DETERMINING THE CONTENT AND DEGREE OF AUTHORITY OF CHURCH TEACHINGS
John R. T. Lamont

B) Problems with the Neo-Scholastic Approach to Doctrine, and Their Remedy

The ideas about the interpretation of Church teachings that have been criticized so far emerge from "progressive" theological currents that have become widely accepted only since the 1950s. Immediately before this period, the predominant approach to the interpretation of Church teachings was that of neo-Scholastic theologians, itself a development of the views of baroque Scholastics. Although this approach is still the one generally used by theologians who reject the heterodoxy of the progressive notions, resorting to the neo-Scholastic approach is not a satisfactory method for evaluating certain conciliar teachings, such as that on religious liberty. While this approach is not heterodox, it nonetheless has serious shortcomings. Remedying them requires some constructive work on the issue of the interpretation of Church teachings.

One class of shortcomings arises from its dependence on a mistaken theory of revelation, which I have dubbed the "magis-terial" theory of revelation, and criticized elsewhere.(41) This theory underlies the neo-Scholastic system of theological notes, which divides teachings into the categories of de fide divina, de fide divina et catholica, de fide catholica, de fide in genere, theologice certa, doctrina catholica, and proxima fidei. The falsity of the magisterial theory and of the theories of the development of doctrine that are associated with it means that these classifications are mistaken or inadequate.(42) However, since most of these notes are intended to be applied to teachings that are infallibly taught, we need not go into their shortcomings in detail. The feature of the neo-Scholastic system that does concern us closely is its general approach to Church teachings, which conceives of assent to these teachings as primarily obedience to a command.