What's the difference between doctrine and dogma?

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And can you give examples? I often confuse the two. I know it is important for Catholics to respect both.
I just want to clarify.
Guess some will be amused I don’t know the difference. I don’t care.
 
A dogma is a truth directly revealed by God, and therefore we must believe it with divine faith. To deny it is heresy.

Doctrine is just a general term that means teaching, and therefore can encompass not just revealed truths, but other things the Church teaches authoritatively, like points of morality derived from the natural law and propositions necessarily connected to revealed truth, such as those that flow logically or that are historically connected.

Here is some more in depth reading from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in the context of explaining the different clauses of the profession of faith required of those holding certain offices in the Church.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/cdfadtu.htm
 
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A doctrine is a teaching. A dogma is an infallible teaching. Material dogma is all the truths taught by Tradition and Scripture. Formal dogma is any of those truths also taught infallibly by the Magisterium. Doctrine is distinct from discipline.
 
Sounds like bitter medicine the way you describe it.
I have no desire to challenge its validity.
 
Sorry. I read further. Thanks for the clarification.
 
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Genesis315 said:
A dogma is a truth directly revealed by God, and therefore we must believe it with divine faith. To deny it is heresy.
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I just wonder how many Catholics are aware of all the Catholic Dogma. Better we don’t know them so we don’t risk denying them. 🙂
 
goodcatholic said:
I just wonder how many Catholics are aware of all the Catholic Dogma. Better we don’t know them so we don’t risk denying them. 🙂
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You don’t need to be aware of every truth revealed by God and the vast majority of Catholics throughout history have not–but you do need to have the virtue of faith which includes the will to believe what God has revealed (because He does not deceive) and the Church hands on. While willful ignorance would of course be a sin against faith, the due diligence with regard to the truth necessary for, say, a bishop is different than for grunts like us (I presumed you’re not a bishop–if I am wrong, I ask your forgiveness your excellency). Generally, we can rely on the pastors of the Church, as long as we choose to believe with the Church–in that case we implicitly believe every dogma even if we don’t explicitly do so.

St. Thomas addressed this in the Summa here:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3002.htm#article6

See also the following from Pope Innocent IV on implicit faith, in his commentary on certain portions of canon law (Commentaria in quinque libros decretalia, Ad liber I):
There is a certain measure of faith to which all are obliged, and which is sufficient for the simple (simplicibus) and perhaps for all laymen—that is, every adult must believe that God exists and that He rewards all good people. He must also believe in the other articles of the Creed implicitly (implicite), that I, he must believe that whatever the Catholic Church believes is true…[Bishops should be familiar with and capable of explaining—with the help of experts—all the articles of the Creed.] As for the lower clergy, it seems clear that if they are poor and cannot attend school… it is enough that they know as simple laymen, and a little bit more (aliquantulum plus)—about the Eucharist. For they must know that in the Eucharist the true body of Christ is being produced.

Such is the power of implicit faith that there are those who say that if someone has it—that is, he believes in everything the Church believes—but his natural reason (ratione naturali) makes him hold the erroneous opinion that the Father is greater than the Son or precedes Him in time, or that the three persons are separate beings, he is neither a heretic nor a sinner, so long as he does not defend is error and so long as he believes that this is the faith of the Church. In that case, the faith of the Church replaces his opinion, since, though his opinion is false, it is not his faith, rather his faith is the faith of the Church.
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