Chapter V — The Rule of Faith

§ 24. The Rule of Faith Considered Generally, and Especially in Its Active Sense

I. The nature and dignity of the Word of God require that submission to it should not be left to individual choice, but should be made obligatory. The Church must put it forth in such a way as to bind all her members to adhere to it in common, with one voice, and in its full completeness, as a public and social law.

II. The Rule of Faith was given to the Church in the very act of Revelation and its promulgation by the Apostles. But for this Rule to have an actual, permanently efficient character, it must be continually promulgated and enforced by the living Apostolate, which must exact from every member of the Church a docile Faith in the truths of Revelation as authoritatively proposed, uniting the whole body of the Church, teachers and taught, in a single, perfect unity of Faith. The original promulgation is thus the remote Rule of Faith, and the continuous promulgation by the Teaching Body is the proximate Rule.

III. The fact that all the members of the Church actually agree in one Faith is the best proof of the efficacy of the Catholic Rule of Faith — though this universality is not itself the Rule of Faith, but rather its effect. Individual members are indeed bound to conform their belief to that of the whole community, but this universal belief is itself produced by the action of the Teaching Apostolate, whose own members are, in turn, subject to their Chief. The Catholic Rule of Faith may thus, ultimately, be reduced to the sovereign teaching authority of the Holy See — a truth asserted long ago in the Creed drawn up by Pope Hormisdas: “wherefore, following in all things the Apostolic See, and upholding all its decrees, I hope that it may be mine to be with you in the one communion taught by the Apostolic See, in which is the true and complete solidity of the Christian Religion.”

IV. The act, or collection of acts, whereby the Word of God is enforced as the Rule of Catholic Faith is called, technically, “Proposition by the Church” (Propositio Ecclesiae; Vatican Council, sess. iii, c. 3) — “Proposition” because it is the authoritative promulgation of a law, already contained in Revelation, enjoining belief in what is proposed; and “Proposition by or of the Church” because it emanates from the Teaching Body and is addressed to the Body of the Faithful, not because it emanates from the whole community indiscriminately.

V. The manner and form this Proposition assumes are determined by the nature of the Teaching Apostolate and of the truths proposed. The ordinary Proposition of the law of Faith is identical with the ordinary exercise of the Teaching Apostolate itself, since the Word of God, by its very nature, exacts the obedience of Faith, and is communicated to the faithful precisely to enforce belief. The law of Faith is thus naturally an unwritten law in its ordinary exercise, but the Church’s Proposition takes the form of a written statute when promulgated in a solemn decision. Such decisions, however, are not laws in the strict sense, but authoritative declarations of laws already enacted by God, and in most instances merely enforce what is already common practice. Both forms — written and unwritten — carry equal authority, though the written form is more precise; both, moreover, rest ultimately on the authority of the Head of the Apostolate. No judicial sentence in matters of Faith is valid unless pronounced or approved by him, and the binding force of the unwritten form arises from his own tacit sanction.

VI. The authority of the Church’s Proposition, enforcing obedience and guaranteeing infallibility, is not restricted to matters of strictly Divine Faith and Divine Revelation, though these remain its principal subject-matter. The Teaching Apostolate, in order to realize the full purposes of Revelation — preserving the Faith not only in substance but in its entirety — must extend its activity beyond the sphere of Divine Faith and Divine Revelation as such. In such further matters, however, the Apostolate requires only an undoubting and submissive acceptance, not Divine Faith properly speaking, and is accordingly, so far, a rule of theological knowledge and conviction rather than a Rule of Divine Faith. There exists, then, in the Church, alongside and completing the Rule of Faith, a Rule of Theological Thought or Religious Conviction, to which every Catholic must submit both internally and externally; any refusal to submit implies a spiritual revolt against the Church’s authority and a rejection of her supernatural veracity, and is, if not a direct denial of Catholic Faith, at least a direct denial of Catholic Profession.

VII. The judicial, legislative, and other similar acts of the members of the Teaching Apostolate are not all absolutely binding rules of Faith and theological thought — some resemble mere disciplinary or police regulations. Such disciplinary measures may, under certain circumstances, command at least a respectful and confident assent, whose refusal involves disrespect and rashness. When the Church forbids teaching certain points of doctrine, or commands teaching one opinion in preference to another, external submission is required, along with an obligation to accept the favoured view as morally certain. A judicial decision given on some point of doctrine, but not given or approved by the highest authority, imposes, of itself, only the obligation of external obedience; points expressed, recommended, and insisted upon in papal allocutions or encyclicals, without being formally defined, may create an obligation of strict obedience and undoubting assent, or may exact merely external submission and approval, depending on the case. In the Rule of Faith, then, we distinguish three degrees: (1) the Rule of Faith in matters directly revealed, exacting the obedience of Faith; (2) the Rule of Faith in matters theologically connected with Revelation, exacting respect and external submission, and, indirectly, a certain degree of internal assent; and (3) the Rule of Faith in matters of discipline, exacting submission and reverence.

The distinction between rules of theological knowledge and mere disciplinary measures matters greatly: the former demand universal, unconditional obedience, the latter only respect and reverence. Moderate Liberalism — represented in the seventeenth century by Holden (Analysis Fidei), and in the eighteenth by Muratori (De Ingeniorum Moderatione) and Chrismann (Regula Fidei) — attempts to conciliate Extreme Liberalism precisely by collapsing these distinctions, reducing every decision either to a formal definition of Faith or to a mere police regulation.

§ 25. Dogmas and Matters of Opinion

I. Everything revealed by God, by Christ, or by the Holy Ghost is, by that very fact, a Divine or Christian Dogma; once authoritatively proposed by the Apostles, it became an Apostolic Dogma; once fully promulgated by the Church, an Ecclesiastical Dogma. In the Church’s own usage, a dogma pure and simple is at once ecclesiastical, apostolic, and divine — while a merely Divine Dogma, revealed by God but not yet explicitly proposed by the Church, is called a Material (as opposed to Formal) Dogma.

1. Dogmas may be classified according to their subject-matter, their manner of promulgation, and the different kinds of moral obligation attached to knowing them. As to subject-matter, they may be divided as the contents of Revelation were divided above (§ 5), except that truths revealed only incidentally (per accidens) are not, properly, dogmas — though it is itself a dogma that Holy Scripture, in its genuine text, contains undoubted truth throughout, and the denial of an incidentally revealed matter is accordingly a sin against Faith, since it implies that Scripture contains error. This principle accounts for the historic opposition to Galileo: the motions of the sun and the earth are not, in themselves, matters of dogma, but the great astronomer’s teaching was accompanied by, or at least seemed to involve, the assertion that certain scriptural texts were simply false.
2. With regard to promulgation, dogmas divide into Material and Formal, the latter further subdividing into Defined and Undefined.
3. With regard to the obligation of knowing them, dogmas are to be believed either Implicitly or Explicitly, and the necessity of knowing them is of two kinds: Necessity of Means (necessitas medii), where belief in some dogma is a necessary condition of salvation apart from any positive command of the Church, and Necessity of Precept (necessitas praecepti), where the obligation to believe arises from the Church’s own positive command. The former may be called Fundamental, as being most essential — though we do not thereby admit the Latitudinarian distinction between “fundamental” articles that must be believed and “non-fundamental” articles that need not be; all Catholics are bound to accept, at least implicitly, every dogma the Church proposes.

The criteria, or means of recognizing Catholic truth, follow readily from these principles, and are largely set out in the Brief Tuas Libenter, addressed by Pius IX to the Archbishop of Munich. The criteria of a dogma of Faith are: (a) Creeds or Symbols of Faith generally received; (b) dogmatic definitions of Popes or ecumenical councils, or of particular councils solemnly ratified; (c) the undoubtedly clear and indisputable sense of Holy Scripture on matters of Faith and morals; (d) the universal and constant teaching of the Apostolate, especially the public and permanent tradition of the Roman Church; (e) universal practice, especially liturgical, wherever it clearly supposes and professes some truth as undoubtedly revealed; (f) the manifest and universal teaching of the Fathers; and (g) the manifest and universal teaching of theologians.

II. Between doctrines expressly defined by the Church and those expressly condemned lie what may be called matters of opinion, or free opinions — though freedom here, like certainty, comes in degrees, especially in religious and moral matters. Where no distinct definition exists, there may still be reasons sufficient to give moral certainty; to resist such reasons is not formal disobedience, but is rash. Where no such reasons exist, no such censure is incurred. The exact boundaries of these two groups of free opinion cannot be drawn with precision — they shade into one another, ranging from absolute freedom to a morally certain obligation to believe. Within this sphere of “Approximative Theology,” as it may be called, there are: (1) doctrines it is morally certain the Church acknowledges as revealed (veritates fidei proximae); (2) theological doctrines it is morally certain the Church considers part of the integrity of the Faith, or logically connected with revealed truth, whose denial approaches theological error (errori theologico proxima); and (3) doctrines neither revealed nor logically deducible from revealed truth, but useful or even necessary for safeguarding Revelation, whose denial would be rash (temerarium).

These three degrees were rejected by the Minimizers mentioned at the end of § 24, who treated everything not strictly defined as absolutely free. Pius IX, however, on the occasion of the Munich Congress of 1863, addressed a Brief to that city’s Archbishop laying down the true Catholic principles on the subject; the twenty-second proposition condemned in the Syllabus was drawn from this Brief, and reads: “the obligation under which Catholic teachers and writers lie is restricted to those matters which are proposed for universal belief as dogmas of Faith by the infallible judgment of the Church.” And the Vatican Council itself says, at the close of its first constitution: “it sufficeth not to avoid heresy unless those errors which more or less approach thereto are sedulously shunned.”

§ 26. Definitions and Judicial Decisions Considered Generally

The chief rules of Catholic belief are the definitions and decisions of the Church. Before studying them individually, it will help to treat of the elements and forms common to all of them.

I. Definitions and decisions are, essentially, acts of the teaching power in the strictest sense — acts whereby its holder authoritatively lays down what his subjects must accept as Catholic doctrine, or reject as anti-Catholic. Hence, distinguished from other acts of the Teaching Apostolate, they are termed decrees, statutes, constitutions, definitions, or decisions concerning the Faith. In the Church’s modern usage, “Definition” means the positive, final decision in matters of Faith (dogmas), while “Judgment” means the negative decision condemning false doctrines (censures). The wording of definitions is not restricted to any single form: sometimes they take the form of a profession of Faith (“the Holy Synod believeth and confesseth”); at other times a declaration of doctrine, as in the “chapters” of Trent and the Vatican Council; and sometimes the form of canons threatening anathema against all who refuse the Church’s teaching.

II. The general object of authoritative doctrinal decisions is to propose dogmas clearly and distinctly to the faithful, thereby promoting God’s glory, the salvation of souls, and the Church’s own welfare. Sometimes, however, they serve more specific purposes: (1) to remove existing doubts — the definitions of the Immaculate Conception and of Papal Infallibility are cases in point; (2) to condemn criminal doubts prevailing against dogmas already defined, as with the five propositions of Jansenius; or (3) to prevent future doubts and confirm the Faith of the weak, in which case the new definition takes the form of confirming or renewing an earlier one — as when the Vatican Council, closing its first constitution, insists on conformity to the Holy See’s doctrinal decisions. The question of a definition’s “opportuneness” must be decided by the judges themselves; under certain circumstances they may withhold or postpone a definition to avoid greater evils, as with the Gallican doctrines — but once a definition is actually given, no further question about its opportuneness remains open, since the same Holy Ghost who assists in making the definition also assists in fixing its proper time.

III. Authoritative definitions and decisions can emanate only from the holders of the teaching power within the Church. Learned individuals and learned societies — universities, for instance — may publish their own views, thereby preparing the way for a dogmatic definition, and such statements may even carry greater weight than the decisions of individual bishops; nevertheless they remain merely provisional, standing to the final judgment as a consulting vote stands to a verdict. Hence the great importance of acting in conjunction with the Holy See — from the earliest times it has been the rule to refer the more important questions of Faith to Rome, and in recent times Bishops and local councils have been directed not to attempt deciding doubtful questions themselves, but only to expound and enforce what has already been approved.

Each holder of the teaching power may, in general, judge individually — with the exception of those whose power is only delegated, and those whose functions bind them to act in concert, as the Cardinals do in the Roman Congregations. It has, nonetheless, always been the Church’s practice that Bishops, as inferior judges, judge collectively in synods and councils, except when acting simply as promulgators or executors of decisions already given. The Pope, the supreme and universal judge, is subject to no other judge or tribunal, while all others are subject to him; matters of general interest (causae communes) or of great importance (causae majores) fall within his cognizance. He is the centre of unity, and possesses, in virtue of his sovereign power, a guarantee of veracity that individual Bishops do not possess. But before reaching any decision he is bound to study the Sources of Faith and consult his advisers, individually or collectively; he may, and sometimes must, allow his ordinary and extraordinary counsellors to act as subordinate colleges of judges, whose decisions he then completes with his own, or he may place himself at the head of these colleges, so that their members become his own assessors — “the bishops of the whole world sitting and judging with us,” as the Vatican Council’s first constitution puts it. The same Council enumerates the various means by which Popes have prepared their definitions: “at one time by summoning ecumenical councils, or by ascertaining the opinion of the Church dispersed over the world; at another time by means of local synods, or again by other means — [the Roman Pontiffs] have defined that those things are to be held which they have found to be in harmony with the Sacred Writings and Apostolical Traditions” (sess. iv, c. 4).

IV. Dogmatic definitions, being judicial acts, presuppose an investigation of the case (cognitio causae); should such investigation be omitted, the judge acts rashly, though the resulting judgment remains binding nonetheless. Where the judge’s authority is not supreme, and so the presumption in favour of his judgment’s justice is not absolute, some statement of reasons may be required, and examination of those reasons permitted; even the highest authority sometimes states his reasons, though merely to make submission easier for the faithful. As to the conduct of the investigation itself, examination of the Sources of Faith and the hearing of witnesses, though integral to the judicial function, are not always strictly necessary — where an already-defined doctrine merely needs enforcement, these processes may be dispensed with, though even then they may be advisable, to remove any suspicion of rashness or prejudice and to let the judges affirm they speak from their own full and proper knowledge of the case (ex plena et propria cognitione causae).¹

Although doctrinal definitions are always supported by strong arguments, their binding force does not rest on those arguments but on the supernatural authority of the judges themselves, in virtue of which they may say, “it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.” For individual judges, the divine guarantee depends on the legitimacy of their appointment; for councils or other bodies of judges, on the legitimacy of their convocation — hence the formula, “the synod lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost” (in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata). We must remember, however, that this divine guarantee is perfect only when a final decision is given for the universal Church; in other cases it is merely presumptive, and this presumption alone does not make the judgment infallible or exact unconditional submission. Even the formula “it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us” does not necessarily imply that the accompanying judgment is itself infallible — the judgment’s authority depends on the rank of the judge who pronounces it. Inferior ecclesiastical judges, as a rule, ask the Pope to ratify their decisions, or add the qualification “saving the judgment, or under correction, of the Apostolic See” (salvo judicio, sub correctione Sedis Apostolicae) — so that no process is truly complete and final until the Holy See has given its own judgment.

We now turn to examine the various sources of such decisions and judgments.

§ 27. Papal Judgments and Their Infallibility

I. The Pope, Father and Teacher of all Christians and Head of the Universal Church, is the supreme judge in matters of Faith and morals, the regulator and centre of Catholic unity. His decisions admit no appeal and bind all absolutely — and in order to possess this perfect right and power to exact universal assent and obedience, they must be infallible. The Vatican Council, completing the earlier definitions of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, the Second Council of Lyons, the Council of Florence, and the Profession of Faith of Pope Hormisdas, defines Papal Infallibility thus: “the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra — that is, when, in discharge of the office of Pastor and Doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority he defines a doctrine regarding Faith or Morals to be held by the Universal Church — by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that Infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding Faith or Morals; and therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.”²

II. The person in whom this Infallibility is vested is the Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra — that is, exercising the highest doctrinal authority inherent in the Apostolic See. Whenever the Pope speaks as Supreme Teacher of the Church, he speaks ex cathedra, and there is no other ex cathedra teaching besides his own — the definition thus leaves no room for the sophistical Gallican distinction between the See and its occupant (Sedes, Sedens). An ex cathedra judgment is, further, declared supreme and universally binding; its subject-matter is “doctrine concerning Faith or Morals” — every point of doctrine that is or may be proposed for the belief of the faithful, and nothing beyond that; and its form is the exercise of Apostolic power with the intent of binding all the faithful in the unity of the Faith.

The nature and extent of this Papal Infallibility are contained within the definition itself. It is the result of a divine assistance, differing from both Revelation and Inspiration: it involves no manifestation of new doctrine, nor any impulse to write down what God reveals, but presupposes, rather, an investigation of truths already revealed, merely preventing the Pope from omitting that investigation or erring in the course of it. This divine assistance is granted not for the Pope’s personal benefit but for the Church’s, though it is granted to him directly, as successor of St. Peter, not indirectly through the medium of the Church. Its extent is determined partly by its subject-matter and partly by the words “possessed of that Infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding Faith or Morals” — and since the object of the Pope’s infallibility and of the Church’s infallibility is one and the same, their extent must coincide as well.

From the infallibility of ex cathedra judgments, the Council deduces their irreformability, further establishing this by excluding the Church’s consent as any necessary condition of it — the Church’s approbation is the consequence, not the cause, of an ex cathedra judgment’s irreformability.

III. Ex cathedra decisions admit of considerable variety of form. Within the documents containing them, however, only those passages the judge manifestly intended as definitive are themselves infallible; the recommendations, proofs, and explanations that accompany a decision are not necessarily infallible in themselves, except where an explanation is itself the dogmatic interpretation of a scriptural text or a rule of Faith, or insofar as it fixes the meaning and extent of the definition proper. It is not always easy to draw the line precisely between the definition itself and the surrounding portions of the document — the ordinary rules for interpreting ecclesiastical documents must be applied here as elsewhere. The commonest forms of ex cathedra decision in present use are:

1. The most solemn form is the Dogmatic Constitution, or Bull, in which the decrees are proposed expressly as ecclesiastical laws and sanctioned by heavy penalties — the Constitutions Unigenitus and Auctorem Fidei against the Jansenists, for instance, or the Bull Ineffabilis Deus defining the Immaculate Conception.
2. Next in solemnity are Encyclical Letters, so far as they carry a dogmatic character — resembling Constitutions and Bulls, but, as a rule, imposing no penalties; some are couched in strictly juridical terms (the Encyclical Quanta Cura, for instance), while others are more rhetorical in style, in which case it is not always absolutely certain that the Pope is speaking infallibly.
3. Apostolic Letters and Briefs, even when not addressed directly to the whole Church, must be considered ex cathedra when they attach censures to the denial of certain doctrines, or when, like Encyclicals, they define or condemn in strict judicial language or its equivalent — though it is often extremely difficult to determine whether a given letter is properly dogmatic or merely monitory and administrative in character; doubts of this kind are sometimes later removed by subsequent declarations.
4. Lastly, the Pope can speak ex cathedra by confirming and approving the decisions of other tribunals — general or particular councils, or the Roman Congregations. In ordinary cases, however, a Pope’s approbation of a particular council is merely an act of supervision, and the decision of a Roman Congregation is not, of itself, ex cathedra unless the Pope expressly makes it his own.