Help Answering Protestant (Infallability)

[mawst]

I’ve made the distinction in a discussion with a friend regarding thr criteria for Infallibility, and the following questions were raised. Now I have my own answers, but I’d like any additional (name removed by moderator)ut from you good Catholic folks that might be able to add something I might not have thought of. Here are his questions/statements, please help me respond:

It must have been the dawning era of the modern day lawyer, as the church tried to define what “We can’t be wrong.” really means, to cover over a millenia of mistakes…Chiseling down that square peg to force it into a round hole.
What you have here is a game that children play, where one kid rolls the dice, and doesn’t get the number he wants, so he says “THAT DIDN’T COUNT! (insert excuse here) I’m rolling again.”. I now have to ask you a few things about those criteria.

1. How can you claim decisions on “faith and morals” never came into play during the Crusades, the Dark Age, Spanish Inquisition, and reign of Pope Pius XII?
2. If countless human atrocities were not Ex Cathedra, then tell me, why were they followed?
3. If these ‘unofficial’ decisions were not binding on the whole church, then why did the whole church act on them?
4. How can the ‘Vicar of Christ’ NOT intend to teach? Remembering that everything Christ did just short of salvation was teaching.

 

[MarcoPolo]

The “whole Church” did not engage in the atrocities your friend is asserting. Neither the Crusades (which were fairly justifiable for the most part in recovering land taken by Muslims as I understand), nor the Inquisition are reasonably describable as “countless atrocities.” Your friend is talking gibberish. He perhaps has been fed the usual myths on these subjects.

Your friend also does not understand the limits and conditions necessary for infallibility. He is trying to insist that behavior MUST be an instance of universal teaching as part of the “teaching office” held. That is his personal rule, not ours. Infallibility is exercised very carefully regarding dogmas and doctrines of faith or morals throughout centuries of Tradition guided by the Holy Spirit. Just because Peter acted like a hypocrite in Galatians by not associating with Gentiles, the doctrine of salvation for all people was no less an infallible truth taught by that same Peter. There is no “that didn’t count” because your friend is erroneously insisting that instances of behavior define dogma. We don’t deny that all members of the Church sin. And we believe dogmas taught by the Church are infallibly true in spite of the personal sins of her members.

Here are a couple articles on the Inquisition. (Primer, Inquisition)

And the Crusades. (Crusading, Myths, 101)

If he continues with the high flown language of “whole Church” and “countless atrocities” after you offer a response, I wouldn’t spend much more time with him. I’ve found those who speak so dramatically without cause are usually obstinate to any evidence that damns their position. You can always pray and do penance for him and hope you planted a seed.

 

[Brian_Culliton]

And we believe dogmas taught by the Church are infallibly true in spite of the personal sins of her members.

From the catechism of the Catholic Church:

“The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone…Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.” (CCC 85-86)

As I am sure you know, the deposit of faith is what the apostles supposedly handed down to the church. Yet the Catholic Church has proclaimed dogmas that cannot be traced back to the apostles. In light of the contradiction between what is claimed in the catechism and historical fact, why do you believe they are infallible, because they tell you they are?

 

[djeter]

FWIW I wrote this post which attempts to distinguish infallibility and the three forms of the magisterium

A teaser from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus:

How does the charism of infallibility work? “There is something like a Catch 22 here (in the idea of sensus fidelium, which the Magisterium interprets). If the sense of the faithful is measured by the belief of those who are faithful, then those who are not faithful to the Church’s teaching do not have a voice in defining what is the Church’s teaching. One may be forgiven for suspecting an element of circularity in this reasoning. Those who disagree with the official Magisterium are, by definition not faithful and therefore are not part of the sensus fidelium that bears witness to the truth of what the Magisterium teaches.

In untangling this knotty question it may be useful to recall Cardinal Newman’s example of how the faithful held out for what would come to be recognized as orthodoxy when most of the bishops were leaning toward the Arian heresy (the belief that the Son is not co-equally God with the Father). In the liturgy and devotional life of the Church the faithful intuited the necessity of affirming that Jesus Christ is at once God and true man. They knew they worshiped Jesus Christ as God and, if he were not God, they would be guilty of idolatry. The bishops assembled in council would in time be led by the Spirit to recognize and ratify what the faithful believed.

What Augustine called the City of God is, like the earthly city, a creature of time. Unlike the earthly city, its destination is eternal life, the New Jerusalem. That is the Tradition, the truth that is passed on from generation to generation. The oft-quoted words of Jaroslav Pelikan are in order: *“Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide.” *(Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth, (Basic Books;New York,2006)

The rest is here:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/07/23/understanding-the-magisterium/

dj

 

[DOShea]

As I am sure you know, the deposit of faith is what the apostles supposedly handed down to the church. Yet the Catholic Church has proclaimed dogmas that cannot be traced back to the apostles. In light of the contradiction between what is claimed in the catechism and historical fact, why do you believe they are infallible, because they tell you they are?

Supposedly??? Are you saying history points to the Apostles NOT handing down a deposit of faith to the church? Please be specific. Name the proclaimed dogma(s) you are speaking of, and list what you see as a contradiction between catechism and historical fact. Without that information, how is anyone supposed to know what you are referring to?

 

[Brian_Culliton]

I’m saying that the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles did not include several dogmas of the Catholic Church such as the immaculate conception, the assumption of Mary, transubstantiation, the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc. Your catechism claims that the doctrines of the Catholic faith come from the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles. That simply is not true. You can claim they are infallible (though I don’t know how anyone can honestly say that), but the evidence suggests otherwise.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Yet the Catholic Church has proclaimed dogmas that cannot be traced back to the apostles.

I appreciate your opinion, but this thread is regarding the OP’s question on sins of members relating to teaching capacity, not traceability of dogma.

 

[mawst]

Thanks everyone, very useful responses and I appreciate them.

 

[Lampo]

1. How can you claim decisions on “faith and morals” never came into play during the Crusades, the Dark Age, Spanish Inquisition, and reign of Pope Pius XII?

The pope wasn’t speaking ex cathedra or the bishops didn’t speak in union with the pope. I’d ask him to show you the Encyclical or Dogmatic Constitution he wrote, that stated that these activities are no longer to be considered sinful, including the phrase, "I declare and define … ".

Otherwise, we have a man who is not impeccable (without sin), but who, as near as we can tell, remains infallible (without error in his teaching ministry).

1. If countless human atrocities were not Ex Cathedra, then tell me, why were they followed?

Free will.

1. If these ‘unofficial’ decisions were not binding on the whole church, then why did the whole church act on them?

Free will.

1. How can the ‘Vicar of Christ’ NOT intend to teach? Remembering that everything Christ did just short of salvation was teaching.

Some of his teachings incur the charism of infallibility and some teachings do not.

 

[DOShea]

I’m saying that the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles did not include several dogmas of the Catholic Church such as the immaculate conception, the assumption of Mary, transubstantiation, the perpetual virginity of Mary, etc. Your catechism claims that the doctrines of the Catholic faith come from the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles. That simply is not true. You can claim they are infallible (though I don’t know how anyone can honestly say that), but the evidence suggests otherwise.

I think you might be misunderstanding the phrase you used, “the deposit of faith handed down from the apostles,” as meaning every aspect of a dogma or doctrine today can be found coming from the lips of an Apostle or else it is… invalid somehow? That’s not how it works. Take transubstantiation for example. No Apostle that we know of used that word, but you can go back to the writings of the very early church fathers and see all the necessary “things” that make that doctrine go. You can find that bread and wine were used and that all believed at the consecration it became the body and blood of Jesus. That grace was received by it, that you shouldn’t partake of it if you were in a state of grave sin, etc. They didn’t explain how it happened, something that came much later when the idea of the “mechanics” of transubstantiation we discussed. But because the early Christians didn’t ask “how,” it doesn’t diminish the notion that they believed the same thing about the Eucharist we believe today.

Other doctrines, particularly those declared in Councils, were not inventing something new but rather responding to or correcting heresy. Often this was merely reiterating what the faithful already believed, and did so all the way back to the beginning. Trent, for instance, makes declarations about Baptism, yet they are nothing that St. Peter wouldn’t recognize.

I like to think of the example of a trail through the woods or through some mountains. Everyone walks them without any formal designation as “a trail” or “path.” Later, maybe centuries later, someone, recognizing the long, consistent use of this as a road of travel, declares it (names it) “a trail.” Then the question, did the early trail walkers consider it a trail or was that something “invented” later? While they likely didn’t call it a trail, they did walk along it and use it as a means to get from A to B, which is what we do with trails, so in that way you could say they saw it as a trail even though that word never came out of their mouths.

It’s the same with all the Church’s doctrines and dogmas. They weren’t formed out of something never seen, believed, or heard of before. They were formalizations of already existing beliefs.