Dear Catholic Exchange,
I understand your answer about “no new revelation” after the apostles deaths, buy can you clear up how I would explain the difference between revelation and the dogmas of the Pope and The Church.
Mr. Castanon
Dear Mr. Castanon,
Peace in Christ!
Thank you for your inquiry about the relationship between revelation and the dogmas of the Church.
Revelation is God’s act of revealing himself and giving himself to man (Catechism, no. 50). God has a specific plan for how this revelation is to take place. “God communicates himself to man gradually” (Catechism, no. 52). The most apparent example of this is between the Old and New Testaments. God prepares the people of Israel in stages through various covenants and the law so that they may be ready when the fullness of revelation, that is Jesus Christ, comes to earth.
“Yet even if Revelation is already complete, it has not been made completely explicit; it remains for Christian faith gradually to grasp its full significance over the course of the centuries” (Catechism, no. 66). In other words, there is still room for us to come to a greater understanding of the truth that has already been revealed. This is where dogma comes in. These dogmas, as defined formally by either an ecumenical council or the pope, “propose, in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith, truths contained in divine revelation or also when it proposes, in a definitive way, truths having a necessary connection with these” (Catechism, no.88).
This means that dogma gives specific form to the truths of revelation to help the faithful more completely understand God’s communication of himself. Dogma is not separable from revelation and does not stand apart from it. These dogmas can arise gradually after centuries of fruitful meditation on the truths found in Revelation.
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