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DOGMA (Gr. Sbypa, from b6aeiv, to see...
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See also:DOGMA (Gr. Sbypa, from b6aeiv, to seem; literally " that which seems, sc. See also:good or true or useful " to any one)
, a See also:term which has passed through many senses both See also:general and technical, and is now chiefly used in See also:theology
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In See also:Greek constitutional See also:history the decision of—" that which seemed See also:good to "—an See also:assembly was called a bl ypa (i.e. See also:decree), and throughout its history the word has generally implied a decision, or See also:body of decisions or opinions, officially adopted and regarded by those who make it as possessing authority
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As a technical term in theology, it has various shades of meaning according to the degree of authority which is postulated and the nature of the See also:evidence on which it is based
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Thus it has been used broadly of all theological doctrines, and also in a narrower sense of fundamental beliefs only, See also:confession of which is insisted upon as a term of See also: See also:Cicero, See also:Seneca and others) . First principles—speculative or See also:practical—are Sbypara, See also:Lat. decreta, scita or placita . The strongest statement regarding the inviolability of such dogmas is in Cicero's Academics, ii. See also:chap . 9 . But we have to remember that this is See also:dialogue; that the See also:speaker, See also:Hortensius, represents a more dogmatic type of opinion than Cicero's own; that it is the See also:maxims of " See also:wisdom," not of any See also:special school, which are described as unchangeable.' Marcellus's third type of dogma is ' Sextus Empiricus (c . A.D . 240) denounces all forms of dogmatism, even perhaps the See also:scepticism of definite denial . Blaise See also:Pascal and Immanuel See also:Kant, among others, have Sextus's grouping in mind when they oppose themselves to " dogmatism " and " scepticism"legal or See also:political, the decree (says Marcellus) of the legislative assembly; but it might also be of the See also:emperor (See also:Luke ii . 1; Acts xvii . 7), or of a church gathering (Acts xvi . 4), or of Old Testament See also:law; so especially in See also:Philo the See also:Jew, and in Flavius See also:Josephus (even perhaps at Contra A pionem, i . 8) . While the New Testament knows only the political usage of bbypa, the Greek Fathers follow one which is more in keeping with philosophical tradition . With few and See also:early exceptions, such as we may See also:note in the See also:Epistle of See also:Barnabas, chap. i., they confine the word to See also:doctrine . Either dogma (sing.) or dogmas (plural) may be spoken of . Actually, as J . B . See also:Lightfoot points out, the best Greek commentators among the Fathers are so dominated by this new usage, that they misinterpret See also:Col. ii . 14 (20) and Eph. ii . 15 of Christian doctrines . Along with this goes the fundamental See also:Catholic view of " dogmatic faith "—the expression is as old as See also:Cyril of See also:Jerusalem (died 386), if not older—according to which it consists in obedient assent to the See also:voice of authority . All doctrines are " dogmas " to the Greek Fathers, not simply the central teachings of their See also:system, as with the philosophers . Very noteworthy is Cyril of Jerusalem's See also:fourth Catechetical Discourse on the " Ten Dogmas " (we might render " Ten See also:Great Doctrines ") . The figure ten may be taken from the commandments,2 as in See also:Gregory Nazianzen's later, and more incidental, See also:decalogue of belief .
In any See also:case, Cyril marks out the way for the subsequent See also:division of the See also:creeds into twelve or fourteen " articles " or heads of belief (see below)
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In saying that all doctrines See also:rank as " dogmas " during the Greek See also:period, we ought to add a qualification
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They do so, in so far as they are held to be of authority
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See also:Clement of See also:Alexandria or See also:Origen would not See also:call his speculations dogmas
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Yet these audacious See also:spirits start from a basis of authority, and insist upon bpOoropia SoyphT0W (Stromata, vii
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763)
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The " dogma " or " dogmas " of heretics are frequently mentioned by orthodox writers
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There can be no question of confining even orthodox " dogma " to conciliar decisions in an See also:age when See also:definition is so incomplete; still, we do meet with references to the Nicene " dogma " (e.g. See also:letter in See also:Theodoret, H.E. ii
.
15)
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But dogma is not yet technical for what is Christian or churchly
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The word which emerges in Greek for that purpose is " orthodox," " orthodoxy," as in See also:
Latin Fathers See also:borrow the word " dogma," though sparingly, and employ it in all the Greek usages
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Something novel is added by See also:Jerome's phrase (in the De viris illustribus, cc. xxxi., cix.) ecclesiastica dogmata,—found again in the title of the See also:treatise now generally ascribed to Gennadius, and occurring once more in another writer of See also:southern See also:Gaul.; The phrase is a serviceable one, contrasting church teachings with heretical " dogmas." But the See also:main Latin use of dogma in patristic times is found in See also:Vincent of Lerins (d. c
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450) in his brief but influential Commonitorium; again from southern Gaul
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Thereafter the usage gradually drops
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In See also: 3 Quoted by C . H . See also:Turner in See also:Journal of Theol . Studies (Oct . 1906, and cf . Oct . 1905) . G . Elmenhorst's statement, that Musanus and See also:Didymus in an earlier age wrote See also:treatises with the name De ecclesiasticis dogmatibus, seems a See also:plain blunder, if we compare Jerome's Latin with Eusebius's Greek . ' " So viel uns bekannt "—J . B . Heinrich, " Dogma," in Wetzer and Welte's (Catholic) Kirchenlexikon .
Greek Fathers
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Latin Fathers
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The division is found applied also to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan " creed, both in East and See also:West
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Sometimes fourteen articles are detected (in either creed), 7+7; the sacred number twice over
?.
The See also:Reformation set up a new See also:idea of faith, or recurred to one of the See also:oldest of all
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Faith was not belief in authoritative See also:teach-The Re- ings; it was See also:trust in the promises of See also:God and in Jesus
formation
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See also:Christ as their fulfilment
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But the See also:Protestant view
was See also:apt to seem intangible, and the See also:influence of the learned tradition was strong—for a See also:time, indeed, doctrine was more cultivated among Protestants than in the Church of See also:Rome
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The result was a structure which is well named the Protestant See also:scholasticism
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The new view of faith is bracketed with the old, and practically neutralized by it; as was already the case in See also:Melanchthon's theological See also:definitions in the 1552-1553 edition of Loci Communes, also printed in other See also:works by him
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This brings back again the Catholic view of " dogmatic faith."
The word " See also:article " fora time holds the See also: Where moderns would speak of the doctrine of this or that, See also:Lutherans especially, but also churchmen of other communions, wrote upon this or that " article." Nikolaus Hunnius (&avresl,See also:las, &c., 1626), A . See also:Quenstedt (c . 1685) and others—in a controversial See also:interest, to blacken the Calvinists still more—distinguished which articles were "fundamental." See also:Modern Lutheranism (G . See also:Thomasius, Dogmengeschichte, 1874-1876, influenced by T . F . D . Kliefoth 1839) speaks rather of " central dogmas ";1 and the See also:Roman Catholic J . B . Heinrich' is willing to speak of "fundamental dogmas," those which must be known for salvation; those for which " implicit " faith does not suffice . When Addis and See also:Arnold's Catholic See also:Dictionary denounces the conception of central dogmas, what they See also:desire to exclude as uncatholic is the belief that dogmas lying upon the circumference may be questioned or perhaps denied .4 This suggests the great See also:ambiguity both in Roman Catholic and Protestant writers of the 17th See also:century as to the relation between " articles " and " dogmas." Many writers in each communion See also:felt that an " article " is a higher thing . Others, in each communion, made the See also:identification See also:absolute . Perhaps the Roman theologians of that age were more concerned than the Protestants to draw a See also:line See also:round necessary truths .
This See also:attempt was made by Dr See also:
Schweizer's Protestant Central Dogmas (1854-1856) was an See also:historical study of Reformed, i.e
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Calvinist-Zwinglian theology
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3 Dogma," &c., in Wetzer and Welte's Kirchenlexikon
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4 The distinction of pure and mixed articles—those of See also:revelation and those taught in See also:common by revelation and natural theology —reappears in modern Roman Catholic theology as a distinction between pure and mixed dogmas
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Luther's See also:Schmalkalden Articles and the See also:Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of See also:England should also be mentioned.it frequently of heretics; thus the Augsburg Confession protests. that the Protestants have carefully avoided nova dogmata
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A Roman Catholic writer, See also:Jan Driedo of See also:Louvain, revives the reference to Ecclesiastica dogmata—De .Dogmata ecclesiasticis scripturis et dogmatibus (1533)—using use. the word, though not exclusively yet emphatically, of teachings extra canonem scripturae sacrae
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See also: Many identified Dogmas and Articles by levelling down or broadening out; but Hooker levels up . The statement of the Council of Trent (1545-1562) may be quoted here . The Council will rely chiefly upon Scriptures in reformandis dogmatibus et instaurandis in See also:ecclesia moribus; the Roman reply to the two sets of articuli of Augsburg, and the Roman counterpart to the (later) Protestant assertion that the See also:Bible' is the "only See also:rule of faith and practice." At Trent, therefore, once more, dogma means doctrine . It still means " doctrine " when the collected decreta of Trent See also:bear on their title-page (1564) reference to an See also:Index dogmatum et reformationis; but here " dogma" is already verging towards the narrower and more precise sense—truth de-fined by church authority . In other words, it is already edging away from its identification, with (all or any) doctrines . On the Protestant See also:side the identity is still clear in the Lutheran Formula of See also:Concord (1577) . This creed formulates its relation to Scripture over and over, as the one See also:regula by which all dogmata are to be tried . That characteristic Protestant assertion had been still earlier pushed to the front in " Reformed " creeds, e.g. the First Helvetic Confession (1536), and more notably in the Second (1566)• Protestant creeds had clearly affirmed that nothing possessed authority which was not in Scripture: in a See also:short time, Protestant theologians—following an impulse common to all Definition Christian communions—define more sharply the tnPro identity of what is authoritative with the letter of testant Scripture, and call these entire contents dogmas . Here stcholasthen, under Protestant scholasticism (Lutheran and acism . Reformed), we have the first perfectly definite conception of dogma, and the most definite ever reached . Dogma is the whole See also:text of the Bible, doctrinal, historical, scientific, or what not . Thus dogma is revealed and is infallibly true . Dogma is doctrine, viz. that body of doctrines and related facts which God Himself has propounded for dogmatic faith . Every true dogma, says Johann See also:Gerhard 8—the most representative figure of Lutheran scholasticism—occurs in' plain terms somewhere in Scripture . Over against these sweeping assumptions and deductions, the Roman Catholic Church had to build up its own statement of the basis of belief . Its early controversialists—like Driedo or See also:Cardinal See also:Bellarmine—meet assertions such as Gerhard's with a See also:flat denial . The great dogmas are not, literally and verbally, in the Bible . Along with the Bible we mustaccept unwritten traditions; the Council of Trent makes this perfectly clear . But not any and every tradition; only such as the church stamps with her approval . And that raises the question whether the church has not a further See also:part to See also:play ? A . M . See also:Fairbairn holds that D . Petavius's great See also:work De theologicis dogmatibus (especially the 1st vol., 1644) made the word " dogma " current for doctrines which were authoritative as formulated by the church . 
We must keep in mind, however, that the question is not simply one as to the meaning of a word . The See also:equation holds, more firmly than ever; dogma= the contents of 8 That seems to be what is meant . ' Early Protestantism lived too much in the thought of See also:justification to See also:mark out the boundaries of creed with this scholastic precision . 8 Loci communes (1610-162x), on See also:Interpretation of Sacred Scripture, ix . 149 . Roman Catholic replies . faith.': It has to be established on the Roman Catholic side that faith (or dogma; the two are inseparable) deals with divine truths historically revealed See also:long ago but now administered with authority, according to God's will, by the church . The See also:English-See also:man Henry Holden (see above), the Frenchman Veronius (See also:Francois See also:Veron, S.J., 1575–1649) in his Regle generale de la See also:foy catholigae (1652), the See also:German Philipp See also:Neri Chrismann,' in his Regula fidei catholicae et collectio dogmatum credendorum (1792),2 all work at this task . Dogmas or articles of faith (taken as synonymous) depend upon revelation in Scripture or tradition, as confirmed by the church whether acting in general See also:councils or through the pope (in some undefined way; Holden)—in general councils or by universal consent (Chrismann; of bishops ? the definite Gallican theory ?) . Veronius is willing to waive the difficult point of church See also:infallibility as the Council of Trent did not define it . Holden insists strongly upon infallibility . Church traditions are infallible; and church dogmas reach us (from the See also:original revelation) through an infallible See also:medium, the Catholic Church, which the Protestants sadly lack . In Chrismann the word " dogma " has superseded the word " article "; Holden uses both, though " article " has the preponderance . All three writers seek to draw a See also:sharp line round what is " of faith." Hence in Chrismann (who is in other respects the most definite of the three) we have a view of dogma almost as clear-cut as that of the Protestant schoolmen . Dogmas are revealed; dogmas are infallible; the church is infallible on dogmas (for this statement he cites See also:Muratori) and on nothing else . This whole period of theology, Protestant and Roman Catholic, is statical . Men are defining and protecting the positions they have inherited; they do not think of progress . And yet the Roman Catholic Church had upon its hands one great unsettled question—the thesis of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin . This became the See also:standing type of an assertion which, while favoured by the church and on the very See also:verge of dogma, was yet not a dogma'—till the definition came through See also:Pius IX. in 1854 . Here then the frontier of dogma had unquestionably moved forward . Its conception must become dynamic; there was need of some theory of development like J . H . See also:Newman's (1845) . It does not happen, however, that the papal definition of 1854 employs the word " dogma "; that See also:honour was withheld from the word until the Vatican decrees of 187o affirmed the See also:personal infallibility of the pope as divinitus revelatum dogma . With this, one line of tendency in Roman Catholic doctrine reached its See also:climax; the pope and the council use " dogma " in a distinctive sense for what is definitely formulated by authority . But there is another line of tendency . The same council defines not indeed dogma but faith—inseparable from dogma—as 4 (1) revealed, (a) in Scripture or (b) in unwritten tradition, and (2) taught by the church, (a) in formulated decrees, or (b) in her See also:ordinary magisterium . This is a correction of Chrismann . Not only does the correction involve the substitution of papal authority for a universal consent of " pastors " and " the faithful "; it also deliberately ranks the unformulated teachings of the church on points of doctrine as no less de fide than those formulated . This amounts to a serious warning against trying to draw a definite line round dogma . The modern Roman Catholic See also:temper must be eager to believe and eager to submit . New dogmas have been precipitated more than once during the 19th century; there may still be others held in See also:solution in the church's teaching . If so, these are likely one See also:day to crystallize into full dogmas; and, even while not yet " declared," they have the same claim upon faith . Thus there seems to be a measure of uncertainty as to what the Church of Rome now calls " dogma "—only in part relieved by 1 Three writers mentioned in Wetzer's and Welte's Kirchenlexikon . 2 Also quoted as having appeared 1945, but that is an See also:error; he quotes F . A . Blau, On the Rule of Faith (See also:Mainz, 1780) . See further the See also:sketch of Chrismann in Allgerneine deutsche Biographie, supplernent . "G . See also:Perrone, e.g . De immaculato B . V . Mariae conceptu; an dogmatico decreto definiri possit ? (1847) . These divisions and subdivisions are not numbered in the Decrees, as for clearness they have been numbered above.the distinction between " dogmas strictly " and See also:mere " dogmatic truths." Again, the assertion that the church is infallible upon some questions, not belonging to the See also:area of revelation (properly so-called in Roman Catholic theology), destroys the identification of "dogmas" with "infallible certainties" which we noted both in the Protestant schoolmen and in Chrismann . The identification of dogma with revelation remains, with another distinction in support of it, between " material dogmas " (all scriptural or traditional truth) and " formal " or ecclesiastically formulated dogmas.5 On the other hand, there is absolute certainty on a point long disputed . Questions about church authority are henceforth questions about the pope's authority . What he calls See also:heresy, under the See also:sanction of See also:excommunication or that more formal excommunication known as See also:anathema, is heresy . What he finds it necessary to condemn even in milder terms as See also:bad doctrine is infallibily condemned; that is certain, Roman Catholic theologians tell us, though not yet de fide . Finally we have to glance at a new See also:list of definitions which perhaps in some cases seek more or less to formulate modern Protestant ideas, but which in general represent rather the world of disinterested historical scholarship . That world of the. learned offers us non-dogmatic definitions, See also:drawn up from the outside; definitions which do not See also:share the See also:root assumptions either of Catholicism or of See also:post-Reformation Protestant orthodoxy . It might have been best to surrender the term " dogma" to the dogmatists; but few scholars have consented to do so . 1 . We may See also:brush aside the view 6 for which J . C . See also:DOderlein, J . A . A . Tittmann, and more recently C . F . A . See also:Kahnis are quoted . According to this definition, " dogma " means the opinion of some individual theologian of distinction . That might be a conceivable development of usage . It has been said that persons who dislike authority often show great devotion to " authorities "; and the word dogma might make a similar transition . But, in its case, such a usage would constitute a violent break with the past . 2 . Though there is no formal definition in the passage, it is See also:worth recording that, towards the end of his See also:Chief End of Revelation (1881), A . B . See also:Bruce sharply contrasts " dogmas of theology " with "doctrines of faith." While he manifests no wholesale dislike to doctrine, such as is seen in the Broad Church school, Bruce inverts the Catholic estimate . Dogma stands loest, not highest . It seems hardly better than a ca put mortuum, out of relation to the original faith or the original facts that are held to have given it See also:birth . There is more than a See also:touch of See also:Matthew Arnold in this; though, while Arnold held nothing in religious experience beyond morality to be objectively genuine, Bruce believed in God's "gracious" purpose.8 3 . Much more like Chrismann's view is the " generally accepted position " among Protestant scholars, as its leading representative to-day, F . Loofs, has called it; 9 the doctrine enforced within any one church community is dogma . This definition is significant . It means that historians recognize the See also:peculiar importance of those beliefs which are constitutive of church agreement; and it finds some support from the philosophical and political associations of See also:ancient " dogma." Also Roman Catholic writers could accept the definition in so far as s Three zones apparently (1) the church's formal decrees, (2) the church's general teaching, (3) points of revelation which the church may not yet have overtaken . Per contra, much that was only " implicit in the See also:deposit of faith has become " explicit " in dogma . (The reader must note that " implicit " is used here in a different sense from that referred to earlier in this article . Here, church dogma has explicated what was implicit in revelation . There, the unlearned accept by implication, i.e. by a general See also:acceptance of church belief and teaching, dogmas they perhaps have never heard of . Both usages are current in Roman Catholic theology.) s Or the view of D . See also:Schenkel, that dogma is what it enforced by See also:civil and criminal law . ' Cf. also preface to 2nd ed. pp. ix., x . 8 Cf. pp . 279, 280; the undogmatic words of religious emoticn are " thrown out," not at " a See also:cloud mistaken for a See also:mountain," but at a " majestic and "veritable mountain range," 9 See See also:art . " Dogmengeschichte " in See also:Herzog-See also:Hawk's Realenrykl. See also:fur prot . Theol . Cf. also Prof . Loofs's Leitfaden zum See also:Stud ;me del Dogmengeschichte, their own church's authoritative teachings are concerned . But can a historian See also:separate the opinions which See also:rose to authority in the church from the other opinions which succumbed ? Or the accepted modifications of a theory from those which were rejected ? Again, can we substitute church authority for that which is always the background of " dogma " as interpreted from inside—divine authority?' Or, again, can we say definitely which doctrines are " enforced " in Protestant communions and so are " dogmas " ? It has even been asserted by A . Schweizer (Christliche Glaubenslehre nach prot . Grundsdtzen, 1863–1872) that Protestantism ought not to speak of dogmas at all, except as things of its imperfect past . 2 And historically it seems plain that—since the age of Protestant scholasticism—there has been nothing in Protestant church See also:life to which the name " dogma " can be assigned, without dropping a good deal of its original See also:connotation . Dogma is no longer 3 held to be of immediate divine authority . Hence Catholic, and scientific or historical, definitions of dogma are on different planes . They never properly meet.* 4 . A . Harnack varies in his usage . He is not prepared to exclude the great medieval pronouncements, or the modern Roman Catholic definitions, from the list of dogmas; but on the whole he prefers to keep in view " one historical See also:species "—Loofs suggests that he ought perhaps rather to say one individual type —that greatest See also:group of Christian dogmas which " was created by the Greek spirit upon the See also:soil of the See also:gospel " (Hist. of Dogma, Eng. tr., vol. i. pp . 17, 21, 22) . Thus Harnack agrees with Catholic theologians in holding that, in the fullest sense, there is no dogma except the Catholic . He differs, of course, in holding dogma to be obsolete now . While Protestants, he thinks, have undermined it by a deeper conception of faith,' Roman Catholics have come to attach more value to obedience and " implicit belief " than to knowledge; and even the Eastern Church lives to-day by the cultus more than by the See also:vision of supernatural truth . Again, Harnack gravely differs from Catholic dogmatists in assigning a historical origin to what in their view is essentially divine—supernatural in origin, supernatural even in its See also:declaration by the church . If they do not deny that Greek See also:philosophy has entered into Christian doctrine, they consider it a colourless medium used in fixing the contents of revelation . In all this, Harnack speaks from a point of view of his own . He is no friend of Catholicism or of dogma . Perhaps his detachment makes for clearness of thought; Loofs's friendliness towards dogma, but in a much humbler sense than the Catholic, involves the See also:risk of confusion . Both Loofs and Harnack contrast with " dogma " the work of individual thinkers, calling the latter " theology." Hence they and other authorities wish to see " History of Dogma " supplemented by " Histories of Theology." Our usual English phrase " History of Doctrine " ignores that distinction . 5 . A place must be made for the definition proposed by a philosopher, J . M . E . McTaggart . In Some Dogmas of See also:Religion (1906), he uses " dogma " of affirmations, whether supported by reasoning or merely asserted, if they claim " metaphysical " value, See also:metaphysics being defined as " the systematic study of the ultimate nature of reality." Briefly, a dogma is what claims ultimate, not relative, truth . This agrees with one feature in ordinary See also:literary usage—the contrast between " dogmatizing " and suspending judgment, or taking See also:refuge in conjecture . But it ' It should be noted that Loofs does not speak merely as a historian . He places himself in a sense within the dogmatic circle by his declaration that guidance is to be expected from developments—in a " See also:free Protestant evangelical spirit "—out of the old confessions of the Protestant churches . This belief may be called what Loofs has called Harnack's definition of dogma—individuel berechtigt, and perhaps nur individual . Others, who hold no less strongly to theological progress by See also:evolution, not revolution, will hesitate to See also: |