The dogma of Papal infallibility

[Hentenza]

Topic: The dogma of Papal infallibility.

Affirmative: Packermann

Negative: Lighthouse Hope

Rounds: 13 rounds for a total of 26 posts.

Format: Alternating posts beginning with the negative and ending with the affirmative.

Time limit between posts: 7 days.

Maximum length of each post: 1100 words

Sources: No restrictions but any copied text counts toward the post length total.

This is a formal debate between Lighthouse Hope and Packermann. No one else is allowed to post in this thread. All rules of CF apply including the 20% quote rule meaning that no outside quotes over 200 words will be allowed. Please post links to your quotes.

Peanut gallery is here.

Debate proposal is here.

Good luck to both participants.

 

[lighthouse_hope]

Glory be to the Father
And to the Son
And to the Holy Spirit
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

After having given thanks to our Lord and ask the gracious help of the Holy Spirit, is to precise the concept of our debate. Hence, Packermann, I'd like to ask you if the following is a good definition of our subject.

The doctrine of Papal Infability is the dogma that is defined in "Pastor Aeternus" as it follows:

...that when the Roman Pontiff speaks EX CATHEDRA, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable.

Therefore the conditions for papal infallibility are:

A) Jurisdiction: Ex Cathedra

-> Exercising the Magisterium over all Christians

B) Form: A Definition of A Doctrine

C) Matter: Faith of Morals

Is this a good presentation of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility? If not, why?

 

[packermann]

Yes, it is a good presentation of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

 

[lighthouse_hope]

Thanks, Pakermann. Now we can proceed.

First, we need to deal with some arguments that have been used to attack the dogma.

The Pope as not always a learned man.

1) It doesn't affect his ability, because the Holy Spirit assists. The Holy Spirit knows best.

2) Hence the lack of formation of the Pope cannot be used to attack the dogman.

The Pope as man who sins.

1) It doesn't affect his ability not to sin, because the Holy Spirit assists.

2) However, it shows that the Pope can voluntarily deny the will of the Holy Spirit and lie. It might seem hard to believe that someone who hears the Holy Spirit can ignore His Will, yet every Christian who sins does exactly that.

 

[packermann]

I am happy that you understand that papal infallibility does not mean that he must be a learned man or a sinless man. But I want to clarify something a bit.

Papal infallibility is not the same as the divine inspiration of the writers of scripture. The Holy Spirit guides the Biblical writers to write as He wills (this is not to mean that the Holy Spirit dictates to them. Each writer still brought his own personality, style, and knowledge into his writing). The pope does not “hear the Holy Spirit” any better than you or I do. The pope studies, looks at the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, reads what theologians have to say, and above all, he prays for guidance from God. The pope has a free will. He can choose not to do this. And if he does not, he will probably produce a very poor and shoddy encyclical. All that we Catholics are saying is that God guarantees us that His pope will not teach us heresy - even if that means that God will take him home. I will not be surprised that in heaven we will find out that some pope died prematurely because God foreknew that the pope would teach heresy.

So that is the difference between papal infallibility and divine inspiration. In divine inspiration, God moves the person to say or write the very words of God. In papal infallibility, God does not move the person to what to say or write, but He ensures that what is taught is not in error in dogma and morals. Divine inspiration is positive – God inspires the person what to say or write. Papal infallibility is more negative. He does not move the pope on what to say or write (unless he, like us all, seeks God for wisdom). But God stops the pope from teaching heresy. It has less to do with what is inside the pope and has more to do with the providence of God.

So even if the pope does not need to be a learned man or a holy man in order to be infallible, being learned and holy does help his teachings to be clear, edifying, and fruitful.

This also means that the Pope could be wrong in NOT defining something that needs to be defined. God only guarantees us the when he does define something, God will prevent him from being in error. But the pope can err in not defining something. God honors our free will. God does the minimal interference in the pope’s free will.

 

[lighthouse_hope]

So Packerman is it then your understanding, and much more important, the Church's understanding that when the Pope is speaking Ex-Cathedra (and meets all other requirements for infallibility)...

he is unable to sin?

 

[packermann]

I am not sure how you got that from anything I wrote. I was happy that I thought we could at least agree on that - that the pope can sin. Infallibility is not impeccability. Your writing that the pope still sins was the one thing I agreed with you.

You wrote in post #5

The Pope as man who sins.

1) It doesn't affect his ability not to sin, because the Holy Spirit assists.

I responded by post #6

[FONT=&quot]I am happy that you understand that papal infallibility does not mean that he must be a learned man or a sinless man.[/FONT]

Here I clearly wrote that we agreed (at least I thought) that papal infallibility does NOT mean that the person was sinless. So please show how in post #6 I wrote anything that even hinted that a pope could not sin when he spoke ex cathedra.

Even the divine inspiration of scripture does not exclude the possibility of authors sinning. David had an affair with Bathsheba, and then conspired to have her husband killed. And yet he was inspired by God to write many of the Psalms. True, he repented later. But Solomon at the end of his life led his kingdom into idolatry, and there is no record that he ever repented. And in Galatians 2, Paul rebuked Peter for withdrawing from the Gentiles with the coming of a party from James. And yet Peter was inspired to write a few letters that are part of the infallible, inerrant Bible. Even Paul admitted in Roman 7 that he still sinned, and yet he contributed to most of the New Testament.

If this can be said about the divine inspiration of scripture, that the divinely inspired authors are still capable of sinning, then how much more can be said of papal infallibility. As I wrote previously, divine inspiration is the Holy Spirit actually guiding the authors what to write. But papal infallibility is only that God will prevent the pope from writing or speaking error, and that only in faith and morals, and that only when is done ex cathedra. So even if a few of our popes were terrible sinners, it does not disprove the Church’s claim that what they taught ex cathedra was infallible.

My response in #6 was more directed to you writing this:

However, it shows that the Pope can voluntarily deny the will of the Holy Spirit and lie. It might seem hard to believe that someone who hears the Holy Spirit can ignore His Will, yet every Christian who sins does exactly that.

I detected a false assumption here on papal infallibility, and this what I wanted to clarify. Papal infallibility has nothing to do with how well the pope “hears the Holy Spirit”. The pope does not “hear the Holy Spirit” any better that another Christian. As with any Christian, if the pope is living in sin he will not be sensitive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But no matter how much the pope is insensitive to the Holy Spirit, God will prevent him from teaching anything in error. The faithful Catholic is not putting his trust in the pope, but in God. It is not that the pope is infallibly sensitive to the Holy Spirit. It is that the all-powerful God will providentially prevent the pope from teaching error, even if that is without the pope’s cooperation.

So in reality the faithful Catholic believes more in the sovereignty of God than the hardest Calvinist. The Calvinist would quote “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”(Proverbs 21:1). And yet the Calvinist lacks the faith to see that the pope’s teachings are in the hands of the Lord. It is one thing to believe in the sovereignty of God in the abstract. It is another to believe in sovereignty of God working through an actual person, through an actual Church headed by that actual person, of which Christ Himself built and promised that the gates of death and hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:18).

 

[lighthouse_hope]

I'd like to suspend or, if that's not possible, close this thread, if packerman agrees. Thanks.

 

[packermann]

It is OK with me if you need to suspend this for awhile. Just let me know when you can resume. I hope is well with you and your family.