OBJECTION II.-St. Augustine expressly
declares that ecumenical councils are fallible, for he says: “Councils which
are held in the several districts and provinces must yield, beyond all
possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary councils, which are formed
for the whole Chrisitan world; and even of the plenary councils, the earlier
are often corrected by those who follow them.” (“De Baptismo,” ii. 3; P.L. 43,
128) Councils thus subject to correction cannot be infallible.
ANSWER.—When St. Augustine wrote these
words, only two ecumenical councils had been held,--one at Nicaea in 325, and
one at Constantinople in 381. Consequently, he was not referring to ecumenical
councils when he said that “the earlier are often corrected by those
which follow them.” Plenary councils are evidently those which represent
more than one province or district of the Church, but not the whole
Chrisitan world in the literal sense. But even granting that ecumenical
councils are meant, there is nothing to indicate that St. Augustine denied them
infallibility. He says: “The earlier are often corrected by those which follow
them, when, by some actual experiment, things are brought to light which were
before concealed, and that is known which previously lay hid.” A doctrine
defined by one council in its more general aspects may be taken up by another
council and defined more in detail, because further study or controversy has
made such action necessary or advisable. The doctrine of transubstantiation,
for instance, was defined by the Fourth Lateran Council, but was afterward
defined in more definite terms by the Council of Trent, because controversies
on this subject in the sixteen century made such action necessary. The words of
St. Augustine naturally suggest just this sort of correction. (E. Sylvester
Berry, The Church of Christ: An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise
[Frederick County, Md.: Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, 1955; repr., Eugene,
Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2009], 264-65)
