AN EXPLANATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In a letter from me which you published on April 19th, I ventured to express the opinion that "to impute intellectual fallibility," as distinct from " peccability," "to our Lord while his humanity was passing through the ordinary stages of self- determined effort towards maturity and perfection, is in complete harmony with the Catholic doctrine of the In- carnation."
I find that this sentence has conveyed to some other minds an impression which was not present to my own when I wrote it. May I explain, therefore, that I believe it would be contrary to the doctrine of the Incarnation to impute fallibility of any kind to our Lord as a teacher of moral and theological truth P All I meant was that his whole humanity—physical, moral, and intellectual—must have passed, though without sin, through the process of growth which is common to all human beings. That means that his nature was perfected by the discipline of experience, including liability to innocent mistakes. Did he not learn to read, write, and cast accounts subject to the liability of making occasional mistakes P Would it be deroga- tory to the doctrine of the Incarnation to admit that in his boyhood he believed that the sun moved round the earth, and that he shared in other ways some of the sinless infirmities of humanity P Would not this add force and pathos to our belief in his perfect and universal sympathy as the Pattern Man P When in the midst of the doctors, as a boy of twelve, he not only listened attentively to their teaching, but "asked them questions," does not this imply that he adopted ordinary human means to enlighten his mind even on sacred subjects ? And is it de fide to believe that his boyish mind would neces- sarily and spontaneously have at once rejected any erroneous teaching of an unimportant character thus innocently offered to him ?
I ask these questions to explain my own meaning, and partly also because I have been asked them by devout seekers after truth. I have had to deal with the subject generally in a volume which I published some eight months ago, and which was reviewed in your own columns, and this has brought upon me a large number of inquiries, some of which are very difficult to answer. To say, "The Church teaches so-and-so, and you must believe it," is all very well for those who think the authority of the Church sufficient. But one has to deal with other classes of minds, and surely it is wise to leave as wide an area of open questions as possible outside the credenda of Christian doctrine, so long as no article of the Creed is invaded.—I am, Sir, &c., liaLcolow IdeeCoLL. Devonshire Club, S.W., May 28th.
Previous page
