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Further, by divine and Catholic faith, all those things must be believed which are contained in the written word of God and in tradition, and those which are proposed by the Church, either in a solemn pronouncement or in her ordinary and universal teaching authority, to be believed as divinely revealed. (D. 1792)
According to this definition:
1.Dogma is a rule of faith or a doctrine authoritatively proposed to be believed by a judgment.
A teacher proceeds from the known to the unknown, or from things already familiar to the disciples, leading them to the knowledge of those things they were ignorant of. He does this by proposing a new order and synthesising what the student already knows. Since there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses, revealed doctrine can only be taught by God through sensible signs and the natural knowledge we already possess.
Dogma is proposed through a judgment:
A distinction must be made between the material object (i.e., the things about which dogmas are made) and the formal object (i.e., the propositions expressing those truths).
Dogmas are truths or indications about those matters expressed in propositional form.
These are numerous: whether uncreated (the Triune God), or created (angels, humans), whether corporeal or spiritual, simple or compound; whether truths or facts. The question concerns the material object, which relates to the treatise on faith: There is also some dogma about the devil.
Dogmas are truths or indications about things expressed in the form of propositions. It must be understood that our intellect cannot know or make known things to others except through indications, namely by composing or dividing, affirming or denying a predicate about some subject.
These indications are the primordial data of our faith, or they constitute the revealed datum itself; in other words, the revealed datum is not God as He vitally communicates Himself to us.This communication, although most real in the ontological order, as long as it does not reach the sphere of our cognition, is not an object of our faith or theology. God accommodates Himself to our mind, as He wishes to become the object of our faith and love; namely, He reveals Himself to us through propositions.
Since dogmas are the object of the intellect and cognition, they have objective value; they always possess an intellectual element or value. It is clear from both minor and major logic that, by the very fact that dogmas are truths and that truth lies in the conformity of the indication with reality, they express something immutable, absolute, and are always true in the same way.
For in Scripture, it is evident that the faith we speak of is an intellectual act, and the Apostles transmit doctrine or the deposit of faith. On the other hand, there could be no faith if no prior knowledge or understanding of the matter proposed for belief had preceded it. For one who does not know the truth cannot truly believe, because knowledge precedes faith both by nature and in the order of generation.
Thus, in Scripture, knowing and believing are often linked; faith is described as knowledge of the truth, the fullness of understanding, and the faithful are called teachable by God. Faith, therefore, is not the same as ignorance; and nothing can be more powerful for extinguishing faith than a wish to accept everything simply, rashly, and indiscriminately.
The importance of this question is immense, for if everything is based on feelings, nothing will remain stable in faith and theology, as the error of the Modernists says, for whom dogmas are the object of a certain blind religious sentiment, rather than the object of the intellect (D. 2022). They fell into this error, influenced by Kantian philosophy, holding that the intellect could affirm nothing with certainty about suprasensible realities, such as God or His Revelation. On the other hand, they wished to remain Catholic, at least in name, and to explain dogmas. Thus, they said: dogmas are not the object of the intellect but rather the object of a certain sense.
2. A dogma is always a revealed doctrine.
Revelation here is taken in the strict sense, meaning supernatural revelation, or the teaching and witnessing speech of the personal God. In other words, Revelation is the true word that God speaks to humanity.
The elements of this speech are clear from the treatise on Revelation. I briefly recall that it is required that God manifest to us His mind concerning something, which He does through signs, and that we notice that God speaks to us, which is made evident through a miracle.
It matters little whether revealed truths are knowable through natural reason or not, because Revelation can contain three kinds of truths:
I. Truths of natural order, namely those that do not exceed the comprehension of human reason, such as the existence of God, the moral law, and the general concept of eternal life.
There is a problem in theology as to how these truths can be said to be revealed.
II. Mysteries (in the proper sense)
III. Historical facts: especially those concerning the person of the Lord. These were things that could be sensibly known in terms of their material elements; they were knowable by the induction of reason in terms of the qualification of divine actions.
However, not any revelation is sufficient for establishing a dogma, but:
3. Dogma is always a publicly revealed doctrine.
For this Revelation is entrusted to the Church as a public society, which is why dogma is not a private matter, but of society, concerning all, containing the revealed doctrine handed down or entrusted to the Church. This element is of utmost importance because it excludes any notion that Revelation is a kind of supernatural intuition or religious experience, as the Modernists (D. 2020) and Protestants say. Intuition and experience are private matters, and, therefore not shared by many at once.
Indeed, Revelation generally occurs immediately to an individual; but it is always destined for all, it is necessary that it transmit an object valid for all, or that it be expressed with such clarity, certainty, and stability that it could be a norm for all. Thus, personal religious emotion or mystical experience is entirely outside our question; these may accompany Revelation, but they are not Revelation.
For the knowledge that the prophet has to become a social norm, it requires, as it is, the constant and stable value of intellectual affirmation. Therefore, what is immediately touched by Revelation is not the heart of the prophet, but his intellect, capable of absolute truth; it matters little to us his faith, reverence, or virtue: it is enough that he is God's instrument for affirmation or writing. To illustrate: Balaam was wicked and resisted God, yet God compelled him to prophesy, and his words are true revelation for us (Num. 23 and 31:8).
The revealed doctrine has been entrusted to the Church through the Sacred Scripture, divinely inspired, or oral Tradition.
Thus, dogmas are not private revelations, even though they may be true, such as the revelation of the Sacred Heart, and the Church has never formally defined it but merely indicated its conformity with the public Revelation entrusted to her. This is reflected in the Breviary concerning the feast of the Sacred Heart. This does not mean that if someone denies it, they cannot sin mortally out of serious rashness; however, they are not considered heretics, nor do they fall under ecclesiastical penalties.
4. Dogma concerns revealed doctrine regarding faith and morals.
Not everything contained in public revelation is apt to become a dogma, but only those things that, due to their very nature or essence, direct us towards God or eternal salvation. The Church is infallible when proposing them. Thus, the ancient Scholastics distinguished between credibilia per se (credible in themselves) and credibilia per accidens (credible by accident). (See Acts 19:28; John 2:10).
Regarding these other matters, e.g., those who shouted, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians," what is dogma? Assuming the authenticity and preservation of the texts, it would be an error in theology to say they are not inspired, for it is theologically certain that they are (I speak of the minor parts), but they are not yet dogma. Thus, if someone denies certain smaller and less significant matters, they are not considered heretics. I say 'less significant' because the fact that Christ was crowned with thorns is stated in a single word in the Gospel, yet it is still de fide.
5. Dogma is a doctrine that has been defined by the Church as revealed and is proposed for belief.
This is the necessary condition for a doctrine to be a dogma or de fide catholica. The proposition is evidence that the Church declares a doctrine as revealed and binds all the faithful in conscience to make an act of faith concerning that truth. Thus, the etymology of the term dogma signifies a decree. This declaration can be made in two ways: By a solemn pronouncement, when the Pope or an ecumenical council explicitly and specially defines a truth, or by the ordinary and universal magisterium.
Hence, you can see the difference between de fide catholica and de fide definita.
There are two kinds of de fide catholica:
De fide solemnly defined (De fide definita solemniter)
Faith proposed by the ordinary magisterium, such as in creeds (D. 86), catechisms, preaching, and theological teaching.
It is not sufficient for something to be defined and proposed to be considered dogma; the Church can define matters that do not appear to be revealed, such as dogmatic facts.
REFERENCES
Cartechini, S., De valore notarum theologicarum et de criteriis ad eas dignoscendas, Pontificiae Universitatis Gregorianae, 1951.
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