HERESY

The virtue of faith expresses trust in God’s truthfulness. By this virtue, we accept something as true not because its truth is naturally evident to our mind, but simply because we have it on God’s word, communicated to us in Scripture or Tradition as interpreted by the Magisterium, “the living teaching office of the Church” (Vatican Council II, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, 10).

Faith is an act of love, precisely because it proceeds from the will rather than from the mind. The will – choosing to accept God’s word – “tells” the mind to accept what the mind itself does not see. Still, it would be wrong to think that the believer has closed his eyes, as it were, and is looking into the dark. Rather, we might say, the believer is looking into the light – a light too bright for his mind to penetrate. To put it another way: Faith does not constrict the mind; it looks upon infinite horizons of truth.

Nevertheless, since the mind does not humanly see the evidence of what faith proposes to it, the possibility always remains of doubting, of withholding assent, of refusing to see in faith. As with all the virtues, faith, too, is subject to temptations, which take the form of doubts against what is proposed to our mind for belief.
Doubts can be voluntary or involuntary. Even doubts in small matters of faith displease God if one consents to them. More important matters may also become the object of temptations to doubt, and then an even more vigorous fight against them is required. If one voluntarily doubts (i.e., consenting to the doubt) something clearly taught by the Church, one sins against faith and is just a step short of heresy. One commits the sin of heresy either by obstinately remaining in the doubt or by passing from doubt to positive and formal disbelief, rejecting or denying some point of truth that the Church, in the use of her divine authority, proposes to be believed.

Therefore, while temptations against faith are to be expected, they are especially dangerous and ought to be firmly resisted and rapidly rejected. Still, not every sin against faith constitutes heresy. Heresy in its strict sense is incurred by a person who formally denies and persistently rejects a truth that “must be believed with divine and catholic faith,” precisely because it is proposed by the Magisterium of the Church as revealed by God (cf. Canon 751).
“Heretic” comes from a Greek word that means “picking and choosing.” We can legitimately pick and choose in many contexts, but not in regard to what God has revealed. To do so would mean setting up one’s own judgment as the final standard and gauge of truth in matters of salvation, and refusing to accept that Jesus Christ established his Church as possessor and teacher of his truth.

Truth, Freedom, and Conscience • A misunderstanding of conscience and particularly of the relation between truth, freedom, and conscience (cf. Pope John Paul II, encyclical The Splendor of Truth, Veritatis Splendor, 35-64) can lead to such an attitude.
Right from the start of the Church, one sees the Apostles expressing their concern that Christians should not get their faith wrong (cf. Gal 1:6; 1 Tm 1:19; Jas 5:19-20; 2 Pt 2:1-3; 2 Jn 8-9; Jude 3-4). Perhaps it was easier then to stray into heresy, inasmuch as the doctrines were so new and their content had not always been precisely established. Today, Christian doctrine has been clarified by twenty centuries of magisterial teaching. Yet one could hardly say that heresy no longer is a problem. Failure to know and study the teachings of the Magisterium, absence of sound catechetical instruction, casual and uninformed reading of works by unreliable authors, neglecting to consult about doubts with those qualified to advise: These are some ways in which a person “can stray from the truth” (cf. 2 Tm 2:18).

Certain doctrinal positions, without being necessarily heretical, are hard to reconcile with the thought of the Church. While specialists in theology may perhaps hold them, at least tentatively, they would be imprudent to propagate them. Catholics who are nonspecialists do well to look to the guidance of the Magisterium in such matters. 
See: Assent and Dissent; Church, Membership in; Conscience and the Magisterium; Dissent; Divine Revelation; Faith, Act of; Faith, Virtue of; Knowledge of God; Magisterium; Sacred Scripture; Sacred Tradition; Schism.

Suggested Readings: CCC 817, 2089. John Paul II, That All May Be One, Ut Unum Sint, 18-19. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian.

Cormac Burke




Russell Shaw. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Copyright © 1997, Our Sunday Visitor.

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Last Updated: Sunday, April 01, 2001 01:25:11 PM