www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Running something up the flagpole re infallibility

LOL
By those professor's reasoning, I guess the trinity didn't exist until it was declared so at a council. I guess Mary wasn't Theotokos until defined.
I guess we couldn't read the bible until Trent since the other councils were all local.

I find it curious that anyone can possible complain about a limited definition when the usual complaint is about going overboard. Consistency or petty?
LOL
Why didn't the pope declare Mary's favorite color and flower so we could be sure to paint her properly and present the correct flowers.
The pope declared what he wanted to declare and no more!

What was the heresy that was going around at the time that this needed to be stated infallably?

The Consistency is that the dogma of papal infallibility was not known or needed by the Church...if there was a heresy and something needed to be laid down to unify the Church a council was called and the concensus of the Church prevailed...I don't want to go down this road again...the councils after the 7 ecumenical councils are local councils and not ecumenical councils...

Petty...I think not...unfortunately...everytime (not only in this forum) that Orthodoxy points out inconsistencies or errors...we are the bad guys...

Chris

None. Next question?


Not sure what you are referring to when you say "the consistency is...". And if all we need to do is call an ecumenical council, tell us again how we would determine it was ecumenical? I'm still a little fuzzy on details of how that happens.


Would you like some paint with your broad brush, Chris?

Perhaps you could point out some of these supposed inconsistencies or errors. My hunch is that it is possible they are neither.

God bless,

Gordo

That's what I thought so what was the rationalle for making an infallable dogmatic declaration...infalible dogmatic statements are not something to be taken lightly...without an attempt at combating heresy...it appears...that although we, outside the RCC hear...a pope can't get up in the AM and decide today I'm making an infallible statement...however, if there was no heresy that he was trying to combat what was the reason???...again, it appears that the rationale was to do what he now could...to set a precident in stone...



That refers to another posting where the consistency against papal infallibility was being denied and brushing off rationale against it as petty...it's not petty...


Essentially a council is called ecumenical when all churches are involved and the consensus is reached...it is only after the council when the council has been studied, and put into practice, that a council can be called ecumenical...and needs to be deemed so by the consensus of the Churches/Patriarchiates...Don't know if that helps any...



Chris (trying to answer while at work...sorry if these are disjointed today)

The issue the last I looked was the defining of the Assumption (and not defining whether Mary died or not). Both Orthodox and Catholics believe in the Assumption. There are innumerable Orthodox churches called the Assumption, Holy Assumption etc. So there should be be no gripes about the belief itself.

What I hear is why was it defined at all. What was the heresy that called for the definition?
As far as I know it wasn't defined because of a heresy but because the bishops and laity demanded it. The pope was being bombarded with requests to make it a dogma!! He then sent letters to the bishops and asked several things.
1-Do you agree that Mary was assumed into heaven? (my wording)
2-Do you desire the Assumption to be defined as a dogma of the church?
3-Do the faithful desire the Assumption to be defined as dogma.
The response was overwhelming in the affirmative. There were about 6000 letters sent. Less than 200 were negative in any way.
BTW the same demand occurred for the Immaculate Conception.

The Eastern Orthodox are not involved in the day to day life of the western church and don't have feel for it.
BTW The same thing happened for the filioque but communication was even more difficult and the language was very different. The issues in the west were not occurring in the east so there was no need to deal with the procession in the East as was needed in the west.

Dear Joe�

In my study of the letter only one line is Infallible � the one which begins with the then current for of labeling an Infalible statement ... "I declare and define" or words to that effect (I am not going to look it up right now). It is one sentence.

The letter is a personal letter to king Philip of France on the occasion of Philip threatening to do what the king of England had done (break the church from the Pope and make himself the head of it). At the time - the Roman tax upon England and France to pay for the crusades - was heavy. Breaking the English church away from Rome meant the end of the Roman taxation for England.

The letter up to that point � is a thumbnail history which sets the stage for the final declaration. The point of the thumbnail history is that :: the Pope's authority is the foundation of the kings authority. A king�s authority can not be the foundation of a Pope's authority. In other words ... the Pope can make someone a king - but a king can not make himself a Pope.

The Infallible line should be understood not � as addressing the entire universal church ... but rather king Philip directly.

In context - it meaning is that the sacraments (often lumped under the older term �salvation� as used in past Council documents) and the priesthood � will not be valid if served from the authentic head of the Roman Church (the Pope).

I am well aware that is not the common nor popular interpretation of the letter and there are hands just shaking with anticipation to correct me � but there it is � meaning derived from context ... instead of meaning isolated from context.

The Infallibility of the sentence can be questioned as to it meeting all the criteria of an Infallible declaration. Some say it does and some say it does not because it is directly for Philip (and not the universal church) and some say it is not universal but regards the Roman Church only. I have no opinion on that question. But I think this highlights your (I think it was you) comment of how Infallible statements of the past were usually to cut off some encroaching heresy.


Peace to you Joe.
-ray

NB Unam Sanctam (referring to one holy ...Church) was a bull named for the seal (bulla) used to seal the document issued in 1302. A bull is stronger than an encyclical.

Unam Sanctam was not addressed only to king Phillip.
The last line says,"Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

For a great 1997 discussion of this and OUTSIDE THE CHURCH THERE IS NO SALVATION" which was proclaimed 87 years before the bull.
http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/debate9.htm

Yes, thanks for confirming what I thought. Also I didn't know that a Bull is more authoritative than an Encyclical. That is important I think. To be honest, "We declare..." is about as strong as you can get.

Joe

In what sense?

Gordo

You may not agree with my entire interpretation Gordo ... but help me out here on this aspect.

As far as I understand 'a bull' (named for the seal) is any type of letter, declaration, announcement, even personal corrospondance, coming from the desk of the Pope. Just about every offcial (kings included) used seals at the time to authenticate the letter (hand carried by someone). No one could just pick up a phone and ask "Hey... did you send this letter I recieved today?"

I do not even think they use the term anymore. No one seals letters with wax or lead anymore.

-ray

I know what it says. And I claim it has to be understood in its context.

If the true meaning is that any human being on the planet has to become a Roman Catholic to go to heaven. I would toss that bull (pun intended) right into the trash basket.

After all ... that is what the story of the good Samaritan is all about. And the church had always carried over from the Jews the concept of the 'justified gentile'. People who are not members of 'the church' can be � and often are � justified by God.

Council documents (early) had used the term 'salvation' to indicate the sacraments. As the means of salvation. So they were called � 'salvation'. The term was specifically used regarding sects of the church who were excommunicated. No salvation outside the church � had the meaning of � any sacraments produced by an excommunicated sect were invalid. Not capable of being the means to salvation.

No salvation = invalid sacraments. The term is no longer used like that today.

Salvation and justification and righteousness - had been separate terms that mean different things. Today they are all mostly interchangeable and have lost the difference in meaning. Especially lost if the idea that a soul should progress in the spiritual life. The final state of the Mystical Marriage has disappeared mostly in the West. The East maintains something of the idea.

Salvation = saved from being lost (like you salvage a boat) - a sacrament receiving member of the church is saved from destruction.

Justification = being sanctified - being perfected. Someone being justified by God was someone who was progressing in spiritual growth.

Righteous = perfected. A high degree of spiritual growth. A high state of grace in spiritual growth. The righteous man *was* justified.

During the Reformation the term �salvation� was turned from being �saved from loss� to being �saved� period � with no further need of spiritual growth. No continued spiritual growth to a higher state. That definition (Protestant) made it so all you needed was the sacraments - you didn�t need any further guidance from a Pope. A convenient definition if you were going to take existing bishops and priests and make yourself the head of your own church.

Context for these letters and such are critical for their real intended meaning. Without context and knowledge of the use of language at the time (including idioms and idiomatic phrases) - many misunderstandings are presented as infallible truths. Well intended. But mistaken.

Peace to you melkiteman.

I have been reading some of your posts. You have a blunt style of speaking. But you are not so bad. You mean no harm.

-ray

I have a few minutes before work but no time to edit.

The authroity of the church extends to her members only. She has no authrity outside of her members. Example: she can not judicate on if a Buddhist can go to heaven or not.

She can have opinion outside of hereself. But that is opinion.

That is why (in the West) baptism is baptism .. but confirmation makes you a member of the church and now you can recieve the other sacrements. You can be baptised by anyone even a non-member. But the other sacrements are reserved to the priesthood.

How to read expecially older documents of the church all depends on context. For example during Europes Medieveal dayys - everyone was a member of the church. The church was tied to the state. Islam, Buddhist, Orthodox... there were not a daily concern and not in people's minds. So if you were not a Roman Catholic under the Pope - you did not believe in God and were going to hell. It is not doctrinal but was popularly commonly held to be true.

off to work now

-ray

Chris,

If I might take a stab at this, not in terms of the Assumption, but in terms of infallibility itself:
Perhaps there was no "heresy" (in the ecclesial sense) that needed to be addressed by the dogma of infallibility, perhaps the problem was "apostasy".

The intellectual history of Western Europe from at least Descartes was a continual progression of philosophies "attacking" man's ability to know reality. The rise of Protestantism fed off this mindset, and Protestants denied all need for "Tradition" (Fathers, liturgy, or anything else). Freemasonry, from about 1800, was agressively undermining "authority" (temporal and Papal) throughout Europe and the New World (cf Mexico and South America). The amount of skepticism, relativism, modernism, and doubt about the very possibility of a supernatural Revelation was vast, both within and without the Church. The declaration of the dogma of infallibility, was deemed necessary to address this skepticism (within the Church eventually denominated "Modernism") which was causing people to doubt the truths of Revelation and Christ as the Savior of all men, who founded the Church as the instrument of His redemptive work in time.

When in mid-20th C., Catholic "intellectuals" felt they had a licence to engage this mindset, the "hermeneutic of discontinuity" ensued. This may or may not have been as big a problem in the Eastern Churches, but it was, and is, huge in the West. The "deep" meaning of infallibility is that Christ will not let the Church founder, that we can unfailingly trust in the Church as our Mother to provide us with the means of salvation.

Pope Benedict (as Prefect of the CDF) has pointed out numerous times that the papal charism of infallibility is intimately tied to, and constrained by, the Tradition of the Church of all times.

Best,
Michael

But it is certainly one thing to say "I know reality with certitude," and quite another to prove it. I don't see how the Pope simply proclaiming himself infallible is going to combat skepticism in those who truly ask the difficult questions and find themselves without certainty as to the truth. I hate to say it but a certain degree of skepticism is here to stay and there is a reason that most people do not pay much attention to scholastic arguments any more. It is because most of the arguments are not very persuasive. Now, I'm more than willing to be corrected and one of my goals is to do some re-reading of Aquinas and various neo-scholastics (Gilson, Maritain, etc). But, I have got to get this dissertation done first.

Joe

Hi Joe,

Don't think "scholasticism" here regarding 1870. What was at stake was "Faith", as both Catholics and Orthodox understand it: Revelation manifested in words and deeds of Jesus Christ.

The crisis was fomented in the media of the time, and threatening the faithful that way, and through the hesitancy of the pastors. The major intellectual battlegrounds were Continental, especially France, the Germanies and Italy.

The credibility of the Bible (only source of Revelation for Protestants) was being attacked throughout Academia. Science (Auguste Compte, later Darwin) was declaring atheism as a kind of default mindset, etc., etc.

If "the Truth will set you free", but we cannot know the Truth, Christianity is a fool's paradise (paraphrasing St. Paul). With the Faith at stake, scholasticism is of passing interest only.

Best,
Michael