Can you tell me about papal infallibility and it's criticisms?
Well, the notion of papal infallibility really developed in modern times, especially in the seventeenth century. At that time, orthodox Catholics all agreed that the Catholic Church as a whole is infallible, but some of them argued that that infallibility rests in the Pope as the head of the church, while others insisted that it did not, and only the church
as a whole could be infallible. One of the leading proponents of the latter view was Jacques Bossuet, the bishop first of Condom (amusingly) and later of Meaux, and tutor to the dauphin of France. Bossuet was an absolutely uncompromising Catholic who believed that the infallibility and consistency of the church's teaching was axiomatic to Christianity. This made him a fervent opponent of Protestantism, which he believed was a heresy because it denied the truth and authority of the church's teaching. He corresponded with Leibniz about the possibility of reconciling the Catholic and Protestant churches, but they didn't get very far because Bossuet insisted that any such reconciliation would have to begin with the Protestants recognising the infallible authority of the Catholic Church, which Leibniz thought a bit unreasonable. But Bossuet was also absolutely opposed to the notion of
papal infallibility; he is most remembered as the apologist of Gallicanism. Gallicanism was a movement in the French Catholic Church at this time, which stressed the links between Catholicism and French culture, and which saw the French Catholic Church as having a degree of autonomy in its own right, quite apart from the power of the Pope. In 1682 there was an assembly of the French clergy which decided that the king of France (and not the Pope) had the right to appoint bishops throughout the whole of France. Bossuet wrote his
Defence of the Gallican principles after this assembly, defending the theory that lay behind the decision. Bossuet believed that the infallibility of the church was based on the apostolic succession, and expressed in ecumenical councils, which could overrule the Pope. Papal infallibility was not found in scripture or taught by the church, and was therefore not part of Catholic doctrine.
Bossuet is important because he represents a very conservative kind of Catholicism which regarded the doctrine of papal infallibility as a dangerous innovation, and because his criticisms of the doctrine remained the main ones within Catholicism itself. They remained current in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the guise of "Febronianism", named after Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, bishop of Trier, who wrote under the pseudonym "Febronius". Like Bossuet, Febronius argued that the Catholic Church as a whole exercises valid authority, but the Pope is only a servant of that church and has no real authority over it. All bishops are therefore equal. Febronius was condemned by Rome, but many liked his ideas, especially as he had intended them to be more amenable to Protestants, with an eye to the reunification of the churches. The Ems Congress of 1786 had sought to put the German Catholic Church on a Febronian footing, but its negotiations with Rome unsurprisingly failed. However, Emperor Joseph II of Austria was impressed by Febronianism and instigated a version of his own sometimes known as Josephinism. This was essentially Erastianism, the complete subjugation of the church to the state: under Joseph, the church became a state department. The Catholic Church in Austria was reorganised along aggressively Austrian lines: bishops were not allowed to communicate with Rome, and members of religious orders could not contact their superiors abroad. The system collapsed with Joseph's death in 1790, but Febronian ideals remained very much alive both Austria and Germany in the nineteenth century.
The question whether the Pope is infallible or not, and if so in what way, remained hotly debated right up to the first Vatican council in 1870, when Pope Pius IX decided that he
was infallible after all. Here is a bit of something I wrote about that:
On the Roman Catholic side, the rejection of liberalism and similar ideas was most associated with the indefatigable Pope Pius IX, one of the most remarkable men to occupy the throne of St Peter. In fact he occupied it for longer than any other man other than Peter himself, from 1846 to 1878. Pius began his career as a political liberal, but he changed his views radically after 1848, when a revolution in the Papal States ousted him from temporal power for eighteen months. After his return, he did not rule long over the Papal States: in 1860, following his defeat in battle, the Pope was forced to hand over all his territories apart from Rome to Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont. The process was completed ten years later as Rome itself was taken and turned into the capital of the newly united Italy. The Papacys decline in temporal power since the heady days of Innocent III was complete.
Pius IX was a rather sweet and innocent soul the revolution of 1848 had been caused, in part, by his own release of all political prisoners upon his accession but he was theologically highly conservative. Devoted to the Virgin Mary, in 1854 he declared as definitive the doctrine of her immaculate conception meaning that although she was not the product of a virgin birth as Jesus was, her conception had been miraculously sinless, meaning that she did not inherit original sin. Pius insisted that this was possible because God applied to Marys conception grace brought about by Jesus death in the future, meaning that Marys sinlessness was still dependent upon Jesus, even though it happened earlier. And in 1864 he published his famous Syllabus of errors, a comprehensive list of all the then-fashionable philosophical and scientific ideas which Pius believed attacked the faith of the church. The final error which Pius condemned ran: The Roman pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.
In 1869, Pius called the First Vatican Council to address the crisis of faith that he perceived assailing the Catholic Church. The council was huge and dealt with an enormous amount of administrative and doctrinal matters, but it endorsed the Popes condemnation of the Syllabus of errors, and it went one better in endorsing the authority of the Pope himself. It decreed:
When the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed his church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals.
It is important to note that the claim was not that the Pope is always infallible, but only when he specifically defines a definitive and binding doctrine; and to date, most Catholic theologians believe that this has only ever happened twice. The first time was when Pius IX defined the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and the second time was when Pius XII defined the doctrine of the physical assumption of Mary in 1950. Some Catholic theologians argue that there are other instances as well, but they are rare, at least compared to the number of binding doctrinal definitions issued by church councils over the centuries.
Nevertheless, from the moment it was defined, this doctrine was highly controversial. Gallicanism and related movements such as Febronianism were expressly opposed to it. When it became clear that the Vatican Council was going to endorse the doctrine of Papal infallibility, a number of prominent Catholics opposed it: one was John Henry Newman, the most famous English Catholic and later to become a cardinal. He objected not to the doctrine so much as to what he regarded as the undue haste with which it was endorsed. More virulent in his opposition was Johann Ignaz von Döllinger, a German professor and priest who became the figurehead for the anti-infallibility party and who used his considerable historical and theological learning to marshal a battery of arguments to show that previous Popes had disagreed with each other or even been heretics. Döllinger was excommunicated for his pains, and many others chose to leave the Catholic Church rather than accept the First Vatican Council. Known as the Old Catholics (because they saw Papal infallibility as an innovation), they held a council at Munich in 1871 and set up a new church structure. The Old Catholics survive today in both Europe and America, but their numbers are now very small.
Without opening up a whole can of worms....
I'm not sure that's a very good example of "unfree" as opposed to free. If a prisoner is being marched (Say, to the gas chamber to be executed) then he has no choice about where he's going - the guards will pick him up and carry him, if they have to. But he still has free will about how he acts: he can sit down, and refuse to move. He can try to punch the nearest guard. He can swear and curse or beg and plead or amuse the guards with hilarious anecdotes as he walks to his death. There's no way that he can change his ultimate fate, as he is still going to die. But I would argue that he still has free will, because he can still choose between different actions.
You're right, of course. It's more accurate to describe acts, rather than agents, as "free" or "unfree". In the case of the frogmarched prisoner, his action of walking about is not a free action, because he has no say over it. But his action of shouting (or of not shouting)
is free, because he does have a say over it.
Do all dogs go to heaven?
That depends on who you ask. Some Christian theologians have argued that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals when it comes to spiritual matters. The most obvious example is Origen, who not only shared the common Platonic belief that many things (such as animals, plants, and the stars) have souls, but who also shared the Pythagorean belief in reincarnation in different bodies; on this view a human being could come back as an animal, or vice versa, depending on how well they did in their lifetimes. Origen also believed that
all souls, even those of demons, would eventually be reconciled to God. So he would have said yes.
However, later on such ideas were frowned upon. In the late Middle Ages, for example, the influence of Aristotle meant that it was orthodox to hold that all living things have souls: plants have a "nutritive" soul, animals also have an "animal" soul, and humans also have an "intelligent" soul. However, only humans have an
immortal soul; there is nothing about souls per se that makes them immortal. The Catholic Church had by this time generally accepted Augustine's version of heaven, which was the vision of God, rather than the earlier and more Byzantine version, which was union with God. The vision of God requires intellectual understanding and is therefore appropriate only for human beings. So Aquinas and the other medieval and theologians would have said no. Early modern theologians would of course have been even more inclined to say no - after all, given the experiments that were done on animals from the seventeenth century onwards, no-one could have contemplated the notion that animals were spiritually significant as it would have been too horrible to bear. The Cartesians argued that animals not only didn't have immortal souls but didn't have any kind of souls to begin with, and although by no means everyone agreed with that, they did mostly agree that animals were not moral or spiritual beings.
Of course, in recent years all that has changed, together with the assumptions about the nature of the soul, the nature of life after death, and the relations between humans and animals that have also changed. Most theologians today wouldn't believe in an immortal soul at all, whether for humans or animals; they would also be inclined to believe in universal salvation, perhaps at a cosmic rather than a personal level. And they would certainly be more inclined to take account of animal rights. So the notion of animals' being saved would be more popular today, although I can't name names off the top of my head.
Plotinus:
In my virtue epistemology readings, I came across two notions (which apparently find their roots, expectedly, in Aristotle & Aquinas). They were given only a passing treatment in what I was reading, so I was wondering if you could say (generally) what these things are:
-"The Catholic Doctrine of Actual Grace" (The book I was reading said it was somewhat analogous to Nozick's Transformation Machine)
-Beatific Vision (it was either vision or awareness... I can't remember the word she used right now...)
I'm not sure what "actual grace" refers to, although presumably it contrasts with "potential grace". So it would be grace that you're actually getting rather than grace that you are merely capable of getting. Part of the problem here is that the Catholic taxonomy of grace is rather complex and confusing, and it developed considerably over the years; for example, after Aquinas' day there developed the distinction between "sufficient" grace and "efficaceous" grace (the former is grace that's good enough to save you, but which doesn't, and the latter is grace that actually does save you). The very notion of "grace" as this sort of "stuff" that God bestows upon people, rather than as a quality of God himself which drives him to act upon people in a certain way, was itself a late medieval innovation.
The Beatific Vision is simply the vision of God which the saints enjoy right now in heaven, and which all the faithful will enjoy after their resurrection to life everlasting. Have a look at
Summa Theologiae supplement, q. 92.