Had an interesting conversation about the development of doctrine on FB

Last updated on: September 10, 2016 at 9:02 am by Mark Shea

Had an interesting conversation about the development of doctrine on FB 2016-09-10T09:02:57-07:00 Mark Shea

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It started with Rebeccan Bratten Weiss remarking that she was happy about the Church changing its teaching on the approach to Jews which, you know, it did. That’s why we no longer pray for the “perfidious Jews” in the Good Friday liturgy and why, you know, we don’t try to defending putting Jews in ghettoes. Nor does the Church say any longer that Jews should be compelled to wear special clothes to mark them out or be denied public office, nor be prevented by force of law from reverting to Judaism if they convert like Lateran IV thought was a good idea.

Why? Because the Catholic faith finally worked out the idea (present in the DNA of Christ’s revelation but long unexpressed) that, while error has no rights, persons in error do have rights. (This is, by the way, something that was baffling for everybody in antiquity, which is why, on those occasions when pagans or Jews had the upper hand over Christians, they also showed little compunction about using force to try to get everybody on the same page too. Just ask St. Stephen.

So the Decree on Religious Freedom and Nostra Aetate really do mark a development, which is to say a change, in the Church’s teaching. But what they do not mark is a mutation. Because the nature of development is that the Church changes by becoming more herself, not less, just as a boy becomes more himself by maturing into a man or a mustard seed becomes more itself by maturing into a mustard plant. Such development can by marked by shocking reversals of practices (“No more circumcision for Gentiles converts!” says the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15) but the never mark a reversal of the Tradition at its heart. Anyway, here is the conversation, which wound up centering around slavery:

Rebecca Bratten Weiss I’m just glad the church changed its teaching on the Jews.

Yes, l used those phrases.

Mark Shea The Church changes its teaching constantly while refusing to mutate it in any way. It becomes more itself. Becoming *means* change. Have these people never heard of the parable of the mustard seed?

Mark Shea If the Church did not alter what is alterable precisely in order to remain herself, every Gentile member of the Church would still be subjected to keeping kosher. The argument of the Judaizers of the first century is the argument of the Reactionary Catholic today: “The Faith is a museum for preserving The Old Ways Just Because They Are Old.” The Church avoids both this blunder and the Progressive blunder of worshipping the new and novel for their own sake.

DN You obviously need circumcising.

Mark Shea It is precisely the tasks of the Magisterium to see that our grasp of the Tradition develops and is neither sterilized in to antiquarianism, nor allowed to mutate into something alien to what Christ handed down to us.

DN Spoken like a true apologist.

Mark Shea DN “You obviously need circumcising” Been there, done that. 50s baby.

Mark Shea DN Actually, spoken like somebody who agrees with what you wrote above. When the Church goes from “There’s not much we can do about slavery, so serve Christ in your master, slave” (as Paul basically tells his readers) to “Slavery should be outlawed” that’s a real change. But it’s not a mutation. There’s an inner consistency (though that is a massively telescoped summary of an extremely messy process). You can see the tension in the NT as the pastoral advice to slaves is given while the core hostility to slavery in its very nature is expressed in place like Revelation 13 or Philemon or in Jesus’ language about the distinction between sons and slaves. The DNA in the mustard seed take a long time to be expressed depending on the soil and water the seed gets. But it’s there. Reactionaries fear such developments because they mistake the Tradition for mere worship of the past. Progressives often push “developments” false to the DNA because they mistake the Zeitgeist for the movement of the Spirit.

Peter Holmes One day we will have a conversation about your interpretation of Philemon Mark! Bring donuts!

Mark Shea Peter Holmes I am enormously grateful that the Church preserved this brilliant pastoral snapshot of the mind of Paul. There’s really nothing like it in all of antiquity.

Peter Holmes I agree Mark, and I think it is an excellent example of the Church never changing its teaching on human dignity, but refusing to ‘solve’ systemic offences against that dignity by rebellion or equally disruptive means, instead choosing to bring radical change in individuals lives by means of personal and selfless sacrifice of our economic and social ‘rights’ in order to dignify others.

Mark Shea Peter Holmes Yeah. It was ultimately the conversion of millions of Philemons that led to the destruction of slavery in the late Roman Empire. It remained dead until the birth of nationalism and colonialism (and Europe’s conflict with Islam, when an increasingly wealthy Europe said “They take slaves. We should fight fire with fire” (rather like the Trumpkinized American religion is arguing today for war crimes). The colonization of the New World threw gas on that fire and the Church was slow to beat it back (as we are slow to beat back for profit prison slavery, sex slavery, and wage slavery). Slavery is the room temperature condition of fallen man and it is always ready to return when the gospel goes into abeyance.

Mark Shea Peter Holmes My pal David Curp writes an interesting exploration of the Church’s long, slow struggle to wrap its mind around slavery and come to a solid opposition to it. As a fan of the Dominicans, I give props to my homie Bartolme de las Casas.

Edwin Woodruff Tait It’s good to see such an honest, reasonable discussion of the subject. Maybe he emphasizes the “Muslims did it first” motive a bit too much–I’m not sure. On the other side, he stops the story before the sixteenth century and thus doesn’t mention “Sublimis Deus” of 1537, which strongly condemned the enslavement of native people in the Americas. (Alas, it was never enforced because of pressure from Charles V.) I think he may make the papacy seem a bit too much in control, whereas as I see it the papacy was often acting under pressure from Catholic governments which had their own self-interests and wanted to use the papacy to give those self-interests spiritual sanction.

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