I am continuing an examination of infallibility and am backtracking to the decrees of Vatican I in order to clarify from where the Church stands on mysteries and knowledge.
Too many people go to private revelation for knowledge first, which is dangerous. It is the pursuit of Gnosticism. The person who is not rational will not read what I am sharing below.
Sadly, the pursuit of private revelations has created a confusion about infallibility. Natural reason does not constitute a threat to Divine Revelation, nor does Divine Revelation threaten natural reason. The same is true for the laws of the Church such as Canon Law. Canon Law cannot be ignored at peril of one's soul. Why?
The purpose of Canon Law is to define the pastoral as well as doctrinal truths of Catholicism and aid each person, including priests, to live out the Faith rationally.
Here are some more ideas to help this conversation. More in the next posts.
Chapter 4. On faith and reason from the Decrees of the First Vatican Council http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Councils/ecum20.htm#Chapter%204.%20On%20the%20infallible%20teaching%20authority%20of%20the%20Roman%20pontiff
- The perpetual agreement of the catholic church has maintained and maintains this too: that
- there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct
- not only as regards its source,
- but also as regards its object.
- there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct
- With regard to the source,
- we know at the one level by natural reason,
- at the other level by divine faith.
- With regard to the object,
- besides those things to which natural reason can attain,
- there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God
- which, unless they are divinely revealed, are incapable of being known.
- Wherefore, when the Apostle, who witnesses that God was known to the gentiles from created things [29] , comes to treat of the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ [30] , he declares: We impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. None of the rulers of this age understood this. God has revealed it to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God [31] . And the Only-begotten himself, in his confession to the Father, acknowledges that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to the little ones [32] .
- Now reason,
- does indeed
- when it seeks persistently, piously and soberly,
- achieve
- by God's gift
- some understanding,
- and that most profitable,
- of the mysteries,
- whether by analogy from what it knows naturally,
- or from the connexion of these mysteries
- with one another and
- with the final end of humanity;
- is never rendered capable of penetrating these mysteries
- in the way in which it penetrates those truths which form its proper object.
- For
- the divine mysteries,
- by their very nature,
- so far surpass the created understanding
- that, even when a revelation has been given and accepted by faith,
- they remain covered by the veil of that same faith and wrapped, as it were, in a certain obscurity,
- as long as in this mortal life we are away from the Lord,
- for we walk by faith, and not by sight [33] .
- does indeed
- Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason, since
- it is the same God
- who reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and
- who has endowed the human mind with the light of reason.
- it is the same God
- God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.
- The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either
- the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or
- unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.
- The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either
- Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false [34] .
- Furthermore the church which,
- together with its apostolic office of teaching,
- has received the charge of preserving the deposit of faith,
- has
- by divine appointment
- the right
- and duty
- of condemning
- what wrongly passes for knowledge,
- lest anyone be led astray by philosophy and empty deceit [35] .
- by divine appointment
- Hence all faithful Christians
- are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith,
- particularly if they have been condemned by the church; and furthermore they
- are absolutely bound to hold them to be errors which wear the deceptive appearance of truth.
- are forbidden to defend as the legitimate conclusions of science those opinions which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith,
- Not only can faith and reason never be at odds with one another but they mutually support each other, for
- on the one hand right reason
- established the foundations of the faith
- and, illuminated by its light, develops the science of divine things;
- on the other hand, faith
- delivers reason from errors and
- protects it and furnishes it with knowledge of many kinds.
- on the one hand right reason
- Hence, so far is the church from hindering the development of human arts and studies, that in fact she assists and promotes them in many ways. For
- she is neither ignorant nor contemptuous of the advantages which derive from this source for human life, rather
- she acknowledges that those things flow from God, the lord of sciences, and, if they are properly used, lead to God by the help of his grace.
- Nor does the church forbid these studies to employ, each within its own area, its own proper principles and method:
- but while she admits this just freedom,
- she takes particular care that they do not
- become infected with errors by conflicting with divine teaching, or,
- by going beyond their proper limits, intrude upon what belongs to faith and
- engender confusion.
- For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward
- not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
- but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
- Hence, too,that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.
4. On faith and reason
- 1. If anyone says that
- in divine revelation there are contained no true mysteries properly so-called, but that
- all the dogmas of the faith can be understood and demonstrated by properly trained reason from natural principles:
- 2. If anyone says that
- human studies are to be treated with such a degree of liberty that their assertions may be maintained as true even when they are opposed to divine revelation, and that
- they may not be forbidden by the church:
- 3. If anyone says that
- it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands:
And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.
But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see.