Christianity

Infallibility

Infallibility
General Information

Infallibility means, literally, immunity from error. In Christian theology, the term is applied to the whole church, which, it is believed by many Christians, cannot err in its teaching of revealed truth because it is aided by the Holy Spirit.

Christians disagree, however, about how infallibility can be recognized. Some accept as infallible those doctrines universally taught and believed from antiquity. Others recognize as infallible the doctrinal decisions of the ecumenical councils of the church.

Roman Catholics believe that the pope can make infallible definitions on faith or morals when he speaks ex cathedra--as head of the church--and when he has the clear intention of binding the whole church to accept as dogma whatever he is defining. Papal infallibility was formally defined at the First Vatican Council (1870). The doctrine was reaffirmed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which also stressed that the entire body of bishops in union with the pope teach infallibly when all concur in a single viewpoint on matters of faith and morals.

Bibliography
Kirvan, John, ed., The Infallibility Debate (1971); Kung, Hans, Infallible? An Inquiry (1971).

Infallibility

General Information
Infallibility, in Christian theology, is the doctrine that in matters of faith and morals the church, both in teaching and in believing, is protected from substantive error by divine dispensation. The doctrine is generally associated with the Roman Catholic church, but it is also applied by the Orthodox church to decisions of ecumenical councils. The doctrine is widely rejected by Protestants on the grounds that only God can be described as infallible.

Roman Catholic theology asserts that the entire church is infallible (and therefore cannot err in matters of faith) when, from bishops to laity, it shows universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. Only the following persons in the church - those who hold its highest teaching office - are believed to proclaim Christian doctrine infallibly:

• (1) the entire body of bishops in union with the pope, the bishop of Rome, when it teaches with moral unanimity;
• (2) an ecumenical council that receives papal approval; and
• (3) under certain conditions, the pope alone.

According to the definition promulgated in 1870 by the First Vatican Council the pope exercises an infallible teaching office only when

• (1) he speaks ex cathedra, that is, in his official capacity as pastor and teacher;
• (2) he speaks with the manifest intention of binding the entire church to acceptance; and
• (3) the matter pertains to faith or morals taught as a part of divine revelation handed down from apostolic times.

The pope is never considered infallible in his personal or private views. Since the middle of the 19th century, only two ex cathedra pronouncements have been made in the Roman Catholic church: the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 by Pope Pius IX, and the definition of the Assumption of the Virgin in 1950 by Pope Pius XII.

Infallibility is not regarded by its adherents as something miraculous or as a kind of clairvoyance. Rather, it is considered a grace, or divine gift, that is biblically and theologically grounded. Proponents point to many scriptural passages, such as the farewell discourses in John, especially the promise of the Spirit of truth (see John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). They hold that the church derives this gift from God, who alone is the ultimate source of infallibility. The matters subject to infallibility are doctrines rooted in Scripture and in the ancient traditions of the church, neither of which can be contradicted; thus, novel doctrines and other innovations are believed to be excluded. Infallibility is therefore seen as a gift that is to be exercised with the utmost care in the service of the gospel.

Infallibility

Advanced Information
Infallibility is the state of being incapable of error. The word "infallible" occurs in the AV in Acts 1:3 with reference to the resurrection of Christ. There is no corresponding word in the Greek, however, and it is omitted in later versions.

That the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is infallible, in the general sense that it presents mankind with the infallible way of salvation, would be accepted by all Christian, but the seat of infallibility is a matter of controversy. Three main lines of thought may be discerned corresponding to the three main divisions of Christendom. The Eastern Orthodox Church believes that general councils of the Church are guided by the Holy Spirit so as not to err; the Roman Catholic Church believes that the pope is personally preserved from error by God; and Protestant thought relies on the sufficiency of Holy Scripture as the guide to God's self-revelation. We can relate these three theories in the following way. Christians of all traditions accord to Holy Scripture a unique place in the determination of the gospel, and there exists an extensive body of common belief derived from it. This common belief is further described and defined by the councils held in the early centuries, four of which at any rate command universal approval. The Orthodox Church continues to rely on councils, the Latin Church has finally come to define the seat of infallibility as the papacy, while Protestants look to the Scriptures as the ultimate source of authority. Particular attention must be given to the doctrine of papal infallibility, and the Protestant doctrine of the sufficiency and supremacy of Scripture.

The doctrine of the infallibility of the pope was defined by the Roman Catholic Church in the year 1870. It declares that the pope is enabled by God to express infallibly what the church should believe concerning questions of faith and morals when he speaks in his official capacity as "Christ's vicar on earth," or ex cathedra.

Behind this dogma lie three assumptions which are disputed by other Christians: (1) that Christ established an office of "vicar" for his church on earth; (2) that this office is held by the bishop of Rome; and (3) that Christ's vicar is infallible in his declarations of faith and morals. The grounds upon which the Church of Rome bases these assumptions may be summarized as follows: (1) Our Lord's saying to Peter recorded in Matt. 16:18, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," implies that Christ made Peter the head of the church, or his "vicar on earth." (2) Peter was bishop at Rome, and thereby constituted this see the supreme bishopric over the church, transmitting to his successors the prerogative of being Christ's vicar. (3) The vicar of Christ must be infallible by the very nature of the case. All three arguments are necessary to the doctrine of papal infallibility, and all three display a fallibility which makes it impossible for the Orthodox and Protestant churches to accept them.

Recently, Roman Catholic attitudes toward papal infallibility have shifted somewhat in response to ecumenical dialogue, historical investigation, and most recently Hans Kung's book. Kung's challenge, provoked by the papal ruling on contraception, set off a large and still unresolved debate inside Catholicism. Kung argued that the papal teaching office (magisterium) had in fact made many contradictory and erroneous rulings over the centuries, and that Catholics should therefore speak only of an "indefectibility of the Church," a position strikingly similar to that of some Protestants, as many Catholics pointed out. The debate has forced all Catholics to define more clearly just what papal infallibility entails, thus cutting back many exaggerated notions of it; and many progressive Catholics have sought to include bishops, theologians, and even the whole church in their notion of an infallibly preserved tradition of the true faith. In the mean-time historians have shown that indefectibility of the church was the received view in the West down to about 1200, slowly replaced then by infallibility of the church and finally by infallibility of the papacy, a position first proposed around 1300 but hotly debated in the schools and never officially sanctioned until 1870.

When we turn to Protestant or evangelical thought on this matter, we find that, in so far as it is used at all, infallibility is ascribed to the OT and NT Scriptures as the prophetic and apostolic record. It is so in the fourfold sense (1) that the word of God infallibly achieves its end, (2) that it gives us reliable testimony to the saving revelation and redemption of God in Christ, (3) that it provides us with an authoritative norm of faith and conduct, and (4) that there speaks through it the infallible Spirit of God by whom it is given.

In recent years concentration upon historical and scientific questions, and suspicion of the dogmatic infallibility claimed by the papacy, has led to severe criticism of the whole concept even as applied to the Bible; and it must be conceded that the term itself is not a biblical one and does not play any great part in actual Reformation theology. Yet in the senses indicated it is well adapted to bring out the authority and authenticity of Scripture. The church accepts and preserves the infallible Word as the true standard of its apostolicity; for the Word itself, i.e., Holy Scripture, owes its infallibility, not to any intrinsic or independent quality, but to the divine subject and author to whom the term infallibility may properly be applied.

Ironically, attacks upon biblical infallibility, which for over a century came mainly from liberal Protestants, have come in the last decade from conservatives, who argue that only "interrancy" (another word not found in Scripture) adequately protects the utter truthfulness and reliability of the Bible. Mainstream evangelicals, therefore, especially those who accept some of the methods and findings of modern scriptural study, are forced to defend the traditional concept of biblical infallibility over against liberals as a necessary basis for receiving divine revelation, and over against conservatives as an adequate basis.

W C G Proctor and J Van Engen
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
H. Kung, Infallible? G. Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church; B.B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible.

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