Can Dogma Develop?
The opening verse of the book of Hebrews tells
us that "[i]n many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by
the prophets." This was done fragmentarily, under various figures and symbols.
Man was not given religious truth as though from a Scholastic theologian,
nicely laid out and fully indexed. Doctrines had to be thought out, lived
out in the liturgical life of the Church, even pieced together by the Fathers
and ecumenical councils. In this way, the Church has gained an ever-deepening
understanding of the deposit of faith that had been "once for all delivered"
to it by Christ and the apostles (cf. Jude 3).
Protestants—especially Fundamentalists and Evangelicals—admit
that much. They recognize there was a real development in doctrine: There
was an initial message, much clouded at the Fall, and then a progressively
fuller explanation of God’s teachings as Israel was prepared for the Messiah,
until the apostles were instructed by the Messiah himself. Jesus told the
apostles that in the Old Testament "many prophets and righteous men longed
to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and
did not hear it" (Matt. 13:17).
Hold Fast to What You Were Taught
Christians have always understood that at the close
of the apostolic age—with the death of the last surviving apostle, John,
perhaps around A.D. 100—public revelation ceased (Catechism of the Catholic
Church 66–67, 73). Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law (Matt. 5:17)
and is the ultimate teacher of humanity: "You have one teacher, the Messiah"
(Matt. 23:10). The apostles recognized that their task was to pass on,
intact, the faith given to them by the Master: "[A]nd what you have heard
from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able
to teach others also" (2 Tim. 2:2); "But as for you, continue in what you
have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it"
(2 Tim. 3:14).
However, this closure to public revelation doesn’t
mean there isn’t progress in the understanding of what has been entrusted
to the Church. Anyone interested in Christianity will ask, "What does this
doctrine imply? How does it relate to that doctrine?"
Vatican II on Development
In answering these questions, the Church facilitates
the development or maturing of doctrines. The Blessed Virgin Mary models
this process of coming to an ever deeper understanding of God’s revelation:
"But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart" (Luke 2:19).
It’s important to understand that the Church does not, indeed cannot,
change the doctrines God has given it, nor can it "invent" new ones and
add them to the deposit of faith that has been "once for all delivered
to the saints." New beliefs are not invented, but obscurities and misunderstandings
regarding the deposit of faith are cleared up.
Vatican II explained, "The tradition which comes
from the apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit.
For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words
which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and
study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts, through
a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience,
and through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal
succession the sure gift of truth. For, as the centuries succeed one another,
the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth
until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her" (Dei
Verbum 8).
As we read Scripture, we see in it doctrines we
already hold, each of us having been instructed in the faith before ever
picking up the sacred text. This is a necessary process, as Scripture indicates.
Peter explained, "There are some things in them [Paul’s letters] hard to
understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction,
as they do the other scriptures" (2 Pet. 3:16). Those who are ignorant
of orthodox Christian doctrine because they have never been taught it,
or who are unstable in their adherence to the orthodox doctrine they have
been taught, can twist Paul’s writings and the rest of Scripture to their
own destruction. Therefore, it is important that we read Scripture within
the framework of the Church’s constant tradition, as handed down from the
apostles in the Catholic Church.
However, when we read Scripture in the light of
the apostles’ authentic teachings, we sometimes forget that some central
doctrines (such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union) were not always
understood or as clearly expounded in the Church’s early days the way they
are now. Understanding grew and deepened over time. As an example, consider
the Holy Spirit’s divinity. In Scripture, references to it seem to jump
out at us. But if we imagine ourselves as ancient pagans or as present-day
non-Christians reading the Bible for the first time, we realize, for them,
the Holy Spirit’s status as a divine person is not as clearly present in
Scripture, since they are less likely to notice details pointing to it.
If we think of ourselves as having no recourse to apostolic tradition and
to the Church’s teaching authority that the Holy Spirit guides into all
truth (cf. John 14:25-26, 16:13), we can appreciate how easy it must have
been for the early heresies concerning the Trinity and Holy Spirit to arise.
Another example is the early heresy known as Monothelitism.
This heresy, which Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants reject,
claimed that Christ had only one will—the divine—and that he had no human
will. This error sprang up because people had not yet clearly perceived
that, since Christ is fully God, he must have a divine will, and, since
he is fully man, he must have a human will. If he lacks one or the other
will, then he would either not be fully God or not be fully man. Thus Christ
must have two wills, one divine and one human. But because the issue had
never been raised before, this teaching had not yet been discerned as a
necessary inference from the fact that Christ is fully God and fully man—two
teachings that had been understood for ages.
Transubstantiation (the teaching that during Mass,
at the moment of consecration, the substance of the bread and wine becomes,
through a miraculous change wrought by God’s grace, the substance of the
body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, though the appearances
of bread and wine remain) is another example of a doctrine that had
always been believed by the Church, but whose exact meaning was understood
more clearly over time. In the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, the Eucharist
is promised by Jesus. If this chapter is read in conjunction with the accounts
of the Last Supper, it is easy to see why the first Christians knew that
the bread and wine are transubstantiated into Christ’s actual body and
blood. The Bible clearly says this change happens (cf. 1 Cor. 10:16–17,
11:23–29), but it is silent about how it happens.
The technical theological term "transubstantiation"
was not formally adopted by the Catholic Church until the Fourth Lateran
Council, in 1215. This was not the addition of a new doctrine, but was
the Church’s way of defining what it had always taught on this subject
in terms that would be so exact as to exclude all the incorrect explanations
proposed over the years to explain what happens at the moment of consecration.
Because people gave a lot of thought to the meaning and implications of
Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, because they tried their best
to draw true inferences from this true doctrine, and because not all of
them were adept at that, disputes arose, and a formal definition by the
Church became necessary.
No Necessity to Define
As these and many other cases demonstrate, doctrinal
questions can remain in a not-yet-fully-defined state for years. The Church
has never felt the need to define formally what there has been no particular
pressure to define. This strikes many, particularly non-Catholics, as strange.
Why weren’t things cleared up in, say, A.D. 100, so folks could know what’s
what? Why didn’t Rome issue a laundry list of definitions in the early
days and let it go at that? Why wasn’t an end-run made around all these
troubles that plagued Christianity precisely because things were unclear?
The remote reason is that God has had his own timetable and set of reasons
(to which we aren’t privy) for keeping it. The same could be said about
Old Testament prophets: Why didn’t they understand the fullness of the
doctrine of the Trinity all at once? Or the identity of the Messiah? Or
the fullness of Christian teaching? Partly because God had not revealed
it all yet, and partly because their understanding of the implications
of the doctrines they had needed to grow clearer over time.
This need to discern more clearly what is contained
in the deposit of faith given to the Church by the apostles points us to
the related subjects of infallibility and inspiration. The pope and the
bishops (when teaching in union with him) have the charism of infallibility
when defining matters of faith or morals; but infallibility works only
negatively. Through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, the pope and bishops
are prevented from teaching what is untrue, but they are not forced or
told by the Holy Spirit to teach what is true. To put it another way, the
pope and the bishops are not inspired the way the authors of Scripture
or the prophets were. To make a new definition, to clear up some dogmatic
confusion, they first have to use human reason, operating on what is known
to date, to be able to teach more precisely what is to be held as true.
They cannot teach what they do not know, and they learn things the same
way we do. They have no access to prophetic shortcuts—they must delve by
study into the riches of the words God has already given us.
Borrowing From Paganism?
Fundamentalists assert that what Catholics label
as development is nothing more than a centuries-old accumulation of pagan
beliefs and rites. The Catholic Church has not really refined the original
deposit of faith, they claim. Instead, it has added to it from the outside.
In its hurry to increase membership, particularly in the early centuries,
the Church let in nearly anybody. When existing inducements were not enough,
it adopted pagan ways to encourage pagans to convert. Each time the Church
did this, it moved away from authentic Christianity.
Consider Christmas. Strict Fundamentalists do not
observe it, and not only because the name of the feast is inescapably "Christ’s
Mass." Some say they disapprove of it because there is no proof Christ
was born on December 25. Others argue he couldn’t have been born in winter
because the shepherds, who were in the fields with their sheep, never put
sheep into fields during that season (a plausible, though in this case,
erroneous assumption). Others, noting the Bible is silent about the feast
of Christmas, say that should settle the matter. But these are all secondary
considerations.
The real reasons many Fundamentalists oppose the
celebration of Christmas are, first, that the feast of Christmas was established
by the Catholic Church (which is bad enough) and, next, that the Church
provided celebrating the birth of Christ as an alternative to celebrating
a pagan holiday occurring at the same time.
The Fundamentalist objections notwithstanding,
Scripture sanctions this practice. The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was
on the same day as a Canaanite vintage festival that it supplanted, much
as Christmas coincided with the festival of Sol Invictus that non-Christians
were celebrating. This is the same principle that Protestant churches use
when they replace the celebration of Halloween with "Reformation Day" or
"harvest festival" celebrations. It is an
attempt to provide a wholesome alternative celebration
to a popular but unwholesome one. Anti-Catholics who accuse Christmas of
having "pagan origins" fail to recognize that it is precisely anti-pagan
in origin.
Paul’s Command about Tradition
More significant than Fundamentalists’ rejection
of the development of human traditions—such as when Christ’s birth is celebrated—is
their rejection of apostolic tradition. Human traditions may be good or
bad, but they do not have the weight that apostolic tradition does. The
latter, since it conveys God’s revelation to us, is essential to the proper
development of doctrine.
Catholics know that public revelation ended with
the last apostle’s death. But the part of revelation that was not written
down—the part outside the Bible, the apostles’ inspired oral teaching (1
Thess. 2:13) and their binding interpretations of Old
Testament Scripture that forms the basis of sacred
Tradition—that part of revelation Catholics also accept. Catholics follow
Paul’s command: "So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions
which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess.
2:15, cf. 1 Cor. 11:2).
Interested in reading more about the Bible?
Check out these wonderful titles from the Bible and Theology section of our online Catalogue
(links open in a new window):
Bible
The Ignatius Bible, Hardcover format
The Ignatius Bible, Paperback
Vatican Publications
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pocket Edition
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition
Bible Interpretation
A Guide to the Bible, Antonio Fuentes
Theology for Beginners, Frank J. Sheed
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Dr. Ludwig Ott
Inside The Bible, Kenneth Baker, S.J.
Making Senses Out Of Scripture, Mark Shea
Where Is That In The Bible?, Patrick Madrid
Where We Got the Bible, Bishop Henry G. Graham
St. John's Gospel: A Bible Study Guide And Commentary, Stephen K. Ray
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004 |
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