The Reformation set up a new idea of faith, or recurred to one of the oldest of all. Faith was not belief in authoritative teachings; it was trust in the promises of God and in Jesus Christ as their fulfilment. But the Protestant view The Reformation. was apt to seem intangible, and the influence of the learned tradition was strong—for a time, indeed, doctrine was more cultivated among Protestants than in the Church of Rome. The result was a structure which is well named the Protestant scholasticism. The new view of faith is bracketed with the old, and practically neutralized by it; as was already the case in Melanchthon’s theological definitions in the 1552-1553 edition of Loci Communes, also printed in other works by him. This brings back again the Catholic view of “dogmatic faith.”
The word “article” for a time holds the field. Pope Leo X. in 1520 condemns among other propositions of Martin Luther’s the twenty-seventh—”Certum est in manu Papae, aut ecclesiae, prorsus non esse statuere articulos fidei (imo nec Article. leges morum seu bonorum operum).” The Augsburg Confession (1530) is divided into numerous “articles,” while Luther’s Lesser Catechism gathers Christianity under three “articles”—Creation, Redemption, Sanctification. Where moderns would speak of the “doctrine” of this or that, Lutherans especially, but also churchmen of other communions, wrote upon this or that “article.” Nikolaus Hunnius (διάσκεψις, &c., 1626), A. Quenstedt (c. 1685) and others—in a controversial interest, to blacken the Calvinists still more—distinguished which articles were “fundamental.” Modern Lutheranism (G. Thomasius, Dogmengeschichte, 1874-1876, influenced by T. F. D. Kliefoth 1839) speaks rather of “central dogmas”;[6] and the Roman Catholic J. B. Heinrich[7] is willing to speak of “fundamental dogmas,” those which must be known for salvation; those for which “implicit” faith does not suffice. When Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary denounces the conception of central dogmas, what they desire to exclude as uncatholic is the belief that dogmas lying upon the circumference may be questioned or perhaps denied.[8] This suggests the great ambiguity both in Roman Catholic and Protestant writers of the 17th century as to the relation between “articles” and “dogmas.” Many writers in each communion felt that an “article” is a higher thing. Others, in each communion, made the identification absolute. Perhaps the Roman theologians of that age were more concerned than the Protestants to draw a line round necessary truths. This attempt was made by Dr Henry Holden (Div. Fidei Analysis, 1652) in connexion with the word “articles.[9]”
Another term to be considered is decretum, the old Latin equivalent for δόγμα. Another of Luther’s assertions branded by the pope in 1520—the twenty-ninth—claimed liberty judicandi conciliorum decreta. On the other Decreta. hand, the Augsburg Confession protests its loyalty to the decretum of Nice. What Protestantism saw in the distant past, Trent naturally recognized in the present. Every one of its own findings is a decretum—except five, among the sacramental chapters, each of which is headed doctrina. Holden again quotes the (indefinite) decretum of the Council of Basel regarding the Immaculate Conception.
The word “dogma” was however to revive, and, with more or less success, to differentiate itself from “doctrine.” Early writers of the modern period, Protestant or Roman Catholic, use it frequently of heretics; thus the Augsburg Confession protests Dogmata in revived use. that the Protestants have carefully avoided nova dogmata. A Roman Catholic writer, Jan Driedo of Louvain, revives the reference to Ecclesiastica dogmata—De ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus (1533)—using the word, though not exclusively yet emphatically, of teachings extra canonem scripturae sacrae. Philip Melanchthon’s preface to his Loci communes (ed. 1535) protests that he has not expressed himself de ullo dogmate—on any point of doctrine—without careful consideration of what has been said before him. Richard Hooker (d. 1600) in bk. viii. of Eccl. Polity (pub. 1648 or perhaps 1651) quotes Thomas Stapleton, the Roman Catholic (De principiis doctrinalibus fidei, 1579), on the royal right or duty to enforce “dogmas,” and adds a gloss of his own—“very articles of the faith,”—a surprising and probably isolated usage. Many identified Dogmas and Articles by levelling down or broadening out; but Hooker levels up. The statement of the Council of Trent (1545-1562) may be quoted here. The Council will rely chiefly upon Scriptures[10] in reformandis dogmatibus et instaurandis in ecclesia moribus; the Roman reply to the two sets of articuli of Augsburg, and the Roman counterpart to the (later) Protestant assertion that the Bible[11] is the “only rule of faith and practice.” At Trent, therefore, once more, dogma means doctrine. It still means “doctrine” when the collected decreta of Trent bear on their title-page (1564) reference to an Index dogmatum et reformationis; but here “dogma” is already verging towards the narrower and more precise sense—truth defined by church authority. In other words, it is already edging away from its identification with (all or any) doctrines. On the Protestant side the identity is still clear in the Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577). This creed formulates its relation to Scripture over and over, as the one regula by which all dogmata are to be tried. That characteristic Protestant assertion had been still earlier pushed to the front in “Reformed” creeds, e.g. the First Helvetic Confession (1536), and more notably in the Second (1566).
Protestant creeds had clearly affirmed that nothing possessed authority which was not in Scripture: in a short time, Protestant theologians—following an impulse common to all Christian communions—define more sharply the Definition in Protestant scholasticism. identity of what is authoritative with the letter of Scripture, and call these entire contents dogmas. Here then, under Protestant scholasticism (Lutheran and Reformed), we have the first perfectly definite conception of dogma, and the most definite ever reached. Dogma is the whole text of the Bible, doctrinal, historical, scientific, or what not. Thus dogma is revealed and is infallibly true. Dogma is doctrine, viz. that body of doctrines and related facts which God Himself has propounded for dogmatic faith. Every true dogma, says Johann Gerhard[12]—the most representative figure of Lutheran scholasticism—occurs in plain terms somewhere in Scripture.
Over against these sweeping assumptions and deductions, the Roman Catholic Church had to build up its own statement of the basis of belief. Its early controversialists—like Driedo or Cardinal Bellarmine—meet assertions such as Roman Catholic replies. Gerhard’s with a flat denial. The great dogmas are not, literally and verbally, in the Bible. Along with the Bible we must accept unwritten traditions; the Council of Trent makes this perfectly clear. But not any and every tradition; only such as the church stamps with her approval. And that raises the question whether the church has not a further part to play? A. M. Fairbairn holds that D. Petavius’s great work De theologicis dogmatibus (especially the 1st vol., 1644) made the word “dogma” current for doctrines which were authoritative as formulated by the church. We must keep in mind, however, that the question is not simply one as to the meaning of a word. The equation holds, more firmly than ever; dogma=the contents of faith. It has to be established on the Roman Catholic side that faith (or dogma; the two are inseparable) deals with divine truths historically revealed long ago but now administered with authority, according to God’s will, by the church. The Englishman Henry Holden (see above), the Frenchman Veronius (François Veron, S.J., 1575-1649) in his Règle générale de la foy catholique (1652), the German Philipp Neri Chrismann,[13] in his Regula fidei catholicae et collectio dogmatum credendorum (1792),[14] all work at this task. Dogmas or articles of faith (taken as synonymous) depend upon revelation in Scripture or tradition, as confirmed by the church whether acting in general councils or through the pope (in some undefined way; Holden)—in general councils or by universal consent (Chrismann; of bishops? the definite Gallican theory?). Veronius is willing to waive the difficult point of church infallibility as the Council of Trent did not define it. Holden insists strongly upon infallibility. Church traditions are infallible; and church dogmas reach us (from the original revelation) through an infallible medium, the Catholic Church, which the Protestants sadly lack. In Chrismann the word “dogma” has superseded the word “article”; Holden uses both, though “article” has the preponderance. All three writers seek to draw a sharp line round what is “of faith.” Hence in Chrismann (who is in other respects the most definite of the three) we have a view of dogma almost as clear-cut as that of the Protestant schoolmen. Dogmas are revealed; dogmas are infallible; the church is infallible on dogmas (for this statement he cites Muratori) and on nothing else.
This whole period of theology, Protestant and Roman Catholic, is statical. Men are defining and protecting the positions they have inherited; they do not think of progress. And yet the Roman Catholic Church had upon its hands one great unsettled question—the thesis of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. This became the standing type of an assertion which, while favoured by the church and on the very verge of dogma, was yet not a dogma[15]—till the definition came through Pius IX. in 1854. Here then the frontier of dogma had unquestionably moved forward. Its conception must become dynamic; there was need of some theory of development like J. H. Newman’s (1845). It does not happen, however, that the papal definition of 1854 employs the word “dogma”; that honour was withheld from the word until the Vatican decrees of 1870 affirmed the personal infallibility of the pope as divinitus revelatum dogma. With this, one line of tendency in Roman Catholic doctrine reached its climax; the pope and the council use “dogma” in a distinctive sense for what is definitely formulated by authority. But there is another line of tendency. The same council defines not indeed dogma but faith—inseparable from dogma—as[16] (1) revealed, (a) in Scripture or (b) in unwritten tradition, and (2) taught by the church, (a) in formulated decrees, or (b) in her ordinary magisterium. This is a correction of Chrismann. Not only does the correction involve the substitution of papal authority for a universal consent of “pastors” and “the faithful”; it also deliberately ranks the unformulated teachings of the church on points of doctrine as no less de fide than those formulated. This amounts to a serious warning against trying to draw a definite line round dogma. The modern Roman Catholic temper must be eager to believe and eager to submit. New dogmas have been precipitated more than once during the 19th century; there may still be others held in solution in the church’s teaching. If so, these are likely one day to crystallize into full dogmas; and, even while not yet “declared,” they have the same claim upon faith.
Thus there seems to be a measure of uncertainty as to what the Church of Rome now calls “dogma”—only in part relieved by the distinction between “dogmas strictly” and mere “dogmatic truths.” Again, the assertion that the church is infallible upon some questions, not belonging to the area of revelation (properly so-called in Roman Catholic theology), destroys the identification of “dogmas” with “infallible certainties” which we noted both in the Protestant schoolmen and in Chrismann. The identification of dogma with revelation remains, with another distinction in support of it, between “material dogmas” (all scriptural or traditional truth) and “formal” or ecclesiastically formulated dogmas.[17] On the other hand, there is absolute certainty on a point long disputed. Questions about church authority are henceforth questions about the pope’s authority. What he calls heresy, under the sanction of excommunication or that more formal excommunication known as anathema, is heresy. What he finds it necessary to condemn even in milder terms as bad doctrine is infallibily condemned; that is certain, Roman Catholic theologians tell us, though not yet de fide.
Finally we have to glance at a new list of definitions which perhaps in some cases seek more or less to formulate modern Protestant ideas, but which in general represent rather the world of disinterested historical scholarship. That world of the learned offers us non-dogmatic definitions, drawn up from the outside; definitions which do not share the root assumptions either of Catholicism or of post-Reformation Protestant orthodoxy. It might have been best to surrender the term “dogma” to the dogmatists; but few scholars have consented to do so.
1. We may brush aside the view[18] for which J. C. Döderlein, J. A. A. Tittmann, and more recently C. F. A. Kahnis are quoted. According to this definition, “dogma” means the opinion of some individual theologian of distinction. That might be a conceivable development of usage. It has been said that persons who dislike authority often show great devotion to “authorities”; and the word dogma might make a similar transition. But, in its case, such a usage would constitute a violent break with the past.