In this brief post I simply want to focus in on the term "infallible", and whether that word accurately describes the ordinary, non-definitive teaching of the Church.
I want to write briefly on this because it seems to be an unending source of confusion in some circles. The reason for this is that the word "infallible" is subject to more than one meaning. In general, the word infallible means "unable to fail", and applied to Church teaching it means "unable to teach error". However, the two fundamental categories of Church teaching--definitive and non-definitive--are protected from error in different ways, relative to the nature of the teachings as definitive or non-definitive.
The definitive teaching of the Church refers to teachings that are given in order to provide a final, universal word on some subject. For example, God is a Trinity. This is an absolute truth, not contingent on any particular situation. It is true to affirm this now. It was true to affirm this two thousand years ago. It will be true to affirm this two thousand years from now. Etc. It is a truth that is not connected to some limited set of circumstances or a limited level of knowledge. We will never learn anything that will make it no longer appropriate to affirm that God is a Trinity. No circumstances will ever change that will make this any less true.
Non-definitive teaching, on the other hand, refers to teachings that are, or at least may be, provisional or conditional in some way. As an example, consider Pope Francis's recent teachings on the death penalty. Pope Francis has affirmed that, given the state of our knowledge today and the various circumstances that hold in the world today, we ought to consider the death penalty "inadmissible" and work for its abolition. The Magisterium has made clear that this does not mean that the underlying principle behind the death penalty--that the state has an obligation even sometimes to use lethal force to protect the common good--is invalid. The Church has always affirmed, and continues to affirm, this principle. But the Magisterium teaches that, given the state of things at this time, we ought to consider it inappropriate to resort to the death penalty because it is not necessary to protect or promote the common good. We ought instead to work for the abolition of the death penalty. Now this teaching is clearly contingent in a number of ways. Its truth is linked to the peculiarities of our own time, and no claim is made that it has always been true or would be true in any possible set of circumstances. The teaching is linked to the current state of our knowledge, in that no claim is made that growth in knowledge or awareness in the future, based on further thought or research, will not alter the conclusion. All the teaching says is that, right now, given what we know and are aware of now, given the current circumstances obtaining in the world today, the death penalty is morally inadmissible and we should work for its abolition.
It is typically granted that the Church's definitive teaching is infallible--it cannot include error. (Or at least it is granted that this is what the Church teaches about her own teaching.) But some Catholics--particularly some among the Catholic traditionalists and some liberal-leaning Catholics--think that the Church's non-definitive teaching is not protected from error, that it can err and lead the people of God astray, and that the faithful sometimes have a right and a duty to resist and reject it if, upon personal investigation, they judge it to be wrong (it contradicts their interpretation of Scripture, of Church history, of the previous teaching of the Church, etc.) As evidence for their position, they will often point out that the Church typically reserves the word "infallible" for the definitive teachings of the Church, not her non-definitive teachings. They reason that if only definitive teachings are infallible, then non-definitive teachings must be fallible. And since "fallible" means "can be wrong", they conclude that non-definitive teachings are not guaranteed to be reliable and so may sometimes require resistance. They maintain this even though the Church has said again and again that all official magisterial teaching, including non-definitive teaching, is guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, comes with the authority of Christ, and demands submission of will and intellect from all Catholics, and in spite of the fact that the Church has never endorsed their ideas about the need to check non-definitive teaching for error using one's private judgment and then to reject it if it fails that test.
The problem here is equivocation over the word "infallible". It is true that the Church most often uses the word "infallible" to refer to definitive in contrast to non-definitive teachings. But it is equally clear, as I said above, that the Church guarantees the unfailing reliability as well as the binding authoritativeness of non-definitive teaching. But how can non-infallible teaching be unfailingly reliable? Isn't "unfailingly reliable" just another way of saying "infallible"? The answer is that the Church tends to use the term "infallible" in a strict sense which includes the idea of "irreformability" and "definitiveness". And we can see why she might do that. Non-definitive teaching, even though it is unfailingly reliable as far as it goes, doesn't go as far as definitive teaching. It is not intended to. Non-definitive teaching tells us what we need to know for the moment, but it doesn't necessarily give us the absolute, final answer and guarantee that that answer will not change in the future. The teaching leads us to the right answer in the present, but that's all it does (Of course, some non-definitive teachings may be closer to universal and absolute than others, but, by definition, non-definitive teaching is . . . well, non-definitive.) Since non-definitive teachings are potentially subject to alteration and even, in a sense, correction due to changing circumstances, they could be said to be less "infallible" than definitive teachings. That is, if we are using the term "infallible" in a strong sense that suggests absoluteness and unchangeability, then non-definitive teachings are not infallible.
The mistake, however, comes in thinking that, because a teaching is not infallible in this strong sense, it is not unfailingly reliable as far as it is intended to go. The dissenters create a false dichotomy: Either a teaching is infallible in the strong sense of irreformable and absolute, or the teaching must be fallible in the sense of not inherently trustworthy or reliable. This false dichotomy ignores a third category, which is the correct category for understanding the Church's non-definitive teachings: Non-definitive teachings are not absolute and irreformable, but they are unfailingly reliable as far as the magisterial teacher's intention goes. As such, they demand assent. They don't demand the same kind of assent as definitive teachings, but they demand assent. We are to assent to them according to their own nature--as non-definitive teachings--just as we are to assent to definitive teachings according to their own nature--as definitive teachings. We are to assent to all official magisterial teaching according to the expressed magisterial intention in teaching it. We are not to attribute more to the teaching than the magisterial teacher intends, but we are also not to attribute less to it than the magisterial teacher intends.
So there is no great mystery in the Church's position regarding the unfailing reliability and therefore the authoritativeness and binding quality of her non-infallible, non-definitive teachings. The key is that all magisterial teachings are guided and protected by the Holy Spirit, come with the authority of Christ, and thus require submission of will and intellect. All magisterial teachings are protected from error, but not all in the same way. Definitive and non-definitive teachings are completely equal in terms of their reliability, but they are not equal in terms of the reach of the magisterial intention, and so, while both require assent, this assent must be matched to the nature of the teaching. I'll end with the words of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as they defined the nature of and assent owed to non-definitive teachings in their well-known and very helpful Doctrinal Commentary on the Profession of Faith written back in 1998:
10. The third proposition of the Professio fidei states: "Moreover, I adhere with religious submission of will and intellect to the teachings which either the Roman Pontiff or the College of Bishops enunciate when they exercise their authentic Magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim these teachings by a definitive act".
To this paragraph belong all those teachings – on faith and morals – presented as true or at least as sure, even if they have not been defined with a solemn judgement or proposed as definitive by the ordinary and universal Magisterium. Such teachings are, however, an authentic expression of the ordinary Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff or of the College of Bishops and therefore require religious submission of will and intellect. They are set forth in order to arrive at a deeper understanding of revelation, or to recall the conformity of a teaching with the truths of faith, or lastly to warn against ideas incompatible with those truths or against dangerous opinions that can lead to error.
A proposition contrary to these doctrines can be qualified as erroneous or, in the case of teachings of the prudential order, as rash or dangerous and therefore 'tuto doceri non potest' ['not possible to be taught safely']. . . .
As examples of doctrines belonging to the third paragraph, one can point in general to teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way, which require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression. (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei, #10, 11, found here on the Vatican website, footnotes removed)
Published on the Feast of the Transfiguration
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8 comments:
I appreciate very much and thank you for the clarification of this subject. A subject which caused me many difficulties. I can now witness to my brother in a more intelligent way.
God bless . . .
Regarding your discussion of Pope Vigilius and the three chapters controversy I certainly disagree that it doesn't present a problem for the doctrine of Papal Infallibility (along with Pope Honorius and reconciling Vatican 2 with historic Roman Catholic teaching). What I find interesting is that you admit Augustine corrected himself in retractations and that Vigilius himself referred to the fact that Augustine corrected himself. This is something that Catholic Answers and other RC apologist either deny or distance from because they want to defend the interpretation of Peter being the Rock in Matthew 16. In retractations Augustine does correct his interpretation on the passage by changing from Peter being the Rock to Christ and the confession of Faith being the "this" the thing that Christ will build his church on (not on Peter himself).
Hi Adam. Regarding Augustine, here is what he said:
"In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: ‘On him as on a rock the Church was built’...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,’ that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received ‘the keys of the kingdom of heaven.’ For, ‘Thou art Peter’ and not ‘Thou art the rock’ was said to him. But ‘the rock was Christ,’ in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable."
Source:The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1. I found this here - https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=3571.0
So Augustine, later on, wasn't sure whether or not the "rock" referred primarily to Peter or primarily to Christ and in a derivatory, secondary way to Peter as representing the Church build upon Christ. This does not, of course, mean that Augustine didn't agree with the idea that Peter was head of the apostles, had the keys of the kingdom, was succeeded by the bishops of Rome, that the bishops of Rome were heads over the entire Church, etc. This was just a question of how precisely to understand this one verse. I favor the "rock" being understood as primarily Peter, since this seems best to fit the text. But, theologically, it doesn't really matter which interpretation one takes. Of course Christ is the ultimate rock-foundation of the Church, and any "rockiness" that Peter had was grounded on that. But, under Christ, the apostles and Peter in particular did have authority, as do their successors the bishops, and particularly the bishops of Rome as successors of St. Peter. So I don't think this is a big deal when it comes to looking at Catholic claims.
You can see more fully what Augustine thought of Peter and the bishops of Rome by looking at the quotations from him here - http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/02/the-chair-of-st-peter/
Sir...I have read retractions myself. 1 John 2:27 You seem to act as though you are teaching me.
the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. I disagree with your claim that Peter has the authority or that Augustine didn't change his interpretation.
I don't think that John 2:27 is intending to say that Christians never need human teachers of any sort, any more than Christ's "call no man father" meant that no child should consider his father his father. But anyway, I'm not so much trying to teach you as to dialogue with you and respond to your comment, though dialogue usually has come element of people teaching each other in it.
"I disagree with your claim that Peter has the authority or that Augustine didn't change his interpretation."
Well, I've pretty much said all I have right now to say about Augustine in my earlier comment. I quoted the section from the Retractations, and I referred you to some sources to see other aspects of Augustine's thought.
Several Roman Catholic scholars such as Eamon Duffy (a professor of the history of Christianity at Cambridge University) and Robert Eno (the rise of thr papacy) conclude the papacy was a development just as Cardinal Newman wrote on his doctrinal development hypothesis."Neither Peter nor Paul founded the Church at Rome, for there were Christians in the city before either of the Apostles set foot there. Nor can we assume, as Irenaeus did, that the Apostles established there a succession of bishops to carry on their work in the city, for all the indications are that there was no single bishop at Rome for almost a century after the deaths of the Apostles.In fact, wherever we turn, the solid outlines of the Petrine succession at Rome seem to blur and dissolve" Saints and Sinners Chapter 1.
All of the persons to my knowledge that take your view are RC pop apologists with biases and a vested interest to defend Rome and they are not serious historians or scholars that should be taken seriously.
Peter Lampe from Paul to Valentinus:Christians at Rome in the first two centuries is also excellent work...exhaustive scholarly which doesn't support your view.
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