Can Church Doctrine Ever Change? - Differing from "Breaking In The Habit"

Can Church Doctrine Ever Change?
25th Jan. 2021 | Breaking In The Habit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfYNE4hnjA8

I

2:07 "always be there to guide them"

His actual words:

But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
[John 14:26]

In other words, He does not promise any guidance beyond His actual already stated words.

When we get to John 16, we do get

[12] I have yet many things to say to you: but you cannot bear them now. [13] But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not speak of himself; but what things soever he shall hear, he shall speak; and the things that are to come, he shall shew you.

Does this mean, Christ did not ever say these things, they are only after Pentecost?

No - it means He could not tell them certain things before the passion, on that occasion:

• constraints on human memory (one evening, vs 40 days from Resurrection)
• grief of Apostles at Crucifixion, already foreboded by dangers
• lack of grace yet to be supplemented.

Challoner annotates:

[13] "Will teach you all truth": See the annotation on chap. 14. ver. 26.

And if we go back there, we do indeed find:

[26] "Teach you all things": Here the Holy Ghost is promised to the apostles and their successors, particularly, in order to teach them all truth, and to preserve them from error.

However, we find this in connection with the Holy Spirit promised to remind "whatsoever I shall have said" - i e what He had already said but also what He was going to say during 40 days between Resurrection and Asciension.

These words preclude inspiration after death of last apostle:

For he shall not speak of himself;

In other words, the apostles could know it was the Holy Spirit by:

• direct reference to words of Jesus
• direct reference to already extant Scriptures, i e Old Testament
• or, at most "wild," syllogism from any of above.

II

2:28 Confession, prayers for the dead, perpetual virginity of Mary were all known to the Apostles.

It is on the day of Her Dormition that She went out of direct observation of them. They knew She had no other children and could not imagine She could have been infertile if having intercourse, as well as them knowing Her Son remained a virgin, as well as probably also having His exegesis on certain OT passages. And She would have confided to St. John the beloved how his virginity (lifelong or when She lived with him?) pleased Her because of Her (indeed lifelong) virginity, as well as Her Son's.

Confession had been instituted with the power to absolve, given in John 20:21-23.

Purgatory would have been known, at least with some reasonable approximation, since Maccabee times.

Not a trace of "development of doctrine after the Apostles" - supposing that were even what Newman meant in that famous but not so often read long essay.

Delvin George

Are you saying Doctrines are not developed as in solidify into Dogmas?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Delvin George I am saying they are not developed as from simple silence.

Dormition was "solidified into dogma" in 1950, if Pius XII was still Pope then.

But it hadn't changed. He did not and could not for instance define there was no Dormition. He could not define Apostles did not surround what was looking, till She closed Her eyes, like a death bed.

III

4:23 "limiting it to the Pope"

The Pope is infallible in three ways:

• united to the universal episcopate in ordinary magisterium (directly involves more men than the Pope, namely all or nearly all the bishops)
• signing a universal Council (directly involves more men than the Pope, namely majority of bishop vote)
• speaking ex cathedra to define (directly involves only the Pope, in practise certainly some other men, but not necessarily outlined which ones).

IV

4:48 "being a part of the Catholic Church does not necessarily make one a part of the Mystical Body"

That goes beyond the actual statement in Lumen Gentium. What SSPX has complained about has been another way to distinguish this from the statement of Mystici Corporis ... so, the theologians behind the passage did not follow the recommendation of GaSp, since their expression was less suited to bring clarity.

Some decades ago, the exegesis on LG would have been like mystical body were present in other communities too.

Plus, sounds false. Being a part of the Catholic Church does not necessarily make one a living member of the Mystical Body, but while a Catholic one cannot be totally cut off either. Know the amputations where gangrened limbs are taken off? Well, that kind of outside the body is like being in external forum a Catholic no more. Dead limbs still Catholic have some hope to be resurrected ones.

I think your position was very clearly condemned in condemnations of Baius, Jansenius and Quesnel.

V

a) 5:47 Religious liberty. In Dignitatis Humanae, this is presented as due to the person, and not as sometimes (in our times in most aspects and instances) due to peace or limits of accountability in external forum for those never raised as Catholics.

b) 6:48 What did Pope Leo X give permission to, exactly?

• 1) the paper work for loans needs personnel, and this personnel could be paid a modest living - not a lavish one - for the work, and this would be provided even in total by interest (which would also pay janitors for where the business was conducted)
• 2) but he also said, it is far holier if the municipality (the montes pietatis were run by municipalities) paid for half of these expenses by whatever the revenue of the city involved.

This is a far cry from permitting interest tout court.

I seem to have forgotten to link to where I found the text, but here is my copy:

EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : Lateranense V Concilii Sessio X
https://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/04/lateranense-v-concilii-sessio-x.html

multo tamen perfectius, multoque sanctius fore, si omnino tales montes pietatis gratuiti constituerentur, hoc est, si illos erigentes, aliquos census assignarent quibus si non omni, saltem vel media ex parte huiusmodi montium ministrorum solvantur impensae, ut ad leviorem aeris solvendi portionem medio hoc pauperes gravari contingat, ad quos, cume huiusmodi census assignatione, pro impensarum supportatione exigendos Christi fideles maioribus indulgentiis invitandos esse decernimus.

6:49 "by the 18th C. the Church gave universal permission"

Source needed!

Plus, if true, would have been on a so much lower level as not to disrupt the authority of the councils of Lateran V or III or decree 29 of Vienne. A N D may have been the reason why the Church was chastised by secularisations and French Revolutions in the second half of that century.

c) The statements for Portugal and about enslaving Muslims (Arab or Black) would have been not adressed to the Church.

It would also have been in acts of retribution, since Alger and similar pirate bases did enslave Christians. While most of the population would not have taken direct parts in the acts of piracy, exploiting it by buying Christians on the slave market would have been more widespread.

A portion of mainly Portuguese bishops tolerating slavery even after Paul III would have been simply one episcopate, not the universal magisterium.

VI

8:35 Geocentrism is rooted in Scripture. Young Earth Creationism is rooted in Scripture.

Acceptance of Heliocentrism (in a limited but palpable way) came, if you are correct, around the time of acceptance of usury, and were punished by French Revolution.

Acceptance of Deep time came in 1909, but on the condition that this was just exegesis of days in Genesis 1. Soon after we have the World War I.

Acceptance of Evolution, as in Adam's body (but not soul) evolving from beasts came in 40's - the same time period as the earliest French reports known now about clerical abuse of boys come from.

Jesus is God in the flesh and as such not ignorant of anything He had to teach the apostles:

Summa, III part, Q 15, A 3
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4015.htm#article3

VII

9:04 "we might have to realise that we have misunderstood the dogma for many years and so must completely change a discipline of the Church"

Well, the problem is, this is one instance where you would have to invoke such a freedom of change.

In the reassessment of theological statements in 1983 "canon law", which I did not know when converting in 1988, the discipline relating acceptability to unanimous consensus of Church Fathers, from Trent, was scrapped.

Isn't it easier to say you have wrongly assessed what the criteria for valid councils and popes are for about 60-70 years? And some in Paris, about Genesis, for about a century, since E. Mangenot, SJ, was inventing the framework theory? 1920, that would be 100 years and a few months rather than 101 years as yet?

9:18 Founded by Christ, run by the Holy Spirit - well, we got criteria for HOW the Holy Spirit guides the Church, meaning such changes do bother.

No, changing doctrine doesn't show we are growing closer to perfection. They show we are getting closer to or have passed the time called by St. Paul "revolt" - as to Church Fathers who considered it was one against the Roman Empire, the I World War and the Russian revolution and Austrian Anschluss would fit that bill.

DR : II Thess 2
http://drbo.org/chapter/60002.htm