The Catholic Church and Dogmatic Facts
Jansenists distinguished between "fact" and "dogma". They held that the Catholic Church is infallible in defining revealed truth and in condemning errors opposed to revealed truth; but that the Church is not infallible in defining facts which are not contained in divine revelation, and consequently that the Church was not infallible in declaring that a particular doctrine, in a particular sense, was found in the Augustinus of Jansenius.
Catholic theologians teach that the Church, or the pope, is infallible, not only in defining what is formally contained in divine revelation, but also in defining virtually revealed truths, or generally in all definitions and condemnations which are necessary for safe-guarding the body of revealed truth. Whether it is to be regarded as a defined doctrine, as a doctrine de fide, that the Church is infallible in definitions about dogmatic facts, is disputed among theologians.
The Catholic Church has always exercised the right of pronouncing with authority on dogmatic facts. She has always claimed the right of defining that the doctrine of heretics, in the sense in which it is contained in their books, or in their discourses, is heretical; that the doctrine of an orthodox writer, in the sense in which it is contained in his writings, is orthodox.
Read more about this topic: Dogmatic Fact
Famous quotes containing the words catholic, church, dogmatic and/or facts:
“Lord, have mercy on us.
[Kyrie, eleison.]”
—Missal, The. The Ordinary of the Mass.
Missal is book of prayers and rites used to celebrate the Roman Catholic mass during the year.
“The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The churches ... have lost much of their authority over youth because they have refused to re-examine their religious sanctions and their dogmatic preaching in the light of modern physiology, psychology and sociology.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“One would appear ridiculous who would say, that it is only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must die; though it is plain we have no further assurance of these facts than what experience affords us.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)