1993 Christendom College Summer Institute Guest Lecture Series
Copyright 1993 Christendom Educational Corporation
Tag: dogma
Concept, Judgment, and Dogmatic Relativism
Concept, Judgment, and Dogmatic Relativism
W. H. Marshner
1993
It is a central claim of Christianity that certain teachings formulated in the Mediterranean world two thousand years ago are divinely revealed. It is also a central claim that this revelation has been grasped and repeated ever since as the “same Gospel” — an achievement which heresies did not prevent and from which legitimate developments did not detract.
Traditionally, these two claims have been understood to demand the following explanation: the expressions used in formulating the original teachings have been understood within the main body of the Church with enough invariance, over all the intervening centuries and in widely different civilizations, to ensure that the “same doctrine” has been handed down.[1] Continue reading “Concept, Judgment, and Dogmatic Relativism”
The Structure Of Platonism And The Dogma Of The Trinity: Some General Considerations
The Structure of Platonism and the Dogma of the Trinity: Some General Considerations
WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
FAITH AND REASON
Vol. XI, Nos. 3, 4
1985
Christendom College
For centuries the philosophy of Plato has deeply attracted religious thinkers. William H. Marshner offers here a fine analysis of the structure of Platonic thought. Mr. Marshner probes the difficulties raised by the Platonic doctrine of participation and Oneness when applied to the relations existing between Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian dogma.
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The Defense of Dogma
The Defense of Dogma
W. H. Marshner
APOLOGETICS
REASONS FOR HOPE
© Christendom Educational Corporation 1978
Christendom College Press
In today’s world especially since the advent of Modernism, it is insufficient to simply define the authority of the pope and leave the faithful to follow his teachings. It is unfortunately fashionable to deny that Church teachings are to be taken literally, fashionable in other words, to retain the precise wording of dogmatic formulations while interpreting them in purely symbolic or metaphorical terms. Therefore, a further defense is necessary, a defense which is at times technical, but nonetheless indispensable: it is the defense that Church teachings mean what they say. And in order to appreciate the ways in which dogma is under attack today—some of them quite subtle—and to meet those attacks, we must begin by taking special pains to be fully clear about exactly what dogma is.
Criteria For Doctrinal Development In The Marian Dogmas: An Essay In Metatheology
CRITERIA FOR DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE MARIAN DOGMAS: AN ESSAY IN METATHEOLOGY
By WILLIAM H. MARSHNER
MARIAN STUDIES, Vol. 28 (1977)
University of Dallas
Irving, Texas 75061
Synopsis
As a critique of recent proposals by E. J. Yarnold, S.J., and R. E. Brown, S.S., to re-think the “meaning” of certain Marian dogmas, a method is proposed for establishing the sense and reference (hence verifiability conditions, falsifiability conditions, axiomatic connexions, and metalinguistic “properties”) of these and other dogmas. It is shown that such a method forms an integral part of a general criteriology for doctrinal development. At the outset, then, the possibility and necessity of such a criteriology is defended against certain “theological theories” of doctrinal development, especially that of K. Rahner, S.J. Finally, the relevance of Henri Bouillard’s problematic of “reconceptualization” to the here proposed method and general criteriology is evaluated. Several philosophical and theological issues closely related to the main thesis are handled in footnoted discussions.
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