The Authority of Doctrinal Development

Extract

In this final article we shall examine and contrast the verdict of two traditions upon one of the most far-reaching and divisive of all doctrinal developments, the cultus of our Lady and the Saints; the tradition of historic Christendom in East and West, and the tradition of the Churches of the Reformation. The development of Mariology, which is of course a part of Christology, from the virginal conception and the divine Motherhood, clearly grounded in the New Testament, to our Lady’s perpetual virginity, her Immaculate Conception and her corporal Assumption, together with the universal mediation of her merits and intercession, is viewed by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches upon precisely similar principles; the later developments being regarded as implicit in New Testament doctrine. It is true of course that since the definition of the Immaculate Conception was promulgated by Pius IX, Orthodox theologians have unanimously denied what they formerly treated as an open question. Dr E. L. Mascall has remarked on the suspicion of the West that the real objection is not so much to the dogma itself as to the mode of its promulgation. He goes on to suggest the need for a deeper investigation by the Orthodox of the nature and transmission of original sin, with a view to clearing away misunderstandings concerning its bearing upon the doctrine as defined.

This universal tradition of the cultus of our Lady, a wholly developed doctrine, found in the Scriptures in seminal form only, was rejected at die Reformation in deference to the insights of the Reformers, who claimed not only to set right abuses, but, on the strength of those insights, and in opposition to the authority of the Church’s Tradition, to decide what were abuses, and what were not.