Church Infallibility and Certainty

[thecone137]

I am trying to discern what the Catholic Church claims about truth in contrast to what any other Christian institution claims about truth and the degree of certainty that goes with it. It seems to me that no other institution claims to be 100% (infallibly?) certain that their Biblical interpretations are correct. In other words, other institutions will say that they believe, know(colloquially), or are very confident that their Biblical interpretations are correct, but will always add the provision that they “could be wrong”. I do not know of the Catholic Church admitting to this provision, and so it seems that our faith in any institution that does not claim to be 100% certain will always be a conditional faith.

Does the claim that the Catholic Church can declare statements on faith and morals to be infallible mean that the Church is claiming, with 100% degree of certainty, that these statements are free from error or that the Church is claiming, with a very high degree of certainty (e.g. 99.9999%), that these statements are free from error?

 

[TRH1292]

100% degree of certainty.

 

[JamesTheJust]

The Church is guided by the Holy Spirit to be absolutely 100% correct in her teachings.

 

[runningdude]

One thing I figured out when I had doubts in college is that Catholic theology is perfectly consistent. There are no “gotcha” moments, where one theological point flatly contradicts another.

One thing important to note is that the Catholic Church does not claim to interpret the Bible, but rather claims to be the authority that approved the Bible. Before the Catholic Church, there was no New Testament. The Old Testament was guided by the infallible interpretations given by Jewish authorities; Jesus tells his followers to obey the teachings of the Pharisees, for instance (even if though they must ignore their example).

After Jesus established the Church, there were no scriptures. There were, however, various authors producing letters and gospels. It was only by the authority of the church that authentically inspired scripture was selected; the very bible is a product of the Catholic Church’s infallibility!

For Christians to disavow the existence of infallibility is to deny there is any substance to Christianity at all. The Catholic Church is very careful to not leave such holes in its logic; we can only have faith that this is because the Church is true, and not just clever.