La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

174. THREE FACTORS THAT ENTER INTO OUR FAITH.—In the act of our divine faith in truths of the deposit of revelation, three factors intervene, although under different aspects: God, the Apostles, and the Church. We believe of the deposit of revelation or public revelation everything and only what was revealed by God to the Apostles, everything and only what was handed down by the Apostles to the Church, everything and only what the Church, by ordinary or solemn magisterium, teaches us. To appreciate accurately the distinct manner in which the authority of God, that of the Apostles, and that of the Church enter into this faith or revelation, one must recall two distinctions as elementary as they are important. First, that in divine revelation there enter two elements: a) the object revealed by God to the Apostles and by them handed over to the Church, and b) the proposition and explanation that the Church then gives us of that object. Second, that one thing is to be a mere organ or instrument, and quite another to be the originating source or principal cause.

God enters revelation or our faith as the originative source or principal cause, not only of every object revealed, but also of every divine sense or explanation of that object. No truth can be the object of true divine faith if it has not been really and truly revealed by God. No sense or explanation, even of truths really revealed, can be the object of divine faith if God, in revealing such truths, did not actually intend to say or signify such a sense or explanation.

Neither the Apostles nor any creature can be the source or principal cause of any divine or revealed truth, nor of the divine explanation of that truth. Every truth or every explanation of truth that originated in the Apostles and not in God would be human truth and human explanation, incapable of meriting divine faith. But although the Apostles have not been sources, either of the revealed object or of the divine explanation of that object, they have, on the other hand, been organs or divine instruments of both; that is, not only of the mere explanation of what was already revealed, but also of new objects revealed or new revelations. Through the Apostles the world received, not only the explanation of what was already revealed (as we now receive through the Church), but also new revealed truths or new revelations¹.

The Church agrees with the Apostles in that it cannot be the originating source either of new objects or revelations or of new explanation. It differs at the same time from the Apostles in that it cannot be the organ or instrument of new objects or revelations; but it agrees with the Apostles in being the organ of new explanation of the already revealed truth. Through the dogmatic magisterium of the Church we receive, not new objects or revelations, but rather new explanation (and not merely preservation) of the already revealed truth.

In summary: God is the principal source of new objects and new explanations; the Apostles are the organ of both new objects and new explanations; the Church is the organ of new explanations. As can be seen, this matter of new explanations pertains to God, to the Apostles, and to the Church.

175. COMPARISON WITH RESPECT TO NEW REVELATIONS.—When dealing, therefore, with comparing the authority of the Church with that of God or with that of the Apostles, the comparison can be established either with respect to new objects or revelations, or with respect to new explanations of already revealed truth.

If the comparison is made with respect to new objects or new revelations, the authority of the Church is evidently inferior to that of the Apostles and to that of God. While God revealed new truths to us, while the Apostles revealed or taught new truths to us, the Church cannot teach us new truths or objects, but rather its dogmatic magisterium is limited to the truths already revealed. But if the comparison is established, not with respect to new objects or revelations, but to new explanations of the truth already revealed, it can and must be said that the authority of the Church in this matter is the same as that of the Apostles and of God: divine authority.

To make this tangible, let us give an example. Let us transport ourselves to the end of the first century of the Church, when, the other Apostles being already dead, the beloved disciple of Jesus still lives in Ephesus, while in Rome a successor of Saint Peter, Saint Clement, for example, is the Head of the universal Church. In the Church at that moment there exist three means of arriving at divine truth: God (who can, if He so wishes, intervene extraordinarily and reveal or explain by Himself what has been revealed), the Apostle Saint John, and the Pope Saint Clement. The divine authority, the apostolic authority, and the authority of the Church. Let us compare them.

God obviously does not have His revealing authority limited to the revelations He already made to the Apostles, and He can, at the end of the first century, as He could on the day of Pentecost, reveal new truths; and if He had done so then, as if He were to do so now, God’s authority is always divine and the faith it merits is divine.

The Apostle Saint John, in turn, likewise does not have his authority limited to the truths already taught by the other Apostles, since the revelation of new truths, or at least their promulgation or teaching by the Apostles to the Church, was not closed until the death of the last Apostle, and those new truths that the Apostle might teach as revealed would be of divine faith and would merit divine faith². On the other hand, Pope Saint Clement has his dogmatic authority limited to the truths taught by the Apostles, without being able to teach dogmatically any truth not yet taught by the Apostles or not really contained in the revealed deposit; and if we suppose that he had taught such a truth, that truth or doctrine would not be divine, but ecclesiastical tradition, nor could it merit divine faith. As for new revelations, the authority of the Church is, therefore, less than the authority of the Apostles and that of God.

176. COMPARISON REGARDING NEW EXPLANATIONS.—But suppose that the matter at hand were not a new object or new revelations, but simply explaining the implicit meaning of the truth already revealed in a fruitful text, for example, of Sacred Scripture. Suppose that God intervenes in an extraordinary manner and Himself explains that text to the Church, or to one of the faithful; that, on the other hand, St. John also intervenes, and using his apostolic charism explains that same text to another faithful soul, or to other faithful souls: and suppose, finally, that Pope St. Clement in turn gives to the universal Church an explanation or dogmatic definition of the same text. We would then have God, the Apostle, and the Pontiff all giving, at the same time, not a new revealed object, but an authentic explanation of the ancient revelation. Which of these three authorities or explanations would be of greater authority? The three would be of identical authority; the three would be a divinely authentic explanation of divine truth; the three would be of divine authority; the three would be of divine faith.

The authority, then, of the Church is inferior to the authority of God and of the Apostles with respect to new revelations; but with respect to explanations of the entire real content of the deposit already revealed, it is the same divine authority, an authentic and permanent prolongation of the magisterium of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles.

The Apostles united in their persons the threefold divine charism of prophets, hagiographers (this one at least in some of them) and Apostles ³ The prophetic charism of public revelation has ceased in the Church; the hagiographic charism of inspiration has also ceased; but the apostolic charism of divine assistance for preserving and explaining or developing all the sense truly inclusive or implicit in the revealed deposit continues and will continue in the Church until the consummation of the ages.