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Originally Posted by AlphaFrog
I think the logic in that being that the Pope is supposed to be infallable on matters of scripture.
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I think that's a rather popular misconception, frankly. The actual teaching of the Catholic Church is that the Pope is preserved from error when he solemnly proclaims to the Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being divinely revealed. Though it dates back to an earlier time, the doctrine of papal infallibility was not actually defined until the First Vatican Council in 1870.
Statements of the Pope to which papal infallibilty applies are in fact quite rare. I think there have only been three instances since 1870 to which it applies -- the definitions of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and of the Bodily Assumption into Heaven of Mary and JPII's apostolic letter stating that only men can be priests. Some scholars would say that over the past two thousand years, the doctrine of papal infallibility might properly apply to fewer than a dozen papal pronouncements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlphaFrog
That being the case, can you really argue that God didn't know what kind of shape the world would be in 2010?
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There is a strand of theology -- the name of it escapes me right now -- that would argue something like that, if I understand (and remember) it right. I think it would say that while God is able to know the future, God has chosen not to know the future.