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Who exactly are "the catholic community"? There's a lot of variance out there.
And why does that allow reinterpretation? I'm afraid I'm not following.
The catholic community is the set of people that go the the same churches, that recognize the same pope, that have the same theology courses (be it catechism or university courses). Obviously you can ask whether south america catholics are really in the same community as rome catholics, but catholicism is heavily centralized and ultimately it's the pope who chooses the priests everywhere (through the bishops and the cardinals). If you recognize the priest the pope has chosen for you, you are a member of the community.
It allows reinterpretation because in practice it does not change the community to reinterpret. People won't leave the churches, they won't stop recognizing the priests. In fact, some might: some communities do not recognize vatican II, but they are very small minorities that do not matter much. Most catholics aren't theology nerds and the point of catholicism is that they don't have to. Knowing the dogmas and reading the bible is good for the priests, but the people just have to follow what the priests say. So why would they care if the dogmas change?
Because Christianity is a religion that concerns itself with truth, not merely unity. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Being protestant, I suppose I do not object to your considering previous people wrong, as long as you are willing to admit that they were wrong, and that the pope is not infallible. What cannot be allowed is a change in true doctrine, only a change in what is considered to be true.
In any case, considering that there are people who reject Vatican II but recognize the pope, how do you determine what the current teaching is? Just what the pope says? Is you're saying that those against Vatican II are small and irrelevant to say that truth is determined just by the size of the party?
For the record, I'm not really a christian, I'm just telling you how I understand it from (almost) outside.
If I cut your arm, what is "you" after the cut? Yourself, or your cut arm? I was made to chant "we are the body of the christ, each of us is a member of this body". It's pretty clear, isn't it?
The size of the party, or the pope, do not matter. What matters is that the community remains functional if you remove a part of it. Sure, it will be less functional if you split it in half or if the pope is heretic, because that would have important consequences on the functionality of the church.
As I said Christians say that they are concerned by truth, but it does not mean they actually are. Yes, the protestant churches are organized in such a way that communities split if they don't have the same faith. So perhaps the protestants are more concerned by the truth than the catholics. But it can't really work. There is no practical way to discover the truth, as proved by the number of protestant churches. You can say if you wish that god will lead you toward the truth, but then you have to explain why God leads so few people toward it, even among the protestant. Making religion about faith and truth is deemed to disolve it. Ultimately everyone will have his own beliefs and there will be no religion at all.
The catholic way, to stick together and let the hierarchy decide what must be believed seems a bit dishonest, but at least it's not provably false that God leads the Catholic church as a whole toward the truth. Sure, individual belivers might be false (perhaps even all of them), but at the end of the day the Church will remain and improve. And as catholics care more about charity than about faith, it's not even that important if it happens that they are mistaken for all of their life. Remember that charity is love, and love is what make people want to live together and seek unity.
Ah, I had assumed that you were Catholic. More of what you were saying makes sense now. I do think that Catholics who care about their religion should care whether dogmas are changing or merely being clarified, though.
I don't think it's true that there's no practical way to discover the truth. The number of protestant churches is in large part more than the actual doctrinal division (since protestants both often have one church per tradition per country (e.g. see the number of "different denominations" in the Anglican Communion), and are also just too willing to split), and there are a great many things that most churches can agree on. And there's clearly a method that Protestants can generally agree should lead to church: careful interpretation of scripture.
If two people have different interpretations, how do you decide which one is correct? The number of protestant churches is still not reducing. Actually, it would be quite magic if everyone agreed. Look at the american constitution: it's a lot easier to interpret than the Bible, yet not everyone agrees. So if all well-intended people agreed on a religious doctrine, it would actually be some kind of proof that this religion is correct. But it seems to me that everyone agrees there will never be any such a proof (until the return of the christ if you prefer).
And for the record, I think catholics are concerned about the truth of their dogmas, but I also think they are more concerned avout other things like unity of the church. It's a very intellectual belief to think that religion must necessarily be about truth
By looking at which more accurately reflects the meaning of the text? Meaning is able to be gathered from language; that's kind of a central feature of speech. I can't just take your comment however I would like and expect that to be legitimate.
I don't think caring about truth is something that should be dismissed (even though I am willing to concede that not every true thing is equally important). Paul writes "if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain." (1 Corinthians 15). It's not just that it sounds nice and draws us together, Paul at least thinks that the content of what he is saying must be true, it is vital.
Perhaps that's a little of what's going on. It's not exactly that it's abstractly truth that matters, since clearly not every fact in the world (e.g. that there is currently a piece of a leaf within my field of view) is of equal importance. Rather it's that some things are important, and it is important that Christianity convey those things. That is to say, Christianity is about Christ, not just Christians.
If Catholics are incorrect about their dogmas, then they are (to an extent) incorrect about what they think the church is, since they believe Rome infallible.
You are still interpreting infaillibility as logical truthfullness. Rome is infaillible because what Rome says must be believed. If you want, Rome might not be wrong because the truth is whatever Rome says.
I'm not following entirely. Are you arguing for a different sort of infallibility than Rome professes itself to have?
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