About Answering Error Language & Interpretation
The Magisterial Cypher
15 minutes to read The sad story of a Catholic layman named Juan; a dedicated believer and amateur theologian, who gradually comes to realize that, as one of the laity, he is no more able to understand his religion than the peasants of the middle ages.
One day, Juan is walking down the street when he meets a Protestant handing out tracts. They get to talking, and Juan is surprised to learn that the Protestant thinks that Catholics aren’t saved. Juan tries to reassure the fellow that Catholics are Christians too—in fact, they are the true Christians who submit to the true Church of Christ. Protestants, to be honest, are the ones who are at a great disadvantage, having neither doctrinal purity nor the pure sacraments; especially the sacrificial Eucharist.
To Juan’s surprise, though, the Protestant rebuffs him. “We can’t both be Christians,” he says. “If what I believe is true, then we’re saved by faith alone, and your gospel of faith and works is no gospel at all. But if what you believe is true, then Pope Boniface VIII was correct when he infallibly said that that no one at all can be saved without being in subjection to the Roman Pontiff. As for your Eucharist, the doctrine of transubstantiation is, quite frankly, an abomination. How can a piece of bread literally become Jesus’s body, to be physically eaten by an entire congregation?”
Juan goes away bemused. He has talked often with his priest, and they’ve discussed Protestantism a few times. The Catholic Church is the one true Church instituted by Christ—so Protestants are missing out on a lot by failing to submit to it. They’re deprived of much true doctrine, and of the proper means of grace in the sacraments. A Protestant communion service is deeply impoverished compared to a Catholic Eucharistic mass. But Protestants still sincerely believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for their sins; they’re still Christians—and anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. In fact, even Muslims can be saved, or pagans in unevangelized countries, as long as they do their best to seek God with what little light of natural revelation they have.
As for the Eucharist being an abomination—well, you’d expect that from a Protestant! Jesus’s words were spirit and life; how could someone who hadn’t received these through the wonderful gift of the Eucharist understand them?
Thinking about it on his way home, Juan becomes more confident. Sure, that Protestant had rattled him a bit, but what could he know about Catholic teachings, after all? Juan determines to prove him wrong. When he gets home, he fires up his computer and does a search on Pope Boniface VIII. Soon he finds what the Protestant chap looks to have been referring to: a document called Unam Sanctam. By most accounts not an infallible declaration—except for the last line, which reads:
…we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
Juan stares at this sentence for a long time. It’s hard to imagine a plainer, more explicit, more all-encompassing or hard-nosed statement about salvation. For every human creature, it is absolutely necessary to be subject to the Roman Pontiff in order to obtain salvation. There’s no room for wiggling. It’s not most human creatures; not a bit necessary; not sort of subject. This is an exclusive statement about how salvation may be appropriated, direct from a Pope; and it clearly says that no one who is not subject to said Pope can be saved.
Was his priest wrong? If Boniface VIII was really speaking infallibly, then Muslims cannot be saved; ignorant pagans cannot be saved; Protestants who reject the authority of Rome cannot be saved (though of course, this statement was made in the 1300s, well before the Reformation). From the looks of things, even Eastern Orthodox Christians can’t be saved—and that can’t be right!
Juan decides to research the matter more deeply. He wants to familiarize himself with all the important Catholic pronouncements in this area, so he looks further afield. He finds that Boniface VIII was by no means aberrant in his conclusions; he seemed to have been reflecting a well-established, historical teaching. Pope Innocent III before him, at the Fourth Lateran Council, had said that “there is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved”; and Eugene IV, after him, had declared most magnificently in Cantate Domino that
The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgiving, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.
Not Jews? Then certainly not Muslims, Juan muses. Not schismatics? Then certainly not Eastern Orthodox. Not heretics? Then certainly not Protestants. And not pagans? Then certainly not the unevangelized. That doesn’t line up with what he has been told at all. But the further he digs, the more statements like this he finds. From Clement of Rome to Augustine to Gregory the Great, and afterwards to Trent, then into the nineteenth century (with Pius IX being particularly vocal about the matter), there is an unbroken tradition of teaching: extra ecclesiam nulla salus—outside of the Church there is no salvation! This is Church Tradition. His priest must have been wrong. That Protestant chap was right. The Catholic Church really does teach that only Catholics can be saved.
Juan is prepared to accept this. The Church is infallible; his priest is not. Perhaps he made a mistake. Certainly there isn’t any doubt about the clarity or pedigree of this tradition. He makes a mental note to mention this to his priest the next time they meet; he should know about his mistake.
By this stage Juan has gotten up to the major statements of the twentieth century, and is reading through the principal documents of Vatican II. (He’s a quick reader.) Scanning through Lumen Gentium, his eye catches a statement that just flabbergasts him:
the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. […] Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.
He re-reads this three or four times, but the words don’t change. How can this be? As the Protestant fellow had said, Unam Sanctam, and the whole Catholic Tradition, clearly teaches that no one outside the Catholic Church, no one who does not submit to Rome, can be saved. But Lumen Gentium is saying that not only does a person not have to submit to Rome; not only does he not have to be a Christian by any standard; not only does he not have to claim the same religion as Abraham regardless of how wrong and heretical he is; in fact, he can be a rank pagan and be saved! Either the Church was wrong until Vatican II, which of course it wasn’t…or Vatican II was wrong. They can’t both be right.
Juan is confused, and he decides to sleep on it. The next morning he re-reads Unam Sanctam and Lumen Gentium, hoping that with a fresh start and a fresh eye, he will gain a fresh perspective. Perhaps these two documents really can be reconciled easily. Perhaps he just missed something obvious last night. He was pretty tired after all that reading.
Sadly, the two declarations remain steadfastly opposed. So Juan prints them out, re-reads them over lunch, and then hurries down to his church, conveniently situated a block over. His priest (with whom, of course, he is in frequent consultation so as to avoid error, and so as to submit himself to the proper authority delegated by the Magisterium) ushers him into his office. He’s anxious to help Juan with whatever theological question has arisen this time.
Juan explains his problem. Church Tradition says one thing up until 1964…then it completely changes its mind and contradicts itself!
His priest reads over the pertinent statements which Juan has printed out. He’s read them before, of course, but he wants to refresh his memory. After a moment’s thought, he assures Juan that Vatican II was not in error; that Lumen Gentium and Unam Sanctam are both teaching the truth. Rome has never contradicted itself, and neither has God’s plan of salvation changed in the past six centuries. The problem is not with the documents, but with Juan’s understanding. He rifles through some files, and pulls out a dog-eared collection of papers, stapled together at one corner. “This is Dominus Iesus,” he says, “which clarifies what is meant in Lumen Gentium.” He hands it to Juan, tapping his finger against a section of text marked with a yellow highlighter:
Salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation.
“In other words, salvation is only ever found within the Catholic Church—but that doesn’t mean that everyone who’s saved is visibly or explicitly part of the Church. You can be an implicit member.”
Juan needs to think this over. He thanks his priest, but he goes away still deeply troubled. He knows what Unam Sanctam says. He knows that it’s absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff. He can’t understand how a Protestant who explicitly rejects the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and who willingly refuses to be in subjection to him, can be “implicitly” in such subjection all the same. It doesn’t make the least bit of sense. He can understand, perhaps, how someone who doesn’t know about the Pontiff could implicitly be subject to Rome by joining himself to the body of Christ through earnestly seeking God. If such a person did come to learn about Catholicism, he would willingly and gladly subject himself explicitly. But in the case of Protestants and Muslims and Eastern Orthodox and whatnot, they explicitly refuse to be in subjection. So it’s a contradiction in terms to say that they are implicitly subject.
More importantly, Cantate Domino specifically named pagans and schismatics and heretics and Jews as being outside of the Church, and unable to receive salvation. Even if implicit membership is all that’s needed for salvation, all these people are unequivocally said to be unsaved; so they must be excluded from any kind of membership. But that plainly contradicts Lumen Gentium as read through the lens of Dominus Iesus. The answer his priest had given him seemed promising at first, but as he thinks about it on his way home, it becomes increasingly obvious that it isn’t an answer at all. It isn’t possible to reconcile all these declarations.
Juan spends a lot of time researching this. He learns that some Catholics, the Sedevacantists, reject Vatican II because it has contradicted prior teaching. He can sympathize. But Sedevacantists aren’t infallible; and Rome is. So they must have misinterpreted either Vatican II, or the earlier Tradition, or both. He can’t take the word of schismatics over the word of the Magisterium. In fact, he muses, Sedevacantists have done exactly what Protestants do, by exercising their private judgment instead of submitting to Rome. They have presumed to take upon themselves the authority of interpreting Rome’s teachings and deciding what they must mean, instead of letting Rome speak for itself. That’s ironically anti-Catholic, he thinks. He isn’t going to make that mistake.
But then what is he to do? He can’t see a way to reconcile his understanding of the various teaching documents. But he recognizes that he’s fallible; and that he must be understanding them wrongly if they appear to contradict each other. The plain meaning of Lumen Gentium is that non-Catholics can be saved. The plain meaning of Unam Sanctam is that they can’t. But…on what authority is he to decide which interpretation he’s mucked up? He knows that he must have misunderstood at least one of them. Or maybe both. How can he be sure?
After much consideration, Juan is forced to conclude that he simply isn’t able to discern the real meaning of the Church’s teaching documents in this matter. This at least is comforting in its consistency, since the Bible (the “original teaching document”) also plainly appears to teach in Romans that “no one seeks after God; no not one.” But obviously the implication of Lumen Gentium is that some people do sincerely seek after God. This apparent discrepancy just reinforces Juan’s conclusion that Catholic laypeople are not gifted with the ability to discern the real meaning in either Scripture or the Church’s later teaching documents. They just aren’t qualified. They lack some special knowledge which is needed to put everything together. To the layman, the meaning of the words in one document appears to contradict the meaning of the words in another; and the meaning of the words in a third, which are supposed to reconcile the two, don’t make any sense. So to know what Catholicism teaches, he really can’t consult its teaching documents. He has to ask his priest, who can explain them to him. After all, he has received the sacrament of ordination; he has special grace granted for his special office. Surely that explains why things are clearer to him.
Pushing aside his mind’s random but vague recollection of an early Christian heresy whose name began with gn, Juan concludes that Catholic laymen simply do not have the special grace which must be required to fit everything together. Some kind of cypher is needed; a cypher which only the Roman Magisterium, in its priests and bishops and archbishops and, finally, the pope, has access to.
But why would the Magisterium encode their teaching documents in this way, he wonders. After all, they aren’t teaching documents at all if it isn’t possible to learn from them. He can’t answer that question, but then it isn’t his place to question the Infallible Church of Christ any more than it’s his place to question Christ himself. So he forces himself to be content with putting down his books, and working with the small doctrinal snippets that he gets from the pulpit every day in Mass (he goes every day because he needs all the grace he can get, and he’s hoping to store up some merit for himself by taking communion more frequently than other Catholics). He knows the major doctrines that he has to believe to be saved. He knows about praying to saints, and about how Mary’s body did not perish, and about transubstantiation, for example. He doesn’t really know anything about his faith except that which can be summarized in brief statements like “Mary was assumed bodily into heaven” or “the host turns into the real body of Christ.” But that seems to be how it must be for the laity, since further doctrinal knowledge is impossible; so he accepts it.
But then he’s pondering these doctrinal soundbites one night, in the hope of at least being a good Catholic by understanding the doctrines which he has been told about; and he starts to see some real problems. He’s meant to believe that, at the consecration, the host turns literally into the body of Christ. Each host miraculously becomes the true body of Jesus himself. This is integral to his faith. If he doesn’t believe this, he isn’t a Catholic. But what does it mean to believe this? He knows that Catholics believe the words, in a semantic sense; they affirm that the proposition “The host becomes the real body of Christ” is true. But that might be no different, he realizes, from affirming that “The law of noncontradiction is false.” Saying it, and saying it’s true, doesn’t actually mean that it’s possible, or that it’s possible to actually believe. It doesn’t mean that it can be true. It just means that someone affirming the proposition doesn’t really understand its content; he merely believes its content is true. So if the content is unintelligible or unbelievable, that person isn’t really affirming anything of import whatsoever. He’s just making a fool of himself.
Juan ponders the meaning of the proposition “The host becomes the real body of Christ.” He reads the available literature (though of course it is either not infallible, or not possible to be understood by a layman since he doesn’t have the Magisterial Cypher). He finds that the doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that the secondary properties of the host (being the appearance of bread of a certain size, shape, taste, etc) remain, but the primary properties (that of being bread) are replaced with the real body of Christ. Put another way, the primary properties of the real body of Christ take on the secondary properties of the host. So there is no connection between the essence of the host, following transubstantiation, and its sensible properties. The essence is actually Jesus’ body; not the host at all. Some kind of illusion is going on. Once it’s consecrated, the host’s secondary properties don’t identify its primary properties at all.
More importantly, its primary properties are the real body of Christ. The host is actually the body of Christ. But Juan has a pretty good familiarity with human bodies, and he knows that they are a certain size and constitution; they are a bit under 2 meters tall, comprised of skin and hair and bones and organs and lots of icky stuff that it’s hard to see being particularly beneficial to eat. Yet apparently this is precisely what he is eating. How is this possible, he wonders. Can it be that a man can swallow whole another man? Clearly not. (He is reminded of Nicodemus’ jejune question, “Can a man go back into his mother to be born a second time?” It creates an uneasy feeling in his tummy.) Yet this is what transubstantiation teaches: that swallowing the host is an illusion, and that what is actually happening is that he is swallowing Jesus himself. Brain, blood, heart, icky genitalia and intestines and things…so, in essence—even if not in appearance—he is doing something which is actually physically impossible; not to mention kind of wrong. It isn’t as if Christ is somehow “processed,” like an Essence of Jesus patty. It’s not as if he’s eating just a part of his savior. It’s his whole body. Not only is this physically impossible, but in essence he is actually engaging in cannibalism; it’s just concealed by the illusion of the host.
Other difficult questions arise. When a hundred hosts are consecrated, is each one a separate Jesus? How can Jesus have a hundred bodies but still be one person? That seems to violate the law of identity. And how can each host be a living Jesus? Does Jesus watch as he is ingested, and goes through the digestive tract of every Catholic who receives him at communion? That’s really unsettling. And if he watches, what eyes does he use, since he appears to be a host? Or maybe he isn’t alive in the hosts; but then, what’s the point of eating a dead Jesus body? Isn’t the importance of the Eucharist in the receiving of the living Savior?
At this stage Juan doesn’t know what to think. It’s obviously better not to even contemplate those doctrines he has been told about by his priest. Not only can he not understand the Catholic teaching documents, but he can’t understand Catholic doctrine in general! He can’t actually believe transubstantiation once he’s considered it carefully, because to believe something requires being able to state it in a sensible way that can be grasped by the mind. Grasping transubstantiation is impossible, because its claims are self-contradictory. One human body can’t wholly contain another; that is just a constraint of the material universe. No doubt God could have created the universe so that matter can occupy the same space as other matter simultaneously; but he didn’t. It’s possible to believe in miracles where natural laws are suspended, but not in miracles where the very properties of the physical universe are contradicted. And not only this, but the whole thing is just grossing him out.
So he can’t believe the pithy soundbite of transubstantiation in any meaningful sense because he can’t interpret it in a non-ridiculous way. Neither can he do any study as an amateur theologian, because he can’t interpret the teaching documents of the Church in a non-ridiculous way; they seem to contradict each other and cannot be reconciled, but he is assured that they do not. He is missing the cypher which is needed to decode the apparent meaning of the words and reveal their real meaning. So what is he left with? To be a Catholic and be saved he has to at least believe in transubstantiation. He can’t believe it in a considered, propositional sense; so he is left with simply saying that he believes the words “the host becomes the real body of Christ,” and hoping to God that there is some rational, non-ridiculous meaning behind them. He doesn’t know what they mean; he just trusts that there is a meaning. So he is forced into a mindless, meaningless affirmation of doctrinal statements.
By this stage he’s too afraid to even try to interpret what the bodily assumption of Mary is, or any of the other myriad doctrines of which he is vaguely aware. He just mouths the words and takes communion and goes to confession and hopes that by doing so he is somehow saved. In truth, he doesn’t believe anything meaningfully; but he is comforted by some discussions with friends of his in the parish. One of them tells him, “we are not saved by intelligence, but by faith.” Juan supposes this could be right. He doesn’t understand the doctrines, but he has faith that they must be true. If there is any real understanding to be had, it is apparently only accessible to a select few authoritative Catholics. The laity rely on faith: they do what they are told they must do to be saved. Another friend tells him, “salvation requires obedience, not understanding.” That sounds right. The laity are saved by performing certain rituals. They trust in the rituals, and in the authority which instituted them. That’s the extent of their Christian faith.
That must be right. That’s how Roman Catholicism has always been. Peasants can’t be expected to have spiritual insight; they are just simple sheep. They need to be shepherded; told what to do. These things don’t change just because social standards and education have. Juan may work in IT, but to Rome he is still a peasant.
13 comments
Sophie guyatt
Technically all baptised people are subject to the Roman Pontiff whether they like it or not. They might not obey, just as I a British Subject may not always obey the Queen, but I am still subject to her and y’all are still subject to the Pope by virtue of your baptism. It’s not even about implicit subjection, if you are baptised you’re explicitly subject – but if you KNOWINGLY and WILLINGLY commit heresy THEN you place yourself outside the Church and cannot be saved.
So that’s that “contradiction” cleared up.
As for the rest, the unbaptised, the idea is that God’s mercy is for Him to mete out as He wills. If He wants to save unbaptised babies and noble heathens – the Church could in no sense prevent Him, but if He does not, the Church could serve as a means to their salvation. How does that square with the necessity of subjection to the Pope… I guess in so far as those people are willing to accept God’s mercy (which they surely must do to be saved) they are also willing to accept subjection to the Pope, even if at this moment they do not realise as much due to invincible ignorance or what have you?
But yes Vatican II did confuse a lot of people evidently. It might be considered the absolutely worst time in history they could have picked to call a council. But what if they’d called it 20 years later! Might have gone even worse! So… who knows. Holy Ghost must have been there somewhere, even if principalities of satan were working hard to corrupt and distort.
And it does always make me lol how anti-catholicism generally boils down to your last passage, the inability to accept mans weakness, mans inability to always know everything perfectly for himself, and the inability to accept authority, to – as you succinctly say “be shepherded”.
Sophie guyatt
http://catholic-restoration.blogspot.com/2008/04/just-exactly-where-is-church-unam.html
That guy explains it way better than me.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Hi Sophie; thanks for your comments. Let me respond to a few of them, as I don’t think you’ve really engaged with the reductio I present in this farcical story.
But that is exactly what I was addressing—I explicitly called out what it means to be subject, and how heretics and schismatics are still able to be saved. So the contradiction isn’t cleared up at all.
And I addressed that too. Furthermore, it goes without saying that subjection to the pontiff is noticeably one of the infinite number of ways by which it is not said in Scripture that man must be saved.
Indeed; the principalities of Satan were hard at work at the council; the Holy Ghost was elsewhere, having departed the Roman Church a good long time ago.
Laughing out loud isn’t an argument. I’m sure a lot of members of a lot of cults would say similar things to that. You also plainly misrepresent my position—submission to authority is not the problem. Submission to the wrong authority is. Similarly, the ability to know is not the issue. The ability to know correctly and accurately is. I’m no stranger to epistemic issues in Christianity—do a search for my series ‘Square circles and the Trinity’.
Sophie guyatt
Heretics and schismatics are not able to be saved if their heresy/schism is knowing an willing.
Like some guy could be brought up protestant and be too prejudiced by his upbringing to seriously engage with the material Church, even though, if he did really engage with it he would see it for truth and accept it. So insofar as he would be willing if only he knew, he is sort of in, that imperfect communion with the Church. But then he is not knowing. If he knows what he is doing, if he has looked square in the eye of Catholic truth and rejected it without prejudice, then …yeah he couldn’t be saved. Same with schismatics, if they know what they do, if they do it willingly, then on their head be it. Insofar as they accept some truths of the Faith and are baptised – then unless they actively break away, they are connected.
Its like these dissenting Catholics, some of them are willfully and knowingly dissenting from Church teaching and in doing so breaking away from the Church, but some of them are just misguided or whatever, and the fact that they dissent is not enough without knowledge and will to sever them from the Church – well a kid born into a protestant family, baptised validly, is really in the same position as an ignorant dissenting Catholic.
Your “Squaring the Circle” thing was really interesting until I got to the 3rd bit when I admit the terminology started to go right over my head. Part 1+2 though, rad!
Sophie guyatt
Oh and heh, a clear way to resolve “In fact, even Muslims can be saved, or pagans in unevangelized countries, as long as they do their best to seek God with what little light of natural revelation they have.” and “no one seeks after God; no not one” is to say that the first quote is politicalese for “muslims and pagans won’t be saved but it is not politically expedient to say so”. Now I don’t like that anymore than anyone else, I’d prefer they be straight up and out with it, after all if my dear mother is definitively hellbound by her experimentation with hinduism I want to know so I can be a bit more aggressive in praying for her salvation!
But no-one ever said the Magisterium would always do the right thing, just that she wouldn’t teach positive error.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
Sophie, are you seriously asserting that an unprejudiced rejection of Catholicism entails complete self-exclusion from the Church, whereas a prejudiced rejection will allow one to remain in imperfect communion?
In other words, that if one honestly rejects Catholic teaching by fairly evaluating it and concluding that it must be false, one will be damned; but if one refuses to honestly evaluate it, and instead hard-heartedly rejects it without good reason, one will be saved? That seems to me to be a very confused position, even if it was compatible with earlier Catholic teaching documents—which it doesn’t appear to be.
But this is simply a concession that what Lumen Gentium says is false, and subject to correction by Scripture. You have paraphrased its assertion in an effort to show that what it says is contingently true in the sense of describing how Muslims could be saved if they were to seek after God, but with the unspoken caveat that they won’t seek after God, and therefore won’t be saved. But that paraphrase is simply dishonest. It is nothing more than revisionism—an attempt to remove the contradiction after the fact by cunningly rewriting what has been said. Here is what Lumen Gentium actually says:
Notice the following explicit propositions which are asserted:
Proposition (4) explicitly contradicts Romans 1–3. It also is manifestly untrue, as I’ve already proved in ‘On the Pope, the Catholic Church, and Islam’. If the Catholic Church believes that Muslims worship the true God, then the Catholic Church either teaches error via contradictions (God is a Trinity and God is not a Trinity; Jesus is God and Jesus is not God), or it actually believes in Allah and not in the Christian God at all.
Propositions (3) and (1) reduce saving faith to mere profession, regardless of what is actually believed. Anyone claiming to hold to the faith of Abraham, or possibly even anyone merely acknowledging the existence of a “Creator”, is included in “the plan of salvation”. Ignoring the obvious absurdity of this, the necessary consequence is that the plan of salvation at least includes the Jews. If proposition (2) is true and Muslims worship the true God, then certainly Jews worship him also and are eligible for salvation. However, Cantate Domino explicitly calls out the Jews as existing outside of the Catholic Church, and being unable to have a share in life eternal.
Indeed—but as you see, the positive error of the Magisterium, far from being obviated or even explained away, is only re-emphasized by your attempts at both.
Sophie guyatt
Hmm, well truth be told I am not sure that a Muslim by sheer virtue of being a Muslim is actually going to be saved.
That the ‘plan of salvation’ includes them, well “the plan of salvation” is a very fuzzy term, it doesn’t necessarily imply salvation, although it doesn’t explicitly exclude it – but since other things seem to, then read in the light of tradition …it seems, dubious at least to take it at face value. I think its a weasely political statement really.
I could say the saved and unsaved are all included in the plan of salvation because some are planned to be saved and others not (although that would be a tad determinisitc for my tastes ;)
I mean, don’t get me wrong, there is a problem here, but I don’t think its an insurmountable one.
At any rate the documents of Vatican II are pastoral rather than doctrinal, which means they can only be describing doctrine in a new way, not changing it, so if they appear to have changed it, then I think the prior description can’t be contradicted (although I guess that the argument could be made the prior description being written for different times with different educations cannot be taken at face value – so the problem of interpretation remains).
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
In that case, far from ameliorating the problems which are the object of my story, you are merely highlighting them—Catholic teaching documents are opaque, and rather than adding clarity to the revealed doctrines of Scripture, they confound the laity to the point of epistemic impotence. As you’ve amply demonstrated, some remarkable contortions of the intellect are required to understand what are, prima facie, quite simple doctrinal statements. And even then, these contortions don’t succeed in alleviating the evident contradictions inherent in Catholic teaching. And even if they did, you have no confidence at all that your understanding is correct. Really, this exchange between us has demonstrated that my story is by no means a caricature of the situation in which Catholics find themselves. You have provided real life verification that, despite the Catholic claim that an infallible teaching authority is necessary for epistemic clarity in matters of faith, in fact that very Magisterium hobbles you and drags you into an epistemic mire. In spite of Catholic protests to the contrary, it is Protestants who are in the superior epistemic position.
The simple fact is that a teaching authority which teaches contradictions teaches error. Therefore, the Magisterium is not what it claims to be. And if it is not what it claims to be, it is demonic, for it claims to be the very mouthpiece of God.
Sophie guyatt
I guess, in a sense you are right. In the end it comes down to a willingness to trust the Church will work all this stuff out in the end. A collectivist approach rather than an individualistic one. There are contradictions in the Bible, but as the rabbis say, if two passages appear to contradict some reconciliation between them must be found, not to simply abandon scripture.
I can’t believe in a calvinist God which creates man a whole person, creates all the myriad inequalities of man, and then gives salvation only to intellectuals and faith only to the intellect.
But it’s not obedience to rituals, its obedience to the successors of the apostles, who whatever failings they may have, sit in the proverbial seat of moses and have legitimate authority. And it’s not done out of some weird motive, but genuinely because we love God and believe that (shock horror) obedience to legitimate authority is a virtue pleasing to Him.
If that makes me a peasant, so be it I guess.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
But this is simply naive. It isn’t an attempt to seriously and soberly interact with and consider the evidence. It is merely a case of sticking your head in the sand. Indeed, it is directly disobedient to Scripture, which instructs us to test the teachings of those claiming to speak for God, and to have nothing whatsoever to do with those whose teachings are false. Now, contradiction is a patent sign of falsehood. Yet you would rather trust a false teacher (the Magisterium) than Scripture. That is not the attitude of genuine Christian faith—it is the blindness of unbelief on the path to destruction.
I presume, then, that you mean there are apparent contradictions in the Bible; not actual ones.
I don’t think you understand Calvinism. However, that said, faith is intellectual. Belief is a faculty of the mind. Christian faith involves propositions which we assent to. So if you’re trying to exclude the intellect (as opposed to intellectuals) from faith, then you are left with the word “faith” not meaning anything. Faith is a faculty of the mind.
But the Bible does not say that obedience to the successors of the apostles is what saves us. That would mean that we are saved by our works. In fact, we are saved by faith. Faith in God’s promise of salvation in Christ’s atonement. Not in a church, or in a pope, or in anything else. Faith in Christ. That is the very essence of the gospel—no one can claim to be a Christian and not understand that, because if you don’t understand that you don’t understand what Christianity boils down to.
I have nothing against peasants; and indeed, I have the greatest sympathy for all the wretched souls who were damned to hell through the false teaching of the Catholic Church in the middle ages. Many, many perished because they didn’t know, and couldn’t have known the true gospel, and instead trusted in obedience to the Church.
Sophie guyatt
I am not rejecting the intellect entirely.
But faith is really closer to trust, or fidelity, – or fealty, than understanding.
And whether obedience saves or not, disobedience surely is the essence of sin.
Dominic Bnonn Tennant
I don’t grant your artificial limitation on the definition of faith. That is not how it is used in Scripture. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Jesus is the founder and perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2). Therefore, perfect faith entails at least a perfect knowledge of God, a perfect submission to God, and yes, certainly a perfect trust in God. But trust is not the only or even the most important element of faith.
However, even if I grant your limited definition, trust, fidelity, and fealty are faculties of the intellect. To trust some object requires at least that you know the object. To know something means that you (a) apprehend its truth, (b) that your apprehension is accurate and justified, and (c) that you believe or assent to the truth in question. In other words, knowing is a function of the mind or intellect—thus trust is a function of the mind or intellect. I’m at a loss as to what else you’d think trust was a faculty of, actually.
Sophie guyatt
It requires enough knowledge to distinguish between the object of faith and some counterfeit object, but it does not require understanding really.
Anyway, obviously I think the contradictions in the definitive teaching of the Magesterium are only apparent rather than genuine or obviously it would just make no sense, not just in a “its a mystery” kind of way but in a “logically impossible” sort of way.
And yes, I might not be entirely sure how it can be reconciled, but I can be sure that it will be. And its not like as soon as someone is ordained a bishop they get magic powers which enable them to understand all of it either, as individuals they are human beings just like the rest of us, but in unison, over time despite their personal mistakes and prejudices in some mysterious way God guides His Church through their office, to truth, because He promised He would.