Does papal infallibility interfere with free will?

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That is, if the pope is infallible, does that mean that God does not allow him to use his free will to choose to teach error on faith and morals …? So if a pope really wanted to teach error, he couldn’t?

Someone asked me this question. I didn’t know what to say.🤷
 
Student09 said:
That is, if the pope is infallible, does that mean that God does not allow him to use his free will to choose to teach error on faith and morals …? So if a pope really wanted to teach error, he couldn’t?

Someone asked me this question. I didn’t know what to say.🤷
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I am assuming you are speaking with another Christian since his question centers around free-will.

If my assumption is correct I would counter with a similar question; did God interfer with the free will of the writers of the Bible? Were they free to write error?

God bless
 
Roman_Catholic said:
I am assuming you are speaking with another Christian since his question centers around free-will.

If my assumption is correct I would counter with a similar question; did God interfer with the free will of the writers of the Bible? Were they free to write error?

God bless
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Seems like a different situation though … because if an inspired prophet/writer HAD written error, the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, would simply *not *have included it in the Bible. There was not a set rule already in place that whatever they wrote would be taken as inerrant - it was only later identified as such. But the pope is already in a position where his teachings on faith and morals must be infallible, unless I am misunderstanding.
 
Student09 said:
Seems like a different situation though … because if an inspired prophet/writer HAD written error, the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, would simply *not *have included it in the Bible. There was not a set rule already in place that whatever they wrote would be taken as inerrant - it was only later identified as such. But the pope is already in a position where his teachings on faith and morals must be infallible, unless I am misunderstanding.
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Yes but couldn’t the writer’s have been in error when they said the Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit?
 
mariahloves said:
Yes but couldn’t the writer’s have been in error when they said the Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit?
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Huh? :confused: This is all just getting more confusing … lol.

The question was not about Scripture, it was about papal infallibility. I’m just trying to understand it myself and understand how to answer my friend. My friend is *not *a Christian and does not accept Scripture as inspired, but knew that free will is a big issue in Christianity and so posed this question. Any answers …?
 
Student09 said:
Seems like a different situation though … because if an inspired prophet/writer HAD written error, the Church,** guided by the Holy Spirit**, would simply *not *have included it in the Bible. There was not a set rule already in place that whatever they wrote would be taken as inerrant - it was only later identified as such. But the pope is already in a position where his teachings on faith and morals must be infallible, unless I am misunderstanding.
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The Pope is also guided by the Holy Spirit. I doubt your friend will buy the, “the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit…” Maybe he/she would? 🤷 If they did though I would wonder why they were not Catholic.

It is an interesting theological question. I would handle it like this; it runs into the same sort of problems that some other, ‘interesting theological questions’ run into such as, ‘could God create something that was so heavy he could not lift?’ The inability of the Pope, who speaks infallibly (on faith and morals), to speak error has nothing, really, to do with free will. Being infallible and having the ability to speak error (in faith and morals) is a contradiction. It limits free will no more than my inability to transform into an elephant limits my free will. Is my inability to turn into an elephant limiting to my free will? Even if I really wanted to be an elephant?

The Pope is either infallible or he isn’t. That is where the discussion should be. If he is infallible then speaking error is not an affront to his free will, as if he could speak error he would not be infallible. Again, it is a contradiction and like Frand Sheed once said, “a contradiction is nothing and nothing is impossible to God” 😉

You could also go another route, though I am not certain how correct I am here. The Pope, when speaking infallibly, doesn’t so much limit his free will to speak error but speaks the will of God, “he who hears you, hears me…” Lk 10:16 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…” Jn 16:13

I am less sure on the second part and would therefore probably tackle it with my first suggestion. But that is me.

God bless you
 
Student09 said:
My friend is *not *a Christian and does not accept Scripture as inspired, but knew that free will is a big issue in Christianity and so posed this question. Any answers …?
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Yep, then my assumption was wrong. Not surprised they usually are. I would stay away from my first suggestion as he would not believe that the Bible was inspired. Not being a Christian and all.

May God bless you in your discussion with your friend.
 
Student09 said:
That is, if the pope is infallible, does that mean that God does not allow him to use his free will to choose to teach error on faith and morals …? So if a pope really wanted to teach error, he couldn’t?

Someone asked me this question. I didn’t know what to say.🤷
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I don’t really understand this either. And I don’t think a lot of people do either because when I asked, I didn’t get but one person to respond: Malleus 0I tried to explain it to me in this thread: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=435544&highlight=papal+infallibility

Maybe reading that thread might help you out. I, too, don’t get how the pope can be infallible if he still has free will. How do his own feelings, beliefs, even biases, not get involved when the Holy Spirit is there to guide him? Yes, the Holy Spirit is there to guide him, but how can we be sure that the Pope will get the intended message? If the Popes of the past have fallen to sin, how do we know he hasn’t fallen to sin in his interpretation of the message sent by the Holy Spirit? I’m sure we ALL know that the Holy Spirit promised to guide the Pater and the Apostles and their successors, but no one ever said that they’d be compelled to follow. They’re only human after all…
 
Absolutely not, does the church interfere with free will?

Each pope receives less and less power, it’s because the others have established the offical churches stance on given subjects. It’s a matter of keeping up with the times, making sure cannon is going to stay with anything that comes up, and when it’s new, the Pope needs to make precedence. That’s all that is in a nutshell, nothing more guys.
 
Student09 said:
That is, if the pope is infallible, does that mean that God does not allow him to use his free will to choose to teach error on faith and morals …? So if a pope really wanted to teach error, he couldn’t?

Someone asked me this question. I didn’t know what to say.🤷
Click to expand...
My theory is that he would die before being able to promulgate the error. So no, his free will is not being interfered with, there’s just a logical consequence for attempting to do something.
 
Student09 said:
That is, if the pope is infallible, does that mean that God does not allow him to use his free will to choose to teach error on faith and morals …? So if a pope really wanted to teach error, he couldn’t?

Someone asked me this question. I didn’t know what to say.🤷
Click to expand...
Papal infallibility does not contradict free will.

The Church can teach infallibly under very specific circumstances (e.g. the Pope teaching “ex cathedra” or the Pope and all bishops together) as an action of their free will.

If the Pope wanted to teach error (really, a kind of silly hypothetical situation, no?) he certainly could. However, such teaching would not be received and understood by the Church as being infallibly taught.
 
mariahloves said:
Yes but couldn’t the writer’s have been in error when they said the Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit?
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This ^^^^ is the defining question.

Who’s to say the writer’s wasn’t in error?..Nobody can beyond a doubt.
 
Student09 said:
Huh? :confused: This is all just getting more confusing … lol.

The question was not about Scripture, it was about papal infallibility. I’m just trying to understand it myself and understand how to answer my friend. My friend is *not *a Christian and does not accept Scripture as inspired, but knew that free will is a big issue in Christianity and so posed this question. Any answers …?
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If she’s not a Christian then I think you’ll have an extremely hard time answering her question. If she doesn’t believe in the Bible then you can’t use that as a source.
 
diggerdomer said:
Papal infallibility does not contradict free will.

The Church can teach infallibly under very specific circumstances (e.g. the Pope teaching “ex cathedra” or the Pope and all bishops together) as an action of their free will.

If the Pope wanted to teach error (really, a kind of silly hypothetical situation, no?) he certainly could. However, such teaching would not be received and understood by the Church as being infallibly taught.
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If it is all free will, then there is room for error. In my opinion either the pope does not have free will when speaking infallibly, or he isn’t really speaking infallibly. You can’t have it both ways IMO.
 
hellopeople said:
If it is all free will, then there is room for error. In my opinion either the pope does not have free will when speaking infallibly, or he isn’t really speaking infallibly. You can’t have it both ways IMO.
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Read my post #7. How can someone who is infallible be able to speak error (in faith and morals)? It can’t possibly be otherwise they would not be infallible. An infallible person who can speak error is a contradiction. Again it has nothing to do with free will. The question should be whether or not the Pope is infallible (in faith and morals). If he is, then he cannot possibly speak error (in faith and morals) otherwise he would not be infallible. It has nothing to do with free will anymore than my inability to turn a triangle into a square limits my free will. If it is a triangle it is not a square, if it is a square it is not a triangle. Even if I really really wanted the triangle to be a square. If the Pope can speak error he is not infallible. If the Pope is infallible he cannot speak error. It has nothing to do with free will. The discussion should be whether or not the Pope is infallible.

God bless you
 
Roman_Catholic said:
Read my post #7. How can someone who is infallible be able to speak error (in faith and morals)? It can’t possibly be otherwise they would not be infallible. An infallible person who can speak error is a contradiction. Again it has nothing to do with free will. The question should be whether or not the Pope is infallible (in faith and morals). If he is, then he cannot possibly speak error (in faith and morals) otherwise he would not be infallible. It has nothing to do with free will anymore than my inability to turn a triangle into a square limits my free will. If it is a triangle it is not a square, if it is a square it is not a triangle. Even if I really really wanted the triangle to be a square. If the Pope can speak error he is not infallible. If the Pope is infallible he cannot speak error. It has nothing to do with free will. The discussion should be whether or not the Pope is infallible.

God bless you
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What is the source of the pope’s infallibility?
 
hellopeople said:
What is the source of the pope’s infallibility?
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I know where you are going. Again though, if the Pope could speak error he would not be infallible. If he is infallible he cannot speak error. It has nothing to do with free will.

The source of my being is from God. I am a human, I cannot be an elephant even if I really really wanted to be one. It does not limit my free will because I cannot be an elephant despite the fact that God made me a human.

Do you not see that if the Pope is infallible that the ability to speak error (in faith and morals) would be a contradiction? Yes or no? Is a four sided triangle a contradiction? What if I really wanted a triangle to have four sides? Is my free will limited because I can’t make a four sided triangle?

God bless you
 
Roman_Catholic said:
I know where you are going. Again though, if the Pope could speak error he would not be infallible. If he is infallible he cannot speak error. It has nothing to do with free will.

The source of my being is from God. I am a human, I cannot be an elephant even if I really really wanted to be one. It does not limit my free will because I cannot be an elephant despite the fact that God made me a human.

Do you not see that if the Pope is infallible that the ability to speak error (in faith and morals) would be a contradiction? Yes or no? Is a four sided triangle a contradiction? What if I really wanted a triangle to have four sides? Is my free will limited because I can’t make a four sided triangle?

God bless you
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Your answer, while creative, does have one problem. A triangle is always a triangle and thus has the nature of a triangle. So your argument is valid.

The Pope was not always the Pope. Joseph Ratzinger was a fallible human being who through becoming Pope has supposedly acquired occasional infallibility (when speaking ex cathedra, etc. etc.). Thus he was able to speak error in the past and is potentially unable to speak error at some times during his pontificate so there must be a change of some sort. The question “does this change impact the free will of Joseph Ratzinger since he became Benedict XVI?” is a valid one. Infallibility is considered part of the office, not the human nature of the office holder so one can inquire as to how the two interact.
 
Non_Serviam said:
Your answer, while creative, does have one problem. A triangle is always a triangle and thus has the nature of a triangle. So your argument is valid.

The Pope was not always the Pope. Joseph Ratzinger was a fallible human being who through becoming Pope has supposedly acquired occasional infallibility (when speaking ex cathedra, etc. etc.). Thus he was able to speak error in the past and is potentially unable to speak error at some times during his pontificate so there must be a change of some sort. The question “does this change impact the free will of Joseph Ratzinger since he became Benedict XVI?” is a valid one. Infallibility is considered part of the office, not the human nature of the office holder so one can inquire as to how the two interact.
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I never said one couldn’t inquire on how they interact. I already said it was an interesting theological question but it presents a contradiction; being infallible and being able to speak error. It is not possible. It is a contradiction. It has nothing to do with free will any more than me not bieng infallible presents limits on my free will. If he could speak error he would not be infallible. I am a fallible being, even if I really really wanted to be infallible I could not be, because I am fallible. It has nothing to do with my free will; I am fallible. If the Pope is infallible he cannot speak error.

You can’t be both. You cannot be infallible in matters of faith and morals and, at the same time, able to speak error in those areas otherwise you would not be infallible. The Pope is either infallible or he is not. If he is not, then he can speak error. If he is, he cannot speak error any more than he could make a a four sided triangle. My example of the square and the triangle was to present a contradiction. A four sided triangle is not a triangle; an infallible person who can teach error is not infallible. Again, it has nothing to do with free will. If he spoke error, he would be fallible. He could not possibly be infallible and speak error. It is as big a contradiction as a four sided triangle is. The discussion should be whether or not he is infallible.

God bless you
 
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