WHICH TRUTHS ARE CATHOLIC TRUTHS? According To The Second Opinion, What Authorities Should Be Believed Besides The Bible? ~ WILLIAM OF OCKHAM BOOK 2 CHAPTER 4
WHICH TRUTHS ARE CATHOLIC TRUTHS?
According to the second opinion, what authorities should be believed besides the Bible?
Chapter 4
Student That way pleases me greatly because through it I may often put the knowledge of the haughty to the test. Next, since I sought to know which truths it is necessary firmly to assent to, about which you have reported different opinions, the first of which implies that the firmest faith should be offered only to the writers of the bible, and the second, which pleases me more, allows that others should also be believed, [See Significant Variants, para. 3.] I therefore now ask what writers in addition to the writers of the bible should be believed.
Master Different people reply to your question in different ways. For some people say that it is necessary to believe all general councils and all highest pontiffs, in respect of those things which are defined as needing to be believed, and all the saints who wrote on sacred scripture, even if they can not demonstrate what they say by sacred scripture. What we read in dist. 15, c. 1 [col.34], where we clearly find that general councils should be accepted, and c. Sicut [col.35] and c. Sancta Romana [col.35], seems to support this assertion. Moreover, we find [material] about accepting the assertions of highest pontiffs in dist. 19, c. Si Romanorum [col.58] and in many other chapters. We find [material] about the teachings of saints in dist. 15, c. Sancta [Romana] [col.35].
But others do not entirely agree with the above point of view, affirming that although there should be universal adherence to the assertions of general councils and although it is necessary for catholics to agree with many decrees or decretals and definitions of Roman pontiffs and many works of learned saints on the grounds that it is certain that everything found in them is [in fact] in accord with catholic truth, yet it is not the case that just because the Roman pontiffs and the saints teach that something is to be believed it must [therefore] be accepted as being in harmony with the truth.
Student I intend to investigate later some matters pertaining to general councils and highest pontiffs and so would you say nothing about them here. But I do ask you to disclose what those who assert the above think about the saints.
William of Ockham, Dialogus,
part 1, book 2, chapters 1-17
Text and translation by John Scott.
Copyright © 1999, The British Academy
According to the second opinion, what authorities should be believed besides the Bible?
Chapter 4
Student That way pleases me greatly because through it I may often put the knowledge of the haughty to the test. Next, since I sought to know which truths it is necessary firmly to assent to, about which you have reported different opinions, the first of which implies that the firmest faith should be offered only to the writers of the bible, and the second, which pleases me more, allows that others should also be believed, [See Significant Variants, para. 3.] I therefore now ask what writers in addition to the writers of the bible should be believed.
Master Different people reply to your question in different ways. For some people say that it is necessary to believe all general councils and all highest pontiffs, in respect of those things which are defined as needing to be believed, and all the saints who wrote on sacred scripture, even if they can not demonstrate what they say by sacred scripture. What we read in dist. 15, c. 1 [col.34], where we clearly find that general councils should be accepted, and c. Sicut [col.35] and c. Sancta Romana [col.35], seems to support this assertion. Moreover, we find [material] about accepting the assertions of highest pontiffs in dist. 19, c. Si Romanorum [col.58] and in many other chapters. We find [material] about the teachings of saints in dist. 15, c. Sancta [Romana] [col.35].
But others do not entirely agree with the above point of view, affirming that although there should be universal adherence to the assertions of general councils and although it is necessary for catholics to agree with many decrees or decretals and definitions of Roman pontiffs and many works of learned saints on the grounds that it is certain that everything found in them is [in fact] in accord with catholic truth, yet it is not the case that just because the Roman pontiffs and the saints teach that something is to be believed it must [therefore] be accepted as being in harmony with the truth.
Student I intend to investigate later some matters pertaining to general councils and highest pontiffs and so would you say nothing about them here. But I do ask you to disclose what those who assert the above think about the saints.
William of Ockham, Dialogus,
part 1, book 2, chapters 1-17
Text and translation by John Scott.
Copyright © 1999, The British Academy
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