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July 12, 2005
Ch. II. Q.9 The Dogmatic Office
The basis of the Church's authority to impose dogmas is partly her own nature, partly the perpetual guidance of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to her, and partly the commission which has been given to her Ministers to disciple all nations.1
2. The Church is the Body of Christ, indissolubly united to her Head, the Word of God. She is thus the Word Incorporate, in whom no one who earnestly seeks can fail to find the Word Incarnate, the Light of the world.2
3. Our Lord promised that the Holy Ghost should guide His Church into all truth. It is true that she incorporates fallible men into herself, and that they do not cease to be fallible, in this life, even when assembled in ecclesiastical Councils; but, in her corporate capacity, she is always "the pillar and ground of the truth" to those who are faithful to her life. Multitudes of her members and Ministers may fall away, but the gates of hell can never prevail against her.3
4. In order to disciple all nations successfully, the Church must at all times make known the real contents of her message to those who are ready to receive her teaching. Therefore, when the prevalence of error threatens to defeat this object, she has the right and obligation to put forth plain statements of the truth and to stamp them with her formal authority.4
5. It will be seen that the Church does not exercise her dogmatic office in order to repress or set the bounds of thought, but to protect her faithful ones from erroneous thought. She furnishes guides to true thinking, not substitutes for it.5
6. The Church was established in order that she might bear witness to the Resurrection and other facts of the Gospel. These facts cannot be known now except by tradition and testimony— i.e., on authority. The Church is the only living thing capable of giving this testimony. Her life spans the interval between the Resurrection and our own day; and, as the only contemporary wit¬ness now surviving, she is the only immediate authority which is sufficient to teach dogmatically the facts of the Gospel.6
7. The setting forth of Catholic dogmas is caused by the prevalence of novel and suspicious opinions touching the Faith. Such opinions are tested by their agreement or disagreement with what has been universally handed down from the Apostles. The result is positive definition of what is to be believed, in such language as to exclude prevalent error. Such error is then reckoned to be formal heresy. The sphere of Catholic dogma is limited to the bounds of saving truth, of revealed certainties. The Church has no authority to settle speculative problems or to define non-saving truth dogmatically.7
1 XXXIX. Articles, xx.; Palmer, The Church, Pt. III., ch. v.; Pt. IV., ch. i.-vii.; Garbett, Dogmatic Faith, esp. Lec. i.; Stanton, Place of Authority, ch. i., ii., iv.; Moberly, Reason and Religion, pp. 131-136; Church Hist. Soc. Lecs., 2nd Series, 2nd Paper; Lacey, Elem. of Doctrine, pp. 232-240; Mozley, The Dogmatic Office, in Lecs. and Other Theol. Papers; Strong, Authority in the Church; Stone, Outlines of Dogma, ch. x.
2 Ewer, Holy Spirit, pp. 45-47; cf. John xvi. 12, 13; I. Tim. iii. 15; Matt. xvi. 18.
3 Stanton, p. 105; Gore, Rom, Cath. Claims, ch. iii.
4 Liddon, Divinity of Our Lord, pp. 34-43, 445-447; MacColl, Lecs. on the Creed, pp. 7-9; Newbolt, Religion, ch. ii.
5 Stanton, pp. 187-190; Illingworth, Reason and Revelation, pp. 6, 7. Cf. Q. vi. 4.
6 Stanton, pp. 163-167; Mason, Faith of the Gospel, ch. viii. 5; Palmer, Vol. II., Pt. III., ch. iii.; Lacey, pp. 11-13, 21. Cf. John xiv. 26; I. Tim. vi. 20; iii. 15; II. Tim. i. 13, 14; I. Cor. xv. 3; I. John i. 1-3; Jude 3; II. Thes. ji. 15; Mark vii. 1-13.
7 Mozley.
Posted by Debra Bullock at July 12, 2005 01:51 PM
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