"Development of Doctrine" for the Roman Catholic: A blank check for a wax nose.

It seems to me that what Roman Catholicism has done over the years is to “synthesize” and to bring in unbiblical concepts, which it then understands to be “divine revelation”. That is why I’ve written recently about Aquinas being “the problem”.

Aquinas “synthesized” Aristotelian metaphysics, and in doing so, he did alter what was at the time “the Classical doctrine of God”, sacraments, etc. The challenge with understanding all of this is to understand (a) where the concepts came from, and (b) at what point did they become “doctrine” and hence, at what point, did Rome begin to consider them “divine revelation” -- or “tradition”, in other words.

In the Roman system, “tradition” is not the same as what the Eastern Orthodox mean by “tradition”. There is a whole elaborate set of explanations to say why these Roman accretions are “development” and how they continue to be part of “tradition” (or rather, “Tradition”, with a capital “T”), even though some of them are less than 50 years old.

Before Aquinas, the writing of someone like a pseudo-Dionysius existed, and some likely loosely held to them. Aquinas incorporated what we now clearly know to be a forgery into his “theology”, and his “theology” became ratified into dogma in large scale by the RCC.

Keep in mind, there is a difference between “doctrine” (or “dogma”) in Roman Catholicism and “theology”. Any “theology” can be (and is) easily dismissed by apologists, especially that which doesn’t suit their purpose du jour.

Dogmas then, for Rome, become “reformulated positively” -- essentially a blank check for a wax nose, all of which occurs under the rubric of “development”.

This is essentially why Rome, while having the claim to being “old”, really is the adopter of “every wind of doctrine” that has come down the pike. It keeps a couple of dusty old artifacts (such as “the papacy”), and all the rest is a whirlwind.