Infallibility of the Catholic Church
"...thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven." (Matt. 16:15-19). It is obvious from these words that Jesus intended to found a Church, to make Peter (and by implication his successors) its visible head, and that the powers of Hell would never be able to overthrow it. Therefore, we should look for that church which goes back in history to St. Peter. It has to be nearly 2,000 years old! Plus, it has to have suffered persecution and still be suffering persecution from the powers of Hell.
We stand in need of Revelation, or something told to us by God about the object and end of our lives. Otherwise, our existence is ultimately aimless and for no known purpose. God has, in fact, made a revelation to us, that He has given us a great mass of teaching on many vital questions. In order that men might possess His teaching until the End of Time, Christ founded a Church. That Church is God's own representative, His sole channel of communication with men, apart from special private revelations. We now assert that God prevents this Church from giving men wrong teaching. He wants them to have certainty about the vital things He has revealed. Therefore:
a) He prevents the bishops as a body from teaching error, i.e., where there is a moral universality of teaching by the bishops throughout the world, that teaching is guaranteed by God. This is known as the infallibility of the Church.
b) He prevents the Pope from teaching error when, acting as head of the Church, he teaches the whole Church on some point of faith or morals revealed by Christ. This is known as the infallibility of the Pope.
Therefore, infallibility does not mean that the Pope cannot sin or that he knows everything or that he is inspired or receives or makes a new revelation. The function of infallibility is to ensure that we shall be able to know with certainty truths which are vital to us and which we cannot find out for ourselves. Therefore, the personal character of the Pope as a human teacher is quite beside the point. For God prevents him from falling into error only when he officially teaches the entire Church on matters of faith or morals.
The infallibility of the Church is reasonable
Christ came on earth to teach a true doctrine which should last for all time. "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth," He told Pilate. (John 18:37). One would expect that, being all-wise, all-foreseeing and all-powerful, He would have taken the means to prevent the society to which He committed the continuation of His work from ever falling into error, and therefore corrupting His doctrine. In view of His plainly expressed purpose, one can only suppose that, if He had not established some means for safeguarding His Truth, He would have been neither all-wise,nor all-foreseeing, nor all-powerful. Again, if there is no infallible teaching body on the earth, it means that when Christ ascended into Heaven, His office as teacher ceased. For centuries God had been preparing the hearts of men for the coming of His Son; the whole of the Old Testament is concerned with the story of the elaborate process of preparation. Is it not inconceivable that, after all this preparation, the Redeemer should teach infallibly only for a period of some three years, to a mere handful of people in a small corner of the world? Common sense rejects such obvious disproportion in God's way of acting. Especially when it is remembered that the Redeemer did found a Church as a teaching body, it must be conceded that God would enable it to carry on His teaching office. This that Church could not do unless it were endowed with infallibility.
Infallibility of the Church in Scripture
The scriptural proofs of the Church's infallibility are so numerous that it is hard to see how anyone can deny them. Remember that we appeal here to Scripture as a reliable historical source, taking no account of its divine inspiration.
A) "And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world...He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned." (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:16).
Notice:
1) That Christ prefaced His commission with an appeal to His own fullness of power, thus evidently intending to stress the extraordinary nature and extent of the authority being communicated to His Church. The implication is that the authority being conferred is so great that its communication would be impossible were He not omnipotent.
2) That it is doctrinal authority which is principally in question here. The Apostles are to teach in His name and with His authority; those who receive their teaching are to do so as coming from Him and therefore as infallible. There is no other convincing explanation of the phrase "I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matt. 18:20).
3) That it is clear that Christ here committed to His Church the task of communicating His teaching to all men of all ages, without corruption. This would be utterly impossible unless the Church could speak infallibly in every generation on any question affecting the substance of Christ's teaching.
4) That without infallibility there could be no absolute certainty or finality in regard to any of the truths which are of the very essence of Christianity. The fact, for instance, that the Church condemned Arius at eh Council of Nicaea in 325 for denying the divinity of Christ would have absolutely no weight unless the condemnation could be regarded as certainly free from error.
5) That it has been proved in an earlier instruction that Christ certainly meant unity of faith to be a distinguishing mark of His Church. Having regard to the ease with which differences on religious questions arise, it will be agreed that unity would be impossible without an infallible public authority capable of acting with decision and of pronouncing an absolutely final and irreformable judgment. If Christ were really the Son of God, to whom the whole future history of the Church was present; if He meant His promise to be always with His Church to be taken seriously; and if He were omnipotent; then the Church is certainly right in seeing in His commissioning words a guarantee of her own infallibility.
6) That, moreover, Christ threatens with eternal damnation those who refuse to accept the Church's teaching. How could He make such a threat, if He had left us at the mercy of every false prophet, with no certain, unerring teaching authority?
B) "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16:18). These words of Christ would be utter nonsense, if it could happen that the Church would be wrong in that teaching which she gives so authoritatively that she threatens with damnation those who refuse to accept it. The "gates of hell" would certainly have prevailed against it, if for 2,000 years the Church had been demanding the assent of men to her essential teaching under penalty of eternal damnation and because she regarded that teaching as certainly true, if, all the time, her teaching could be false.
C) "And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you...These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. 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 14:6-18, 25-26). "But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1:8). Such words are meaningless if they do not signify that the Holy Spirit is to be responsible for what the Apostles and their successors may define to be part of Christ's teaching. If the Holy Spirit is responsible for such definitions, they are surely infallible. What is guaranteed by the Spirit of Truth cannot be false.
D) "Know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. 3:15). Unless the Church were infallible, this would be an untruth. Elsewhere, St. Paul vindicates the divine authority of the Gospel being taught by the Church: "Therefore, we also give thanks to God without ceasing: because, that when you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God, who worketh in you that have believed." (1 Thess. 2:13). "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:45). "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal. 1:8).
In these quotations St. Paul certainly demands obedience from everyone to the teaching of the Apostles. In the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians he says clearly that his teaching has the sanction of the other Apostles. In a word, the truth emerges that he believed the Apostolic College to be infallible. Otherwise, he could never have spoken in such strong terms.
E) St. Peter devotes a large portion of his second Epistle to the condemnation of false teachers and uses very strong language about those who, "flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them. For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit: and, The sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire." (2 Peter 2:20-22). St. John makes a similar point: "Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1).
This condemnation of the false carries with it the implication that the Apostles believe their teaching to be certainly true. This they clearly state when--assembled together at the Council of Jerusalem--they issue a decree in the name of the Spirit of Truth: "For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things..." (Acts 15:28). Here the Apostles claim, in the name of the Holy Spirit, to decide a dogmatic question of first importance, namely, whether the Christians were bound to observe the Old Law in its entirety. They would certainly never have spoken in this way unless they were convinced that Christ's promises had assured them of infallible guidance in their solemn utterances in the name of the Church.
Tradition.
A study of the history of the Church will certainly convince the unbiased enquirer that throughout her existence she has always regarded herself, and has been regarded by her members, as infallible. (Cf. Church History by Fr. John Laux, TAN. 1989.)
St. Ignatius of Antioch, who lived at the end of the first century, has these striking things to say about the authority of bishops: "The bishop is in the place of God; the priests are the senate of the Apostles, and the deacons are the ministers of Jesus Christ. The faithful are to obey the bishops as they would Jesus Christ." (Magn. vi; Trall. ii, 1,2).
There is a story, too, that St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, met the heretic Marcion on the streets in Rome and did not hesitate to denounce him then and there as the "first-born of Satan." That was the spirit of the age, and it is plainly out of keeping with the belief in a fallible Church.
St. Irenaeus, one of St. Polycarp's disciples, writing against the Gnostic heretics, practically bases his teaching on the assumption of the Church's infallibility: "Where the Church is, there also is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace." (Adv. Haer., III, xxiv, 1). Writing of the successors of the Apostles, he says: "It is they who are the guardians of our faith...and securely expound the Scripture to us...There must we seek the truth." (Op. Cit. IV, xxvi, 5).
About the beginning of the fourth century, there appeared a remarkable work called Concerning Right Faith in God. The writer was a certain Adamantius. He bears striking testimony to current belief in the Church's infallibility: "She...the Catholic Church, by the truth alone lives righteously, devoutly and in holiness; those who have turned aside from her and gone astray are far from the truth; they proclaim indeed that to them the truth is known, but in reality they are far removed from it." (v. 28).
St. Cyprian, writing to St. Cornelius, said: Heretics have the audacity to take ship and present letters from profane and schismatical folk to the See of Peter and to the principal Church, whence sprang the unity of the priesthood. They never seem to realize that these latter are the Romans whose faith the Apostle proclaimed and praised; to them infidelity can have no access." (Ep. xii, 14).
So we could go on--but little purpose will be served by multiplying quotations. The fact is simply that those nearest to the time of Christ took for granted the infallibility of His Church. Even heretics recognized that, once a doctrine had been defined by a General Council, it was certain and true. They may have refused to obey, but that was on the grounds that the council was not really ecumenical (i.e., convened by the Pope, with all the Catholic bishops invited and representing the entire Church). In general, they did not dispute the fact that the decisions of the councils were final and irreformable.
Next time I will go more into the teachings of the infallibility of the Pope. God Bless!
We stand in need of Revelation, or something told to us by God about the object and end of our lives. Otherwise, our existence is ultimately aimless and for no known purpose. God has, in fact, made a revelation to us, that He has given us a great mass of teaching on many vital questions. In order that men might possess His teaching until the End of Time, Christ founded a Church. That Church is God's own representative, His sole channel of communication with men, apart from special private revelations. We now assert that God prevents this Church from giving men wrong teaching. He wants them to have certainty about the vital things He has revealed. Therefore:
a) He prevents the bishops as a body from teaching error, i.e., where there is a moral universality of teaching by the bishops throughout the world, that teaching is guaranteed by God. This is known as the infallibility of the Church.
b) He prevents the Pope from teaching error when, acting as head of the Church, he teaches the whole Church on some point of faith or morals revealed by Christ. This is known as the infallibility of the Pope.
Therefore, infallibility does not mean that the Pope cannot sin or that he knows everything or that he is inspired or receives or makes a new revelation. The function of infallibility is to ensure that we shall be able to know with certainty truths which are vital to us and which we cannot find out for ourselves. Therefore, the personal character of the Pope as a human teacher is quite beside the point. For God prevents him from falling into error only when he officially teaches the entire Church on matters of faith or morals.
The infallibility of the Church is reasonable
Christ came on earth to teach a true doctrine which should last for all time. "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world; that I should give testimony to the truth," He told Pilate. (John 18:37). One would expect that, being all-wise, all-foreseeing and all-powerful, He would have taken the means to prevent the society to which He committed the continuation of His work from ever falling into error, and therefore corrupting His doctrine. In view of His plainly expressed purpose, one can only suppose that, if He had not established some means for safeguarding His Truth, He would have been neither all-wise,nor all-foreseeing, nor all-powerful. Again, if there is no infallible teaching body on the earth, it means that when Christ ascended into Heaven, His office as teacher ceased. For centuries God had been preparing the hearts of men for the coming of His Son; the whole of the Old Testament is concerned with the story of the elaborate process of preparation. Is it not inconceivable that, after all this preparation, the Redeemer should teach infallibly only for a period of some three years, to a mere handful of people in a small corner of the world? Common sense rejects such obvious disproportion in God's way of acting. Especially when it is remembered that the Redeemer did found a Church as a teaching body, it must be conceded that God would enable it to carry on His teaching office. This that Church could not do unless it were endowed with infallibility.
Infallibility of the Church in Scripture
The scriptural proofs of the Church's infallibility are so numerous that it is hard to see how anyone can deny them. Remember that we appeal here to Scripture as a reliable historical source, taking no account of its divine inspiration.
A) "And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world...He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned." (Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:16).
Notice:
1) That Christ prefaced His commission with an appeal to His own fullness of power, thus evidently intending to stress the extraordinary nature and extent of the authority being communicated to His Church. The implication is that the authority being conferred is so great that its communication would be impossible were He not omnipotent.
2) That it is doctrinal authority which is principally in question here. The Apostles are to teach in His name and with His authority; those who receive their teaching are to do so as coming from Him and therefore as infallible. There is no other convincing explanation of the phrase "I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." (Matt. 18:20).
3) That it is clear that Christ here committed to His Church the task of communicating His teaching to all men of all ages, without corruption. This would be utterly impossible unless the Church could speak infallibly in every generation on any question affecting the substance of Christ's teaching.
4) That without infallibility there could be no absolute certainty or finality in regard to any of the truths which are of the very essence of Christianity. The fact, for instance, that the Church condemned Arius at eh Council of Nicaea in 325 for denying the divinity of Christ would have absolutely no weight unless the condemnation could be regarded as certainly free from error.
5) That it has been proved in an earlier instruction that Christ certainly meant unity of faith to be a distinguishing mark of His Church. Having regard to the ease with which differences on religious questions arise, it will be agreed that unity would be impossible without an infallible public authority capable of acting with decision and of pronouncing an absolutely final and irreformable judgment. If Christ were really the Son of God, to whom the whole future history of the Church was present; if He meant His promise to be always with His Church to be taken seriously; and if He were omnipotent; then the Church is certainly right in seeing in His commissioning words a guarantee of her own infallibility.
6) That, moreover, Christ threatens with eternal damnation those who refuse to accept the Church's teaching. How could He make such a threat, if He had left us at the mercy of every false prophet, with no certain, unerring teaching authority?
B) "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matt. 16:18). These words of Christ would be utter nonsense, if it could happen that the Church would be wrong in that teaching which she gives so authoritatively that she threatens with damnation those who refuse to accept it. The "gates of hell" would certainly have prevailed against it, if for 2,000 years the Church had been demanding the assent of men to her essential teaching under penalty of eternal damnation and because she regarded that teaching as certainly true, if, all the time, her teaching could be false.
C) "And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him: but you shall know him; because he shall abide with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you...These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you. 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 14:6-18, 25-26). "But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts 1:8). Such words are meaningless if they do not signify that the Holy Spirit is to be responsible for what the Apostles and their successors may define to be part of Christ's teaching. If the Holy Spirit is responsible for such definitions, they are surely infallible. What is guaranteed by the Spirit of Truth cannot be false.
D) "Know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1 Tim. 3:15). Unless the Church were infallible, this would be an untruth. Elsewhere, St. Paul vindicates the divine authority of the Gospel being taught by the Church: "Therefore, we also give thanks to God without ceasing: because, that when you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God, who worketh in you that have believed." (1 Thess. 2:13). "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty to God unto the pulling down of fortifications, destroying counsels, and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ." (2 Cor. 10:45). "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal. 1:8).
In these quotations St. Paul certainly demands obedience from everyone to the teaching of the Apostles. In the second chapter of his letter to the Galatians he says clearly that his teaching has the sanction of the other Apostles. In a word, the truth emerges that he believed the Apostolic College to be infallible. Otherwise, he could never have spoken in such strong terms.
E) St. Peter devotes a large portion of his second Epistle to the condemnation of false teachers and uses very strong language about those who, "flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them. For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit: and, The sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire." (2 Peter 2:20-22). St. John makes a similar point: "Dearly beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1).
This condemnation of the false carries with it the implication that the Apostles believe their teaching to be certainly true. This they clearly state when--assembled together at the Council of Jerusalem--they issue a decree in the name of the Spirit of Truth: "For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things..." (Acts 15:28). Here the Apostles claim, in the name of the Holy Spirit, to decide a dogmatic question of first importance, namely, whether the Christians were bound to observe the Old Law in its entirety. They would certainly never have spoken in this way unless they were convinced that Christ's promises had assured them of infallible guidance in their solemn utterances in the name of the Church.
Tradition.
A study of the history of the Church will certainly convince the unbiased enquirer that throughout her existence she has always regarded herself, and has been regarded by her members, as infallible. (Cf. Church History by Fr. John Laux, TAN. 1989.)
St. Ignatius of Antioch, who lived at the end of the first century, has these striking things to say about the authority of bishops: "The bishop is in the place of God; the priests are the senate of the Apostles, and the deacons are the ministers of Jesus Christ. The faithful are to obey the bishops as they would Jesus Christ." (Magn. vi; Trall. ii, 1,2).
There is a story, too, that St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, met the heretic Marcion on the streets in Rome and did not hesitate to denounce him then and there as the "first-born of Satan." That was the spirit of the age, and it is plainly out of keeping with the belief in a fallible Church.
St. Irenaeus, one of St. Polycarp's disciples, writing against the Gnostic heretics, practically bases his teaching on the assumption of the Church's infallibility: "Where the Church is, there also is the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and every grace." (Adv. Haer., III, xxiv, 1). Writing of the successors of the Apostles, he says: "It is they who are the guardians of our faith...and securely expound the Scripture to us...There must we seek the truth." (Op. Cit. IV, xxvi, 5).
About the beginning of the fourth century, there appeared a remarkable work called Concerning Right Faith in God. The writer was a certain Adamantius. He bears striking testimony to current belief in the Church's infallibility: "She...the Catholic Church, by the truth alone lives righteously, devoutly and in holiness; those who have turned aside from her and gone astray are far from the truth; they proclaim indeed that to them the truth is known, but in reality they are far removed from it." (v. 28).
St. Cyprian, writing to St. Cornelius, said: Heretics have the audacity to take ship and present letters from profane and schismatical folk to the See of Peter and to the principal Church, whence sprang the unity of the priesthood. They never seem to realize that these latter are the Romans whose faith the Apostle proclaimed and praised; to them infidelity can have no access." (Ep. xii, 14).
So we could go on--but little purpose will be served by multiplying quotations. The fact is simply that those nearest to the time of Christ took for granted the infallibility of His Church. Even heretics recognized that, once a doctrine had been defined by a General Council, it was certain and true. They may have refused to obey, but that was on the grounds that the council was not really ecumenical (i.e., convened by the Pope, with all the Catholic bishops invited and representing the entire Church). In general, they did not dispute the fact that the decisions of the councils were final and irreformable.
Next time I will go more into the teachings of the infallibility of the Pope. God Bless!
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