Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Ius canonicum
68 PÉTER ERDŐ The obstinate denial or obstinate doubt of any of these truths after receiving baptism is considered heresy according to canon 751. The ordinary and universal magisterium is thus manifested in the “common acceptance of something by the believers in Christ under the guidance of the sacred magisterium”. What form does this acceptance take, how can its existence and content be ascertained? 3. Vox populi, vox Dei? In the early Middle Ages, as early as Alcuin, there is reference to the ancient wisdom that the word of the people is the word of God. This proverb however, which is wrongly associated with a passage in the Book of Isaiah (Is 66:6), is far from being a universal theological truth. The Bible knows of cases where the people, or the majority of the people, are in error or on the wrong path, and it is often the lone voice of the prophets that must convey the word, the truth, the message of God. It cannot be said, therefore, that a statement becomes truth because the multitude (the populace, in whatever sense and in whatever way defined) thinks so or wills so. It is clear especially today, when the manipulation and deception of public opinion is the most highly attainable, that there can be no such purely subjective criteria of the truth or of the divine will. Perhaps that way how Nicolaus Cusanus uses the concept of consensus in a political sense can provide a useful perspective to shed light on the issue. According to him, it would be a reflection of the harmonious order of existence in the social conscience and also the intellectual creative force of the social order. No human being can be so far removed from the order that he could not embrace it, at least in the form of a symbolic consent39. Cusanus derives this from the mixed nature of man (natura mixta). According to him, there is an ontological basis for the fact that everything affecting man as a social order must result from the consent of the majority40 41. In this context, he recalls the principle from Roman law -quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbari debet4'. However while in the original Roman legal context this principle had a common law interpretation and for example it referred to the fact that the laying of a water pipe on land of common ownership had to be consented to by all the owners, Cusanus was already referring to this as a public law and even a po39 Nicolaus Cusanus, De concordantia catholica, III, n. 275: ed. Nicolai de Cusa, Opera omnia, XIV/3 (Kallen, G. [ed.]), Hamburgi 1959. 317: „Et sic naturali quodam instinctu praesidentia sapientum et subiectio insipientum redacta ad concordiam exsistit per communes leges, quarum ipsi sapientes maxime auctores, conservatores et executores exsistunt, aliorum omnium ad hoc per voluntariam subiectionem concurrente assensu”. 40 Nicolaus Cusanus, De concordantia catholica, III, n. 276, ed. cit. III, 318. 41 Ibid. Cf. Cod. 5.59.5.2; VI 5.13.29, etc.
