I recently had an impromptu debate with a Catholic on Facebook. Here's the exchange (with minor editing):
Hays
To support Jerry's claim from another angle, there's the phenomenon of conservative Catholics who disregard the pacifism of recent popes. They justify their support for capital punishment or a particular military intervention by appealing to Thomism. Many conservative Catholic intellectuals are functional Thomists rather than papists. Their standard of comparison on just war and capital punishment is Thomism rather than the modern Magisterium. You can see the same phenomenon when they disregard the economic views of recent popes and bishops, or their views on illegal immigration.
Robinson
I forget, did a Pope declare ex cathedra a particular position on any of the issues you just listed?
Hays
You forgot that Catholics have a duty to submit to the ordinary magisterium and not merely the extraordinary magisterium. Anything else you'd like me to clear up for you?
892 Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way, to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a "definitive manner," they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful "are to adhere to it with religious assent"422 which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
Robinson
Yes, actually; what level of doctrine do those things listed fall under?
Hays
You mean, recent papal opposition to the death penalty (for instance)?
But nice to see you having to backpedal from your initial criterion.
Robinson
Well, let me ask it like this, do the teachings you listed above, fall under ordinary, extraordinary, or ordinary universal magisterium teachings? Also, are these teachings considered dogma, definitive doctrine, authoritative doctrine, or prudential admonitions?
Hays
They don't need to be dogma or definitive doctrine to obligate assent. That's the point. And if you wish to retreat into uncertainty regarding how recent papal policy on capital punishment or default pacifism should be classified, that's a problem for Catholics, not Protestants. By what authority to does a Catholic layman classify recent papal policy as authoritative or unauthoritative? Your own authority?
Robinson
Since it's "a problem for Catholics," then probably not a thing for you to concern yourself with here.
Hays
Do you also think Christians are not entitled to concern themselves with problems internal to atheism? Should we just leave that to atheists to hash out among themselves? What a mistake for Plantinga, Swinburne, van Inwagen et al. to bother with atheism.
Robinson
Also, If the teachings you listed above do indeed fall under the last two categories, one is able to disagree with the magisterium regarding these teachings. See Richard Gaillardetz's By What Authority? on this point.
Hays
Your last two categories included "authoritative doctrine" (second to last). So you're saying faithful Catholics are at liberty to disagree with authoritative doctrine.
If you classify recent papal policy on capital punishment and default pacifism as merely "prudential admonitions," what's your criterion? By what authority do you apply your criterion? Same thing with recent papal teaching on economics.
I notice that you cast the issue in conditional terms (if–then). So is the classification uncertain? But isn't a divine teaching office supposed to compensate for the lack of certainty that allegedly besets Protestant theology?
Robinson
Well, we are back at my above question, how did these teachings come to be ( ordinary, extraordinary, or ordinary universal magisterium)?
Hays
Are you claiming there's some sort of quantitative threshold that distinguishes the ordinary universal magisterium? Can you point to an unambiguous criterion or sufficient condition?
Does the Vatican issue labels: "ordinary magisterial teaching," "ordinary universal magisterial teaching"?
Or is that left to the private judgment of individual Catholics to tell which is which?
Robinson
No, actually, basic Catholic ecclesiology.
Hays
Oh, but we're discussing how individuals, including lay Catholics, apply "basic Catholic ecclesiology. Are you saying the classification of papal teaching as merely prudential admonitions is not an exercise in private judgment at the level of application?
Given the development of doctrine, what may prospectively appear to be merely prudential advice may retrospectively be seen as authoritative, as a pattern emerges. Or do you deny that?
Robinson
Ordinary Magisterium consist of teachings by individual bishops, groups of bishops, or the Pope (non-infallible).
Extraordinary Magisterium are things taught by the College of Bishops while gathered in Ecumenical Council, or the Pope doing so, as headof the College of Bishops, declared Ex Cathedra.
Ordinary Universal Magisterium is something made by the bishops while dispersed throughout the world, united in judgment indicating that a teaching is held definitively.
Hays
Your definition of the ordinary universal magisterium fails to provide any identifiable event or discernible criterion for when that threshold has been crossed. Care to try again?
Your distinction between "groups of bishops" and bishops "dispersed throughout the world" is fuzzy, especially given the fact that the geographical extension of the Catholic church has varied in the course of church history.
Not to mention weasel words like "united in judgment" and "definitively held". Do you have a noncircular criterion or condition?
Robinson
Wait, why do you care, again?
Hays
So now you're trying to deflect.
Robinson
No, I'm just noting above you said this was a Catholic problem. I explained that there are different types of Church teachings.
Also, are you trying to learn about Catholic ecclesiology, or just being a troll?
Hays
So exposing the incoherence of Catholic claims is trollish. Well, if that's the best you can do.
Robinson
So because the process isn't neat, somehow it is incoherent?
Hays
The process isn't "neat". What a lovely euphemism. So that's your backdoor admission that you don't really have any objective way to differentiate ordinary magisterial teaching from ordinary universal magisterial teaching.
Why can't evangelicals say the process of Protestant theology isn't "neat".
Robinson
1) There are some "objective" criteria, as I stated above, how were the teachings stated? Ecumenical council? Ex Cathedra? Statements made by the Pope in a homily?
2) It isn't exactly a neat process. Takes time, as the first few hundred years of christological debates should show.
3)I am not exactly sure what it means to have a process of Protestant theology.
Hays
To repeat, what's the threshold for knowing when or if ordinary magisterial teaching has passed or will pass into ordinary universal magisterial teaching? At best, that can only be known in hindsight, which leaves much Catholic teaching uncertain or practically unauthoritative since the future is out of sight. And this isn't just a question of development or reiteration, but dramatic reversals in the status quo ante, for centuries.
To my knowledge, no papal statements are labeled "ex cathedra".
BTW, is there an infallible list of ecumenical councils? Clearly Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox have different lists.
Robinson
The threshold is when the bishops, as members of the college of bishops even though they are dispersed globally, are united in a judgment that a teaching should be considered definitive doctrine. In other words, a judgment made by only the USCCB, cannot be anything more than ordinary magisterium (therefore not infallible).
Hays
Once again, how do you know if or when that threshold has been crossed? Does the Vatican stage a fireworks display?
Since the Catholic church wasn't global for most of its history, does that mean ordinary universal magisterial teaching only became possible since the 19C (give or take)? How do you determine that the bishops are "united in judgment"? That doesn't even occur during so-called ecumenical councils. If, in some or many cases, the distinction between ordinary and ordinary universal magisterial teaching can only be seen after the fact, then how do you achieve any certainty in distinguishing the two in advance of the fact?
Robinson
The statement about bishops being global isn't meant to imply that there must be a bishop on every continent. Rather, it is meant to reference the bishops dispersed to their diocese, wherever they might be found, rather than together at a council.
Hays
But you'd have to determine (taking a poll?) that the bishops are united in judgment. Presumably, moreover, that must be diachronic as well as synchronic. Bishops over a span of time. What's the minimal sample group in space and time? Presumably you don't think "united in judgment" means unanimity since, as I pointed out, that's not even a necessary condition for an ecumenical council. So it's a fuzzy criterion, too. A matter of degree. What's the threshold?
Robinson
How do you determine, before the Council of Nicaea, whether or not Nicaea should be considered authoritative?
Hays
I don't consider church councils to be intrinsically authoritative. That's not my paradigm. If, for argument's sake, we wish to cast the issue in authoritarian terms, then the product of a council is "authoritative" insofar as it happens to be true.
Robinson
What's not the question here?: your paradigm or what you think is authoritative in these matters. Rather the question is whether or not your initial comment that sparked this is back and forth makes a worthwhile contribution and criticism within the Catholic paradigm. It doesn't. Whether the catholic paradigm is complicated, or satisfies your emotive self isn't too interesting, since you aren't a Catholic, and is to be expected beforehand.However, what is interesting is that you continually pontificate about Catholic authority, and yet did not seem to know about the distinctions within the magisterium....
Hays
You were the one who asked for my personal opinion. My objection wasn't that the Catholic paradigm is "complicated" or that it fails to satisfies an "emotive self". And what's interesting is your persistent inability to show how the abstract distinctions are tenable in practice.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry that I'm unable to explain to you the different levels of magesterium teaching or gradations in authority, in a better way. I recommend the book in the original post, a nice introduction to church authority.
Best,
Brooks
You keep missing the point. The question at issue is not whether Rome can stipulate gradations of authority, but whether that's verifiable in practice. Is there some reason you persistently confuse those two issues? Quoting definitions does nothing to demonstrate that abstract distinctions can be correlated to recognizable, real-world situations.
DeleteSteve,
DeleteIs there a persistent reason you have to be smug? Seriously, dude, chill out. Slow down.
The issue with this discussion is that you are raising two separate, even if closely related, questions, and acting as if that's your initial criticism. It isn't, read your first remark. I don't have time for rabbit holes, especially for concepts covered in most books on Catholic ecclesiology---which you should be reading considering the frequency of your public criticisms of Catholicism. This conversation here begins with, and is made explicit by your title, and with your first point: can a Catholic disagree with the Pope? The answer is, yes they can. End of the discussion.
You are *now* raising and inserting into the conversation a different question: how does one know when the teaching is infallible or not? Again, a Different question than what "papist or thomist?" Originally asks. The title alone should highlight this.... but as I stated earlier, to answer this latter question one needs to look at the source of the teaching as a reader: is it a homily? Press release? Ecumenical council? Secondly, For something to move towards a definitive judgment, the College of Bishops/Pope needs to say explicitly that they are examining the teaching for this purpose. The College of Bishops/Pope will then, if a conclusion is reached, state explicitly that they are in agreement that a judgment is definitive. If no agreement that the judgment ought to be definitive, there is no definitive judgment made (even if a bishop believes it ought to be so).
If you want real world examples, I gave you some: press releases, homilies, and encyclicals are not definitive judgments.
Blessings
My initial comment never laid down the general proposition that faithful Catholics can't disagree with popes.
DeleteI'm not *now* raising and inserting a different question into the conversation. You have recast my statement into something I didn't say or imply.
By your logic, who needs to read the Summa Theologica when we can just read the title? Surely the title tells us all we need to know.
To take one of your own examples, the entire text of an ecumenical council is not considered to be infallible.
Traditionalist Catholics say Vatican II isn't supposed to be binding because it's just a pastoral council rather than a dogmatic council.
You also duck the fact that, given the development of doctrine, nothing is ever truly definitive in Catholic theology. It's always subject to future revision.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteNote the original issue here:
Delete\\\\Many conservative Catholic intellectuals are functional Thomists rather than papists.\\\\
Several problems here.First, this assumes one must make a choice here. But, as you even affirm, Catholics can disagree with Popes on certain teachings, and this is well within the bounds of Catholic theology and Church authority. Therefore, it isn't clear how this dichotomy exists if to be a "papist" (whatever you mean by this) allows for one to be a Thomist, another to be an Augustinian, another to be a Rahnarian, and for all three options to disagree with a bishop or Pope from their theological methods and presuppositions, when the teaching is not a dogma or definitive judgment. Second, given that the list you provided (peace, immigration, and economics) are found in encyclicals, homilies, press releases, rather than conclusions arrived at by an Ecumenical Council, nor ex Cathedra, and thus made dogmas or definitive doctrine, they can be respectfully disagreed with. Finally, you keep insisting that you know about the gradations of assent, but conveniently don't apply the concept when discussing these matters within Catholic paradigms.
\\\You also duck the fact that, given the development of doctrine, nothing is ever truly definitive in Catholic theology. It's always subject to future revision.\\\\
Your initial posting as quoted above (and below), and the title itself, set the direction for the dialogue. To move from that is to shift the discussion. Please note that the title of this blog post and the subject of our back and forth based on that original post is not "Can Catholic theology truly be definitive?" Nor is it "how does one determine what falls into what category of teaching," as you suggested in your first reply... Again, you import these into the discussion for whatever reason (red herrings). While these questions are worth while on their own merit, they are not at all apart of your original post (quoted below my response), and therefore cause confusion in our back and forth. Again, it remains unclear what your point is with the initial comment if it isn't to suggest Catholics are fundamentally Thomists when they disagree with the Pope vis-a-vis Aquinas' theology....You should clarify what your actual initial point is driving at if not that some Catholics are choosing Thomism over Papaism (again whatever you mean by this term), and therefore at odds with Church hierarchy in some serious sense. In terms of whether Catholic doctrine is definitive, the answer is"no" if you mean that what the Church has called dogma or definitive doctrine was given with full understanding in the deposit of faith. Though clarity and understanding may develop over time, dogma and definitive doctrines are not reversible, and therefore are indeed definitive (the doctrine of Trinity isn't going anywhere). The idea here is that doctrine develops and moves towards greater understanding and clarity....the development of Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, from the New Testament through the Ecumenical Councils, are great examples of this of how doctrine develops. However, this also isn't the point of your post.
Blessings
\\\\To support Jerry's claim from another angle, there's the phenomenon of conservative Catholics who disregard the pacifism of recent popes. They justify their support for capital punishment or a particular military intervention by appealing to Thomism. Many conservative Catholic intellectuals are functional Thomists rather than papists. Their standard of comparison on just war and capital punishment is Thomism rather than the modern Magisterium. You can see the same phenomenon when they disregard the economic views of recent popes and bishops, or their views on illegal immigration.\\\
"Second, given that the list you provided (peace, immigration, and economics) are found in encyclicals, homilies, press releases, rather than conclusions arrived at by an Ecumenical Council, nor ex Cathedra, and thus made dogmas or definitive doctrine, they can be respectfully disagreed with."
DeleteSo Catholics can flout papal teaching on artificial contraception inasmuch as Humanae Vitae was just a lowly encyclical. Glad you cleared that up.
"To move from that is to shift the discussion. Please note that the title of this blog post and the subject of our back and forth based on that original post is not 'Can Catholic theology truly be definitive?'"
You're the one, not me, who shifted the discussion to what allegedly constitutes "definitive" Catholic teaching.
"Nor is it 'how does one determine what falls into what category of teaching,' as you suggested in your first reply..."
Logic is not your forte. By your own admission, faithful Catholics are free to dissent from some papal teaching, so long as it isn't sufficiently authoritative. That presumes an ability on the part of Catholics to determine the category of teaching.
"Though clarity and understanding may develop over time, dogma and definitive doctrines are not reversible, and therefore are indeed definitive (the doctrine of Trinity isn't going anywhere)."
Of course that's circular. If it is reversed, despite centuries of official policy, then it's retroactively deemed not to be dogma or definitive doctrine.
Take the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to communion. What's the official status of that?
DeleteSteve,
You *really* should slow down. Your post sets up a false dichotomy, and that still needs to be dealt with. In terms of the details regarding the magisterium, assent, and the lay role/responsibility, one need not sketch out all those details, make a case for their reasonableness, or what have you, for your post. Only that Catholic authority is incredibly more nuanced and complicated than the simplicity of your post allows for, which is why your framing of the discussion is just bad. Again, the topic of your post isn't the reasonableness, pragmatics, or processes of the magisterium---something that won't satisfy, and will thus be a waste of time to discuss (see Asldair MacIntyre's *After Virtue* on emotivism and moral reasoning). *Especially* when you haven't traded anything in return for the sake of the dialogue, except underhanded insults. A "you are right, my initial post doesn't make sense within the Catholic paradigm," would be a good start here. Until then, I recommend you actually engage with Catholic ecclesiology.
You're the one who needs to slow down. You're the one who keeps deleting your own hasty comments. You're the one who makes hasty statements, from which you have to backpedal.
DeleteAnd retreating into how Catholic authority is "incredibly nuanced and complicated" underscores the difficulty of achieving certainty regarding how normative most Catholic teaching is.
You assume I am deleting comments because they are hasty, rather than making edits because this little comment box is tiny on my phone. Too bad there isn't an edit feature...
DeleteThere is no back peddling. I have been open about the complexity of Catholic authority, yet, providing the existence of concrete examples or ways to read authoritative teachings. Apparently you can't hold more than two concepts at once. Even with the brief examples I have given, or the explanation regarding differences in the magisterium, at the end of the day, that isn't what this post is about. Still waiting for you to address this false dichotomy that is in the title of this post: "Papist or Thomist?"
You had to backpedal on your initial suggestion that faithful Catholics can ignore papal teaching so long as it isn't ex cathedra. Likewise, you say faithful Catholics are at liberty to disregard papal encyclicals, then retreat into silence when I mention Humanae Vitae.
DeleteSteve,
ReplyDelete1) I find irony in my writing an academic essay on Church authority over the last week, while being lectured about Church authority by a Protestant who did not know about differences in magisterium teaching.
2) you still haven't addressed the false dichotomy. The subject of your post, which is what I'm assessing. You have imported new issues repeatedly: the reasonableness of Catholic authority; the pragmatics of this authority. Deal with the false dichotomy, not whether Catholic authority is ultimately comvincing to you.
3) I haven't back peddled. Catholics can disagree with Humana vitae, see the debate surrounding Hans Kung's criticism of papal infallibility, using this document as a foil. Kung was wrong, and criticized by theologians all over the spectrum about this.
Again, we are engaging with your dichotomy, something you haven't spoken about. Not whether you are convinced about gradations or how Catholics can disagree with a pope.
"I find irony in my writing an academic essay on Church authority over the last week, while being lectured about Church authority by a Protestant who did not know about differences in magisterium teaching."
DeleteYou're rewriting the history of the thread. You were the one who said "I forget, did a Pope declare ex cathedra a particular position on any of the issues you just listed?"–as if faithful Catholics are at liberty to disagree with any papal teaching that falls short of ex cathedra pronouncements.
I was the one who had to quote back to you what the Catechism says about the duty to submit to teaching that is not ex cathedra, that is not definitive.
In addition, it's foolish of you to make demonstrably false accusations when I have an accessible paper trail. For instance, way back in 2008 I reviewed Magisterium: Teacher & Guardian of the Faith by Cardinal Dulles. I quoted his gradations of authority. Check the archives.
"you still haven't addressed the false dichotomy."
There is no false dichotomy. Indeed, you yourself repeatedly concede that faithful Catholics are sometimes at liberty to follow Aquinas rather than the pope.
"Catholics can disagree with Humana vitae"
Now you're dissembling. Once again, let's take two of your statements:
"I forget, did a Pope declare ex cathedra a particular position on any of the issues you just listed?"
"encyclicals are not definitive judgments."
So according to your own statements, Catholics are not duty-bound to adhere to Humanae Vitae's teaching on birth control with religious assent. It's not ex cathedra, right? It's just an encyclical, right?
"see the debate surrounding Hans Kung's criticism of papal infallibility, using this document as a foil."
You're recasting the issue. The question at issue wasn't whether it's physically or psychologically possible for Catholics to disagree with Humanae Vitae, but whether dissent in that regard is compatible with their religious duty.
Since you can't bring yourself to argue in good faith, we're done. I'm not going to waste more time on a disputant who engages in so much dissimulation. Take your mendacity elsewhere.