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Post by Pacelli on Aug 29, 2023 8:00:17 GMT -5
we would do well to define judge and judgment at this point I agree Vox, and this point is crucial to understanding sedevacantism and differentiating moderate sedevacantists from rigorists, who also referred to as sectarian sedevacantists. The judgment made about the status of the antipopes, and that also goes for all of their sacramental rites, teachings and acts, is a private act of individual Catholics, not a legal act of the Church. The binding and loosening power given by Our Lord to the pope and bishops does not apply here, meaning that when a Catholic sees these truths, and forms moral certitude that these propositions are in fact true, such as DH directly contradicts previous papal teaching, then that person is bound only in his own conscience, as we have a duty to recognize and reject heresy and heretics, along with the duty to reject what is proximate to heresy. The Catholic who forms this judgment cannot bind other Catholics, who may disagree or may not be sure of this. What if another Catholic agrees that heresy and error have been taught be either Vatican II and the magisterium of Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, but remains unsure what to do next? What if another Catholic, a man that is baptized and believes all the truths of the Faith, is not yet convinced of the facts from the previous question? He, in both cases, remains a Catholic, and all Catholics must remain in communion with him. The status of the new sect formed at Vatican II itself remains in a state where it is not judged by the Church. For this reason, we have to treat every person in any way affiliating with it as innocent, not guilty, until guilt becomes obvious. We also do not know who among the Catholics that affiliate with the sect are members of the sect, unless they make this known on a case by case basis through their public actions and words. I think the best way to grasp this is to look back to the early years of the crisis, say 1968. Paul VI was the presumed pope, and all at least nominally recognized as such. In parishes throughout the world in the Roman rite, there would have been a mix of parishioners, along with the priests of these parishes, maybe even many who still believed all the truths of the Faith, and were most likely confused by the doctrinal and moral chaos coming out of Rome and among the bishops locally, including constant liturgical innovation, and then there were others that embraced the new thinking and made it their own, even though they knew the previous teaching, as they were taught what to believe during the pontificates of Pius XI and XII. Both groups worshipped together in the same parishes, and the Catholics, if they spotted an unorthodox person, may have retreated from him, including even the priests, by going to neighboring parishes, but also knew that his judgment of that person was his own, and it was not a settled matter yet by the Church. Even though things have gotten much more clear since the 1960's, these principles have not changed. The Church has not judged the matter of Vatican II, Paul VI, his successors, their teachings, their sacramental rites, their laws, etc., so we as individual Catholics are making private non-authoritative, non binding (except to our own conscience) judgments on all or some of these matters, until the Church judges all of this, and when that happens, all then will be bound by that judgment.
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Post by Voxxkowalski on Aug 29, 2023 9:25:51 GMT -5
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
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Post by alyosha on Aug 29, 2023 16:13:34 GMT -5
Thank you for your response wenceslav I think we have to make some distinctions here to help us elucidate our positions more clearly and precisely. This will help us understand better where we are coming from and also shed some light in the bullets that we necessarily have to bite. Again, I apologize if I don't do you enough justice, you can correct any mistake of mine. First: You seem to be claiming that the Conciliar Magisterium have explicitly admitted that they are contradicting the Taditional Magisterium and, because of that, they lost their authority. You also provided quotes to back that up. On that we have to analyze two distinct points: A) Whether an admission of contradiction by the Magisterium would justify denying its authority. To that I answer what I've already answered in a similar question, that the question is illogical because I believe such a thing to be impossible. And, following the same logic, any apparent admission of contradiction by the Magisterium would be just apparent, and a mistake of interpretation by my part. That is because, as far as I can tell, it is the Magisterium that defines what is and what isn't reconcilable with the revealed truth. B) Whether the Conciliar Magisterium has actually made such an admission. To that I answer, sure, I concede that there may be quotes which you can interpret as being admission of contradiction. But I also can see how one can interpret those quotes in a much more charitable manner. Since it is impossible that the Magisterium can contradict itself, the most plausible poisition to take is the second interpretation, not the first one. And even if I couldn't interpret a quote from the Magisterium in a charitable manner, being consistent with my first answer, the best position to take is to doubt my own interpretation. Second: You seem to be claiming that we can conclude that the Conciliar Magisterium is not the Catholic Church based on its acts and results. On that we have to analyze three distinct points: A) One can interpret your claim as a concession that you are alllowed to judge the Magisterium under criteria of credibility, as I've said in my original argument. If that is the case, then we can advance the conversation to whether this is a correct position or not. B) Another interpretation is that you are claiming that you can judge the Magisterium not based on its teachings, but based on the acts of the members of the Magisterium alone. To that I answer, that is a much harder case to make. That's because the only bad act a member of the Magisterium can make that is not correlated with its teachings is personal sin. And, as far as I can tell, it is almost impossible to make a case that you can deny the authority of the Magisterium because of personal sin of the individual. One may ask about the personal sin of heresy, in which case I say that we are back to square one, since the sin of heresy implies an act against the teachings of the Magisterium, so we would have to judge the teachings first. C) The final interpretation is that you are claiming we can judge the Magisterium based on its results. And I answer that this is probably the worst case to be made. You would have to establish that: 1- The results are substantially evil. 2- The results are intended. 3- The results are caused directly by the Magisterium. 4- The authority of the Magisterium is conditioned to consequentialism. The fourth point alone is, in my opinion, an aberration. This would imply that the Church is the Body of Christ because what she says is good, and not the other way around. In other words, God would only be God as long as He says what we consider to be good, and not the definition of what good is. Now I would like to answer Pacelli . You seem to be directly adressing my original argument, claiming that my objection is wrong because you actually can judge the Magisterium based on criteria of credibility. Now, I know that you phrased your argument as, not judging the magisterium, but just making your own conscience judgment in the face of two seemingly contradictory authoritative statements. But I like to make this distinction evident because this is extremely important. Yes, there is a difference between judging the Magisterium and having a personal judgment of conscience, but the key point is that the former actually claims something about the Magisterium. If we go back to my original argument, I made explicit that what I find to be illicit is the act of declaring the Magisterium devoid of authority based on your personal judgment. Our personal judgment is faulty, subjective, biased, diverse, and so many other things. It is to be expected that our judgment don't understand and even disagree with the Magisterium from time to time, as in the example I gave of the junior officer. But the point is that, no matter what this judgment is, it has no weight on your acts, will, and specially on what you can conclude about the Magisterium. In face of what we personally consider to be error by an authority, our only action is to ask for clarifications and obey. Like I said in the original post, if it were possible to question authority the war would be lost. What I find to be curious is that the position you just described seem to be almost exactly the position that the SSPX takes. The only difference being the conclusions each one draws about the Magisterium. Thnak you all for the great and gracious responses.
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Post by wenceslav on Aug 29, 2023 23:05:17 GMT -5
Alyosha, Thanks for your reply above. I am very busy at this moment (on the farm) but I would certainly like to discuss the points you made above. Please allow me a few days to respond.
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Post by sdwright on Aug 30, 2023 5:21:11 GMT -5
I have been reading these posts with interest, and while I'm not able to reply more than another drive-by way, here are some thoughts.
1. The principle of non-contradiction is the most fundamental law of thought. One simply cannot assent to propositions that are contradictory in the same way, at the same time. It is certainly possible that someone can be mistaken about propositions being contradictory, but it isn't humility or obligatory to retreat into a kind of dogmatic agnosticism here. God has given us the gift of reason and he expects us to use it. We should be diffident and slow and give the proper parties the benefit of the doubt, but at some point, it is no longer possible.
The reality that this truth can lead to errors or disaster does not refute the truth.
In short, we cannot help but notice contradictions between what we are told to believe, and what we already know that we have a prior obligation to believe.
This doesn't prove that the putative authority is illegitimate without further steps, but it is an important factor that is not being accounted for in you objections, Alyosha.
2. Analogies are fine but all limp. For example, the analogy with the army goes some way, but neglects key points of difference. For example:
a) An open heretic/schismatic/apostate is not a member of the Church - whereas there is not necessarily such a provision in the army for a traitor, etc.
b) It is not possible for someone to be the head of a body without being a member, because a head is a type of member. Being a member is a pre-requisite for being a head. In the Church, this means that an open schismatic cannot be the head, by the nature of things – but there is no such law of nature for the army, hence a traitor may continue to hold office.
c) Both membership and non-membership, being a Catholic and being an open heretic etc is are (at least sometimes) questions of the nature of things, reality and fact – and not primarily of positive law. A traitor may also manifest himself openly, but the officer holds his position by provision of law and commission, not by the nature of things. As such, there wouldn't seem to be comparable provision for him to lose office in that way. Of course, the legitimate government could institute such provisions in law for automatic loss of office - but that wouldn't change the point at hand.
It is true that office in the Church is held by provision of law etc, but we are talking about membership, and what is far more fundamental than office.
d) I'll let someone else mount the rest of the argument if so inclined, but for me, if a putative authority/ies spends decades imposing things on us which we know, from prior obligations, that we cannot accept; and which we know from prior teaching, are false; and if this authority/ies does so in the face of constant protest and requests for clarification (with due respect, your talk of clarification makes it sound like the year is 1972 or something); and if the full weight of the putative authorities' arm comes down on those who are guilty of no more than practising the religion of our grandparents' childhoods, whilst those destroying this religion run amok, then at a certain point I think we are entitled to take their teaching - known to be erroneous by the law of non-contradiction - as morally certain evidence of having left the Church.
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alyosha
Junior Member
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Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Aug 30, 2023 9:25:57 GMT -5
No problem wenceslav . Let me also correct a mistake I made in my previous post. On point " B" in your second claim I said that the only bad act a member of the Magisterium can make that is not correlated with its teachings is personal sin. That is true. But I made I mistake concluding that the personal sin of heresy would necessarily require a previous judgment on the teachings of the Magisterium. That doesn't follow, and I apologize for the mistake. It could be the case that the Magisterium itself teaches something, but its members do the opposite. In this scenario, the Magisterium itself is saying what is heresy and therefore its members would be heretics. Now, this alone does not change absolutely anything in the authority of the magisterium except if this member is the Pope. In conclusion, I'm willing to concede that it may be possible to claim the see is vacant if, and only if: 1- The Conciliar Magisterium makes a binding statement. 2- The Pope obstinately acts in contradiction with this statement. Notice, this is no longer the original justification for the sedevacantist position in my first post, but rather a different argument altogether. Now the first premise would be: Premise 1: The members of the Conciliar Magisterium substantially and irreconcilably contradict the teachings of the Conciliar Magisterium.
First, thank you for your response. About the false analogy point: I grant you that the analogy isn't perfect, as no analogy can trully be, but I claim that the most significant point of the analogy is. That is, either you can question the authority of the Magisterium under criteria of credibility or you can't.
Now on your first point: I agree that the principle of non-contradiction is a foundational truth. I also agree that you can have a personal judgment of the teachings of the Magisterium. But your claim that we are not bound to doubt our own judgment is only true if it is allowed to judge the Magisterium under criteria of credibility. If that's not the case, then you are bound to obey the authority of the Magisterium even if you personally don't agree with it. It is a logical necessity because, the criteria of authority defines truth as what the authority says, as I've exemplified in my first post. So, we would have to establish first if it is allowed to use criteria of credibility to judge the Magisterium. Everything so far leads me to believe that we can't.
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Post by sdwright on Aug 30, 2023 9:52:57 GMT -5
Hello Alyosha, Thank you for your reply. I very strongly disagree with the following statement: "the criteria of authority defines truth as what the authority says, as I've exemplified in my first post." Truth is that which is. The declaration of authority does not make truth, it is prior to it. Are we agreed on that? With truths of divine faith, it is true that they are revealed to us and defined as such by authority, but they remain true before that; and we are not talking about matters defined as being revealed here, generally. Your other points: I deny that the most significant point of the analogy is true, for the reasons I stated. Further, your message suggests that you believe that we have an absolute duty to accept everything that comes from those endowed with the power of magisterium. While this is indeed how some sedevacantists talk, I'm not sure that this is correct at all. When it comes to matters that have not been defined, we have a general obligation to assent to what we are given, but the obligation is conditional - this is clear from the theologians by the varying levels of authority in what we're given, by the conceding of the possibility of error (however remote) and the possibility of withholding assent in vary exceptional cases. Once again, based on this, I insist that we cannot be bound to assent to contradictions; and that when we are taught something at a higher degree of authority and with a higher degree of certitude, we are *bound* by our own natures to use this as the judgement of something that comes to us with less authority and less certitude, even if it comes from the same (putative) office-holders. What about if it comes with the same degree of certitude and authority, ie, an ex cathedra definition vs ex cathedra definition? Well, obviously, we would be bound to what we are already bound to. As St Paul said - “[T]hough we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.
“As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1.8-9)As such you can see that it's framing the question wrong / strawmanning to say "But your claim that we are not bound to doubt our own judgment is only true if it is allowed to judge the Magisterium under criteria of credibility" or to talk as if the issue is one of us personally disagreeing with something. You say that under your definition of authority / credibility that we "are bound to obey the authority of the Magisterium even if you don't personally agree with it." I agree, as I said, that this is the starting point - and it's the starting point that nearly all of us remained in for a long time, until such time as it became impossible, and as it became evident that there was no clarification coming. Might I offer you the following, on the nature of tradition in this circumstance: wmreview.co.uk/2023/08/03/radical-traditionalists/
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Post by Pacelli on Aug 30, 2023 10:34:30 GMT -5
alyosha wrote: Hello alyosha, The only real difference between a person who holds the position held by myself and others of like mind, and I think the best description of it would be "moderate sedevacantism," and the SSPX is a matter of extension of how far a private judgment can be made in the Church. The SSPX, whether they realize it or not, are in fact judging the rites approved by Paul VI, along with Vatican II, and the magisterium of all of the Conciliar popes, while we do the same, but also believe that we can make a judgment one step further and conclude that the Conciliar popes were in fact undeclared antipopes, and by that, their teaching, acts, and laws must be rejected. I think we would also argue, that the two judgments are linked together, as if the teaching and approved rites of a pope are erroneous or evil, then we would argue that this cannot come from the Church to begin with, and therefore cannot come from the Pope, as it is impossible for a pope to bind the universal Church into believing false doctrine or using a sacramental rite that may be impious, evil, or invalid. To support our position, we have countless theologians who explain that if one becomes a public heretic, he, by that act loses his membership in the Church, and by that any office holder would by that fact lose his office. To say otherwise, one would have to argue that non-Catholics can be popes, bishops, cardinals, etc. in the Church, which is absurd anyway. There is a second avenue to making this determination as well. The Pope cannot lead the universal Church astray in his authoritative teaching on Faith and morals or by approving invalid or impious sacramental rites. But, the Conciliar popes have taught on matters of Faith and morals that is contradicted by the teaching of the Church as taught by previous popes. Is it possible to recognize this contradiction? I think sdwright did a good job above explaining this point above, so no need to get into this again. I think what you may be concerned about is whether there is a real contradiction or an apparent contradiction, and that is a fair point. That is why one must be slow and careful in making any such judgment, as one must reach a moral certitude that there is in fact a contradiction, especially considering the gravity of this matter. This is why I brought up what is like a flashing beacon as far as showing a contradiction in Vatican II, in regards to what it taught on religious liberty in Dignitatis Humanae verse the magisterial teaching on religious liberty as taught by popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius XII. I think the contradiction is very clear to anyone who looks at this, and I invite you to do so, and I would be happy to dedicate a thread just to this one topic, as it is a clear and obvious rupture, and not only is the the teaching of DH clear in and of itself, but the magisterium of the post-conciliar popes only further reinforces the understanding that this document is a novel teaching directly at odds with the Catholic teaching prior to Vatican II.
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alyosha
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Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
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Post by alyosha on Aug 30, 2023 14:16:37 GMT -5
Your point about the definition of truth is correct, but it doesn't invalidate mine. I wasn't trying to argue that truth is ontologically defined by a proclamation from an authority, but rather, that we are bound to accept what the authority says as truth. It's easy to see that with the example I gave about the army, that if this junior officer receives a different order from a higher authority than the first general, the original order must be rejected and the new one accepted as true. The main point being, that at no time did the officer's personal judgment had any value either in his actions or in defining whether the authority is true or not. Truth was always considered in light of authority.
About the false analogy, I guess we just have to agree to disagree.
Now about your main point. I agree completely that the proclamations by the Magisterium vary in degrees of authority and, consequently, in degrees of certainty. And I also agree that we are bound in different levels of assent. And it could perfectly be the case that we are justified in withholding assent to the Magisterium, although I don't believe that's the case and I'll explain why in a moment. But, and this is the crucial point, from that it doesn't follow that we are justified to claim anything about the Magisterium, like I said in my response to Pacelli. In no way denying assent to the Magisterium under justifiable reason allows you to declare the Magisterium devoid of authority altogether, it only implies that maybe the Magisterium has erred in this particular point. Now what if this is a infallible proclamation, one might ask. And to that I answer that such proclamation allows no justification whatsoever to deny assent.
Now let me try to explain why I think this justification isn't even possible in our current crisis.
Ott talks about this in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and it's very clear that we are bound to submit our will and actions to the Magisterium unless we have a justifiable reason proportionate to the authority of the proclamation by which we are bound. However, the authority of the Magisterium also applies on this justifiable reason, should the Magisterium come to have a particular interest in this matter. In other words, the magisterium can, faced with a possible justifiable reason to deny one of its teachings, assess whether this reason is really justifiable or not. It also follows from this that, if a certain reason that we consider as justification for not momentarily assent to the teaching of the Magisterium is proclaimed by the Magisterium as not justifiable, then not assenting is unjustifiable and we will again be bound to assent. Let me illustrate with an example:
This is a massive simplification so please forgive the inaccuracies, it is just to illustrate my point. In 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission with the ratification of St. Pius X proclaimed to be illicit to believe in the theory of evolution as it was understood at the time (the Magisterium makes a binding statement). However, in the years that followed, scientific understanding of the theory grew significantly, leading some Catholic scientists to question whether this Magisterial decision was still valid (new knowledge created a possible good reason to doubt the assent to the Magisterium). In view of this, Pope Pius XII wrote Humani Generis, allowing belief in the theory with some specifications (the magisterium judged the reason given for not assenting to a previous teaching and agreed with its justification).
Now, I know this is a controversial topic but the particulars are not important. It doesn't matter if Pope Pius XII had denied the justification, the point is that the Magisterium is also the ultimate judge to wheter a certain reason can justify the lack of assent or not, but only when the Magisterium actually weighs in on the matter.
But here's the thing, the justification of the first premise in my original argument has been addressed by the Magisterium. The Conciliar Magisterium solemnly denies that it is contradicting the Traditional Magisterium. Because of that there is no justification to deny assent. We are undeniably bound to assent with no justification to the contrary. Because of this I deny the claim that my position was a strawman, because under these circunstances we would be judging the Magisterium under criteria of credibility.
I hope I helped clarify some points.
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Post by sdwright on Aug 30, 2023 14:39:00 GMT -5
Your point about the definition of truth is correct, but it doesn't invalidate mine. I wasn't trying to argue that truth is ontologically defined by a proclamation from an authority, but rather, that we are bound to accept what the authority says as truth. It's easy to see that with the example I gave about the army, that if this junior officer receives a different order from a higher authority than the first general, the original order must be rejected and the new one accepted as true. The main point being, that at no time did the officer's personal judgment had any value either in his actions or in defining whether the authority is true or not. Truth was always considered in light of authority.
About the false analogy, I guess we just have to agree to disagree.
Now about your main point. I agree completely that the proclamations by the Magisterium vary in degrees of authority and, consequently, in degrees of certainty. And I also agree that we are bound in different levels of assent. And it could perfectly be the case that we are justified in withholding assent to the Magisterium, although I don't believe that's the case and I'll explain why in a moment. But, and this is the crucial point, from that it doesn't follow that we are justified to claim anything about the Magisterium, like I said in my response to Pacelli. In no way denying assent to the Magisterium under justifiable reason allows you to declare the Magisterium devoid of authority altogether, it only implies that maybe the Magisterium has erred in this particular point. Now what if this is a infallible proclamation, one might ask. And to that I answer that such proclamation allows no justification whatsoever to deny assent.
Now let me try to explain why I think this justification isn't even possible in our current crisis.
Ott talks about this in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, and it's very clear that we are bound to submit our will and actions to the Magisterium unless we have a justifiable reason proportionate to the authority of the proclamation by which we are bound. However, the authority of the Magisterium also applies on this justifiable reason, should the Magisterium come to have a particular interest in this matter. In other words, the magisterium can, faced with a possible justifiable reason to deny one of its teachings, assess whether this reason is really justifiable or not. It also follows from this that, if a certain reason that we consider as justification for not momentarily assent to the teaching of the Magisterium is proclaimed by the Magisterium as not justifiable, then not assenting is unjustifiable and we will again be bound to assent. Let me illustrate with an example:
This is a massive simplification so please forgive the inaccuracies, it is just to illustrate my point. In 1909 the Pontifical Biblical Commission with the ratification of St. Pius X proclaimed to be illicit to believe in the theory of evolution as it was understood at the time (the Magisterium makes a binding statement). However, in the years that followed, scientific understanding of the theory grew significantly, leading some Catholic scientists to question whether this Magisterial decision was still valid (new knowledge created a possible good reason to doubt the assent to the Magisterium). In view of this, Pope Pius XII wrote Humani Generis, allowing belief in the theory with some specifications (the magisterium judged the reason given for not assenting to a previous teaching and agreed with its justification).
Now, I know this is a controversial topic but the particulars are not important. It doesn't matter if Pope Pius XII had denied the justification, the point is that the Magisterium is also the ultimate judge to wheter a certain reason can justify the lack of assent or not, but only when the Magisterium actually weighs in on the matter.
But here's the thing, the justification of the first premise in my original argument has been addressed by the Magisterium. The Conciliar Magisterium solemnly denies that it is contradicting the Traditional Magisterium. Because of that there is no justification to deny assent. We are undeniably bound to assent with no justification to the contrary. Because of this I deny the claim that my position was a strawman, because under these circunstances we would be judging the Magisterium under criteria of credibility.
I hope I helped clarify some points.
Please could you clarify when and where this has happened: "The Conciliar Magisterium solemnly denies that it is contradicting the Traditional Magisterium."
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Post by sdwright on Aug 30, 2023 14:59:36 GMT -5
I'm afraid also that what's being said here - at least as far as I understand the implications – is that we are basically not allowed to notice that they changed the religion of our grandparents' childhood into something different from top to bottom.
However, it is very clear that this is what happened - and I cannot accept the idea that we can't notice that, or have to just leave our intellects at the door and pretend it hasn't happened, or that it is OK.
That is the fundamental fact that has to be explained - and you can't explain it if you deny it or downplay it.
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