So what would happen if the Pope changed dogma?

[Seraphim73]

It’s actually a pretty good system. The pope can never change dogma. So if a pope does change dogma he didn’t really change dogma, he just developed it. So even completely contradictory teachings are said to be the same.

 

[Tomdstone]

There is no single volume of “officially approved complete lists of all infallible dogmas”. The Catechism is a great place to start, though…

So no one knows exactly and completely what are the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church and which are non-infallible teachings?

 

[ready]

It’s actually a pretty good system. The pope can never change dogma. So if a pope does change dogma he didn’t really change dogma, he just developed it. So even completely contradictory teachings are said to be the same.

A pope can not develop dogma. God bless you.

 

[Seraphim73]

A pope can not develop dogma. God bless you.

That’s not what the Roman Catholic Church teaches I’m afraid.

 

[Randy_Carson]

It’s actually a pretty good system. The pope can never change dogma. So if a pope does change dogma he didn’t really change dogma, he just developed it. So even completely contradictory teachings are said to be the same.

Feel free to give examples of these doctrinal flip-flops in new threads. One per.

Thanks.

 

[Randy_Carson]

So no one knows exactly and completely what are the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church and which are non-infallible teachings?

It’s a huge number, so it’s not easy to identify.

 

[Tomdstone]

Feel free to give examples of these doctrinal flip-flops in new threads. One per.

Thanks.

filioque.

 

[wynd]

Now, you’re asking about assent to assertions that are neither doctrinal nor dogmatic. Yes, there are teachings which fall outside these categories. Yes, Catholics are called to obey the teachings found in encyclicals, even if they’re not, strictly speaking, ex cathedra statements.

…]

Even if the statements aren’t intended as ‘irreformable’, Catholics are to assent to them.

It’s a huge number, so it’s not easy to identify.

I don’t mean this as a “gotcha,” but if we can’t easily know which teachings are or aren’t infallible, and we are to assent to and obey the Church’s teachings anyway whether infallible or not, what is the point?

 

[Seraphim73]

I don’t mean this as a “gotcha,” but if we can’t easily know which teachings are or aren’t infallible, and we are to assent to and obey the Church’s teachings anyway whether infallible or not, what is the point?

So does that mean Catholics have to exercise private judgement?

 

[livingwordunity]

So does that mean Catholics have to exercise private judgement?

Yes. But according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church…

II. THE FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE

1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.

1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. The education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.

1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,54 we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.

III. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

1787 Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

1788 To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

1789 Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;

• the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them.”

• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: “Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ.” Therefore “it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble.”

IV. ERRONEOUS JUDGMENT

1790 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.

1791 This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

1792 Ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be at the source of errors of judgment in moral conduct.

1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

1794 A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time “from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.”

The more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by objective standards of moral conduct.

 

[Memaw]

First, the Pope just saying something does not determine Catholic doctrine. For example, if in an interview or a phone call with some private person he says something contrary to the faith, that does not thereby affect the doctrine of the Church. He must manifest his intention to be judging or laying down the doctrine of the universal Church. He is only infallible in this second way–there’s nothing stopping a Pope from personally erring otherwise.

Many canonists and theologians over the centuries have discussed what would happen if a Pope publicly manifested an obstinate refusal of Catholic dogma–ie if he became a heretic. They all agree that he should cease to be head of the Church (since heretics are not members of the Church), but disagree on some of the technical aspects of how this would take place and the actions that would need to be taken.

If this were to happen, by its very nature it would be recognizable to all (all the canonists and theologians say it needs to be public and manifest). Furthermore, since it is also a definitive doctrine of the Church that the Church of the city of Rome cannot defect, that Church would not follow a false head (it is a principle going back to the beginning that all the Churches must agree with the Church of Rome–if the Church of Rome could err, this would be a bad principle). Neither would the entire episcopate defect and follow a false head.

When a Pope dies, it is the Church of Rome, in the person of her Cardinals (the preeminent clergy of Rome) who recognize the need for a new Pope and convene to choose a new one. The same happens when a Pope resigns. I imagine the same would happen if a Pope defected from the faith.

We’ll have to cross that bridge if ever we come to it, but suffice it to say we won’t be left without any bishops–we wouldn’t be making these decisions alone. The Holy Spirit assures the continuation of the Church in all its constituent elements, including the episcopacy and the papacy.

In 2,000 years this has NEVER happened and it NEVER will, no need to worry. Trust God! God Bless, Memaw

 

[Randy_Carson]

So does that mean Catholics have to exercise private judgement?

Catholics recognize limited private judgment not the absolute right of private judgment espoused by the Reformers. The difference is that Catholicism has an infallible Magisterium which Protestantism and Orthodox do not have.

Because the Magisterium is an essential component of the Church and authorized by God, it must have corresponding authority and must be able to bind private judgments so that they do not go beyond certain bounds. Boundless private judgment is precisely the problem God set up the Magisterium to cure. There is simply no way to harmonize the existence of a divinely authorized Magisterium and an absolute right to private judgment.

There can and is a harmonization between the Magisterium and a limited right to private judgment, and this is what we find in the Catholic Church. Individual laymen and theologians can exercise their private judgment in reading the Scriptures all they want so long as they do not transgress what the Magisterium has settled. There is free reign for private judgment and opinion within the bounds of established Christian teaching. It is the crossing of these bounds that the Magisterium was set up to prevent.

This is the way in which the intellect of the individual is harmonized with the teaching authority of Christ, as exercised through his Church. God gave each individual a rational soul which, if it is not impeded, will enable him to learn, understand, and know the Scriptures and the teachings of Christ. This exercise of private interpretation is to be encouraged and fostered. People have been given a faculty by God, and they must be encouraged to fulfill the responsibility that comes along with that faculty.

But they were not given the faculty or the responsibility of building Christian theology from the ground up all by themselves. The average Christian was not given the responsibility to do this, nor the ability to do this. Not even the bishops who constitute the Magisterium have the responsibility or the ability to do this as individuals. Nor does even the pope himself have this responsibility or ability, since he is bound by all the previous decisions of the Magisterium. No one individual, since the day that public revelation stopped, has had the right or responsibility to decide all of the Christian faith for himself, not even the organs of the Magisterium God created.

 

[Gorgias]

"Tomdstone:

Gorgias:

There is no single volume of “officially approved complete lists of all infallible dogmas”. The Catechism is a great place to start, though…

So no one knows exactly and completely what are the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church and which are non-infallible teachings?

What an odd response. There’s no single volume of all U.S. local, state, and federal law, along with all judicial precedent. Would you, then, attempt to convince us that “no one knows exactly and completely what is the law in the United States”? :nope:

So, no: I didn’t say that “no one knows exactly and completely what are the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church.” I only said that there’s not one single bound volume of the texts of the official teachings, as compiled by the Church. Big difference there.

I don’t mean this as a “gotcha,” but if we can’t easily know which teachings are or aren’t infallible, and we are to assent to and obey the Church’s teachings anyway whether infallible or not, what is the point?

This doesn’t mean that “we can’t easily know which teachings are … infallible,” either. You’re right, of course, that we are to assent to Church teaching (infallible or not). But, “the point” would be that it would be nice to have such a single-point-of-reference document.

Here’s the thing, though: such a document can never exist. Let me try to convince you of this assertion (since it’s something that I’ve never seen anyone assert, but it seems to be correct): * Any such document, put together outside the magisterium, would be a fallible compilation of infallible teachings. That would render it somewhat unhelpful – if one attempted to use it, the response would be “well, that list, itself, isn’t authoritative!”

• Any list, put together at some point in time, couldn’t call itself the “complete list”… since it would only be complete up until new doctrine was named. If it were put together by an outside entity, it would always require updates. Seeing the ways that people attempt to wedge one Church teaching against another, it would seem that having various versions (in various languages) of such a document, would simply be inviting discord and debate.
• Incompleteness would be a problem for the magisterium, too – it would, by definition, always be false: after all, how could a “complete list” in the 19th century fail to include the Assumption and still call itself ‘complete’? Wouldn’t that mean that the 19th century list was not infallibly correct?
• If there was infallible teaching and an infallible list… which would be authoritative? Which would be seen as the more important: the teaching or the inclusion in the list? Wouldn’t that mean that, by definition, there would be ‘relevant’ and ‘irrelevant’ infallible teaching? That’s problematic.

So, I think that, by definition, there cannot be any magisterially authoritative “complete list of doctrine”, ever. However, there are lots of ways to know what the magisterial teaching of the Church is, even in the absence of an ‘official list’. As I mentioned earlier, the Catechism is a great place to encounter the Church’s teaching…

 

[Gorgias]

Seraphim73:

So does that mean Catholics have to exercise private judgement?

Yes.

Hmm… I would say ‘no’.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question. It seems to me that Seraphim is asking whether it’s up to private judgment to decide what’s ‘infallible’ and what’s not. The answer to that question is, of course, ‘no’.

If that’s the question Seraphim is asking, then ‘conscience’ doesn’t come into play: our conscience informs us when we need to make a moral judgment in our lives – that is, when we’re attempting to apply the Church’s teaching to a distinct situation in our lives. Conscience applies to judgment, not to questions of fact. When trying to decide on the question of heliocentrsm, we can’t respond, “well, my conscience tells me that the sun revolves around the earth!”

But, what if Seraphim is asking, “if I’m not certain whether a teaching is infallible, isn’t the application of that Church teaching, in a situation in my life, a matter of personal judgment (i.e., conscience)?” Still, the answer is ‘no.’ Whether or not a teaching is infallible, we’re called to assent to it. So, we couldn’t say “the Church teaches X, but infallibly, so my personal judgment is that I don’t have to pay attention to it.”

I can’t see a potential situation in which we could answer ‘yes’ to Seraphim’s question…

 

[Tomdstone]

What an odd response. There’s no single volume of all U.S. local, state, and federal law, along with all judicial precedent. Would you, then, attempt to convince us that “no one knows exactly and completely what is the law in the United States”? :nope:

So, no: I didn’t say that “no one knows exactly and completely what are the infallible dogmas of the Catholic Church.” I only said that there’s not one single bound volume of the texts of the official teachings, as compiled by the Church. Big difference there.

This doesn’t mean that “we can’t easily know which teachings are … infallible,” either. You’re right, of course, that we are to assent to Church teaching (infallible or not). But, “the point” would be that it would be nice to have such a single-point-of-reference document.

Here’s the thing, though: such a document can never exist. Let me try to convince you of this assertion (since it’s something that I’ve never seen anyone assert, but it seems to be correct): * Any such document, put together outside the magisterium, would be a fallible compilation of infallible teachings. That would render it somewhat unhelpful – if one attempted to use it, the response would be “well, that list, itself, isn’t authoritative!”

• Any list, put together at some point in time, couldn’t call itself the “complete list”… since it would only be complete up until new doctrine was named. If it were put together by an outside entity, it would always require updates. Seeing the ways that people attempt to wedge one Church teaching against another, it would seem that having various versions (in various languages) of such a document, would simply be inviting discord and debate.
• Incompleteness would be a problem for the magisterium, too – it would, by definition, always be false: after all, how could a “complete list” in the 19th century fail to include the Assumption and still call itself ‘complete’? Wouldn’t that mean that the 19th century list was not infallibly correct?
• If there was infallible teaching and an infallible list… which would be authoritative? Which would be seen as the more important: the teaching or the inclusion in the list? Wouldn’t that mean that, by definition, there would be ‘relevant’ and ‘irrelevant’ infallible teaching? That’s problematic.

So, I think that, by definition, there cannot be any magisterially authoritative “complete list of doctrine”, ever. However, there are lots of ways to know what the magisterial teaching of the Church is, even in the absence of an ‘official list’. As I mentioned earlier, the Catechism is a great place to encounter the Church’s teaching…

A list can be complete up to a particular point in time.

 

[wynd]

This doesn’t mean that “we can’t easily know which teachings are … infallible,” either. You’re right, of course, that we are to assent to Church teaching (infallible or not). But, “the point” would be that it would be nice to have such a single-point-of-reference document.

Here’s the thing, though: such a document can never exist. Let me try to convince you of this assertion (since it’s something that I’ve never seen anyone assert, but it seems to be correct): * Any such document, put together outside the magisterium, would be a fallible compilation of infallible teachings. That would render it somewhat unhelpful – if one attempted to use it, the response would be “well, that list, itself, isn’t authoritative!”

• Any list, put together at some point in time, couldn’t call itself the “complete list”… since it would only be complete up until new doctrine was named. If it were put together by an outside entity, it would always require updates. Seeing the ways that people attempt to wedge one Church teaching against another, it would seem that having various versions (in various languages) of such a document, would simply be inviting discord and debate.
• Incompleteness would be a problem for the magisterium, too – it would, by definition, always be false: after all, how could a “complete list” in the 19th century fail to include the Assumption and still call itself ‘complete’? Wouldn’t that mean that the 19th century list was not infallibly correct?
• If there was infallible teaching and an infallible list… which would be authoritative? Which would be seen as the more important: the teaching or the inclusion in the list? Wouldn’t that mean that, by definition, there would be ‘relevant’ and ‘irrelevant’ infallible teaching? That’s problematic.

So, I think that, by definition, there cannot be any magisterially authoritative “complete list of doctrine”, ever. However, there are lots of ways to know what the magisterial teaching of the Church is, even in the absence of an ‘official list’. As I mentioned earlier, the Catechism is a great place to encounter the Church’s teaching…

Reminds me of what Scott Hahn wrote while on his way to Catholicism when faced with the question of determining which books should be in the Bible. (paraphrasing): “With regard to the bible, all we have is a fallible list of infallible books.”

 

[Gorgias]

A list can be complete up to a particular point in time.

Of course it can. But – and here’s the crux of the argument – can an infallible list be complete only up to a particular point in time, and incomplete at another period of time? If infallible (and therefore, irreformable), then the list could never be updated or changed. In other words, an infallible list of doctrines is logically impossible (that is, at least until the end of time … at which point, such a list is without value).

That means that the only possible list is a non-magisterial work… and, as I’ve outlined, that wouldn’t be helpful, either.

 

[Gorgias]

Reminds me of what Scott Hahn wrote while on his way to Catholicism when faced with the question of determining which books should be in the Bible. (paraphrasing): “With regard to the bible, all we have is a fallible list of infallible books.”

He did! But, it’s important to remember the context: for a Protestant, who does not recognize the authority of the magisterium, all he has is “a fallibly-defined list of infallible books.” In other words, the Bible – held to be inerrant – requires an authority in order to be “the Bible”, and by holding to biblical inerrancy, a Protestant is implicitly assenting to the infallibility of the construction of the table of contents therein.

For a Catholic, there’s no such problem: the Bible is a infallibly-declared list of infallible books.

(OK: actually, it’s “inerrant books” – Scripture is inerrant, not infallible. It doesn’t sound quite as catchy that way, though… )

 

[Tomdstone]

He did! But, it’s important to remember the context: for a Protestant, who does not recognize the authority of the magisterium, all he has is “a fallibly-defined list of infallible books.” In other words, the Bible – held to be inerrant – requires an authority in order to be “the Bible”, and by holding to biblical inerrancy, a Protestant is implicitly assenting to the infallibility of the construction of the table of contents therein.

For a Catholic, there’s no such problem: the Bible is a infallibly-declared list of infallible books.

(OK: actually, it’s “inerrant books” – Scripture is inerrant, not infallible. It doesn’t sound quite as catchy that way, though… )

Inerrant means without error, is that correct? I think that there are a few errors in the Bible, although in many cases if you interpret what was said as a story, to be understood figuratively as a parable story, in that way, you can get around many of these errors.

 

[wynd]

He did! But, it’s important to remember the context: for a Protestant, who does not recognize the authority of the magisterium, all he has is “a fallibly-defined list of infallible books.” In other words, the Bible – held to be inerrant – requires an authority in order to be “the Bible”, and by holding to biblical inerrancy, a Protestant is implicitly assenting to the infallibility of the construction of the table of contents therein.

For a Catholic, there’s no such problem: the Bible is a infallibly-declared list of infallible books.

But how do we know that the canon is infallible? Based on this thread, it seems the best that Catholics could hope for is a “fallible list of infallible doctrines.”

(OK: actually, it’s “inerrant books” – Scripture is inerrant, not infallible. It doesn’t sound quite as catchy that way, though… )

Next thing I know you’ll be telling us that the pope can sin. Scandalous! /s