Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church

Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church PDF Author: Michael Seewald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009272004
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Bringing a longue durée perspective to the issue, this book traces different theories of doctrinal development from antiquity to the present day.

Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church

Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church PDF Author: Michael Seewald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009272004
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Bringing a longue durée perspective to the issue, this book traces different theories of doctrinal development from antiquity to the present day.

Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church

Theories of Doctrinal Development in the Catholic Church PDF Author: Michael Seewald
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009271954
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
The contemporary Catholic Church finds itself in deep crisis as it questions which elements are essential to the Catholic faith, and which can be changed. Bringing a longue durée perspective to this issue, Michael Seewald historicizes the problem and investigates how theologians of the past addressed it in light of the challenges that they faced in their time. He explores the intense intellectual efforts made by theologians to explain how new components were added to Christian doctrine over time, and that dogma has always been subject to change. Acknowledging the historic cleavage between 'conservatives' who refer to tradition, and reformers, who formulate their arguments to address contemporary needs, Seewald shows that Catholic thought is intellectually expansive, enabling the Church to be transformed in order to meet the challenges of the present day. His book demonstrates how theology has dealt with the realization that there is a simultaneity of continuity and discontinuity in doctrinal matters.

Development of Catholic Doctrine: Evolution, Revolution, Or an Organic Process?

Development of Catholic Doctrine: Evolution, Revolution, Or an Organic Process? PDF Author: Dave Armstrong
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1430321067
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
C.S. Lewis, the famous Anglican writer, once wrote: "The very possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element . . . the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power . . . of receiving, without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them" ("God in the Dock," Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1970, 44-47). Doctrine clearly develops within Scripture ("progressive revelation"). Examples: doctrines of the afterlife, the Trinity, the Messiah (eventually revealed as God the Son), the Holy Spirit (Divine Person in the New Testament), the equality of Jews and Gentiles, bodily resurrection, sacrifice of lambs evolving into the sacrifice of Christ, etc. This book serves as an introduction to the notion of doctrinal development, written from a popular lay apologetics standpoint.

Roman Catholic Writings on Doctrinal Development

Roman Catholic Writings on Doctrinal Development PDF Author: John Henry Newman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9781556129735
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
John Henry Newman's decision to become a Roman Catholic was confirmed by his work on one of his major contributions to theology, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. Ironically, the writings that brought him into the Catholic Church were viewed so suspiciously by Church officials that from his very first days as a Catholic he experienced distance, avoidance, distrust, and even cynicism in his relationship with the hierarchy. In hope of obtaining an honest and competent critique of his views on the development of doctrine, he conceived the idea of a presentation of his ideas, not in English, but in Latin, and in the style not of a historical essay, but of a Scholastic treatise. The result was De catholici dogmatis evolutione, here translated into the author's native tongue as On The Development of Catholic Dogma

The Prophetic Church

The Prophetic Church PDF Author: Andrew Meszaros
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198786344
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The Prophetic Church: History and Doctrinal Development in John Henry Newman and Yves Congar is a historical and a systematic account of tradition, doctrinal development, and the theology of history, with a particular focus on the contributions of two modern Catholic figures, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and Yves Congar (1904-1995). It is structured around two overarching themes: the "subject" and "history" in their relationship to doctrinal development. In addition, the thought of both Congar and Newman is interwoven throughout. Andrew Meszaros contextualizes and surveys Congar's reception of Newman. He explains the appeal of Newman and provides concrete evidence that would substantiate the nature and extent of Newman's influence on Congar, and thereby indirectly, on Vatican II. Meszaros also discusses doctrinal development with special attention to the subject and history. These treatments are based on the subjective and historical "motors" or "causes," as it were, of doctrinal development. He then develops a theology of doctrine and doctrinal development as inspired by Newman and Congar. In its reflection on the meaning of the Doctrinal Economy, this study contributes to the theological problem of history and doctrine by synthesizing and honing contributions of these two great thinkers of modern Catholic theology. It is precisely some of the key differences between Newman and Congar that make it theologically enriching to study them together.

The Development of Doctrine in the Church

The Development of Doctrine in the Church PDF Author: Peter Toon
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532646194
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
The Christian faith is based ultimately on Scripture, and most denominations also base their system of doctrine on Scripture. This system is set forth in creeds, confessions of faith, and articles of religion. In this important book Peter Toon discusses the development of doctrine in the church—that is, the attempt to answer questions concerning the nature of doctrine and its relationship to the church. Toon examines the thought of those who have studied and written about the development of doctrine from the nineteenth century to the present. John Henry Newman, Robert Rainey, James Orr, and Karl Rahner are among those whose work is considered here. Toon concludes that we need a way of understanding development that does justice to the unique place of Scripture, to the reality of human society in which the Bible is studied, to the historical situation in which Christians form doctrine, and to the explication of doctrine in precise intellectual terms.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine PDF Author: Blessed John Henry Newman
Publisher: Aeterna Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
“Considering the high gifts, and the strong claims of the Church of Rome and its dependencies on our admiration, reverence, love, and gratitude, how could we withstand it, as we do; how could we refrain from being melted into tenderness, and rushing into communion with it, but for the words of Truth itself, which bid us prefer it to the whole world? ‘He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me.’ How could we learn to be severe, and execute judgment, but for the warning of Moses against even a divinely-gifted teacher who should preach new gods, and the anathema of St. Paul even against Angels and Apostles who should bring in a new doctrine?” Aeterna Press

The Relationship Between the Development of Doctrine and the Papal Office According to John Henry Newman and Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev

The Relationship Between the Development of Doctrine and the Papal Office According to John Henry Newman and Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev PDF Author: Jan Dolny
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Church
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Development of doctrine is one of the fundamental principles in Catholic theology. It encapsulates the idea of hermeneutical continuity in the official teachings of the Catholic Church, whose mission is to faithfully transmit the contents of divine Revelation in history. As such, the principle of doctrinal development casts an important light on the theological understanding of Revelation, Tradition and the Church. The category of doctrinal development was introduced into modern Catholic scholarship by the celebrated work of John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845, 1846, 1878). In this work, Newman employed the epistemology of a developing idea: the identity of revealed truth is preserved in the historical growth of understanding. His presentation of doctrinal development was based on the analogy between the process of a development of religious understanding in the individual mind and the doctrinal development in the Church as a whole. For Newman, the idea of the Church as a living and organic subject of development endowed with infallibility has implications for ecclesial structure: most importantly, it absolutely requires a central authority in the Church, the papacy, for effective exercise of the universal teaching office in the Church. It is less known that a work on the development of doctrine was also written by the Russian religious philosopher, Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev. His 1886 treatise Dogmatic Development of the Church in Relation to the Question of the Reunification of the Churches defends the Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine against the dogmatic conservatism of some Russian Orthodox theologians. In his treatise, Soloviev employed an epistemology of development very similar to that of Newman, in which the identity of an idea is manifest in the organic process of historical development. His presentation of doctrinal development was based on the pneumatological principle of unanimity in the Church, which manifests a special divine-human subject of development in the universal Church. In his subsequent work, La Russie et l'Église Universelle (1889), Soloviev elaborated his findings from the treatise on doctrinal development in a powerful apologetic of the papal primacy in the Church. This dissertation investigates the background, the origin and the presentation of doctrinal development in Newman and Soloviev0́9s theological works. This comparative study is focused especially on the connection between the development of doctrine and the papal office in the thought of both men. Newman and Soloviev's converging theories of doctrinal development are explored primarily in their original proposition of ecclesiological foundations for the papal primacy in the Church. The insights from the study of Newman and Soloviev0́9s ecclesiological ideas are then related to more recent developments in ecumenism, particularly as regards the relationship between eucharistic and universal ecclesiologies.

Development of Christian Doctrine

Development of Christian Doctrine PDF Author: Jaroslav Pelikan
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300105513
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
The problem of change has assumed great prominence in much of the current ferment in theology, and many of the issues in question can best be interpreted as relating to the validity and limits of doctrinal development. The questions cannot be faced constructively, however, until the development of doctrine has been clearly charted, a historical as well as a theological assignment. In this unique introductory survey—more modest in scope but more scholarly in method than Cardinal Newman’s great programmatic essay of 1845—Mr. Pelikan presents three case histories of the particular doctrines that have crucial points of division among Christians. His cogent analyses of Cyprian on Original Sin, Athanasius on the Virgin Mary, and Hilary on the Holy Spirit demonstrate the interaction between the sacramental life of the Church and the intellectual work of the theologian that consistently marked the development of doctrine by the early Fathers. Thus they clarify some central aspects of the continuing theological and ecumenical debates. Mr. Pelikan, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale University, is the author of many books and articles, including a forthcoming full-scale history of the development of doctrine.

Dynamic Truth

Dynamic Truth PDF Author: Rolf Pöhler
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3935480547
Category : Religion
Languages : de
Pages : 466

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Book Description
DYNAMIC TRUTH is a reprint of the author's groundbreaking dissertation on Change in Seventh-day Adventist Theology. Submitted in 1995 and initially published in 1999 (Part I) and 2000 (Part II), it is the first and only in-depth study to date dealing with the issue of doctrinal development from an Adventist perspective. Part I analyzes the intricate problem of doctrinal development and presents a historical survey of theories of doctrinal change, classifying them in three ideal types. In the author's view, a dialectic approach concerned about substantial continuity as well as authentic change can best avoid the pitfalls of dogmatic immobilism and revisionism. Part II provides a detailed study of the problem of doctrinal change in a Seventh-day Adventist setting. It analyzes the extent, nature, and direction of doctrinal developments in the light of the religious background of the church and the social forces at work in it. It also discusses the church's response to doctrinal adjustments and Ellen G. White's involvement in, and conception of, doctrinal change. The study concludes that Adventist teachings have been significantly affected by theological and hermeneutical developments under the impact of social forces nudging the church closer towards evangelical Protestantism. Ellen White, co-founder of the church, was personally involved in theological change. Her concept of doctrinal development shows a remarkable depth of insight and presents a well-balanced approach to the dynamics of faith and truth.