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by John E Thiel, Theological Studies 56 (Dec.
'95) pp. 627-51. Republished with permission of the editor.
Publications by John E. Thiel:
- Nonfoundationalism (Guide to Theological
Inquiry), Paperback 1994.
- God and World in Schleiermacher’s
‘Dialektik und Glaubenslehre’: criticism and the methodology of
dogmatics
- Imagination and Authority: Theological
Authorship in the Modern Tradition
Summary: The writer discusses the authority accorded to
tradition in Roman Catholic theology. He points out that little critical
attention has been given to how tradition is authoritative for theology when
tradition is itself developing dramatically. He proposes a criterion for the
tentative identification of dramatically developing doctrine and considers the
teachings of Humane vitae and Inter insigniores as possible illustrations of
such doctrine. He also examines the issues of authority and theological
responsibility in relation to a shared characteristic of these doctrines,
namely, the magisterium's use of reasoning and argument in its teaching.
Finally, he uses nonfoundationalist criticism to provide a constructive
resource for understanding the workings of reasoning in magisterial teaching
and the expectations of such reasoning in the developing Catholic tradition .
A DISTINCTIVE TRAIT of Roman Catholic theology is the authority
accorded to tradition as a normative source for its interpretation alongside
Scripture and, at least in the modern period, experience. In the 19th and 20th
centuries, theologians have come to recognize that the authority of ecclesial
tradition can be reconciled with the fact of its historical development, a view
that is by now an axiom of Catholic theology as well as an interpretive
assumption of the magisterium.(FN1)
And yet surprisingly, little critical attention has been given to how
tradition is authoritative for theology when tradition is itself developing
dramatically. In these pages I would like to reflect on this issue, first, by
proposing a criterion for the tentative identification of dramatically
developing doctrine, second, by considering the teachings of Humanae vitae and
Inter insigniores as possible illustrations of such doctrine, and third, by
examining the issues of authority and theological responsibility in relation to
a shared characteristic of these doctrines, i.e. the magisterium's use of
reasoning and argument in its teaching.
In the fourth and fifth sections, nonfoundationalist criticism will
provide a constructive resource for understanding the workings of reasoning in
magisterial teaching and the expectations of such reasoning in the developing
Catholic tradition .
DRAMATICALLY DEVELOPING DOCTRINE: DEFINITION AND CRITERIA
By "dramatically" developing doctrine, I mean doctrine that is
developing in such a way that its current authority as the authentic teaching
of the magisterium will be lost at some later moment in the life of the Church,
and that exhibits signs in the present moment that this final loss has begun to
take place. The authority of such doctrine in the Church's present life
presents a knotty problem for all in the Church, though here our concern will
focus on Catholic theologians and their work.
On the one hand, Catholic theologians affirm their interpretive
responsibility to the "Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form
of tradition ," i.e. the "doctrine, life, and worship" of the Church handed
down "to every generation." Moreover, Catholic theologians recognize the
authority of the teaching office or magisterium of the Church which has been
entrusted with "the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of
God."(FN2)
On the other hand, as moderns, Catholic theologians recognize the fact
of the development of doctrine and the role played by creative theological
reflection in promulgating that development through the years. Moreover,
historico-critical study has demonstrated that doctrine occasionally has
developed in such a way that the authentic teaching of the magisterium in an
earlier historical moment later lost authority.(FN3) As they encounter doctrine
presently and authentically taught by the magisterium, Catholic theologians
sometimes find themselves judging that a doctrine will undergo development in
this fashion, so that the authoritative teaching of today will not be the
authoritative teaching of some tomorrow.
Hence our knotty problem: How is tradition , in the midst of such
development, authoritative for theology? This knotty problem, of course, also
suggests another: By what criteria does the theologian judge authentic teaching
to be currently in a state of "dramatic development"?
There are several ways of answering this question. An answer of wide
interpretive latitude might suggest that all doctrine is developing because
even the most basic teachings of tradition are always being appropriated anew
in the present moment of faith. Karl Rahner expresses this sensibility in his
well-known observation that the Chalcedonian decree on the person of Christ is
not an end but a beginning, i.e. of interpretive meaning.(FN4) If all doctrine
remains in development in this way, then one might think that dramatic
development is always at least a possibility for all doctrine. Such cannot be
the case, however, for were this possibility to be realized for a doctrine as
basic as the Chalcedonian dogma, the result would be the development of another
tradition rather than the development of doctrine within the Catholic
tradition. Clearly, then, all doctrine cannot develop dramatically, at least
not without rendering the matters under consideration moot for want of the very
tradition in which they are meaningful.
Our search for criteria for judging when doctrine is currently in a
state of dramatic development might appeal to Catholic dogmatic presuppositions
themselves. At the very least, one might think, doctrine that is not infallible
may be capable of dramatic development.
Yet this negative and minimal criterion, it turns out, is useless for
making our judgment concretely because it begs the question in two respects.
First, since the infallibility of doctrine expresses the infallibility of the
whole Church's faith, that infallibility often does not reach the level of
explicit definition, say, in the decrees of ecumenical councils and the
occasional pronouncements of the extraordinary magisterium. Thus, while the
assumptions of Catholic dogma seem to imply that dramatic development could
only occur among noninfallible doctrines, the lack of explicit definition of
infallible teaching makes it difficult to know with precision which doctrines
are infallible and which are not. This, of course, is just a more fundamental
way of stating our initial problem of determining criteria for doctrine
currently in a state of dramatic development.
Second, reference to a doctrine's noninfallible character as a minimal
criterion for judging an instance of dramatic development means little if that
doctrine is taught authentically by the magisterium, presumably as the unerring
faith of the whole Church. Catholic theologians are responsible to that
authentic teaching and yet know that on several occasions magisterial teaching
has developed dramatically. This dilemma again brings us to our problem. No
facile distinction between infallible and noninfallible doctrines, then, will
enable us to identify dramatically developing doctrine with any reliability.
Catholic belief in the infallibility of the Church, though, suggests
another criterion that proves more reliable. According to the Second Vatican
Council, the "whole body of the faithful who have an anointing that comes from
the holy one ... cannot err in matters of belief." This unerring belief appears
in "the supernatural appreciation of the faith (sensus fidei) of the whole
people, when ... they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith or
morals."(FN5) The sensus fidei is not a self-subsistent belief isolated from
other dimensions of ecclesial life and practice, including the hierarchical
teaching office.
Indeed, the unerring sense of the faith is guided by the magisterium,
relying on its teaching for the preservation of its truth. Yet, at the same
time, the sense of the faith is the faith of the "People of God, ... from the
bishops to the last of the faithful,"(FN6) and so it cannot simply be reduced
to the teaching of the magisterium. Magisterial teaching that has not been
received in belief and practice by a wide segment of the faithful, then, offers
a more reliable, but still incomplete, criterion for judging when doctrine is
currently in a state of dramatic development.
This criterion is not without its ambiguities. Sociological findings
may be helpful in locating teaching not received by the faithful, but polling
results alone cannot establish the extent of doctrinal reception. In addition,
there remains the theological issue of how one understands Lumen gentium's
reference to "the whole body of the faithful" in which infallibility resides.
Does this phrase refer to the baptized, to practitioners of the faith, or more
self-referentially to those who do indeed possess the unerring sense of the
faith, however difficult it may be to determine its character or their number?
This question points to the inherent difficulties attending judgments about
doctrinal reception. Although appeal may be made to social-scientific data in
testing the reception of doctrine in the Church, one must rely finally on the
sense of the faith itself in judging whether doctrine has been received by the
faithful, who in turn evaluate the legitimacy of the judgment. In any case,
defining the unerring faithful as those who receive all magisterial teaching in
faith and practice wrongly equates the infallibility of the Church with
obedience to the magisterium in any particular historical moment, and ignores
both the dynamics of doctrinal development and the fact of dramatic development
in the tradition . The criterion of reception, then, remains ambiguous, though
by nature and not by fault.
This ambiguity can be mitigated somewhat by two supplementary criteria.
A second criterion for judging current dramatic development is that the
magisterium also invokes theological argument in the presentation of its
teaching. The magisterial practice of supporting teaching with or actually
offering teaching through theological argument can be found as early in the
tradition as Leo I's fifth-century Tome on the person of Christ(FN7) or as
recently as an encyclical of Paul VI and an instruction of the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith to which we will soon turn for examples.(FN8)
The magisterial use of argument to convey authentic teaching is not
necessarily a symptom of its noninfallible character, as the illustration of
Leo's Tome, a strong textual influence on the Chalcedonian decree, testifies.
But the use of theological argument in magisterial teaching is a reliable
symptom that the doctrine taught is in a state of development which itself
prompts the need for argument.
There are three reasons for this argumentative need to which we can
refer respectively as the circumstantial, the logical, and the rhetorical.
First, argument is deemed necessary because the teaching addresses changing
cultural circumstances in which a simple reiteration of traditional doctrine
would not suffice. Argument serves as a way of mediating traditional meaning to
novel issues, problems, or situations. Second, argument is deemed necessary
because this mediated teaching requires a specific and convincing application
of the tradition 's more basic beliefs, an application that represents a
movement to doctrine more derivative, though not necessarily less
authoritative. Logic (here following its traditional rules!) serves the
magisterium by demonstrating the reasonableness of the application, by showing
how the teaching's conclusion derives its authority from a major premise (more
basic beliefs) rightly modified by its minor (changing cultural
circumstances).(FN9) Third, argument is deemed necessary because unanimity in
the Church is lacking for the doctrine in question. Argument thus has the
rhetorical goal of persuasion.
These first two criteria for dramatic development, when taken
together--magisterial teaching that one judges not to have been widely received
by the faithful and that presents its teaching through theological
argument--provide good direction for determining doctrine clearly in a state of
development.
A third criterion must be added, however, for distinguishing
development that is more likely to be dramatic. That criterion, itself a
supplement to the previous two, is that the theological argument by which
magisterial teaching is supported or conveyed does not prove convincing to a
wide segment of Catholic theologians. If the magisterium supports or conveys
its teaching by the logical application of more basic beliefs to changing
circumstances in order to persuade the faithful who are disinclined toward its
reception, and that argumentation does not convince a wide segment of those in
the Church knowledgeable about the tradition to which it appeals and able to
assess the viability of the argumentative application to present circumstances,
then there is a greater likelihood that such teaching is developing
dramatically than if such conditions did not prevail.
Dramatic development could be encouraged in such an eventuality as
theologians offered criticism of the current teaching, showing how and why the
doctrinal argument advanced did not justify the teaching or offering
alternative arguments that advanced another version of consistency with
traditional beliefs and with the current beliefs of many in the Church.
The addition of this criterion to the first two might suggest some
misunderstandings that need to be addressed quickly. First, this criterion's
attention to the cogency of magisterial argument among theologians should not
suggest that theologians speak for all the faithful. All the faithful are not
concerned with arguments for the justification of belief or argument as the
expression of belief, whereas theologians as a matter of professional knowledge
and responsibility are. With respect to the matter of cogency in magisterial
argument, they thus offer a gauge that one would not expect to find among large
numbers of the faithful.
Second, this criterion could seem to regard theologians as a final court
of appeal in the assessment of the Church's teaching, as though the authority
of theologians trumped the authority of the magisterium. As already noted, this
view is contrary to Catholic belief and is not defended here. With regard to
both of these concerns, this last criterion has no standing in its own right,
as though magisterial teaching would need to be cogent to theologians before
its enduring value for the Church could be established. Rather, this criterion
is only meaningful in its relationship to the first two, all three together
forming a unified complex of criteria for distinguishing likely instances of
dramatic development: magisterial teaching that one judges not to have been
widely received by the faithful and that presents its teaching through
theological argument that does not prove convincing to a wide segment of
theologians.
Our single evaluative principle attempts to identify dramatically
developing doctrine by way of counterpoint to the Catholic belief that the
infallibility of the Church dwells among all the faithful. It offers, then, a
criteriological via negativa whose powers of identification can never
constitute a proof, and no more than an indication, of doctrine in dramatic
development. We would do well to think of it as a heuristic that enables us to
consider our problem of the authority of such doctrine further, and we may do
so by examining three examples of recent magisterial teaching.
POSSIBLE EXAMPLES OF DRAMATICALLY DEVELOPING DOCTRINE
Paul VI's encyclical Humanae vitae ("On the Regulation of Birth,"
1968), and the teaching of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Inter
insigniores ("On the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial
Priesthood," 1976), offer, I believe, examples of church teaching that fit our
now single criterion of dramatic development. We can proceed by examining each
in turn with regard to the three aspects of our criterion: reception, argument,
and cogency.
HUMANAE VITAE
Humanae vitae develops by argumentation the teaching of Pius XI's
encyclical Casti connubii (1930) that it is sinful to "deliberately frustrate
[the] natural power and purpose" of the "conjugal act [which] is destined
primarily by nature for the begetting of children."(FN10) Paul VI's 1968
encyclical more specifically forbids the artificial regulation of birth by
direct abortion, direct sterilization, or by "any action, which either before,
at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to
prevent procreation"(FN11) as contrary to the natural law and thus to the will
of God. Any consideration of this teaching's reception among the faithful would
need to acknowledge differences among the three forms of regulation that the
teaching equally judges illicit.
Abortion, for example, differs from sterilization and any other
artificial means of regulating birth because it involves "the direct
interruption of the generative process already begun."(FN12) And even though
many in the Church would qualify by context and circumstance the encyclical's
absolute strictures against abortion, "even for therapeutic reasons,"(FN13) few
in the Church would not regard abortion as a tragic act. On the other hand,
many social-scientific studies conducted in the past twenty-five years have
found that a large percentage of Catholics do not practice the encyclical's
proscription of artificial, preventive means of regulating births.(FN14)
Although I know of no sociological study that has made such a
comparison, I think it fair to say that among those who do not practice this
aspect of the encyclical's teaching few would regard the use of artificial,
preventive means of birth control to constitute a tragedy of the proportions of
abortion. Indeed, few who practice such forms of birth control would regard
their actions as tragic at all. If this judgment is sound, then it is Humanae
vitae's prohibition of artificial, preventive means of birth control in
particular that has not found reception among a wide constituency of the
faithful.
Our further consideration of the encyclical will focus on this aspect of
its teaching as a possible example of dramatically developing doctrine. Humanae
vitae presents its teaching through argument for all three reasons noted above.
The encyclical begins by noting the changing historical circumstances that have
prompted its teaching, among them the rapid increase in the world's population,
a new social understanding of the dignity of women, and technological advances
that permit the rational control of nature, including the natural laws of
reproduction.(FN15)
One might see Paul VI's unprecedented formation of an advisory
commission (and one that included lay members) to study and report to him on
the issues of the encyclical as an expression of his keen sense that the Church
faced circumstances novel enough to preclude a simple reiteration of the
teaching of Casti connubii. To the encyclical's own list of such circumstances
one might add the growing lack of the traditional teaching's reception among
the faithful.
The logical argument developed in Humanae vitae to defend the
prohibition of artificial, preventive forms of birth control is relatively
simple. Its major premise is the basic Christian belief that all lives should
be open, and faithful in action, to God's will. This major is qualified by two
minor premises: God's will is inscribed in the natural law which governs
procreative acts in marriage and the consummate meaning of sexual union in
marriage lies in its fecundity,(FN16) and in the inseparable connection between
its "unitive" and "procreative significance," sexual union "fully retains its
sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of
parenthood...."(FN17)
Logical mediation from the major premise to the first of these two
minor premises results in the encyclical's particular conclusion bearing on the
intentional possibilities of the married couple pondering a reproductive
decision: "From this it follows that they are not free to act as they choose in
the service of transmitting life, as if it were wholly up to them to decide
what is the right course to follow."(FN18) Both minor premises are invoked to
arrive at the conclusion of the Church's traditional teaching: The Church,
nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural
law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every
marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the
procreation of human life.(FN19) Artificial, preventive forms of birth control
are forbidden because they destroy this intrinsic relationship between the
unitive and procreative dimensions of sexual union, and thereby elevate the
will of the married couple above the will of God both for the general
institution of marriage and for their particular lives.
Since the encyclical begins by acknowledging the "questions"(FN20)
these matters have provoked in the Church, and moves to its final section by
anticipating that "not everyone will easily accept this particular
teaching,"(FN21) it offers its argument in recognition of a lack of unanimity
among the faithful on this issue, undoubtedly with persuasion as one its goals.
Demonstrating that the argument of Humanae vitae has not proved cogent
to a wide segment of theologians would be a rather redundant task. Indeed, the
many criticisms leveled by theologians at the encyclical's reasoning stand side
by side with this teaching's lack of reception as the clearest illustrations of
the problem of authority in the contemporary Church.
One would be hard-pressed to find a critic who challenged the
encyclical's major premise--that all lives should be open, and faithful in
action, to God's will. Humanae vitae's theological critics addressed instead
the validity of both minor premises, and the manner of their logical relation
to the major to yield the teaching's conclusion. Charles Curran, for example,
criticizes the encyclical's "physicalism," its inscription of the divine will
upon every conjugal act as though providence works exclusively in the teleology
of biological structures.(FN22) And when reasoning is put at issue, the
encyclical's physicalist assumptions prevent its logic from distinguishing
between the major and minor premises in its argument. One might even say that
the argument's minor premises so eclipse its major that it becomes impossible
logically to reach the reasonable conclusion, say, that a married couple could
be open to the will of God by having a fecund marriage while yet at times
practicing artificial contraception.
Joseph Komonchak notes that the encyclical makes no attempt to justify
what we have called its minor premises and so, though appearing to be an
argument, is no argument at all.(FN23) Karl Rahner observes that arguments from
the natural law, like Humanae vitae's, cannot prescind from the expectation of
logical cogency, since reasonableness is at least one of the expectations of
appeal to the natural law. And yet this cogency, he judges, is lacking in the
encyclical's line of argument which does little more than state its
premises.(FN24)
If space permitted, we could treat a number of other consequential
criticisms of the encyclical's argument, especially those that find a conflict
in moral intentionality posed by its approval of the rhythm method of birth
control. Let it suffice to say that the many theologians who have criticized
the teaching of Humane vitae have done so by attending to the inconsistencies
they have found in the reasoning with which its teaching was promulgated.
INTER INSIGNIORES
Inter insigniores, which presents a rationale for the Church's
long-established practice of restricting priestly ordination to men, is a
teaching published on October 15, 1976 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith with the approval of Paul VI.
Like Humanae vitae, Inter insigniores seems not to have met wide
reception among the faithful. In fact, sociological evidence suggests that the
acceptability of the ordination of women among Catholics in the years since the
document's publication has increased substantially. For example (and one
typical of North American and Western European countries), a 1977 Gallup poll
found 41[percent] of American Catholics to favor the ordination of women, a
statistic that increased to 63[percent] by 1993.(FN25)
As noted earlier, one must be wary about reducing the sensus fidei to
the findings of sociologists and doubly wary about the Catholic beliefs of some
nations standing as the belief of the whole Church. Yet this increase of belief
in the ordination of women is telling, and enough so to judge that the teaching
of the Church in question has not been widely received by the faithful. The
most likely explanations for this increase are a growing awareness of
injustices toward women in traditional societies, the strength of movements for
the equal rights of women, and a resulting expansion of the role of women in
social structures and responsibilities customarily reserved for men.
One cannot completely discount, however, the influence of the
document's argument itself on the increasingly wider lack of reception of the
teaching among the faithful over this period of time.(FN26) We find in Inter
insigniores all three reasons, circumstantial, logical, and rhetorical, for the
appeal to argument in the promulgation of magisterial teaching. The exclusive
ordination of men to the priesthood is, after all, a practice that dates in
some form to the first-century Church. The felt need to justify such an ancient
practice stems from changing circumstances in which argument is called upon to
defeat challenges to the tradition . The document's opening paragraphs identify
those changing circumstances as the modern recognition of the full equality of
women, the wider participation of women in the apostolate of the Church, the
unqualified admission of women to pastoral office in some Protestant churches,
and arguments by Catholic theologians for the ordination of women to the
priesthood.(FN27)
Logical mediation is deemed necessary in Inter insigniores to bring the
tradition 's most basic beliefs to bear upon these changing circumstances.
There are several ancillary arguments in the document that serve to refute
defenses of the ordination of women based on Scripture and history. The
teaching notes in passing, for example, that the "undeniable influence of
prejudices unfavorable to women" in the writings of the Church Fathers had
negligible effect on their pastoral practice and spiritual direction.(FN28)
The argument "from origins" continues by observing that "Jesus did not
call any woman to become part of the Twelve" even though his attitude toward
women did not conform to, and indeed even "deliberately and courageously broke
with," the customs of his time.(FN29) Moreover, the apostles did not consider
women candidates to complete the Twelve in the Pentecost Church, even though
Mary herself occupied a privileged place in their circle. Nor did Paul extend
full ministerial powers to women.(FN30) As important as these arguments "from
origins" are in the document for defending the continuity of ecclesial practice
against counterarguments for change, they are secondary to what we will call
its argument "from representation."
Although Inter insigniores portrays its reasoning "from representation"
as a matter "of clarifying [its] teaching by the analogy of faith" and not as a
matter "of bringing forward a demonstrative argument,"(FN31) the manner in
which its premises lead to its conclusion seem to involve elementary deduction.
The argument's major premise is the "Church's constant teaching" that "the
bishop or the priest, in the exercise of his ministry, does not act in his own
name, in persona propria: he represents Christ, who acts through him...." In
the ministry, then, the priest "acts not only through the effective power
conferred on him by Christ, but in persona Christi."(FN32) This major premise
is qualified by the minor premise that the incarnation of the Word "took place
according to the male sex," a fact that does not imply a superiority of men
over women but which nonetheless conveys a harmony in the plan of salvation
revealed by God and symbolically important for the economy of revelation.(FN33)
Logical mediation yields the conclusion of the teaching that women cannot be
priests because as females they could not act ministerially in persona Christi
since the savior was a male.
This argument's minor premise addresses contemporary cultural shifts in
which feminist sensibilities would no longer assume that metaphysical
conceptions like persona are intrinsically male or would insist that such
conceptions transcend social (and ecclesial) bias only when they are understood
in a gender-inclusive manner. The rhetoric of the argument exhibits an
awareness of the claims of these sensibilities and of the need to convince
those who find the traditional belief incredible--even to the point that the
document anticipates and rebuffs counterarguments to the centrality it accords
to the maleness of Christ.
As we found in the case of Humanae vitae, so many theologians have found
the argumentation of Inter insigniores to be problematic that demonstrating its
lack of cogency to a wide segment of their number becomes a redundant task.
While several theological responses have criticized Inter insigniores's appeals
to Scripture and the history of the early Church as legitimate warrant for its
exclusion of women from priestly ordination,(FN34) the most consequential
criticism has addressed the argument "from representation."
Elizabeth Johnson, among others, has criticized the crucial role of
Jesus's maleness in the argument by setting its notion of representation in the
orthodox Christological tradition . The Cappadocian rule of faith "what is not
assumed is not saved," she notes, defined the proper understanding of human
persona in the fourth-century controversy on the humanity of Christ. The rule
judged wanting any notion of the humanity of Christ that excluded anything
essentially human from his existence, since the excluded human dimension would
not share in the hypostatic union and so not enjoy the union's saving effects.
"If maleness is constitutive for the incarnation and redemption," Johnson
observes, "female humanity is not assumed and therefore not saved."(FN35)
Privileging Jesus' maleness as Inter insigniores does particularizes the human
notion of persona in a way that puts it at odds with the ancient rule of faith,
thus destroying both the Christian notion of human person implicit in the rule
and any possibility of its legitimate representation, even and perhaps
especially if the object of representation is the person of Christ. Johnson
concludes that an "egalitarian anthropology that holds that women and men are
equally created in the image of God, and are equally one in Christ through the
waters of baptism" offers a more adequate resource for considering the issue of
priestly ordination.(FN36)
From the perspective of the argument's logical structure, we might
understand her point to be that such an egalitarian anthropology would better
shape a minor premise, and so properly qualify the major's largely uncontested
expectation that the priest in ministerial duties represents the person of
Christ. Both teachings, then, appear to fit our criterion of dramatically
developing doctrine, primarily because they seem not to have been widely
received by the faithful and secondarily, yet importantly, because they also
advance their teaching by arguments that have not proved convincing to those in
the Church professionally committed to the task of bringing understanding to
faith.
ARGUMENTS THAT MATTER NOT
The reader might benefit from a reminder at this point that our efforts
thus far to identify candidates for dramatically developing doctrine serve our
broader purpose of considering the theological problem of such doctrine's
authority. One could address this issue in a general fashion simply by
reference to the large body of literature on authority in the Church, the
teaching prerogatives of the magisterium, and theological responsibility that
has appeared since the Second Vatican Council. I would like to pursue this
question more specifically, though, by focusing on two of the features proposed
here for candidates for such doctrine: the arguments offered to advance a
teaching, and their cogency. If both doctrines fit our criterion on the counts
of reception, argument, and cogency, they also share another commonality with
regard to the latter two aspects. Humanae vitae directly and the broader
magisterial tradition of Inter insigniores indirectly subscribe to the view
that finally neither their arguments nor the cogency of their arguments are
consequential to the authority of their teaching. Humanae vitae expresses this
position in its pastoral directives to priests: For it is your principal
duty--We are speaking especially to you who teach moral theology--to spell out
clearly and completely the Church's teaching on marriage. In the performance of
your ministry you must be the first to give an example of that sincere
obedience, inward as well as outward, which is due to the magisterium of the
Church. For, as you know, the pastors of the Church enjoy a special light of
the Holy Spirit in teaching the truth. And this, rather than the arguments they
put forward, is why you are bound to such obedience.(FN37) This same point is
made indirectly in the magisterium's recent teaching on the exclusion of women
from priestly ordination, not in Inter insigniores but in John Paul II's
promulgation of its doctrine in Ordinatio sacerdotalis ("Apostolic Letter on
Ordination and Women," May 22, 1994). This text notes the conclusions of Inter
insigniores's arguments "from origins," fails to mention what many would
consider to be its principal argument "from representation," reiterates the
constancy of the Church's universal tradition in excluding women from priestly
ordination, and concludes with the pope's particular contribution to the issue:
Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great
importance, a matter which pertains to the church's divine constitution itself,
in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren ... I declare that the
church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and
that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's
faithful.(FN38) The status and purport of this teaching continue to be
discussed in the Church. For our purposes it is important to note that the pope
provides the context for his teaching in the remarks that precede the
declaration quoted above. In spite of the Church's consistent teaching even to
the present day, the reservation of priestly ordination to men alone, he
states, "in some places ... is nonetheless considered still open to debate, or
the church's judgment that women are not to be admitted to ordination is
considered to have a merely disciplinary force."(FN39) If the Apostolic Letter
responds to these circumstances and offers its teaching with the intention of
removing doubt in the Church, then at least one of its purposes is to close
debate on this issue. This purpose, I suggest, coupled with the Letter's
omission of reference to Inter insigniores's central and most debated argument,
amounts to an admission that neither magisterial arguments for the exclusion of
women from priestly ordination nor their cogency finally matter, since the
charism of the Church's teaching office alone is the basis of its authority.
The final dispensability of argument in magisterial teachings conveyed by
argument is affirmed as a general principle in the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith's Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian
(May 24, 1990). The Instruction addresses several matters concerning the
responsibility of theologians to the magisterium, focusing particularly on the
legitimacy and means of theological dissent from authentic teaching. One way in
which theologians defend the legitimacy of dissent from "non-irreformable
magisterial teaching,"(FN40) it claims, is by adopting a hermeneutical posture
that regards such teaching only as one voice among many in an ongoing
theological debate. "Certainly," the Instruction responds, it is one of the
theologian's tasks to give a correct interpretation to the texts of the
magisterium, and to this end he employs various hermeneutical rules. Among
these is the principle which affirms that magisterial teaching, by virtue of
divine assistance, has a validity beyond its argumentation, which may derive at
times from a particular theology.(FN41) Right theological interpretation, then,
should regard the argumentation of magisterial teaching as supplementary to its
conclusion, as, on the one hand, a dimension of its presentation that
theologians must strive to understand with an "intense and patient
reflection"(FN42) and yet, on the other hand, a dispensable contingency should
such reflection fail to yield the understanding sought. When all sincere effort
to appreciate the truth of magisterial teaching has proved fruitless, the
theologian may express personal dissent only by the means of confiding
privately in the magisterial authorities. One concern that might be
communicated in this one valid practice of dissent is how "the arguments
proposed to justify [the teaching]" are problematic. And when voiced privately,
such objections can have the happy consequence of contributing "to real
progress and [providing] a stimulus to the magisterium to propose the teaching
of the church in greater depth and with a clearer presentation of the
arguments."(FN43) While one rejoices in any manifestation of collegiality,
reconciliation, and progress in the doctrine of the faith, one cannot help but
notice that the results of this private consultation extend only to magisterial
argumentation and not to magisterial conclusion. As a result, argumentation
becomes a gloss to conclusion--a supplement capable of clarification,
modification, or even as much as separation without fear of effect upon the
teaching it purports to convey. Perhaps the Instruction's expectation that an
unsatisfactory resolution to private consultation is a call to the theologian
"to suffer for the truth, in silence and prayer"(FN44) is yet another
expression of its view that the weighing of ecclesial argument in public would
be as useless as it is scandalous since the argumentative dimension of
magisterial teaching finally matters not. Clearly the tone of our analysis
suggests that something is amiss in the presumed separability of argument and
conclusion in the authentic teaching of the magisterium. In the final section
of this article I will try to show how the assumed contingency of magisterial
argumentation bears on the theological problem of the authority of dramatically
developing doctrine. At this point, however, I would state unequivocally that
this problem cannot be addressed by undermining in any way the charismatic
authority of the Church's teaching office, itself one of the tradition 's basic
beliefs. A more fruitful approach to this problem would consider how reasoning
properly justifies a tradition of basic beliefs and through such justification
gains cogency among faithful believers. The account of epistemic justification
offered by nonfoundationalist philosophers can help to shed light on these
issues. ARGUMENTS WITHOUT "FOUNDATIONS" While there is no definable school that
represents the epistemological sensibilities of nonfoundationalism, one could
at least find a family resemblance of such philosophical commitments in the
tradition of American pragmatism. Building on the work of an older generation
that includes Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey,
contemporary pragmatists like Wilfrid Sellars, Willard Van Orman Quine, Richard
Rorty, and Richard Bernstein share several common assumptions that could be
described as nonfoundationalist.(FN45) All are keenly suspicious of the
Cartesian understanding of the philosophical task in which thinking is called
upon to establish a "first philosophy," an architectonic of all knowledge
grounded on some immediately experienced, self-certain principle that serves as
"foundations" for the entire edifice of knowledge. All oppose traditional
understandings of the philosophical justification of belief in which reasoning
is expected to show the validity of claims to knowledge finally by appeal to
indubitable "foundations" on which such claims rest. All regard the business of
philosophy, at least at this moment in its history, as the criticism of
Cartesianism and the formulation of more adequate accounts of knowing in which
claims to knowledge are justified without appeal to foundationalist principles.
Although the nonfoundationalists frequently personify the foundationalist error
by reference to Descartes, foundationalism is as old as the Platonic tradition
in Western philosophy. Whether the "foundations" of knowing appear in
philosophical accounts as Plato's eternal forms, Descartes's clear and distinct
ideas, the givenness of sense experience for Locke, or Kant's transcendental
categories of the understanding, they are esteemed by their proponents as
immediately justified beliefs whose certainty justifies more derivative claims
in the larger body of knowledge. Since the very purpose of "foundations" is to
assure the indubitability of knowledge, or at the very least the possibility of
such unquestioned certainty, foundationalists ascribe universality to whatever
principle they advance as the authenticator of truth claims. As Richard Rorty
observes, foundationalists seem to assume that epistemic "foundations" possess
an immediate veridical elan that permeates the entire system of knowledge and
"causes" whatever truth dwells among its mediate claims.(FN46) Noninferential
and indisputable, the "foundations" provide a point of departure for logical
deduction or a foothold for thinking's inductive climb toward valid knowledge.
Generally speaking, one could say that nonfoundationalist criticism makes its
target any variety of rationalism or empiricism that expects "foundations" for
knowledge, whether in ideas or sense data, to establish the certainty of
epistemic claims. Traditionally, foundationalists have been anxious at the
prospect of justifying claims to knowledge if such foundations do not exist.
Claims to knowledge, after all, can only be justified by appealing to other
claims to knowledge. And if there is not an utterly basic claim, a knowledge
whose immediate certainty is indubitable, then, the foundationalist fears, the
justification of knowledge becomes a dizzying, infinite spiral of skepticism in
which even the possibility of certainty in any instance is jeopardized.
Nonfoundationalist philosophers have argued that this, in Richard Bernstein's
well-known diagnosis, "Cartesian anxiety" is a needless worry, though one
prompted by strong, epistemic prejudices.(FN47) The philosopher of science
Wilfrid Sellars has argued that the foundationalist conceptualization of
knowledge is energized by what he calls the "myth of the given," the "idea that
there are inner episodes, whether thoughts or so-called 'immediate
experiences,' to which each of us has privileged access," inner episodes
furnishing "premises on which empirical knowledge rests as on a
foundation."(FN48) While the givenness of experience is an ordinary fact of
epistemic life, the imbuing of a particular dimension of experience with an
authoritative givenness leads to the foundationalist schema of knowledge, in
which a supposedly certain experience is called upon to provide assurances that
it really cannot. There is no evidence, Sellars contends, that such a
foundational, unmoved mover of knowledge exists. Indeed, as any number of the
critics of foundationalism have been quick to point out, the many, and quite
different, candidates for "foundations" in the history of philosophy mutually
deconstruct their respective claims to immediate and obvious certainty.
Typically, nonfoundationalists argue against foundationalism by offering a view
of knowledge in which its claims are relatively and mutually defined, and in
which the justification of knowledge is an ongoing, revisable enterprise.
Sellars, for example, points out that even the most basic report of a
supposedly foundational sense experience--as in the claim "This looks
red"--presupposes such a proliferating host of concepts, conditions, and
circumstances that our wider network of claims to knowledge is inescapably
implicated. And in this wider network, epistemic claims are mutually
constituted without appeal to any truth that is immediately given. Knowledge
cannot but be inferential, even if one can distinguish between more basic or
more complex dimensions of its inferential character. In Sellars's judgment,
this reciprocity between more basic and more complex modes of inferential
knowledge does not compromise the authority of knowledge itself, but only the
foundationalist authority of the myth of the given. "For empirical knowledge,"
he states, "like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational, not because
it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can
put any claim in jeopardy, though not all at once."(FN49) Like Sellars, Willard
Van Orman Quine rejects any rationalist or traditionally empiricist manner of
accounting for human knowledge. Philosophy, he claims, provides no "a priori
propaedeutic or groundwork for science." Nor does it offer some "external
vantage point" from which knowledge can be constructed. Rather, philosophy is
"continuous with science."(FN50) Its task involves the critical examination of
the formation of concepts from sensory evidence, the work of scientific
construction itself. For Quine, though, the process of concept formation is
inseparable from the formation of meaning in words, sentences, and the entire
system of language itself. "Meaning is," Quine insists, "what it does," and
what it does is place value on sensory stimulations in particular
circumstances. Meaning is not a transcendental quality, a foundation on which
sentences must rest in order to possess meaning, but a function of how
sentences are used and through such use acquire significance.(FN51) Meaning,
then, is behaviorally layered within the complex strands of sentences that
configure the "web" of belief, Quine's compelling metaphor for knowledge
itself. Though a foundationalist, to pursue the metaphor, might expect the
web's fixed integrity to rest upon a single strand, Quine situates the web's
meaningfulness in the constant revisions to its weaving called for by the
circumstances of its use. Our "statements about the external world," he
maintains, "face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as
a corporate body."(FN52) And the corporate body of knowledge is not only
foundationless but also utterly flexible. Sellars's and Quine's
nonfoundationalist perspective on the constitution of knowledge also has
implications for their understanding of epistemic justification, i.e. the task
of providing arguments of sufficient warrant for claims to knowledge or
beliefs. Clearly, if knowledge does not possess foundations, then neither do
the arguments one offers to justify beliefs. We have already noted that the
prospect of foundationless belief stirs the foundationalist's fear of an
infinite justificatory regress in which even the possibility of warranted
claims would be undercut. Sellars and Quine, however, do not find this prospect
threatening. The arguments by which belief is justified, they hold, need not
lead logically to a final grounding principle that brings the business of
making justificatory arguments to closure. Both regard justificatory
argumentation in support of claims to knowledge as an activity internal to the
claims for which one argues. For Sellars, justifications of belief fall within
the scope of theorizing, the activity of explaining the beliefs we hold. Their
arguments, he proposes, are best understood as self-correcting, inductive
generalizations, as accounts of a rational system's reasonable coherence
offered from within its own network of belief. Similarly, Quine affirms this
contextual, self-referential view of justification in what has come to be known
as his doctrine of holism. According to this thesis, parts of theories,
including for our purposes justificatory arguments, are "not separately
vulnerable to adverse observations, because it is only jointly as a theory that
they imply their observable consequences."(FN53) Parts of theories, in other
words, including the reasoned arguments on behalf of more basic background
beliefs, do not simply collapse in the face of conflicting data. Justificatory
arguments so foster the basic beliefs they serve--the two utterly intertwined
in the proliferating network of claims to knowledge--that contrary evidence
more typically will lead to their revision than to their abandonment. Both
Sellars and Quine reject what Michael Williams has called a "genetic"
conception of justification in which the cogency of arguments on behalf of
beliefs is assumed to be caused by the immediately certain, foundationalist
principle to which they are logically joined.(FN54) Both understand
justificatory argumentation to be as foundationless, continuous, and resistant
to closure as our efforts to accommodate our language to experience. The
purport of Sellars's and Quine's nonfoundationalist view on the task of
justification is that what we call knowledge is its justification, itself an
open-ended process of explaining--we might say arguing for--the beliefs valued
in particular meaningful contexts. In the absence of "foundations," arguments
are the principal means by which basic beliefs are themselves shaped, and by
which their values gain cogency and thus authority. Arguments, then, are
indispensable to claims to knowledge in this nonfoundationalist perspective,
for the reasons they provide for beliefs not only support, relate, criticize
and revise those claims but also are those claims themselves. By the same
token, this nonfoundationalist understanding highlights the degree to which the
contributions of argument to justification are diminished in a foundationalist
understanding of knowledge. Deductive and inductive arguments in such a
foundationalist schema justify a truth claim that itself requires no
justification since its epistemic authority is regarded as immediate and
obvious. Whatever logical authority justificatory arguments possess in a
foundationalist conceptualization of knowledge derives finally from the
"foundations" from which such arguments proceed or to which they lead in an
epistemic return to origins. In this "genetic" conception of justification,
such arguments are separable from, and so in some measure supplements to, their
"foundations." While the separability of "foundations" and argumentation is a
constant in foundationalist argumentation, the extent of separability may vary.
"Weak" versions of foundationalist argumentation may account for the logical
connections between and among derivative, mediate claims to knowledge, showing,
thereby, the integrity of the body of knowledge they present. Or such
argumentation may confirm the purported certainty of foundationalist claims or
experiences to which it has pledged logical allegiance. In comparison to a
nonfoundationalist conception of justification, weak versions of
foundationalist argumentation diminish the value of argumentation, though
argumentation is not so separable from its "foundations" that it can be deemed
indispensable. "Strong" versions of foundationalist argumentation diminish the
value of argumentation even further. Resting assured that their justificatory
explanations mirror the indubitability of their first principles, strong
versions of foundationalism would regard their argumentation to be completely
separable from, because they are utterly supplementary to, the "foundations"
they serve. Here arguments, since they are but glosses to an immediately given
truth, are finally dispensable and so matter little if at all.(FN55) REASONING
WITH AUTHORITY In recent years a number of theologians have touted the value of
a nonfoundationalist approach to knowledge for theological reflection. The
advocates of this approach, most notably George Lindbeck, Ronald Thiemann,
Stanley Hauerwas, and Charles Wood, largely have been Protestant theologians
who have found the nonfoundationalist perspective helpful in refuting the
apologetical use of universal theories in many modern theologies and in
fostering a descriptive approach to theological interpretation consistent with
a Reformation understanding of theology as scriptural exegesis. While several
Catholic theologians have produced works compatible with a nonfoundationalist
perspective,(FN56) this approach has often stirred Catholic suspicion, perhaps
because variations on the transcendental method advocated by influential
Catholic theologians like Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, and David Tracy often
are cited by Protestant nonfoundationalists as examples of the foundationalist
error.(FN57) There are any number of reasons for Catholic sensibilities to be
wary of the nonfoundationalist approach to knowledge. There is no reason in
principle, however, to think that nonfoundationalist philosophy could not prove
helpful in illuminating Catholic commitments on any number of issues,
especially the proper relationship between faith and reason. Like any
philosophical stance, nonfoundationalist criticism can only be put to use
legitimately in a Catholic setting if measured choices are made about which of
its insights are valuable and how those insights are used to clarify beliefs
that are basically Catholic. Catholic assumptions about the nature of religious
reasoning, for example, could not possibly make room for the typically
nonfoundationalist view that all knowledge is relative or that universality
cannot be ascribed to truth claims. But to the degree that nonfoundationalist
sensibilities work to expose exaggerated and finally unsustainable claims for
the justification of belief, and foster an understanding of the workings of
reason true to our actual beliefs and practices, they are indispensable for
appreciating the conduct of right reasoning, including the reasoning invoked as
authoritative in the Catholic tradition by the magisterium, theologians, and
the faithful. A nonfoundationalist perspective on the justification of belief
suggests that the magisterial understanding of argumentation in its teaching is
foundationalist, and even strongly so. Extraecclesial sensibilities would reach
this conclusion, no doubt, because the magisterium's authoritative appeal to
the charism of its office would appear to be an immediately justified belief
supporting the claims issuing from the exercise of office. In this view, the
charge of foundationalism amounts to the judgment that magisterial arguments
cannot possess authority since the teaching office does not possess the charism
that supposedly grounds its authoritative cliams. But one of the advantages of
a nonfoundationalist perspective is its appreciation for how claims to
knowledge are contextualized, standing always in a particular framework of
meaning in which commitment, practice, and belief interrelate as they serve
more basic, if not foundationalist, beliefs. To the degree that the charism of
the teaching office is a part of the common stock of basic Catholic beliefs,
Catholic sensibilities would not find it to be comparable to the "foundations"
that reason alone would criticize in traditional epistemologies. Yet even
within the circle of Catholic faith nonfoundationalist criticism suggests
another respect in which magisterial argumentation is foundationalist and so,
measured by the very values of the Catholic tradition , in need of revision. On
the face of it, the magisterium seems to exhibit a foundationalist regard for
reasoning by skewing the proper argumentative relationship between the Catholic
tradition 's basic beliefs and the reasoned extension of those basic beliefs to
new circumstances. In Humanae vitae, for example, natural-law reasoning is so
conflated with the tradition 's more basic belief in divine providence and
human openness to God's workings in the world that the encyclical's natural-law
arguments eclipse their major premise, as though the family lives of believers
could only be open to God's will if the practice of artificial contraception
were excluded. Here, magisterial reasoning, now virtually eclipsing the basic
belief, takes on the character of "foundations" that immediately justify the
encyclical's teaching. By making maleness an indispensable trait of the
savior's humanity, Inter insigniores also conflates argument with its premise
that the priestly office represents the person of Christ, creating thereby
"foundations" for belief that not only immediately justify its conclusion but
also do so by contradicting the tradition 's basic, albeit indirect, teaching
on the nature of humanity as embraced and saved by Jesus Christ. In both cases,
an arguable claim is imbued with the certainty of a first principle, even
though traditional beliefs more basic than those cited foundationalistically
stand ready in the context of faith as viable resources for authoritative
argument. The magisterium's judgment regarding the dispensability of
argumentation in its teaching further evinces a foundationalist regard for
reasoning even within the setting of Catholic values, for this judgment so
assumes the obvious certainty of the first principles seen to be reflected in
the teaching's conclusion that the arguments by which it is reached do not
share in its authority--an especially surprising stance in light of the fact
that the teaching in question is presented as argument. This diremption between
conclusion and argumentation--itself raised to a general principle of
magisterial teaching in the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian--exhibits the
foundationalist assumption that immediately justified beliefs "cause" the truth
of mediately justified beliefs, an epistemic aetiology that in strong versions
at least makes both argumentation and its cogency superfluous. While the
magisterium is inclined to explain its regard for the dispensability of
argumentation by appeal to the charismatic authority of its office, a
nonfoundationalist approach to the traditional knowledge it safeguards would
expect that same charism to be exercised within the ongoing justification of
belief in the history of faith. Within this ecclesial context, the magisterium
occasionally practices the charism of authentic teaching by reiterating ancient
beliefs so basic to the tradition 's knowledge that they pass unquestioned from
age to age. Frequently, though, the magisterial charism is exercised in the
extension of Catholicism's basic beliefs to present circumstances that call for
their guidance or that challenge customary forms of their application.
Argumentation is rightly regarded not as a merely accidental dimension of this
extension but as the very way in which the magisterium, in the terminology of
nonfoundationalist philosophers, justifies its present teaching with regard to
the tradition 's ancient and basic beliefs. This, of course, does not mean that
the charism of the teaching office is in thrall to reasoning whose soundness is
gauged by philosophical criteria of one sort or another. The justification of
the Church's belief takes place in the Catholic tradition 's own authoritative
network of commitments, doctrines, and practices. But the explanation of the
faith that justification involves must be measured by standards of coherence
and cogency that in their own terms are no less rigorous than any epistemic
ideal. With regard to reasoning in magisterial teaching, this means that the
charism of the teaching office is meaningfully exercised within, and not apart
from, the faithful argumentation for uses to which basic beliefs might be put.
When employed by the magisterium to convey its teaching, such argumentation is
properly regarded as authentic and so to matter as much as a teaching's
conclusion since both are normatively bound to the tradition they promulgate.
Our discussion brings us to the modest conclusion that arguments should be
understood as authoritative in the Church's authentic teaching, and as
inseparable from the conclusions they advance. In light of our analysis we can
now consider our original problem concerning the authority of dramatically
developing doctrine for Catholic theology. Our efforts to consider this
question, however tentative, must begin by noting the hermeneutical modesty
with which this issue is rightly approached. The criterion for dramatically
developing doctrine presented earlier in these pages offered not a sure method
for identifying such doctrine but rather a heuristic for noticing possible,
more likely candidates for presently authoritative Church teaching that may one
day lose its authority. While reception was the most important aspect of this
criterion, the supplementary aspects of argumentative presentation and cogency
together mark doctrine that is developing (because argument is deemed necessary
to mediate basic beliefs to present circumstances) and perhaps developing
dramatically (because the very arguments conveying doctrine that has not been
received by the faithful even fail to prove cogent to a wide segment of those
in the Church qualified to judge the validity of argument). As noted earlier,
the authority of dramatically developing doctrine is an important issue for all
in the Church, though our concern here more specifically is with the authority
of such doctrine for theological reflection, itself often a considerable
influence on the dynamics of development in any form. And any theological
judgment regarding even the possible identification of dramatically developing
doctrine does well to acknowledge its own potential for error. After all, our
two possible examples of dramatically developing doctrine have long had a place
in the belief, teaching, and practice of the Church, even if not in the
particular argumentative forms in which they more recently have been presented.
Only the most cavalier disregard for that tradition would judge with certainty
and without ambivalence that these or any doctrines of the Church are indeed
examples of dramatically developing doctrine. Nevertheless, theologians
occasionally judge, properly with ambivalence and without certainty, that a
particular doctrine is developing dramatically. No such judgment, though, could
undermine the present status of the doctrine in question as the authentic
teaching of the magisterium, for such a consequence would elevate theological
assessment above the charism of the Church's teaching authority. Even as they
stand in the argumentative forms in which the dramatic character of their
development might be recognized, these doctrines still possess the authority
that issues from any pronouncement of the ordinary magisterium as the authentic
interpreter of God's revelation in Scripture and tradition . The authority of
doctrine in the Catholic tradition is not measured solely by what has been or
at some future time will be taught by the magisterium and received by the
faithful. Such an expectation would gauge authority statically by reference to
unanimity alone, ignoring the much more contested development that many
authoritative teachings have had and continue to have in the Catholic tradition
. Dramatically developing doctrine, then, possesses authority for Catholic
theology, to say nothing of the life of the Church, as long as it continues to
be taught authentically by the magisterium. Our analysis, however, has led us
to value the authority of magisterial arguments as charismatic means of
promulgating the tradition's basic beliefs in present circumstances. While it
is important to acknowledge the magisterial authority of these arguments,
failures in their cogency and reception can only mean that their authority
remains ambiguous, and so questionable, for the Church. Although apparently
oxymoronic from the perspective of a foundationalist regard for the
justification of ecclesial belief in which argument and conclusion are
separable, the juxtaposition of authority and ambiguity is meaningful in a
nonfoundationalist regard for the justification of ecclesial belief.(FN58) In
this epistemic perspective informed by Catholic commitment, argument,
conclusion, and basic beliefs are inextricably bound together in the historical
context of tradition in which the discernment of God's spirit at work in the
Church is rarely, if ever, exhaustive. Should magisterial arguments fail to
convince, then better, more coherent, traditionally faithful arguments need to
be offered by those in the Church who have the ability to justify ecclesial
belief. The Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian supports
this directive by encouraging theologians to contribute to the improvement of
magisterial argument, though it expects theological insights to be communicated
in private and assumes that such improvement will be indifferent to whatever
magisterial conclusion has already been reached. A more dialogical
understanding of ecclesia, and one more committed to Vatican I's teaching on
the complementarity of faith and reason,(FN59) would not fear public discussion
in the Church on how its basic beliefs are logically extended to present
circumstances and would be open to the possibility for such dialogue to be the
very means of doctrinal development.(FN60) The same sensibilities would hold
fast to the necessary consistency between argument and conclusion in the
Church's authoritative teaching, regard the cogency of such teaching as a value
of tradition -bound faith, and remain open to revision in authoritative
conclusion as well as in authoritative argumentation. Reasoned argument truly
informed by and demonstrating the consistency of traditional faith can never be
extraneous to the authority of the Church's teaching, any more than reasoning
truly in the service of faith can be foreign to the purposes of the Church. The
expectation that faithful reasoning will lead to utter unanimity among the
faithful would seem to be a symptom of a foundationalist understanding of its
workings, as erroneous in the sphere of ecclesial knowledge as it is in any
other. When conducted authoritatively, ecclesial reasoning respects the
pluralism of argumentative possibilities within the tradition it holds sacred,
seeks to align its expectations with what the Church has believed and continues
to believe, and recognizes its own responsibility to the development of
Catholic doctrine, even in the rare cases when that doctrine develops
dramatically.
FOOTNOTES
1 The Second Vatican Council's "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine
Revelation" explicitly teaches the development of Catholic tradition (Dei
verbum no. 8). Translations of the conciliar documents are from Vatican Council
II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, ed. A. Flannery, O.P.
(Northport, N.Y.: Costello, 1987). A more recent statement of the International
Theological Commission, which one can assume enjoys the support of the
magisterium, outlines normative principles for theological interpretation in
the context of developing tradition ; see On the Interpretation of Dogmas
(April 21, 1990), in Origins 20 no. 1 (17 May 1994) 1-14.
2 Dei verbum nos. 8, 10.
3 See, e.g., John T. Noonan, Jr., "Development in Moral Doctrine," TS
54 (1993) 662-77. Noonan's examples are magisterial teachings on the moral
issues of usury, marriage, slavery, and religious freedom. An example of
development in a doctrine of faith leading to its loss of authority is Pius
XII's exclusion of Christians not in communion with Rome from membership in the
Church in the encyclical Mystici corporis Christi (no. 102), a teaching
reversed in Vatican II's "Decree on Ecumenism" (Unitatis redintegratio no. 3).
See John H. Wright, S.J., "That All Doubt May Be Removed," America 171 no. 3
(30 July 1994) 18-19.
4 Karl Rahner, "Current Problems in Christology," in Theological
Investigations 1, trans. C. Ernst (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961)
149-51.
5 Lumen gentium no. 12.
6 Ibid.
7 Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et
Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum, 33d ed. (Freiburg im Briesgau: Herder,
1966) 102-104, nos. 290-95. There is an English translation of the complete
text in Christology of the Later Fathers, ed. E. Hardy (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1954) 360-70.
8 Comparisons of magisterial practice across centuries yet must
acknowledge the different understandings of teaching authority that have
flourished in the Church; see Yves Congar, O.P., "A Semantic History of the
Term 'Magisterium,'" in Readings in Moral Theology No. 3: The Magisterium and
Morality, ed. Charles Curran and Richard McCormick (New York: Paulist, 1982)
306-7.
9 For an interesting discussion of logical mediation in religious
doctrinal traditions, see William A. Christian, Sr., Doctrines of Religious
Communities: A Philosophical Study (New Haven: Yale University, 1987) esp.
12-114.
10 Pius XI, Casti connubii (December 31, 1930), in The Papal
Encyclicals: 1903-1939, ed. C. Carlen (Raleigh, N.C.: McGrath, 1981) 391-414,
no. 54. For a most thorough discussion of the history of the teaching, see John
T. Noonan, Jr., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic
Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1965).
11 Paul VI, Humanae vitae (July 25, 1968), in The Papal Encyclicals:
1958-1981, ed. C. Carlen (Raleigh, N.C.: McGrath, 1981) 223-33, no. 14.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 A typical statistic is offered in a recent Gallup poll which found
that 84[percent] of American Catholics believed they "should be allowed to
practice artificial means of birth control," while 13[percent] believed they
should not be allowed (The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1993 [Wilmington, Del.:
Scholarly Resources, 1994] 145). A 1994 New York Times/CBS News poll found that
98[percent] of American Catholics 18-29 years of age practice artificial birth
control, 91[percent] of those 30-44, 85[percent] of those 45-64, and
72[percent] of those 65 and older (The New York Times [1 June 1994] B8).
15 Humanae vitae no. 2.
16 Ibid. no. 9.
17 Ibid. no. 12.
18 Ibid. no. 10.
19 Ibid. no. 11.
20 Ibid. nos. 1-3.
21 Ibid. no. 18.
22 Charles E. Curran, "Natural Law and Contemporary Moral Theology," in
Contraception: Authority and Dissent, ed. C. Curran (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1969) 159-60. Cf. Charles E. Curran, Transition and tradition in Moral
Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1979) 30-31.
23 Joseph A. Komonchak, "Humanae Vitae and Its Reception:
Ecclesiological Reflections," TS 39 (1978) 252.
24 Karl Rahner, "On the Encyclical 'Humane Vitae,'" in Theological
Investigations 11, trans. D. Bourke (New York: Seabury, 1974) 276-77.
25 The 1977 Gallup poll is cited in Leonard Swidler, "Roma Locuta,
Causa Finita?" in Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican
Declaration, ed. L. Swidler and A. Swidler (New York: Paulist, 1977) 3. A 1993
Gallup poll found that 33[percent] of Catholic respondents "strongly agreed"
and 30[percent] "moderately agreed" that it would be "a good thing if women
were allowed to be ordained as priests" (The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1993
144). A 1994 New York Times/CBS News poll found that 59[percent] of American
Catholics favored the ordination of women to the priesthood (The New York Times
[1 June 1994] B8).
26 See Leonard Swidler, "Roma Locuta, Causa Finita?" 3.
27 Inter insigniores, "Vatican Declaration: Women in the Ministerial
Priesthood," Origins 6 no. 33 (3 February 1977) 517-24, nos. 1, 3, 4.
28 Ibid. no. 6.
29 Ibid. no. 10.
30 Ibid. nos. 14-17.
31 Ibid. no. 25.
32 Ibid. no. 26.
33 Ibid. nos. 28, 30.
34 E.g. Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, "The Twelve," and "The Apostleship
of Women in Early Christianity," in Women Priests 114-22, 135-40. Anne E. Carr
points out that making Jesus' practice normative for the Church's practice of
ordination cannot in principle sift the fact that he chose only males for the
Twelve from the other traits that his choice also involved: "if the practice of
Jesus were followed in all aspects, married men would have to be eligible for
ordination--and only converted Jews could be ordained!" (Transforming Grace:
Christian tradition and Women's Experience [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988]
55).
35 Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist
Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992) 153.
36 Ibid.
37 Humanae vitae no. 28.
38 John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, in Origins 24 no. 4 (9 June
1994) 50-52, no. 4.
39 Ibid.
40 Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian, in Origins
20 no. 8 (5 July 1990) 118-26, no. 28.
41 Ibid. no. 34.
42 Ibid. no. 29.
43 Ibid. no. 30.
44 Ibid. no. 31; emphasis mine.
45 For the discussion that follows I have relied on the presentation of
nonfoundationalist philosophies in my Nonfoundationalism, Guides to Theological
Inquiry (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 1-37.
46 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton:
Princeton University, 1979) 157.
47 Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science,
Hermeneutics, and Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1983)
16-20.
48 Wilfrid Sellars, "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind," in Science,
Perception and Reality (New York: Humanities, 1963) 140.
49 Ibid. 170.
50 W. V. Quine, "Natural Kinds," in Ontological Relativity and Other
Essays (New York: Columbia University, 1969) 126-27.
51 W. V. Quine, "Use and Its Place in Meaning," in Theories and Things
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1981) 45.
52 W. V. Quine, From a Logical Point of View (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University, 1964) 41.
53 W. V. Quine, "On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the World,"
Erkenntnis 9 (1975) 313.
54 Michael Williams, Groundless Belief: An Essay on the Possibility of
Epistemology (New Haven: Yale University, 1977) 89.
55 The distinction introduced here between "weak" and "strong" versions
of foundationalist argumentation parallels a distinction sometimes made in the
philosophical literature between "weak" and "strong" foundations for knowledge.
See, e.g., William P. Alston, "Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?" Philosophical
Studies 29 (1976) 290-91; Ernest Sosa, "The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence
versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5
(1980) 14-15.
56 E.g. Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Foundational Theology: Jesus and
the Church (New York: Crossroad, 1986); Nicholas Lash, Easter in Ordinary:
Reflections on Human Experience and the Knowledge of God (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame, 1990); James J. Buckley, Seeking the Humanity of God:
Practices, Doctrines, and Catholic Theology (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1992).
57 See, e.g., George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and
Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 38; Ronald F.
Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame, 1985) 6.
58 For further discussion of the idea of ambiguous authority, see John
E. Thiel, "Responsibility to the Spirit: Authority in the Catholic tradition ,"
New Theology Review 8 (1995) 53-68.
59 Denzinger-Schonmetzer, Enchiridion 591, 592, nos. 1797, 1799.
60 One convincing model for a dialogical ecclesiology is presented in
Paul Lakeland, Theology and Critical Theory: The Discourse of the Church
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1990).
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