Sect. 35Development of DogmaDevelopment of Dogma

I. The truths which God has been pleased to reveal to mankind were not all communicated in the beginning. As time went on, the later Patriarchs had a larger stock of revealed truth than those who preceded them; the Prophets had a still larger share than the Patriarchs. But when the Church was founded, the stock of Revelation was completed, and no further truths were to be revealed (§ 6). The infallibility of the Church manifestly precludes any change in dogmas previously defined. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Church has not always possessed the same explicit knowledge of all points of doctrine and enforced them just in the same way as in the time of the Apostles. In what terms should this difference be stated?

II. 1. It is not enough to say that the difference between the earlier and the later documents is merely nominal; viz. that the terminology of the earlier Creeds is obscure and vague, while in the later ones it becomes clear and precise.

2. Nor, again, will it do to make use of the comparison of a scroll gradually unrolled or of a casket whose contents become gradually known. There is, indeed, some truth in these comparisons, but they cannot account for all the facts.

3. A better comparison is that the later defined doctrines are contained in the earlier ones as the conclusion of a syllogism Is contained in the premisses. This is to admit that there has been a real, though only logical, development in the Church’s doctrine. Such is the argument of St. Augustine in the dispute concerning the re-baptism of heretics. According to him, a dogma may pass through three stages: (1) implicit belief; (2) controversy; (3) explicit definition. Thus in the early ages the validity of heretical Baptism was admitted in practice by the fact of not repeating the Sacrament. But when the question was formally proposed, there seemed to be strong arguments both for and against the validity. At this stage the most orthodox teachers might, and indeed did, disagree. Finally, the matter was decided, and thenceforth no further discussion was lawful within the Church. (De Bapt, II. 12–14; Migne, ix. 133. See also Franzelin, De Trad., thes. xxiii.)

4. But can we not go further and admit an organic development? In the case of logical development all the conclusions are already contained in the premisses, and are merely drawn out of them, whereas in organic development the results are only potentially in the germs from which they spring (Mark 5:28–32). In organic development there is no alteration or corruption, no mere addition or accretion; there is vitality, absorption, assimilation, growth, identity. Take, for example, the doctrines mentioned above. Scripture teaches plainly that there is only one God; yet it speaks of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and it speaks of Jesus Christ in such terms that He must be both God and Man. It was not until after some centuries that these truths were elaborated into the definitions which we are bound to believe. Who can doubt that during these centuries the primitive teaching absorbed into itself the appropriate Greek elements, and that the process was analogous to the growth of an organism? (Supra, p. xx.) This view of the organic development of the Church’s teaching is a conclusive answer to those who ask us to produce from ancient authorities the exact counterpart of what we now believe and practise. They might just as well look for the branches and leaves of an oak in the acorn from which it sprang.

“Shall we then have no advancement of religion in the Church of Christ? Let us have it indeed, and the greatest.… But yet in such sort that it be truly an advancement of faith, not a change (sed ita tamen ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio), seeing that it is the nature of an advancement, that in itself each thing (severally) grow greater, but of a change that something be turned from one thing into another.… Let the soul’s religion imitate the law of the body, which, as years go on, develops indeed and opens out its due proportions, and yet remains identically what it was.… Small are a baby’s limbs, a youth’s are larger, yet they are the same.… So also the doctrine of the Christian religion must follow those laws of advancement; namely, that with years it be consolidated, with time it be expanded, with age it be exalted, yet remain uncorrupt and untouched, and be full and perfect in all the proportions of each of its parts, and with all its members, as it were, and proper senses; that it admit no change besides, sustain no loss of its propriety, no variety of its definition. Wherefore, whatsoever in this Church, God’s husbandry, has by the faith of our fathers been sown, that same must be cultivated by the industry of their children, that same flourish and ripen, that same advance and be perfected” (Commonitorium, nn. 28, 29).

III. Revelation does not follow the merely natural laws of development like any other body of thought. While it is indeed necessarily influenced by the natural environment in which it exists, this influence works under Divine Providence and the infallible guidance of the Church. Moreover, it can never come to pass that an early dogmatic definition should afterwards be revoked, or be understood in a sense at variance with the meaning originally attached to it by the Church. “The doctrine which God has revealed has not been proposed as some philosophical discovery to be perfected by the wit of man, but has been entrusted to Christ’s Spouse as a Divine deposit to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared. Hence sacred dogmas must ever be understood in the sense once for all (semel) declared by Holy Mother Church; and never must that sense be abandoned under pretext of pro-founder knowledge (altioris intelligentiæ).” (Vat. Council, Sess. iii. chap. 4.) On the whole subject, see Newman’s great work, Development of Christian Doctrine.