alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 10, 2023 15:24:03 GMT -5
Salve Maria.
Firstly I would like to thank everyone who participated in the discussion in my last thread. Everyone contributed graciously and intelligently, and it gave me a lot to think about. I have been deeply reflecting on the past discussion and also on some new correlated topics, and I think I have something interesting to present. I must say that the previous discussion highlighted an inevitable issue, something that I already suspected, which is the main point of contention for the sedevacantist position. That is, the question of the possibility of denying assent to the binding teachings of the Magisterium using criteria of credibility. Although some friends on this forum have tried to avoid this conclusion, with excellent arguments by the way, I must say that, at least as far as I can tell, they have not been successful, and this conclusion seems inevitable. Given this, I would like to advance the discussion on this issue, to better elucidate and perhaps even justify the sedevacantist position. I would like to clarify that everything I say here is just my personal opinion and understanding on the matter, and in no way am I attacking or disrespecting anyone's personal position. First. It is necessary to precisely delimit the object of the discussion. To defend the first premise of my original argument, it is necessary to affirm the position that the Catholic layman is allowed to judge the teachings of the magisterium based on criteria of credibility. That is defined as "analyze what is being said in harmony with everything that has already been said and determine the veracity of what is being said based on this comparison". Basically, being able to compare a new teaching of the Magisterium with the traditional teaching and, based on that comparison, conclude the compatibility of the new teaching. Now, we have our affirmative that needs justification: Affirmative: At least in some situations, the catholic layman is allowed to compare a new teaching of the Magisterium with the traditional teaching, and based on that comparisson conclude if the new teaching contradicts or not the traditional teaching. Now, in my opinion, this statement can be justified under two different approaches. The first, which I consider the weakest and most problematic, would be similar to this: Premise 1: Every new teaching of the Magisterium is inevitably interpreted by the personal judgment of those who receive it (self-evident truth). Premise 2: It is possible for a new teaching of the Magisterium to be interpreted by the personal judgment of those who receive it as contradictory to the traditional teachings of the Magisterium (demonstrably true). Premise 3: If the personal judgment of the person receiving a teaching interprets it as being contradictory, the teaching is in fact contradictory.
Conclusion: It is possible to conclude that some new teaching of the Magisterium is in fact contradictory to traditional teaching.
Please allow me not to spend too much time on this argument as I simply consider it unfounded. Basically I don't see how premise 3 can be justified in any way. It is a non sequitur to conclude that if my personal judgment considers a certain teaching of the magisterium to be wrong then that teaching is in fact wrong. In fact, this would be an error even in a non-magisterial teaching, such as a scientific theory for example. If this premise were true, any Protestant in the world would be justified in disobeying the magisterium based on personal judgment. For a long time this was the end of the argument for me. However, after much reflection trying as much as possible to strengthen the sedevacantist position, I believe I have found another justification that is, in my opinion, much more coherent. It goes something like this.
Premise 1: The Catholic is bound to obey the traditional teaching of the Magisterium (dogma). Premise 2: The Catholic is bound to obey new teachings of the Magisterium (dogma). Premise 3: It is possible that obedience to a new teaching of the magisterium necessarily leads to disobedience to a teaching of the traditional magisterium and vice versa. Premise 4: It is possible that the Catholic is bound to obey and disobey the Magisterium at the same time by the Magisterium (conclusion of 1,2 and 3). Premise 5: Obedience and disobedience at the same time and in the same sense is contradictory (self-evident truth). Conclusion: It is possible to conclude that some binding teaching of the Magisterium is contradictory (conclusion of 4 and 5).
Notice that, under this justification, the subjectivity of personal judgment is completely irrelevant. It is based only on the logical impossibility of obeying the magisterium without disobeying the magisterium. Returning to my example of the junior officer, if his superior gives an order to retreat and remain in the same place, there is no way to obey both orders at the same time. At least one order must necessarily be disobeyed, and this implies that the superior has contradicted himself, regardless of the judgment of the junior officer. It must then be assessed whether the justification is correct. In my view, only premise 3 can be challenged. At first, it seems like an easy premise to deny, all you need to do is say that it is impossible for the Magisterium to teach such a thing and call it a day. But then it begs the question, what if such a teaching has been made? The answer is that I have no idea if there is such a teaching in the Conciliar Magisterium. So, given all of that, I would like to humbly ask a question:
Is there any binding teaching of the conciliar Magisterium, whose practical obedience necessarily and irreconcilably means disobedience of the traditional magisterium?
Please notice the precision of my question. I'm not only asking for a teaching that you think it's contradictory, or even some teaching that I could agree is contradictory. I'm asking for a teaching that has a pratical effect. That acting according to that teaching necessarily and irreconcilably means disobedience of the traditional magisterium. If anyone can provide such a teaching I'm willing to concede my objection to premise 1 in my original argument.
Thank you all in advance. God bless.
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Post by Voxxkowalski on Sept 10, 2023 16:58:12 GMT -5
If the councilliar church ( sic) isnt Catholic ( and it clearly isnt) then how can its "magesterium" be binding on Catholics? Are Lutheran or High Church anglican doctrines binding? Considering btw High Church anglicans are in many ways MORE sacramentally traditional than the Councilliar sect.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 10, 2023 19:11:23 GMT -5
Hello Vox, thank you for the response.
Remember, we are trying to establish that the Conciliar Magisterium is not catholic to begin with.
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John Lewis
Full Member
Reviewing the Knowledge
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Post by John Lewis on Sept 11, 2023 4:12:40 GMT -5
Q: Is there any binding teaching of the conciliar Magisterium, whose practical obedience necessarily and irreconcilably means disobedience of the traditional magisterium?
A: Modernists/Liberals don’t act by binding others. They don’t work on principles of law. They operate through administrative bureaucratic tyranny. They crush their enemies predominantly through this means. It is a very effective way of silencing good Catholics as they have no legal recourse.
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Post by marcellusfaber on Sept 11, 2023 6:10:11 GMT -5
A better argument would be the following: Major premise: It is impossible for the Magisterium of the Catholic Church to contradict itself, at the very least in matters that are de fide. Minor premise: Yet, in the last sixty years or so, a large number of statements purporting to be from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church have contradicted previous de fide teachings of the Magisterium. Conclusion: Therefore, these teachings cannot have come from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The most obvious explanation for this is that the men who promulgated these teachings did not actually hold offices in the Catholic Church due to manifest heresy. I would also say, concerning the question of whether we are allowed to judge the teachings of the Magisterium, that there is a lot of begging the question going on. We are trying to determine, due to the manifest contradictions, where the Magisterium actually is; we are not asserting that our private judgements are superior to the teachings of the Magisterium. It is clearly legitimate to investigate where the Magisterium is found, for converts do that all the time. In our submission to the teachings of the Magisterium, there is the implicit condition that we are submitting to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church specifically. You are entirely right that the contradictions put us in an impossible situation, which, if I may, was what I think everyone was saying on the other thread. Pacelli, for example, gave many example of grave contradictions and novelties. I can repeat some of them for you here. Religious liberty was condemned in Quanta Cura, yet taught in Dignitatis Humanae. Oecumenism was strongly condemned in Mortalium Animos and contrary to the law of the Church (following the commentaries on the 1917 code, the laws against communicatio in sacris acatholicis are actually part of the divine law as well as ecclesiastical law), yet it has been practiced extensively by the post-Conciliar putative Popes and supposedly Catholic bishops in general. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that the covenant with the Jews has been abrogated, yet the post-Conciliar teaching, I believe principally found in Nostra Aetate, is that the covenant remains in force. There is also the new ecclesiology taught in Lumen Gentium, which is essentially that the Catholic Church is not synonymous with the Church of Christ, as is traditionally believed, but rather that all the baptised are members of the Church of Christ, that the Catholic Church is only a privileged part of it, and that the non-Catholic sects (which they call particular Churches) are means of sanctification. John Daly has compiled a list of the errors of Vatican II which he considers the most obvious. I give a link below: isidore.co/misc/Res%20pro%20Deo/J.%20S.%20Daly/The%20Principal%20Heresies%20and%20Other%20Errors%20of%20Vatican%20II%20by%20John%20Daly.pdf It is also important to note that Vatican II could be completely ignored, yet an huge number of other contradictions would be still be found. The most obvious I can immediately bring to mind is the 1999 joint declaration on justification which was signed by the Lutheran World Federation and supposedly by the Catholic Church. This document puts forth ideas anathematised at the Council of Trent. The difficulties we often run into are that not all the post-Conciliar errors actually reach the censure of heresy, belonging to another category, and also that Modernists are greatly found of ambiguity, which can make it difficult to tell whether their teaching is directly contrary to de fide doctrine. Even with these difficulties, there are more than enough examples that clearly demonstrate the rupture. An important point that demonstrates the heresy of these men is their refusal to use the traditional language of the Church in their speaking about these subjects and also their love for novelty. I believe St Pius X listed both these things as obvious signs of a Modernist in Pascendi Domini Gregis.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 11, 2023 8:05:44 GMT -5
Hello marcellusfaber. Thank you for the response, but I believe you are missing the point of this argument. Your modification of the argument is beyond the purpose of this discussion. I already addressed what I believe to be the strongest version of your argument in my last thread, and demonstrated why I consider it flawed. I don't want to dwell on this discussion so as not to get repetitive, but basically, although you deny the use of personal judgment to judge the teachings of the magisterium, this conclusion is inevitable. And as I tried to explain briefly in this topic, everything leads me to believe that this is illicit for the layman. I ask you the courtesy to allow me not to continue this discussion because for me the issue has already been settled and I don't see much point in continuing. Now, what really interests me, and the point of this new thread, is the possibility of concluding a contradiction in the teachings of the magisterium without the use of personal judgment. The second justification I've presented here is the only way I can think of where this could be made. That is, not originating from the theoretical comparison between two teachings, but rather from the action of obedience being contradictory in itself. In other words, I am looking for something that I am bound to do by the conciliar magisterium that would necessarily imply disobedience to the traditional magisterium. Unfortunately, I believe that none of the examples you cited satisfy this requirement. This is because none of them bind the layman to act in a certain way, they simply deal with theoretical interpretations of the teachings of the tradition, inevitably requiring the use of personal judgment to conclude the supposed contradiction. Of course, I am open to being convinced that there is such a teaching, and if you can provide me with a satisfactory example I will concede my objection without issue.
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Post by marcellusfaber on Sept 11, 2023 8:36:09 GMT -5
We are bound to believe and outwardly profess doctrines that are de fide and therefore reject those things which contradict them. We can't believe two things which are contradictory at the same time. Honestly, it seems like you believe that we are bound to abdicate our reason.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 11, 2023 8:58:57 GMT -5
Not reason per se, only your personal judgment in that particular topic. You can read my previous thread where I expanded my personal understanding on the matter. Basically, if the Church tells you your interpretation is wrong, you have to assent, even if you personally disagree. That’s my position.
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Post by marcellusfaber on Sept 11, 2023 12:14:58 GMT -5
Basically, if the Church tells you your interpretation is wrong, you have to assent, even if you personally disagree. That’s my position. I agree, but your reasoning is circular. Before one concludes that one must assent to a particular teaching, one must have concluded that the Church from which one accepts the teaching is in fact the Catholic Church. You assume that this Magisterium is that of the Catholic Church without demonstrating that it is. Proof of the Church's claims about itself is prior to submission. Your position of assuming that this organisation is the Catholic Church without demonstrating it would put converts in an impossible position, for they must be convinced that the Catholic Church is in fact the one that was founded by Our Lord and is preserved from error by God before they submit to it. Your idea is completely at odds with the explanation of motives of credibility given by the theologians. See the following: The True Religion, Van Noort, page 59. We note these contradictions, many of which I listed (though which you inexplicably rejected as being contradictions), and, knowing that the Church cannot contradict herself, we can either conclude that these teachings cannot come from the Church or adopt the astonishing claim that the new teachings don't contradict the old, which they manifestly do. We cannot ignore our reason and assert that there are no contradictions when they stick out to us like a sore thumb. We must reject the claim of these men to be representatives of the Catholic Church rather than reject the principle of non-contradiction, which would be absurdity incarnate.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 11, 2023 12:41:58 GMT -5
Again, allow me the courtesy not to argue about this point of personal judgment, which you are insisting, because it is a settled matter to me. Let me just briefly say that I deny circular reasoning and claim that your argumentation is the one that's circular. I explained this in my original thread.
Also, let me clarify some points: 1- I never rejected your examples as being contradictions, I merely said they don't satisfy my question. 2- In response to the quote I say simply that there is no better way to know if a doctrine comes from God than to receive it from the hands of the Magisterium. It trumps personal judgment every single time.
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Post by marcellusfaber on Sept 11, 2023 13:57:50 GMT -5
Mate, you can't autocratically determine the terms of a discussion and simply gratuitously deny anything that is said which you find inconvenient.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 11, 2023 14:07:39 GMT -5
I'm not "autocratically setting the terms of a discussion", I'm just letting you know that this is a discussion I'm not interested in having. The question of whether personal judgment is a sufficient reason to conclude the lack of authority of the Magisterium is simply definitively wrong for me. We can agree to disagree on this point and move on. Also, I'm not denying what I find inconvenient. Frankly, I find your argument to be quite flawed and easily dismissable, and I explained this ad nauseam in my last thread. The objections to your argument are detailed in there.
If you want to engage in the question I proposed in this thread, feel free to do it. Thank you for your responses.
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John Lewis
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Reviewing the Knowledge
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Post by John Lewis on Sept 11, 2023 19:51:25 GMT -5
The question of whether personal judgment is a sufficient reason to conclude the lack of authority of the Magisterium is simply definitively wrong for me. Are we using personal judgement, or are we just believing what the Church has always taught to be de fide Catholic teaching? Is this not rather the application of infallible Church teaching to the reality that we see before us? Here is a corrected link as the above doesn't seem to work for me.
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Post by marcellusfaber on Sept 12, 2023 10:32:37 GMT -5
In response to the quote I say simply that there is no better way to know if a doctrine comes from God than to receive it from the hands of the Magisterium. It trumps personal judgment every single time. Yes, but you beg the question once again. How do you know that the teaching which we are discussing comes from the Catholic Church, from the Church that Christ founded? What is your evidence? This is not an unreasonable question; it is discussed in the apologetics books written long before this crisis.
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alyosha
Junior Member
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God
Posts: 60
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Post by alyosha on Sept 12, 2023 12:22:15 GMT -5
Ok, let me engage in this topic then, cause I see it is important to you.
The question is: How can we determine whether the Church that professes a teaching is the Catholic Church? Necessarily, there are only two possibilities:
A) The layman must read the teaching and use his personal judgment to know whether or not that teaching contradicts previous teachings and thus determine whether the authority that professes it is true or not. B) Something different from A.
If you assert A, it is precisely this assertion that I deny. A would be what I call "criteria of credibility", which is a quia demonstration, from the effect to the cause, to determine whether the cause is true. I consider this position to be illicit for the layman because, as I have already explained, if my personal judgment tells me that the Church has contradicted itself but the Church claims the opposite, I should doubt my judgment and not the Church. However, you try to deny this by saying that, and allow me to paraphrase: "I agree, but first you must establish whether it is truly the Catholic Church that is teaching". Essentially meaning that judging the teaching of the Conciliar Magisterium is not judging the Church, but rather a false church. The problem is that you can only justify this in two ways:
1) By begging the question: Simply declaring that the Conciliar Magisterium is a false church; 2) By circular reasoning: Judging the teachings to conclude that the Conciliar Magisterium is a false church, and using this fact to justify your judgment of the teachings.
Both of these are fallacious. There's simply no way around it. Either you can use your personal judgment to conclude the status of the Magisterium based on its teachings, or you can't. And everything leads me to believe that you can't. So you ask now, "what other way could there be to conclude the authority of the Magisterium?". Essentially, "what is B?". To that I answer, there are many ways one can be lead to conclude that it is the authority of the Church. The easiest being, "Where Peter is, there is the Church". How do I know he is the Pope? Two main ways:
1) He was elected by a conclave. 2) He is universally recognized as such.
In order to deny any of these two one must present evidence. In other words, at face value the conciliar church is the Catholic Church. The burden of proof is in the hands of the one trying to claim otherwise. In fact, this is exactly what the sedevacantist position tries to do. I don't know of any sedevacantist who simply declares "the Church hasn't proven to me that it is the Church, so I don't believe it is." That would be crazy. Everyone tries to justify their position with evidence and proof that the conciliar magisterium has lost its authority.
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