What does it mean for a human
being to be vested with infallibility in a religious organization even though
like all humans, that one is a finite being? Ironically, it is often the ignorant
who presume that they cannot be wrong (i.e., that they are infallible). That is
something else entirely. The sort of infallibility granted by the Roman
Catholic Church on its pope does not mean that he knows everything or can’t be
wrong about anything. The infallibility is circumscribed to cover only religious
doctrine. In short, Roman Catholicism gives the Pope the authority to
promulgate theological truths that go beyond, yet are consistent with, the Bible.
A pope cannot say that Jesus is no longer to be regarded as the Son of God, for
such a claim obviously contradicts the canonical gospels. Yet more could be
said that is consistent with Jesus’ divinity, and even about Mary, whose womb
is regarded as blessed. The “Mother of God” is itself a title that practically
invites further theological elaboration beyond the material on her that is in the Gospels. I
have in mind here the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which is celebrated by the
Roman Catholic Church on August 15 annually. The feast-day is not a minor holy day for
Catholics, for they are obligated to attend Mass. Indeed, a human body being admitted into a spiritual state is no small matter theologically.
Aad de Lange, the chief financial
officer of the archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas, took to social media
on the day in 2023 to give a synopsis of how the holy day came to be. “On
November 1, 1950, Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption. Thus he
solemnly proclaimed that the belief whereby the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the close of her earthly life, was taken up, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, definitively forms part of the deposit of faith,
received from the Apostles. To avoid all that is uncertain the Pope did not state either the manner or the circumstances of time and place in which the Assumption took place--only the fact of the Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, is the matter of definition." Having degrees both in business and theology, I’m
glad to see a CFO being so well-versed in theological-speak. Indeed, his
paragraph is dense, so I shall endeavor to unpack it by putting the theological
verbiage in contemporary terms.
In particular, I have in mind the
telling of a story. I used to tell kids stories when I worked at two summer
camps. As the storyteller, I could invent new characters and elaborate on
existing characters as long as I did not contradict the story so far. For
example, I could say that a group of kids alone in the woods came upon a bear;
bears are consistent with forests. I could not then refer to the bear as a wolf
unless I obviate the contradiction by saying that a witch changed the bear into
a wolf. Furthermore, I could not start referring to the kids as adults without
a magical explanation.
As a student at Yale, I took a
course called storytelling that was taught at the divinity school. At the time,
I just assumed that the course was for preaching, for who doesn’t enjoy a good
story, even in church. But then I read Hans Frei’s book, Eclipse of the
Biblical Narrative. Frei had been on Yale’s faculty, but unfortunately that
was before I matriculated. In his book, he urges readers not to get in the way
of the story in the Gospels. Take the story in without thinking about whether the
characters existed historically or whether a miracle was an empirical event. Religious
truth is distinct from historical facts; faith narratives and historical
accounts are distinct literary genres. The writers of the Gospels would
have known that they were writing faith narratives, so historical events could
legitimately be appropriated or even invented to make theological points. For
example, that gospels differ on when the Last Supper takes place—notice I’m not
using the past tense!—relative to Passover to make different theological
points. In Matthew, which was likely oriented to the Jews, it is no accident
that the Last Supper takes place on the night that commemorates the sacrifice of
lambs in Egypt so the death would pass over the Hebrew houses. Jesus is to be viewed
as the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world by his willing
sacrifice. This is the point, and interrupting the story to ask whether the
Last Supper “really” happened is a diversion. Being eternal, religious truth is
not affected by time, and is in this sense outside of history. Conflating the
object of a faith narrative (i.e., getting at or uncovering religious truth)
with that of a historical account (i.e., getting at the who, what, and where in
history) not only evinces a category mistake, but also, especially since the Enlightenment,
risks the subordination of religious truth to historical fact.
In his paragraph, Aad de Lange obfuscates
the two genres. After pointing out that the dogma of the Assumption was added
by Pope Pius to the then-extant deposit of faith, de Lange treats the new doctrine
in terms of a historical event: “the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the close of
her earthly life, was taken up.” It is as if being a historical event is needed
to legitimate or justify the religious truth being promulgated. This “need” is merely
a symptom of our age in which scientific fact dominates and is the default for certainty.
To eclipse even the extended faith narrative, which has Mary go to heaven in
body as well as soul, by asking whether or not it was an event that happened
historically is to tacitly treat the story-telling as somehow insufficient or
subordinate in its own genre. The dynamic, or narrative “arc,” in the Gospels being
interrupted by interlarding exogenous questions, the reader (or ancient hearer)
undoubtedly has trouble zeroing in on the unique sort of validity that religious
truth enjoys. Such truth itself is best grasped from a story if it is not
interrupted with distractions.
De Lange unwittingly provides us
with a useful way to understand the distinction between historical events and
religious truth: “the Pope did not state either the manner or the circumstances
of time and place in which the Assumption took place—only the fact of the
Assumption of Mary, body and soul, into the glory of heaven, is the matter of
definition.” Although de Lange clearly views the Assumption as having occurred
empirically (i.e., historically), he does depict religious truth in its own
terms—that of definition. A historian would not find the language, “the matter
of definition,” to be that which historians use, for they are interested in “the
manner or the circumstances of time and place” rather than definitions of
truth.
The Pope can be regarded as the
chief story-teller as regards religious truth in the Roman Catholic Church. As
long as he does not contradict the story so far, he is free to go on telling
the story as the spirit and his mind moves him. As long as the dictates of
logic (e.g., non-contradiction) are maintained, any storyteller cannot be wrong
as one develops a story in progress. In the story of the kids in the woods, I
am adding that a helicopter flew in at the last minute and rescued the kids. Once
I add this elaboration, someone listening can’t very well say, “No! That doesn’t
happen. The kids get eaten.” Notice that I use the present tense—doesn’t—because
I am referring to what goes on in a story, rather than to an historical
account. Were the listener to say, “No! That didn’t happen,” I would reply, “Of
course it didn’t; it’s a story. Now, what does it mean?” Similarly, detecting
the leitmotif of a faith narrative distinct from trying to ascertain whether a
certain event (or character) existed in history.
To be sure, were the Crucifixion only
in the story rather than also a historical event, then it could not be said
that a sacrifice happened that restored humanity to God’s graces. Jesus
actually suffering is necessary to “pay the price” that no one else would pay. If
the only suffering is in the Passion Story in the Gospels, then the reconciliation
of humanity with God is also only part of a story. Furthermore, the Incarnation
is depicted as God piercing or entering human history—God made flesh. Indeed,
the Immaculate Conception of Mary (i.e., she is conceived so as to be without
sin) can also be regarded thusly.
Christians are in the unenviable position
of believing in religious truth that hinges on historical persons events that
historians have so far not been able to determine to have lived and occurred. Faith
narratives do not count as historical sources because the writers of such
stories can legitimately use, modify, and even invent historical figures and
events in the service of making theological points. The risk involved in
believing that the Word became flesh as a person who lived historically/empirically
is that religious truth comes to depend on history even though truth itself is
eternal and thus does not depend on time.[1]
In other words, such faith can be in historical fact, which is an oxymoron as
facts are known rather than believed and thus of religious belief. In
contemporary parlance, it is said that a person is entitled to one’s own opinion
but not to one’s own facts. Facts are solid, and thus deemed superior to mere
subjective opinions. The danger in subordinating religious truth to historical
facts is that truth is relegated as mere opinion.
Just as thinking during a movie
in a theater about what to cook later breaks off, or eclipses, the suspension
of disbelief that allows a person to “enter” a movie’s story-world, so too does
thinking about matters outside of a faith narrative as it is being read. Let
the story speak to you so you might grasp the religious truth from the continuity
or flow of the narrative. Let history take care of itself. This is not to
commit to any answer concerning whether someone existed or something actually
happened. Even using words like really and actually for
historical claims implicitly subordinates religious truth. Transcending temporal
things, truth is really and actually existent. In an age in which some people
insist on imposing their ideological opinions as if facts of reason, such
presumptuousness shows up much better relative to a discernment of religious
truth from a faith narrative.
The infallibility of a storyteller
in the telling of a story is much different than the arrogance on ideological
stilts that indicates self-idolatry. To be sure, such idolatry can be used to
impose even religious truth. At a Roman Catholic church in my hometown, the
pastor said in his homily, “Don’t worry if you don’t understand the Marian
mysteries; just obey.” That is to say, just obey the pastor. Pope Benedict
promoted the pastor to bishop. Such a decision
falls outside of a pope’s story-telling infallibility (as does that Pope’s
decision when he was an archbishop to transfer rather than defrock a sexually-molesting
priest), and perhaps even outside the purview of the Holy Spirit.
1. I deliberately use the word, “Word,” as the second person/manifestation of the
Trinity (i.e., the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) to de-anthropomorphize God. To
anthropomorphize something is to ascribe human qualities or attributes to it.
Doing so in the case of the second person of the trinity risks understating the
qualitative difference (i.e., difference in kind rather than degree) that
exists between the Creator and creation, and thus the eternal God and temporal
history. In my book, God’s
Gold, is suggest that viewing God in terms too similar to us (i.e., anthropomorphizing
the transcendent) may be one reason why the assumptions of theologians on
wealth and profit-seeking in relation to greed have shifted from anti- to
pro-wealth through the centuries. If the second person of the Trinity is viewed
too much like the flesh in the Incarnation, then it’s easier to overstate the
theological significance of the stuff of Earth more generally, including
wealth. From such an overstatement, it was written in the Italian Renaissance that
a person must be rich to exercise the Christian virtue of munificence (rather
than merely liberality). Cosimo de Medici, who made his fortune from usury, a
mortal sin, was absolved by Pope Eugene IV by making a large gift to the Church.
Had de Medici not been rich, he could not have afforded to pay for the
renovation of a monastery. So it turns out that a rich man can get
through the eye of a needle, and that money helps.
