Theological notes are brief descriptions of how propositions relate to divine revelation, how certain they are, and how they should be accepted (in the case of positive notes) or rejected (in the case of negative notes). An example of a theological note is “defined, of divine and Catholic faith” (de fide divina et Catholica definita). When applied to the proposition that “Mary was assumed into heaven,” this note tells us that the Catholic Church has defined Mary's Assumption as a dogma that has been divinely revealed and therefore must be believed with theological faith. Thus, if a theologian were to treat Mary's Assumption as a mere opinion—even while accepting the fact of the Assumption himself—he would be holding a heretical view inasmuch as he would be withholding the assent of faith and substituting his own opinion.
Theological notes, then, allow a proposition to be classified and communicated precisely as a proposition. While “Mary was assumed into heaven” directly says something about Mary, attaching the note “dogma” says something about the claim itself. The question is: how does this kind of meta-analysis actually help the Church?
To begin answering this question, it is important to remember that, although divine revelation is primarily a person (Jesus Christ) and not a fixed list of propositions, the propositional expression of what Christians believe and hold remains necessary. Faith requires the disciple to affirm certain doctrines as true and to reject others as incompatible with his faith and therefore false. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8).
The Church’s exercise of her teaching authority sometimes requires her to evaluate whether a given proposition is contained in the deposit of faith, entailed by the deposit of faith, or at least compatible with the deposit of faith. Theological notes express such judgments. The three kinds of notes currently used by the Magisterium (de fide credenda, de fide tenenda, and calling for religious submission of intellect and will) reflect these three basic categories. When the Church recognizes a particular truth as included in the deposit of faith and wishes to teach it precisely as such, that teaching is de fide credenda. When the Church recognizes a proposition as necessarily true based on what she knows of the deposit of faith but does not (at least at present) wish to teach it as included in the deposit of faith, that teaching is de fide tenenda. When the Church wishes to endorse a teaching that she deems compatible with the deposit of faith but does not wish to teach it definitively, the faithful owe religious submission of intellect and will to that teaching.
The distinction among these three notes (de fide credenda, de fide tenenda, and calling for religious submission of intellect and will) arises from several dynamics. First, there are divinely revealed truths, but not all truths are revealed. Second, human reason is able to work with revealed truths either to make explicit what was implicit or to draw out new truths by combining what is revealed with what is not revealed. Third, all of this has been entrusted to the Church under the direction of her teaching authority, which is protected by the Holy Spirit; and this self-same Church must endure over time, passing down the full deposit of faith from one generation to the next.
The interplay of these dynamics means that, over time, the Church deepens her understanding of what the deposit of faith contains and entails. Because this deepening is a process, it can happen that what is at one time held but not yet recognized as itself revealed will at a later time be definitively understood as revealed. Similarly, the process of deepening and development means that the Church often endorses various theological ideas in a nondefinitive way. Such teachings are not simply “take-it-or-leave-it” options for the faithful, but neither are they the Church’s final word on the subject. Thus, they are owed true submission but not the assent of theological faith.
Truths taught as de fide credenda or de fide tenenda are all covered by the charism of infallibility. This is because the Holy Spirit does not allow the Church to bind all the faithful in a definitive way to believe or hold something that is actually false and incompatible with Christian faith. The Church has not yet resolved the speculative question concerning whether or how the assent owed to truths de fide tenenda differs from the theological faith owed to truths de fide credenda, but for practical purposes she at present treats this assent as formally distinct and qualitatively lesser (cf. John Paul II, Ad tuendam fidem; Code of Canon Law, canons 750 and 752). Thus, theological notes help the faithful know what the Magisterium’s current understanding of various teachings is and what kind of assent is expected of them.
Theological notes also aid theologians in their service of the Church, particularly by offering them an apparatus to communicate their own views about Church teachings as well as theological opinions in a clear and succinct manner. Historically, theologians have used a more detailed list of notes than those currently used by the Magisterium. This makes sense because theologians must discuss speculative questions in greater detail, whereas the Magisterium usually does not need such precision about matters of opinion.
For instance, one theologian may think that Mary’s freedom from all personal sin is a definitive Church teaching, while another may think it is merely a very common theological opinion. The use of theological notes allows these two theologians to discuss the issue without talking past one another, making clear that—even if they agree on the fact of Mary’s sinlessness—they disagree on the relationship of that truth to the revealed Word of God as understood by the Church.
For theology to proceed scientifically, for it to be able to state the truth about God and to explore by reasoning what God has revealed, some system of theological notes is ultimately necessary. For theologians are not meant to be engaged in isolated, individualized pursuits. The first principles of their science are God's public revelation, entrusted to the entire Church and “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Theology is at the service of the faith of the whole Church. This means that theologians must be able to distinguish the certain from the uncertain, teaching from opinion, common opinion from marginal opinion, well-founded opinion from fanciful opinion, and so forth, in conversation with one another and in common service to the truth.
This service to the ecclesial community brings the theologian and the Magisterium into a reciprocal relationship. The latter authentically teaches the doctrine of the Apostles. And, benefiting from the work of theologians, it refutes objections to and distortions of the faith and promotes, with the authority received from Jesus Christ, new and deeper comprehension, clarification, and application of revealed doctrine. Theology, for its part, gains, by way of reflection, an ever deeper understanding of the Word of God found in the Scripture and handed on faithfully by the Church’s living Tradition under the guidance of the Magisterium. Theology strives to clarify the teaching of Revelation with regard to reason and gives it finally an organic and systematic form. (Donum veritatis, no. 21)
The Church has the duty of safeguarding and proclaiming the deposit of faith in its entirety. She further has the duty of deepening her own understanding of the Lord’s mysteries, “pondering them in her heart” (cf. Lk 2:19). Theologians assist the Church's Magisterium in this process by helping to advance a speculative understanding of the revealed mysteries and their implications through reasoning. Both the Magisterium and theology need to be able to classify particular claims according to their relationship to the revealed Word of God, how certain they are, and how deserving they are of acceptance or rejection. This is what theological notes do.
Dylan Schrader is a Priest of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri.
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