What is Dogma?

[Bubba_Switzler]

What is dogma? Here is one perspective.

As Catholics, we have no problem with having the Magisterium confirm, but not originate, the theology explaining dogma.

But by theologians explaining a dogma (which by definition is a pre-existing TRUTH predating it’s explanation and exploration) they aren’t CREATING the dogma!

This assumption that theologians CREATE dogma, that dogma is a “work of man”, a “human creation”, is a basic error which veritably guarantees that the holder of this error will fall into a “Sola Scriptura” attitude. (What else have they to work with which isn’t “man created” other than the subset of the Deposit of Faith which is scripture? …and maybe some arbitrary selections from the Fathers].)

If one can communicate that dogmas aren’t created, but rather discovered, and then certified by God (via the Magisterium), one has essentially converted a non-Catholic (or a “badly catechized Catholic”) to being a (“good”) Catholic.

The debate about dogma is very much like the debate about scientific theory. And the above theory of dogma closely follows the traditional model of science. Dogma is very analogous to the laws of science which scientists discover through research and experimentation. This is the platonic view.

However, more modern science, particularly in the tradition of pragmatism, follows a different model. According to the pragmatic view, the laws of science are human constructions that are created to help us understand how the world works. The truth of a scientific theory is simply a function of its predictive utility. Reality is distinguished from theory; there may be many theories to explain reality and some will be better than others. The more we learn, the better our theories.

So can this model be applied to dogma? Why not? Is Protestant dogma good and Catholic dogma simply better?

 

[passus]

There is no such thing as “Protestant dogma.” The Church defines dogma:The Church’s Magisterium exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas, that is, when it proposes, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine Revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these (CCC 88).
Since only the Catholic Church can teach with the authority of the Magisterium, Protestants do not have the faculty to define dogmas in the first place.