Year: 2015

Burning Heretics

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In the Bull Exsurge Domine Pope Leo X condemned the positions of Martin Luther and others:

For we can scarcely express, from distress and grief of mind, what has reached our ears for some time by the report of reliable men and general rumor; alas, we have even seen with our eyes and read the many diverse errors. Some of these have already been condemned by councils and the constitutions of our predecessors, and expressly contain even the heresy of the Greeks and Bohemians. Other errors are either heretical, false, scandalous, or offensive to pious ears, as seductive of simple minds, originating with false exponents of the faith who in their proud curiosity yearn for the world’s glory, and contrary to the Apostle’s teaching, wish to be wiser than they should be. Their talkativeness, unsupported by the authority of the Scriptures, as Jerome says, would not win credence unless they appeared to support their perverse doctrine even with divine testimonies however badly interpreted. From their sight fear of God has now passed.

After the list of condemned positions, he says:

No one of sound mind is ignorant how destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and seductive to pious and simple minds these various errors are, how opposed they are to all charity and reverence for the holy Roman Church who is the mother of all the faithful and teacher of the faith; how destructive they are of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience. This virtue is the font and origin of all virtues and without it anyone is readily convicted of being unfaithful.

Therefore we, in this above enumeration, important as it is, wish to proceed with great care as is proper, and to cut off the advance of this plague and cancerous disease so it will not spread any further in the Lord’s field as harmful thornbushes. We have therefore held a careful inquiry, scrutiny, discussion, strict examination, and mature deliberation with each of the brothers, the eminent cardinals of the holy Roman Church, as well as the priors and ministers general of the religious orders, besides many other professors and masters skilled in sacred theology and in civil and canon law. We have found that these errors or theses are not Catholic, as mentioned above, and are not to be taught, as such; but rather are against the doctrine and tradition of the Catholic Church, and against the true interpretation of the sacred Scriptures received from the Church. Now Augustine maintained that her authority had to be accepted so completely that he stated he would not have believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church had vouched for it. For, according to these errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly follows that the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit is in error and has always erred. This is against what Christ at his ascension promised to his disciples (as is read in the holy Gospel of Matthew): “I will be with you to the consummation of the world”; it is against the determinations of the holy Fathers, or the express ordinances and canons of the councils and the supreme pontiffs. Failure to comply with these canons, according to the testimony of Cyprian, will be the fuel and cause of all heresy and schism.

With the advice and consent of these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each and every one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God, the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, we condemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses or errors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious ears or seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth.

The list of condemned positions contains this: “33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”

Several things should be noted about this. In one way, the Catholic understanding is that the will of God is always fulfilled, and in this sense one would say that if a heretic was burned in fact, then it must have been the will of God. But the proposition is not about the will of God in this sense. The proposition in question is basically that it is wrong to burn heretics, and Leo X intended to condemn this proposition.

Second, the condemnation does not say which labels apply to which propositions, and some of the labels do not absolutely imply that a statement is false. A statement could be scandalous, offensive to pious ears, and seductive of simple minds, but still be true. In such a case the prohibition would be for the sake of practical motives, much as we suggested was mostly the case of the early opinions of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

The Pope also says, “For, according to these errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly follows that the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit is in error and has always erred.” If one takes this statement strictly, together with what follows, he would be asserting that it is completely necessary to hold the opposite of each of the condemned statements, or else to abandon the Church. However, there is some tension here with the previous fact about the labels; if he meant this strictly, then he could have condemned them all as heretical or as implying heresy, but he did not. In this sense, it is probably not necessary to interpret this statement as committing the Church absolutely to the statement that it is moral to burn heretics. Nonetheless, the condemnation strongly suggests that Pope Leo X both believed this and wanted others to believe it.

Newman and Modernism

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In 1907 Pope Pius X published his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis condemning modernism. The encyclical begins:

The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking “men speaking perverse things” (Acts xx. 30), “vain talkers and seducers” (Tit. i. 10), “erring and driving into error” (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ’s kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office.

2. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious daring, they reduce to a simple, mere man.

3. Though they express astonishment themselves, no one can justly be surprised that We number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge, he is acquainted with their tenets, their manner of speech, their conduct. Nor indeed will he err in accounting them the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For as We have said, they put their designs for her ruin into operation not from without but from within; hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain, the more intimate is their knowledge of her. Moreover they lay the axe not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fires. And having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to disseminate poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth from which they hold their hand, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skilful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious arts; for they double the parts of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and since audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance. To this must be added the fact, which indeed is well calculated to deceive souls, that they lead a life of the greatest activity, of assiduous and ardent application to every branch of learning, and that they possess, as a rule, a reputation for the strictest morality. Finally, and this almost destroys all hope of cure, their very doctrines have given such a bent to their minds, that they disdain all authority and brook no restraint; and relying upon a false conscience, they attempt to ascribe to a love of truth that which is in reality the result of pride and obstinacy.

Once indeed We had hopes of recalling them to a better sense, and to this end we first of all showed them kindness as Our children, then we treated them with severity, and at last We have had recourse, though with great reluctance, to public reproof. But you know, Venerable Brethren, how fruitless has been Our action. They bowed their head for a moment, but it was soon uplifted more arrogantly than ever. If it were a matter which concerned them alone, We might perhaps have overlooked it: but the security of the Catholic name is at stake. Wherefore, as to maintain it longer would be a crime, We must now break silence, in order to expose before the whole Church in their true colours those men who have assumed this bad disguise.

4. But since the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) employ a very clever artifice, namely, to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and disjointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast, it will be of advantage, Venerable Brethren, to bring their teachings together here into one group, and to point out the connexion between them, and thus to pass to an examination of the sources of the errors, and to prescribe remedies for averting the evil.

In the last paragraph here, Pius X accuses the modernists of a “clever artifice”, namely presenting their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, “so as to appear to be in doubt and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and steadfast.” In other words, according to him, they have a clear and developed system for themselves, which they do not present to other people. He lays out this system himself in the encyclical.

Such a clever artifice is not impossible in principle. Although I will not defend this at the moment, it seems to me that Hans Urs von Balthasar has just such a system, complete and developed in his own mind, but presented to others without order and systematic arrangement. And it may be that the system described in Pascendi could be fairly attributed to some Catholics at the time, at least in many or most respects. But the problem is that since those who hold the system admittedly do not clearly claim to hold it, there is no easy way to distinguish such people from Catholics who are actually in doubt and uncertainty, and who do not hold such a system.

The result of this is that the remedies proposed by Pius X are detailed, but very widespread in scope:

48. All these prescriptions and those of Our Predecessor are to be borne in mind whenever there is question of choosing directors and professors for seminaries and Catholic Universities. Anybody who in any way is found to be imbued with Modernism is to be excluded without compunction from these offices, and those who already occupy them are to be withdrawn. The same policy is to be adopted towards those who favour Modernism either by extolling the Modernists or excusing their culpable conduct, by criticising scholasticism, the Holy Father, or by refusing obedience to ecclesiastical authority in any of its depositaries; and towards those who show a love of novelty in history, archaeology, biblical exegesis, and finally towards those who neglect the sacred sciences or appear to prefer to them the profane. In all this question of studies, Venerable Brethren, you cannot be too watchful or too constant, but most of all in the choice of professors, for as a rule the students are modelled after the pattern of their masters. Strong in the consciousness of your duty, act always prudently but vigorously.

49. Equal diligence and severity are to be used in examining and selecting candidates for Holy Orders. Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty! God hates the proud and the obstinate. For the future the doctorate of theology and canon law must never be conferred on anybody who has not made the regular course of scholastic philosophy; if conferred it shall be held as null and void. The rules laid down in 1896 by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars for the clerics, both secular and regular, of Italy concerning the frequenting of the Universities, We now decree to be extended to all nations. Clerics and priests inscribed in a Catholic Institute or University must not in the future follow in civil Universities those courses for which there are chairs in the Catholic Institutes to which they belong. If this has been permitted anywhere in the past, We ordain that it be not allowed for the future. Let the Bishops who form the Governing Board of such Catholic Institutes or Universities watch with all care that these Our commands be constantly observed.

50. It is also the duty of the bishops to prevent writings infected with Modernism or favourable to it from being read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication when they have not. No book or paper or periodical of this kind must ever be permitted to seminarists or university students. The injury to them would be equal to that caused by immoral reading – nay, it would be greater for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount. The same decision is to be taken concerning the writings of some Catholics, who, though not badly disposed themselves but ill-instructed in theological studies and imbued with modern philosophy, strive to make this harmonize with the faith, and, as they say, to turn it to the account of the faith. The name and reputation of these authors cause them to be read without suspicion, and they are, therefore, all the more dangerous in preparing the way for Modernism.

51. To give you some more general directions, Venerable Brethren, in a matter of such moment, We bid you do everything in your power to drive out of your dioceses, even by solemn interdict, any pernicious books that may be in circulation there. The Holy See neglects no means to put down writings of this kind, but the number of them has now grown to such an extent that it is impossible to censure them all. Hence it happens that the medicine sometimes arrives too late, for the disease has taken root during the delay. We will, therefore, that the Bishops, putting aside all fear and the prudence of the flesh, despising the outcries of the wicked, gently by all means but constantly, do each his own share of this work, remembering the injunctions of Leo XIII. in the Apostolic Constitution Officiorum: Let the Ordinaries, acting in this also as Delegates of the Apostolic See, exert themselves to prescribe and to put out of reach of the faithful injurious books or other writings printed or circulated in their dioceses. In this passage the Bishops, it is true, receive a right, but they have also a duty imposed on them. Let no Bishop think that he fulfils this duty by denouncing to us one or two books, while a great many others of the same kind are being published and circulated. Nor are you to be deterred by the fact that a book has obtained the Imprimatur elsewhere, both because this may be merely simulated, and because it may have been granted through carelessness or easiness or excessive confidence in the author as may sometimes happen in religious Orders. Besides, just as the same food does not agree equally with everybody, it may happen that a book harmless in one may, on account of the different circumstances, be hurtful in another. Should a Bishop, therefore, after having taken the advice of prudent persons, deem it right to condemn any of such books in his diocese, We not only give him ample faculty to do so but We impose it upon him as a duty to do so. Of course, it is Our wish that in such action proper regard be used, and sometimes it will suffice to restrict the prohibition to the clergy; but even in such cases it will be obligatory on Catholic booksellers not to put on sale books condemned by the Bishop. And while We are on this subject of booksellers, We wish the Bishops to see to it that they do not, through desire for gain, put on sale unsound books. It is certain that in the catalogues of some of them the books of the Modernists are not unfrequently announced with no small praise. If they refuse obedience let the Bishops have no hesitation in depriving them of the title of Catholic booksellers; so too, and with more reason, if they have the title of Episcopal booksellers, and if they have that of Pontifical, let them be denounced to the Apostolic See. Finally, We remind all of the XXVI. article of the abovementioned Constitution Officiorum: All those who have obtained an apostolic faculty to read and keep forbidden books, are not thereby authorised to read books and periodicals forbidden by the local Ordinaries, unless the apostolic faculty expressly concedes permission to read and keep books condemned by anybody.

52. But it is not enough to hinder the reading and the sale of bad books – it is also necessary to prevent them from being printed. Hence let the Bishops use the utmost severity in granting permission to print. Under the rules of the Constitution Officiorum, many publications require the authorisation of the Ordinary, and in some dioceses it has been made the custom to have a suitable number of official censors for the examination of writings. We have the highest praise for this institution, and We not only exhort, but We order that it be extended to all dioceses. In all episcopal Curias, therefore, let censors be appointed for the revision of works intended for publication, and let the censors be chosen from both ranks of the clergy – secular and regular – men of age, knowledge and prudence who will know how to follow the golden mean in their judgments. It shall be their office to examine everything which requires permission for publication according to Articles XLI. and XLII. of the above-mentioned Constitution. The Censor shall give his verdict in writing. If it be favourable, the Bishop will give the permission for publication by the wordImprimatur, which must always be preceded by the Nihil obstat and the name of the Censor. In the Curia of Rome official censors shall be appointed just as elsewhere, and the appointment of them shall appertain to the Master of the Sacred Palaces, after they have been proposed to the Cardinal Vicar and accepted by the Sovereign Pontiff. It will also be the office of the Master of the Sacred Palaces to select the censor for each writing. Permission for publication will be granted by him as well as by the Cardinal Vicar or his Vicegerent, and this permission, as above prescribed, must always be preceded by the Nihil obstat and the name of the Censor. Only on very rare and exceptional occasions, and on the prudent decision of the bishop, shall it be possible to omit mention of the Censor. The name of the Censor shall never be made known to the authors until he shall have given a favourable decision, so that he may not have to suffer annoyance either while he is engaged in the examination of a writing or in case he should deny his approval. Censors shall never be chosen from the religious orders until the opinion of the Provincial, or in Rome of the General, has been privately obtained, and the Provincial or the General must give a conscientious account of the character, knowledge and orthodoxy of the candidate. We admonish religious superiors of their solemn duty never to allow anything to be published by any of their subjects without permission from themselves and from the Ordinary. Finally We affirm and declare that the title of Censor has no value and can never be adduced to give credit to the private opinions of the person who holds it.

53. Having said this much in general, We now ordain in particular a more careful observance of Article XLII. of the above-mentioned Constitution Officiorum. It is forbidden to secular priests, without the previous consent of the Ordinary, to undertake the direction of papers or periodicals. This permission shall be withdrawn from any priest who makes a wrong use of it after having been admonished. With regard to priests who are correspondents or collaborators of periodicals, as it happens not unfrequently that they write matter infected with Modernism for their papers or periodicals, let the Bishops see to it that this is not permitted to happen, and, should they fail in this duty, let the Bishops make due provision with authority delegated by the Supreme Pontiff. Let there be, as far as this is possible, a special Censor for newspapers and periodicals written by Catholics. It shall be his office to read in due time each number after it has been published, and if he find anything dangerous in it let him order that it be corrected. The Bishop shall have the same right even when the Censor has seen nothing objectionable in a publication.

54. We have already mentioned congresses and public gatherings as among the means used by the Modernists to propagate and defend their opinions. In the future Bishops shall not permit Congresses of priests except on very rare occasions. When they do permit them it shall only be on condition that matters appertaining to the Bishops or the Apostolic See be not treated in them, and that no motions or postulates be allowed that would imply a usurpation of sacred authority, and that no mention be made in them of Modernism, presbyterianism, or laicism. At Congresses of this kind, which can only be held after permission in writing has been obtained in due time and for each case, it shall not be lawful for priests of other dioceses to take part without the written permission of their Ordinary. Further no priest must lose sight of the solemn recommendation of Leo XIII.: Let priests hold as sacred the authority of their pastors, let them take it for certain that the sacerdotal ministry, if not exercised under the guidance of the Bishops, can never be either holy, or very fruitful or respectable (Lett. Encyc. Nobilissima Gallorum, 10 Feb., 1884).

55. But of what avail, Venerable Brethren, will be all Our commands and prescriptions if they be not dutifully and firmly carried out? And, in order that this may be done, it has seemed expedient to Us to extend to all dioceses the regulations laid down with great wisdom many years ago by the Bishops of Umbria for theirs.

“In order,” they say, “to extirpate the errors already propagated and to prevent their further diffusion, and to remove those teachers of impiety through whom the pernicious effects of such dif fusion are being perpetuated, this sacred Assembly, following the example of St. Charles Borromeo, has decided to establish in each of the dioceses a Council consisting of approved members of both branches of the clergy, which shall be charged the task of noting the existence of errors and the devices by which new ones are introduced and propagated, and to inform the Bishop of the whole so that he may take counsel with them as to the best means for nipping the evil in the bud and preventing it spreading for the ruin of souls or, worse still, gaining strength and growth” (Acts of the Congress of the Bishops of Umbria, Nov. 1849, tit 2, art. 6). We decree, therefore, that in every diocese a council of this kind, which We are pleased to name “the Council of Vigilance,” be instituted without delay. The priests called to form part in it shall be chosen somewhat after the manner above prescribed for the Censors, and they shall meet every two months on an appointed day under the presidency of the Bishop. They shall be bound to secrecy as to their deliberations and decisions, and their function shall be as follows: They shall watch most carefully for every trace and sign of Modernism both in publications and in teaching, and, to preserve from it the clergy and the young, they shall take all prudent, prompt and efficacious measures. Let them combat novelties of words remembering the admonitions of Leo XIII. (Instruct. S.C. NN. EE. EE., 27 Jan., 1902): It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilisation. Language of this kind is not to be tolerated either in books or from chairs of learning. The Councils must not neglect the books treating of the pious traditions of different places or of sacred relics. Let them not permit such questions to be discussed in periodicals destined to stimulate piety, neither with expressions savouring of mockery or contempt, nor by dogmatic pronouncements, especially when, as is often the case, what is stated as a certainty either does not pass the limits of probability or is merely based on prejudiced opinion. Concerning sacred relics, let this be the rule: When Bishops, who alone are judges in such matters, know for certain the a relic is not genuine, let them remove it at once from the veneration of the faithful; if the authentications of a relic happen to have been lost through civil disturbances, or in any other way, let it not be exposed for public veneration until the Bishop has verified it. The argument of prescription or well-founded presumption is to have weight only when devotion to a relic is commendable by reason of its antiquity, according to the sense of the Decree issued in 1896 by the Congregation of Indulgences and Sacred Relics: Ancient relics are to retain the veneration they have always enjoyed except when in individual instances there are clear arguments that they are false or suppositions. In passing judgment on pious traditions be it always borne in mind that in this matter the Church uses the greatest prudence, and that she does not allow traditions of this kind to be narrated in books except with the utmost caution and with the insertion of the declaration imposed by Urban VIII, and even then she does not guarantee the truth of the fact narrated; she simply does but forbid belief in things for which human arguments are not wanting. On this matter the Sacred Congregation of Rites, thirty years ago, decreed as follows:These apparitions and revelations have neither been approved nor condemned by the Holy See, which has simply allowed that they be believed on purely human faith, on the tradition which they relate, corroborated by testimonies and documents worthy of credence (Decree, May 2, 1877). Anybody who follows this rule has no cause for fear. For the devotion based on any apparition, in as far as it regards the fact itself, that is to say in as far as it is relative, always implies the hypothesis of the truth of the fact; while in as far as it is absolute, it must always be based on the truth, seeing that its object is the persons of the saints who are honoured. The same is true of relics. Finally, We entrust to the Councils of Vigilance the duty of overlooking assiduously and diligently social institutions as well as writings on social questions so that they may harbour no trace of Modernism, but obey the prescriptions of the Roman Pontiffs.

56. Lest what We have laid down thus far should fall into oblivion, We will and ordain that the Bishops of all dioceses, a year after the publication of these letters and every three years thenceforward, furnish the Holy See with a diligent and sworn report on all the prescriptions contained in them, and on the doctrines that find currency among the clergy, and especially in the seminaries and other Catholic institutions, and We impose the like obligation on the Generals of Religious Orders with regard to those under them.

57. This, Venerable Brethren, is what we have thought it our duty to write to you for the salvation of all who believe. The adversaries of the Church will doubtless abuse what we have said to refurbish the old calumny by which we are traduced as the enemy of science and of the progress of humanity. In order to oppose a new answer to such accusations, which the history of the Christian religion refutes by never failing arguments, it is Our intention to establish and develop by every means in our power a special Institute in which, through the co-operation of those Catholics who are most eminent for their learning, the progress of science and other realms of knowledge may be promoted under the guidance and teaching of Catholic truth. God grant that we may happily realise our design with the ready assistance of all those who bear a sincere love for the Church of Christ. But of this we will speak on another occasion.

58. Meanwhile, Venerable Brethren, fully confident in your zeal and work, we beseech for you with our whole heart and soul the abundance of heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great perturbation of men’s minds from the insidious invasions of error from every side, you may see clearly what you ought to do and may perform the task with all your strength and courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you by His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid. And We, as a pledge of Our affection and of divine assistance in adversity, grant most affectionately and with all Our heart to you, your clergy and people the Apostolic Benediction.

It is easy to see that much of this has the effect of penalizing an attitude or various attitudes, regardless of whether a person’s actual beliefs are in conformity with Catholic doctrine or not. This would be the effect of talking about people “imbued with Modernism,” people who “favour Modernism,” “criticizing scholasticism,” “show a love of novelty,” “a style inspired by unsound novelty,” and the like. None of these things are about particular opinions of any kind, but about attitudes, and ones where it may well be unclear whether or not someone has them.

The problem with all of this, of course, is that you cannot resolve people’s doubt and uncertainty by making laws against it. This method simply does not work. And a great deal of Pius X’s concern is in fact about such doubt and uncertainty, and not about particular opinions contrary to Catholic doctrine.

Some of the modernists asserted that Pascendi condemned Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine. Pius X explicitly denied this:

Venerable Brother, greetings and Our Apostolic blessing. We hereby inform you that your essay, in which you show that the writings of Cardinal Newman, far from being in disagreement with Our Encyclical Letter Pascendi, are very much in harmony with it, has been emphatically approved by Us: for you could not have better served both the truth and the dignity of man. It is clear that those people whose errors We have condemned in that Document had decided among themselves to produce something of their own invention with which to seek the commendation of a distinguished person. And so they everywhere assert with confidence that they have taken these things from the very source and summit of authority, and that therefore We cannot censure their teachings, but rather that We had even previously gone so far as to condemn what such a great author had taught. Incredible though it may appear, although it is not always realised, there are to be found those who are so puffed up with pride that it is enough to overwhelm the mind, and who are convinced that they are Catholics and pass themselves off as such, while in matters concerning the inner discipline of religion they prefer the authority of their own private teaching to the pre-eminent authority of the Magisterium of the Apostolic See. Not only do you fully demonstrate their obstinacy but you also show clearly their deceitfulness. For, if in the things he had written before his profession of the Catholic faith one can justly detect something which may have a kind of similarity with certain Modernist formulas, you are correct in saying that this is not relevant to his later works. Moreover, as far as that matter is concerned, his way of thinking has been expressed in very different ways, both in the spoken word and in his published writings, and the author himself, on his admission into the Catholic Church, forwarded all his writings to the authority of the same Church so that any corrections might be made, if judged appropriate. Regarding the large number of books of great importance and influence which he wrote as a Catholic, it is hardly necessary to exonerate them from any connection with this present heresy. And indeed, in the domain of England, it is common knowledge that Henry Newman pleaded the cause of the Catholic faith in his prolific literary output so effectively that his work was both highly beneficial to its citizens and greatly appreciated by Our Predecessors: and so he is held worthy of office whom Leo XIII, undoubtedly a shrewd judge of men and affairs, appointed Cardinal; indeed he was very highly regarded by him at every stage of his career, and deservedly so. Truly, there is something about such a large quantity of work and his long hours of labour lasting far into the night that seems foreign to the usual way of theologians: nothing can be found to bring any suspicion about his faith. You correctly state that it is entirely to be expected that where no new signs of heresy were apparent he has perhaps used an off-guard manner of speaking to some people in certain places, but that what the Modernists do is to falsely and deceitfully take those words out of the whole context of what he meant to say and twist them to suit their own meaning. We therefore congratulate you for having, through your knowledge of all his writings, brilliantly vindicated the memory of this eminently upright and wise man from injustice: and also for having, to the best of your ability, brought your influence to bear among your fellow-countrymen, but particularly among the English people, so that those who were accustomed to abusing his name and deceiving the ignorant should henceforth cease doing so. Would that they should follow Newman the author faithfully by studying his books without, to be sure, being addicted to their own prejudices, and let them not with wicked cunning conjure anything up from them or declare that their own opinions are confirmed in them; but instead let them understand his pure and whole principles, his lessons and inspiration which they contain. They will learn many excellent things from such a great teacher: in the first place, to regard the Magisterium of the Church as sacred, to defend the doctrine handed down inviolately by the Fathers and, what is of highest importance to the safeguarding of Catholic truth, to follow and obey the Successor of St. Peter with the greatest faith. To you, therefore, Venerable Brother, and to your clergy and people, We give Our heartfelt thanks for having taken the trouble to help Us in Our reduced circumstances by sending your communal gift of financial aid: and in order to gain for you all, but first and foremost for yourself, the gifts of God’s goodness, and as a testimony of Our benevolence, We affectionately bestow Our Apostolic blessing.

Pius X is certainly right that Newman’s theory of development is quite different from the modernist system which he condemns in Pascendi. Nonetheless, there is a real relationship between the two, and much more is there one between Newman’s theory and people’s uncertainty and doubt.

The difference, of course, is that the evolution of doctrine which is condemned in Pascendi is the first theory Newman mentions, which tends to imply the absence of a real revelation, and which Ross Douthat says is a view that “sounds like heresy by any reasonable definition of the term.” In this sense, Newman’s theory of development is quite different. However, there is a relationship, because Newman admits the possibility of changes in doctrine, without positively establishing any absolute limits on the possibility.

By doing this, Newman’s theory in itself tends to be a cause of “doubt and uncertainty,” even when it is taken in a Catholic sense. The Catholic interpretation would imply that the substance of a doctrine must remain unchanged. But since all claims are vague, and changes of opinion happen in a vague and slow way, the line between a development of doctrine and a substantial change in doctrine will necessarily be a vague line, just like the line between a man who is bald and a man who is not. This will necessarily cause doubt about whether various changes would constitute a substantial change of doctrine or not, and therefore about whether or not certain opinions, currently rejected by the Church or by most of it, might turn out to be true.

Newman and Darwin

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In an ebook Another Look at John Henry Cardinal Newman, Richard Sartino discusses Newman’s view of Darwin:

Darwin’s theory did not shock Newman; he told a correspondent he was willing “to go the whole hog with Darwin.”

It is important to understand Newman’s frame of mind concerning the false theories of evolution in order to understand his notions of development. Darwin’s book, Origin of Species, appeared in 1859, a time when educated men and society in general scoffed at the idea of human evolution, leaving such notions to the few mad scientific theorists, but Newman’s empirical mind and distrust of rational philosophy disposed him to accept whole-heartedly the notions of evolution. He had been contemplating the evolution, not of man, but of religion, long before the appearance of Darwin’s book; his first sermon on the development of Christianity was preached in 1843 while he was still an Anglican and within two years the Development of Christian Doctrine was published, with Newman entering the Church at the same time.

He goes on to compare Newman’s theory with the theory of evolution:

Newman was a pioneer of this new doctrine which shocked both Anglicans and Catholics alike. Theologians until then had never considered his ideas of development, although many before him justly contemplated the mystical and supernatural increase of the treasures of the Church. The difference between Newman and earlier theologians in this matter is that Newman considered only the material aspect of the Church’s growth, not going beyond the temporal history of Her life on earth. Earlier theologians, on the other hand, had considered the formal aspect of the Church, a viewpoint which is vital to the believer who is obliged to view things with a supernatural eye.

Newman saw the Church in the light of history, whereas Catholics see history in the light of the Church. Immersed in an academia of the staunchest historicists whose scepticism imbued the thinkers of that time, Newman followed their lead and often kept up a correspondence with the worst of them, as Dollinger and Acton. Their position confined the Church to Her history, and Her history to their sceptical and critical minds. For these men the work of the Catholic mind is not to meditate upon and adore Christ in the eternal truths of the Church but to subject these truths to historical analysis. What is important for them is not the Incarnation but the development of the idea of the Incarnation. All this, of course, is nothing but that age-old pride whereby the mind of man becomes the measure of religion.

With this in mind we can understand why Newman accepted so easily the errors of Darwin, for there was nothing incompatible between the evolution of man and the evolution of religion and doctrine. On the contrary, both complement one another to form a harmonious view of the whole of creation. In fact, just as all errors begin in the highest part of the soul before they exercise their universal influence on the subordinate faculties and sciences, thus does the evolution of eternal doctrine precede the less radical errors about the evolution of man and social institutions. It is understandable, and appropriate, therefore that Newman’s novel thesis should have preceded Origin of Species by sixteen years. As long as the mind of man is firmly rooted in the immutable and eternal truths of the Faith the occasion will never arise to fall into any kind of evolutionary errors.

Several authors bear testimony of Newman’s evolutionary ideas. A certain Mark Pattison who knew Newman said he saw the whole development of human reason from Aristotle to Hegel as a closed book, and in Studies in Modernism Alfred Fawkes also believes that the essay on Development “is a striking anticipation of the Evolution philosophy; the application of this to theology marked a turning-point in religious thought.”

And another author, Percy Gardner in Modernism in the English Church, asserts that “it shows the greatness of Newman, that before Darwin had set forth his theory of evolution, a foretaste of it appears in Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine.” So serious were Newman’s aberrations that one of the greatest living Roman theologians at that time, Fr. Franzelin, S.J., wrote an entire treatise, De Divina Scriptura et Traditione, in order to combat what he considered Newman’s departure from the Faith.

He then discusses Newman’s theory directly:

The full force and implication of Newman’s thinking are found in his doctrine known as Development of Christian Doctrine. Characteristic of his personal qualities and life, this specific teaching of Newman contains his ambiguity and ambivalence, in toto, so much so that it allures the most opposed camps of thinkers. Its appeal is universal; to liberals and orthodox, to Protestants and Catholics, to believers as well as infidels. Men of every persuasion find their opinions voiced in this doctrine, for it is as pliable and flexible as Newman’s supposedly transcendent and personal logic.

The essence of Newman’s position consists in reconciling two contradictory propositions: first, that Christianity is unchanging, and second, that Christianity is changing. Apparent contradictions can always be reconciled by a legitimate rational distinction, but Newman does not attempt to do this. His Doctrine of Development does not assert that Christianity is unchanging in one respect, and changing in another, and then delineate the consequent differences and properties from the various distinctions. On the contrary, Newman’s position admits simultaneously and in the same respect that Christianity is changing and unchanging. To accomplish such a formidable task is not really very difficult, at least for a mind enamoured with concrete living experience.

Of course, Newman says no such thing. Rather, he asserts that there have been various changes in Christianity throughout history and it is a question of explaining them. He says, as we quoted earlier:

Here then I concede to the opponents of historical Christianity, that there are to be found, during the 1800 years through which it has lasted, certain apparent inconsistencies and alterations in its doctrine and its worship, such as irresistibly attract the attention of all who inquire into it. They are not sufficient to interfere with the general character and course of the religion, but they raise the question how they came about, and what they mean, and have in consequence supplied matter for several hypotheses.

Of these one is to the effect that Christianity has ever changed from the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and seasons; but it is difficult to understand how such a view is compatible with the special idea of revealed truth, and in fact its advocates more or less abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of Christianity; so it need not detain us here.

A second and more plausible hypothesis is that of the Anglican divines…

It is worthwhile considering the hypothesis that Newman passes over here, that “Christianity has ever changed from the first and ever accommodates itself to the circumstances of times and seasons.” Why is it difficult to understand how such a view is compatible with the special idea of revealed truth? Basically, the position in question is that everything in Christianity is changeable. Christians currently believe that Christ is God, but a thousand years from now, they may all believe that Christ was a mere man. The difficulty is, of course, that both of these cannot be true, so that if the belief of Christians varies from time to time in this way, then the beliefs of Christians cannot be believed to come from divine revelation.

In fact, this position would not be entirely inconsistent with the idea of a particular revelation, but such a revelation would be more like the kind that the Catholic Church considers to be a private revelation. In other words, one would say that the true beliefs, when they are present, are ones that came from a revelation, but that God does nothing to prevent people from abandoning these beliefs and adopting other ones. In this case, of course, the problem would be that there does not seem to be a good way to distinguish between beliefs that are actually revealed, and others which are not. It would be for this reason that people holding this position would “abandon, or tend to abandon the supernatural claims of Christianity.” Consequently, since Newman is not here attempting to argue for the truth of Christianity, he does not care to give this particular theory any lengthy treatment.

We should notice the order of evidence here: changeableness without any limit would be good evidence for an absence of revelation, and for a similar reason, complete absence of changeableness would be good evidence for the presence of a revelation. Newman acknowledges the presence of some changeableness, and he does this without demonstrating the existence of any limit on this changeableness, but only assuming it.

It seems to me that we can see here the reason for Sartino’s rejection of Newman’s theory. Newman certainly does not hold that Christianity is both changeable and unchangeable in the same respect. He simply admits that it is changeable to some extent, and wishes to explain this. But for Sartino, this is a problem in itself, because it opens the door to the possibility that there is no real divine revelation. If Christianity is changeable to some degree, and we have not yet shown that there is any limit on this, then the first rejected hypothesis might turn out to be true, and Christianity might not be supernatural.

The problem with Sartino’s thinking is the same one I pointed out earlier. If Christianity is changeable in some ways, that may leave the door open to the possibility that Christianity is false, and may make this more likely relative to the situation where Christianity is actually unchangeable in every way. But you cannot change these facts by asserting that Christianity is actually unchangeable, because asserting something does not make it so. Both the evidence and the facts will remain just as they are, regardless of what you say about them. In this way, it makes sense that Sartino rejects both Newman’s theory of development and Darwin’s theory of evolution. He is using the same strategy in each case, one which seems to him to make his religion more certain to be true, but which actually has no effect whatsoever.

In reality, Darwin was not responsible for the theory of evolution. The facts were responsible, and as I noted here, if Darwin had not come up with his theory, others would have. In a similar way, the Catholic Church accepted Newman’s theory of development because it was necessary in order to account for the facts of history, and some such theory would have been developed and accepted even if Newman had never existed. You can ignore history just as you can ignore the rocks, but ignoring things does not change them. Newman noted, in fact, that certain real facts tended to open the door to the possibility that his religion was in error, saying, “Not only has the relative situation of controversies and theologies altered, but infidelity itself is in a different,—I am obliged to say in a more hopeful position,—as regards Christianity.”

Ross Douthat, commenting on the recent controversy over the possibility of communion for the divorced and remarried, says:

When this point is raised, reformers pivot to the idea that, well, maybe the proposed changes really are effectively doctrinal, but not every doctrinal issue is equally important, and anyway Catholic doctrine can develop over time.

But the development of doctrine is supposed to deepen church teaching, not reverse or contradict it. This distinction allows for many gray areas, admittedly. But effacing Jesus’ own words on the not-exactly-minor topics of marriage and sexuality certainly looks more like a major reversal than an organic, doctrinally-deepening shift.

At which point we come to the third argument, which makes an appearance in your letter: You don’t understand, you’re not a theologian. As indeed I am not. But neither is Catholicism supposed to be an esoteric religion, its teachings accessible only to academic adepts. And the impression left by this moving target, I’m afraid, is that some reformers are downplaying their real position in the hopes of bringing conservatives gradually along.

What is that real position? That almost anything Catholic can change when the times require it, and “developing” doctrine just means keeping up with capital-H History, no matter how much of the New Testament is left behind.
As I noted earlier, the columnist’s task is to be provocative. So I must tell you, openly and not subtly, that this view sounds like heresy by any reasonable definition of the term.

Now it may be that today’s heretics are prophets, the church will indeed be revolutionized, and my objections will be ground under with the rest of conservative Catholicism. But if that happens, it will take hard grinding, not just soft words and academic rank-pulling. It will require a bitter civil war.

And so, my dear professors: Welcome to the battlefield.

What Douthat calls the “real position” of the reformers, of course, is exactly the first hypothesis which Newman dismisses. It seems to me that there can be no reasonable doubt that this is in fact the position of many, although they might wish to conceal it, in order to better bring about the ends that they seek. Whether or not they therefore abandon the idea of special revelation is unclear, but it would seem the most reasonable position for someone who believes that there is no limit to the changeableness of the Church.

Neither Newman in the text cited, nor Douthat here, say that they can disprove the first hypothesis, but that they do not accept it, because of the implication that there is no real revelation. But they both recognize that they live in the real world, where there is evidence against what you believe, and where you might actually be wrong. Richard Sartino, on the other hand, seems to live in an imaginary world.

A Letter of Newman to Fr. Coleridge

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In 1870 the First Vatican Council defined the infallibility of the Pope under certain circumstances. In a letter dated February 5, 1871, Newman says:

My dear Fr. Coleridge,

I began to read Fr. Harper’s papers, but they were (to my ignorance of theology and philosophy) so obscure, and (to my own knowledge of my real meaning) so hopelessly misrepresentations of the book, that I soon gave it over. As to my answering, I think I never answered any critique on any writing of mine, in my life. My Essay on Development was assailed by Dr. Brownson on one side, and Mr. Archer Butler on the other, at great length. Brownson, I believe, thought me a Pantheist–and sent me his work to Rome, by some American Bishop. Mr. Butler has been lauded by his people as having smashed me. Now at the end of twenty years, I am told from Rome that I am guilty of the late Definition by my work on Development, so orthodox has it been found in principle, and on the other side Bampton Lectures have been preached, I believe, allowing that principle, the Guardian acknowledges the principle as necessary, and the Scotch Editors of Dorner’s great work on our Lord’s Person, cautioning of course the world against me, admit that development of doctrine is a historical fact. I shall not live another 20 years, but, as I waited patiently as regards my former work for ‘Time to be the Father of Truth’, so now I leave the judgment between Fr. Harper and me to the sure future.

In the case of the definition of 1854, even if Catholics had once doubted the doctrine, by the time of the definition it was certainly the general belief throughout the Catholic world, and even at the time of St. Thomas it was a common belief among Catholics. But in the case of papal infallibility, there was significantly more disagreement, at least about the details of the idea, even in the nineteenth century. Thus, when Newman says, “I am told from Rome that I am guilty of the late Definition,” the implication is that someone told him that without his theory of the development of doctrine, the council would not have agreed to make the definition.

Ineffabilis Deus

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In 1854 Pope Pius IX defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception:

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”

Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.

This doctrine was believed and celebrated in the Church long before this definition, and it would be seriously misleading to suppose that the definition represented any meaningful change in the general beliefs of Catholics. However, not all Catholics always held it, and St. Thomas in fact did not accept it:

I answer that, The sanctification of the Blessed Virgin cannot be understood as having taken place before animation, for two reasons. First, because the sanctification of which we are speaking, is nothing but the cleansing from original sin: for sanctification is a “perfect cleansing,” as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. xii). Now sin cannot be taken away except by grace, the subject of which is the rational creature alone. Therefore before the infusion of the rational soul, the Blessed Virgin was not sanctified.

Secondly, because, since the rational creature alone can be the subject of sin; before the infusion of the rational soul, the offspring conceived is not liable to sin. And thus, in whatever manner the Blessed Virgin would have been sanctified before animation, she could never have incurred the stain of original sin: and thus she would not have needed redemption and salvation which is by Christ, of whom it is written (Matthew 1:21): “He shall save His people from their sins.” But this is unfitting, through implying that Christ is not the “Saviour of all men,” as He is called (1 Timothy 4:10). It remains, therefore, that the Blessed Virgin was sanctified after animation.

Responding to the objection that in some places the feast of Mary’s Conception was already being celebrated, he says:

Although the Church of Rome does not celebrate the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, yet it tolerates the custom of certain churches that do keep that feast, wherefore this is not to be entirely reprobated. Nevertheless the celebration of this feast does not give us to understand that she was holy in her conception. But since it is not known when she was sanctified, the feast of her Sanctification, rather than the feast of her Conception, is kept on the day of her conception.

This is an unfair description of the feast, as those who wished to celebrate Mary’s conception in fact believed that she was sanctified in the first moment, even though St. Thomas denies it. And in this sense it is clear that there was in fact significant historical continuity. However, the suggestion, implied by the words of Brownson, even though elsewhere he admits it to be untrue, that all Catholics of good will have always believed all the doctrines accepted by the Church of the nineteenth century, simply cannot be maintained.

Brownson Apologizes to Newman

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In Brownson’s Quarterly Review (October 1864), Orestes Brownson makes a sort of apology to Newman for his previous criticism of Newman’s theory of the development of doctrine. Brownson writes:

Faith, objectively considered, is infallible, and the Church is infallible, by the assistance of the Holy Ghost, in teaching and defining it. But the faith is to us practically as if it were not, save in so far as it is actively received and appropriated by our own minds. This, we presume, is what Dr. Newman meant when he said: Christianity came into the world a naked idea, which the mind develops or realizes by its own action. Now in realizing, in actively receiving and appropriating the Christian dogma, or the faith, our minds are not infallible. We never conceive it adequately, or take in explicitly all that is in it; and we may, and often do, under various aspects, even misconceive it. Here is, if we understand it, the basis of Dr. Newman’s Essay, and if so, our objections to it were irrelevant, and though well founded, as against the doctrine we deduced from it, they are not as against that which the author held, and intended to set forth, and perhaps did set forth to the minds of all who admired his book. We have long suspected that we did him injustice, though we have not changed our own views of the soundness of the theology we opposed to him, or thought we were opposing to him. The fact is, his book was profounder than we supposed, and was designed to solve theological difficulties which we had not then encountered in our own intellectual life and experience. This acknowledgement, spontaneously made, we hope will be accepted by the illustrious convert and his friends, as some slight atonement for any injustice we may have done him or them, since whatever injustice we may have done was done unwittingly and unintentionally.

On the fact of the inadequacy of our conceptions, and our liability even to wrong conceptions, Dr. Newman bases his doctrine of development on the one hand, and of the necessity, on the other, of a living and ever-present infallible authority in the Church, to preserve the original revelation in its integrity, and to define and condemn the errors which from time to time may arise in the process of development. We do not agree that the definitions of the Church give us new articles or even new dogmas of faith; they are negative rather than positive, and tell us what the faith is not rather than what it is, or what cannot be held without denying or injuring the faith. In other respects, we fully accept what was probably Dr. Newman’s doctrine. There is always in the Church an infallible authority to main the Symbol in its integrity, and to condemn all errors that tend to deny or impair it. But this authority, while it maintains the Symbol, cannot give me understanding, or render my conception of the dogma or even of the definition itself adequate or infallible. The human mind never in its efforts at appropriation or realization, whether in the individual consciousness or in society and civilization, takes in at once the whole Christian idea, and its realizations are always inadequate, and sometimes not unmingled with fatal errors. The Christian work in society and in the individual soul is to struggle to render the human conceptions of the Christian idea less and less inadequate, and to eliminate more and more the errors that mingle with them, so as to advance nearer and nearer to the perfect day, or to a full and complete realization in the understanding, in individual and social life, of the whole Christian idea, or, the perfect formation of Christ within us, and our perfect union with God, possible in its fullness only in the beatific vision, the consummation alike of Creation and Redemption.

Now, unless you can render the human mind as infallible as the Divine mind, there will always be more or less of imperfection and error in our understanding and appropriation of the Christian idea, or the faith as objectively revealed and proposed. Hence theology is not a divine and infallible science; and while the faith in itself is complete and invariable, theology, or its scientific realization, is always incomplete and variable. It may grow from age to age, and the theology which is too high and too broad for one age may be too narrow and too low for another. Hence, any attempt to bind the human mind, though, or reason back to the theology of any past age is hostile to the interests alike of religion and civilization. To require us to receive as authority not to be questioned or examined, not the faith, but the theology or philosophy of the medieval doctors, or even the great theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is to suppose that the work of realization is completed, and human reason in this life has no farther work, which were intellectual death or mental stagnation; or, which amounts to the same thing, that no farther realization is practicable or permissible in Christian truth.

As can be seen, his apology is somewhat half-hearted. As I have said elsewhere, people do not like to admit that they have changed their mind, considering this to be embarrassing and humiliating. Brownson follows this pattern here. While he cannot avoid admitting that he was wrong about Newman, he claims that he has not changed his own theological opinions in any real way, saying that “we have not changed our own views of the soundness of the theology we opposed to him, or thought we were opposing to him.”

Nonetheless, in reality Brownson has changed his mind substantially, even if he may not have entirely accepted Newman’s theory. In this text, Brownson is basically admitting that the doctrine of sola me is false. Perhaps the Church is objectively infallible, but even if this is so, it does not mean that any individual is subjectively infallible in any of his opinions, even those about the teaching of the Church and the meaning of those teachings. But compare this with Brownson’s previous statement, “Christianity, if received at all, must be received, not as a theory, but as a revealed fact; and when we have established it as a revealed fact, no theory is needed or admissible, for we must then believe the fact precisely as it proposes itself.” This pretty clearly implies certainty about exactly what is proposed and in what way, and Brownson is now admitting that this is impossible. Likewise, Brownson had said that if opinions and theories are involved, “What foundation is there or can there be for faith!” Now he is admitting that these things can be and are involved in Christianity, and indeed must be, but he is not concluding that there can be no foundation for faith.

On one point Brownson has not changed his mind: Revelation consists of something like a list of statements which in themselves are fully complete and meaningful, and this list never increases or decreases. It is only people’s grasp of what is contained in this list that can change.

Of course, despite Brownson’s original objections to theories, this is a theory in itself, and it would need to be spelled out in detail in order to understand it. Where and when does this list exist, and in what sense?

We can clarify Brownson’s original idea by examining some of the discussion that followed his original criticism of Newman. The book Orestes A. Brownson’s Middle Life: From 1845 To 1855 contains a letter from William Ward to Brownson, written in 1847. Ward writes:

The idea you seem to have formed is that he [Newman] has devised a theory in a wanton sort of way, as a sort of intellectual exercise, instead of submitting himself humbly to the teachings of the Catholic Church as he found it. I cannot but think that a statement of some of the facts of the case will induce you, in some degree at least, to modify this opinion.

…

Now my reason for mentioning all this is to show that at that time he had been led by his natural and legitimate course of studies to feel very strongly the pressure of one particular objection against the modern Catholic system of doctrine. That these studies were very extensive no one can doubt who reads his works. I believe I am correct in saying that before he became a Catholic he had read through all the works of all the Greek and all the Latin Fathers at least three times, and that particular objection was that it was historically evident that certain doctrines considered by the present “Roman” church as Catholic were not so considered by the Early Church. This objection was stated most clearly and prominently in the work I have mentioned, and also in great numbers of other works. Any one may see them who will look at the “Tracts for the Times” or the various numbers of the “British Critic” from the time Mr. Newman undertook its editorship down to the year 1841.

Now here it is very important to observe that although many Catholics paid the greatest attention to these writings and various reviews of them appeared in Catholic journals, no real attempt whatsoever was made to meet this objection. The passages from Cardinal Fisher, etc., were not disavowed nor accused of spuriousness nor yet were they plainly adopted and proclaimed to be Catholic in this view. I, for one, felt this and keenly at the time; even so late as 1841, when I paid two days’ visit to Oscott, I could not get Dr. Wiseman to give me any definite answer at all on the subject one way or the other. He would neither say that Newman represented antiquity unfairly, nor that he represented it fairly. He said a great deal, and very well, in attack of Anglicanism, but I could get no light at all on this essential and prominent difficulty which one felt to be in the way of Catholicism.

But before the year 1841 a further change had taken place in Newman’s mind, as he has since informed a great friend of mine, an old Irish Catholic. This change was directly caused by Dr. Wiseman’s article which appeared, I think, in the year 1840, paralleling the Anglicans with the Donatists. From the time he read that article, he felt there was one most decided “screw loose” in Anglican theology; he felt, and strongly, that the Anglicans were in a position which the ancient church would have regarded as schismatic; from the time this view was presented to him the more he thought over the acts and words of the Fathers, the more they seemed to corroborate that view. This, however, only placed him in a most cruel state of difficulty; for it did not tend one step to remove his old objections to the “Roman” Church, though it infused new objections to the “Anglican.” No one can doubt that, from that time at least, he was most anxious to find some clew to extricate himself from the labyrinth, yet no Catholic was at hand to offer him any clew, and I cannot but feel it an extreme injustice and cruelty that Catholics who were silent when he was searching in their direction for some way of escape, should afterwards, when he has found a way for himself and actually brought himself to the Catholic Church by help of it, be loud in their objections to the legitimacy of that way. If this be not the right way, why did they not, years ago, find for him some other?

This observation, my dear sir, cannot be supposed to reflect upon yourself, because you were not, I believe, at that time a Catholic. But I do think that all who find fault with his theory, should ask themselves this plain question, “except for this theory, how could he possibly have become a Catholic?”

Here, then, I confess, I do think that Newman has some right to complain of your treatment of him. Here we have a person of ability and though, who has devoted himself to the study of the Fathers, and who is most anxious to find in them all possible agreement with the present Catholic Church, and yet cannot, for the life of him, read them any other way than as being either discrepant or ignorant, on various matters which are now ruled to be points of Catholic Faith. If on the one hand it is historically clear that the Catholic Church of the nineteenth century is the lineal heir of the Catholic Church of the fourth century, it is equally clear historically (so he thinks) that the doctrine of the first named church is in many particulars an addition upon the doctrine of the last named.

Brownson responded to Ward in September 1847:

You are mistaken in supposing that I proceed on the idea that Mr. Newman “has devised his thory in a wanton sort of way, as a sort of intellectual exercise.” Such an idea never entered my head. From my first reading of the Essay on Development, I have taken substantially the very view of his case which you unfold and confirm in your letter; and if I had not, I should hardly have hazarded my strictures. I have never questioned his sincerity, or that of his friends; I have never for a moment doubted that they really believe the historical assumptions, which seem to them to demand this theory, are well founded; and if well founded, I have not been unable to understand that they must naturally feel that some such theory as they put forth is absolutely necessary for their explanation. I have not arraigned their motives, and I have supposed myself to be treating them, especially Mr. Newman, with great personal respect and even tenderness. I have certainly intended so to treat Mr. Newman; for I have looked upon him as having devised his theory, not as a Catholic, but as an Anglican, and have not doubted that he would abandon it in proportion as he became acquainted with Catholic faith and Catholic life.

I certainly did think, and do still, that he and his friends made a serious mistake in their theory, and even in supposing any theory at all to be necessary. Their inability to accept the church without their theory has, I own, seemed to me to detract somewhat from the simplicity of their faith; and their demand that she should accept their theory, as the condition of their accepting her, I have not been able to reconcile with that entire self-surrender, which I have been taught she requires of all who would be owned as her children. They seem to me to have surrendered only on condition, – to have in their theory stipulated that they should be permitted to retain their side-arms and to march out with the honors. Or, in other words, you seem to me not to have believed the church simply, but only inasmuch as you have believed your theory, and therefore you do not seem to me to have surrendered unconditionally. If I am right in this, you have been unjust to God, unjust to the faithful, unjust to yourselves, and may find it not amiss to ask if after all your conversion does not, unhappily, remain inchoate.

You began by taking a certain view of the primitive teaching of the church; between that view and her present teaching you have found a difference, a “discordance,” as you express it. What then more natural, you may ask, than that we should be unable to submit to the church without some expedient for explaining that discordance, and showing that after all it makes nothing against her claims as the church of God? What more natural, or more justifiable even, than that having found such an expedient, we should insist on it, and urge it upon the attention of our former friends, and of the Doctors of the church, previously ignorant of it, or afraid to adopt it? So, I doubt not, reason the friends of the Theory to themselves, and you may ask me, what I find in this to censure.

I will tell you, my brother. It is that you being with the assumption that your view of the primitive teaching of the church is unquestionably the true view, that in forming it you cannot possibly have erred. But that view is only the common Anglican view; you have adopted it, not as Catholics, but as Anglicans. Anglicans for these three hundred years have been urging it against us, and for three hundred years our own divines have, with one voice, denied it. Now, my brother, how is it that it has never occurred to you that the Catholic understanding of the Fathers may be deserving of as much confidence as the Anglican; that it is possible, after all, that you may be wrong in your view of the primitive teaching of the church, and that, therefore, it is possible that there is, in fact, no such discordance as you pretend? What I complain of is your assumption of the infallibility of your private judgement in determining the primitive teaching of the church, and that since there is a discordance between her present teaching and your view of her primitive teaching, collected from your private interpretation of the Fathers, there must needs be such discordance in fact, really existing, and to be accounted for.

Where, my brother, did you or your friends get that view of ante-Nicene doctrine? From the church, from her authoritative teaching today? You will not pretend it. Whence then? Evidently from your private interpretation of the Fathers. Having thus obtained it, you made it the criterion of ante-Nicene doctrine. Allow me to ask, by what right? Whence, as a Catholic, are you bound to take the doctrine of the church, not in one age only, but in every age? Unquestionably, from the church herself who is always and everywhere the infallible authority by which to determine what she always and everywhere teaches, as well as by which to determine that what she teaches is the word of God. As a Catholic you cannot distinguish between what she teaches in one age and what she teaches in another. For you the church can have no ages. She is one and Catholic in time as well as in space, and, like eternity, she has duration, but no succession. You must go to her, as she is today, to learn what she taught before the Council of Nice, no less than to know what she teaches now. If you assert the alleged discordance, it must be on her authority; you cannot say that she has varied from age to age in her doctrine, taught in one age what she did not in another, in one age doctrines repugnant to those she has taught in others, unless she tells you so. If she tells you so, that is enough; she then confesses her own fallibility, abdicates her throne as the church of God, and you need no theory, for none can save her. If she denies it, teaches the reverse, you cannot assert the discordance, without ceasing to be Catholics. Here, my brother, is my objection to your method, which, as I understand it, is essentially uncatholic.

According to Ward, Newman’s study of the Fathers led him to conclude that there were discrepancies between what the Fathers believed in the early Church and what the Catholic Church, in the nineteenth century, believed to be revealed by God. Brownson’s response here is that the Church teaches that there is no such discrepancy, and therefore that Newman should either reject the Church, or conclude that his opinions about the Fathers were mistaken.

There is a fatal flaw in this reasoning. Brownson says that Newman is exercising private judgment about the opinions of the Fathers; but Brownson himself is equally exercising private judgment about the current teaching of the Church, in saying that it teaches that there is no such discrepancy. And the Church did not in fact teach this, even at the time; as Ward pointed out, Catholics such as Wiseman did not respond to Newman by saying that he was wrong about the beliefs of the Fathers, but by avoiding the discussion.

In any case, Brownson’s claim here is that the Church has definite teachings about what it has believed throughout history, and that those teachings imply that the early Fathers explicitly believed everything which the Church of the nineteenth century held to be definitive. So his implication that there is a specific complete list of Catholic doctrines is quite specific: such a list has to exist in the mind of each of the Fathers, and probably within the mind of most Catholics throughout history.

The problem with this thesis, of course, is that it is obviously false, and it is clear from his apology that by 1864 he no longer believed this theory, although still asserting that he believes in the existence of such a list in principle. But it is no longer clear where that list is located.

Chastek on Morality in the Old Testament

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James Chastek discusses the morality in the Old Testament:

If our objection to the divine origin of Scripture is to call it a book of crude bronze-age genocidal goat herding patriarchal peasants, then do we expect something with a truly a divine origin be the finest fruit of a perfectly enlightened age, composed by leisured aristocrats, and reflecting the noblest, purest moral ideals and actions? Even if all these traits were compatible (non-patriarchal aristocracy?) an honest look at history tells us that such age would be marred by its love of its own atrocious actions and beliefs.  Our rhetorical jabs would just shift from whatever monstrous moral practices happen at the hands of goat-herders to the the ones that happen at the hands of enlightened, leisured aristocrats and college professors.

Is this missing the point, though? Sure, maybe out mocking of goat-herders is a little xenophobic and elitist, and maybe any culture God chose to reveal himself though would have its own vices and faults. But isn’t the heart of the objection that since God is “morally perfect” his revelation should be morally perfect? Isn’t this practically a tautology?

Of course any culture that God chose to reveal himself through would have its own vices and faults. And even if a revelation was morally perfect, there is enough disagreement about morals that people would criticize the revelation in moral terms anyway. But even the latter fact does not answer the objection, as Chastek acknowledges here, because the fact that people would criticize it anyway, does not mean that it in fact is morally perfect.

He continues:

Not necessarily. Instead of trying to justify the apparent moral degradation of Scripture we might investigate the hypothesis that some moral degradation is integral to its own account of revelation. Since it is complete in Christ, revelation is not just God’s speaking to human beings but speaking with a human voice. Given that God wanted to save human beings, and not just start again after the fall with a non-fallen creation (which would make both salvation and revelation unnecessary) he was committed to speaking with a fallen voice until such time when he would speak though his new creation in Christ. Demanding moral perfection of the revelation before this new creation would destroy the way in which Christ fulfills the Scripture as not just a revelation to humanity but through humanity.

Ultimately one would have to flesh out this thesis in order to give it a full consideration. What does it mean in particular for the Old Testament? Does it mean that parts of it are false? If not, what is the alternative?

And what does it mean for the New Testament? If revelation is complete in Christ, does it mean that the New Testament is in fact morally perfect, even though the Old Testament is not? As implied by Chastek’s first paragraph, people can and do criticize the morality found in the New Testament as well. For example, although Christ proposes an improved morality, he does not specifically distinguish what he is saying from pacifism, and consequently some early Christians were pacifists. Pacifism is not a perfect morality, and even if Christ might have personally understood this, he failed to make the distinction publicly, or at least failed to have it recorded. Likewise, many people have criticized St. Paul’s attitude to slavery, or the details of his view on the relationship of men and women.

As I said above, people would criticize even a morally perfect revelation. Consequently one possible response to such issues in the New Testament is to defend it in every respect, saying that in fact it is morally perfect. But this is possible much in the way that it is possible to defend the Old Testament in every respect, as for example saying that since God is the author of all, he has the right to command genocide, and that if it is commanded, people should carry it out. This answer is not impossible in itself. But if we do not wish to accept it because it is not a very reasonable position, I would suggest that the same thing is probably true about the New Testament, but with a difference of degree. The difference between the morality in the Old Testament and the morality in the New is not the difference between an imperfect morality and a perfect morality; it is the difference between a more imperfect morality and a less imperfect morality.

Whether one agrees that even the morality of the New Testament is imperfect, or asserts that it is perfect in contrast to the Old Testament, the resulting position will be consistent with holding the truth of the Christian religion. However, either response will have a price, basically because either response is a response to a legitimate objection. As for the exact nature of the price, I may revisit this issue in the future.

Marcion of Pontus

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Marcion of Pontus, at the end of the first century AD, considering that Jesus proposed to improve on the Old Testament, and considering the nature of some of the content found in the Old Testament, proposed a radical break between the New and Old Testaments. His writings are lost, but descriptions of his theory remain. St. Irenaeus says in Against Heresies:

Cerdo was one who took his system from the followers of Simon, and came to live at Rome in the time of Hyginus, who held the ninth place in the episcopal succession from the apostles downwards. He taught that the God proclaimed by the law and the prophets was not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the former was known, but the latter unknown; while the one also was righteous, but the other benevolent.

Marcion of Pontus succeeded him, and developed his doctrine. In so doing, he advanced the most daring blasphemy against Him who is proclaimed as God by the law and the prophets, declaring Him to be the author of evils, to take delight in war, to be infirm of purpose, and even to be contrary to Himself. But Jesus being derived from that father who is above the God that made the world, and coming into Judæa in the times of Pontius Pilate the governor, who was the procurator of Tiberius Cæsar, was manifested in the form of a man to those who were in Judæa, abolishing the prophets and the law, and all the works of that God who made the world, whom also he calls Cosmocrator. Besides this, he mutilates the Gospel which is according to Luke, removing all that is written respecting the generation of the Lord, and setting aside a great deal of the teaching of the Lord, in which the Lord is recorded as most dearly confessing that the Maker of this universe is His Father. He likewise persuaded his disciples that he himself was more worthy of credit than are those apostles who have handed down the Gospel to us, furnishing them not with the Gospel, but merely a fragment of it. In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also those passages from the prophetical writings which the apostle quotes, in order to teach us that they announced beforehand the coming of the Lord.

Similarly, Tertullian says in his work Against Marcion,

The heretic of Pontus introduces two Gods, like the twin Symplegades of his own shipwreck: One whom it was impossible to deny, i.e. our Creator; and one whom he will never be able to prove, i.e. his own god. The unhappy man gained the first idea of his conceit from the simple passage of our Lord’s saying, which has reference to human beings and not divine ones, wherein He disposes of those examples of a good tree and a corrupt one; how that the good tree brings not forth corrupt fruit, neither the corrupt tree good fruit. Which means, that an honest mind and good faith cannot produce evil deeds, any more than an evil disposition can produce good deeds. Now (like many other persons now-a-days, especially those who have an heretical proclivity), while morbidly brooding over the question of the origin of evil, his perception became blunted by the very irregularity of his researches; and when he found the Creator declaring, I am He that creates evil, Isaiah 45:7 inasmuch as he had already concluded from other arguments, which are satisfactory to every perverted mind, that God is the author of evil, so he now applied to the Creator the figure of the corrupt tree bringing forth evil fruit, that is, moral evil, and then presumed that there ought to be another god, after the analogy of the good tree producing its good fruit. Accordingly, finding in Christ a different disposition, as it were— one of a simple and pure benevolence — differing from the Creator, he readily argued that in his Christ had been revealed a new and strange divinity; and then with a little leaven he leavened the whole lump of the faith, flavouring it with the acidity of his own heresy.

He had, moreover, in one Cerdon an abettor of this blasphemy—a circumstance which made them the more readily think that they saw most clearly their two gods, blind though they were; for, in truth, they had not seen the one God with soundness of faith. To men of diseased vision even one lamp looks like many. One of his gods, therefore, whom he was obliged to acknowledge, he destroyed by defaming his attributes in the matter of evil; the other, whom he laboured so hard to devise, he constructed, laying his foundation in the principle of good. In what articles he arranged these natures, we show by our own refutations of them.

Apart from theological problems with asserting the existence of multiple gods, a major problem with this theory is that it is contrary to Jesus’s own words about himself, as when he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

Consequently, as Irenaeus says in the quoted passage, it was necessary for Marcion to eliminate a great deal from his canon of Scripture. Of the Gospels, he accepted only that of Luke, and had to do a great deal of editing to make it conform to his opinion. He did the same thing with the epistles of St. Paul.

Earlier we quoted Newman on Protestantism:

Meanwhile, before setting about this work, I will address one remark to Chillingworth and his friends:—Let them consider, that if they can criticize history, the facts of history certainly can retort upon them. It might, I grant, be clearer on this great subject than it is. This is no great concession. History is not a creed or a catechism, it gives lessons rather than rules; still no one can mistake its general teaching in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and broad masses of colour rise out of the records of the past. They may be dim, they may be incomplete; but they are definite. And this one thing at least is certain; whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.

And Protestantism has ever felt it so. I do not mean that every writer on the Protestant side has felt it; for it was the fashion at first, at least as a rhetorical argument against Rome, to appeal to past ages, or to some of them; but Protestantism, as a whole, feels it, and has felt it. This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether, and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: men never would have put it aside, unless they had despaired of it. It is shown by the long neglect of ecclesiastical history in England, which prevails even in the English Church. Our popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages which lie between the Councils of Nicæa and Trent, except as affording one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain prophesies of St. Paul and St. John. It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon. To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.

According to Newman, if you wish to take seriously the religion proposed by Christ and the Apostles, you have to take seriously the Christianity of the first, second, and third centuries, which leads right to the requirement that you take seriously the Christianity of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, and so on. Taking this process seriously without inserting some radical break means accepting medieval Christianity, the Council of Trent, and Catholicism. To the degree that Newman is right, in order to be a Protestant one must insert some radical break into history. In this sense, Marcion could be said to be one of the original Protestants. Just as the reformers said, “Look at how corrupt the Church of Rome is, we need a real break from that,” Marcion said, “Look at how corrupt the Old Testament is, we need a real break from that.”

There is a similar problem with both attempted ruptures. Christ fully accepted the Old Testament, and in fact says that “the scripture cannot be annulled,” so rejecting the Old Testament means rejecting the religion of Christ. Similarly, the Protestant rejection of Catholicism implies rejecting historical Christianity, which likewise implies rejecting the religion of Christ.

Killing Someone Else’s Son

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The Book of Numbers says:

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, if a man has had intercourse with her but it is hidden from her husband, so that she is undetected though she has defiled herself, and there is no witness against her since she was not caught in the act; if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself; or if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself; then the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring the offering required for her, one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, for it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

Then the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord; the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. The priest shall set the woman before the Lord, dishevel the woman’s hair, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. In his own hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, “If no man has lain with you, if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while under your husband’s authority, be immune to this water of bitterness that brings the curse. But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you,”  —let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman—“the Lord make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge; now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.”

Then the priest shall put these curses in writing, and wash them off into the water of bitterness. He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her and cause bitter pain. The priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman’s hand, and shall elevate the grain offering before the Lord and bring it to the altar; and the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering, as its memorial portion, and turn it into smoke on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water. When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.

The nature of the bitter water, the exact nature of this ritual and its intended effects, and the precise translation of various words, are debated. As translated here (the New Revised Standard Version), it seems to imply that an abortion will take place if the woman is pregnant by adultery: “Her womb shall discharge.” The last part seems to imply that she will become barren if she is guilty, but it also has been interpreted to mean that she will die:

Halacha 16
If the woman is guiltless, she may depart; she is permitted to her husband. If she committed adultery, her face will immediately turn pale yellow, her eyes will bulge forth, and her veins will surface.

Everyone immediately shouts, “Take her out [of the Women’s Courtyard]! Take her out!” so that she does not have a menstrual emission [there], for women who are in a menstrual state make the Women’s Courtyard impure.

They take her out of the Women’s Courtyard, where she was standing. Her belly swells first and then her thigh ruptures and she dies.

Regardless of the details, however, it seems clear enough that the ritual as a whole is a form of trial by ordeal. God is supposed to produce a different result depending on whether the woman is guilty or innocent of adultery. Performing such a ritual in real life would be a form of tempting God, and it would surely not have the desired results in general. Perhaps the results would differ from case to case, but this is no different from any other trial by ordeal: guilt or innocence is not really relevant. An innocent woman can get the bad results, and a guilty woman can get the good results.

Killing Your Son

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In his response to Pascal’s wager, which we discussed earlier, Richard Carrier objects to the story of Abraham and Isaac:

For example, in the bible Abraham discards humanity and morality upon God’s command to kill his son Isaac, and God rewards him for placing loyalty above morality. That is probably evil–a good god would expect Abraham to forego fear and loyalty and place compassion first and refuse to commit an evil act, and would reward him for that, not for compliance.

Sometimes people will respond to such episodes by saying that all things belong to God, and therefore he cannot be blamed for killing anyone, or for ordering others to kill. But this response is not to the point: if you hear a voice that seems to be from God, and which tells you to kill your son (or anyone else for that matter), you should assume that you are insane, hallucinating, or in some other way deceived, rather than assuming that God in fact wants you to kill someone. In this sense, Carrier’s complaint is valid.

In any case, it is very likely that one of the main points of the account is that sacrificing one’s children is bad, and that God does not wish it. In this sense, the biblical author is likely in agreement with Carrier, but it does not bother him to tell the story in this fashion regardless. This is perhaps for argumentative purposes: those who would sacrifice children would perhaps argue, “God is the greatest of all, and worthy of the greatest of sacrifices, such as our children, rather than mere beasts.” There would seem to be something lacking in the response, “We care about our children too much to do that, so God will have to put up with something less.” Instead, the biblical author responds that we would be willing to give up our children, if God wanted that, but that he does not want it.

In other words, Carrier takes the account too literally to understand the point of it, even when it is in agreement with him.