WHAT IS THE KIND OF DOGMATIC
EVOLUTION THAT HAS BEEN CONDEMNED BY THE CHURCH? - The Church has not condemned
the evolution of dogma in the same meaning - as in the case of homogeneous
evolution —; what she has condemned is the evolution of dogma into diverse
meanings, and, therefore, much more dogmatic evolution into contrary meanings,
as happens in all transformist evolution. “I utterly reject the heretical
phantasy of dogmas evolving into other meanings diverse from the meaning
previously held by the Church.” The evolution of dogmas keeping within the same
meaning is so far from being condemned that it is taught by the Church: “Let it
therefore grow ... but in the same sense.” Or in the words of St. Thomas and
St. Bonaventure: “There are two ways of adding: either by adding what is
contrary or diverse, and this is erroneous or presumptuous; or by exposing to
view what was implicitly contained, and this is praiseworthy.” “There is an
addition whereby what is added ’ is contrary; another whereby what is added is
diverse; and another whereby what is added is consonant. The first addition
pertains to error; the second, to presumption; the third, to faithful
instruction since it explicates what is implicit. ” What is to be understood by
implicit is explained by the same St. Thomas: “Whenever many things are
virtually contained in one thing, they are said to be in it implicitly, as the
conclusions in the principles.
“The distinction of reason
changes nothing on the part of the thing. Thus, the so-called new dogmas
introduce no change at all in the primitive or revealed datum, provided that
they do not differ really, but only conceptually, from the primitive dogmas.
The newness is conceptual or subjective, not real. Something somehow new
(secundum quid), not substantially new. There is a new mode, a new aspect; but
the objectivity, which is the substance, is not new but the same. The
Lirinensis expressed it felicitously: “When you say, newly, do not mean new.”
“From one to an other according to reason which is not an other in reality. ”
Such is the case with every conceptual conclusion, with every rigorously
theological conclusion.
When an old tree puts forth a new
branch, the branch is new, but it is neither totally new nor new in substance
since it grows out of the same substance or sap of the tree. This analogy of
the tree and the revealed deposit is not a perfect analogy because in the case
of the tree the sap is made up of elements originating from without. If the
tree’s sap were exclusively made up of the substance itself of the tree without
any intussuception of any foreign element, there would be a more adequate
analogy between the development of dogma and the development of the tree. (223)
Such is the case with the new dogmas defined by way of implicit virtuality:
they are new shoots of the ancient tree of the revealed deposit.
For this reason we have elsewhere
(180) said, and we say it again now, that dogmatic development after the
Apostles is neither merely subjective nor merely objective, but
subjective-objective. To speak in rigorous scholastic terms it is formally or
“simpliciter” subjective, but “secundum quid” objective.
It is “simpliciter” subjective
because the distinction, and thus the newness of the development are not in the
object itself independently of the subject, but are effected by the subject, as
happens in every virtual or conceptual distinction.
It is “secundum quid” objective
because the foundation of the distinction, and thus of the newness, is not in
the subject alone, as happens in the case of any merely logical distinction or
in any distinction of mere formulae, but is found in the object itself, viz. in
the fecundity and wealth of objective aspects, already implicitly contained
from the very beginning, in the object itself, that is, the primitive deposit.
Some excessively scrupulous
theologians shy away from saying that the deposit itself grows, and imprison
themselves in the sacred phrase that that which grows is “our” explication of
the deposit. They overlook the fact that what they call “our explication of the
deposit” does not, simply because it is “ours”, cease to be also an explication
“of the deposit”. Since that new explication, or better still, since the
explication made by the Church becomes incorporated into, and made an integral
part of, the deposit, to say that the explication of the deposit grows is the
same as saying that the deposit itself grows as regards its explication. (186)
It is one thing, therefore, to
say that the deposit grows with regard to itself, that is with regard to its
real objectivity and quite another thing to say that the deposit itself grows,
not with regard to its objectivity, but with regard to its explication. The
definitions of the Church do not make the deposit grow with regard to itself;
nonetheless the deposit itself grows because its explication grows and that
same new or greater explication becomes an integral part of itself. It is a
development of explication but a development of the revealed deposit itself.
(173) (Francisco Marín-Sola, The Homogeneous Evolution of Catholic Dogma
[trans. Antonio T. Piñon; Manila, Philippines: Santo Tomas University Press,
1988], 553-555)
