THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XIII., No. 77.—AUGUST, 1871.[143]
INFALLIBILITY.
We propose to treat this topic in a manner somewhat different from the ordinary one, and which may seem indirect and circuitous. We hope to come to the point more securely in this way than by the more direct road, and to drive before us the whole body of outlying, straggling difficulties and objections. In particular, we intend to place in a clear, intelligible light the nature, purport, and ground of the recent definition of the Council of the Vatican, which has made the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff an article of faith. It is for this purpose that we have taken up the general topic of infallibility; and the reason for discussing this general topic rather than the exclusive question of Papal infallibility alone is, that the latter cannot be properly explained except in its relation to the former. The infallibility of the church is a more general and extensive idea than the infallibility of the Pope. In the order of time, it was prior to it in the minds of the great mass of the faithful as a certain truth of the divine revelation, and it was before it as an article of explicit Catholic faith. The precise point which many persons have not clearly understood has been, how it could have been less clearly known and less explicitly believed by a number of good Catholics before the Council of the Vatican than after it, especially considering its very great practical importance. They are puzzled to think that it was not an article of universal, explicit faith always, as much as the infallibility of the church. Or, in few and plain words, they do not understand how a council could define it as an article of faith which must be believed as a condition of Catholic communion, when it had not been always proposed as an article of faith, with the obligation of believing and professing it, to all the faithful everywhere. If it is a new dogma, how can it be a part of the old Catholic faith handed down from the apostles, and what authority has a council to create a new dogma? If it is an old dogma, how could the denial of its certain, infallible truth have been tolerated, and the judgment of a council make this denial now, for the first time, to become a heresy, to which the penalty of an anathema is affixed? The answer to these questions is plain enough to any one who has a moderate knowledge of the elements of theology. No council can create a dogma which is new, in the sense of being a new doctrine, or a new revelation. The new definitions of the Council of the Vatican are definitions of old truths, old doctrines, revealed by Jesus Christ and the apostles, and contained in Scripture and tradition. But some of the truths proposed by these definitions, although old doctrines, and contained in the original deposit of faith, are new dogmas in this sense, that they are more explicit statements of truths implicitly contained in dogmas previously defined or declared, and that they are now newly proposed under this more precise and extended form to the faithful, as revealed doctrines, with the obligation of receiving them as articles of faith. The dogma of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was contained implicitly in the dogma of the infallibility of the church, and in the dogma, long since explicitly defined, of the Papal supremacy; in Scripture and tradition also; and in the general teaching of the schools of theology, in a more distinct and express form. Wherefore, as we have said, it is useful and important to show how it is contained in and related to the general principles of the essential constitution and infallibility of the church, as well as to make an exposition of the specific proofs of its truth as a distinct doctrine from the Scripture, the fathers, and the general teaching which has prevailed in the church. In this way, a Catholic, to whom new truths, or truths less clearly and certainly known than others, have been proposed as a part of the Catholic faith by the Council of the Vatican, will see that his ideas are not changed but enlarged, and enlarged not by an addition of extrinsic matter, but by the growth and development within his own mind of the faith which he already possessed in its integrity.
Let us begin by defining and clearly comprehending the term infallibility. It is a negative term in its literal meaning. Fallible means liable to err. Infallible means not liable to err; and infallibility is the exemption from liability to error. When we say that the church is infallible, we say, in strictness of meaning, that the church is not liable to err. Her infallibility is some kind of immunity from error, which is one of her essential notes. This immunity from error evidently implies some sort of unerring possession of truth, and therefore denotes a positive quality or prerogative, as is frequently the case with terms of a negative form. What it denotes in Catholic theology we will explain more fully as we proceed. The positive idea, in which the general notion of infallibility has its foundation, is one of the first principles not only of Catholic theology, but of all theology and philosophy. The unerring and certain possession of some eternal and universal truths is, and must be, affirmed by all who profess that man has or can have the knowledge of God and of the relation of his own soul to him, whether by reason or revelation; that is, by all except sceptics. With sceptics we wish to have nothing to do, for they are not entitled to be treated as rational beings. Every rational man will admit that there is such a thing as wisdom, and that the wise man possesses it, and therefore knows something in the order of rational truth. St. Augustine has proved this in a most subtle and conclusive manner in his short treatise, Against the Academicians, the earliest of his published works, written while he was preparing for baptism. The wise man, he proves, cannot have the notion of probability or verisimilitude, unless he has the idea of truth. He knows, at least, that there is such a thing as truth, otherwise he could not affirm in a reasonable manner that anything is probably in conformity with truth, that is, appears to be true, or resembles truth, which is the meaning of verisimilitude. Moreover, every man is forced to admit the certain truth of a number of disjunctive propositions. "I am certain that the world is either one or not, and if not one, either a finite or an infinite number. Also, that this world has its order, from a merely physical law of nature, or some higher power; that it either is without beginning or end, or else has a beginning and no end, or had no beginning but will have an end, and numberless other things of the same kind."[144] In the same manner, we may say: Either the visible world is an illusion or real; either God exists or he does not exist; Christianity is either true or false; either Catholicity is genuine or counterfeit Christianity; either the existence of God, the truth of the Catholic religion, the infallibility of the Catholic Church, can be proved with certitude, or they cannot be proved. These disjunctive propositions can be multiplied indefinitely, and they are only different examples of that principle of logic called the principle of contradiction, which it is impossible for any one seriously and intelligently to deny or even to doubt. Reason, therefore, forces us to affirm that we know something with unerring certainty, that is, that the human intellect is at least to this limited extent exempt from liability to deception or error, and, so far, infallible. The only possible dispute in philosophy or theology relates to the subject and extent of infallibility. What truths are known or knowable with infallible certitude, and where is the infallibility seated which gives this certitude?
Every man who affirms that God obliges the human conscience to give a firm and undoubting assent to certain truths, and to obey certain moral rules, must admit that he also gives the means of knowing with unerring certainty these truths and moral rules. Even the probabilist cannot escape this. For he who would act safely on a probable conscience must have a reflex certainty that he does not sin in doing so. If we are bound to assent to truth, and to obey law, of which we have only probable evidence, and this obligation is certain, we must know with certainty that we are subjectively acting in a right manner in giving our assent and obedience. A philosopher who affirms that we have certain knowledge of this truth and this law is, of course, a more strict infallibilist than the other. Yet the principle is in common. When a man affirms that God has made a positive revelation, and that in his revelation he has disclosed truths and promulgated laws which he binds the conscience of every one to whom they are proposed to believe and obey, he extends the principle of infallibility much further. If I am to believe these truths, especially such as are above reason, with a firm, undoubting assent, and to be held bound to keep these laws, especially such as are hard to keep, the revelation must be made to my mind in such a manner as to give me certainty, without any fear of error. Whoever admits this must assent also to the following disjunctive proposition: Either the revelation of God is made known to the individual mind through the medium of the Catholic Church, or in some other way. We are not concerned at present to prove the proposition that the revelation is made known through the church as a medium. Our argument is immediately directed to those who admit and believe it already. Therefore, leaving aside all discussion with those who are not Christians or not Catholics, we merely affirm, as a consequence from what has been proved, that the principle of infallibility, so far as Christian faith is concerned, is seated in the church as the medium of divine revelation. With us Catholics it is unquestioned that the church is that visible society whose supreme head is the Pope. Our only object of investigation is the nature, extent, and more precise seat of that infallibility which the church possesses as the depository of divine revelation, and the medium of communicating it to individual minds.
The church is infallible. To make more plain the meaning of this proposition, let us go back once more to the etymology of the term infallible. The Latin word from which it is derived is fallo, signifying deceive. Infallible signifies incapable of being deceived or deceiving. The church, as infallible, cannot be deceived or deceive, respecting that body of truth which has been deposited in her by the apostles, and which they received from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. The positive and fundamental truth from which this negative statement of the inerrancy of the church is derived, and which it protects, is, that the church, as a visible, organized society, is the immediate recipient of a certain divine revelation, and the medium of its transmission and communication. This divine revelation must be accepted and believed with a firm assent, excluding all doubt, by each individual. It is a revelation of dogmas and doctrines, some of which are mysteries above reason, and of laws which are strictly obligatory. Each individual must receive the faith and law from the church, of which he is a member by baptism, with unquestioning submission and obedience of the intellect and will. But this entire, unreserved faith and obedience could not be justly exacted, unless the church were divinely enabled to impart pure, unmixed truth, and to prescribe pure, unmixed holiness to her members, and divinely secured from imparting or prescribing error or sin. Authority and obligation are correlative in nature and extent. As is the obligation, so is the authority. If the obligation is universal and without reserve, the authority is sovereign and supreme. If the obligation requires an absolute, undoubting assent of the mind, and a divine faith, the authority must be infallible. Whoever is bound to unconditional assent must be secured in immunity from error in believing. Whoever is authorized to command assent must be secured in immunity from error in teaching. Supreme and sovereign authority in teaching, and absolute obedience in receiving what is taught, require and exact, as a necessary condition, inerrancy in that society which is constituted on the principle of this authority and its correlative obedience. The fundamental idea of the Catholic Church, therefore, contains in it that passive and active infallibility which belongs to the hierarchy and the faithful as composing one body under their head, the Roman Pontiff. Wherever divine and Catholic faith, or certain knowledge derived from faith, and the obligation of unreserved, complete assent and obedience, are found, there is the passive infallibility of the church. Wherever supreme teaching authority is found, commanding this obedience, declaring or defining this faith, or revealed doctrine, or certain truth derived from and depending on it, there is the church's active infallibility in exercise. The influence of those gifts of the Holy Ghost by which the church is rendered infallible pervades the whole body of the church, and manifests itself in the most multiform ways. The church is living and immortal. Her life is divine and supernatural, and its principle is faith. The faith is, therefore, the principle of an immortal life, and itself an immortal principle within the church. Like the principle of animal vitality, it is found in every part of the organization, but vitalizing each organ and member in a different way, according to its function. Brain, heart, lungs, and fingers are vitalized by the same principle, although each one fulfils a special office. So in the church, the supreme head, the hierarchy, the laity, are animated by the same divine principle of faith, and concur in the general functions of the great organic unit, but each in his own place and in a special office. The result of their combined and complex action is the perpetuation of the divine revelation in all times and places until the end of the world. We have to consider, therefore, a great many other constituent parts, organs, and members of the body of the church, as well as the head, in order to understand the relation which the head bears to them and they to it, and the manner in which its special function influences and is influenced by the other functions. We can do this only in a brief and imperfect manner in a short essay, but we will endeavor to touch upon some of the principal parts of this great and extensive subject in a manner sufficient for our purpose.