Question 1: is the 9 key necessary?
Question 2: is the calculator complete?
Situation B: Your calculator has all its keys intact, all the digits, all the operations including the mysterious button marked "!" (Perhaps you know what that's for.) However, the 9 key offends you in some way. Perhaps it's sticky or squeaks or calls you "big nose" every time you press it. Perhaps it offends you to the extent that you refuse to use it. The calculator is absolutely complete. Again, it will do any calculation you give it. Again, perhaps you've even stored 8+1 into its memory so that you do not have to press that disgusting 9 button. It is a working calculator and gives the true answer.
Question 1: is this calculator any different from a calculator without a 9 button?
Question 2: how infallible is a calculator when there is an objection as to which buttons can be pressed?
It's this last question which intrigues me here. A calculator is always reliable - it is the operator who is not. The calculator will only ever answer truthfully the question it is asked, but if you ask the wrong question, then the answer the calculator gives you will be of no use, and indeed misleading. If one then has an objection as to how that calculator is to be used then that will limit both the questions that can be asked and the interpretation of the result.
Now consider:
(From the First Vatican Council,)we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when:in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable.
There's an issue here that bugs me. Is there an equation of church and christianity here or not?
As an Orthodox Anglican, am I part of the Church? I know that the Holy See regards me as a Christian from paragraph 818 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, the same paragraph suggests that I am not regarded as a member of the Church, but a "brother in the Lord". It looks rather ambiguous to me. If the (Orthodox) Anglican Church is Christian and included within the Holy See then the Holy Father is indeed our teacher and shepherd and thus his infallible statements apply to us, but then are we excluded from Communion because there is no uniform acceptance of the Infallibility (not authority) of the Pope? That was not why the Schism happened, and Infallibility has only been expressed since Vatican I. So why are we excluded from Communion?
If we are excommunicate then we are not part of the Body of Christ, i.e. the Church. But then we cannot be Christians, because a Christian necessarily belongs to the Church. However, the Catechism calls us Christians, so are we in the Church?
If we are in the Church, then the Pope is not infallible because that is not what the Anglican Church or the Orthodox churches have accepted following the Vincentian Canon.
If we are not in the Church, but are Christians (though how that works escapes me) then the Pope cannot make Infallible statements which apply to all Christians because they only apply to the Church according to the statement of the first Vatican Council.
If we are not Christians, then Rome contradicts herself in her own Catechism.
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is indeed infallible. It is only when we start to disregard parts of it because they offend us that the answers to our search become distorted and lose coherence, just like taking umbrage against the number 9 on the calculator. If the Pope is infallible (I certainly accept his authority, but I have yet to be convinced of infallibility) then he can only be so when he regards the (Orthodox) Anglican Church and the Orthodox Church as part of his consideration as and when he makes infallible pronouncements. There have been only two which I consider within my conscience to be very much the correct doctrine. That's not private judgement, Cardinal Newman spoke very highly of the importance of the individual conscience.
Infallibility of the Pope after consultation?
Possible.
5 comments:
HMMM. A mathematician does have an unusual way of explaining theology. I rather like it.
I have trouble with the idea of infallibility in any application. Even though the East and West both consider infallibility as an attribute of the Church, I can't make sense of the idea. The Church, insofar as it is a society of human beings, is riddled with fallibility. I think one of the most obvious historical facts is that, at any given time, the Church is failing in many (nearly all) of the aspects of its mission. I feel safe in saying that the Church has never at any time in the course of its history been without serious and costly error in its practice and even in its teaching. In the short term, then, statements of infallibility are so seriously wrong as even to be ridiculous. However, in the long run, the Church will not fail. The Church is indefectible. For all its errors, it cannot depart from the Faith without nullifying the Lord's own prayer. It will prove not to have finally failed, but along the way it surely does so.
I affirm the accuracy of the teaching of the Seven Councils. They did not fail. That could not have been known in advance, but has become known through universal consensus. When the Church has finally been restored to unity, it may indeed be seen that certain popes did not err in teaching the faith, but this cannot be known before the event. Nothing in Scripture ratifies it.
I believe that the heirs of Peter should preside as the symbol of unity, and that their leadership should, by right, be a central manifestation of that unity, but I do not recognize that they have somehow obtained even a limited kind of infallibility, as I see no indication that such was ever granted to Peter or his heirs or, for that matter, to any other bishop.
ed
As an orthodox Anglican you're seen by Rome as a Christian but part of the church NOT corporately like the Eastern churches (which are called churches - they have bishops and a Eucharist that are recognised as real) but individually, as a Protestant, a member of an 'ecclesial community' which is a nice way of saying 'non-church'. Because as you know even with the imported Dutch touch Rome doesn't recognise Anglican orders; even Dutch-touch claimants are conditionally ordained.
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is indeed infallible.
Oh yes.
As much as I love Roman Catholicism, in my 35+ years as a consciously practising churchman I've found Vincentian-canon Catholicism works where compromised Vatican II Catholicism (on the ground level really a kind of mainline Protestantism) doesn't. (But not neatly/perfectly: Rome's right about contraception and nearly everybody else is wrong.) Which to allude to one of your other entries makes me more like the non-papalist romanisers than the Anglo-Papalists (APs). (The Pope as the holder of a man-made rank of the episcopate for the good order of the church makes sense to me. Non-papalist ≠ anti-papal.)
To quote an AP friend communion with Rome is an objective good but not the overarching one greater than sound local Catholic praxis.
I certainly accept his authority, but I have yet to be convinced of infallibility.
I thought APs believed in his infallibility so are you really an AP? (Vaguely wanting union with Rome but on terms other than Rome's, like the professional Anglican ecumenists, the liberals of ARCIC - 'we love the Pope but want orthodoxy to be optional, women priests and same-sex blessings' - is not APism.)
A mathematician does have an unusual way of explaining theology. I rather like it.
According to Ivan Clutterbuck (I wonder if he's still with us... an octogenarian priest, he was contributing to New Directions as recently as a few years ago) that's what made the thoroughly Catholic (a Thomist) Eric Mascall unique.
Ed, an Orthodox would ask you: do you accept the seven councils on your terms or the church's authority?
I thought APs believed in his infallibility so are you really an AP? (Vaguely wanting union with Rome but on terms other than Rome's, like the professional Anglican ecumenists, the liberals of ARCIC - 'we love the Pope but want orthodoxy to be optional, women priests and same-sex blessings' - is not APism.)
I hope I am not giving the impression that I regard Orthodoxy as optional. Since 1992 at the latest ARCIC is effectively dead in the water as regards the entirety of the Church of England.
However, there are still orthodox members holed up hither and thither. The major raison d'etre of ARCIC seems now to lie with the TAC and beckons for a corporation of Orthodox Anglicans (some still in the C of E) to follow.
How do I regard the Pope? Successor of St Peter, Vicar of Christ, Bishop of Rome, a Patriarch. I believe he is infallible by my acceptance of the authority of the Church's teaching.
However, I, like any rational mind, have doubts that need to be worked through. As an independent thinker, I struggle with the doctrine especially post-Vatican II. I also struggle with the doctrine on the grounds that for it to work properly there would need to be absolute clarity on who is and is not a Christian, and on the grounds that there are, of course, the Orthodox Churches which do not accept the doctrine.
If I were asked whether the Pope were infallible before Vatican I, I would have said no, as would, I believe, my patron Cardinal Newman. Clearly, though, I am wrong and the Church is right and therefore I have to work to be convinced, which takes time, and I am only a layman.
"Therefore, such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable."
Thereby hangs the nub of this problem for me as an Old Catholic.
Jerome+OSJV
Fogey,
I do accept the Seven Councils. They did not err, as is witnessed by their universal acceptance by the Church, both East and West. The fact that they did not err, however, is not the same thing as saying that they, somply by virtue of being held, were infallible. Before the fact it was the plaon and simple truth that they could fail. It actually tiik an inordinately long time for the church to recognize, for each of them, that they had not, in fact, erred. A Council is true only when its decisions have been examined, tested, and accepted.
ed
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