Infallibility and the Ineffibility of God

[CutlerB]

I’m confused on the Infallibilty of both the Church and the Pope.

According to someone on Facebook, a dogmatic definition by the Pope or the Church is never a positive statement but only a statement that makes it unacceptable to deny what is being defined. He says that a positive statement is incompatible with the Ineffibility of God.

I fail to see the difference between the two.

Is this an accurate definition? If so, why is there a difference?

 

[CutlerB]

As an example:

The dogmatic definition of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother:

(B)y the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

I do not see how “not denying” that Mary was assumed into heaven is different from affirming the fact. Moreover, how would one limit God by stating this? It doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[Lancer]

Facebook person is simply wrong…look at this Dogmatic(explicitly defined) Doctrine on the Immaculate Conception of Blessed Virgin Mary…by Pope Pius IX…here is the Definition part:

THE DEFINITION

Ineffabilis Deus

Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius IX on the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 1854)

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.

[Declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus doctrinam quae tenet beatissimam Virginem Mariam in primo instanti suae conceptionis fuisse singulari Omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis, ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam, atque idcirco ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam.]

Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

newadvent.org/library/docs_pi09id.htm

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**Catechism **states:

213 The **revelation of the ineffable **name “I AM WHO AM” contains then the truth that God alone IS. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it the Church’s Tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, **“infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.**82

2575 Here again the initiative is God’s. From the midst of the burning bush he calls Moses.20 This event will remain one of the primordial images of prayer in the spiritual tradition of Jews and Christians alike. When “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” calls Moses to be his servant, it is because he is the living God who wants men to live. God reveals himself in order to save them, though he does not do this alone or despite them: he calls Moses to be his messenger, an associate in his compassion, his work of salvation. There is something of a divine plea in this mission, and only after long debate does Moses attune his own will to that of the Savior God. But in the dialogue in which God confides in him, Moses also learns how to pray: he balks, makes excuses, above all questions: and it is in response to his question that the Lord confides his ineffable name, which will be revealed through his mighty deeds.

Pax Christi

 

[CutlerB]

Facebook person is simply wrong…look at this Dogmatic(explicitly defined) Doctrine on the Immaculate Conception of Blessed Virgin Mary…by Pope Pius IX…here is the Definition part:

What exactly is the bit that refutes the FB person?

**Catechism **states:
213 The revelation of the ineffable name “I AM WHO AM” contains then the truth that God alone IS. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it the Church’s Tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.82

2575 Here again the initiative is God’s. From the midst of the burning bush he calls Moses.20 This event will remain one of the primordial images of prayer in the spiritual tradition of Jews and Christians alike. When “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob” calls Moses to be his servant, it is because he is the living God who wants men to live. God reveals himself in order to save them, though he does not do this alone or despite them: he calls Moses to be his messenger, an associate in his compassion, his work of salvation. There is something of a divine plea in this mission, and only after long debate does Moses attune his own will to that of the Savior God. But in the dialogue in which God confides in him, Moses also learns how to pray: he balks, makes excuses, above all questions: and it is in response to his question that the** Lord confides his ineffable name, which will be revealed through his mighty deeds.**

Pax Christi

Well, I’m not entirely sure about the relevance of the Catechism part.

I have a feeling that the person on Facebook is not quite accurate, because I see the dogmatic definition as a black-and-white issue. Either the definition is true, or it’s not. Since the Pope (or Council) cannot err in such a solemn act of teaching, the former is the case. Therefore not only does it “not deny” the Truth of the Dogma, but it is a “positive infallibility”.

Again, if I’m wrong on this, please correct me.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I doubt this person was thinking of things like the Marian dogmas, or at least he should not have been. This person has evidently been introduced to the idea of apophatic theology and is applying the concept rather ham-fistedly.

 

[CutlerB]

I doubt this person was thinking of things like the Marian dogmas, or at least he should not have been. This person has evidently been introduced to the idea of apophatic theology and is applying the idea rather ham-fistedly.

I’ve heard of apophatic theology. I believe St Thomas Aquinas had something to say about it?

Well, the discussion was actually about purgatory, but it developed into something broader. In short: I was stating that Purgatory was part of infallible Church teaching, though never dogmatically defined by a Pope. I’m not sure whether Lyons, Florence or Trent ever did?

It then came to pass that he wrote the following sentence:

Let us live in the manner as one lives, when one knows that one will live in the Afterlife [in Heaven]

That was originally in German, so please excuse the rather bumpy translation…

Following that statement, I asked for clarification, since it sounded terribly like “Once Saved, Always Saved”. I stated we could not know that we would live in Heaven as he said. We could only hope to do so in following God’s commandments and living in charity.

That’s what prompted this:

The Church has always said that one could not deny the existence of Hell, but that one need not believe it had any inhabitants either.

One cannot say anything infallibly and Catholic Theology has never presumed to be able to do so. One can believe something, but not know it. One cannot say: “God Exists”, but only “I believe God Exists.” He is not subject to one’s knowledge, but He Reveals Himself which one can accept with faith. We do not know anything, everything is revealed to us, it is given to us but not subjected to us – it remains a mystery.

Heavens, this is spinning my mind :whacky:

 

[Aelred_Minor]

I’ve heard of apophatic theology. I believe St Thomas Aquinas had something to say about it?

Well, the discussion was actually about purgatory, but it developed into something broader. In short: I was stating that Purgatory was part of infallible Church teaching, though never dogmatically defined by a Pope. I’m not sure whether Lyons, Florence or Trent ever did?

It then came to pass that he wrote the following sentence:

That was originally in German, so please excuse the rather bumpy translation…

Following that statement, I asked for clarification, since it sounded terribly like “Once Saved, Always Saved”. I stated we could not know that we would live in Heaven as he said. We could only hope to do so in following God’s commandments and living in charity.

That’s what prompted this:

Heavens, this is spinning my mind :whacky:

Apophatic theology focuses on the fact that we cannot know God as He is in His Essence, at least prior to the Beatific Vision. We tend to ascribe attributes to God, but as we have only creaturely models for those attributes we can’t really conceive of how they apply to God in His divine simplicity, in which all His attributes are identical with each other and with His simple Essence and Existence.

Thus we can say that God is powerful, but it is creaturely ideas of muscle strength or electricity or internal combustion engines, or political rulers, that we are drawing on for our ideas of power, while we know God’s power is not like that. Likewise we talk of God as loving, but we have only examples of human love for our intellects to directly draw from. God’s love goes far beyond that. And so on for every attribute of God.

Apophatic theology, again, recognizes the limitations of human language and thought in describing God and says that negative statements can be used to describe God with a simpler kind of accuracy than positive (figurative) statements. Thus we can say quite simply that God is not impotent, without falling back on the figurative imagination by which we would positively say that he is powerful. Or we can say that God is not unloving with a simpler sort of confidence than by which we can say that he is loving. In the same way we can say that God is not ignorant, is not unmerciful, is not unjust, is not non-existant, and so forth.

None of this has much direct bearing, as far as I can see, on the doctrines of purgatory or hell.

I might be wrong, but it sounds to me like this person is using a load of sophistry to obscure the fact that he rejects a doctrine of the Catholic Church. If so he may not be a healthy person to engage in conversation.

 

[CutlerB]

Apophatic theology focuses on the fact that we cannot know God as He is in His Essence, at least prior to the Beatific Vision. We tend to ascribe attributes to God, but as we have only creaturely models for those attributes we can’t really conceive of how they apply to God in His divine simplicity, in which all His attributes are identical with each other and with His simple Essence and Existence.

Thus we can say that God is powerful, but it is creaturely ideas of muscle strength or electricity or internal combustion engines, or political rulers, that we are drawing on for our ideas of power, while we know God’s power is not like that. Likewise we talk of God as loving, but we have only examples of human love for our intellects to directly draw from. God’s love goes far beyond that. And so on for every attribute of God.

Apophatic theology, again, recognizes the limitations of human language and thought in describing God and says that negative statements can be used to describe God with a simpler kind of accuracy than positive (figurative) statements. Thus we can say quite simply that God is not impotent, without falling back on the figurative imagination by which we would positively say that he is powerful. Or we can say that God is not unloving with a simpler sort of confidence than by which we can say that he is loving. In the same way we can say that God is not ignorant, is not unmerciful, is not unjust, is not non-existant, and so forth.

None of this has much bearing, as far as I can see, on the doctrines of purgatory or hell.

I might be wrong, but it sounds to me like this person is using a load of sophistry to obscure the fact that he rejects a doctrine of the Catholic Church. If so he may not be a healthy person to engage in conversation.

Indeed, apophatic Theology makes good sense in principle! But as you say, it doesn’t really seem to have bearing on purgatory or hell.

It may week be he’s using loads of sophistry. I fall for it too often… Neither would I be surprised if he rejected Purgatory, although he somewhere else implied he believed it. On other posts, he oftentimes makes statements that seem rather modernist, so it may well be he rejects Purgatory.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Indeed, apophatic Theology makes good sense in principle! But as you say, it doesn’t really seem to have bearing on purgatory or hell.

It may week be he’s using loads of sophistry. I fall for it too often… Neither would I be surprised if he rejected Purgatory, although he somewhere else implied he believed it. On other posts, he oftentimes makes statements that seem rather modernist, so it may well be he rejects Purgatory.

I wasn’t thinking of purgatory. You haven’t provided much of that part of the conversation. What it sounded like to me was that this person does not want to accept the reality of hell and is trying to find a way around it through a combination of the popular idea that hell might be empty and a misapplication of apophatic theology to cast doubt on the whole of Catholic doctrine. As I said maybe I am misunderstanding him though.

 

[CutlerB]

I wasn’t thinking of purgatory. You haven’t provided much of that part of the conversation. What it sounded like to me was that this person does not want to accept the reality of hell and is trying to find a way around it through a combination of the popular idea that hell might be empty and a misapplication of apophatic theology to cast doubt on the whole of Catholic doctrine. As I said maybe I am misunderstanding him though.

Well, you did mention purgatory once…

We weren’t discussing hell. I think you’re partly misunderstanding him.

He says he “didn’t deny Purgatory” (which leaves open whether he believes it!), but took issue with my comment that Purgatory was part of infallible Church teaching and had to be believed. I would have to translate a lot of long comments, that’s why I’m reluctant to post them… Is there a specific comment you are looking for?