Magisterium: Blessing or Curse?

There are two main types of authority: governance and magisterium.

A governance is the power to impose and enforce behavioral standards. Clubs, businesses and nations have governance, so that they can ensure the unity and operational effectiveness of what group members do.

A magisterium is the power to determine and teach the truth of what group members believe.

People can generally see the need for governance, as rule-less anarchies do not work well in practice. A magisterium is a far more controversial idea, potentially implying “thought control” and raising fears of tyranny over consciences. If groups can operate successfully with just a governance, why would anyone want a magisterium?

1. Belief Is Irrelevant to Governance

A governance like a national government creates laws and enforces them. It is generally irrelevant to a government what people believe about the laws, as long as people obey them.

Sometimes a government will rationalize its laws, proclaiming beliefs about what is good for people. In countries where there are narrow democratic majorities, there will inevitably be many citizens who do not share a government’s beliefs. That is normally not a political problem, because good governance enforces behavior, not beliefs.

2. Religion Involves Beliefs

Religions like Christianity involve governance. For example, St. Paul deals with issues of governance about settling disagreements in courts (1 Corinthians 6:6). Modern examples of Christian governance can be seen in codes of canon law.

But Christianity needs to go beyond governance because it involves claims about the rightness of beliefs. When Christians state a view on an issue like abortion, they are claiming that their belief is right, and that it is consequently right to consider the belief to be in accord with God’s will.

Even if a version of Christianity models itself as a divine governance, insisting that faith is just a matter of obeying God’s laws, it must still involve beliefs. To faithfully obey a divine law, a person must first believe that a particular law is in fact God’s law.

Christianity does involve governance, but it goes beyond a governance regulation of behavior, as it also makes claims about the rightness of beliefs. The rightness of beliefs is a matter for a magisterium: so Christianity cannot avoid the need to engage with magisterium.

3. Explicit and Implicit Magisterium

Among Christians, Roman Catholics are explicit in their appeal to a magisterium. The Catechism states that a magisterium is needed to settle disagreements of belief, and it identifies the magisterium with the voice of the pope and bishops (CCC 85-90, 100).

Other Christians do not use the word “magisterium.” But they do seem to settle disagreements about belief. For example, the 1930 Anglican Lambeth Conference decided in favor of contraception; and the 1992 Anglican General Synod decided in favor of female ordination.

Every Church has to take a view on issues like these. Even if a Church says that it is up to individuals to make their own decisions about such matters, that is still asserting the rightness of a belief that such an approach is pleasing to God.

Christian decisions about ethical issues are not just “governing” actions. They unavoidably involve a judgement about the rightness of beliefs concerning those actions. As it is magisterium, and not governance, which determines the rightness of beliefs, Christian Churches cannot avoid appealing to magisterial powers, whether they wish to or not. For even the claim that there is no magisterium becomes an exercise of magisterium, if it is meant to settle a question of belief about a magisterium.

4. The Problem of Divine Ineptitude

Another reason for explicitly appealing to a magisterium is that it helps to solve a theological problem.

Jesus prayed for Christian Unity (John 17:20–23). So, Christians consider that they have a duty to try and achieve it. (See “Ecumenism: Did Vatican II Make a Mistake?”)

If God wills unity but has given Christians no way of achieving it, then that can raise questions about God’s character. It can imply that either God is evil, in demanding the impossibility of unity; or that God is inept, in failing to provide a mechanism to achieve unity.

Most of the issues which cause Christian disunity involve disagreements of belief. They may be doctrinal disagreements about heresy, or they may be governance disagreements about schism. Whatever the issue, disunity arises when people’s beliefs clash, and there is no way to resolve the disagreement.

If God is neither evil nor inept, then there should be a way within Christianity to settle disagreements of belief. It is magisterium which resolves disagreements of belief. So, if God is neither evil nor inept, Christianity needs a magisterium.

5. Scripture as a Magisterium

Some Christians say that Scripture is their magisterium.

But Scripture cannot be a magisterium. This is because many of the disagreements which divide Christians are disagreements about Scripture and its interpretation.

For example, when Christians disagreed about whether Jesus was God, Arius (d. 336) and the Council of Nicaea (325) quoted different scriptural verses against each other. So, Scripture alone could not resolve their disagreement of belief. (For further examples, see: “Scripturism: Is the Bible Enough?”)

So, Scripture cannot be a magisterium which settles disagreements.

6. Tradition as a Magisterium

Some Christians appeal to Tradition, or to “Scripture and Tradition,” as their magisterium. But Tradition cannot be a magisterium.

This is because Tradition, like Scripture, cannot settle questions about itself. For example, some Christians claimed that antisemitism is an authentic part of the Christian Tradition, but Vatican II (1965) disagreed. (For details see: “Traditionism: Are Scripture and Tradition Enough?”) Which interpretation of Tradition is correct?

Neither Scripture, nor Tradition can be a magisterium because they are not “living” voices which can settle a question about themselves. They provide essential ingredients towards an answer, but those ingredients need to be processed into an answer of a specific question, and that takes a “living” voice.

7. The Holy Spirit as Personal Magisterium

Sometimes Christians appeal to the Holy Spirit as a kind of “private messaging” magisterium. This can solve the problems raised by Scripture and Tradition, as it provides a “living voice” in the conscience of the believer.

However, this type of “personal magisterium” raises new problems. For example, in second-century Montanism, Montanus cited inspiration from the Holy Spirit to justify his belief that it was sinful for widows to remarry. Other Christians queried his belief, and thus the authenticity of his private messages from the Holy Spirit. Without an agreed public magisterium, there was no way to settle the disagreement.

Divine private messaging is also a “dangerous” model of magisterium. Its ”privacy” means that people appeal to it and have no public way of settling disagreements. So it leads to disunity, and even the violence which killed millions in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). Critics ask: How could a Good God possibly want Christians to appeal to the Holy Spirit as a personal magisterium, when doing so can cause so much murder and mayhem?

A private-messaging model of magisterium has the advantage over Scripture and Tradition of being a “living voice.” But it still fails as a model of magisterium because it is “private.” To settle public disagreements about beliefs, there needs to be a public magisterium.

8. Ecumenical Councils as Magisterium

Some Christians appeal to Ecumenical Councils as a magisterium.

This solves problems raised by the other (above) models of magisterium, as councils are living voices (at the time in which they take place); and they can also be a public messaging from the Holy Spirit. The Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) shows how this can work in practice, settling contemporary disagreements of belief.

History shows that the first seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787) played an important role in settling disagreements of belief. However, since the divisions within Christianity, questions have arisen about what constitutes a valid Ecumenical Council. Must it be held under the patronage of a Roman Emperor, like the first seven councils? Does a Western Council like Vatican I (1870) count? And what about the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council?

Clearly, Ecumenical Councils can be an important aspect of magisterium, but if there are disagreements about Ecumenical Councils themselves, then there would seem to be a need for another aspect of magisterium to settle those disagreements.

9. Leader Models

Some Christians identify their magisterium with the voice of specific Church leaders, like bishops, popes or elders. This model can be “living” and “public,” so it can avoid many of the issues raised by the models above. However, it does raise historical questions about why a specific group of leaders might be most appropriately thought of as representing a magisterium.

Appealing to leaders also raises the problem of “conduct.” Church leaders are human beings, and so they can exhibit behavior which disappoints, and which discourages people from seeing them as representatives of a magisterium.

This is nothing new. Jesus dealt with similar concerns. He responded by advising people to “do what they say, but not what they do” (Matthew 23:3). This means that it is right for Christians to dissociate themselves from any bad example provided by Church leaders. But if those leaders have a magisterial role, then Christians cannot ignore that, otherwise they risk having no magisterium, and thus potentially undermining unity or impugning the character of God (see section 4).

When it comes to reflecting on the failures of leaders, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill (d. 1965) made a thoughtful comment. A critic presented him with a long list of the failures of democracy. Churchill admitted that democracy can sometimes seem to be the worst form of government. But, he insisted, it is the “least-worst.”

Perhaps there may even be a sense in which some leadership models of magisterium are “least-worse” than alternatives?

10. Frozen Magisterium

Sometimes people are so unhappy with Church leaders, that they view a magisterium as effectively interrupted, or “frozen.” On this view, leaders spoke with the living voice of magisterium until a specific date. But the leaders’ conduct, or orthodoxy, after that date is so deficient that the leaders can no longer constitute a living voice of magisterium.

This approach effectively turns the magisterium into a kind of “neo-Tradition.” It becomes a record of the previous living-voice decisions of a magisterium, but the current magisterium has no “living voice,” as it is “frozen.”

This approach fails as a theory of magisterium, for the same reasons that Tradition cannot be a magisterium (section 6). A frozen magisterium lacks a living voice, so it cannot settle questions about the interpretation of itself.

Furthermore, when people judge Church leaders as too deficient to be a living voice of magisterium, those making the judgement must be appealing to an alternative (albeit implicit) magisterium, to justify the rightness of their beliefs on the matter. So an appeal to a frozen magisterium ends up becoming the substitution of an alternative model of magisterium.

11. Conclusion: Is Magisterium a Blessing or Curse?

Christians cannot ignore the issue of magisterium. Doing so raises logical issues which can undermine the rationality of faith (section 3). It also raises theological problems which can make God seem inept or evil (section 4).

This means that the concept of a magisterium is neither a blessing nor a curse. A magisterium is just an unavoidable prerequisite to make Christianity work, with the unity of faith which Jesus called for.

The need for a magisterium is not always appreciated by Christians, so there are varying degrees of clarity among Christians about their commitment to an explicit or implicit magisterium.

This is potentially one of the reasons why it is so difficult to resolve theological disagreements. When Christians argue a theological point, but they do so with no agreed way of settling their differing beliefs (i.e., with no agreed magisterium), it is like running a race with no agreed finish line. It is unlikely to end well.

Theological discussion is important for Christians, but so also are Jesus’ wishes for unity. The former is unlikely to lead to the latter, until Christians engage explicitly with the issue of magisterium and clarify what they think is an appropriate way of settling disagreements of belief amongst Christians.