Folia Theologica 2. (1991)
Francisco J. Urrkutia: The Magisterium: how it works
THE MAGISTERIUM 19 „illustrating faith under the light of the H. Spirit..., (even) by vigilantly repealing errors that threaten their flock" (LG 25,11). Not so according to CURRAN, among others, for whom the authentic non-infallible teaching of the church has a critical role, whereby it can discuss proposed doctrines and has a right to point out mistakes or ambiguities in those doctrines,3 apparently not realizing that in such,role there is nothing peculiar to the authentic non-infallible teaching, since any informed person, even non-catholic, can do as much. 6. Let us go back now to the fact that the non-infallible teaching does at times demand certitude. This fact requires explanation, for as I have said (n* 4) this demand of certitude is considered unwarranted by some theologians. We are, of course, very conscious and very fond of our freedom of thought. We will not bow to an external authority which dictates what we must think. How then can it be demanded that we bow to the pope’s non-infallible teaching when he dictates what we must think? And think what will in turn dictate our practical actions? I have purposely repeated the term dictate. Because, the exclusion of freedom of thought is one of the worst aspects of a dictatorship. When we speak of freedom of thought we are, in fact conscious, that our intellects are not free, that they submit to evidence. What we mean to say, then is that we hold the right to maintain our ideas in accord with whatever evidence we have, and the right not to change our ideas unless some new evidence is provided. Now, we do not always possess internal evidence, that is to say, the evidence that springs from the perception of the reasons or arguments on which a certain doctrine is based. More often than not, we are satisfied with external evidence, which is to say that we are satisfied with the serious statement of those whom we know to be indisputably competent in the field within which they affirm something. * t This is precisely the case, most of the time and for most of the faithful, concerning the non-infallible teachings of the pope. We may not perceive 3 Academic Freedom and Chatolic Institutions of Higher Learning, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 55 (1987) 119.
