up overnight. It was reflected in the “common teaching, life, worship” of the church.
John of Thessalonica in 7th century investigated the issue: “Practically every place under heaven celebrates every year the memory of her going to her rest, with the exception of only a few, including the region around this divinely protected city of Thessalonica. Why is this? ….Our forebears, then, were neither heedless nor lazy; yet although those who were present then [at Mary’s death] described her end truthfully, we are told, mischievous heretics later corrupted their accounts by adding words of their own, and for this reason our ancestors distanced themselves from these accounts as not in accord with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the feast (of her Domition) passed, among them, into oblivion….We have ourselves spent no small effort preparing to set before your devout ears–to awaken and to build up your souls–not everything we have found written, in different ways, in different books, about that event, but only what truly happened, what is remembered as having taken place, and what is witnessed until today by the existence of actual sites. We have gathered these testimonies together in love of truth and in fear of God, taking no account of fabricated stories, since they have been interpolated into the traditions by the malice of those who fabricated them.”
“The NT doesn’t mention it or any of the specific RC Marian doctrines. It certainly isn’t a good and necessary deduction from the biblical material.”
I understand you think this. That of course presupposes what constitutes what’s “good and necessary”, and what “mentioning” something means.
“Until then, you just have a wax nose where tradition can be anything Rome says it is.”
If this is true, Rome could just ignore what’s come before and just teach whatever fits its fancy. You will claim it’s done so – you did once with Vat2 and the Syllabus. I showed, I hope to your satisfaction, that there was no contradiction. If what you said was true, it wouldn’t matter even if there was a contradiction. This was also brought up earlier with about “no salvation outside the church” – Rome could tomorrow say “there is no salvation inside the church” or “the church is not a necessary instrument of salvation”. Or it could just say tomorrow “James and Revelation aren’t canonical or inspired – forget about them”. It can’t and won’t do any of those things.
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@CvD
Yes. During the 6th century which you keep mentioning, European armies were many Arian. A doctrine that supported armies enforcing their faith on civilian populations wouldn’t have been in the Catholic church’s interest so it wasn’t Catholic doctrine.
I think you have lost the thread of the argument.
Vatican II asserts a right to religious freedom. You were arguing this was the constant policy of the church. I pointed to the middle ages popes that explicitly stated the policy of the church was something else. You indicated this didn’t count because other Pope’s in the same time period believed in religious freedom. The example you picked was Gregory X.
Gregory Xth as it turns out:
a) Had no accomplishments of any note prior to assuming the papacy other than his skill at religious wars.
b) Spent his entire papacy focused on religious wars
So I by any reasonable standards he certainly doesn’t prove your case. The election of Gregory X is in and of itself an important doctrinal statement about how holding territory by force was policy, and killing Muslims was a perfectly acceptable means to gain and hold territory. So they you focused on the fact that he was believed in religious freedom for Jews, and that his disbelief in religious freedom for Muslims was particular to them showing that he wasn’t implementing policy he was just a bigot and this was a personal matter.
Your evidence for this was a bull. So we then got into a discussion of the bull which repeatedly identifies itself as being opposed to freelance oppression and not speaking to state terror. So then you weaken the claim and say that Gregory X never implemented state terror towards Jews. And I was giving you an example where he did.
So after all that, your counter example to Innocent III type Popes show that all Popes aren’t genocidal psychopaths like Innocent III but falls far short of showing they believed Vatican II doctrines.
X is being excommunicated because they did Y, is a doctrinal assertion that Y is a serious sin worthy of excommunication. Explicit Catholic sources teach that as explicit doctrine.
Divinely revealed and infallible is fine for a definition of faith of morals. Feel free to use that.
They do. They also distinguish quite brightly between works of man and works of God. Every statement not in the bible, in the original autographs, in the original languages is a human product and thus potentially errant. That distinction is what is meant by sola scriptura, no doctrine stands on a coequal footing with scripture for Protestants.
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Oh boy. More of the same from CVD.
Like the Bible doesn’t make any claims at all to being inspired?
We only know that because of Tradition.
Right.
And they wonder why their “arguments” don’t have any traction.
But then again, if you believe that a “revealed deposit of faith” means an “unrevealed deposit of faith” anything is possible.
Behold gross spiritual delusion. Sad, mad and pathetic as well as damnable.
May God deliver us from the same.
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CdH,
“Vatican II asserts a right to religious freedom. You were arguing this was the constant policy of the church.”
This needs to be qualified. Here’s what I, Harrison, and I presume Cross assert was the constant doctrine of the church (implicit, not explicit, before vat2) which I posted before:
“all human persons as such (including, therefore, non-Catholics) have a natural right to immunity from coercion in publicly expressing their beliefs, in circumstances where this does not violate public morality, public peace, or the rights of other citizens.” The last 3 criteria can be summed up as the “common good”. What did Vat2 official relator tell the council about “common good”?
It is to be understood as “something relative: it is linked to the cultural evolution of peoples and has to be judged according to that development”.
“I pointed to the middle ages popes that explicitly stated the policy of the church was something else.”
Policy is not doctrine. Again. Application which is tied to what the “common good” is at a particular time/place is not doctrine. Again.
“You indicated this didn’t count because other Pope’s in the same time period believed in religious freedom. The example you picked was Gregory X.”
I did not say they believed in religious freedom. I said they did not believe in “state terror” as a universal doctrine. I said they did not universally teach anything that contradicts Vat2’s qualified doctrinal statement on liberty. What I said was that a “doctrine” as understood by RCism is a universal teaching on faith and morals. My point with Gregory and all the medieval popes was that this “doctrine” of religious suppression you continue to propose varied across the centuries in terms of what group was targeted, to what extent (if any), and at what time. You would have to show that the teaching of such suppression was taught to the entire geographic Catholic world, as well as all the faithful in an anthropological sense (the “ordinary faithful”) – that would make it a universal teaching.
Were all the papal bulls endorsing terror directed to the universal church? Or were they directed at particular regions and particular subsets of the faithful? If the latter, not doctrine. You’ve conceded that only judicial authorities were to commit “state terror” – that by definition does not include the “whole faithful” – it includes princes, inquisitors, bishops, magistrates, and professional torturers, and other such entities. So not a doctrine. Again.
“Gregory Xth as it turns out:
a) Had no accomplishments of any note prior to assuming the papacy other than his skill at religious wars.
b) Spent his entire papacy focused on religious wars”
Conducting/implementing/endorsing religious war are practices/application, related to the *common good*. Which by its very nature is *relative* according to the circumstances. Something that is relative is not part of a universal unchangeable doctrinal principle by definition.
“The election of Gregory X is in and of itself an important doctrinal statement about how holding territory by force was policy, and killing Muslims was a perfectly acceptable means to gain and hold territory. So they you focused on the fact that he was believed in religious freedom for Jews, and that his disbelief in religious freedom for Muslims was particular to them showing that he wasn’t implementing policy he was just a bigot and this was a personal matter.”
I never said he wasn’t implementing policy. I never said he was just a personal bigot. I said he did not apply repressive/state terror policies universally to every single non-Catholic religion, which is true. Something that does not apply universally is not a doctrinal principle.
“Your evidence for this was a bull. So we then got into a discussion of the bull which repeatedly identifies itself as being opposed to freelance oppression and not speaking to state terror.”
“So then you weaken the claim and say that Gregory X never implemented state terror towards Jews. And I was giving you an example where he did.”
Here’s what you said:
“Organized religious suppression is any state policy designed explicitly to prevent the public expression of religion.”
Why does Gregory X allow Jews to practice their festivals then? Why is his endorsement of Turbato Corde against Jews not universal his entire reign? If doctrine, it should be.
“So after all that, your counter example to Innocent III type Popes show that all Popes aren’t genocidal psychopaths like Innocent III but falls far short of showing they believed Vatican II doctrines.”
Yes that is exactly my counter example. My counter example is to show that this “doctrine” of religious suppression was not universal and constant. Which contradicts the very essence of a doctrinal principle. What might it be instead then? Ecclesiastical law. Which I’ve already stated did change pre and post vat2. Which is by definition subject to change. Why? Because in this case it’s based on the “common good”. The distinction between the unchanging principle and the changing ecclesiastical law/application of that principle was given a few posts back. Why it continues to be ignored I’m not sure.
“X is being excommunicated because they did Y, is a doctrinal assertion that Y is a serious sin worthy of excommunication. Explicit Catholic sources teach that as explicit doctrine.”
A priest can be defrocked and excommunicated for disobeying church/canon law. That does not make church/canon law doctrine. I am not sure why this distinction is still being missed.
“Divinely revealed and infallible is fine for a definition of faith of morals. Feel free to use that.”
I’m confused. Before you were saying infallibility didn’t matter in this discussion about doctrine. You have said doctrine is teaching on faith and morals. Now you are saying faith and morals can be defined as divinely revealed and infallible. So, doctrine is divinely revealed and infallible. But infallibility was irrelevant to this discussion I thought (according to you, not to me) which is why you complained about me bringing it in to the discussion.
“They do. They also distinguish quite brightly between works of man and works of God. Every statement not in the bible, in the original autographs, in the original languages is a human product and thus potentially errant. That distinction is what is meant by sola scriptura, no doctrine stands on a coequal footing with scripture for Protestants.”
So Protestantism will gladly claim sola scriptura, sola fide, Christ’s divinity, the Resurrection, and the Trinity are potentially errant? Sounds like a great foundation for faith and a strong affirmation of God’s providential guiding of the church. I didn’t realize you were an atheist until I read it in another thread – I’m not entirely sure all Protestants would agree with your assessment – maybe though.
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Bob,
“Like the Bible doesn’t make any claims at all to being inspired?”
A few points.
– I said the Bible was part of Tradition, not separate from it.
– Do other writings/collections of writings besides the ones in your canon claim inspiration?
– Does every book in your canon claim inspiration for itself?
– If no, but some do, does every book that does claim it, claim it for all of the other books that do not?
– If other books that do not claim inspiration are claimed by other books that do claim inspiration via quotation/reference, do some canonical books quote/reference other books/sources that are excluded from the canon? If so, why are those excluded given the shared criteria?
– Do the books in your canon identify all other books that are not inspired to rule those out and close the canon?
– Are the various disputed/added passages in the books of your canon inspired?
– If the bible obviously claims inspiration for itself to self-authenticate recognition of the canon, was the process of recognizing the canon, including disputes and controversies, a long and bumpy one because everyone was ignorant or blind?
Thanks Bob.
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Clete, not to get in the way of this interesting discussion, but your distinction between law and doctrine which you think to be so clear is hardly so. Not committing adultery is a law. It is based on the doctrine that God is holy. Most morals work that way.
Are you really saying that church laws are that arbitrary? Completely distinct from doctrine? If so, that should scare you about a church that can make up those laws and have that kind of power of excommunication. Protestants call that tyrannical.
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Clete, btw, why should we believe you instead of a Roman Catholic theologian on doctrine vs. law?
Talk about unity.
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CVD,
Really? Which books? And what passages contained therein?
Easy. The Protestant canon, being that the OT version of it is what Jesus accepted and the NT is not really in dispute. The passages? Everything originally found in the writings. How do we determine that? Text criticism, the practice of which both RC and Protestants agree on.
Ironically, Rome has yet to infallibly declare the text of Scripture, and it has infallibly interpreted how many verses.
The Bible itself is a product of Tradition. It is written tradition, but tradition nevertheless. As I said before, the knowledge that Scripture is indeed inspired and not just a bunch of writings about what people thought is itself a product of Tradition. So it’s not “Bible plus x”. It’s Bible as interpreted in the light of Tradition. And in fact I could agree that the deposit is “the Bible” in a materially sufficient sense.
The Bible is indeed apostolic tradition. The onus is on the RC to provide the unwritten traditions. This talk about tradition being a living thing, as RC says it is, makes RC based on an ever-changing thing. You don’t have a living, breathing tradition that is materially sufficient if you introduce doctrines that cannot be grounded in Scripture. The Assumption and Immaculate conception are just a start.
Practically speaking, RC devolves into a Mormon concept of authority where God continually speaks through the Magisterium. If you want to affirm that, fine. Just don’t say that the deposit of faith is fixed. The two positions don’t go hand in hand.
No one is denying the role that post-apostolic tradition plays in the life of God’s people, least of all the Presbyterians that comment around here. What we are denying is that it is that post-apostolic tradition that makes the Bible what it is. The church has a role in recognizing the canon, but the canon is not what it is because of some post-biblical tradition. The canon is self-authenticating.
Tradition includes the common teaching, life, and worship of the church that has been passed down through history. There are various witnesses to such Tradition throughout history – these would include the creeds, the councils, the liturgy, the fathers. No it’s not everything the fathers wrote. The fathers writings could disappear tomorrow. They are not Tradition itself, they are witnesses. It is also a living tradition, not static, and develops.
What of this comes directly from the Apostle? Creeds reflect apostolic tradition when they are done well, but they are not in and of themselves apostolic tradition. The liturgy has changed over time. It’s not a fixed deposit.
So basically, you can’t point me to the deposit of faith. Paul and the other apostles such as Jude speak of a tradition and deposit once for all handed to the church. That is a fixed thing. Again I ask, where is it? Where do I find apostolic tradition given by the apostles themselves outside of the New Testament?
If you want to say tradition is living and breathing, fine. Just don’t also say that it is a fixed deposit.
The liturgical feast for the Assumption was universal by 6th/7th century in both West and East. A universal liturgical feast does not pop up overnight. It was reflected in the “common teaching, life, worship” of the church.
Sure it doesn’t pop up overnight. Manasseh’s idolatry didn’t pop up overnight either. Gnosticism didn’t pop up overnight. The idolatry during the period of the kings was part of the common, teaching, life and worship of the church. So were the Pharisaic additions to the law.
Again, the point is I want know where in the fixed deposit is there anything that would lead me to believe in the Assumption. If it is living and breathing in the manner in which you say, it isn’t fixed.
What is the fixed body of content besides the New Testament that the apostles themselves gave us. They didn’t write the Nicene Creed. They didn’t write the canons of Trent. Where is the apostle Paul, or Peter, of Jude, or anyone’s teaching that I should venerate images?
Again, if the deposit is fixed, show it to me. If it includes councils from the time of the Apostles to today, it ain’t fixed.
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Darryl,
“your distinction between law and doctrine which you think to be so clear is hardly so.”
Again, I don’t claim it is always clear at the time. Some is though. Some is not. That’s why RCism doesn’t teach “just obey/submit to what you know to be infallible”.
“Not committing adultery is a law. It is based on the doctrine that God is holy. Most morals work that way.”
When did I say doctrine did not include morals? Faith *and* morals. Doctrine can build on previous doctrine of course. And adultery is claimed as a divinely revealed law. Divinely revealed laws/doctrine/teachings are irreformable.
“Are you really saying that church laws are that arbitrary? Completely distinct from doctrine?”
No, I am saying some church laws are not irreformable. I am saying the term “doctrine” in RCism should be understood as irreformable, and a universal teaching (both geographic and anthropological). There are various types of teachings and distinctions within RCism of course with associated levels of assent. I am saying the application of a doctrine can be bad, good, or indifferent. If it couldn’t be, RCism would be very close to falling into the “impeccability” trap. The Church is guided yes, but fallible nonetheless in many areas. There’s a reason vat1 qualified its decree.
“If so, that should scare you about a church that can make up those laws and have that kind of power of excommunication.”
A person who is willfully disobeying the church after calls to repentance should be excommunicated. If he’s faithful, he understands he was submitting to an authority – and this authority has the power to enforce submission to irreformable teaching, as well as to reformable teaching (I don’t know of any priest/catholic who would think canon law cannot change – it wasn’t some gotcha surprise). Let me ask you something – presumably your church has not only doctrinal statements, but governing statements/bylaws and such. The latter could be changed/modified at times right? But if one of your elders was flagrantly disobeying the latter and refused to submit – would you just keep him around? Or would you do something about it?
Not sure what your citation is trying to show:
“persuade people about the teaching of the church rather than just handing down doctrine”
“Because I think Francis now marks in many ways the end of that trajectory where we think of papal teaching primarily as normative pronouncements of the teaching of the church.”
The truth of any doctrine is still there. It’s a matter of persuading and teaching the faithful to understand/see it better rather than just issuing it from on high like some emperor and leaving them to fend for themselves.
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Robert,
“Easy. The Protestant canon, being that the OT version of it is what Jesus accepted and the NT is not really in dispute. The passages? Everything originally found in the writings. How do we determine that? Text criticism, the practice of which both RC and Protestants agree on.”
It’s not in dispute now (on what objective basis, I’m not sure), it was in dispute in the past. Cool so it’s fixed, but we really don’t know what it is or to what extent because of textual criticism. Someone in the year 1000 could point to what they consider the Bible as the fixed deposit, but that would be different than what a Protestant points to as fixed in the current day. And we don’t know if more books might be added to it in the future, or more passages disputed from developments in textual criticism. But it’s “fixed”. Real easy.
“You don’t have a living, breathing tradition that is materially sufficient if you introduce doctrines that cannot be grounded in Scripture.”
Presupposes something implicit in Scripture is not grounded in Scripture. Presupposes the definition of “grounded”. RCs can hold Scripture is materially sufficient.
“Practically speaking, RC devolves into a Mormon concept of authority where God continually speaks through the Magisterium. If you want to affirm that, fine. Just don’t say that the deposit of faith is fixed. The two positions don’t go hand in hand.”
Not really. If we added some new book or body as additional revelation, sure. Your expected rejoinder of “that’s exactly what you do!” presupposes what’s in dispute. Infallibly guided interpretation is not adding new revelation.
Protestantism afaik admits the church isn’t static, and certain truths came to the faithful after centuries of development.
“The church has a role in recognizing the canon, but the canon is not what it is because of some post-biblical tradition.”
Never claimed otherwise. That’s why I always qualify my statements/questions on the canon with “recognition”. This is the tired mistaken criticism that RCism teaches the canon can’t/didn’t exist without the Church. Also presupposes Tradition is post-biblical. Tradition was operating before the last sentence of Scripture was recorded. The church was operating between Pentecost and John’s death (and continued afterwards) – it wasn’t in some standstill mode.
“The canon is self-authenticating.”
Cool – recognition is not. That’s the point. As to self-authentication, are you just gonna follow Calvin’s lead and say:
“Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture indeed is self-authenticated; hence it is not right to subject it to proof and reasoning.” Luther didn’t get inwardly taught I guess when he was doubting certain things at various stages. And I’m not sure Calvin got inwardly taught since he might’ve considered certain disputed passages Scripture. And even if this position is granted, not sure how it prohibits future books being added. But the deposit is fixed.
“Creeds reflect apostolic tradition when they are done well”
Yep, Protestantism in a nutshell.
“The liturgy has changed over time.”
Yes, amazingly RCism celebrates both the traditional and novus ordo at the same time. By liturgy, I mean the essential structure – as outlined by Justin Martyr and the Didache and other early sources.
“So basically, you can’t point me to the deposit of faith. Paul and the other apostles such as Jude speak of a tradition and deposit once for all handed to the church. That is a fixed thing. Again I ask, where is it? Where do I find apostolic tradition given by the apostles themselves outside of the New Testament?”
Apostolic tradition is the lens through which to interpret the NT. It is reflected in the common life, worship, teaching of the church. Such thing by its very nature grows and develops over time. You claim a tradition in interpreting the NT. You claim a tradition in recognizing the canon. You do not claim it is infallible. That’s the point.
“If you want to say tradition is living and breathing, fine. Just don’t also say that it is a fixed deposit.”
If you want to say doctrine develops and what we consider as to the extent of the deposit (canon and contents therein) has changed and can further change, fine. Just don’t also say there’s a fixed deposit.
“Again, if the deposit is fixed, show it to me.”
Can you show me the deposit? You keep saying it’s the canon and the passages therein that are original. But we can’t know the extent of that since both have changed in the past, and could change in the future. So anything you point me to is just provisional.
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Clete, law as in Ten Commandments. You have heard of them, right? Now you’re talking bylaws? Well, I’m still not sure how the Fourth Lateran Council’s teaching on Jews is merely a bylaw compared to its teaching on transubstantiation.
I see that you are trying to account for what is reformable and what is irreformable. But wouldn’t one solution be to have the magisterium take a time out and stop speaking so much? I understand it’s a little bit like a Rubik’s Cube trying to make sense of it all and what is authoritative or not (as if it is ever as straightforward at JATC allege). But what good is this doing for eternal life?
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Clete, btw, yes, if one of our officers repeatedly violated church by-laws without trying to reform them, he would likely need to step down from his office. But are you seriously presuming that this might occur in your communion? Or is it the case that the Vatican enforces church by-laws on wayward bishops and priests but lets Nancy Pelosi and Garry Wills jeopardize their souls on morals?
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Darryl,
Hah, yes I think I may have heard of 10C. And of course RCism teaches those as divinely revealed. My point about bylaws was simply to show that you would kick out an elder based on him disobeying reformable laws, which excommunication does, as well as irreformable laws, which excommunication does as well (that’s why things like abortion cause an automatic excommunication).
And again, with past teaching about Jews and the like that changed, and those who committed acts under obedience – I am not going to judge the extent of their culpability given their context and time from our historical vantage point.
“But wouldn’t one solution be to have the magisterium take a time out and stop speaking so much?”
Well, the hierarchy are pastors. They can’t and shouldn’t just sit there and not guide the faithful. That’s neglect.
“But what good is this doing for eternal life?”
I am not sure to what you’re referring. In terms of the rubik’s cube? That’s just theology – theology isn’t the sum-total of a Christian – some become theologians, some become missionaries to the poor or just know the bare basics and try to follow faithfully. But theology is a necessary component of Christianity and helps drive clarity and development. If you mean in terms of magisterium talking – the flock are to be guided. And especially in the current age when information and circumstances change so rapidly. And of course the shepherds will be held to a higher account.
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CvD, you aren’t even 1/3 of the way towards the OTLS record on this post…
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Darryl,
Yep, it’s true, church discipline is lax. I mean, there are some “cheats” in terms of various actions that incur automatic excommunication, but yes the fact that high-profile Catholics receive communion or aren’t called out is a neglect of discipline (and can continue to add to the judgment of those Catholics). Especially when this neglect is due to political fears. And such laxity can cause scandal and confuse the faithful, which I’m sure it has. The laity, frank/open bishops within the hierarchy, and catechesis can counter it though to some degree. The shepherds will have to answer for it though ultimately.
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Someone in the year 1000 could point to what they consider the Bible as the fixed deposit. . .
Long story short, Cletus, protestantism has a fixed deposit in the genuine sense of the words “fixed” and “deposit”. Romanism not so much – according to you. Guess what?
And neither was the early church in submission to little papa when the canon became recognized.
I mean after all, just because Kenneth thinkeths that Athanasius is the pope of Alexandria doesn’t mean he takes home the Jeopardy jackpot.
Yeah, the textual critics want to fine tune things, but it’s not like they are adding the Book of Mormon/Evangelium Gaudium to the deposit/canon.
And if you’re not happy with that, what do you offer us but a gnostic and so called “revealed deposit of faith”.
Know tank you.
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Bob,
Feel free to answer my previous questions whenever you’d like.
“protestantism has a fixed deposit in the genuine sense of the words “fixed” and “deposit”.”
Seems to me this genuine sense of “fixed deposit” ends up just boiling down to “objective divine revelation” which of course everyone agrees with. If I’m to ask you or another Protestant where the fixed deposit is, just saying “the bible” turns out to not be so “easy” after all. We have the disputed OT and NT canon for the first 400 centuries of Christianity. We have dispute amongst the canon during the Reformation itself. We have dispute amongst passages within the canon itself for the past 500 years. We have no objective reason to justify the recognized canon being closed within Protestantism. So a Christian in the year 200 who points to the fixed deposit points to something different than someone in 500 and to something different than someone in 1500 and to something different than someone in present day. But it’s still a “fixed” “deposit”.
Sure I’ll agree (obviously) that it’s objectively fixed – I’ll disagree that Protestantism can point to anything that actually was or is indeed fixed and isn’t merely provisional. Indeed, how could it not be even without the factors just listed given Protestantism shuns infallibility. Perhaps this is what CdH meant above when he says Protestantism claims all doctrine is potentially errant.
“Romanism not so much – according to you.”
Nah – it’s a fixed deposit.
“And neither was the early church in submission to little papa when the canon became recognized.”
Cool. So did each of the early christians recognize the canon based on Calvin’s/WCF’s criteria – self-attestation and being inwardly taught by the HS? No, they offered another criterion for why they accepted the recognized canon. Secondly, it is demonstrably false that Calvin’s criteria was used or worked – if it was, there’d be no dispute amongst various great and holy early christians as to the canon, both with each other and with WCF’s canon.
“Yeah, the textual critics want to fine tune things, but it’s not like they are adding the Book of Mormon/Evangelium Gaudium to the deposit/canon.”
It’s more than fine tuning – some of the disputed passages have pastoral and apologetical impact, and the field itself touches on inerrancy issues. And the more significant point is that such criticism continues to develop – it hasn’t just stopped examining verses.
As to adding, what objective basis stops Protestantism from adding books to the recognized canon in the future?
So we have Calvin’s bosom-burning for determining the canon/inspiration of books and no objectively closed recognized canon. Sounds like Mormonism parallel is more than a little apt on your side.
Maybe you’ll choose to interact this time, or you can be boring and do drive-by potshots again.
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CvD,
I read your last comment, you are clinging to what I believe are hackneyed arguments against Protestantism of the “called to communion” and “creed code cult” variety, which kinda makes me sad. Between when I read your comment initially, thought about it, and came up with what I wanted to say to you, Darryl has already made the point I wanted to make, in his latest comment here, but on another thread, to Kenneth.
I’m happy to go into my beliefs and why after reading the same things from Roman Catholics like yourself, my convictions of what I’ve learned as a Christian only grows stronger. But there will come a time you want to give this comboxxing a rest, so sometimes, looking to make a graceful exit is actually in your best interest. Just saying..
Take care, and thanks for talking with those of us who read at OldLife. I’ll read more of your comments to see if you are bringing in something original which I haven’t thought before. But my suggestion is stick to the big issues: Doctrine of Scripture (you are touching on a similar issue, I believe, with your “deposit of faith,” but again, read Darryl’s latest comment on the “29,000” string) and Doctrine of Justification (read the “forensics” section of Darryl’s blog here, he’s got valuable insights worth your time).
Regards..
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Thou protesteth too much at lengtheth, Cletus Van Damneth.
Seems to me this genuine sense of “fixed deposit” ends up just boiling down to “objective divine revelation” which of course everyone agrees with.
Does the fixed deposit of faith (FDF) boil down to the Bible alone or the Bible and Tradition, in which we have a canon/index/list for the Bible, but a wide open, undefined gnostic lost apostolic oral infallible tradition of which no list is available/possible?
Duh. To ask is to answer.
IOW there is an objective sense/meaning to the word “objective”.
Until you can demonstrate you are able to distinguish the same, you are wasting your time here (and getting a bad grade from Bryan. You need to use the p word more often.)
Likewise again, yes, the textual critics offer us some nuance in the text of the canon, but adding the Book of Mormon, the Koran or Evangelium Gaudium to the canon is in another category entirely.
Still you insist in wanting us to trade a relative certainty for a wide open uncertainty.
It can’t be that hard to figure out why we’re not interested.
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@CvD
If Vactican 2’s definition was universal they didn’t need to teach anything universally that contradicted it, just something that contradicted it.
Which reduces non-contradiction to a simple tautology. Anytime there is a contradiction then the teaching wasn’t universal and therefore it wasn’t doctrine. Thus there cannot be doctrinal contradiction ever. Nice, contradiction problem solved.
But… That means in real time as a Catholic you have no way to determining what doctrines are since at any point they can be contradicted in the future. You’ve defined the contradiction problem out of existing by in effect eliminating the existence of doctrine at all. The best you can ever say about any statement is “so far it is doctrine”. And frankly I doubt there are any Catholic statements what-so-ever that would pass the taught everywhere (i.e. universal) standard even today. I’m pretty sure on anything I can find officials who had opposite beliefs and thus there are no doctrines using the definition you are proposing.
No I wouldn’t. I just have to use the normal definition of doctrine that Catholics apply outside of this thread. Catholicism defined doctrine as “the knowledge imparted by teaching the elements of Christianity”. They have never qualified it as you have above because they want doctrine to exist. In practice doctrine means “stuff the church tells people to believe”, while practice is “stuff the church tells people to do” and there isn’t a complex hierarchy. As a Catholic I can’t ignore the current Pope speculating that at some point in the future some other pope will believe something else and thus what he’s saying isn’t doctrine.
There were some papel bulls endorsing terror directed at the universal church. Calls for crusades for example. There also were calls for cooperation with these actions, not to give shelter or not to interfere or resist.
Then there are no doctrinal principles. None. Zero. They don’t exist. The KKK didn’t apply terror to ever objected to religion and group universally at all times. So what?
First off for about the 100th time, Gregory isn’t doing anything about festivals at all. He’s quoting Gregory I’st position about festivals in arguing for his own attack on extortion schemes and blood libel. You are misreading (and at this point I’d say deliberately misreading) the document. Gregory X is not addressing the issue of festivals. He believes them to be allowed and continues that practice. No change at all.
His endorsement of Turbato Corde is for Gregory directed universally. Turbato Corde turns Judaism into a regulated activity in the negative sense. Christian religious police, inquisitors, have authority over individual Jews whom they believe to have been baptized.
Ecclesiastical law is a form of practice. It doesn’t address why it was the “common good” to be committing acts of genocide 800 years ago while today it is not in the “common good” for muslim countries to have far lighter restrictions on Catholics today. There is a clear assertion of a “good” there.
The idea that one should obey canon law is doctrine. That’s the underlying doctrine.
The Resurrection and Christ’s divinity is explicit in scripture so no. Trinity, sola fide are human theology so yes potentially errant. Sola scriptura I’m not sure if that’s potentially errant since that’s a point of epistemology as well as theology in Protestantism.
Most Protestants deny God’s providential guiding of the church, they almost all believe the the Catholic church fell into heresy or had always been heretical. They differ in their belief of how far it fell and exactly when it fell. The Reformed on this board are among Protestants the ones most into believing that the early fathers are binding and they still freely disagree with them.
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CdH,
“If Vactican 2’s definition was universal they didn’t need to teach anything universally that contradicted it, just something that contradicted it.”
No. Part of irreformable doctrinal teaching is that it is issued to the *universal* church. So part of continuity of irreformable doctrine is that it doesn’t violate/contradict irreformable doctrine that came before it. You make it seem like the Vat1 fathers just had no idea about the Crusades or Jews or Inquisition when defining infallibility.
“Which reduces non-contradiction to a simple tautology. Anytime there is a contradiction then the teaching wasn’t universal and therefore it wasn’t doctrine. Thus there cannot be doctrinal contradiction ever. Nice, contradiction problem solved.”
I already gave an example of a contradiction to religious liberty as defined by vat2 that if you could find being taught in the past would be a candidate to examine. But you just dismissed it. I’ve given others as well – if the Church universally taught “James is not inspired”, “There is no salvation within the church”, “Mary sinned”, and so forth. It’s not hard to come up with examples that would contradict irreformable doctrine and invalidate the Church’s claims. That’s why I stressed early in this example that you invalidate the claims of irreformability based on the criteria the Church has set for itself – which is defined in vat1 and subsequent documents. It sounds like you’re disappointed vat1 didn’t go out of it’s way to shoot itself in the foot, or that it had no idea about what history was when it was debating and revising its statements.
“But… That means in real time as a Catholic you have no way to determining what doctrines are since at any point they can be contradicted in the future. You’ve defined the contradiction problem out of existing by in effect eliminating the existence of doctrine at all. The best you can ever say about any statement is “so far it is doctrine”. And frankly I doubt there are any Catholic statements what-so-ever that would pass the taught everywhere (i.e. universal) standard even today. I’m pretty sure on anything I can find officials who had opposite beliefs and thus there are no doctrines using the definition you are proposing.”
Sure you can find officials dissenting. I didn’t say it had to be universal *belief* to be irreformable doctrine. I said it had to be *taught* to the universal church. There are many such examples – Assumption, communion of saints, eucharist, mortal/venial sin distinction, divinity of Christ, 10 commandments, etc. And once again, just because *some* doctrine/practice may be woven together right now where development will clarify the separation, does not mean *all* doctrine and practice division is hopelessly mixed.
“No I wouldn’t. I just have to use the normal definition of doctrine that Catholics apply outside of this thread. Catholicism defined doctrine as “the knowledge imparted by teaching the elements of Christianity”. They have never qualified it as you have above because they want doctrine to exist. In practice doctrine means “stuff the church tells people to believe”, while practice is “stuff the church tells people to do” and there isn’t a complex hierarchy. As a Catholic I can’t ignore the current Pope speculating that at some point in the future some other pope will believe something else and thus what he’s saying isn’t doctrine.”
Where did you get this definition of Catholicism defined doctrine as “the knowledge imparted by teaching the elements of Christianity”? Is it from a theological manual or the Catechism? No complex hierarchy? Have you read Ott or Lumen Gentium or the CDF commentary on the Professio Fidei or Donum Veritatis written by Ratzinger? I assure you there is a hierarchy of teachings and assent. I’m not just playing scholastic games – I’m following the lead of theologians and the magisterium.
I agree as a Catholic you shouldn’t sit there analyzing every statement – I’ve mentioned this to Darryl on many occasions – the magisterium *teaches* that Catholics are not to submit/obey just infallible/irreformable teaching (Lumen Gentium 25, Canon 752, other documents) – RCs are not theological positivists or minimalists (or at least shouldn’t be). But the fact that we are to respectfully submit to the hierarchy even in non-infallible teaching does not mean the distinction does not actually exist in reality.
“There were some papel bulls endorsing terror directed at the universal church. Calls for crusades for example. There also were calls for cooperation with these actions, not to give shelter or not to interfere or resist.”
If you’d like to offer specific examples, we can examine them. Just *please* keep in mind Vat1’s 4 criteria:
– when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians
– in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority
– he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals
– to be held by the whole Church (both geographical and anthropological)
If you feel such examples meet above criteria, we can check them out.
“First off for about the 100th time, Gregory isn’t doing anything about festivals at all. He’s quoting Gregory I’st position about festivals in arguing for his own attack on extortion schemes and blood libel. You are misreading (and at this point I’d say deliberately misreading) the document. Gregory X is not addressing the issue of festivals. He believes them to be allowed and continues that practice. No change at all.”
Tbh it feels like you are mischaracterizing my statements. Did I say there was a change? I said he allowed festivals. Did he or did he not allow them? You read into my statement that I was saying he introduced that change. No, as I said before he was renewing the bull, and then adding his blood libel stuff. If he *continued* to allow them, how does that fit in with religious suppression as you defined it?
“His endorsement of Turbato Corde is for Gregory directed universally. Turbato Corde turns Judaism into a regulated activity in the negative sense. Christian religious police, inquisitors, have authority over individual Jews whom they believe to have been baptized.”
The religious police, inquisitors, etc. are not the “whole faithful”.
“Ecclesiastical law is a form of practice. It doesn’t address why it was the “common good” to be committing acts of genocide 800 years ago while today it is not in the “common good” for muslim countries to have far lighter restrictions on Catholics today. There is a clear assertion of a “good” there.”
Are you going to continue to ignore what the official relator for Vat2 on this issue defined the common good as when explaining to the Council what they were voting on?
“The idea that one should obey canon law is doctrine. That’s the underlying doctrine.”
Finally some progress. Because one should obey canon law, does not make violations of particular canon/disciplinary laws therefore irreformable doctrine themselves. I quoted earlier a canon from Lateran 4 – “We forbid hunting and fowling to all clerics; wherefore, let them not presume to keep dogs and birds for these purposes.” Now are you contending that such a law was and is irreformable doctrine?
“The Resurrection and Christ’s divinity is explicit in scripture so no. Trinity, sola fide are human theology so yes potentially errant. Sola scriptura I’m not sure if that’s potentially errant since that’s a point of epistemology as well as theology in Protestantism.”
Pretty sure all the Protestants here would disagree that the other doctrines are not “explicit in scripture” or are “human theology”. Of course I agree with you that given their shunning of infallibility all doctrines would be potentially errant, which eviscerates any notion of or warrant for the virtue/assent of faith. But the point is I’m pretty sure most Protestants here would distinguish between doctrine and practice, and would distinguish irreformable doctrine from changeable teaching. I don’t think any would equate “how to fund missionary boards” as being at the same level or type of teaching as “sola fide”.
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CvD, who is shunning what, now?
Stick around and get to know us more. You might learn something. Take care.
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Andrew,
I think you know what I meant. Yes Protestantism teaches Scripture is infallible. No Protestant church/confession I’m aware of teaches it is divinely authorized to bind the believer to infallible/irreformable doctrine/teaching – semper reformada and “fallible collection of infallible books” and Reymond thinking Nicea was off and all that.
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CvD, fair enough, for all my problems with these guys as well, indeed the most recent split occurring in my tradition affirms this.
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Clete, I don’t think you know the Protestant world very well.
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Darryl,
Is the WCF issued as infallibly binding doctrine to churches/consciences?
“10. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.”
“3. All synods or councils, since the Apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both.”
Semper reformada.
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CvD, are you being coy in your latest? I’ll continue about my thoughts re: infallibility, later, if you interested.
Do you go by Cletus?
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Andrew,
Not trying to be coy – I’m just saying there’s a reason RC/EO and Protestants have a difference of opinion on authority, infallibility, and binding consciences on doctrine. And you can call me whatever – CvD is just a fun name I got from one of my favorite tv shows. Just don’t call me late for dinner. Again, not pressuring you to interact – if you want to feel free of course.
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Clete, right. Your magisterium never errs. They only improve with time.
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CvD, yeah, I googled your moniker and couldn’t figure out if there was more to it. I’m crazy busy right now, but I like talking theology, and OldLife is where I loiter online. Nice chatting with you here, see you around.
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