NICHT UNFEHLBARE GLAUBENSLEHRE, ABER DOCH DEFINITIVE KIRCHLICHE LEHRE?

The Motuproprio from the 18th of march 1998 inserts a new paragraph in CIC 750 on the necessity of accepting ecclesiastical doctrines which are "definitive", although not infallible in the meaning of faith. Before, only the distinction between "infallible" and "merely authentic" was commonly established. How should one understand this new category? The "infallibility" of faith consists the fact, that the christian message as word of God is in itself Gods self-communication. It is speaking on what is happening in it. Therefore it is true "ex sese". Nobody can produce propositions which are understandable as God's self-communication and nevertheless may be false. Infallible propositions can be understood as God's word only in faith ("non sine assensu Ecclesiae") but they do not become God's word through faith ("non ex consensu Ecclesiae"). The "application of faith to things of morals" consists in saying that only those actions which proceed from communion with God can be good before him. On the other hand, mere moral norms belong to the realm of reason and cannot be believed. Such "merely authentic" doctrine would loose its obligatory force when proven as false. Furthermore, there are some truths of reason which are presupposed by faith, such as our being created and our being morally responsible and the historical existence of Jesus and of his actual Church. They must be taught as "definitive" without being in themselves truths of faith. But the teaching of the Church can never consist in withdrawing a doctrine from open investigation and to impose silence; this would mean to declare it as a private opinion.