Infallibility
Papal infallibility ‒ officially decreed at the First Vatican Council in 1870
Excerpted from A Whirld of Words: A Reader’s Commonplace Dictionary.
You will find the WORKS CITED below.
infallibility
officially decreed at the First Vatican Council in 1870, papal infallibility is the doctrine that states that when popes make a solemn pronouncement on matters of revealed faith or morals and invoke full authority as the Successor of Peter, the Holy Spirit preserves them from error. Only rarely have popes formally exercised this teaching authority. Moreover, canon 749.3 of the Code of Canon Law states clearly that, ‘No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless this is manifestly demonstrated’
(Allen 2004) p. 197
Infallibility does not guarantee that a papal definition is prudent, wise, or timely. The prerogative of infallibility guarantees only that what is defined is true. Even in the realm of defined truth it is necessary to distinguish between the truth that is taught and the adequacy of its expression and its concepts
(Quinn 1999) p. 49, 50, 65
the word ‘infallible’, which had a portentous impact on the world in 1870 when it was incorporated in a famous doctrinal statement. The ripples of that impact have not yet subsided and there is a certain interest in observing the humble origin of this innocent word. The fortunes of words are among the least well-charted areas of the past, but it takes very little research to discover that the Latin world got along for many centuries without feeling the need for this powerful and unusual tool. It first appears as one of the novelties of the twelfth century to which we owe so much of our traditional intellectual equipment. The point of departure would seem to have been a single occurrence of the word infallibilis in the Latin translation of Aristotle’s Topics which became current about the middle of the twelfth century. It is there used as an example of a false proposition in the phrase ‘a geometrician cannot be deceived’; and from this unpromising start it made its way, slowly at first, and then with increasing momentum in the thirteenth century, into common speech. At first it seems to have been used chiefly to describe the power behind the unvarying processes of Nature. It was in this sense that it was used by Gerald of Wales in about 1190 to describe the way in which dogs identify their masters by their smell, ‘as if Nature had implanted the whole infallible power of experience in the nose’. Then the uses of the word were extended to describe the certainty of the senses, the truth of dogma, the conclusions of geometry, the attributes of God. Thomas Aquinas used the word in all these senses; and lesser mortals, historians and others, were beginning at the same time to use it for all kinds of events or expectations which were as certain as anything can be. Shortly it became established in the vernacular language; and finally – but perhaps not until the seventeenth century – it reached its peak as a uniquely emphatic way of expressing the highest power of the papacy
(Southern and Bartlett 2004) p. 107
conscience
Conscience, conscience! Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, certain guide of a being that is ignorant and limited but intelligent and free; infallible judge of good and bad which makes men like unto God; the most enlightened of philosophers
(Rousseau 1979) pp. 290, 408
corruption
corruption is the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty
(Gibbon 1983) v. 1, p. 706
Dickens, Charles
Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even if Dickens was a bourgeois, he was certainly a subversive writer, a radical, one might truthfully say a rebel. Everyone who has read widely in his work has felt this. It seems that in every attack Dickens makes upon society he is always pointing to a change of spirit rather than a change of structure. It is hopeless to try and pin him down to any definite remedy, still more to any political doctrine. His approach is always along the moral plane, and his attitude is sufficiently summed up in that remark about Strong’s school being as different from Creakle’s ‘as good is from evil.’ Two things can be very much alike and yet abysmally different. Heaven and Hell are in the same place. Useless to change institutions without a ‘change of heart’ – that, essentially, is what he is always saying. The strongest single impression one carries away from his books is that of a hatred of tyranny. Dickens has an infallible moral sense, but very little intellectual curiosity. In the typical Dickens novel, the deus ex machina enters with a bag of gold in the last chapter and the hero is absolved from further struggle. Really there is no objective except to marry the heroine, settle down, live solvently and be kind. The spirit in which most of Dickens’s books end – a sort of radiant idleness. The outstanding, unmistakable part of Dickens’s writing is the unnecessary detail. His imagination overwhelms everything, like a kind of weed. Dickens is obviously a writer whose parts are greater than his wholes. As a rule, the ‘plot’ in which Dickens’s characters get entangled is not particularly credible, but at least it makes some pretence at reality, whereas the world to which they belong is a never-never land, a kind of eternity
(Orwell 1954) p. 55, 56, 71, 93, 94, 99, 101, 102, 103, 105
dictum
every sentence found in a canonical Book, rightly interpreted, contains the dictum of an infallible Mind, – but what the right interpretation is, – or whether the very words now extant are corrupt or genuine – must be determined by the industry and understanding of fallible, and alas! more or less prejudiced theologians
(Coleridge 1967) p. 61
fatalism
Zagzebski (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) defines fatalism as, ‘the thesis that human acts occur by necessity and hence are unfree’. She goes on to say: ‘Theological fatalism is the thesis that infallible foreknowledge of a human act makes the act necessary and hence unfree’. Astrological fatalism was the fundamental tenet of Roman creed in the first century CE, as the observations of Tacitus testify
(Clark 2016) p. 165, 167
mass leader
the chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility ; he can never admit an error
(Arendt 1958) p. 348
primacy
the tool Vatican officials believe Christ gave the papacy to promote fidelity and accountability, thus understood, is known as primacy. This refers to the ‘supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power’ that canon 331 of the Code of Canon Law says belongs to the Pope, and to the Pope alone. He has primacy over other bishops and the entire Catholic Church. In reality, as Catholic writer Russell Shaw has noted, it is not so much papal infallibility that creates controversy within the Catholic Church as primacy. The ecumenical Council of Florence in the fifteenth century defined papal primacy as a dogma of the Catholic Church. The doctrine was elaborated by the First Vatican Council (1869-70) and reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). Vatican I, in the same document that defined papal infallibility, Pastor Aeternus of July 18, 1870, provided a clear statement on primacy. It declared, ‘that the Roman Church, by the disposition of the Lord, holds the sovereignty of ordinary power over all others, and that this power of jurisdiction on the part of the Roman Pontiff, which is truly episcopal, is immediate; and with respect to this the pastors and the faithful of whatever rite and dignity, both as separate individuals and all together, are bound by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, not only in things which pertain to faith and morals, but also in those which pertain to the discipline and government of the Church spread over the whole world.’ Vatican I also taught that the primacy was instituted by Christ, with St. Peter; that the primacy is transmitted in perpetuity to Peter’s successors, the popes; and that there can be no appeal from the Pope to some higher authority. This marked the end of a centuries-long debate as to whether the bishops in an ecumenical council constituted a power superior to the papacy
(Allen 2004) p. 197, 198
totalitarian
freedom from the content of their own ideologies characterizes the highest rank of the totalitarian hierarchy. These men consider everything and everybody in terms of organization. Totalitarian leaders are actually free to do whatever they please and can count on the loyalty of their entourage even if they choose to murder them – suicidal loyalty – moral cynicism. It is not the truthfulness of the Leader’s words but the infallibility of his actions which is the basis for the structure
(Arendt 1958) p. 387
totalitarianism sets out to liquidate the tragic insights which gave man a sense of his limitations. In their place it has spawned a new man, ruthless, determined, extroverted, free from doubts or humility, capable of infallibility , and, on the higher echelons of the Party, infallible. The ‘totalitarian man’ is Koestler’s Commissar – ‘the human type which has completely severed relations with the subconscious.’ He is the Hero of André Malraux, the man incarnating mass purpose and historical destiny, in contrast to an individualism based on the cultivation of personal differences
(Schlesinger 1949) p. 56
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WORKS CITED
Allen, John L. (2004), All the Pope’s Men: The Inside Story of How the Vatican Really Thinks (New York: Doubleday) 392.
Arendt, Hannah (1958), The Origins of Totalitarianism (2d enl. edn.; New York: Meridian Books) 520.
Clark, David A. (2016), The Lord’s Prayer: Origins and Early Interpretations (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols) xi, 258.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1967), Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (Stanford University Press) 120.
Gibbon, Edward (1983), The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 1, 3 vols. (New York: Modern Library) viii, 956.
Orwell, George (1954), A Collection of Essays (Garden City, NY: Doubleday) 320.
Quinn, John R. (1999), The Reform of the Papacy: The Costly Call to Christian Unity (New York: Crossroad) 189.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1979), Emile: or, On Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books) ix, 501.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. (1949), The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom (Boston: Houghton Mifflin) x, 274.
Southern, R. W. and Bartlett, Robert (2004), History and Historians: Selected Papers of R.W. Southern (Malden, MA: Blackwell) ix, 278.
Gibbon seems to have had the right of it. Informative and interesting selection. Thank you.