Development of Doctrine?

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This begins to take on a deeper meaning than the Protestant objection (“Rome teaches that truth changes!”) would lead us to believe. 🙂
 
Classicist said:
This begins to take on a deeper meaning than the Protestant objection (“Rome teaches that truth changes!”) would lead us to believe. 🙂
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They really meant to say something like, “Rome teaches and truth changes the world”.
 
Classicist said:
This begins to take on a deeper meaning than the Protestant objection (“Rome teaches that truth changes!”) would lead us to believe. 🙂
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🙂

Here’s something else you might find helpful (and it’s only a long page):
Development by Msgr Benson. It’s a wonderful little essay, and the ending leaves me SO joyful.
 
jimmy said:
This is one of the main issues between east and west. According to the west most of the fathers would be heritical on one count or another, because they made clear statements that contradict modern dogmas, like the immaculate conception. They assume that these saints wouldn’t be heretics because they would accept it now that it has been defined, but this presents a problem. What was once orthodox is now heretical.
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Revelations and Hebrews were at one point not accepted as Scripture, while Peter’s Apocalypse and Clement’s epistle were considered by some to be Scripture. Who determined orthodoxy in this case? Those who held an opinion on the matter? Or the Church when it decided as a whole?

This applies to every situation throughout history in which a definitive dogma had to be declared. We haven’t received a ‘new revelation’. We’ve merely been given greater clarity on the issue through the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit, just as Christ promised would happen. Orthodoxy is determined by the Church as a whole, regardless of the time it is decided or the opinions of those who came prior.
 
GraceSofia said:
🙂

Here’s something else you might find helpful (and it’s only a long page):
Development by Msgr Benson. It’s a wonderful little essay, and the ending leaves me SO joyful.
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Just want to say: I accidentally clicked the table of contents on that page and started reading the whole book! It’s very excellent. 🙂
 
PeaceInChrist said:
Revelations and Hebrews were at one point not accepted as Scripture, while Peter’s Apocalypse and Clement’s epistle were considered by some to be Scripture. Who determined orthodoxy in this case? Those who held an opinion on the matter? Or the Church when it decided as a whole?

This applies to every situation throughout history in which a definitive dogma had to be declared. We haven’t received a ‘new revelation’. We’ve merely been given greater clarity on the issue through the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit, just as Christ promised would happen. Orthodoxy is determined by the Church as a whole, regardless of the time it is decided or the opinions of those who came prior.
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Good answer. Just to elaborate, here’s how Cardinal Manning put it in his book on the Temporal Mission of the Holy Spirit:
Cardinal Manning:
The Fathers were the children and the disciples of the Church. They learned their faith from it, and they expressed it partly in the words the Church had taught them, partly when, as yet, the Church had not fixed its terminology in language of their own. In the former, the Church recognises its own voice ; in the latter, it knows their intention even when their language is less perfect. And when they err, the Church both discerns and corrects it : for the Church was their guide and teacher, not they hers. If any one desire to see both proof and illustration of what is here said, let him examine the treatises of Petavius on the Patristic language relating to the Holy Trinity ; or, to refer to a more accessible work, let him turn to the language of the Fathers on the Immensity of the Son in a well-known work on the Development of Christian Doctrine [Gen315: I assume he means Newman’s work here]. The havoc made not only with the writings of the Fathers, but with the doctrines of faith, by those who profess to interpret them, apart from the lineal tradition of the Church, is evidence enough of the falseness of this method. The only Father in whom, it is said, the Church has noted no error, is S. Gregory of Nazianzum. The Church can freely criticise the works of its own disciples : for while they may err, it cannot. And the imperfect conceptions and imperfect definitions of individual fathers of an early age are rectified by the mature conceptions and authoritative definitions of the Church in a later. The maturity of theology is not antiquity, but its later days ; and language which was blameless in earlier and simpler times, may become heterodox in after ages : for example, the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father through the Son, the Immaculate Nativity of the Mother of God, and the like. Again, language which once was heterodox may become the test of truth, as the Homoousion, which was condemned by the Council of Antioch in the Sabellian sense, and in half a century was inserted in the Creed by the Council of Nicea. No critic except the living and lineal judge and discerner of truth, the only Church of God, can solve these inequalities and anomalies in the history of doctrine. To the Church the facts of antiquity are transparent in the light of its perpetual consciousness of the original revelation.
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Also, just to point out, this idea of development was not rejected by the separated East until the last 150 years or so. They had developed right along with the West when united and even continued with the West for a while when separated. However, during their especially anti-Latin movement of the 19th century, they decided to jettison many of these developments which they considered Latin corruptions, especially if the major work of theological development was done in the West, such as that done by St. Augustine.
 
Classicist said:
Friends & Brothers in Christ,

The theory of doctrinal development confuses me.

Does it mean that a man could question the Immaculate Conception in 1800 and be a good Catholic, while the same man could question the Immaculate Conception in 1900 and be a heretic who risks damnation? How could this be so, if truth remains the same forever?

Also, importantly, does the Church actually teach doctrinal development Magisterially? We gotta be sure of that before we put our feet down, after all. 😉
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BRIEFLY:
All revelation (general revelation) stopped with the death of the last apostle. However, as time has progressed clarification of these revelations’ doctrines have emerged; these clarifications are called dogmas. For example, the doctrine of the Father, Son and Holy Sprit was given before the death of the last apostle but clarity and understanding did not surface until about 300+AD, the same goes for Scripture (the canon was closed in the 16th Century albeit the books of the bible was established around 405AD but the door was open to more books, the sacraments were given while Christ was with us; but not until the 16th century was this doctine clarified via dogma. Now Mary’s appearances are not a requirement to believe as these were not before the death of the apostles; however, her Ascension and Coranation were before the death of the last apostle and must be believed.
In the first 300 paragraphs of the Catechism this is made very clear.👍
 
What’s our defense against the claim that the Assumption is not an original doctrine or theory of the Church, and therefore cannot be “developed”? It doesn’t seem to appear in apostolic, patristic, or theological writings before the “Transitus Literature”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary#History_of_the_belief

The Gelasian decretals of the 490s declared such things “apocryphal”… so how can the Assumption “develop” from something hidden and not believed? :confused:
 
Classicist said:
What’s our defense against the claim that the Assumption is not an original doctrine or theory of the Church, and therefore cannot be “developed”? It doesn’t seem to appear in apostolic, patristic, or theological writings before the “Transitus Literature”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary#History_of_the_belief

The Gelasian decretals of the 490s declared such things “apocryphal”… so how can the Assumption “develop” from something hidden and not believed? :confused:
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They declare all things about the Assumption to be apocryphal, or just the writings that include them? This is the same thing that happened with the Protoevangelium of James: there are many traditions that it passed on (the parents of Mary, her perpetual virginity), but it was inaccurate and contained falsehoods, as well (there were no Jewish temple virgins, the Nativity was not in a cave, ect). Simply because the work itself was determined apocryphal does not discredit any truths found within.

Additionally, assumptions happened to other individuals in Scripture (Enoch and Elijah). Why is it far-fetched to discern that the Mother of God was given this blessing? The Mother of Our Lord was quite more important than any other person before her, seeing that her obedience to God allowed the Logos to enter the world in the flesh. It is not unreasonable to believe that she was assumed, and the Church has discerned that this did indeed happen.
 
Classicist said:
What’s our defense against the claim that the Assumption is not an original doctrine or theory of the Church, and therefore cannot be “developed”? It doesn’t seem to appear in apostolic, patristic, or theological writings before the “Transitus Literature”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary#History_of_the_belief

The Gelasian decretals of the 490s declared such things “apocryphal”… so how can the Assumption “develop” from something hidden and not believed? :confused:
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It would be mistaken to suppose that the Assumption of Mary was something hidden and not believed going back to ancient times. But for a complete explanation see the definition itself MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS
 
Classicist said:
What’s our defense against the claim that the Assumption is not an original doctrine or theory of the Church, and therefore cannot be “developed”? It doesn’t seem to appear in apostolic, patristic, or theological writings before the “Transitus Literature”. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assumption_of_Mary#History_of_the_belief

The Gelasian decretals of the 490s declared such things “apocryphal”… so how can the Assumption “develop” from something hidden and not believed? :confused:
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Andrew, Epiphanius, Germanus, Gregory of Tours, Isidore, John Damascene, etc. all were Church Fathers, and all spoke about the Assumption of Mary. See the book Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought, for a great set of Patristic teachings on Marian dogma.
 
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