Iglesia y transmisión de la Fe. (Comentarios de Cayetano a la «Secunda Secundae»)

Resumen

56

This work studies the notion of infallibility in the Commentaries of Cajetan on the questions De fide in St Thomas's Summa Theologiae. Here infallibility is seen to be a need that arises from the mediate character of the transmission of revealed truth. God is the one revealer, but he has proposed Revelation to us in a mediate fashion, to be specific, through the Church which is, by that very reason, ministra obiecti fidei, infallibilis regula proponendi et explicandi ea quae sunt fide credenda. Underlying Cajetan's thought is the idea that the transmission of revealed truth takes place in a hierarchical fashion, through the different levels to be found in the congregatio fidelium: the maiores, the universal Church, the Scriptures. Only divine truth is the object of our faith, but Scripture and Church together constitute the conditio qua Veritas prima proponit seipsam et alia credenda.

To propose and to explain: With these two verbs Cajetan describes the role of the Church in the transmission of revealed truth. Infallibility guarantees the believer a correct proposing of the faith: "quoad proponendum et explicandum credenda ne possit accidere error, providit Spiritus Sanctus de infallibili regula creata, sensu scil. et doctrina Ecclesiae". The Church proposes and explains guaranteeing the believer quod haec vel illa in hoc vel illo sensu sint revelata. Thus, then, the attribution of infallibility to the Church is based; ' not on any desire to add some type of supernatural trapping to strengthen the fulness of pontifical power, but on the fact that the Church is the transmitter of revealed truth. And to this there corresponds, on the believer's part, a sure absolute assent which would never be possible if the believer were not to have the guarantee that the object of his faith is proposed to him with, complete immunity from error. At the same time, the lines of thought developed by Cajetan point to a consideration of the determinatio fidei as a normative proposing of a truth guaranteed by Revelation, which concept noticably approximates to Vatican Council I's notion of dogma.

Palabras clave

Iglesia, Transmisión de la Fe