THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA The Relationship between the Development of Doctrine and the Papal Office according to John Henry Newman and Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev A DISSERTATION Submitted to the Faculty of the School of Theology and Religious Studies Of The Catholic University of America In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Doctor of Sacred Theology By Ján Dolný Washington, D.C. 2016 1 The Relationship between the Development of Doctrine and the Papal Office according to John Henry Newman and Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev Ján Dolný Director: John Ford, M.A., S.T.D Development of doctrine is one of the fundamental principles in Catholic theology. It encapsulates the idea of hermeneutical continuity in the official teachings of the Catholic Church, whose mission is to faithfully transmit the contents of divine Revelation in history. As such, the principle of doctrinal development casts an important light on the theological understanding of Revelation, Tradition and the Church. The category of doctrinal development was introduced into modern Catholic scholarship by the celebrated work of John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (18451, 18462, 18783). In this work, Newman employed the epistemology of a developing idea: the identity of revealed truth is preserved in the historical growth of understanding. His presentation of doctrinal development was based on the analogy between the process of a development of religious understanding in the individual mind and the doctrinal development in the Church as a whole. For Newman, the idea of the Church as a living and organic subject of development endowed with infallibility has implications for ecclesial structure: most importantly, it absolutely requires a central authority in the Church, the papacy, for effective exercise of the universal teaching office in the Church. It is less known that a work on the development of doctrine was also written by the Russian religious philosopher, Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev. His 1886 treatise Dogmatic Development of the Church in Relation to the Question of the Reunification of the Churches defends the Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine against the dogmatic conservatism of some Russian Orthodox theologians. In his treatise, Soloviev employed an epistemology of development very similar to that of Newman, in which the identity of an idea is manifest in the organic process of historical development. His presentation of doctrinal development was based on the pneumatological principle of unanimity in the Church, which manifests a special divine-human subject of development in the universal Church. In his subsequent work, La Russie et l’Eglise Universelle (1889), Soloviev elaborated his findings from the treatise on doctrinal development in a powerful apologetic of the papal primacy in the Church. This dissertation investigates the background, the origin and the presentation of doctrinal development in Newman and Soloviev’s theological works. This comparative study is focused especially on the connection between the development of doctrine and the papal office in the thought of both men. Newman and Soloviev’s converging theories of doctrinal development are explored primarily in their original proposition of ecclesiological foundations for the papal primacy in the Church. The insights from the study of Newman and Soloviev’s ecclesiological ideas are then related to more recent developments in ecumenism, particularly as regards the relationship between eucharistic and universal ecclesiologies. To the memory of my father iii He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man. Luke 2:51-52 Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge. Teilhard de Chardin iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................... xi INTRODUCTION The Purpose of this Study ............................................................................................................... 1 The Kindred Minds Who Never Knew Each Other ........................................................................ 5 This Dissertation and its Contribution .......................................................................................... 15 Overview of This Dissertation ...................................................................................................... 25 Some Stylistic Asides: Transliteration, Capitalization and Translation ....................................... 27 CHAPTER 1 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN: HIS LIFE AND A HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF HIS IDEA OF DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT Biography ...................................................................................................................................... 30 Development and Conscience ....................................................................................................... 47 Development and Dogma ............................................................................................................. 52 Development and the Church........................................................................................................ 56 Development and the Via Media Ecclesiology ............................................................................. 61 Securus Judicat Orbis Terrarum.................................................................................................... 74 Newman’s University Sermon on Doctrinal Development (1843)............................................... 83 CHAPTER 2 DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AND PAPACY IN NEWMAN’S ESSAY ON DEVELOPMENT History of the Publication ............................................................................................................. 90 A Miniature Apologia Pro Vita Sua.............................................................................................. 91 Development in Ideas ................................................................................................................... 98 Rearrangement of the Essay ........................................................................................................ 101 Antecedent Probability and Analogy of Faith ............................................................................ 105 Notes of Genuine Doctrinal Development .................................................................................. 112 Preservation of Type ................................................................................................................... 114 Infallibility of the Church and Papacy ........................................................................................ 120 The Relationship between the Development of Doctrine and the Papal Office ......................... 126 v CHAPTER 3 VLADIMIR SERGEEVICH SOLOVIEV: HIS LIFE AND A HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF HIS IDEA OF DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT Biography .................................................................................................................................... 134 Fuitne Soloviev Catholicus? A Catholic Thinker ....................................................................... 170 Fuitne Soloviev Catholicus? A Member of the Catholic Church ............................................... 178 Development and the Idea of Divine Wisdom ............................................................................ 187 Development and Integral Knowledge ....................................................................................... 194 Theocracy and the Catholic Church ............................................................................................ 202 Soloviev’s Concept of Dogmatic Development ......................................................................... 210 CHAPTER 4 SOLOVIEV’S DOGMATIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH Historical Background and Outline of Soloviev’s Treatise ........................................................ 219 Soloviev’s Controversy with the Slavophiles ............................................................................. 221 Religious Unity and the Slavophile Ideology ...................................................................... 221 The Possible Reunification of the Churches: the Filioque .................................................. 227 Dogmatic Development—Polemic with T. Stoianov .......................................................... 230 Christian Dogmatic Teaching in Apostolic Times ...................................................................... 236 The Apostolic Times ........................................................................................................... 236 Dogmatic Development: the Early Fathers through the Great Ecumenical Councils ......... 239 Limitations of Dogmatic Literalism............................................................................................ 242 Ecclesiological Foundations of Dogmatic Development ............................................................ 244 The Universal Church and