Of the three categories of magisterial teaching, there is one category which is not protected by the promise of infallibility, and may therefore have the potential of containing falsehood. Even though this possibility of error does not undermine the magisterial authority of the teaching, in troubled times like today's, it nevertheless weakens allegiance to magisterium. For this reason we need to ask: How can we tell third category from the other categories? And what is our appropriate response to this teaching, especially when it is in error?
The first two categories of teaching are about revealed truths and truths implicitly following from revelation, which are infallible. These teachings cannot change because they are about unchangeable truth. These include such teachings as the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the immorality of contraception. Third category teachings, on the other hand, may only be opinions which may or may not be true. They can sometimes change, either because they are about contingent (changeable) particulars, or because the magisterium is still in the process of discerning what is the universal truth in these matters.
Why even have third category teachings if they can be false?
Many truths once fell into this third category of teachings before they were infallibly defined, like the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Others in this category will never be defined because they are about things that can and must change, like whether capital punishment should be used in these particular times.
The Church does not regress in her understanding of the truth, and so defined doctrine can never change. But doctrine does develop over time, because the Church is a living, growing organism, who articulates the truth more explicitly through the ages, in response to heresies that crop up contrary to the deposit of Faith entrusted to her by Christ. For this reason it is necessary that not all magisterial teaching be infallible, and yet these non-infallible third category teachings are still authoritative and play an important role in the development of doctrine. (Bl. John Card. Newman wrote about the development of doctrine in his book of the same title.) Some third category teachings could at some future time become recognized as first or second category irreformable truths while some may be discarded as false.
Though these third category teachings are not irreformable, having neither been recognized as revealed, nor taught definitively, they do, nevertheless, merit a particular response from the faithful because of their authoritative nature. They do evoke a kind of consent from the faithful, what is called 'obsequium religiosum of intellect and will.'
Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it. [Can. 752]
I know this can be very disturbing to think that we are required to consent to what may in time prove to be a falsehood. So please bear with me while we discuss what obsequium religiosum means.
Isn't the term 'obsequium religiosum of intellect and will' novel, i.e. dissonant with tradition?
While the term 'obsequium religiosum of will and intellect' first appeared fairly recently, in Lumen Gentium, 1964 [25], and then again in Donum Veritatis, 1990 [23], the concept itself is nothing new. St. Thomas talks about the act of the virtue of religion (religiosum) wherein a person "surrenders himself readily to respectful compliance [obsequium] to God." (Summa Theologia II-II, 82, 3, C) Obsequium religiosum is an act of the will proceeding from a consideration of the intellect. St. Thomas says we consider our own shortcomings, as well as God's loving kindness to us, and this moves us to submit in respectful compliance. Our submission results from our awareness of our own intellectual faultiness, and our reliance on God Whom we trust to provide for His Church.
Does Obsequium Religiosum require faith in faulty teachings?
The obsequium religiosum regarding third category teachings is a respectful compliance with regards to an opinion we ourselves may or may not hold as true. While first and second category teachings protected by infallibility are held with the firm conviction of faith, third category teachings cannot be held with this same conviction. The object of the theological virtue of Faith though unseen, is nevertheless unseen truth guaranteed by God and His Church. But the object of third category teachings is only opinion, even if perhaps authoritative, expert, opinion. At most opinion can be held by human faith, the same way we believe our professor or our medical doctor. We believe these people on the basis of their authority in the subject matter, and while acting on their counsel as if they are right, we take what they say with a grain of salt... not as 'gospel truth.'
Both opinion and human faith require an act of the will. Knowledge does not require an act of the will since our intellect is directly moved to assent by seeing certain demonstration. Opinion and faith, do require an act of the will, since their objects have not been sufficiently proven. [ST II-II, 4, 1] Theological faith and knowledge are both about certain truths, while opinion and human faith lack firm conviction since there remains the possibility of error.
Knowledge | Theo. Faith | Human Faith | Opinion |
‘Mathematically’ demonstrated truths | Magisterial teachings of 1st and 2nd category | All other authoritative teachings | All other uncertain propositions |
Certain and seen | Certain and unseen | Uncertain and unseen | Uncertain and unseen |
Assent based on certain evidence | Assent based on Divine authoritative teaching | Held based on human authoritative teaching | Held based on insufficient evidence |
Intellect | Intellect & Will | Intellect & Will | Intellect & Will |
Often there is no sin in disagreeing respectfully with the assertion of a Bishop just as there is no sin in holding one's ground against the counsel of a professional, unless it is just plain imprudent to do so. In fact, respectful dialogue is helpful, and even necessary, in that process which constitutes the development of doctrine. However, unlike the authority behind professional counsel, magisterial authority is from Christ, and not wholly from the validity of its supporting arguments, and therefore requires reverence.
Magisterial teaching, by virtue of divine assistance, has a validity beyond its argumentation... [DV 34]
Third category teachings can only be held with uncertain human faith, based on the authority of the magisterium and the divine assistance given it, rather than on the certainty of the teachings themselves. However, faith is not always required, since obsequium religiosum is more about our will than our intellect.
How then must we respond?
An important difference between obsequium religiosum and holding opinions by human faith is that, while we respect our professors and doctors on account of their authority in their intellectual field, we do not owe them the same reverence we do the magisterium on account of its God-given authority.
We pay God honor and reverence, not for His sake (because He is of Himself full of glory to which no creature can add anything), but for our own sake, because by the very fact that we revere and honor God, our mind is subjected to Him; wherein its perfection consists, since a thing is perfected by being subjected to its superior, for instance the body is perfected by being quickened by the soul, and the air by being enlightened by the sun. ST II-II, 81, 7, C
Our imperfect understanding and will need authoritative magisterial teaching even when it is still in rough form, and when it is about a contingent particular. The problem arises when reverence to the magisterium is missing.
In Divine Intimacy, a well-respected compendium of Carmelite spirituality, Fr. Gabriel explains a similar obsequium with regard to obedience.
We should not obey through the motive of human confidence in the person. of our superior: because he is intelligent, prudent…That is human obedience, the fruit of human prudence – an act good in itself but not supernatural… We must found it on supernatural confidence, on trust that springs from recognition of the divine government working through the superiors God has given us… based on the unique motive of Faith which knows that one who hears the superior hears God. ‘He who hears you hears Me.’... [O]bedience does not require the denial of one’s own judgment to the point of affirming the contrary – an affirmation which would not be conformable to truth. It simply demands that we give up our actions according to our own opinion.[Divine Intimacy #123 -124]
If our will is docile, then rather than judge our own uncertain opinion more worthy, we will prefer to submit with human faith to magisterial authority, out of reverence for Christ.
Since we need not adhere with the conviction of theological Faith to these doctrines, however, but only submit in reverence to the teaching authority who asserts them, our adherence to the teaching looks different than it does to irreformable teaching. While we assent wholly to infallible teaching and conform our intellect to it as to truth, we need not assent to merely authoritative teaching with our intellect, but only consent with our will. We consent to the possibility that the teaching may be true, while our own opinions are in error. We refrain from contempt for the teaching, or worse, from public mockery.
Third category truths, though they not infallible and are therefore subject to error, are necessary in the Church's process of a deeper understanding of doctrine. They are also necessary for us, the faithful, that we might inform our faulty understanding and follow a safe course. Our response to third category teaching is obsequium religiosum. Whether or not we choose to believe in this teaching with human faith in authoritative opinion, we must submit to it with reverence to Church magisterium, Christ's representative teaching body on earth.
Does obsequium religiosum allow any room for disagreement with a third category teaching?
Continued in the next post...
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