![\"implicit](\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/emptyhead3.jpg\" "\\"emptyhead3\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/small>One way to deal with an apparently contradictory doctrine in your religion is the response of Restraint<\/a>. There’s a connection here, with the medieval Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith”<\/strong>, so I thought I’d explore it a little, and in my next post, I’ll apply this to the issue of Restraint in the face of an apparent contradiction. I welcome any Catholic friends out there to add to or correct what I say here.<\/p>\n This term (fides implicitas<\/strong>)<\/em> pops up frequently in 16th-19th century non- (O.K. anti-) Catholic material, and it is easy to ridicule<\/a>. I have the impression that it was a popular teaching both at the scholarly and popular level in late medieval Catholicism, but at least according to this Cardinal, more recent Catholic thought has steered away from it:<\/p>\n Wisely, in my opinion, the popes and councils have avoided talk about implicit faith, a term that is vague and ambiguous<\/strong>. (Avery Cardinal Dulles, in “Who Can Be Saved?”<\/a> in First Things<\/em><\/a> magazine)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the current Catholic Catechism I could find only one reference to it<\/a>, so while it hasn’t been repudiated, it seems that (at least at the official level) it is not put to much <\/em>use.<\/p>\n In any case, “implicit faith” in a doctrine is where you don’t believe that doctrine, but<\/strong> you have some state of mind such that it’s as good (for some purpose) as if<\/em> you did believe it. If one holds, with the “Athanasian” Creed that<\/p>\n Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith; Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled<\/strong>, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n and one interprets “holding the catholic faith” as believing all of its core doctrines<\/strong>, or some core of these, then people who have never heard those doctrines, or loyal laypeople who are too stupid, busy, or uneducated to do this are out of luck. And that seems a bit harsh. So, “implicit faith” to the rescue!<\/strong> Doug the ditch-digger may be saved. And some Christian circa 200 C.E. didn’t believe the Chalcedonian two-natures doctrine, but he did “implicitly believe” it, because he committed himself to believe whatever the Church says, and it was saying things which logically implied that doctrine. And perhaps the pius Buddhist enjoys something similar.<\/p>\n My own view is that talk of “implicit belief” isn’t helpful<\/strong>, for it isn’t a kind of belief. Rather, one is admitting that belief in these doctrines isn’t, for some folks at least, necessary for salvation, and asserting that God will accept something else from them.<\/p>\n Apparently, in at least in late medieval and early modern times some theologians applied to this issue of “mysteries”<\/strong> such as the Trinity and Incarnation. Is it of any help? Ought we to say that simple folk needn’t believe in, say, the Trinity, because they have “implicit faith” whatever the Church (or if you like, the Bible) teaches? This is a possibility worth exploring. One way to deal with an apparently contradictory doctrine in your religion is the response of Restraint. There’s a connection here, with the medieval Catholic doctrine of “implicit faith”, so I thought I’d explore it a little, and in my next post, I’ll apply this to the issue of Restraint in the face of an… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 4 – Restraint and Implicit Faith<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-complaints","category-philosophy","category-theories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35578,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/35578"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nNext time: a “Dumb Ox” on Restraint and “implicit belief”<\/a><\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"