I think it’s safe to say that Question 4 is the “issue beneath the issues”. If this were resolved it’s hard to see how anyone could make a case for any of the other responses. For many Catholics, this is what Catholicism is supposed to “solve” when similar problems arise in Protestantism and Orthodoxy. The problem with using this as a critique of universalism is that this problem arises already outside of universalism or even outside of soteriology in general. These sorts of things make me glad I’m not a bishop or theologian. I’m going to let you guys untie this Gordian knot, and I’m going to do my best to be faithful in the meantime.
I’m not a catholic, but to your last point about the development of doctrine and the person of the living Christ being the foundation of the truth of the church and tradition—it seems not only resonant with Paul’s claim in Ephesians 2:20-21, but a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text itself. The church is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles (history/the past) but its chief cornerstone is the resurrected Christ, who is not merely a historical person, but comes to us from the future that he himself is. Historical precedence is not done away with, but neither can it be simply or naively equated with eschatological preference.
Yes. Though the case I make and will make intentionally addresses some specifics of a Catholic context--since, mainly, such a thing doesn't really exist--I don't wish to imply that such tensions and challenges are unique to Catholicism. Indeed they are concerns for all Christians. Any Christian who claims that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, in the world's own midst, and that Christ was thus an actual divine-human person *as* the Truth--anyone claiming such things must reckon with the same substantial themes as I've begun to here, even if in varying forms.
Thanks!! Will watch soon. Reading your book 'The Whole Mystery of Christ...' now in chunks after starting it last weekend. It's a bit over my head, but from what I am gathering so far, it places Christ at the center of Christian Universalism. Most other arguments I've read for CU, sadly, just in my opinion, (I know this might sound like it couldn't be the case) treat Jesus as tangential and focus instead mainly on proof texting, philosophy, or emotional appeals to "prove" God's love for all and ultimate restoration of all things (these aren't bad but they're not bedrock in my view), so I think that alone is revolutionary. It also gives me a better grasp on what the Trinity might actually be. That has long been difficult to conceptualize.
I'm out of the academic loop with this one. I did find a history of West Africa published by them that was terrible. On the other hand, Routledge publishes "The Literature of Georgia: A History" by Donald Rayfield. Are they notoriously hit-and-miss or something?
Dear Jordan, thank you so much for sharing these texts and your insightful talk on such a challenging topic. The historical analysis highlighting the shifts in the presentation and understanding of the doctrine of hell is truly perceptive and offers a valuable perspective on how the Church's articulation of faith evolves. You compellingly argue that doctrine is not static and that our understanding of revealed Truth deepens over time, often challenging previous (perhaps partial) formulations. You make a strong case for recognizing genuine development and engaging in theological reflection to move towards a more complete grasp of God's will and salvific work.
However, having carefully considered your proposed trajectory towards "Catholic Universalism," understood as the eventual salvation of all, and reflecting on its compatibility with the Church's defined dogmas, I find myself wrestling with the framework for authentic doctrinal development as elaborated by Cardinal Newman. While you rightly appeal to the idea of development and the need for synthetic reading, Newman's tests, such as the preservation of the original substance and continuity of principles, seem difficult to reconcile with a conclusion that would negate the real and eternal possibility of damnation for any individual – a truth consistently affirmed by the Magisterium. This isn't to dismiss the power of your arguments or the importance of the questions you raise. In fact, this is why I am so genuinely interested in your further reflections. I truly want to understand how you see your proposal maintaining fidelity to the Church's doctrine, including the seriousness of human freedom and the reality of hell as a potential, eternal consequence of definitive self-exclusion. This isn't an academic question for me; last night I was reading your texts to my wife, who suffers immensely with the thought of eternal damnation for people she loves and struggles deeply to reconcile this with the image of a merciful God, yearning simultaneously to believe in God's boundless love and remain a faithful Catholic. Your work courageously engages with this immense pastoral pain, and I eagerly await your deeper exploration of how these tensions can be held together within the fold of orthodoxy, particularly in light of the criteria that distinguish authentic development from discontinuity/corruption.
I feel as though the study of eschatology is complicated not just due to possible doctrinal developments, but because I think it is possible that the actual boundary between the temporal and the eternal shifts over time. The spatial element of salvation means it can't be reduced to a concept on paper, but behaves more like a topological disentanglement puzzle. For example, did the shift from Sheol to heaven develop over time due to ongoing revelation, or was it simply not a real possibility in the Old Testament, since Christ had not yet come? And does the earliest concept of purgatory indicate a doctrinal development, or does it correlate to a new temporal/eternal boundary post-Christ? Then as more and more people enter heaven, does this not in some way shift that same boundary?
I would like to clarify, if possible, some points in what you wrote here.
1. You claim that the change between the teaching of Florence versus that of Vatican II involved a "a reversal of the church’s literal teaching," which affected not simply rhetoric but substance, and so involve "reversals on the literal or objective dimension" of what is taught.
It seemed to me that you are saying that this was not merely verbal change, or a change of nuance, but that the Florence-Vatican II case involved a true 'reversal' of the propositions that were taught by the Church officially, definitively. That is, you hold that the propositional truths taught by Vatican II and Florence do NOT form a logically compatible, non-contradictory set. I.e., the Church first taught proposition X was to be held by all the faithful, and then later taught that proposition incompatible with X was to be held by all the faithful.
Another friend suggests that what you were instead trying to say is that "the magisterium has taught an actual contradiction IN WORDS," but that there was no contradiction among those propositions taught at Florence and at Vatican II - that is, you hold that the propositional truths taught by Vatican II and Florence form a logically compatible, non-contradictory set.
Which would you say is the best construal of your view?
2. You seem to say a few times that the Church neither "delivers [nor] preserves immutable propositions," emphasizing the "hermeneutical and theological task" required for interpreting what the Church's teaching involves.
Would you agree with the claim that what the magisterium teaches (what it 'literally' teaches as a matter of sentences) is always subject to further interpretation, and therefore that the sentences so taught by the Church's magisterium, i.e., definitively, either do not possess a determinate, objective meaning or that their determinate, objective meaning cannot be known by us, or that it is impossible in a principled way for us to identify what propositions the Church requires us (as a matter of faith) either to affirm or reject?
If there are some such claims/propositions/beliefs which Catholics are required to affirm or reject, could you identify some examples and the principle/criteria allows us to identify those claims as binding?
3. You claim at the end that "the church’s ...'identity' that persists through even the most objectively severe changes over the ages, is Jesus Christ himself—his very person. A person is not an idea, a proposition...."
Some might think that having trust that Jesus Christ persists in the Church likewise involves affirming "a proposition, and presumably an immutable one for the Catholic faith." But then "it would seem the church must deliver and preserve at least some immutable propositions, if the faith is to be coherent."
Do you agree that the Church must deliver and preserve at least some immutable propositions for the Catholic faith to be coherent? If so, how do we discover what those propositions are? How do we know that these propositions are taught in such a way that they are not subject to 'reversal' or contradiction by a later Magisterial claim?
4. At times you mention 'formal contradiction.' Can you define what a 'formal' contradiction refers to? In what way is it different from 'contradiction', simpliciter?
5. You repeat in different places a sentiment that "God... is ultimately responsible for creation’s outcome," and that creation cannot "[resist] God’s own will for the outcome." You say elsewhere that sin is "something God didn’t will should be."
I am not sure whether you intend to call into question the cogency of the distinction between God's antecedent and permissive will in general or simply "as regards the 'outcome' of creation."
If this distinction does not apply in general, it seems that God would simply will (and not merely permit) all the sins that occur. Is this an implication of your views that you would accept? Or, to put the question differently, if it is true that God did not will sin, and nothing happens in creation except what God wills, and no creature can resist God's will, then how it is possible that sin occur without being positively willed by God - on your view?
If this distinction (between what God positively wills and what He merely permits) is supposed to hold in general regarding God's Providence, but not as regards the 'outcome of creation' (which I assume regards the eschatological state of free persons), what principled difference is there between a created person resisting God's will for the outcome of their action at a given moment and a created person resisting God's will for the outcome of their action over a period of time (say, from the present to the end of their life, or into the indefinite eschatological future)?
I believe I am the other friend who is trying to give an alternative reading, viz., that "the magisterium has taught an actual contradiction [only] IN WORDS." Let me try and give my own read, and maybe Jordan you can let me know if I have you right.
At least on a Thomist account, a proposition's truth value depends/derives from the speaker's own intellectual judgment being true/false (the judgment is then ultimately faced against reality for its own verification); but it is also important to register not just a proposition's truth value, but the speaker's epistemic posture toward the true/false judgment (composition/division) and by consequence the proposition: is that posture one of doubt (I doubt that Socrates is wise is true); is it one of opinining (I opine/loosely hold that Socrates is wise is true); or is it one of assenting (I firmly hold/assent...).
When it comes to pairs of propositions taken from e.g., the writings of the magisterium, one must pay attention not only to the sense of those props (a difficult enough task), viz., what judgments are being signified by those props; but also to the issue of epistemic posture. Of course, when the props which the magisterium teaches definitively, we ought to read as firm assent to the relevant judgments (and requiring the same among Catholics). But that is not the point at hand.
My attempted read on your position Jordan is that we can find in the writings of the magisterium props which have identical forms to (actual) contradictions, but that you would NOT hold that such cases signify really opposed judgments to both of which the magisterium assents (at different times), thereby being a case of an actual contradiction at the level of intellectual judgments. In the course of time/development of doctrine, perhaps we have situations where, according to the outward form, we have notable changes/reversals in the teachings of the magisterium, but that these changes do not entail the magisterium once assenting to one judgment and then now assenting to its opposite, but instead are part of the organic growth of intellectual knowledge/clarity, which sometimes involves rather extreme changes in ways of speaking that, to all appearances, are identical to changes which would represent actual contradictions.
Again, ^^this is just my attempt to put my understanding of your position, Jordan, into scholastic terms. Let me know what you think.
I do not see how one could plausibly argue that Florence's 'Cantate Domino' or Vatican II are merely opining/doubting/entertaining the propositions in question. It seems to be that both Vatican II and Florence are clearly asserting the propositions about salvation outside the Church.
To clarify, I'm not claiming that nor am I proposing that as my reading of Jordan's position. That's why I included the remark that when the Magisterium claims to be speaking definitively (inter alia), we read that as them giving sententiae, firmly-held propostions signifying assented-to judgments.
Perhaps another way of getting at the issue would be more exactly defining what it is to contradict oneself. Contradicting oneself could = (1) I then said that Socrates is wise, and I now say that Socrates is not wise. Or it could = (2) I assented to the composition of wisdom to Socrates (and thus said that Socrates is wise), but now I dissent from that and assent to the division of wisdom from Socrates (and thus said that Socrates is not wise). My read is that Jordan is using (1), and not advocating for (2), in the case of the magisterium.
(1) involves asserting a contradiction just as much as (2).For instance, if I assert that tomatoes are all green at time T1, and then assert at time T2 that there is a white tomato, I have contradicted myself, whether or not I have also denied at T2 that all tomatoes are green. Contradictions pertain to the content of what is asserted. You don't need to *also* deny what you asserted before in order to assert contradictory propositions. So the distinction is irrelevant.
I disagree; the distinction is very relevant. You have to account for the epistemic posture of the speaker in relation to the relevant judgment, which the prop signifies. I can think in my mind that this judgment that Socrates is not wise is false (=dissent from it), but still propose it (=say that Socrates is not wise) equally well for various reasons.
Your rebuttal would have some validity if proposing = I assert Socrates not being wise to be the case. On this line, the proposition as a whole signifies my intellectual assent to the division.
"Contradictions pertain to the content of what is asserted." I was talking quite explicitly about what is ***asserted***. If you assert what you do not believe, then you are acting deceptively or lying or something similar. But it does not change the fact that you would contradict yourself if you ***assert*** two propositions that are logically incompatible.
IOW, you and I are equivocating about the word proposition. You understand the prop that Socrates is wise to equal I hold/assert to be the case that Socrates is wise; I understand the prop to sigify the judgment that Socrates is wise (which in my expeirence is usually how scholastics are running things...), which judgment I may assent to or may not e.g.
When you're dealing with contradictions in writings throughout the tradition, you have to recognize that the presence of propositions in their texts does not automatically ensure that that the authors assert such propositions to be the case. In addition to determining the meaning of those propositions (=the judgments signified), you have to detemrine how they epistemically feel about them as well. Only once you demonstrate that someone **assented** to a pair of contradictory props have you shown that they contradicted themselves (on my second definition of contradiction).
We are not equivocating about 'proposition,' and I had not assumed that any/every attitude toward a proposition is assertion. I explicitly used phrases like 'asserting a proposition' in each case where I meant that one asserted a proposition. My point, again, was that a contradiction results from the logical incompatibility pertaining to the content of what is asserted, regardless of whether one also denies the previous propositions that were asserted.
I regret to point out that the logical consequence of your argument is the falsity of the Roman Catholic Church.
Your claim — that “we do not trust the Church because it delivers and preserves immutable propositions” — is, in fact, self-refuting. If the Church, which claims divine authority, could promulgate pernicious errors as essential truths for centuries, taught with the solemn weight of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, and even enshrined within the pronouncements of ecumenical councils, then the entire edifice collapses under the weight of its own claims. Vatican I explicitly teaches that doctrines must be preserved in their original meaning and understanding as held at the time of their declaration, thus precluding the notion of doctrinal “development” in the sense you propose. Therefore, if your position were correct, it would not merely imply isolated corruption but the failure of the whole Catholic system. Any additional evidence you offer — such as the assertion that Vatican II constitutes a rupture with tradition — serves only to strengthen my argument.
Moreover, the alternative you offer as the basis for trusting the Catholic Church rests upon nothing more than unsupported assumptions concerning the nature of Christ’s Body. Without the distinguishing marks of the true Church — marks which your argument effectively nullifies — by what criterion could we recognize Christ’s Body as opposed to a heretical sect? If these marks are erased, then any claim to authentic continuity collapses, leaving us adrift among countless competing voices without any principled means of discernment.
Certitudo periit; dubium regnat.
As Nietzsche prophetically wrote:
“Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say marvelously simplified Christianity. A god who in his love arranges everything in a manner that in the end will be best for us; a god who gives to us and takes from us our virtue and our happiness, so that as a whole all is meet and fit and there is no reason for us to take life sadly, let alone exclaim against it; in short, resignation and modest demands elevated to godhead - that is the best and most vital thing that still remains of Christianity. But one should notice that Christianity has thus crossed over into a gentle moralism: it is not so much 'God, freedom and immortality' that have remained, as benevolence and decency of disposition, and the belief that in the whole universe too benevolence and decency of disposition prevail: it is the euthanasia of Christianity."
Nothing you say here comes close to reckoning with the fact that Christ is the Truth, and that Christ is a person, and that no proposition, no matter how pure its truth, is a person. And yet your entire polemic depends on the equation of Truth as propositional and truth as personal--an equation you neither did prove, nor could, since it is philosophically, logically, empirically, and theologically incoherent. Nor does it follow that because persons aren't propositions, no proposition about a person can be judged true or false--or better, true or false in this or that respect. The latter is in fact what the magisterium (begrudgingly) teaches in the magisterial documents I cited above and in the talk, and which you also never reckon with. The fact remains that central to Christian faith has always been that the Truth isn't merely *about* this or that person, but that the Truth is the Person who says: "I am the Truth." That means the Truth is an "I." Insofar as you constantly neglect this insight, which also happens to be a major insight that became ever more central to Catholic thought in the 20th century (both magisterial and theological literature attests amply to this), you work with an anti-Christian and un-Catholic criteria for truth. It's fitting that you side with Nietzsche then.
Look, it may very well be that a late-19th-century, Kleutgen-inspired and anti-modernist propelled vision of the church's magisterium and infallibility is indeed obliterated by my proposal (which is but a Christologically-grounded version of others before me). But who cares? That only matters if that parochial vision is the total vision. Since my theological claims here argue against precisely such an equation, then your charge is almost entirely beside the point.
If for you the death of propositional certainty means that "doubt (alone) reigns," then I scarcely think you're working with anything like a recognizably Christian sense of faith's certainty, which is precisely that of the interpersonal (Heb 11 & 1 Cor 13), and likely never were.
Vatican 1 cautioned against seeking a "deeper" meaning to magisterial statements than their "original" and "historical" sense, true. But then the current magisterium has added the necessary other-side of that dialectic: that if we don't seek the deeper meaning of some text or authority, then that functionally reduces the authority to merely human or finite, thus not divine. This is exactly the dialectic, as it happens, which the early fathers used to defend and secure the unity of the scriptural canon itself. It's hardly a new or un-Christian dialectic. And if you think this undermines "the Roman Church," then know this in no uncertain terms: I am no sectarian, and I do not think my primary task as a Catholic is to shore up the parochial identity of the "Roman" church. The church is Catholic, and it is universally more than its visible manifestation--again, as Vatican 2 taught. If it's true that the true church "subsists in" the Catholic Church, as is current teaching, then it's just as true that the final Truth of the church is Christ himself. Until his Body is visibly, totally, and universally actualized as the Body of Christ itself--and you pretend this is novel but it's simply Colossians 1.15-21, Ephesians 1-2, all of Sts. Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor's "ecclesiology," Gaudium et Spes 22, etc.--then the Catholic Church's "Truth" will always exceed its visible bounds. To be sectarian in the traditionalist mode is therefore precisely anti-Catholic. As far as I'm concerned, time's ripe for the perfunctory and truncated "Catholicity" of Neo-Thomist fantasy to dissipate before the actual historical life and divine infinity of the church, which is just Christ. This is also the last message Pope Francis ever preached: "Christianity is Christ. No truly, in him we have everything." If defending and expounding the Pope's final message shows that I'm not Catholic enough for you, so be it.
Because of the church’s claim to infallibility, “even her good arguments cease to be effective. Behind them outsiders suspect specious pleadings, not honest attempts to find the truth.”
- the Most Rev. Francis Simons, Catholic bishop
It's more important to be personally faithful than propositionally perfect and spiritually docile than doctrinally flawless.
A believing community acts more so as living signposts than spokespersons. Only through orthocommunal, orthopathic, orthopraxic and orthotheotic witness can it authenticate orthodoxic doctrine, disciplines & canons. Only in this holistic way can it realize its indefectibility in terms of a communal indeceivability.
Religious certainty thus comes not from infallible propositions or hierarchical authority, but from an encounter with Christ and the Spirit’s preservation of the Church in essential truth.
The Church’s indefectibility, therefore, means it remains fundamentally in the truth despite individual errors, but this does not guarantee that every doctrinal statement is absolutely free from error.
Because it's a personal trust relationship, the believer's theological certainty is more like the certainty that comes from being loved in a relationship, which is much less established by declarations (which are not in-SIGN-ificant) and much more expressed through a lived, trusting commitment. Such a certainty comes from - not any supposed realm of absolute doctrinal security, but - a dynamic, relational trust in God’s guidance of the Church through history.
The Church’s authority is grounded in its indefectible witness to the gospel, which is guaranteed to be - not error-free, but - guided by the Holy Spirit.
The above is my summary of Hans Küng’s understanding of indefectibility.
I think it’s safe to say that Question 4 is the “issue beneath the issues”. If this were resolved it’s hard to see how anyone could make a case for any of the other responses. For many Catholics, this is what Catholicism is supposed to “solve” when similar problems arise in Protestantism and Orthodoxy. The problem with using this as a critique of universalism is that this problem arises already outside of universalism or even outside of soteriology in general. These sorts of things make me glad I’m not a bishop or theologian. I’m going to let you guys untie this Gordian knot, and I’m going to do my best to be faithful in the meantime.
This is great, thanks Jordan.
I’m not a catholic, but to your last point about the development of doctrine and the person of the living Christ being the foundation of the truth of the church and tradition—it seems not only resonant with Paul’s claim in Ephesians 2:20-21, but a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the text itself. The church is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles (history/the past) but its chief cornerstone is the resurrected Christ, who is not merely a historical person, but comes to us from the future that he himself is. Historical precedence is not done away with, but neither can it be simply or naively equated with eschatological preference.
Yes. Though the case I make and will make intentionally addresses some specifics of a Catholic context--since, mainly, such a thing doesn't really exist--I don't wish to imply that such tensions and challenges are unique to Catholicism. Indeed they are concerns for all Christians. Any Christian who claims that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, in the world's own midst, and that Christ was thus an actual divine-human person *as* the Truth--anyone claiming such things must reckon with the same substantial themes as I've begun to here, even if in varying forms.
Thanks!! Will watch soon. Reading your book 'The Whole Mystery of Christ...' now in chunks after starting it last weekend. It's a bit over my head, but from what I am gathering so far, it places Christ at the center of Christian Universalism. Most other arguments I've read for CU, sadly, just in my opinion, (I know this might sound like it couldn't be the case) treat Jesus as tangential and focus instead mainly on proof texting, philosophy, or emotional appeals to "prove" God's love for all and ultimate restoration of all things (these aren't bad but they're not bedrock in my view), so I think that alone is revolutionary. It also gives me a better grasp on what the Trinity might actually be. That has long been difficult to conceptualize.
"...or to publish with Routledge." LOL
I'm out of the academic loop with this one. I did find a history of West Africa published by them that was terrible. On the other hand, Routledge publishes "The Literature of Georgia: A History" by Donald Rayfield. Are they notoriously hit-and-miss or something?
Dear Jordan, thank you so much for sharing these texts and your insightful talk on such a challenging topic. The historical analysis highlighting the shifts in the presentation and understanding of the doctrine of hell is truly perceptive and offers a valuable perspective on how the Church's articulation of faith evolves. You compellingly argue that doctrine is not static and that our understanding of revealed Truth deepens over time, often challenging previous (perhaps partial) formulations. You make a strong case for recognizing genuine development and engaging in theological reflection to move towards a more complete grasp of God's will and salvific work.
However, having carefully considered your proposed trajectory towards "Catholic Universalism," understood as the eventual salvation of all, and reflecting on its compatibility with the Church's defined dogmas, I find myself wrestling with the framework for authentic doctrinal development as elaborated by Cardinal Newman. While you rightly appeal to the idea of development and the need for synthetic reading, Newman's tests, such as the preservation of the original substance and continuity of principles, seem difficult to reconcile with a conclusion that would negate the real and eternal possibility of damnation for any individual – a truth consistently affirmed by the Magisterium. This isn't to dismiss the power of your arguments or the importance of the questions you raise. In fact, this is why I am so genuinely interested in your further reflections. I truly want to understand how you see your proposal maintaining fidelity to the Church's doctrine, including the seriousness of human freedom and the reality of hell as a potential, eternal consequence of definitive self-exclusion. This isn't an academic question for me; last night I was reading your texts to my wife, who suffers immensely with the thought of eternal damnation for people she loves and struggles deeply to reconcile this with the image of a merciful God, yearning simultaneously to believe in God's boundless love and remain a faithful Catholic. Your work courageously engages with this immense pastoral pain, and I eagerly await your deeper exploration of how these tensions can be held together within the fold of orthodoxy, particularly in light of the criteria that distinguish authentic development from discontinuity/corruption.
I feel as though the study of eschatology is complicated not just due to possible doctrinal developments, but because I think it is possible that the actual boundary between the temporal and the eternal shifts over time. The spatial element of salvation means it can't be reduced to a concept on paper, but behaves more like a topological disentanglement puzzle. For example, did the shift from Sheol to heaven develop over time due to ongoing revelation, or was it simply not a real possibility in the Old Testament, since Christ had not yet come? And does the earliest concept of purgatory indicate a doctrinal development, or does it correlate to a new temporal/eternal boundary post-Christ? Then as more and more people enter heaven, does this not in some way shift that same boundary?
I would like to clarify, if possible, some points in what you wrote here.
1. You claim that the change between the teaching of Florence versus that of Vatican II involved a "a reversal of the church’s literal teaching," which affected not simply rhetoric but substance, and so involve "reversals on the literal or objective dimension" of what is taught.
It seemed to me that you are saying that this was not merely verbal change, or a change of nuance, but that the Florence-Vatican II case involved a true 'reversal' of the propositions that were taught by the Church officially, definitively. That is, you hold that the propositional truths taught by Vatican II and Florence do NOT form a logically compatible, non-contradictory set. I.e., the Church first taught proposition X was to be held by all the faithful, and then later taught that proposition incompatible with X was to be held by all the faithful.
Another friend suggests that what you were instead trying to say is that "the magisterium has taught an actual contradiction IN WORDS," but that there was no contradiction among those propositions taught at Florence and at Vatican II - that is, you hold that the propositional truths taught by Vatican II and Florence form a logically compatible, non-contradictory set.
Which would you say is the best construal of your view?
2. You seem to say a few times that the Church neither "delivers [nor] preserves immutable propositions," emphasizing the "hermeneutical and theological task" required for interpreting what the Church's teaching involves.
Would you agree with the claim that what the magisterium teaches (what it 'literally' teaches as a matter of sentences) is always subject to further interpretation, and therefore that the sentences so taught by the Church's magisterium, i.e., definitively, either do not possess a determinate, objective meaning or that their determinate, objective meaning cannot be known by us, or that it is impossible in a principled way for us to identify what propositions the Church requires us (as a matter of faith) either to affirm or reject?
If there are some such claims/propositions/beliefs which Catholics are required to affirm or reject, could you identify some examples and the principle/criteria allows us to identify those claims as binding?
3. You claim at the end that "the church’s ...'identity' that persists through even the most objectively severe changes over the ages, is Jesus Christ himself—his very person. A person is not an idea, a proposition...."
Some might think that having trust that Jesus Christ persists in the Church likewise involves affirming "a proposition, and presumably an immutable one for the Catholic faith." But then "it would seem the church must deliver and preserve at least some immutable propositions, if the faith is to be coherent."
Do you agree that the Church must deliver and preserve at least some immutable propositions for the Catholic faith to be coherent? If so, how do we discover what those propositions are? How do we know that these propositions are taught in such a way that they are not subject to 'reversal' or contradiction by a later Magisterial claim?
4. At times you mention 'formal contradiction.' Can you define what a 'formal' contradiction refers to? In what way is it different from 'contradiction', simpliciter?
5. You repeat in different places a sentiment that "God... is ultimately responsible for creation’s outcome," and that creation cannot "[resist] God’s own will for the outcome." You say elsewhere that sin is "something God didn’t will should be."
I am not sure whether you intend to call into question the cogency of the distinction between God's antecedent and permissive will in general or simply "as regards the 'outcome' of creation."
If this distinction does not apply in general, it seems that God would simply will (and not merely permit) all the sins that occur. Is this an implication of your views that you would accept? Or, to put the question differently, if it is true that God did not will sin, and nothing happens in creation except what God wills, and no creature can resist God's will, then how it is possible that sin occur without being positively willed by God - on your view?
If this distinction (between what God positively wills and what He merely permits) is supposed to hold in general regarding God's Providence, but not as regards the 'outcome of creation' (which I assume regards the eschatological state of free persons), what principled difference is there between a created person resisting God's will for the outcome of their action at a given moment and a created person resisting God's will for the outcome of their action over a period of time (say, from the present to the end of their life, or into the indefinite eschatological future)?
I believe I am the other friend who is trying to give an alternative reading, viz., that "the magisterium has taught an actual contradiction [only] IN WORDS." Let me try and give my own read, and maybe Jordan you can let me know if I have you right.
At least on a Thomist account, a proposition's truth value depends/derives from the speaker's own intellectual judgment being true/false (the judgment is then ultimately faced against reality for its own verification); but it is also important to register not just a proposition's truth value, but the speaker's epistemic posture toward the true/false judgment (composition/division) and by consequence the proposition: is that posture one of doubt (I doubt that Socrates is wise is true); is it one of opinining (I opine/loosely hold that Socrates is wise is true); or is it one of assenting (I firmly hold/assent...).
When it comes to pairs of propositions taken from e.g., the writings of the magisterium, one must pay attention not only to the sense of those props (a difficult enough task), viz., what judgments are being signified by those props; but also to the issue of epistemic posture. Of course, when the props which the magisterium teaches definitively, we ought to read as firm assent to the relevant judgments (and requiring the same among Catholics). But that is not the point at hand.
My attempted read on your position Jordan is that we can find in the writings of the magisterium props which have identical forms to (actual) contradictions, but that you would NOT hold that such cases signify really opposed judgments to both of which the magisterium assents (at different times), thereby being a case of an actual contradiction at the level of intellectual judgments. In the course of time/development of doctrine, perhaps we have situations where, according to the outward form, we have notable changes/reversals in the teachings of the magisterium, but that these changes do not entail the magisterium once assenting to one judgment and then now assenting to its opposite, but instead are part of the organic growth of intellectual knowledge/clarity, which sometimes involves rather extreme changes in ways of speaking that, to all appearances, are identical to changes which would represent actual contradictions.
Again, ^^this is just my attempt to put my understanding of your position, Jordan, into scholastic terms. Let me know what you think.
I do not see how one could plausibly argue that Florence's 'Cantate Domino' or Vatican II are merely opining/doubting/entertaining the propositions in question. It seems to be that both Vatican II and Florence are clearly asserting the propositions about salvation outside the Church.
To clarify, I'm not claiming that nor am I proposing that as my reading of Jordan's position. That's why I included the remark that when the Magisterium claims to be speaking definitively (inter alia), we read that as them giving sententiae, firmly-held propostions signifying assented-to judgments.
Perhaps another way of getting at the issue would be more exactly defining what it is to contradict oneself. Contradicting oneself could = (1) I then said that Socrates is wise, and I now say that Socrates is not wise. Or it could = (2) I assented to the composition of wisdom to Socrates (and thus said that Socrates is wise), but now I dissent from that and assent to the division of wisdom from Socrates (and thus said that Socrates is not wise). My read is that Jordan is using (1), and not advocating for (2), in the case of the magisterium.
(1) involves asserting a contradiction just as much as (2).For instance, if I assert that tomatoes are all green at time T1, and then assert at time T2 that there is a white tomato, I have contradicted myself, whether or not I have also denied at T2 that all tomatoes are green. Contradictions pertain to the content of what is asserted. You don't need to *also* deny what you asserted before in order to assert contradictory propositions. So the distinction is irrelevant.
I disagree; the distinction is very relevant. You have to account for the epistemic posture of the speaker in relation to the relevant judgment, which the prop signifies. I can think in my mind that this judgment that Socrates is not wise is false (=dissent from it), but still propose it (=say that Socrates is not wise) equally well for various reasons.
Your rebuttal would have some validity if proposing = I assert Socrates not being wise to be the case. On this line, the proposition as a whole signifies my intellectual assent to the division.
"Contradictions pertain to the content of what is asserted." I was talking quite explicitly about what is ***asserted***. If you assert what you do not believe, then you are acting deceptively or lying or something similar. But it does not change the fact that you would contradict yourself if you ***assert*** two propositions that are logically incompatible.
IOW, you and I are equivocating about the word proposition. You understand the prop that Socrates is wise to equal I hold/assert to be the case that Socrates is wise; I understand the prop to sigify the judgment that Socrates is wise (which in my expeirence is usually how scholastics are running things...), which judgment I may assent to or may not e.g.
When you're dealing with contradictions in writings throughout the tradition, you have to recognize that the presence of propositions in their texts does not automatically ensure that that the authors assert such propositions to be the case. In addition to determining the meaning of those propositions (=the judgments signified), you have to detemrine how they epistemically feel about them as well. Only once you demonstrate that someone **assented** to a pair of contradictory props have you shown that they contradicted themselves (on my second definition of contradiction).
We are not equivocating about 'proposition,' and I had not assumed that any/every attitude toward a proposition is assertion. I explicitly used phrases like 'asserting a proposition' in each case where I meant that one asserted a proposition. My point, again, was that a contradiction results from the logical incompatibility pertaining to the content of what is asserted, regardless of whether one also denies the previous propositions that were asserted.
I regret to point out that the logical consequence of your argument is the falsity of the Roman Catholic Church.
Your claim — that “we do not trust the Church because it delivers and preserves immutable propositions” — is, in fact, self-refuting. If the Church, which claims divine authority, could promulgate pernicious errors as essential truths for centuries, taught with the solemn weight of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, and even enshrined within the pronouncements of ecumenical councils, then the entire edifice collapses under the weight of its own claims. Vatican I explicitly teaches that doctrines must be preserved in their original meaning and understanding as held at the time of their declaration, thus precluding the notion of doctrinal “development” in the sense you propose. Therefore, if your position were correct, it would not merely imply isolated corruption but the failure of the whole Catholic system. Any additional evidence you offer — such as the assertion that Vatican II constitutes a rupture with tradition — serves only to strengthen my argument.
Moreover, the alternative you offer as the basis for trusting the Catholic Church rests upon nothing more than unsupported assumptions concerning the nature of Christ’s Body. Without the distinguishing marks of the true Church — marks which your argument effectively nullifies — by what criterion could we recognize Christ’s Body as opposed to a heretical sect? If these marks are erased, then any claim to authentic continuity collapses, leaving us adrift among countless competing voices without any principled means of discernment.
Certitudo periit; dubium regnat.
As Nietzsche prophetically wrote:
“Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say marvelously simplified Christianity. A god who in his love arranges everything in a manner that in the end will be best for us; a god who gives to us and takes from us our virtue and our happiness, so that as a whole all is meet and fit and there is no reason for us to take life sadly, let alone exclaim against it; in short, resignation and modest demands elevated to godhead - that is the best and most vital thing that still remains of Christianity. But one should notice that Christianity has thus crossed over into a gentle moralism: it is not so much 'God, freedom and immortality' that have remained, as benevolence and decency of disposition, and the belief that in the whole universe too benevolence and decency of disposition prevail: it is the euthanasia of Christianity."
--Nietzsche, Daybreak 92
Nothing you say here comes close to reckoning with the fact that Christ is the Truth, and that Christ is a person, and that no proposition, no matter how pure its truth, is a person. And yet your entire polemic depends on the equation of Truth as propositional and truth as personal--an equation you neither did prove, nor could, since it is philosophically, logically, empirically, and theologically incoherent. Nor does it follow that because persons aren't propositions, no proposition about a person can be judged true or false--or better, true or false in this or that respect. The latter is in fact what the magisterium (begrudgingly) teaches in the magisterial documents I cited above and in the talk, and which you also never reckon with. The fact remains that central to Christian faith has always been that the Truth isn't merely *about* this or that person, but that the Truth is the Person who says: "I am the Truth." That means the Truth is an "I." Insofar as you constantly neglect this insight, which also happens to be a major insight that became ever more central to Catholic thought in the 20th century (both magisterial and theological literature attests amply to this), you work with an anti-Christian and un-Catholic criteria for truth. It's fitting that you side with Nietzsche then.
Look, it may very well be that a late-19th-century, Kleutgen-inspired and anti-modernist propelled vision of the church's magisterium and infallibility is indeed obliterated by my proposal (which is but a Christologically-grounded version of others before me). But who cares? That only matters if that parochial vision is the total vision. Since my theological claims here argue against precisely such an equation, then your charge is almost entirely beside the point.
If for you the death of propositional certainty means that "doubt (alone) reigns," then I scarcely think you're working with anything like a recognizably Christian sense of faith's certainty, which is precisely that of the interpersonal (Heb 11 & 1 Cor 13), and likely never were.
Vatican 1 cautioned against seeking a "deeper" meaning to magisterial statements than their "original" and "historical" sense, true. But then the current magisterium has added the necessary other-side of that dialectic: that if we don't seek the deeper meaning of some text or authority, then that functionally reduces the authority to merely human or finite, thus not divine. This is exactly the dialectic, as it happens, which the early fathers used to defend and secure the unity of the scriptural canon itself. It's hardly a new or un-Christian dialectic. And if you think this undermines "the Roman Church," then know this in no uncertain terms: I am no sectarian, and I do not think my primary task as a Catholic is to shore up the parochial identity of the "Roman" church. The church is Catholic, and it is universally more than its visible manifestation--again, as Vatican 2 taught. If it's true that the true church "subsists in" the Catholic Church, as is current teaching, then it's just as true that the final Truth of the church is Christ himself. Until his Body is visibly, totally, and universally actualized as the Body of Christ itself--and you pretend this is novel but it's simply Colossians 1.15-21, Ephesians 1-2, all of Sts. Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor's "ecclesiology," Gaudium et Spes 22, etc.--then the Catholic Church's "Truth" will always exceed its visible bounds. To be sectarian in the traditionalist mode is therefore precisely anti-Catholic. As far as I'm concerned, time's ripe for the perfunctory and truncated "Catholicity" of Neo-Thomist fantasy to dissipate before the actual historical life and divine infinity of the church, which is just Christ. This is also the last message Pope Francis ever preached: "Christianity is Christ. No truly, in him we have everything." If defending and expounding the Pope's final message shows that I'm not Catholic enough for you, so be it.
https://substack.com/profile/42116958-41443643e43d/note/c-114037796?r=p2pni
Because of the church’s claim to infallibility, “even her good arguments cease to be effective. Behind them outsiders suspect specious pleadings, not honest attempts to find the truth.”
- the Most Rev. Francis Simons, Catholic bishop
It's more important to be personally faithful than propositionally perfect and spiritually docile than doctrinally flawless.
A believing community acts more so as living signposts than spokespersons. Only through orthocommunal, orthopathic, orthopraxic and orthotheotic witness can it authenticate orthodoxic doctrine, disciplines & canons. Only in this holistic way can it realize its indefectibility in terms of a communal indeceivability.
Religious certainty thus comes not from infallible propositions or hierarchical authority, but from an encounter with Christ and the Spirit’s preservation of the Church in essential truth.
The Church’s indefectibility, therefore, means it remains fundamentally in the truth despite individual errors, but this does not guarantee that every doctrinal statement is absolutely free from error.
Because it's a personal trust relationship, the believer's theological certainty is more like the certainty that comes from being loved in a relationship, which is much less established by declarations (which are not in-SIGN-ificant) and much more expressed through a lived, trusting commitment. Such a certainty comes from - not any supposed realm of absolute doctrinal security, but - a dynamic, relational trust in God’s guidance of the Church through history.
The Church’s authority is grounded in its indefectible witness to the gospel, which is guaranteed to be - not error-free, but - guided by the Holy Spirit.
The above is my summary of Hans Küng’s understanding of indefectibility.