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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
The notion of doctrinal development has become increasingly popular with Roman Catholic theologians in recent years, and has received official recognition in the decree of the second Vatican Council on Revelation. ‘There is’, the document maintains, a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. … As the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fulness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfilment in her. But, if dogma develops, how can revelation be constant? This, starkly put, is the dilemma to which many Roman Catholic theologians have directed their attention in recent years. If there has been a growth in dogma, must we not say that the contemporary Church is in a better position than the early Church? How can we deny that the Church today, in which dogmas have been better understood and more fully expressed, has an advantage over the primitive Christian community? As one nineteenth-century theologian observed, If there be a difference of any sort between Augustine and Liguori (and if there be not, what becomes of Mr Newman's theory?) it must manifestly be incalculably to the advantage of the latter … to compare the catachetical schools of Alexandria, Antioch, Gaesarea, with our Irish Maynooth, would palpably be an insult to the latter, too gross even for the licensed bitterness of religious controversy.
page 280 note 1 Butler, W. Archer, Letters on Romanism in reply to Mr Newman's Essay on Development (2nd ed., 1858), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar
page 280 note 2 ASS 40 1907 470f. Cf. also the condemnation by Pius IX of the notion that ‘divine revelation is imperfect and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress corresponding to the advancement of human reason’. Qui Pluribus 1846; restated in the syllabus of errors, ASS 3 1867 168f. Cf. also Mortalium animos AAS 30 1928 14.
page 282 note 1 Lépicier, F. A. M., De stabilitate et progressu dogmatis (1910), p. 371fGoogle Scholar. Cf. also Dhanis, E., ‘Révé1ation explicite et implicite’, 34 Gregorianum, 1953, p. 188.Google Scholar
page 281 note 2 It is necessary that those who hold this view think of revelation as prepositional. There is, however, a wide difference among Roman Catholic theologians on this matter. A number of them speak of Christ Himself as the content of revelation; e.g. Guardini (The Faith and Modern Man, E.T. 1952, p. 114), Van der Pol (The Christian Dilemma, pp. 9, 13), Taymans (‘Le progrès du dogme’, 71 Nouvelle révue théologiquc, 1949, p. 692), and Mersch (The Theology of the Mystical Body, E.T. 1951, pp. 380–1). For the other side of the argument cf. Vollert (‘Doctrinal Development: A Basic Theory’ in Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America, 1957, p. 46), Burke (‘The Framework of Doctrinal Development’, 115 American Ecclesiastical Review, 1946, p. 420), C. Cary Elwes (The Sheepfold and the Shepherd, 1956, p. 177).
page 281 note 3 Boyer, C., ‘Qu'est-ce que la théologie?’, 21 Gregorianum, 1940, p. 264.Google Scholar
page 281 note 4 ibid., p. 265. Cf. also Boyer, ‘Lo sviluppo del dogma’ in Problemi e orientamenti di teologia dommatica, p. 359f.
page 282 note 1 The Spirit of Catholicism (E.T. 1936), p. 141. On the doctrine of the assumption cf. Cary Elwes, op. cit., p. 180; Stephenson, , ‘The Development and Immutability of Christian Doctrine’, 19 Theological Studies, 1958, pp. 491–492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 282 note 2 Vollert, art. cit., p. 54.
page 283 note 1 Theological Investigations, p. 69.
page 283 note 2 According to Marin Sola's singular theory the apostles knew these dogmas ‘not merely in a mediate, virtual or implicit manner, but immediately formally and explicitly’ (L'Evolution homogéne du dogme catholique, 1924, i, p. 57). Newman thought that they knew them in a confused or implicit manner (Birmingham Oratory MSS A 143:12, reprinted in Journal of Theological Studies, 1958, p. 334).
page 284 note 1 Because it would then be possible to communicate one thing and believe explicitly the opposite.
page 284 note 2 op. cit., p. 45. The last phrase contains a distinction prodigiously deep, which I do not pretend to understand!
page 284 note 3 ibid., p. 44.
page 285 note 1 A. Günther, Vorschule zur spekulativen Theologie. Cf. also Franzdin, J. B., De divina traditione et scriptura, p. 309Google Scholar, and Garrigou Lagrange in Angelicum, 1949.
page 285 note 2 op. cit., p. 149.
page 285 note 3 ibid., p. 67.
page 286 note 1 ibid., p. 66. Cf. also p. 76.
page 287 note 1 Only those theologians who identify the deposit of revelation with a list of propositions, can talk about a box or about a distinction between the thing itself and the Church's understanding of the thing; cf. the position of Lagrange, Garrigou, ‘L'immutabilité du dogme selon le Concile du Vatican et la relativisme’, 26 Angelicum, 1949, p. 316.Google Scholar
page 287 note 2 cf.Bainvel, J. V. in ‘L'histoire d'un dogme’ in roi Études, 1904, p. 617Google Scholar; Pinard in his article on ‘Dogme’ in Dictionaire apologetiqut, 1169; Lebreton in L'Emyclique et la théologie moderniste, p. 36; F. Taymans, art. cit., p. 145; H. de Lubac, ‘Le probléme du développement du dogme’, 35 Recherches des sciences religieuses, 1948, p. 140.
page 287 note 3 art. cit., p. 486.
page 287 note 4 cf. Van der Pol, op. cit., p. 83.
page 288 note 1 op. cit., p. 528.
page 288 note 2 Difficulties felt by Anglicans (1907), ii, p. 315.
page 288 note 3 cf. my article ‘Authority and the development of doctrine’ in Theology, 1960, p. 136f.
page 289 note 1 Esquisses du développcment du dogme marial, p. 54. Cf. also L. Charlier, Essai sur le problémc théologique, p. 71.
page 289 note 2 The Wisdom of Faith, p. 44.
page 289 note 3 art. cit., p. 66.
page 289 note 4 I hope to deal with Tyrrell's position on another occasion.
page 289 note 5 The Faith and Modem Man, p. 120; this is somewhat modified in The Church and the Catholic, pp. 63, 88. For an earlier statement of this position cf. de Maistre, On Church and Society (E.T. 1959), p. 24.
page 290 note 1 The Council and Reunion (E.T. 1961), p. 164.
page 290 note 2 Küng, The Living Church (E.T. 1963), p. 309.
page 290 note 3 The Council and Reunion, p. 163.
page 290 note 4 Justification (E.T. 1964), p. 101.
page 290 note 5 The Council and Reunion, p. 163.
page 290 note 6 Structures of the Church (E.T. 1964), p. 93.
page 290 note 7 ibid., p. 93.
page 291 note 1 Justification (E.T. 1964), p. III.
page 291 note 2 Heenan, J. C., The Dogma of the Assumption, p. 12.Google Scholar
page 291 note 3 ‘On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine’, The Rambler, July 1859.
page 291 note 4 cf. Y. M. J. Congar, Lay People and the Church; F. X. Arnold, Kirche und Laientum; H. U. von Balthasar, Der Laic und die Kirche; G. Philips, Le role du laicat dans l'Église, etc.
page 291 note 5 op. cit., p. 142.
page 291 note 6 Pius X in Pascendi reprinted in Sabatier, Modernism (1908), p. 283.
page 292 note 1 op. cit., p. 42.