God's Word by Ratzinger Joseph Cardinal

Author:Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal [Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781586171797
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2009-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

4. The Meaning of the Trent Decree

In reviewing the foregoing considerations, we may say that in general it is not hard to detect three differing theological conceptions that were brought together in the final text of the decree on tradition but not smoothed into agreement with each other; rather, they were simply more or less set down side by side, despite their far-reaching differences, and yet, again, are linked to each other by a common basic tendency:

1. Cervini’s conception, which we referred to as pneumatological. With its doctrine of the three principia fidei, it puts the emphasis on the dynamic character of the reality of Christ as present in the Church and, thus, understands tradition primarily as being the reality, guided by the Spirit, of the institutio vitae christianae.

2. The conception we might call ceremonial. This understands tradition essentially as the realm of consuetudines, existing alongside fides, as the usus Ecclesiae that the reformers are wrongly trying to dismiss as abusus. For this conception, it is imperative to defend the antiquity and the apostolic dignity of traditions; this concept is restricted by the “ad nos usque pervenerunt”, which expresses the notion of variability that makes the limitation necessary. In the pervenire and conservare, the idea of reception by the Church is expressed and asserted as an additional criterion alongside that of antiquity.

3. The conception we might perhaps call dogmatic. In contrast to a shifting of the concept of tradition exclusively into the realm of consuetudo, this emphasizes the extension of the phenomenon of traditio to the realm of fides as well.

These three conceptions have shaped the text and, indeed, have obviously done so in such a way that the guiding line comes from Cervini; the entire text must be understood against the background of Cervini’s idea; yet so that they are included in two insertions, the second conception in the “. . . pervenerunt” and “. . . conservatas”, and the third in “tum ad fidem tum ad mores”.

As against these three conceptions, of which there are in fact different variations but which nonetheless together express the principal and prevailing ideas, the position of Bonuccio and Nacchianti, so greatly emphasized by Geiselmann, appears as mere opposition, so that Bonuccio’s opposition obviously related more to the second conception (against overestimating consuetudines; not through pietatis affectus!), while Nacchianti’s opposition was primarily directed against the third conception and emphasized the adequacy of the communication of the faith by Scripture.22

Finally, we should add that the second and third conceptions have in common that they set against Cervini’s pneumatological view, based on the ever-current presence of salvation a more historicizing view, related to the passing on of what is unique and, thus, to the ἐϕάπαξ. We would in fact have to say that both the view of Cervini, focused on the present, and also the historicizing view of the other groups would each by itself alone be dangerous, if not untenable, but that together, in their mutual competition and self-limitation, they make a correct view possible.

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