title

:

Faith, History, and Cultures : Stability and Change in Church Teachings Pere Marquette Lecture in Theology ; 1991

author

:

Principe, Walter H.

publisher

:

Marquette University Press

isbn10 | asin

:

0874625467

print isbn13

:

9780874625462

ebook isbn13

:

9780585168265

language

:

English

subject

Catholic Church--Doctrines--History, History (Theology) , Christianity and culture.

publication date

:

1991

lcc

:

BX1747.P75 1991eb

ddc

:

230/.2

subject

:

Catholic Church--Doctrines--History, History (Theology) , Christianity and culture.

Page i

The Père Marquette Lecture in Theology 1991

Faith, History and Cultures: Stability and Change in Church Teachings

by

Walter H. Principe, C.S.B.

Professor of Theology

University of Toronto

Marquette University Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 90-64240

Copyright © 1991

Marquette University Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN 0-87462-546-7

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Foreword

The 1991 Père Marquette Lecture in Theology is the twenty-second in a series commemorating the missions and explorations of Père Jacques Marquette, S.J., (163775). This series of annual lectures was begun in 1969 under the auspices of the Marquette University Department of Theology.

The Joseph A. Auchter Family Endowment Fund has endowed the lecture series. Joseph Auchter (18941986), a native of Milwaukee, was a banking and paper industry executive and a long-time supporter of education. The fund was established by his children as a memorial to him.

Walter H. Principe, C.S.B., Professor of Theology in the University of Toronto, delivered the 1991 lecture at Marquette University on April 7, 1991. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1922, he went to Toronto in 1940 to join the Basilian Fathers, and has been there ever since, except for studies, research, and some teaching abroad. He was ordained a priest in 1949.

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He is Professor-Emeritus (Active) at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, as well as Professor in the Centre for Religious Studies and the Centre for Medieval Studies in the Graduate School of the University of Toronto. He is also Adjunct Professor of Theology in the Faculty of Theology of the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, of which faculty he was first Dean. Besides degrees in Political Science and Economics and in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, and a degree in Religious Studies from the École des Hautes Études, University of Paris, he holds the Licentiate and the Doctorate in Mediaeval Studies (theology section) from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, and a Doctorate in Humane Letters (h.c.) from St. John Fisher College, Rochester.

In 1967 he was awarded a Guggenheim Research Fellowship and has had several research fellowships from other granting agencies. He was first president of the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, chair of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, a Fellow of the Royal Society of

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Canada, and an Honored member of the Canadian Theological Society, of which he was president. In 1987 he received the John Courtney Murray Award of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA) "in recognition of outstanding and distinguished achievement in theology," and in 1990 he became President of the CTSA. He has been a consultant on several occasions for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, was a member of the International Theological Commission, and has served on many Church and University committees. Currently he is an officially appointed member of the U.S. Catholic-Lutheran dialogue and of the United Church of Canada-Catholic dialogue. His publications include five books and some eighty articles in historical and contemporary theology, especially on the Trinity, Christology, and the Church.

In the present lecture, Professor Principe examines the stability and change that have characterized Church teaching throughout Christian history. His discussion of the problem proceeds through an investigation of

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Christian faith and the object of faith, to a survey of the fact of change in Church teaching. He then looks at ways in which both stability and change have been manifested throughout the history and the varied cultural milieux of Christianity. He concludes on a note of challenge and hope, calling the whole Church to adopt an attitude of openness to the Holy Spirit. In this openness, the basic stability of our faith in God, God's saving work through Jesus Christ, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit endures, while new insights and understanding can be recognized and received to enrich the whole people of God.

WANDA CIZEWSKI

Page 1

Faith, History and Cultures: Stability and Change in Church Teachings

Back in the sixties, shortly after an official church decision changed the law about abstaining from meat on Fridays, the New Yorker ran a cartoon showing two devils conversing in hell. A junior devil asked a senior devil: "Boss, what do we do with all these Catholics who ate meat on Friday?" The junior devil was not the only one to be confused by the change; many devout Catholics were confused and sometimes disturbed by this and other variations that were introduced following the Second Vatican Council. Liturgies were now celebrated in the vernacular. The priest frequently faced the people and encouraged direct responses and more singing. A kiss or handshake of peace was called for. Receiving communion in the hand was made optional. Communion began to be given by lay ministers, including women. Baptism was now deferred until the mother could be present so that she, her husband, and the godparents might profess not the faith of the child, but their own faith as a pledge that the child would grow within a faithful

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Christian community. Going to confession now became celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliationreconciliation not only with God but also with the Church. Extreme Unction, renamed the Sacrament of the Sick, was given for illness and not only when there was serious danger of death. Mixed marriages could now take place in a Protestant church with a Catholic priest assisting. While Catholics formerly used "minister" only when referring to Protestant clergymen, "minister of the Eucharist" and ''ministry'' became part of their vocabulary.

Because these changes touched people's lives and habits of devotion closely, they often had a strong impact, leaving some people in confusion or disarray. But because they were mainly matters of church discipline or activity, they usually reflected Church teachings only indirectly. What has emerged as a more serious problem for some Catholics is their perception, sometimes accurate, that official Church teachings are changing. For example, the Council no longer identified the Church of Christ exclusively with the Catholic Church but spoke of the Orthodox as Church and of Protestant bodies as "ecclesial" or churchly

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communities. It declared salvation to be possible even for those who do not acknowledge Christ. The Council taught that lay people share in the priestly, prophetic, and servant leadership roles of Christ. The mutual love of married couples was presented as an end of Matrimony on a par with procreation of children. Among theologians many new ideas began to circulate about original sin and actual sin, the Eucharist, Christ's human knowledge, and a number of other topicsso much so that some people in their confusion were asking: "Is nothing stable? Is everything up for grabs?"

I would like to think that this lecture might help us examine and better understand this fact of historythat not only in our times, but throughout Christian history, Church teaching has in some respects been stable and unchanging but in other ways has been impermanent and changing. I hope that understanding how changes in Church teachings come about will help to overcome the polarization that has taken place in the Church in recent years. I would like it to assist those who are disturbed by change, and even those who wish to resist all change. I hope it will also aid

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those who are looking for more change and are impatient that it comes too slowly if at all.

The focus of this lecture, therefore, is on the second half of the title: "Stability and Change in Church Teachings." The discussion of "Faith, History, and Cultures" (the first part of the title) will, I think, give some understanding of how Church teachings incorporate elements of stability but also undergo change, and how in fact changes do take place without subverting our fundamental Catholic faith.

1. Faith

We begin with faith and the object of faith. Let us be clear from the startin its deepest sense, our faith does not stop at statements, does not merely adhere to propositions, does not have as its final object official Church doctrines. Our faith goes through such statements and doctrines and beyond them in order to adhere to God; our faith rests in the mysterious divine Reality that is the ineffable Source and Savior of all beings; our faith is IN the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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There are many definitions of faith. 1 We might describe faith as basically an habitual disposition or act by which we give over or surrender our mind, heart, and willour whole beingto the very mystery of God, to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We give ourselves over to these Persons known truly but obscurely by Their revealing Themselves as Self-giving, as outpouring Love, as full of hesed and emeththat is, of merciful kindness and fidelity, the names God used when he revealed himself to Moses after putting him in the cleft of a rock to preserve him during the vision.2 The prologue to the Gospel according to John tells us that in Jesus Christ we see the full revelation of God's merciful kindness and fidelity.3

Faith is a risk, a choice in which our minds are moved by our will and heart, all under the sweet impulse of the Holy Spirit. Faith is a gift of God's graciousness, for by faith we assent to God and the Truth that God is, although not as if we see or know God in the way we know natural things. It is in God that our faith finds its stability and permanence; it is God as the true object of faith Who is the source of the stability of Church teachings. To

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understand how there can be both stability and change in Church teachings, we must have a sense of the mysterious Reality of God, that infinite Reality far beyond anything we might imagine or express.

Many Catholics, I suspect, think that having faith consists in believing statements about faith, in accepting verbal propositions about God or other mysteries. Instead, let us listen to Augustine as he tries to formulate statements about the mysterious Reality of God.

Therefore the realities [res] that are to be enjoyed are the Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and they are a Trinity, one certain supreme Reality (una quaedam summa res) that is common to all who enjoy it, if indeed it is a reality and not the cause of all realities, if indeed it is a cause. For it is not easy to be able to find a name befitting so great an excellence. 4

In his commentary on the Gospel according to John, Augustine beautifully compares statements about Godeven those found in Scripturewith the inexpressible Reality of God

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By comparison with the light [of God] to which we shall come [in heaven], the daylight we live in is night. But when our Lord Jesus Christ comes, He will illumine the hidden things of darkness. . . . Then the lamps (lucernae) we use in this life will not be necessary.

[He explains what these lamps are]: There will be no need to listen to the prophets or to hear the letters of Paul. There will be no need of John's witness, nor even of the Gospels themselves. In the dark night of this world we need the Scriptures as lamps, but when Christ comes, the Scriptures will no longer be needed and they will be taken away.

When they are taken away, when that clear true light shines on us, what shall we see? What shall our minds feed on? The One of whom the Gospel speaks when it says: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In this life, only a dew (ros) was sprinkled upon you, but then you will, come to the fountain (fons). In this life, only a ray of light broke through the gloomy darkness to reach your heart; there you will see the unobstructed light itself. Dearly beloved, John the Evangelist himself has told us: We are children of God, and it has not yet become clear what we shall be. But we know that when God appears, we shall be like to God because we shall see God as God is. 5

The point in quoting Augustine here is to emphasize that our faith in this life, while

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nurtured by the Scriptures (and by Church teachings), uses them to go to the Reality of God, that "one certain supreme Reality" we shall see or know clearly only in heaven.

When instructing the Christian woman, Proba, on prayer, Augustine says: "We cannot know God as God is, indeed we do not know God," so that, Augustine continues, "there is in us what I might call a kind of 'learned ignorance'[an ignorance that is] learned because it is instructed by the Holy Spirit, who helps our weakness." 6

This doctrine is not peculiar to St. Augustine. Eastern patristic authors such as Gregory of Nyssa emphasize it even more strongly. Thus Gregory begins his comment on the text of the Song of Songs, "Your name is perfume poured forth," as follows:

To me something like the following is signified through this verse: the unlimited [divine] nature cannot be accurately contained by a name; rather, every capacity for concepts and every form of words and names, even if they seem to contain something great and befitting God's glory, are unable to grasp God's reality. But starting from certain traces and sparks, as it were, our words aim at the unknown, and from what we can grasp we

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make conjectures by a kind of analogy about the ungraspable. 7

Gregory then relates the perfume poured forth to the divinity and the odor of the perfume to our names for the divinity:

Whatever name we may adopt to signify the perfume of divinity, it is not the perfume itself which we signify by our expressions; rather, we reveal just the slightest trace of the divine odor by means of our theological terms. As in the case of jars from which perfume has been poured out, the perfume's own nature is not known. But from the slight traces left from the vapors in the jar we get some idea about the perfume that has been emptied out. Hence we learn that the perfume of divinity, whatever it is in its essence, transcends every name and thought.8

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, writing in the late fourth or early fifth century, strongly influenced western theology and mysticism with his "apophatic theologies," or negative statements about God. By such negations, he says, we must deny all names and attributes of God in the way these names and attributes are used of creatures. He adds: "If someone, having seen God, has understood what he has seen, he has not seen God:

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he has seen of God something of the order of beings and of things to be known. 9 The person of faith, he holds, must remain united with God in a darkness of unknowing: "At the end of the ascent, [discourse] will be totally silent because totally united to the One Whom no words can describe."10

Thomas Aquinas was a mystic whose faith dominated his extensive use of reason in theology. He was strongly influenced by the Pseudo-Dionysius, as is clear when he discusses Qui est, "The One Who is," as the proper name of God.

. . .This name, "The One Who is," expresses be-ing that is absolute and not limited by something added to it. That is why Damascene says it signifies not what God is but rather a sea of substance that is in a certain sense infinite and not limited. Hence when we proceed into God (in Deum) by the way of removing [names from God], we first negate corporeal things of God, and then even intellectual attributes such as goodness or wisdom in the way they are found in creatures. Then there remains in our intellect only that God is and nothing more. . . . Finally, however, we negate of God even this very existing according as it is found in creatures, and then [our minds] remain in a certain dark ignorance. It is in this ignorance, as Dionysius says,

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that we are best joined to God in this present life, this ignorance being a kind of cloud in which God is said to dwell. 11

All the great mystics have said how impossible it is to speak accurately of God after their contemplative or ecstatic experience of God. In saying this they are simply repeating Paul's inability to speak of what he had seen when rapt into the third heaven.12 John of the Cross, for instance, expresses in his poetry the very stammering of creatures as they try to reveal the graces of the Beloved to the mystic wounded by love:

And all those that serve

Relate to me a thousand graces of thee,

And all wound me the more

And something that they are stammering

Leaves me dying.13

"And something that they are stammering": in the Spanish the stammering is expressed as follows: "Un no sé qué que quedan balbuciendo."

From all these great doctors we learn something that is crucial for our subject: our human language, even that of Scripture or the dogmatic definitions by the Church, falls far

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short of enclosing our mysterious, infinite, ineffable God within its bounds. What Scripture and dogmas express about God is true, but always imperfectly and incompletely true.

We can approach this matter, still with relation to faith, from another viewpoint. Thomas Aquinas, building on Augustine, distinguishes three kinds of faith: believing something about God, believing God, and believing in God; in Latin these three ways are credere DEUM, credere DEO, and credere IN DEUM. Believing something about God is the belief or faith we evince concerning those things that are expressed in the statements or propositions of faith, as when we recite the Creed. We name the truths we believe about God: that God is, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ lived, died, rose from the dead to save us, that the Holy Spirit is in the Church for the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. To believe God is to believe the truths of faith because God, the first Truth, reveals them to us, and God is trustworthy. Believing in God is adhesion to God as our total truth and goodthis under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. To believe in God is the

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deepest meaning of faith; it is to adhere not simply to statements about God but to inhere in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit mysteriously and really present, indeed dwelling in us as objects of our faith and love. 14

The Scriptures and Church teachings, whose stability and change we are investigating, are the object of ''faith about'' or "believing something about God" (credere Deum in Aquinas' language). We do need both the Scriptures and Church dogmatic teachings in order that, as a community of faith, we may come together in confessing and expressing what we believe. But these are not, or should not be, the stopping point of our faith. As Aquinas says succinctly and pertinently, "The act of the believer does not terminate at the statement but at the Reality (ad rem, the Reality of God)."15 Our faith does not terminate with the words of Scripture or creeds or offical teachings but goes through them to the divine Reality. We recall Augustine's speaking of that "one certain supreme Reality (res)" when he tried to speak of the divine Trinity. Again, Aquinas in his commentary on the Pauline text about "the hearing of faith," (Rom 10:17), says that this hearing of faith "is

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a hearing of the words signifying the things that are of faith, but [it is] not [a hearing] of the very realities (rerum) about which faith is concerned." 16

The distinction between statements of faith (sometimes called "beliefs") and God as the object in Whom the believer's faith immerses itself may perhaps be illustrated by an example from space science. The journey of the spacecraft Voyager II was so successful that it has been compared to the discoveries of Marco Polo or Christopher Columbus in their voyages of discovery. Voyager II sent back signals that were decoded into photographs of the various planets it passed. These photographs provided an enormous amount of new data about the planets and our solar system. They were, of course, only imperfect glimpses of the planets and the solar system, but what a great increase in our knowledge they gave! But then, after passing the last planet, the spacecraft continued on its journey and plunged into the outer obscurity and mystery of space beyond our solar system.

We may perhaps think of Church teachings and the Mystery of God in a similar fashion. Through Scripture, as handed down

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and interpreted in the Tradition of the Church, God has given us extraordinary knowledge of the divine Mystery and of the workings of divine Wisdom and Love in human history. They are rich truths by which we express our faith and live our Christian lives. But, like the photographs coming from the spacecraft, these teachings of Scripture and the Church give only a limited grasp of the infinite Mystery of God. And as the spacecraft plunged into the outer darkness of our mysterious universe, so the gifts of faith, hope, and love, when they are truly alive and fully lived, plunge the Christian into the inexpressible Mystery of God. To repeat what Thomas Aquinas says, "Our faith does not terminate at the propositions, but at the Reality" of God. And as Christians live by their faith, hope, and love in this divine Reality, the statements or teachings about this Reality may be examined, deepened, and modified without ever contradicting the truths expressed in the earlier teachings.

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2. The fact of change 17

If we are clear about the distinction between the mysterious object of faith on the one hand, and the statements of Scripture, the creeds, or Church doctrines related to that object on the other, we can begin to see the areas of stability and the areas of possible change in Church teachings. The stability of Church teachings is really the stability of God and of the works of God. The area of possible change is the body of statements related to the object of faith. Moreover, within this corpus we must distinguish three levels of teaching, and note the degree of stability or change in each.

Over the centuries a fairly large body of Church decisions developed and found expression in official documents. For the most part, however, the doctrines they expressed were not matters of strict faith but rather of official or authoritative teaching. Over time and with new insights a number of these official pronouncements have been modified and even laid aside. In these cases Church officials prefer to speak of a "homogeneous development" rather than of a discontinuous

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change, although in some cases it is hard to see any homogeneity.

It was only since the sixteenth century that official catechisms like The Catechism of the Council of Trent or The Baltimore Catechism began to be written and came to be used. Luther had been very successful in spreading his views by using a catechism, and Catholics seeking reform responded with catechisms of their own. Although official approval of these catechisms gave them a stamp of authority and surety for teachers, little if any attempt was made to distinguish between three levels in catechism statements: teachings of strict faith; teachings not of faith but given official sanction by authoritative but not infallible teaching; the explanations commonly agreed upon by theologians to problems or questions related to the faith and teaching of the Church. The same thing often happened in preaching. In other words, catechisms, other books of teaching, and preaching failed to make a clear difference among teachings that are (1) dogmas or truths strictly of faith, (2) official Church teaching (sometimes called Church doctrine, although Church doctrine includes dogmas), and (3) common

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theological opinions. The failure to do so is the source of so much confusion and insecurity among many Catholics when they see theologians and teachers of religion struggle to bring the Gospel to people today.

To examine the fact of stability and change within these three levels, each should be examined. The first and the apparently least difficult level to identify would be the one of teachings that are only theological opinions, that are neither doctrines of faith nor authoritative teachings of the magisterium past or present. Some obvious examples from older catechisms were their teachings on Limbo, on the nine choirs of angels, or the seven commandments of the Church. Changes in such theological opinions have happened since the early days of the Church: for example, the medieval theological opinion about Limbo replaced the more severe opinion of Augustine and of the Council of Carthage: they held that infants dying without Baptism suffer in some small degree in hell. Modern theologians tend to hold that the text of Paul (1 Tim 2:4), "God our Savior. . .desires all to be saved," allows us to have confident hope that such infants can be saved and be

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with their parents in heaven.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, it might seem simple enough at first glance to isolate those truths that are strictly of faith either because they have always been held as such without question or because they have been defined as such by councils or popes. To do this, however, is not so simple as it seems. We are well aware of the dangers of biblical fundamentalismthe risk of error that comes from lifting biblical texts from their historical context or literary form and quoting them absolutely as if they could be fully understood today without any study or interpretation. A similar danger lies in a practice common among certain theologians. This is the all too frequent practice of lifting texts of past councils or popes from their historical and other contexts; these texts are then quoted absolutely as if they could be fully understood today without study or interpretation. Just as we need hermeneutics of biblical texts, so we see more today that we need hermeneutics of Catholic dogmatic statements. 18

Often conciliar or papal texts on matters of faith are quoted without reference to the question that was under discussion. How

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strange it would be if the tapes of a radio or television interview were edited and we were given only the answers without the questions, and if these answers were made absolute statements of truth!

A good example of the problems this method creates is a statement of the First Vatican Council that solemn definitions of the pope are "irreformable of themselves and not from the consent of the Church." 19 This phrase was included with a very precise intent. It was meant to avoid any trace of nineteenth-century Gallicanism or earlier Conciliarism, according to which juridical consent by bishops or a council would be required in some due form (e.g., a referendum or vote) before papal definitions would be valid. The added phrase was not intended to eliminate the broader patristic and theological notion of consent by the Church. It should not, therefore, be used, as it has been, to justify the exaggerated view that the pope is independent of the rest of the Church, a view taught in some textbooks and sometimes evident in Church practice. The Second Vatican Council recognized that the papal office exists only in union with the collegial activity of

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other bishops and in relation to the reception or acceptance of teaching in the whole Church by consensus.

Other problems in this area have been pointed out. Medieval councils as well as the Council of Trent used terms such as "heresy" and "anathema" or "of faith" (de fide) in a looser sense than did the First Vatican Council and many theologians today. One cannot therefore conclude from the use of these terms that the doctrines in question are, strictly speaking, either opposed to faith if they are called heretical or if an anathema is attached. Nor are doctrines strictly of faith when a teaching is said by these earlier councils to be de fide. 20

An even more radical question has been raised as a result of the Second Vatican Council's reference to the Orthodox as "Church" and to other Christian traditions as "ecclesial" (that is, "churchly") communities. If Christ's Church ''subsists in" but is not totally identical with the Catholic Church,21 and if the Orthodox and others are in some way "Church,''22 many councils considered ecumenical or universal may in actual fact not have been so because, to take the most

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certain case, the Orthodox were not present. As a consequence, it has been argued that the teachings of many councils (from First Lateran in 1124 through the Council of Trent and the two Vatican Councils) may indeed be authoritative councils for the particular Churches united with the Church of Rome, but cannot be considered ecumenical councils. As a result, questions may be raised as to how strictly of faith are the doctrinal definitions of such councils. Thus even in the area of strict dogmas of faith there are nuances and delicate concerns to be considered.

Between dogmas, or truths strictly of faith, and generally held theological opinions lies the area that is causing much difficulty and controversy today, that of official teaching by Church authorities. These teachings are not strictly of faith but are proposed by Church authorities for the faithful to accept. What is called the teaching authority or magisterium of bishops and, in a special way, of the bishop of Rome, the pope, might better be thought of as their ministry or service of truththat truth of which bishops and popes are neither authors nor sole possessors and to

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which they, like all Christians, are subject. Pope Paul VI said this very clearly: ". . .In the area of divine doctrine, there is but one primacy: the primacy of revealed truth, of faith, which both theology and the Church's magisterium desire to support unanimously in their different ways." 23

It should be stressed at once that this teaching ministry or service is always to be respected and should have the benefit of doubt for those without special competence or experience in the matter at hand. But it does not and cannot command unthinking obedience from those who do have theological competence or specialized knowledge or particular experience (e.g., married people in family questions). The authorities in the Church do notordinarily at least!receive their teachings directly from the Holy Spirit. They have to consult experts, examine arguments, look to the doctrines of faith and received tradition (if it is truly a tradition that cannot be modified over time), and try to reach the conclusion that will best guide the Christian faithful. Pope Paul VI said that he must consult his fellow bishops and theologians when exercising his teaching office; he

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said he must be "the first. . .to measure [the] object [of his magisterium] against the Word of God, to compare it with the faith of the Church, and to strengthen [his] mind with the pious and prudent study of the learned, and to request the advice of our brothers in the episcopate." 24

Problems some people find in this area of non-infallible official teaching, such as difficulties about papal teaching on women or birth control or the ethics of in vitro fertilization for married couples, should not obfuscate the great contributions this ordinary, day by day teaching makes to the life of the Church and indeed of all society. One can think, for example, of the great series of papal encyclicals on social matters, or the increased resistance in our times by popes and episcopal conferences to evils such as consumerism, racism, injustice, oppression, inequity in distribution of wealth, the destruction of the environment, etc. Nevertheless, these authoritative teachers are not infallibly guided in their work. So long as they are not repeating doctrines strictly of faith, their statements, even those expressed in solemn encyclicals or declarations by popes, councils, bishops or

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groups of bishops, are not infallible. In any case, the new Code of Canon Law says that "no doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such." 25

The more numerous non-infallible authoritative statements can sometimes be based on imperfect knowledge, inadequate or too limited consultation, insufficient experience of the matters at hand, hasty judgment, fear, sometimes unfounded, about the effects of certain teachings or practices. They can be reversed or modified over time, as indeed a certain number have been. It is interesting to note that the index in Denzinger-Schönmetzer, the much-used collection of official texts of councils, popes, synods, bishops, etc., has a section indicating official texts that either have had to be modified by later teaching or can be accepted only with qualification in the light of the later life and experience of the Church.26

Among the many examples of changes in official Church teachings the following may be mentioned. Slavery was justified in official teaching for over 1400 years but was finally rejected in our century. Religious liberty was

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denied as a a right of non-Catholics until the Second Vatican Council. Crucial decisions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission earlier in this century, which severely limited Catholic biblical scholars, were modified later in this century. The dictum, "Outside the Church there is no salvation," was interpreted narrowly and strictly for centuries, and only gradually was a broader view accepted: in fact, Father Leonard Feeney was excommunicated in the 1940's for preaching the older, narrow view. Although Pope Pius XII in 1950 held that one could not teach a plurality of first human beings (polygenism), new theological research into the nature of original sin and its transmission has allowed this restriction to be set aside. Various earlier authoritative statements about the sacraments have been modified.

Again, where before it was thought that only bishops could give Confirmation, now priests are allowed to do so in certain cases. Although the material elements of the Eucharist always had to be bread and wine, in 1974 priests suffering from alcoholism were allowed to substitute unfermented grape juice for winea not insignificant change in the

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central sacrament of our faith. 27 Where formerly the procreation of children was said to be the one primary end of marriage, in the Second Vatican Council the mutual love and support of the couples was declared to be equally primary. Nor would any modern pope, council, or bishop repeat the teaching of Pope St. Gregory I (+ 604) that pleasure befouls the intercourse of married people and that they should not receive the Eucharist the morning after intercourse. The material and formal elements of the sacraments of Confirmation and Order have been changed over the centuries.28

These past changes in authoritative teachings by the magisterium show us that there is room, within careful limits, for a respectful difference of judgment on the part of qualified persons in the face of contemporary statements. While insisting on reverence for sacred matters, on due respect for the magisterium, and on care for the consciences of less educated persons, the bishops of the United States, assessing the situation after the publication of Humanae vitae on artificial birth control, acknowledged that "there exist in the Church a lawful freedom of inquiry and

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of thought and also general norms of licit dissent." They added: "This is particularly true in the area of legimate theological speculation and research." 29

This does not mean, of course, that preachers, catechists, and other educators should immediately adopt every latest theological opinion, itself often untested and perhaps soon to be left aside. One hopes that there would not be many cases like that of the priest who said to a person wondering about transsubstantiation: "You don't want to be a cannibal, do you?" Such glibness, not to say ignorance of a specific historical attempt to understand the mystery of the Eucharist, not only offends such inquirers but does nothing to enlighten and help. (The doctrine was, in fact, developed in part to overcome the idea that we chew and eat the physical body of Christ!) This is not to say that we cannot look for new ways of understanding the mysteries. But such theological developments must first undergo the test of mutual criticism and receive a degree of consensus before past views are set aside. Until such a consensus is reached, a new theological view should be considered no more than a possible opinion.

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3. History

This quick survey shows that, while our faith penetrates the words of Scripture, creeds, and dogmatic definitions to the very Reality of God and God's saving work in Jesus Christ, the formulation or expression of that faith can and has changed over time. To understand how and why such change takes place, we must now examine the second of the three items in our title: history.

In Method in Theology, Bernard Lonergan presents history as the third functional specialty, and when he analyzes the functional specialty of doctrines, he emphasizes the historicity of dogmas. 30 History, the historicity of dogmas, indeed the historicity of all Church teaching: this is the place to begin our considerations. Recent centuries have seen a remarkable growth of historical consciousness, together with the development of critical history, sociology, ethnology, social psychology, and hermeneutical theory. Most theologians have become convinced that all truth is grasped in an historically conditioned way. Most agree, therefore, that creeds, dogmatic statements, official non-dogmatic Church

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teachings, and theological positions, are historically conditioned. 31

How, indeed, could it be otherwise? We human beings, and the social groups within which we live, work out our destinies through time and history. We achieve our personal and social identity through historical memories; these historical memories give meaning to our lives and situations and provide a base from which we can act in the present and move toward a new future. But are not these teachings true, one might ask, and is not such truth eternal and so above history? Suarez and later scholastic theologians would say yes to this question, but Thomas Aquinas would say no. He maintains that only God's Truth, Truth in the divine mind, is eternal. Aquinas' position has been set forth by my colleague, Armand Maurer, who says that "there is no room in St. Thomas' thought for created eternal truths, for this would imply that God could give truths eternal being, which is reserved for [God] alone." He adds that for Aquinas "nothing created exists eternally or immutablynot even truths in human minds. They are contingent on the existence of these minds and subject to their temporal

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vicissitudes. The discovery of truth itself has a temporal and historical dimension.'' 32 This latter view would find favor with most contemporary scholars, including those in the natural sciences.

Karl Rahner, in an essay published posthumously in 1985, holds that ''the history of faith-consciousness is not at its end, and its future will always be brought about in company with reflection on what has gone before. This is self-evident for an historical religion, which is something other than a metaphysics having the tendency to eliminate as much as possible its historical conditioning."33

The entire work of the great French theologian, Marie-Dominique Chenu, was governed by such an awareness of the historical situating of the life of Christians, and therefore a similar historical situating of theology and of Church teachings. Chenu influenced the development of the Second Vatican Council's document, Gaudium et spes (On the Church in the world of today), a document that reflects a new ecclesial attitude not only toward the world, its history, and its development, but also to what the Church can learn from the world through its

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history. Chenu once said: "God has entered into history, and it is in history that I find understanding of God's mystery. Prior to the faith that is put into concepts is the faith that is lived, and this is the first source of theology." He added that as a theologian "my place of work is the event" ("Mon lieu de travail, c'est l'évenement"). 34

Developments in many areas of contemporary theology, especially the introduction of new methods, have led to the question whether we are not in the midst of a profound change in fundamental outlooks and approaches in theology, changes that might perhaps be called revolutionary. Some theologians have sought to account for these changes in theology by referring to the influential views of the historian of science, Thomas S. Kuhn. His work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, presents a theory explaining how fundamental shifts in basic assumptions and methods occur in scholarly communities. In that work Kuhn constantly uses the term "paradigm" in two basic senses: one of them, he says in a later essay, "is global, embracing all the shared commitments of a scientific group; the other isolates a

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particularly important sort of commitment and is thus a subset of the first." 35 In his first work, Kuhn saw change, even "revolution," in scholarly communities as a shift in the accepted "paradigm." In a later essay, in which he acknowledges his earlier imprecision when using the term "paradigm,'' he prefers to adopt instead the term "disciplinary matrix"'''disciplinary'," he says, "because it is the common possession of the practitioners of a professional discipline and 'matrix' because it is composed of ordered elements of various sorts, each requiring further elucidation."36

Whether or not one accepts Kuhn's theory completely, his views do direct us to see in the history of theology, and indeed in Church teachings, examples of important shifts in basic assumptions, whether these be called "paradigms" or "disciplinary matrices" or, as some would prefer, "conceptual changes" or "shifts in models." The most decisive historical event of all time was the incarnation, life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and this event certainly produced a tremendous shift or conceptual change, first of all within Judaism. Then followed another most decisive alteration of conceptual model in

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Christian dogma and life when Peter and Paul became instruments for the entry of the Gentiles into the Christian Church. There was probably no greater change in the history of the Church than its recognition that freedom in Christ exempted Gentile converts from the prescriptions of the Jewish law. We know, in fact, from Paul's life and writings how difficult it was for Judaeo-Christians to accept such a change in paradigm or model.

The spread of Christianity, especially but not exclusively in the Mediterranean basin, brought a new shift or model change in dogma, doctrine, and theology in at least two ways. One was the development of the notion of "catholicity," that is, of unity of faith within a variety of peoples and ways of life. The Fathers of the Church were amazed to see that the one message of the Gospel was accepted and lived by such a variety of peoples in so many different ways.

The other shift took place through the contact of Christianity with Hellenic culture. This contact led to the use of new concepts and vocabulary within the very creeds professing faith in the central mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation. The early Christian

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schools, such as those of Alexandria and Ephesus, had already begun this process by their theological efforts. Then the Councils of Nicea (325) and 1st Constantinople (381) expressed the Gospel truths in their formulations of faith by resorting to terms such as homoousios, hypostasis, prosoponterms not found in Scripture, but deemed necessary to express the faith more clearly against those whom they considered to be misusing Scripture to defend false teachings. In the next century, the Council of Ephesus (431) defended the divinity of Jesus by proclaiming Mary Theotokos or "God-bearing" (whence our western "Mother of God"), and the Council of Chalcedon (451) spoke of the two ''natures" (physeis) in Christ coming together into one hypostasis or prosopon of the Son of God. 37 One wonders whether Peter or Paul, or Jesus himself, would have understood all this!

Without going into the technicalities, we may note one interesting fact: in 325 the Council of Nicea used the term hypostasis as equivalent to ousia (essence), whereas in 381 the Council of Constantinople and in 431 the Council of Chalcedon used hypostasis as

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equivalent to prosopon (person) and in opposition to ousia or essence. 38 Where the earlier Council of Nicea used hypostasis to refer to the oneness of being in God, these later councils, only a few decades or a century later, used the same term to speak of one of the three persons in God, the person of the Word or Son of God, so that now there were said to be three hypostaseis in God. This remarkable shiftfrom hypostasis as referring to something one to its referring to the three personsshows that the vocabulary about the divine mysteries can undergo change within history without the fundamental mysteries themselves changing. This should free us from excessive fear that new formulations of the mysteries are unfaithful when, in fact, they are often attempts to make the mysteries more meaningful to people in a different age and culture. The stability of our faith is, once again, the stability of the true object of our faith, the Reality of God, the Truth of God, the abiding mystery of God and God's saving work in and through Jesus Christ.

We could think of a number of other such important changes. For the west, the impact of Augustine's thought and writings gave rise

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to an enduring new model. The disputes about dialectic in the eleventh and twelfth century, followed by thirteenth-century arguments about the use of Aristotle and his Arabian commentators, could be considered equivalent to Kuhn's notion of a shift within a "disciplinary matrix." Within these discussions, the numerous papal and episcopal interventions, especially those of 1270 and 1277, make us aware of how profound a shift was taking place. 39 The Renaissance, and later the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, led to greatly changed outlooks. The paradigm or model for Catholic teachings from the sixteenth to the twentieth century might be said to have been that of the Council of Trent and a scholastic theology related to it.

In our own century, one might distinguish several such alterations in generally accepted models or frameworks for doing theology. One is peculiar to Catholicism; the others are more general. In the 1940's a fierce dispute arose between scholastic theologians and curial officials on the one hand and those proposing a "new theology" on the other.40 Attitudes toward history itself were deeply involved in this struggle. Earlier in the century

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Modernism, which made extensive use of historical studies, had been condemned. In the thirties and forties, however, continuing progress in historical studiesbiblical, patristic, liturgical, and theological, including a return to the source texts in these areasshook the established reign in curial teaching and in theology of a decadent type of scholastic theology; this late scholastic theology, I hasten to add, was far removed from the contemplative scholasticism of a Bonaventure or a Thomas Aquinas. Pius XII's encyclical Humani generis in 1950 and the silencing of theologians such as Henri de Lubac, Yves Congar, and Marie-Dominique Chenu were part of the fierce reaction from those who held to the established "paradigm" or "model" that governed not only theology but also official teaching and even the presentation of dogma. 41 On the other hand, the Second Vatican Council, at which the results of decades of biblical and historical research bore its fruit, vindicated the new approach to theology, official teaching, and dogma, and could indeed be seen as involving a paradigm shift or a model change.

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The second, more general change is the one taking place today within all Christian theology, a change that will, as is always the case with theology, have ramifications in official teaching and in the presentation of dogma. A recently-published book presents the papers and discussions from a 1985 conference of theologians from many traditions held at Tübingen. This symposium examined the state of contemporary theology explicitly in relation to the theories of Thomas Kuhn while at the same time subjecting Kuhn's theory to critical analysis. The general question was whether we are in the midst of developing a new paradigm or model of understanding. 42 One group of authors suggested that developments in theology stressing hermeneutics, politics, liberation, process, feminist viewpoints, ecology, and praxis are indeed contributing to such a change; others at the symposium suggested, however, that these distinct and important developments indicate that the future may see not one but many new paradigms or conceptual models that may have to live together.43 In these various theological approaches, questions of hermeneutical criticism are especially important

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for studying the historical documents of official teachings. They will therefore have considerable influence on the presentation of Church teachings. The question that will face theologians is one suggested by some of the participants in the symposium and by Avery Dulles in his review of the proceedings: how will the new paradigms or conceptual models be related to what is valid in the preceding ones, and in particular how will they be related to the canonical scriptures and normative creeds? 44

What is the driving force within history that leads to these changes in perspective, and so to new theological views and ultimately to modifications in official Church teachings as well as to the reformulation and development of the dogmas of faith? There are, I think, two general forces. A culture that is relatively continuous throughout its history will, as it progresses, encounter new experiences, new opportunities, new problems, and these will inevitably raise questions about the ultimate values of that culture. Our western culture has been particularly dynamic and changing in its history. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the impact of the discovery of new

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lands and the intensified emphasis on humanism raised great new questions for European civilization and for the Church. In later centuries, the great advances in science and technology, and the rise of industrialism, capitalism, and socialism have challenged western religious leaders and theologians in their attempts to proclaim the good news of God's saving love in Jesus Christ. Theology and, afterwards, Church teachings must inevitably change as they seek to respond to these new questions. It has ever been thus in the history of the Church, from the time of the writing of the Gospel accounts and the epistles, or from that of the early Church Fathers.

The second driving force leading to change in Church teachings is the need for inculturation of the Gospel in cultures that are different from the cultural matrix in which Christianity has developed in Europe and North America. This leads me to the third item in the title: Cultures.

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4. Cultures

Cultural variation in the world also contributes to change in Church teachings even while the fundamental faith remains. Earlier we met the theme of catholicityvariety within the unity of Catholic faith or, if you will, unity of Catholic faith within a variety of cultural milieux. Previously, catholicity was often taken to mean uniformity. Now, however, the need for inculturating the Gospel has led to a renewed emphasis on variety. 45 Inculturation, with its attendant requirement of catholicity, is now one of the most important themes in Church teaching, whether of popes, the Second Vatican Council or synods of bishops, and their teaching draws on and is advanced by the work of theologians. Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II have frequently said that the relation of the Gospel and the Church to different cultures is one of the greatest challenges for the Church in our times.46

Inculturation means that the Gospel must be allowed to take root in the diverse cultures of the worldin those of the newer Churches but also, in a renewed way, in cultures that

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formerly were strongly influenced by Christianity. Inculturation means that the preaching, worship, spiritual life, and institutional organization of Christians must be fed by the Gospel, yet must remain as free as possible of elements foreign to the culture in question. The Word of God and the life of the Church must incorporate the best elements of each culture while still criticizing elements in the culture that are incompatible with the Gospel message. One example of this was given by a missionary working in Africa, who had to try to convince the Masai herdsmen in Tanzania that stealing cattle from other tribessomething they thought perfectly correct and even laudableis not in harmony with the Gospel! 47

The catholicity of the Church should be understood as meaning that Christ and his Gospel are able to respect the particularities and diversities within humankind and human history and, at the same time, bring them into a harmonious unity that will not be an undiversified uniformity. This attitude was already given practical expression earlier in our century when Pope Pius XI encouraged the development first of native clergy and

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then of native bishops in mission countries. This had the practical effect of making the Second Vatican Council the most universally representative council in history. Under Pius XI there also appeared a document reversing earlier rejection of ceremonies in which the Chinese venerated their ancestors and Confucius. 48 The most important official endorsement of inculturation came from the Second Vatican Council, which spoke of the need for variety within unity with respect to the Church as a whole and also specifically in the liturgy, the ecumenical movement, the missions, the Eastern Churches, and the Church in the world of today.49 Drawing upon these teachings of the council, the new Code of Canon Law (25 January 1983) includes among the rights of all the faithful of the Church

the rights to worship God according to the provisions of their own liturgical rite approved by the lawful pastors of the Church; they also have the right to follow their own form of spiritual life, provided it is in accord with Church teaching.50

One senses in these qualifications, ''approval" and "accord with Church teaching," a continuing tension between the centrifugal pull of

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diverse cultures away from uniformity and the centripetal pull of Church leaders to unity and orthodoxy.

The special synod of bishops held in November, 1985, again asserted the right to inculturation while recognizing the need for it. Within a section of its document entitled ''The Church as Communion," the second paragraph speaks of "unity and pluriformity in the Church." It begins by stressing the oneness of God and goes on to discuss the one Mediator, Jesus Christ, one Baptism and one Eucharist; it then turns to the Church as a sign and instrument of unity. After speaking of ecclesial communion or union with Peter and his successors, it then speaks of variety within this unity:

On the other hand, the one and unique Spirit works with many and varied spiritual gifts and charisms (1 Cor. 12:4ff). The one Eucharist is celebrated in various places. For this reason, the unique and universal Church is truly present in all the particular Churches (Christus Dominus, 11), and these are formed in the image of the universal Church in such a way that the one and unique Catholic Church exists in and through the particular Churches (Lumen gentium, 23). Here we have the

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true theological principle of variety and pluriformity in unity. But it is necessary to distinguish pluriformity from pure pluralism. When pluriformity is true richness and carries fullness with it, this is true catholicity. The pluralism of fundamentally opposed positions instead leads to dissolution, destruction, and the loss of identity. 51

A number of observers have contended that the final warnings indicated in this text have led Roman authorities to be overly cautious and even to be consciously limiting the process of inculturation. On the other hand, a liturgy for Zaire incorporating many elements of its traditional culture has recently been approved by the Vatican.

"Inculturation" is the term most commonly used in Catholic discussions of these matters. It is preferred to words that were once used more frequently both in Church documents and by theologians, words such as "translation" of the Gospel or "adaptation'' of the Gospel and liturgy to a particular culture. These earlier terms tended to imply a certain self-superiority, that is, that the way the Gospel came to be expressed in the language, symbols, worship, myths, and institutions of European and American Christianity is

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superior to any other possible form. "Translation" and "adaptation" can imply the imposition of Europeanized or Americanized Christianity on other cultures. The terms could suggest that the Church does not take seriously the local culture, with its richness and suitability in relation to the Gospel.

In order to express a more positive outlook, new concepts and words are being used"indigenization," "contextualization," and "inculturation" itself. Sometimes these concepts and words are used with little differentiation among them, while at other times they are distinguished in important ways. "Inculturation'' itself, although preferred in theological circles, has been questioned by some sociologists who prefer to use the term "acculturation'' because "acculturation" expresses the interaction and mutual change that takes place when one culture comes into contact with another. I find this term better precisely because it brings out the issue we are dealing with: stability and change in Church teachings. Change in theology and subsequently in some Church teachings is brought about by the meeting of western Christianity with the many cultures of Africa

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and Asia, and with the native cultures of North and South America, Australia and New Zealand.

The process of acculturation or inculturation of the Gospel inevitably involves changechange obviously because the Gospel message has to be translated into new languages, but change also in conceptual frameworks, in symbolic and ritual expression, and change as well when the Church must respond to new practical situations found in different cultures. It is not enough to take established Church teachings and hand them over, as it were, from on high. Catholic teaching recognizes the working of the Holy Spirit in persons living in cultures that have developed without reference to Jesus Christ. 52 Hence it recognizes the need to listen and learn from the culture in order to discern what elements are consonant with the basic Gospel message, to discover what will help the reception of the Gospel, and what in turn will enrich the Christian faith by its being integrated with the good elements of the culture in question.53

This process does encounter difficulties. The Gospel must challenge elements in a

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culture that are inimical to the Christian faith. There is a danger of syncretism, in which Christian faith and worship function only as a kind of veneer without really becoming integrated with the deeper, persistent culture; this has happened in some areas of Africa and Brazil. Sometimes attempts to translate the Gospel fail because of misunderstandings. Thus the biblical notion of God's free redemption of the chosen people became distorted within Greco-Roman civilization when it was expressed in terms of that culture's notion of paying a price to free a slave. From this followed various types of price-paying analogies including, in some rhetorical flourishes, the idea that the blood of Jesus was the price paid to the devil to free human beings from enslavement to the devil. When St. Francis Xavier went to Japan, he thought at first that he had found the doctrine of the Trinity in their teachings and had to learn that this was not the case. The problems of levirate marriage customs, polygamy, and the role of deceased ancestors have posed problems for the Churches in Africa. Despite such problems, it is recognized ever more clearly that the work of inculturation must go on or

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the Gospel will not be at home in the many diverse cultures of our world.

The process of inculturation has its advantages for western Christianity as well as for others. It forces us to reexamine our theology and, in some cases, official teachings concerning the following doctrines: creation and the fall; the truly enculturated humanity of Jesus Christ and his relation to all cultures; the nature of the saving work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit; the theology of history; the theology of the Church; and the theology of revelation. This presentation cannot detail these themes, which I have examined elsewhere. 54

A particular kind of acculturation that leads to change in theology and eventually in Church teachings is the ecumenical movement. Within western Christianity one might see this movement as an opening of Catholics to the cultural milieu of Anglicanism and Protestantism. But the ecumenical movement has a broader kind of acculturation found when Christians in non-western cultures enter into dialogue with each other (the ecumenical movement began in missionary territories); it broadens further when Christians everywhere reach out to dialogue with Jews, Muslims,

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Hindus, Buddhists, native religions, etc. In these ecumenical dialogues the participants examine their differences and the sources of their differences. These conversations, based on respect and constantly growing friendship and sympathy, lead to re-examination and often reformulation of the teachings of our Churchesnot by rejecting what is essential, but by finding what is truly essential, by discovering that apparent disagreements can be at least partially reconciled. 55 In this movement, especially among Christians, participants are greatly helped by the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that there exists a hierarchy among the truths of Church teaching, that is, an order of the more fundamental and basic truths (e.g., the Trinity, creation, Incarnation, Baptism, the Eucharist) with respect to other truths less fundamental but connected with them (e.g., the other sacraments, Marian doctrines).56

Conclusion

Acculturation and catholicity have brought out, even more explicitly than changes in conceptual models in western

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theology, the need and legitimacy of pluralism in theology. At his inaugural address to the International Theological Commission, Paul VI stated: "We willingly allow for the progress and variety of the theological sciences, that is, for the 'pluralism' which seems to characterize modern culture today." He remarked further that he intended "to respect the freedom of expression rightfully belonging to theological science, and the need for research inherent in its progress." 57

Since theology is distinct from official Church teaching, pluralism in theology is possible without compromising official Church teaching. But, as I have suggested several times in this lecture, changes in theology often result in change in Church teachings that are not dogmas of faith. They also at times affectthe understanding, development and reformulation of these dogmas as well. The role of theologians is important within this process. Both the Second Vatican Council and the Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities speak of theologians as those called to investigate and develop the relations between Christian revelation and contemporary cultures.58 Such a role inevitably

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involves new research, testing of new ideas, questioning of received opinions, and at times disagreement with ecclesial authorities. Although the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's instruction on the ecclesial vocation of theologians fails to mention this intermediary role of theologians between faith and culture, it does say of tensions that can arise between theologians and the magisterium: "If tensions do not spring from hostile and contrary feelings, they can become a dynamic factor, a stimulus to both the magisterium and theologians to fulfill their respective roles while practicing dialogue." 59

The changes in Church teachings resulting from historical development and acculturation may be upsetting for some. Yet they hold exciting prospects for the future of the Church and of theology, and so inevitably for new presentations of official Church teachings. This does not mean laying aside the fundamental stability of our faith in God and in God's saving work through Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, but it does mean, I think, new insights, new visions, and an enrichment of our understanding and living of the Gospel undreamed of in earlier centuries.

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It is to be hoped that the whole Churchmagisterial authorities, the clergy, and the faithfulwill not be afraid of legitimate change. It is to be hoped that they will remain open to the influence of the Holy Spirit in our day, leading prophetic and charismatic Christians to new insights for the good of the Church and the world. The Holy Spirit must not be extinguished. The whole Church recognizes the working of the Spirit when it receives the newly proposed ideas. 60 Allowing this reception by the whole Church to function will allow us, in our day, to do as Jesus said, to be like the good householder, to bring forth from the storehouse of the Gospel and Tradition things both old and new.

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Abbreviations

CCL = Corpus Christianorum: Series latina

DS = Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declaritionum de rebus fidei et morum. Eds. Henricus Denzinger and Adolfus Schönmetzer. 36th ed. Barcelona: Herder, 1976.

PG = Patrologia graeca

PL = Patrologia latina

Tanner = Decrees of the Ecumenical Council. 2 vols. [Original texts with English translations]. Ed. Norman E. Tanner. London: Sheed and Ward; Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1990.

Notes

1. Hebrews 11:1 (Estin de pistis elpizomenôn hupostasis, pragmatôn elenchos ou blepomenôn; Vulgate: Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.) is translated variously and has received divers commentaries.

2. See Exodus 34: 57.

3. Jn 1: 14,1617.

4. De doctrina christiana 1.5.5; CCL 32.9.

5. Tractatus in Iohannem, tr. 35.9; CCL 36.32223.

6. Epistulae, epist. 139.14.2715.28; Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 44.7172. The whole text reads: "There [with God] is that fountain of life which we must now thirst for in prayer, so long as we live in hope and do not yet see what we hope for. In that light [of God] we shall see light, when our desire for the good will be satiated and there will be nothing further for us to seek by groaning, but we will embrace it by rejoicing [in the Latin there is a word-play on gemendo and gaudendo].

"But since God is that peace which surpasses all understanding, even when we ask for that peace in prayer, we do not know what to pray for as we ought. For we cannot know God as God is, indeed we do not know Godso whatever thought occurs to

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us we reject, we despise, we condemn, knowing that this is not what we seek, although we do not yet know it as it is.

"So there is in us what I might call a kind of learned ignorance (docta ignorantia)[an ignorance that is] 'learned' because it is instructed by the Holy Spirit, who helps our weakness. For while the Apostle had said: If we hope for what we do not see, we await it with patience, yet he adds there: Likewise the Spirit helps our weakness; for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes for us with unutterable groanings."

7. Commentary on the Song of Songs, Homily 1 (on ch. 1, v. 3); trans. Casimir McCambley (Brookline, Mass. 02146: Hellenic College Press, 1987), p. 53. Greek text in PG 44.781,784, and in H. Langerbeck, ed., in vol. 6 (Leiden, 1960), of W. Jaeger, ed., Opera, pp. 3637. Gregory repeats this theme frequently in relation to other texts of this book.

8. Gregory of Nyssa, loc. cit.

9. Epist. 1; PG 3.1065A.

10. De theologia mystica, 3; PG 3.1033C.

11. Scriptum super Sententiis 1, d. 8, q. 1, a. 1 ad 4. Toward the start of his Summa theologiae (1.3.prol.) he says: "Because we cannot know what God is (quid sit) but rather what God is not (quid non sit), we cannot consider how God is (quomodo sit) but rather how God is not (quomodo non sit)."

12. See 2 Cor 12:24: ". . .He heard things that cannot be told, that man may not utter.'

13. Spiritual Canticle 7; trans. E. Allison Peers, The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross 2 (westminster, Md.: Newman, 1945), p. 53. The Spanish text may be found in St. John of the Cross: Poems, trans. Roy Campbell (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1960) p. 32. Campbell translates the phrase as: "Babbling I know not what. . . ."

14. See Aquinas, Summa theologiae 2-2, q. 2, a. 2, and 1, q. 43, aa. 35. Cf. Augustine, Sermones ad populum, s. 144.2 (PL 38.788), and Tractatus in Iohannem, tr. 29.6 (CCL 36.287; PL. 35.1631).

15. Summa theologiae 2-2, q. 1, a. 2 ad 2.

16. ibid., a. 4 ad 4.

17. Much of the material in this section is based on a section of my article, "Changing Church Teachings," Grail: An Ecumenical Journal 6 (1990) 1340.

18. See Walter Principe, "The Hermeneutic of Roman Catholic

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Dogmatic Statements.'' SR: Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 2 (1972) 15775 (includes further bibliography); Avery Dulles, The Survival of Dogma (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1971), p. 198; George H. Tavard, ''Hierarchia Veritatum': A Preliminary Investigation," Theological Studies 32 (1971) 27889, esp. p. 289.

19. DS 3074; Tanner 2.816.

20. See the references in Principe, "Hermeneutic," p. 172, n. 22.

21. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (On the Church), 8; Tanner 2.854.

22. idem, Unitatis Redintegratio (On Ecumenism), 1319; Tanner 2.91518.

23. "Address of Pope Paul VI to the International Theological Commission," The Pope Speaks 14 (1969) 200203; Latin original text in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 61 (1969) 713716: see p. 715.

24. ibid., p. 714.

25. Canon 749 # 3. On this topic see, for instance, Patrick Granfield, The Limits of the Papacy (New York: Crossroad, 1987); Les conférences episcopales: Théologie, statut canonique, avenir, eds. Hervé Legrand, Julio Manzanares, and Antonio Garc!a y Garc!a (Paris: Cerf, 1988); Episcopal Conferences: Historical, Canonical and Theological Studies, ed. Thomas J. Reese (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Press, 1989). Several sections or essays in these works deal with the question of the teaching authority of popes, episcopal conferences, and bishops.

26. See DS, Index H 2c.

27. In 1983 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith revoked all general faculties formerly given to episcopal conferences or individual ordinaries in this matter, but "permissions previously granted to priests to use grape juice at Mass were not affected by this decision" (The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, eds. James A. Coriden, Thomas J. Green, and Donald E. Heintschel [New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1985], p, 658, commenting on canon 924). The congregation suggested that such priests could communicate by intinction at concelebrations. The Congregation's concern shows that it understands the doctrinal significance of this permission.

28. Other examples are given in Walter Principe, "When 'Authentic' Teachings Change." The Ecumenist 25/5 (JulyAugust 1987) 7073.

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29. The United States Bishops, "Human Life in Our Day: A Collective Pastoral of the American Hierarchy issued November 15, 1968," The Pope Speaks 13 (1968) 37788: see p. 386.

30. See Method (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972; paperback ed.: New York: Seabury, 1979), pp. 12728 and 32426.

31. Before Lonergan's Method, several studies of the late 1960's had already examined this question, among them: Winfried Schulz, Dogmenentwicklung als Problem der Geschichtlichkeit der Wahrheitserkenntnis, Analecta Gregoriana, 173 (Rome: Univ. Gregoriana, 1969); George Vass, "On the Historical Structure of Christian Truth, I & II," Heythrop Journal 9 (1968) 12542, 27489; Truth and the Historicity of Man: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 43 (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America, 1969); Neuntes Forschungsgespräch: Geschichlichkeit der Theologie, ed. Thomas Michels (Salzburg-Munich: Anton Pustet, 1970).

More recent studies include Dogmengeschichte und katholische Theologie, eds. Werner Löser, Karl Lehmann, and Matthias Lutz-Bachman (Würzburg; Echter, 1985). Related to our subject is an essay by Ulrich Köpf, "Dogmengeschichte oder Theologiegeschichte?" Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 85 (1988) 45573, and Walter Principe, "The History of Theology: Fortress or Launching Pad?" Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 43 (1988) 1940. In Paradigm Change (cited below, n. 42) the sections entitled "Historical Analyses" (pp. 113201) and "The Role of History in the New Paradigm'' (pp. 307351) deal with historicity of theology.

32. "St. Thomas and Eternal Truths," essay 4 in his Being and Knowing: Studies in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990; first published in Mediaeval Studies 32 [1970]), pp. 4358: the quotations are from pp. 57 and 58: emphasis his. Maurer precedes the first quotation by saying (p. 57): ". . .Truths can be thought of in themselves, but the only being or entity they have is that of the mind which thinks about them. If that mind is God's they have eternal being; if the mind is human they have temporal being." In this essay Maurer shows that early modern discussions of the nature of eternal truths were influenced by the Suarezian metaphysics of essence rather than by Aquinas' doctrine of esse.

See also, in the same collection of Maurer's essays, no. 7 ("St.

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Thomas and Historicity," pp. 95116, originally given in 1979 as the Marquette Aquinas Lecture), and no. 5 ("St. Thomas on the Sacred Name 'Tetragrammaton'," pp. 5969, originally in Mediaeval Studies 34 [1972] 27586).

33. See his "Dogmengeschichte in meiner Theologie," in Dogmengeschichte (cited above, n. 31), 32328. The quotation, from p. 325, reads as follows in the original: "Die Geschichte des Glaubensbewusstseins ist nicht zu Ende und ihre Zukunft wird immer such durch eine Reflexion auf die Vergangenheit mitbewirkt. Das ist fär eine geschichtliche Religion, die etwas anderes ist als eine Metaphysik mit ihre Tendenz, ihre geschichtlichen Bedingtheiten nach Kräften auszuschalten, selbstverständlich" (emphasis his). He adds (ibid.): "Die Lehre der Schrift und der Glaube der Väter bleiben immer eine wesentliche Norm für das Glaubensbewusstsein der Kirche, auch für jede denkbare Zukunft. Und darum muss das Glaubensbewusstsein, wie es in der Schrift und in der darauf folgenden Tradition gegeben ist, präsent bleiben, also immer wieder neu erforscht werden.''

34. M.-D. Chenu's statements are quoted by Bruno Chenu, "Mon lieu de travail, c'est l'évenement", in La Croix l'Évenement, 13 février 1990: see p. 17 for these quotations. In relation to Chenu's views and work see Jean Ladrière, "Théologie et historicité," in M.-D. Chenu et al., Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir (Paris: Cerf, 1985), pp. 6179.

35. The Structure has had two editions: Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962; 2nd ed. enlarged, 1970. Kuhn acknowledges imprecision in his use of the term "paradigm" in a later essay, "Second Thoughts on Paradigms," first published in 1974 and then in his The Essential Tension: Selected Studies in Scientific Tradition and Change (Chicago-London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 293319.

36. "Second Thoughts," p. 297.

37. For the First Council of Constantinople (381) see its letter to Pope Damasus and to the western bishops, written in 382 (Tanner 1.2530, especially 28). For the text of the Council of Ephesus see DS 25052 and Tanner 1.4144, and for the text of the Council of Chalcedon see DS 301302 and Tanner 1.8586.

38. See the texts of these councils referred to in n. 37.

39. See Walter Principe, "Bishops, Theologians, and Philosophers in

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Conflict at the Universities of Paris and Oxford: The Condemnations of 1270 and 1277," Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 40 (1985) 11426.

40. An example of the debates is M. Labourdette, M.-J. Nicolas, and R.-L. Bruckberger, Dominicains, Dialogue Théologique: Pièces du débat entre «La Revue Thomiste» d'une part et les R.R. P.P. de Lubac, Daniélou, Bouillard, Fessard von Balthasar, S.J., d'autre part (Saint-Maximin, Var: Les Arcades, 1947). See also M.-M. Labourdette and Marie-Joseph Nicolas, "Autour du «Dialogue Théologique», Revue Thomiste 47 (1947) 57785, which summarizes reactions of others to this particular debate.

41. For the major texts of Humani generis see DS 387599. The full text is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950) 56178; emendations of the text are found ibid. 42 (1950) 960.

42. The book is Paradigm Change in Theology: A Symposium for the Future, eds. Hans Küng and David Tracy, trans. Margaret Köhl (New York: Crossroad, 1989).

Another examination of the changing outlooks in contemporary theology is given in a series of essays by Johann Auer, Walter Kasper, Kurt Krenn, Josef Rief, and Joseph Schumacher, under the general heading, "Zu Gestalt heutiger Theologie," in Veritati Catholicae: Festschrift für Leo Scheffczyk. . ., eds. Anton Ziegenaus, Franz Courth, Philipp Schäfer (Aschaffenburg: Pattloch Verlag, 1985), pp. 15155.

43. The question of unity and pluralism in theology, implied in these changes, is examined in a concluding essay by David Tracy, in Paradigm Change, pp. 46171: "Unity amidst Diversity and Conflict." This question will return briefly below.

44. See his review in The Tablet, 7 July 1990, p. 858. See also the quotation from Rahner above, p. 32 and n. 33 (p. 60), on the need for a developing consciousness of faith to work in company with the sources from the past.

45. See Walter Principe, "Catholicity: A Threat or Help to Identity?" in Identity Issues and World Religions: Selected Papers and Other Proceedings of the Fifteenth Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions, ed. Victor C. Hayes (Netley S.A., Australia 5037: Wakefield Press, 1986), pp. 22433.

46. For teachings of the popes see Hervé Carrier, Église et Cultures de Léon XIII à Jean-Paul II (Paris: Éditions Médias-Paul; Vatican City: Libraria Editrice Vaticana, 1987). Church documents

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on relations with culture are also found in volume 2 of Joseph Gremillion, ed., The Church and Culture since Vatican II: The Experience of North and Latin America. 2 vols. (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1985). Among more recent statements by John Paul II are "Faith and Culture: Address to Peruvian Cultural Leaders," Origins 18/3 (2 June 1988) 33, 3536, and "Address to the Pontifical Council for Culture," Acta Apostolicae Sedis 81 (1989) 85758.

Recent literature on inculturation is abundant. Since 1982 the Center "Cultures and Religions" of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, under the editorship of Ary A. Roest Crollius, has published different studies within the series, Inculturation: Working Papers on Living Faith and Cultures. A few other titles among many: Hervé Carrier, Cultures notre avenir (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University, 1985); Achiel Peelman, L'inculturation: L'Église et les cultures (Paris: Desclée; Ottawa: Novalis, 1988); Aylward Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1988); Peter Schineller, A Handbook on Inculturation (New York-Mahway: Paulist Press, 1990); Inculturation and Catholicity: Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 45 (1990).

47. See Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1978), pp. 1718. Donovan describes his attempts to evangelize these people in terms of their culture, divesting the Gospel message as much as he could of its European inculturation.

48. See L. J. Luzbetak, "Adaptation, Missionary," New Catholic Encyclopedia 1 (1967) 12022, and H. Bernard-Maître, "Chinois (Rites)," Catholicisme 2 (1949) cols. 106063.

49. See the sections indicated in the following documents (references in brackets are to Tanner 2): Lumen Gentium (On the Church), 39 [880]; Sacrosanctum Concilium (On the Liturgy), 37 [828]; Unitatis redintegratio (On Ecumenism), 4, 1418 [91112, 91618]; Ad gentes (On missionary activity), 9 [101819]; Orientalium ecclesiarum (On Eastern Churches), 56 [900901;]; Gaudium et spes (On the Church in the world of today), 86 [113132].

50. Canon 214.

51. The text is given in Origins 15/27 (19 December 1985), p. 448.

52. Thus Vatican II, Lumen gentium (On the Church), 16 (Tanner 2.86162), and Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the world

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today), 22 (Tanner 2.108283).

53. See Vatican II, Ad gentes (On missionary activity), 9 (Tanner 2.1019): "Through the word of preaching and the celebration of the sacraments, whose centre and summit is the holy eucharist, missionary activity makes present Christ who is the author of salvation. Whatever truth and grace are already to be found among peoplesa secret presence of God, so to speakit frees from evil infections and restores to Christ their source. . . . Accordingly, whatever good is found to be sown in the minds and hearts of human beings or in the particular rites and cultures of peoples, not only does not perish but is healed, elevated and perfected, to the glory of God, the confusion of the devil and the happiness of humankind." Cf. Vatican II, Lumen gentium (On the Church), 17 (Tanner 2.862).

54. At a conference held at the (Lutheran) Evangelische Akademie in Tutzing, Germany on "Kirchen im Kontext unterschiedlicher Kulturen: Auf dem Weg in das dritte Jahrtausend," (1620 May 1990), my paper was entitled: "The Unity of the Church and the Multitude of Nations." The proceedings of the conference are at the press.

55. Cardinal Johannes Willebrands brought out important points on this subject in a lecture entitled "The Place of Theology in the Ecumenical Movement: Its Contribution and Its Limits" (The President's Lecture: Toronto: University of St. Michael's College, 1990).

56. See George H. Tavard, "'Hierarchia Veritatum': A Preliminary Investigation." Theological Studies 32 (1971) 27889, and two articles by William Henn, "The Hierarchy of Truths Twenty Years Later," Theological Studies 48 (1987) 43971, and "The Hierarchy of Truths and Christian Unity," Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 66/1 (1990) 11142.

57. "Membris Commissionis Theologicae Internationalis, primum plenarium Coetum habentibus," Acta Apostolicae Sedis 61 (1969) 71516. Other official statements are examined by Ph. Delhaye, "Unité de la foi et pluralisme des théologies dans les récents documents pontificaux," Esprit et vie (1972) 56169, 593600. Six essays by Josef Scharbert, Franz Mussner, Walter Dürig, Pedro Rodriguez, and Wolfgang Grocholl, given under the general heading of "Um Vielfalt und Einheit der Theologie" appeared in Veritati Catholicae (see above, n. 42), pp. 159262. See also the

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recent essay by René Marlé, "La question du pluralisme en théologie," Gregorianum 71/3 (1990) 46586. Marlé refers to other studies on the question.

58. See Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes (On the Church in the world of today), 62 (Tanner 2.111113); for the document on universities see Origins 20/17 (4 October 1990) 265, 26776, especially no. 29 (p. 271). A whole section (nos. 4347; p. 273) is devoted to the university as a center for cultural dialogue.

59. "Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian," no. 25; in Origins 20/8 (5 July 1990) p. 123.

60. Cardinal Willebrands referred to the theme of "reception" on p. 2 of his lecture referred to above, n. 55. The cardinal also addressed this theme in "The Ecumenical Dialogue and its Reception," One in Christ 21 (1985) 21725. On reception see also La réception de Vatican II, eds. G. Alberigo and J.-P. Jossua (Paris: Cerf, 1985).

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The Pére Marquette Lectures in Theology

1969

"The Authority for Authority," by Quentin Quesnell, Professor of Theology, Marquette University

1970

"Mystery and Truth," by John Macquarrie, Professor of Theology, Union Theological Seminary, New York

1971

"Doctrinal Pluralism," by Bernard Lonergan, S.J., Professor of Theology, Regis College, Toronto

1972

"Infallibility," by George Lindbeck, Professor of Theology, Yale University

1973

"Ambiguity in Moral Choice," by Richard A. McCormick, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Bellarmine School of Theology

1974

"Church Membership as a Catholic and Ecumenical Problem," by Avery Dulles, S.J., Professor of Theology, Woodstock College

1975

"The Contribitions of Theology to Medical Ethics," by James Gustafson, University Professor of Theological Ethics, University of Chicago

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1976

"Religious Values in an age of Violence," by Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, Director of National Interreligious, Affairs, American Jewish Committee, New York City

1977

"Truth Beyond Relativism: Karl Mannheim's Sociology of Knowledge," by Gregory Baum, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, St. Michael's College, Toronto

1978

"A Theology of 'Uncreated Energies'," by George A. Maloney, S.J., Professor of Theology, John XXIII Center for Eastern Christian Studies, Fordham University

1980

"Method in Theology: An Organon for Our Time," by Frederick C. Crowe, S.J., Research Professor in Theology, Regis College, Toronto

1981

"Catholics in the Promised Land of the Saints," by James Hennesey, S.J., Professor of the History of Theology, Boston College

1982

"Whose Experience Counts in Theological Reflection?" by Monika Hellwig, Professor of Theology, Georgetown University

1983

"The Theology and Setting of Discipleship in the Gospel of Mark," by John R. Donahue, S.J., Professor of Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley

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1984

"Should War be Eliminated? Philosophical and Theological Investigations," by Stanley Hauerwas, Professor of Theology, Notre Dame University

1985

"From Vision to Legislation: From the Council to a Code of Laws," by Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., Professor of Canon Law, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.

1986

"Revelation and Violence: A Study in Contextualization," by Walter Brueggemann, Professor of Old Testament, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri

1987

"Nova Et Vetera: The Theology of Tradition in American Catholicism," By Gerald Fogarty, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

1988

"The Christian Understanding of Freedom and the History of Freedom in the Modern Era: The Meeting and Confrontation between Christianity and the Modern Era in a Postmodern Situation," by Walter Kasper, Professor of Dogmatic Theology, University of Tübingen

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1989

''Moral Absolutes: Catholic Tradition, Current Trends, and the Truth," By William F. May, Ordinary Professor of Moral Theology, The Catholic University of America

1990

"Is Mark's Gospel a Life of Jesus? The Question of Genre," By Adela Yarbro Collins, Professor of New Testament, University of Notre Dame

1991

"Faith, History and Cultures: Stability and Change in Church Teachings," By Walter H. Principe, C.S.B., Professor of Theology, University of Toronto

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