It seems to me that you have been ranting about whatever you don’t like about the Papacy, the behavior of Popes, etc., etc. What I have found impossible to discover from your rants is: What do you understand to be the dogma of Papal Infallibility?
So why not start here:
What were the words used by Vatican I when it stated the dogma of Papal Infallibility?
So now things are all of sudden more "penetrable"?
Regardless of the focus being merely upon "ex cathedra" papal statements in the rhetoric of many, the issue of alleged infallibility even for the pope is not limited to such -- just as I have already shown you, providing links to the official Vatican encyclical.
Why not you ask?
It's simple.
I already know it well enough, which should be obvious, since I was pointing out exceptions to that description.
We have gone from a beginning statement of yours;
Which I objected to, due to that being far from accurate.
Then you said;
--I already understand all of that without being told about it. But that wasn't exactly like your initial comment, now was it?
Just because I'm not buying the infallible part does not mean I'll go along with you and start at the barest beginnings, with myself needing to go fetch answers to questions such as;
Already I have had to drag yourself towards better definitions of the claims towards "infallibility".
I have been dealing with these issues for long years now. As have many others before me...
When you remarked to another that the "chair" wasn't a physical chair --- did you not then understand the guy was speaking figuratively --- and humorously as if there was an actual "chair" (of St. Peter) which, as the man jokingly remarked at comment #14;
In the last sentence there was serious question posed.
The answer is YES -- according to the an "infallible dogmatic statement", which at the time it came forth had much less than full support of RC bishops and Cardinals, although most of those opposed did acquiesce --- some of those at the time, in silence.
There is within the RCC (that abbreviation means Roman Catholic Church -- you know, the one which has the bishop of Rome as it's head -- yeah -- that one) concept that even a bad pope cannot make so-called or alleged infallible statement --- when he speaks or writes on faith and morals for the entire church, etc.
Yet it does get FUZZY from there...as I already provided links towards demonstrating.
I've noticed that so far, after myself receiving replies from a yourself and another, though you have approached the subject matter, you haven't touched the aspects of it that I have raised. No, you seemed to speak of everything but those things...which are challenging.
What I was hoping to point out is how concepts towards infallibility can be rather fuzzy -- providing links to help show that the issue is not merely one of wordings adopted at Vatican I, and the like, for the truth of the matter as is far from being confined by such things, again, as I have already provided example for.
Here is something I understand quite well enough, and although I didn't precisely get it from Salmon, I do find it to be very much the case (as to how discussion on this point frequently turn) as I also came to very conclusions (for the same reason of scripture and historical proofs) as he so able covered.
There is one interesting thing which Salmon said, as in the way he put it, that being found near the end of the below, large blockquoted extract from him, wherein he shows the concept we are here discussing, as declared by a RC Pope in 1870, was itself something of an invention, as the enlarged and bolded text portion of the following snippet highlights; [emphasis my own]
Did you understand what he was saying there? In Salmon's own lifetime, when the concept of infallibility for a 'pope' would be objected to -- Roman Catholic apologists USED to say it was a misrepresentation TO ASSERT that it was taught by the RCC.In our Church, indeed, anyone may engage in controversy at his own discretion, and need not necessarily be the most learned or wisest of our body; but the controversial catechisms of the Roman Church are only issued with the permission of the writer's superiors, and therefore their statements as to Roman Catholic doctrine may be supposed to tell what the best informed members of the communion believe that she teaches.Now, it had been a common practice with Roman Catholic controversial writers, when pressed with objections against the doctrine of the personal infallibility of the Pope, to repudiate that doctrine altogether, and to declare it to be a protestant misrepresentation to assert that it was taught by their Church.
Now, again and again, apologist for Rome try to say about it -- not that it does not exist -- but that "protestants" do not understand it, thus misrepresent it.
Balderdash. For THat is not entirely true. Many of "us" understand it quite well enough, regardless of how some persons possible a bit less sophisticated may come off as if they don't understand it. Few of those if any mistake "infallibility" for complete "impeccability", although that particular Romish defensive argument seems to have been possibly lifted from Salmon's own use of the word "impeccable" at one point. So -- in desperation -- that was seized upon in efforts to disprove Salmon's arguments. Phhfft. Total fail.
From George Salmon D.D., 1888;
"...One can scarcely open any book that attempts to deal with controversy by such a Roman Catholic as, for instance, Cardinal Manning, without being forced to observe how his faith in the infallibility of the present Church makes him impenetrable to all arguments. Suppose, for example, the question in dispute is the Pope's personal infallibility, and that you object to him the ease of Honorius: he replies, At most you could make out that it is doubtful whether Honorius was orthodox; but it is certain that a Pope could not be a heretic. Well, you reply, at least the ease of Honorius shows that the Church of the time supposed that a Pope could be a heretic. Not so, he answers, for the Church now holds that a Pope speaking ex cathedra cannot err, and the Church could not have taught differently at any other time.Thus, as long as anyone really believes in the infallibility of his Church, he is proof against any argument you can ply him with. Conversely, when faith in this principle is shaken, belief in some other Roman Catholic doctrine is sure also to be disturbed; for there are some of these doctrines in respect of which nothing but a very strong belief that the Roman Church cannot decide wrongly will prevent a candid inquirer from coming to the conclusion that she has decided wrongly. This simplification, then, of the controversy realises for us the wish of the Roman tyrant that all his enemies had but one neck. If we can but strike one blow, the whole battle is won.
If the vital importance of this question of Infallibility had not been sufficiently evident from a priori considerations, I should have been convinced of it from the history of the Roman Catholic controversy as it has been conducted in my own lifetime. When I first came to an age to take lively interest in the subject, Dr. Newman and his coadjutors were publishing, in the Tracts for the Times, excellent refutations of the Roman doctrine on Purgatory and on some other important points. A very few years afterwards, without making the smallest attempt to answer their own arguments, these men went over to Rome, and bound themselves to believe and teach as true things which they had themselves proved to be false. The accounts which those who, went over in that movement gave of their reasons for the change show surprising indifference to the ordinary topics of the controversy, and in some cases leave us only obscurely to discern why they went at all. It was natural that many who witnessed the sudden collapse of the resistance which had been offered to Roman Catholic teaching should conclude that it had been a sham fight all along; but this was unjust. It rather resembled what not infrequently occurs in the annals of warfare when, after entrenchments have been long and obstinately assaulted without success, some great general has taken up a position which has caused them to be evacuated without a struggle.
While the writers of the Tracts were assailing with success different points of Roman teaching, they allowed themselves to be persuaded that Christ must have provided His people with some infallible guide to truth; and they accepted the Church of Rome as that guide, with scarcely an attempt to make a careful scrutiny of the grounds of her pretensions, and merely because, if she were not that guide, they knew not where else to find it. Thus, when they were beaten on the one question of Infallibility, their victories on other points availed them nothing.
Perhaps those who then submitted to the Church of Rome scarcely realised all that was meant in their profession of faith in their new guide. They may have thought it meant no more than belief that everything the Church of Rome then taught was infallibly true. Events soon taught them that it meant besides that they must believe everything that that Church might afterwards teach; and her subsequent teaching put so great a strain on the faith of the new converts, that in a few cases it was more than it could bear.
The idea that the doctrine of the Church of Rome is always the same is one which no one of the present day can hold without putting an enormous strain on his understanding. It used to be the boast of Romish advocates that the teaching of their Church was unchangeable. Heretics, they used to say, show by their perpetual alterations that they never have had hold of the truth. They move the ancient landmarks without themselves foreseeing whither their new principles will lead them; and so after a while, discovering their position to be untenable, they vainly try by constant changes to reduce their system to some semblance of consistency. Our Church, on the contrary, they said, ever teaches the same doctrine which has been handed down from the Apostles, and has since been taught 'everywhere, always, and by all.' Divines of our Church used to expose the falsity of this boast by comparing the doctrine now taught in the Church of Rome with that taught in the Church of early times, and thus established by historical proof that a change had occurred. But now the matter has been much simplified; for no laborious proof is necessary to show that that is not unchangeable which has changed under our very eyes. The rate of change is not like that of the hour-hand of a watch, which you must note at some considerable intervals of time in order to see that there has been a movement, but rather like that of the second-hand, which you can actually see moving.
The first trial of the faith of the new converts was the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in 1854, when a doctrine was declared to be the universal ancient tradition of the Church, on which eminent divines had notoriously held different opinions; so much so, that this diversity had been accounted for by Bishop Milner and other controversialists by the assertion that neither Scripture nor tradition contained anything on the subject.
The manner of that decree, intended to bind the universal Church, was remarkable. It was not a vote of a council. Bishops, indeed, had been previously consulted, and bishops were assembled to hear the decision; but the decision rested on the authority of the Pope alone. It was correctly foreseen that what was then clone was intended to establish a precedent. I remember then how the news came that the Pope proposed to assemble a council, and how those who had the best right to know predicted that this council was to terminate the long controversy as to the relative superiority of Popes and councils, by owning the personal infallibility of the Pope, and so making it unnecessary that any future council should be held. This announcement created the greatest ferment in the Roman Catholic Church; and those who passed for the men of highest learning in that communion, and who had been wont to be most relied on, when learned Protestants were to be combated, opposed with all their might the contemplated definition, as an entire innovation on the traditional teaching of the Church, and as absolutely contradicted by the facts of history. These views were shared by Dr. Newman. His own inclinations had not favoured any extravagant cult of the Virgin Mary, and he was too well acquainted with Church History not to know that the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception was a complete novelty, unknown to early times, and, when first put forward, condemned by some of the most esteemed teachers of the Church. But when the Pope formally promulgated that doctrine as part of the essential faith of the Church, he had submitted in silence. When, however, it was proposed to declare the Pope's personal infallibility, this was a doctrine so directly in the teeth of history, that Newman made no secret of his persuasion that the authoritative adoption of it would be attended with ruinous consequences to his Church, by placing what seemed an insuperable obstacle to any man of learning entering her fold. He wrote in passionate alarm to an English Roman Catholic Bishop (Ullathorne): 'Why,' he said, 'should an aggressive insolent faction be allowed "to make the heart of the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful"? Why cannot we be let alone when we have pursued peace and thought no evil? I assure you, my Lord, some of the truest minds are driven one way and another, and do not know where to rest their feet one day determining to give up all theology as a bad job, and recklessly to believe henceforth almost that the Pope is impeccable, at another tempted to believe all the worst which a book like Janus says:—Then, again, think of the store of Pontifical scandals in the history of eighteen centuries, which have partly been poured forth and partly are still to come... And then, again, the blight which is falling upon the multitude of Anglican ritualists, &c., who themselves perhaps—at least their leaders—may, never become Catholics, but who are leavening the various English denominations and parties far beyond their own range, with principles and sentiments tending towards their ultimate absorption with the Catholic Church. With these thoughts ever before me, I am continually asking myself whether I ought not to make my feelings public: but all I do is to pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great calamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be defined, then it is God's will to throw back the "times and moments" of that triumph which He has destined for His kingdom; and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His adorable inscrutable Providence.'[1]
Abundant proof that the new dogma had, until then, been no part of the faith of the Church, was furnished by yon Dollinger at the time deservedly reputed to be the most learned man in the Roman communion, and amongst others by two Munich professors, who, under the name of Janus, published a work containing a mass of historical proofs of the novelty of the proposed decree. These arguments were urged by able bishops at the Vatican Council itself. But the Pope carried out his project in the teeth of historical demonstration. A few of the most learned of the protesters against the new dogma refused to recognize the doctrine thus defined as themselves 'Old Catholics.' But the bulk of the people had no inclination to trouble themselves with historical investigations, and accepted, without inquiry, what their rulers were pleased to offer them; and a number of the eminent men, who had not only denied the truth of the new dogma, but had proved its falsity to the satisfaction of every reasoning man, finding no other choice open to them, unless they abandoned every theory as to the infallibility of the Church which they had previously maintained, and unless they joined a schism which, as was foreseen at the time, and as the event proved, would be insignificant in numbers, preferred to eat their words, and to profess faith in what it is difficult to understand how they could in their hearts have had any real belief.
I own, the first impression produced by this history is one of discouragement. It seems hopeless to waste research or argument on men who have shown themselves determined not to be convinced. What hope is there that argument of mine can convince men who are not convinced by their own arguments? As long as there was a chance of saving their Church from committing herself to a decision in the teeth of history, they struggled to avert the calamity; showing by irrefragable arguments that the early Church never regarded the Pope to be infallible, and that different Popes had made decisions glaringly false. But having clearly shown that black was not white, no sooner had authority declared that it was, than they professed themselves ready to believe it.
But though it is, on the first view, disappointing that our adversaries should withdraw themselves into a position seemingly inaccessible to argument, it is really, as I shall presently show, a mark of our success that they have been driven from the open field, and forced to betake themselves into this fortress. And we have every encouragement to follow them, and assault their citadel, which is now their last refuge.
In other words, it has now become more clear than ever that the whole Roman Catholic controversy turns on the decision of the one question the Infallibility of the Church. We have just seen how the admission of this principle can force men to surrender their most deep-rooted beliefs, which they had maintained with the greatest heat, and to the assertion of which they had committed themselves most strongly. They surrendered these beliefs solely in deference to external authority, though themselves unable to see any flaw in the arguments which had persuaded them of the truth of them. And I must say that, in making this surrender, they were better and more consistent Roman Catholics than von Dollinger and his friends, who refused to eat their words and turn their back on their own arguments. For all their lives long they had condemned the exercise of private judgment, and had insisted on the necessity of submitting to the authority of the Church. Now, if you accept the Church's teaching just so long as it agrees with what you, on other grounds, persuade yourselves to be true, and reject it as soon as it differs from your own judgment, that is not real submission to the authority of the Church. You do not take a man as a guide, though you may be travelling along a road in his company, if you are willing to part company if he should make a turn of which you disapprove. It matters not what Romish doctrines the German Old Catholic party may continue to hold. They may believe Transubstantiation, Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, and more. But from the moment they ventured to use their reason, and reject a dogma propounded to them by their Church, they were really Protestants; they had adopted the great principle of Protestantism. And so, at the time of the formation of the Old Catholic party, I expressed my fears in a lecture here that its members would be able to find no home in the Roman Church. My fears, I say, for I count it a thing to be regretted that that Church, by casting out her most learned and most enlightened members, should lose all chance of recovering the truth by reform from within.
If, however, there could ever be a case where men should be constrained by a reductio ad absurdum to abandon a principle they had held, but which had been shown to lead to consequences certainly false, it was when the men of the Old Catholic party found that if they were to go on maintaining the infallibility of their Church, they must also assert that she had never changed her doctrine. If, previous to the Vatican Council, the Church of Rome had known the doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility to be true, she had, somehow or another, so neglected to teach it, that though it is a doctrine relating to the very foundation of her religious system, her priests and bishops had been ignorant that it was any part of her teaching. The Infallibilist party at Rome had been obliged, at an early stage of their exertions, to get placed on the Prohibitory Index, Bailly's work on Theology, which had been used as a text-book at Maynooth. Would not any Roman Catholic say that the Church of Ireland had changed her doctrine if the text-books which you use here were not only removed from your course, but if the Irish bishops published a declaration that these books, in which their predecessors had been wont to examine candidates for orders, contained erroneous doctrine, and were on that account unfit to be read by our people?
Again, the effect of the Vatican Council was to necessitate great changes in controversial catechisms. One might think that the clergymen who might be supposed best acquainted with the doctrines of their Church are those who are selected to conduct controversy with opponents. In our Church, indeed, anyone may engage in controversy at his own discretion, and need not necessarily be the most learned or wisest of our body; but the controversial catechisms of the Roman Church are only issued with the permission of the writer's superiors, and therefore their statements as to Roman Catholic doctrine may be supposed to tell what the best informed members of the communion believe that she teaches. Now, it had been a common practice with Roman Catholic controversial writers, when pressed with objections against the doctrine of the personal infallibility of the Pope, to repudiate that doctrine altogether, and to declare it to be a protestant misrepresentation to assert that it was taught by their Church.
I may afterwards have occasion to say something about books which circulated in America, but will now mention one to which my own attention happened to be specially drawn. The controversial book which, thirty years ago, was most relied on in this country was 'Keenan's Catechism,' a book published with the imprimatur of Scotch Roman Catholic bishops, and recommended also by Irish prelates. This book contained the following question and answer:—
'Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible?
'A. This is a Protestant intention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body; that is, by the bishops of the Church.'
About 1869 or 1870 I had a visit from an English clergyman, who, for reasons of health, resided chiefly on the Continent, and, mixing much with Roman Catholics, took great interest in the controversy which was then agitating their Church. I showed him the question and answer in 'Keenan's Catechism'; and he was so much interested by them, that he bought some copies of the book to present to his friends abroad. A couple of years later he visited Ireland again, and purchased some more copies of 'Keenan'; but this question and answer had then disappeared. He presented me then with the two copies I have here. To all appearance they are identical in their contents. From the title-page, as it appears on the paper cover of each, the two books appear to be both of the twenty-first thousand; but when we open the books, we find them further agreeing in the singular feature, that there is another title-page which describes each as of the twenty-fourth thousand. But at page 112 the question and answer which I have quoted are to be found in the one book, and are absent from the other. It is, therefore, impossible now to maintain that the faith of the Church of Rome never changes, when it is notorious that there is something which is now part of her faith which those who had a good right to know declared was no part of her faith twenty years ago.[2]
I will not delay to speak of many changes in Roman teaching consequent on the definition of Papal Infallibility; but you eau easily understand that there are a great many statements officially made by several Popes which, inasmuch as they rested on Papal authority alone, learned Roman Catholics had formerly thought themselves at liberty to reject, but which must now be accepted as articles of faith. But what I wish now to speak of is, that the forced confession of change, at least by way of addition, in Roman teaching has necessitated a surrender of the principles on which her system had formerly been defended; and this was what I had specially in mind when I spoke of the fortress of Infallibility as the last refuge of a beaten army, who, when driven from this, must fall into total rout. ..."
Do you understand?
I do. All of it, just as I understand what in Salmon's era was called the "Romish" side of the arguments.
None of it is impenetrable, at all.
By which I mean, it seemed as if you were attempted to instruct me as to the finer points of the doctrine(s).
Do you have any idea now just who you may be talking to?
As the modern slang would put it -- this ain't my first rodeo.
Salmon cooked your(?) goose...
For further reading and edification of those who would care to better understand the "Protestant" positions which they may desire to in some manner oppose -- thus saving everyone a lot of time and effort in hopes of avoiding needlessly covering grounds already well enough addressed, going back a ways in time there are early Anglicans which bear some study.
One link to start thing off;
contains some information on John Jewel (1522-1571), bishop and first Anglican apologist ("first Anglican apologist", as Richard Hooker is attributed to having called him).Hooker also can bear some amount of investigation. His written works much established and defined sense of Anglican church "polity" as he termed it.
Please read Jewel in his own words, extracts of those found italicized in the lower potions of the link/page.
Here another link which document much or most(?) of the controversial correspondence between Jewel and Cole, and Jewel and Harding ---http://archive.org/stream/03565760.1100.emory.edu/03565760_1100_djvu.txt JOHN JEWEL, BISHOP Of SALISBURY. THE FIRST PORTION, CONTAINING, A SERMON PREACHED AT PAUL'S CROSS. CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR COLE. THE REPLY TO HARDING'S ANSWER