Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Excerpts from "Roman Catholic Writings On Doctrinal Development by John Henry Newman"

  

Even though the dogmas which come into being over the course of time are not really new in themselves, they may still be new to the Church of those times in which their form is evolving. For one does experience as new that is implicit in what one already holds, as long as one has not yet become aware of the implication. (John Henry Newman, On the Development of Catholic Dogma, in Roman Catholic Writings On Doctrinal Development by John Henry Newman, ed. James Gaffney [Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1997], 24, emphasis added)

 

“It is clear that the famous saying of Vincent of Lerins, ‘What always &c’ should be understood only in what is called a positive sense. That is, ‘What always &c’ could not fail to be true or to derive from apostolic tradition. But it should not be understood in a negative sense, as meaning that anything that was not ‘always &c’ believed, or at least explicitly believed, should not be regarded as true or certain. Otherwise that would have applied to the authenticity and canonicity of all the deuterocanonical writings, which is plainly absurd.” (Perron. de Ver. Rel. p. 245 nota 1) (Newman, “Thesis One,” in ibid., 28)

 

Moreover, there are many matters about which the holy Fathers could never have spoken as they did if they had already learned from the Church truths which are nowadays inculcated either in express terms or as implied in rituals and forms of worship. If the gifts and privileges of the Blessed Virgin Mary familiar to modern believes have been established as dogma, transmitted by the Eastern, Egyptian, and Gallican churches of the third and fourth centuries, how could Origen have said that Mary sinned during the Passion? (Chrysostom, in Matth. Hom. 44) How could he have called her “ambitious,” saying that she wanted to show the people how she controlled and exercised authority over her son, because her own imagination had not envisaged for him anything very great.” Indeed, if she found herself pregnant without understanding what was happening, she “would probably have taken her own life rather than be trapped under an unbearable burden of disgrace” (as Petavius puts it). According to Cyril, the Mother of the Lord was almost distraught at her son’s unanticipated suffering, to the point of saying ‘The one I gave birth to is now being mocked upon a cross. Perhaps he was, after all, deluded in claiming to be the son of Him who rules all things.’” And Cyril goes on to say that there is nothing astonishing in this, since this suffering had to be endured by “the impressionable mind of a mere woman.” (Newman, “Treatise Two,” in ibid., 31)

 

The most important of these norms is that whatever additions are made to the deposit of faith are not really new, but evolved out of what is already there. So Christian dogma really grows, rather than accumulates; there is no new beginning of truth, but the continuance of a real tradition.

 

“We say it is one thing to believe something repugnant to the dogmas and doctrines preached by the Apostles. It is quite another thing to believe something by way of addition to the doctrine the Apostles preached, something not expressly declared by them, or at least not demonstrated to have been so declared.” (Suarez. 1. c. #3)

 

“Paul did not tell Timothy, I. 6 simply that novelties must be avoided, but ‘profane novelties of language.’” For, as St. Thomas remarks on that same text, not every novelty is objectionable, for the Lord did say, I give you a new commandment,’ John 13, but only profane novelty, that is, novelty that opposes divine and sacred realities. Earlier, that had been Augustine’s view, in Tract. 97 on John, near the end, One finds almost the same thing in Vincent of Lerins, c. 37 asking ‘What is “profane”? that which has nothing of a sacred, of a religious character, completely alien to the inner depths of the Church which is God’s temple, etc. Profane novelties of language, that is of dogmas, matters thoughts which are contrary to the antiquity.’ By the same token, what are not contrary, but rather serve or a better understanding of antiquity, cannot be called profane novelties. Indeed, they should not be called novelties at all, for they were contained in antiquity, and virtually, or as they say, implicitly, believed. When, later on, they are delivered in more explicit form, they should be characterized not as new things, but as old things newly expressed.” (Ibid. #5)

 

Consider also those testimonies already presented arguing the first thesis. For a general example, take the Church’s faith concerning the Blessed Virgin Mary. The longer and the more closely Catholics mediated on the dogma of the Incarnation, the more apparent it became that esteem for the Son was involved in esteem for his Mother, to such an extent that loving and honoring the Son was not possible without loving and honoring the Mother as well. What is more, they found it an indispensable sign of right faith in the Incarnation of the word to extol her through whom it came to pass. Thus the dogma of the dignity of the Mother of God arose not out od substantive tradition, but out of meditation. In treating a certain proposition of faith, Perrone observed that certain “Popes present clear statements of the Fathers, and examples of the saints collected by Bellarmine which, although not strictly conclusive, show nevertheless the Church’s spirit, and the seed of this dogma in tradition which was later to evolve.” (de Matrim p. 285) Here we see the dogma of faith, not in its fully matured form, but germinally, committed to tradition. Consider also de Eccles, p. 17, where treating matters of dogma, he writes as follows: “Over the course of the ages the Church progressively evolves the principles and seeds implanted by Christ in its very foundation as already authorized by the Apostles.” He establishes that the post-Apostolic Church adopted a similar explanation of its own dogmas as though received from the living Apostles. See also p. 509, where he asserts that the Church had already possessed certain rights, even before actually exercizing them. (Newman, “Thesis Four,” in ibid., 35-36, emphasis in bold added)

 

. . . acts simply unjustifiable such as the real betrayals of the truth on the part of Liberius and Honorius, become intelligible, and cease to be shocking, if we consider that those Popes felt themselves to be head rulers of Christendom and their first duty, as such, to be that of securing its peace, union and consolidation. The personal want of firmness or of clear-sightedness in the matter of doctrine, which each of them in his own day evidenced, may have arisen out of his keen sense of being the Ecumenical Bishop and one Pastor of Christ’s flock, of the scandal caused by its internal dissensions, and of his responsibility, should it retrograde in health and strength in his day.

 

The principle, on which these two Peoples may be supposed to have acted, not unsound in itself, through by them wrong applied, I conceive to be this—that no act could be theologically an error, which was absolutely and undeniably necessary for the unity, sanctity, and peace of the Church; for falsehood never could be necessary for those blessings, and truth alone can be, If one could be sure of this necessity, the principle itself may be granted, though, from the difficulty of rightly applying it, it can only be allowed on such grace occasions, with so luminous a tradition, in its favour, and by such high authorities, as make it safe. If it was wrongly used by the Popes whom I have named, it has been rightly and successfully used by others, in whose decision, in their respective cases, no Catholic has any difficulty in concurring. (Newman, “Preface to the Third Edition of the Via Media,” in ibid., 116-17)