Is there a logic to infallibility?

[Mystophilus]

Obviously, the question appears quite contentious, and deliberately so. This is not because I wish to upset anyone, but simply because I thought that it might provoke a wider, and therefore more useful, response.

To my understanding, the doctrine of infallibility works as follows:

• The Holy Spirit would not allow the Roman Catholic Church to persistently teach erroneous doctrine, and so,
• If the Roman Catholic Church has consistently taught doctrine X over the centuries,
• then doctrine X must be true.

My question, then, is whether the first proposition, that the Holy Spirit would not allow this, is a coldly logical one, derived from reasoning from demonstrable premisses, or whether it is actually based entirely upon faith. Thus, what is the underlying reasoning for this claim?

Now, because I am not a Catholic, I obviously do not believe, at this point in my life, that the claim is true. However, I am interested to learn why others believe that it is.

Thanks,
-M.

 

[scylla]

How about this, one of my favorite subjects is infallibility.

The logic behind it is this. If we did not believe in infallibility the our faith is not based on God’s truth\face but mere opinion.
A Catholic would believe that one reason Jesus came was to establish what is God’s truth. So from the very beginning those who didn’t agree were rejecting the fact that Jesus was God, and that truth matters for Salvation.
So in order for us to believe in something it would not be because of an interpretation, a philosophy or belief but rather because it is an infallible fact.
Why waste you time with opinion, I might as well believe that Scientology means something that is why any belief system must come directly from God and be infallible or else it is just a waste of time. Maybe good for making people feel good, but not much else.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[VociMike]

The strongest argument for (1), IMO, is the fact that the Church has been given the power to bind and loose heaven, that is, God. Now, God cannot possibly be bound to error, or loosed from truth. Therefore, the power to bind and loose requires that, somehow, that power never be used to bind or loose falsely. Hence, the power to bind and loose must be attached to infallibility.

 

[Atreyu]

How about this, one of my favorite subjects is infallibility.

The logic behind it is this. If we did not believe in infallibility the our faith is not based on God’s truth\face but mere opinion.
A Catholic would believe that one reason Jesus came was to establish what is God’s truth. So from the very beginning those who didn’t agree were rejecting the fact that Jesus was God, and that truth matters for Salvation.
So in order for us to believe in something it would not be because of an interpretation, a philosophy or belief but rather because it is an infallible fact.
Why waste you time with opinion, I might as well believe that Scientology means something that is why any belief system must come directly from God and be infallible or else it is just a waste of time. Maybe good for making people feel good, but not much else.

In Christ
Scylla

If God loves us and wants us to love Him, does it not make sense that He would give us some means to seek the Truth about Him, and thus to be confident that we know the Truth? If we believe in the inspiration of the Bible then surely we allow for the possibility that some people at some times possess the charism of infallibility. We accept that the apostles and their scribes were infallible when they were writing the books of the Bible. If we accept this, then surely it is possible for others to possess this same charism at particular times as well. So I would change your first proposition to say something like:
The Holy Spirit would not allow the faithful to be taught erroneous doctrine when they sincerely search for the Truth, and this is achieved in the infalliblity of the Catholic Church.

So does it happen in actuality? Do I take this on faith or have I used logic and sound reasoning? I think I have used a bit of both. Clearly I must have used some faith, because I simply am not studious enough to have studied the writings of the early Church enough to make a purely logical conclusion. But, I have seen enough evidence that I have made the conclusion - beyond what I think is a reasonable doubt - that the promise given by Jesus (that the gates of hell would not prevail against Peter’s Church) ensures that the Catholic Church will remain free of error. The evidence that I speak of is contained in the Bible but more importantly, in the writings of the early Church fathers. The consistency of their message and their obvious catholicity is too much to ignore. Even if I don’t see explicit references to the infallibility of the bishop of Rome, I can see that it is definitely there implicitly in such statements as “that Church at Rome which is without blemish or stain”, “the Church in Rome that holds the Presidency”, “the Church in Rome whence our doctrine derives”, “if we abandon the chair of Peter then can we know that we are still in the faith?” and so forth. Forgive me for not referencing these paraphrases; I’m hoping they’re well known enough for me not to need to. But I can go and find them if you would like me to?

 

[Atreyu]

The strongest argument for (1), IMO, is the fact that the Church has been given the power to bind and loose heaven, that is, God. Now, God cannot possibly be bound to error, or loosed from truth. Therefore, the power to bind and loose requires that, somehow, that power never be used to bind or loose falsely. Hence, the power to bind and loose must be attached to infallibility.

Ooh, good one Mike

 

[Reformed_Rob]

To my understanding, the doctrine of infallibility works as follows:

• The Holy Spirit would not allow the Roman Catholic Church to persistently teach erroneous doctrine, and so,
• If the Roman Catholic Church has consistently taught doctrine X over the centuries,
• then doctrine X must be true.
  Thus, what is the underlying reasoning for this claim?However, I am interested to learn why others believe that it is.

Thanks,
-M.

Hey yeah, good question Mystophilus!

Actually, I was sort of challenged with a similar line of questioning a few days ago.

I’ll sort of use Scylla’s answer as a start point. So you are a Protestant, right? A “very liberal” one? So maybe in another thread you can explain just how liberal you are, but here let’s keep it in the bounds of “generic” Christianity.

That is, we trust the Bible as God’s Word, that Jesus was the Word incarnate, the Trinity, salvation through Jesus, you know! So please bear with me as I work towards this with a few passages from the Bible:

Ok, Jesus said that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” and in John 18:37 it’s written, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”

Now…how is a person to hear the voice of Christ when he’s not here to physically “speak” to us?

I would say that the answer is “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me” (Luke 10:16).

So where does the Holy Spirit come in? Right here…

John 14:16 - I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, … …" and John 16:13 - “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth…”

And we know that Christ commanded his Apostles to teach all nations, and those Apostles instructed their disciples to teach more people. Christ thus speaks through those who are speaking His truth. The Spirit of truth guides the Church into truth as issues and disputes come up. Can Christ speak through those who do not speak truth? No…He did not say “He who hears you lie will hear me speak the truth.” There is a human element involved, the speaking.

Jesus came, as Scylla said and as Jesus Himself stated, to bear witness to the truth. For us, truth is a Person. Some even say that the Platonic “Ideal of Truth” is Jesus Christ. Wow! Anyways, this “Truth” is mediated to us via the Church led by the Holy Spirit as Christ promised.

About the “cold logic” I would say that it is an axiomatic truth that the Spirit of truth cannot lie. So our Catholic faith is based upon very logical foundations.

 

[jemfinch]

To my understanding, the doctrine of infallibility works as follows:

• The Holy Spirit would not allow the Roman Catholic Church to persistently teach erroneous doctrine, and so,
• If the Roman Catholic Church has consistently taught doctrine X over the centuries,
• then doctrine X must be true.

That’s not how I really reason about it.

• The Bible clearly shows that Peter, the apostles, and the Church will be infallible.
• The Catholic Church has the most evidence in its favor (historical, biblical, logical) for being that infallible Church.
• Therefore, the Catholic Church is infallible, and the doctrines it teaches must be true.

You could break the first two points into myriad smaller points, but I think you get my drift: I don’t state as a premise that the Catholic Church is infallible, but only that the Church is infallible. But since there are only a few Churches that even claim infallibility today, I’ve now narrowed the field significantly and can pick whichever Church has the greatest claim to be the Chuch. And that’s the Catholic Church.

Jeremy

 

[Saint_Michael]

My question, then, is whether the first proposition, that the Holy Spirit would not allow this, is a coldly logical one, derived from reasoning from demonstrable premisses, or whether it is actually based entirely upon faith. Thus, what is the underlying reasoning for this claim?

Now, because I am not a Catholic, I obviously do not believe, at this point in my life, that the claim is true. However, I am interested to learn why others believe that it is.

Thanks,
-M.

Protestants believe in infallibility of every early Bible writer and scribe in the preservation of the Bible. Why would the head of Christs Church be any different?

Both believe in infallibility of certain people in matters of faith, just different examples of it (although Catholics believe in the infallibility fo the Bible too)…

I honestly have no idea why infallibility is so hard a concept for Protestants since they clearly accept infallibility of many people involved in the writing, scribing, and canonizing of the Holy Bible in the early Church.

 

[Mystophilus]

Protestants believe in infallibility of every early Bible writer and scribe in the preservation of the Bible. Why would the head of Christs Church be any different?

Both believe in infallibility of certain people in matters of faith, just different examples of it (although Catholics believe in the infallibility fo the Bible too)…

I honestly have no idea why infallibility is so hard a concept for Protestants since they clearly accept infallibility of many people involved in the writing, scribing, and canonizing of the Holy Bible in the early Church.

Shall we start with “Protestants believe”? Considering the notorious ability of Protestants to schism endlessly, any attempt to describe what all of us believe is an attempt likely to be in vain.

Even if we amend the comment to say, ‘Protestants who believe in sola scriptura believe in the infallibility of every Bible writer and subsequent copyist’, it is still not quite accurate. What such people believe is that those writers were only infallible in the action of writing those texts, because the charism of infallibility, to use Catholic terminology, is understood to be vested in the text rather than in the author. Thus, Paul is not believed to have been infallible in anything else that he did. As such, they have chosen to believe that infallibility only covered a very narrow scope, and, since the scope is a definite part of the belief, widening the scope to include other writers would actually be a contradiction of the belief itself, hence the name ‘sola scriptura’.

Thus, extending that infallibility to cover the head of what they see as merely one division of Christ’s Church would be no more reasonable, from their viewpoint, than extending it to cover the head of any other division: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the General Assemblies of the various nation’s Presbyterian churches, and every single Pentecostal head pastor would then be infallible!

In essence, by believing what you believe, you limit the scope of infallibility to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. Sola scriptura Protestants limit it to the shorter-canon Bible. I limit it to God, alone. Perhaps I am just less trusting than the rest of you.

 

[Mystophilus]

Even if I don’t see explicit references to the infallibility of the bishop of Rome, I can see that it is definitely there implicitly in such statements as “that Church at Rome which is without blemish or stain”, “the Church in Rome that holds the Presidency”, “the Church in Rome whence our doctrine derives”, “if we abandon the chair of Peter then can we know that we are still in the faith?” and so forth. Forgive me for not referencing these paraphrases; I’m hoping they’re well known enough for me not to need to. But I can go and find them if you would like me to?

Always , and thanks for the comment.

 

[Mystophilus]

Thanks very much for your answers; they are greatly appreciated .

 

[Dalik]

“The Bible clearly shows that Peter, the apostles, and the Church will be infallible.
The Catholic Church has the most evidence in its favor (historical, biblical, logical) for being that infallible Church.
Therefore, the Catholic Church is infallible, and the doctrines it teaches must be true.”

I have two issues with infallibility that no one has really been able to answer for me yet:

Issue #1: The argument of infallibility based on the Bible is circular logic.
“How do we know the Church is infallible?”
“Because the Bible tells us so.”
“Where did our current Bible come from?”
“The decision for which books would be in the canon and which books would not was decided by the Church.”
“Wait, so how do we know the Church was infallible?”
“Because the Bible tells us so.”
“But didn’t you just tell me that it was the Church that defined what made up the Bible?”

Issue #2: The Church’s view of its own infallibility SEEMS to have changed with time. An excellent example is the whole Galileo controversy. The Church believed that Galileo was incorrectly interpreting scriptural passages when he said that they needed to be viewed in the new context that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around. The Church held that their view of the passages was correct, based on the Aristotelian view that the sun revolved around the earth. At the time, the Church does not seem to have held to the opinion that it was only infallible in regards to issues of Faith and Morals. It seems to have held to the opinion that it was infallible in more than just that regard, and only after it was proven WRONG in regards to scientific issues did it MODIFY its infallibility to involve only Faith and Morals. Vatican I seems to have benefited from the luxury of 20/20 hindsight. It seems to have made the definition of infallibility work around historical instances where the Church thought it was right and was later proven wrong. If infallibility is really all that cut and dried, why can’t the Church just come out with a list of all the instances, clearly stated, where its been infallible? Take a look for such a list. It doesn’t seem to exist.

As a caveat on the Galileo issue, another thing I’d like to point out for those who’ll argue that it was wrong for the Church to ever try to define science, that this was not within its theological grounds, was that the controversy really wasn’t the scientific world, but in fact it does appear to have been Faith and Morals. The Church disagreed with Galileo over biblical interpretation. He said one thing; it said another. What else can biblical interpretation be but an issue of Faith? If you say, as a matter of Faith, that a passage means one thing, and you’re later proven wrong, aren’t you therefore wrong regarding an issue of Faith?

I’m sure some people will come back with the argument that the Pope never stated that Galileo was wrong, that it was the Pontifical Council that he appointed that made the decision, and he never officially signed off the council’s decision as correct. Okay, I’ll buy that argument, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the Church, **as an institution, **believed AND TAUGHT that their viewpoint (later to be proven incorrect) was the correct interpretation. This goes back to my statement above that there is no list of infallible things to believe. And why don’t we have such a list? One could argue that by not making such a list, the Church effectively gets to be a politician. It gets to say something without ever really saying something. It gets to say its infallible, but you can never prove it wrong because it never tells you on which issues its infallible. Oh sure, its infallible on issues of Faith and Morals, but that’s not something that can be honestly debated. Concrete examples are what we can debate, and that seems to be what the Church manages to avoid. This idea seems to only be reinforced by the fact that the only two papal statements COMMONLY argued as being infallible are on the Assumption and Immaculate Conception of Mary, both of which cannot be proven one way or the other historically, and thus can never be proven wrong. The Church itself has not officially declared these two papal decrees to be infallible, though. They’re just the two cases for which priests and apologists will commonly argue.

I’m in RCIA, and this has been an issue I’ve been struggling with for some time. I have yet to be provided a satisfactory answer, regardless of how many people I ask. Don’t take that as a challenge, just an unfortunate observation. I have found this to definitely be a stumbling block for me in the development of my faith.

 

[Atreyu]

Issue #1: The argument of infallibility based on the Bible is circular logic.
“How do we know the Church is infallible?”
“Because the Bible tells us so.”
“Where did our current Bible come from?”
“The decision for which books would be in the canon and which books would not was decided by the Church.”
“Wait, so how do we know the Church was infallible?”
“Because the Bible tells us so.”
“But didn’t you just tell me that it was the Church that defined what made up the Bible?”

Actually that’s not how the reasoning goes. First, take the books of the Bible and the writings of the early church as accurate historical writings only. From there, one can determine that the Church is infallible (let me take this as an axiom for now). Since the Church is infallible, the Church can decide on the canon of the Bible. Notice how the circularity has been eliminated, so long as my axiom is true. That’s probably the topic for another thread…

As a caveat on the Galileo issue, another thing I’d like to point out for those who’ll argue that it was wrong for the Church to ever try to define science, that this was not within its theological grounds, was that the controversy really wasn’t the scientific world, but in fact it does appear to have been Faith and Morals. The Church disagreed with Galileo over biblical interpretation. He said one thing; it said another. What else can biblical interpretation be but an issue of Faith? If you say, as a matter of Faith, that a passage means one thing, and you’re later proven wrong, aren’t you therefore wrong regarding an issue of Faith?

Actually, the very reason the Church was wrong was because this was a matter of science, and not a matter of faith and morals. The Church could err in this matter precisely for the reason that the Church as a whole had not defined the relevant Biblical passages as a matter of faith. In fact, the Church has only done this for a very select few passages, so I am told. Similarly, the Church has never as a whole taught that it is infallible on matters of science. I’ll be the first to admit that the Church made a huge error in the issue of Galileo. Indeed, some of his accusers probably even thought that this was a matter of faith. But it was not. I can’t explain why other than it just seems so obvious that geocentrism isn’t a matter of faith! I guess if you still disagree this would also be a topic for another thread.

Concrete examples are what we can debate, and that seems to be what the Church manages to avoid.

Actually no. You have all the canons from every single Ecumenical Council there has ever been, together with the explicit ex cathedra statements of the popes. As to how many of these there have been, I know of only two in the last 150 years - the two you mention. There have have been some earlier ones, but I don’t know exactly which qualify.

The Church itself has not officially declared these two papal decrees to be infallible, though.

This is news to me. Are you sure about that?

Don’t take that as a challenge, just an unfortunate observation.

Why can’t I? I love a good challenge!

I have found this to definitely be a stumbling block for me in the development of my faith.

Have faith. Billions of people have had various stumbling blocks over the ages, and on the exact same issues you are having now. The Church has answered these kinds of issues from time immemorial. To borrow from the X-Files, the Truth is out there… Have faith And welcome to the forums!

 

[Atreyu]

One more thing. Augustine of Hippo taught that if science ever made a discovery that was inconsistent with a particular interpretation of a Biblical passage, then - since the Bible itself cannot err - it is our interpretation that has erred, and needs to be corrected. This was obviously a lesson the Church of later centuries forgot.

 

[Atreyu]

Ignatius of Antioch:
“Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father” (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).
Cyprian of Carthage:
If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).
and another one:
“With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source” (Letters 59:14 [A.D. 253])
Note I messed that one up a bit. Sorry.

Pope Damasus I:
“Likewise it is decreed . . . that it ought to be announced that . . . the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]. The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the apostle, that of the Roman Church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it” (Decree of Damasus 3 [A.D. 382]).

 

[Saint_Michael]

Shall we start with “Protestants believe”? Considering the notorious ability of Protestants to schism endlessly, any attempt to describe what all of us believe is an attempt likely to be in vain.

Even if we amend the comment to say, ‘Protestants who believe in sola scriptura believe in the infallibility of every Bible writer and subsequent copyist’, it is still not quite accurate. What such people believe is that those writers were only infallible in the action of writing those texts, because the charism of infallibility, to use Catholic terminology, is understood to be vested in the text rather than in the author. Thus, Paul is not believed to have been infallible in anything else that he did. As such, they have chosen to believe that infallibility only covered a very narrow scope, and, since the scope is a definite part of the belief, widening the scope to include other writers would actually be a contradiction of the belief itself, hence the name ‘sola scriptura’.

Thus, extending that infallibility to cover the head of what they see as merely one division of Christ’s Church would be no more reasonable, from their viewpoint, than extending it to cover the head of any other division: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the General Assemblies of the various nation’s Presbyterian churches, and every single Pentecostal head pastor would then be infallible!

In essence, by believing what you believe, you limit the scope of infallibility to the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. Sola scriptura Protestants limit it to the shorter-canon Bible. I limit it to God, alone. Perhaps I am just less trusting than the rest of you.

I don’t want to drag the argument into semantics. The fact is if you believe in the infalliblity of the Bible, you believe anyone involved in the writing, and canonizing of the Bible was infallibile in the same way the Holy Spirit guides the Pope, that’s the fact. We believe the Holy Spirit guides the Pope so he can’t err in leading the Church on matters of faith and morals when speaking ex-cathedra. If you base your faith simply off the Bible and claim it to be infallible, then you believe in some sort of human infallibility. If you don’ believe the Bible to be infallible, or the head of the Church Christ set up to be infallible by the Holy Spirit then what’s your authority for your faith?

 

[Mystophilus]

If you don’ believe the Bible to be infallible, or the head of the Church Christ set up to be infallible by the Holy Spirit then what’s your authority for your faith?

If I take your question to mean ‘What is your basis for claiming that your particular faith is ontologically*] correct?’, then my answer would be that I have none. As we have demonstrated here, faith is faith, not knowledge: I can no more prove the validity of my faith than can anyone else. I do not claim it to be ontologically correct; I just cannot claim any of the others to be so.

In fact, it is evident, as much from personal experience in every day life as from sociological and historical study, that human beings have an impressive capacity for fallibility. We all make mistakes all the time. I find the idea of the creation of such thoroughly-imperfect beings by a perfect God quite incompatible with the contention that such a God could be unhappy about the creation happening to be as created: that would be singularly unjust. What I would suggest, then, is that fallibility is part of the intention: it is a feature, not a flaw.

Frankly, I cannot convince myself of the notion that such imperfect, limited mortals could ever hope to accurately comprehend the nature of an infinite God. As such, I believe that all of us are wrong. Now, this inaccuracy doubtless varies in its degree, but, having acknowledged its presence, one cannot reasonably claim to have an absolute method of measuring the degree of deviation from Truth. I can demonstrate that a certain representation of a certain event contradicts the historical record which we have, and I spend a lot of time in these fora doing just that, but I cannot prove that the Real Presence is, or is not, there.

This is my reason for being a ‘non-partisan’ Christian: I see no greater justification in one position than another. Catholicism could be correct: I cannot prove it wrong. The same applies to Anglicanism. Even when dealing with belief-systems which hold to premisses than can be demonstrated to be flawed, I cannot then presume that everything else that they teach is incorrect.

Further, considering the great number of very holy and very clever individuals who have ascribed to various positions, I see no justification in the idea of any of them being damned merely for failing to go to church on the correct day, intone the correct words in a ceremony, etc.

So, I am working on doing what I understand to be right, holding a lot of ideas in tension as contingent beliefs, and trusting in the faithfulness of a merciful God to make up the difference.

*] = ‘regarding the real nature of being’, for anyone who does not waste their time studying philosophy.

 

[Dalik]

Actually that’s not how the reasoning goes. First, take the books of the Bible and the writings of the early church as accurate historical writings only. From there, one can determine that the Church is infallible (let me take this as an axiom for now). Since the Church is infallible, the Church can decide on the canon of the Bible. Notice how the circularity has been eliminated, so long as my axiom is true. That’s probably the topic for another thread…

Sorry, that’s still circular logic. If you’re taking the NT as historical value ONLY, then I would reference you to the Jesus Seminar (with John Dominic Crossan). That’s the kind of product you get if you’re looking at the Bible SOLELY as a historical document. Based on that, I have no idea how you’re coming to a conclusion that that makes the Church infallible? I would also like you point out that you said “take the books of the Bible and the writings of the early church.” Since we’re talking pre-canon now, we must talk about EVERYTHING, thus including the Gospel of Thomas, Philip, Peter, etc., etc., etc. Please tell me, when you look at ALL of this material (the 27 books of the NT, the writings of the early church fathers, and the enormous number of other Gospels, Epistles, Acts, and Apocalypses), how you come to the conclusion that the Church is infallible? You’ve got to prove the Church infallible using ALL of those documents, otherwise you can’t follow your chronological order that states: 1) historical documents make Church infallible, 2) infallible Church creates biblical canon.

Actually, the very reason the Church was wrong was because this was a matter of science, and not a matter of faith and morals. The Church could err in this matter precisely for the reason that the Church as a whole had not defined the relevant Biblical passages as a matter of faith. In fact, the Church has only done this for a very select few passages, so I am told. Similarly, the Church has never as a whole taught that it is infallible on matters of science. I’ll be the first to admit that the Church made a huge error in the issue of Galileo. Indeed, some of his accusers probably even thought that this was a matter of faith. But it was not. I can’t explain why other than it just seems so obvious that geocentrism isn’t a matter of faith! I guess if you still disagree this would also be a topic for another thread.

Interpreting what the scripture means IS a matter of faith. That’s the greatest argument the Church uses against Protestants.

“How can you personally interpret the Bible? You can’t, because everyone is coming to a different conclusion. That’s why you need the Church, because of the authority with which it’s vested.”

If the Church said part of the Bible meant this, and then it was later proven wrong, does that show it wasn’t infallible on a matter of Faith (1/2 of the Faith and Morals equation)?

 

[Dalik]

Here’s the rest of my post. I couldn’t post it all at once. It said I had too many words.

Actually no. You have all the canons from every single Ecumenical Council there has ever been, together with the explicit ex cathedra statements of the popes. As to how many of these there have been, I know of only two in the last 150 years - the two you mention. There have have been some earlier ones, but I don’t know exactly which qualify.

First off, let me state a correction for you. You said that you “have the canons from every single Ecumenical Council.” Canons are not infallible. The Church HAS definitively stated that regarding Canon Law.

As to the rest, exactly… two (and reference immediately below regarding their “officiality”). There have been numerous ecumenical councils and Papal decrees throughout the two thousand years of Christianity. Are you seriously telling me that in all that time, there have really only been two infallible statements issued? You stated “in the last 150 years”, but you’re assuming that Vatican I only applies to statements made AFTER that council. In fact, the statement was retroactively applied as well, so all previous statements and councils fall under Vatican I’s definition. I’d like to point out that you verified my statement about only 2 being “commonly” accepted. Do you realize that the Council of Trent’s decision that definitely stated the canon of the Bible is not one of those two? What could be a greater element of Faith and Morals than the very definition of the Bible itself?

How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Not considered to be infallible, right? Have you looked at Pope John Paul’s statement in the front? I quote:

"3. The Doctrinal Value of the Text

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved June 25th last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a **statement of the Church’s faith **and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumed by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, and the Church’s Magesterium. **I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith **and thus a **valid and legitimate **instrument for ecclesial communion."

How is infallibility defined?

1. Papal decree ex cathedra
2. In regards to issues of Faith and Morals

Please reference the bolded text above. “By virtue of my Apostolic Authority” sounds pretty ex cathedra to me. “Is a statement of the Church’s faith”…“I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith” Those two sound like Faith and Morals. I’d have to say the Catechism of the Catholic Church is infallible. Let me just reference my list from the Church and indeed confirm that it is… oh wait, I don’t have a list from the Church. So I guess the whole idea of definitively knowing stuff based on Infallibility is useless, since it’s entirely open to interpretation as to what exactly is infallible.

This is news to me. Are you sure about that?

Yes, I am very sure about it. I will refer you to a thread on this very forum regarding said issue:

“List of Infallible papal proclamations”
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=1517465#post1517465

 

[Dalik]

Here in its full detail is the entire Galileo controversy, PRESENTED BY A CATHOLIC (just so we don’t have any attempts to dismiss it as Protestant propaganda).

veritas-catholic.blogspot.com/2005/10/geocentricity-101-supplement.html

This same website, but not this page, was referenced under the “List of Infallible papal proclamations” forum.

Basically the website’s argument is that in fact the Church’s statements about scripture during the Galileo controversy ( including the papal statements) were infallible. They don’t argue this in an attempt to discredit the Church, but in an attempt to give it credit, because they then go on to argue for SUPPORT for the geocentrist view that the Earth is the center of the universe and that everything revolves around it.
Their words, not mine.

Whether you believe any of it or not is up to you. I would like to point out an area of interest from the website, though, which I will quote below (this is from Pope Alexander VII’s Papal Bull “Speculatores Dominus Israel”):

*"He then stated, explicitly in the Bull:

…having taken the advice of our Cardinals, confirm, and approve with Apostolic authority by the tenor of these presents, and: command and enjoin all persons everywhere to yield this Index a constant and complete obedience…

First, attaching the entire Index to a Bull and approving it with Apostolic authority carries significant weight in itself. Then, attaching previous Indexes, confirming them and approving them with Apostolic authority only adds more weight. But, more important is point ‘2’ , attaching …all the relevant decrees up to the present time, that have been issued since the Index of our predecessor Clement… AND confirm[ing], and approv[ing] with Apostolic authority."*

Please note the repeated references to “Apostolic Authority.” The weight it seems to carry here is the same weight I suggested in my post above that it carries in regards to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In this instance its in regards to the interpretation of the scriptures, which is an act of faith. In my post immediately above, it’s in reference to faith as well. So, are these infallible or not, and if not, why not? Don’t quote the “discipline” answer either, because if you really read that webpage, you’ll realize that that’s dogma, not discipline. The words they used in those statements hundreds of years ago do not change just because science later proved them wrong.

This is not a challenge. I am seriously wanting someone to answer this for me, in the hope that I can move beyond this enormous stumbling block and fully embrace the faith. If I’m horribly misinformed or am committing a logical fallacy, please point it out to me.