Roman Catholic Dogma - Early Uses of The Term

Early Uses of The Term

The term Dogma Catholicum was first used by Vincent of Lérins (450), referring to “what all, everywhere and always believed” In the year 565, Emperor Justinian declared the decisions of the first ecumenical councils as law because they are true dogmata of God In the Middle Ages, the term Doctrina Catholica, (Catholic doctrine) was used for the Catholic faith. Individual beliefs were labeled as Articulus Fidei ( part of the faith)

Ecumenical Councils issue dogmas. Many dogmata - especially from the early Church (Ephesus, Chalcedon) to the Council of Trent - were formulated against specific heresies.(Holy Spirit only emanating from father and not from Father and Son) Later dogmas (Immaculate Conception and Assumption of Mary) express the greatness of God in binding language. At the specific request of Pope John XXIII, the Second Vatican Council did not proclaim any dogmas. Instead it presented the basic elements of the Catholic faith in a more understandable, pastoral language, without changing the teachings of the Church. The last two dogmas were pronounced by Popes, Pope Pius IX in 1854 and Pope Pius XII in 1950 on the Immaculate Conception and the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary respectively. They are cornerstones of mariology

To some, this raises the question, why “new” dogmas are formulated almost 2000 years after the resurrection of Christ. It is Catholic teaching that with Christ and the Apostles, revelation is completed. Dogmata issued after the death of his apostles are not new, but explications of existing faith. Implicit truth are specified as explicit, as it was done in the teachings on the Trinity by the ecumenical councils. Karl Rahner tries to explain this with the allegorical sentence of a husband to his wife “ I love you” this surely implies, I am faithful to you. In 450 Vincent of Lérins asked in his famous Commonitory, Will there be no progress in religion in the Church of Christ? Of course there will be progress. There will be much progress, but it will be progress in truth and faith, not change. Progress means addition, change means alteration.

But he warns: “What is entrusted to you, not what you invented. What you received, not what you imagined, not a matter of reason but of teaching, not your preferences but public tradition, what you were given, not what you produced, …you received gold, give gold back.” The Church uses this text in its interpretation of dogmatic development: The first Vatican Council stated in 1870 that within the limits of the statement of Vincent of Lérins, dogmatic development is possible, Vatican II confirms this view in Lumen Gentium.