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Infallibility
by Ronald Walls
Why is the topic “infallibility” important? It is important because it has to do with the possibility of our learning the truth. In order to live a good and happy life men and women must have a grasp on the truth. They must know how life can be conformed to reality, to the way things have been designed; they must know something at least about the mind of the One who created things and made them as they are.
If I were asked, “What do you think the greatest weakness of our society today is?” I would answer, “It has forgotten about the urgency of finding the truth.” This is just another way of saying that men and women today place little value upon the need to know God, for God is truth. And so for many people the notion of infallibility is irrelevant.
Now, this is not a modern defect. We find a classic example in Pontius Pilate. “Truth?” said Pilate, “What is that?” (Jn 18:38). In Pilate we hear the voice of the cynical sceptic. The most important thing in that scene when, just before His Crucifixion, Jesus confronted Pilate, is Jesus’s assertion: “I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice” (Jn 18:37). Christians claim to be on the side of truth and so they listen to His voice. They listen because they believe His voice to be the voice of God who is truth, and that voice must therefore be utterly trustworthy—that is infallible.
In the Prologue to his Gospel St. John affirms:
No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made Him known (Jn 1: 18).
It was in God’s eternal plan that men and women should know Him with certainty, and to accomplish that plan He revealed Himself in His Word made flesh. We cannot over stress the importance of the fundamental fact of our religion, that we cannot climb up to knowledge of God: it is He who comes down and imparts this knowledge to us. Let me quote a stanza from the Christmas hymn, Rorate coeli desuper! by the Scottish Chaucerian poet, William Dunbar:
Sinners be glad and penance do,
And thank your Maker heartfully;
For he that ye might not come to,
To you is comen full humbly,
Your souls with his blood to buy,
And loose you from the fiend’s arrest,
And only of his own mercy;
Pro nobis puer natus est.
The accomplishment of our salvation and of our full initiation into knowledge of the Truth came with the Paschal Mystery, but that completion was founded upon the initial mystery of the Incarnation. Not without reason do we genuflect at Christmas at the words, et incarnatus est.
Jesus the Eternal Word—that is Wisdom, Truth, Mind—assumed human flesh so that the Truth might be uttered in human language; and that Truth, so uttered, does not deceive or mislead. Some brands of Christianity give the impression that the Word did become flesh, but that subsequently it was misunderstood. The notion that the Word, having been revealed in this perfect fashion, could then become obscured or is alien to the Catholic way of thinking. So that the Truth once revealed would not become a frozen asset, those to whom the revelation was made were given the capacity to remember, to understand, to interpret the revealed Word, without distortion. This capacity or gift we call infallibility. Without this capacity the light of the Word made flesh would have become hidden from later generations. The direct clarity and authority with which our Lord addressed the Twelve must in some form endure within His Church. The question we have to ask is not: Is there such a thing as infallibility? but: How does infallibility operate and where do we see it at work?
I would like to attack the problem from the flank, as it were, from the rough ground out of which I struggled towards the cultivated order of the Catholic Faith. What I am about to say is not really a digression, but an approach through a defective to an adequate solution of the question: How does infallibility operate?
It may surprise some of you to learn that the Reformed Churches, at least those that stem from Calvin, accept or accepted until recently, the notion of infallibility. They preserved the healthy Catholic instinct that the Word could not have been made flesh and then become misunderstood. However, to justify their break with the medieval magisterium, they had to wrench infallibility out of its lodging in the flesh and blood of the Church and transpose it to the written word of holy scripture. Then in practice they set up a human magisterium which exercised discipline in the Church far more rigorous than had been known in pre-Reformation times, and also formulated confessions of faith which were proposed for belief as though they were de fidei. In theory they denied infallibility to such confessions, but in fact they gave the impression that they were infallible. And woe betide anyone who disagreed. But the tension between theory and practice gradually manifested its power, and group after group seceded from the main body, each group providing its own consensus concerning the fundamentals or substance of the faith, maintaining that its particular consensus was a true interpretation of the meaning of scripture. Thus holy scripture alone was infallible, but to be of any use it had to be understood and interpreted by living people. The living voice which gave the interpretation claimed a kind of borrowed light of infallibility from the biblical word which it was interpreting, and the magisterium, however constituted, could be quite ferocious in its assertion of authority-
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries attempts were made by the main Presbyterian Churches in Scotland to resolve this anomaly—that is the conflict between the notion that holy scripture alone contains the infallible Truth and the notion, or instinct, we might call it, that to be effective the actual interpretation of scripture must in some degree be binding upon the faithful. The official view of the established Church of Scotland is expressed in the formula to which ministers and elders subscribe at ordination.
The Church of Scotland acknowledges the Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, to be the supreme rule of faith and life. The Church of Scotland holds as its subordinate standard the Westminster Confession of Faith, recognizing liberty of opinion on such points of doctrine as do not enter into the substance of the faith, and claiming the right, in dependence on the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, to formulate, interpret, or modify its subordinate standards: always in agreement with the Word of God and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith contained in the said Confession — of which agreement the Church itself shall be sole judge.
This formula, as must be obvious, was not sufficient to overcome the problem. The awkward question remained: what are the fundamentals or substance of the faith? In recent times the question was officially discussed over a period of several years in the Church of Scotland. Some wished to define the substance of the faith, and require subscription to these definitions; others preferred to leave things as they were. In the end things remained as before, so that each person makes up his or her mind about what is fundamental in belief. One common denominator—although this can no longer always be presumed—is a certain reverence for the Bible.
This was probably the only way out. The Church had claimed the authority to redefine the fundamentals of the faith, but had declined to do so. Why? I think because redefinition in this case was seen to be linked with the idea of insisting on people giving an assent of faith to the definitions. After all, the Church of Scotland could only demand such assent to the word of Scripture. And in any case the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 had been regarded by its authors as the substance of the faith, and in practice had required unreserved assent to every detail of that of that Confession. What has happened is that the Reformed Church in Scotland has accepted the fact that it possesses only a theoretical magisterium, and has at last become fully committed to its rejection of the medieval concept of the Faith and the Church’s competence to teach the Faith. The dilemma in which the Reformed Church finds itself, therefore, is that to make the infallibility of holy scripture effective it would have to concede a form of infallibility to the Church, but to do this would be to destroy the justification for its secession in the Middle Ages from the Catholic Church.
The picture I have given of the struggle within the reformed Church to actualize the notion of infallibility, helps us to see the significance of infallibility, and the importance, the necessity indeed, of the Catholic resolution of the question: How does infallibility operate? The Reformed Church did not abandon the concept of infallibility—how could it as it believes that the Word was made flesh? - but it endowed the Holy Scriptures alone with that attribute. Even so it affirmed that the meaning of Scripture—the substance of the faith that is—had to be extricated from the text of scripture, a task which the Church alone was authorized to perform. But it left unclear what it meant by “the Church” and affirmed also that whatever ecclesial agency happened to provide an interpretation of Scripture, the product could never be labeled “infallible” and could never proposed for the assent of faith. The Reformed notion is formally correct—the Truth has been infallibly revealed and is contained in Holy Scriptures, the Church and not the individual or the state has the competence to proclaim that revelation— but the Reformed Church has always refused to endow the agent through which the Church makes real the substance of revelation with infallibility. The Reformed Church refuses to believe in itself.
I have presented this critique of the reformed view of infallibility and the Church not in a polemical spirit, but rather with appreciation of the serious way in which the Reformed Church has grappled with this central problem, and also because I think that by doing so I have opened up the way to understanding the Catholic view as we now find it neatly set out in the Catechism nn 888-892. Let us now consider the Catholic doctrine of infallibility.
From our reflections so far it should be clear that the concept of infallibility originates in the fact that God’s Word was made flesh. That incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, is the Truth and came, as He told Pilate, to make the Truth known. He made it clear too that His intention was to make the Truth known to every generation. At the Last Supper He said: “When the Spirit of truth comes He will lead you to the complete truth.” His disciples in all generations would be given possession of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It would become the possession of those at least who were “on the side of truth,” who were unequivocally members of His covenanted people. The notion that the Truth declared in the Word made flesh could be transmitted down the centuries with the same infallibility as had been possessed by our Lord, is bound up with the notion of a people with whom God has made a covenant. The Faith is a gift deposited with this people, that is with the Church. Now let us hear what the Second Vatican Council declared in n.10 of the document, Dei Verbum: “Sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture make up a single sacred deposit of the Word of God, which is entrusted to the Church.”
The document goes on:
By adhering to it the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brotherhood, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (cf. Acts 2:42). So, in maintaining, practicing and professing the faith that has been handed on there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.
But the task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith.
It is clear, therefore, that, in the supremely wise arrangement of God, sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others. Working together, each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit, they all contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.
On the Catholic view, therefore, there is no conflict between Tradition and Scripture. Nor is there any conflict between Scripture and Tradition on the one hand and the Church’s Magisterium on the other. The continuation into history of the infallible proclamation of the truth revealed in the Word made flesh began with the apostolic preaching —we have records of this in the sermons to be found in the Acts of the Apostles. As time passed records of our Lord’s life, death and resurrection and of His teaching were written, as were letters by the apostles and others, all giving testimony to the Word made flesh. These writings were treasured and with the writings of the ancient people of God, which gave testimony by their expectation of the Messiah, were handed on for the benefit of generations yet to come. These writings were a most precious heirloom, and being handed on constituted a central element in Tradition — for Tradition means simply that which is handed on. The apostles, then, handed on their own direct, spoken testimony to the Truth along with the writings as they appeared, and of course they themselves were there to interpret this total Tradition as required; moreover, as part of the gift handed on, they appointed successors in their office, so that apostolicity would not be an attribute only of the first generation of Christians, but would endure until the end of time. This total economy of revelation is what Vatican II describes as “the supremely wise arrangement of God,” whereby “sacred Tradition, sacred Scripture and the Magisterium of the Church are so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others.” Without this connectedness of these three elements, mankind would have lost direct contact with the infallibility of the Word made flesh. And so the concept of infallible Truth, accessible to those who are on the side of the truth, is inextricably bound up with the living Body, the Church, born out of the side of Christ on the Cross. The Truth of Christ lives in His Church. The reality of the Church, of our Lord living in His Church, is the precondition of the infallible proclamation of Truth in His Name.
Another fact made plain by the document we have quoted is that infallibility ought to be seen as applying to the act of believing as well as to the operation of teaching. The document says, that by adhering to the deposit of the Word of God, “the entire holy people, united to its pastors, remains always faithful to the teaching of the apostles....” This means that the initial, fundamental belief that the Word has been made flesh in Jesus, flows over into a sense of belonging to the people to whom He has given birth by His dying and rising and by the outpouring of His Spirit, so that there is a unified sense of faith amongst all the faithful, pastors and others. The document goes on: “So, in maintaining, practicing and professing the faith that has been handed on there should be a remarkable harmony between the bishops and the faithful.”
As a footnote to n. 889 of the Catechism reference is made to the above quotation from the document “The Word of God” as well as to the document on the Church. This is helpful, because sometimes the latter document is quoted in support of the view that truth is disclosed by majority vote. The document on the Church, n.12, states: “The whole body of the faithful who have an anointing that comes from the holy one cannot err in matters of belief.”
Taking this sentence out of context—and people have a bad habit of doing that sort of thing— one could be misled into thinking that the faithful have a right to dissociate themselves from the official teaching of the Church, and go it alone, but the document goes on:
This characteristic is shown in the supernatural appreciation of the faith (sensus fidei) of the whole people, when, ‘from the bishops to the last of the faithful’ they manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals. By this appreciation of the faith, aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth, the People of God, guided by the sacred teaching authority (magisterium), and obeying it, receives not the mere word of men, but truly the word of God, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The People unfailingly adheres to this faith, penetrates it more deeply with right judgment, and applies it more fully in daily life.
An important aspect of infallibility, therefore, one that is frequently ignored, is that not only may those whose function in the Church is to teach do so with the infallibility that comes from the living Lord through His Holy Spirit, but those who accept this teaching—and that includes the teachers themselves—may do so with full assurance of faith: their judgment in accepting the teaching is also characterized by infallibility. All of this comes about because all are immersed in the life of the Spirit that flows from Christ the Lord, who is present in His Church, operating through the structures that He has ordained. The sense of membership in His Body is prior to the sense of faith, to the ability to believe with full assurance, what is taught in His Name.
In this study I have tried to show that infallibility has to be seen as something much broader and deeper than just a guarantee attached to specific doctrines, formulated by the Magisterium. Faith, which is a supernatural gift, turns towards the source of absolute Truth, which is God Himself; and because the Son of God brought the Church into being and endowed it with gifts and encouraged it with promises, faith may justifiably turn towards the Church, seeing it as a mediator of the infallibility which has its origin in God. And so we say, “We believe in the Holy Catholic and apostolic Church” meaning not simply that we believe it exists, but that we rely on it and believe what it teaches. Our belief in the Church flows out from, is implicit in, our belief that Jesus is the Word made flesh.
I think I have now sufficiently stressed the fact—made plain in the documents but often overlooked—that the willing and confident docility of all Catholics to official teaching is the essential complement to the infallible teaching of the Magisterium, if the Truth is to become effective in the work of salvation. In conclusion I must say something about the functioning of the Church’s Magisterium. There is no need to be long-winded here, for the facts are set out very clearly in the Catechism, and also in n.25 of the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium.
There is one point, however, that deserved underlining, and the emphasis I have already given to the fact that infallibility is an endowment primarily of the Church helps me to make this point. Teaching in the Church normally is presented by the ordinary Magisterium, that is by the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, without formulating the teaching in specific definitions. As a rule such teaching is simply the handing on from generation to generation of the unified and continuous Tradition of Faith. Indeed, as has been the case in many recent Papal pronouncements, the teaching given has not been the Pope’s teaching, or mischievous whim as the press for ever want us to think, but his bearing witness to the fact that he and the bishops are bound by the authentic Tradition of the Church, which they are powerless to change. As the document Dei Verbum n.10 puts it, “Yet this Magisterium, is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it.”
Finally let me point you to what we read in the Catechism, n. 892.
Divine assistance is also given to the successors of the apostles, teaching in communion with the successor of Peter, and, in a particular way to the bishop of Rome, pastor of the whole Church, when, without arriving at an infallible definition and without pronouncing in a ‘definitive manner’, they propose in the exercise of the ordinary Magisterium a teaching that leads to better understanding of Revelation in matters of faith and morals. To this ordinary teaching the faithful ‘are to adhere with religious assent’, which, though distinct from the assent of faith, is nonetheless an extension of it.
I have purposely kept to the very end comment on the supreme Magisterium. Those who exercise this Magisterium are the same people as exercise the ordinary Magisterium, that is the Pope and the bishops in communion with him. The difference lies in the form of the pronouncements they make. The supreme Magisterium provides precise definition of doctrine. Such definitions may be made by the Pope individually or by an ecumenical council. To these definitions the faithful are required to give the assent of faith.
Father Walls is a convert from Calvinism. He was once a Church of Scotland pastor. He and his wife were received into the Catholic Church in 1948. After his wife’s death in 1954, he was ordained a priest.