{597} I. In the communication of
divine truth to mankind, a substantial growth took place down to the
apostles through new revelations that completed the earlier ones. This progress
stopped as soon as the Church was founded and revelation, concluded once and
for all, was entrusted to her as a deposit. Consequently in the future any completely
new growth [Neubildung] of a doctrine of faith is ruled out, and the
infallibility of the Church that preserves the deposit also guarantees that a transformation
[Umbildung] or modification of an earlier dogma will never
take place. For this reason, however, room still remains not only for the later
ecclesiastical determination of truths belonging indirectly to the doctrine of
the faith, but also for further growth [Fortbildung] and further
development of the doctrine of the faith itself, or of Church dogma in the
narrower sense as the public presentation of the divine-apostolic deposit,
caused by the clarification, renewal and elaboration [Ausbildung]
of the apostolic deposit. For just as in the post-apostolic period, for all the
faithful except the apostles themselves, the subjective assimilation of
divine truth and the understanding thereof is mediated through natural human
activity and therefore is more or less subject to the peculiar conditions of
this activity: so too the authoritative presentation on the part of the
post-apostolic teaching body, without ever positively falsifying the deposit or
adding foreign elements, is likewise capable of a progressive development up to
a certain degree, with respect to its decisiveness and definiteness,
thoroughness and clarity, even more so since an occasional partial
retrogression can take place in it. (Cf. above §22 the doctrine about
the laws of ecclesiastical tradition.)
{598} The Vatican Council acknowledges
the possibility and appropriateness of such progress in general by
adopting as its own (De fide catholica, c. 4) the following words of
Saint Vincent of Lerins (n. 23): “Crescat igitur et multum vehementerque
proficiat, tam singulorum, quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius
ecclesiae, aetatum ac saeculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia,
sed in suo dumtaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque
sententia.” [“Therefore, let there be growth and abundant progress in
understanding, knowledge, and wisdom, in each and all, in individuals and in
the whole Church, at all times and in the progress of ages, but only within the
proper limits, i.e., within the same dogma, the same meaning, the same
judgment” (DH 3020)]. Explicitly there is no talk here about progress in the
dogmatic presentation, but merely in knowledge; but the understanding and
knowledge of the whole Church is interdependent with her dogmatic
presentation. Because this citation by the Vatican Council contains Saint
Vincent’s main thesis, we may probably also regard the more detailed discussion
that follows in his work as being approved in its entirety by the Vatican
Council. This discussion revolves around the image of the growth of the human
body or of the blade of wheat, which is applied very ingeniously. (Matthias Scheeben, Handbook of Catholic Dogmatics,
Book 1, Part 1 [trans. Michael J. Miler; Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Academic,
2019], §36 nos. 597-98)
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