Down yonder, a commenter (in dialogue with another commenter) writes:
The Church has traditionally distinguished between material apostasy and formal apostasy.
Jews who were never Christians are mateiral apostates. Jews who once were Christian are formal apostates.
"Based on that definition, any non-Christian of the Christian era could be considered a material apostate."
This is correct.
"Jews who sincerely believe that God requires them to follow the covenant established with Abraham and the Law given to Moses, and are therefore doing so to the best of their ability, can in no way be termed ‘apostates,’ materially or formally."
You obviously do not know the meaning of the phrase "material apostate" or "material sin" in general.
I’m sorry, but no.
The term "apostasy" is defined as follows:
[A]postasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith (Latin, apostasia, fidei christianae ex toto repudiatio) [CIC, Can. 751].
Regarding the material/formal distinction in moral theology, those who commit a sin "materially" are those who perform it through no fault of their own (i.e., without culpability), while those who commit it "formally" are those who perform it through their own fault (i.e., with culpability).
In regard to the sin of apostasy, a material apostate would be one who totally repudiates the Christian faith without being culpable for doing so (due to a defect of knowledge or intent), while a formal apostate would be one who totally repudiates the Christian faith with adequate knowledge and intent.
The problem with maintaining this in the case of Jews or other non-Christians in the present age is the meaning of the word repudiatio.
As you might suppose, repudiatio means "repudiation"–the rejection of something one has previously held.
One thus cannot be an apostate from Christianity unless one has previously been a Christian and then totally repudiated the Christian faith. Jews who have never been Christian and other never-been-Christians of the present age (or any age) are thus not apostates.
The correct term for never-been-Christian Jews and never-been-Christian others is "the incredulous" (i.e., those who do not believe), per the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Incredulity [Latin, incredulitas] is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it [CCC 2089].
Those never-been-Christians who are disbelieve through no fault of their own are the materially incredulous. Those never-been-Christians who disbelieve through their own fault are the formally incredulous.
Thanks for the clarification, Jimmy! 🙂
That has been and is my understanding of Apostacy.
Its good to have it more clearly defined. I’ll have to talk to one of my brothers and two of my sisters, and my oldest son.
Jimmy,
Moral theologian here …
I think the question of “incredulity” might be more complex than you’re suggesting.
Note that the very definition includes words like “neglect” and “willful refusal.”
I’m not sure that someone who simply doesn’t see that the NT is “revealed truth” can be said to be incredulous, whether materially or formally. (In fact, I’m not sure there could be a merely material “willful refusal” – I’d have to think about that.)
You might check out the “Faith” section of Josef Pieper’s Faith, Hope, Love, in which he distinguishes between “unbelief” in the strict sense, and (various kinds of) “nonbelief.” I think what the CCC calls “incredulity” is what Pieper calls “unbelief.” I suspect that Jews would instead be in a situation of “nonbelief.”
You’re right that there can’t be material willful refusal. The inclusion of “willful” demands formality. Thus I phrased myself (see last graph of the post) in a way that avoids implying willful incredulity can be material.
Neglect can be either inculpable (material) or culpable (formal), depending on the degree of responsibility the person has for the neglect. Here is where I would put many never-been-Christians since many have had at least some exposure to revealed truth that they have not embraced (e.g., a never-been-Christian who has been exposed to the revealed truths that Jesus is the Son of God or that he died for our sins or that he rose from the dead but who has not accepted these truths).
You are correct, though, that there is a category of people who disbelieve without materially or formally committing incredulity. These would be people who have not been exposed to revealed truth and thus are not capable of neglecting or willfully refusing to assent to it (e.g., the archtypical person who never hears the gospel or any part of it). In an age of global telecommunications, the number of such people is shrinking, though they do still exist (presumably).
You could seek to avoid this by strengthening the force of the verb “neglect” such that it always includes a culpable exercise of the will, in which case those not accepting revealed truth would not be committing incredulity. This would have two effects: (1) It would mean that it is impossible to materially commit incredulity, so that incredulity s always formal, and (2) it would make it hard to distinguish neglect from willful refusal since a culpable exercise of the will contra revealed truth has been built into “neglect.”
Jimmy,
I’m not sure that the distinction between “neglect” and “willful refusal to assent” would collapse. There’d still be a distinction between refusing to attend to the possibility that it’s there, on the one hand, and recognizing that it’s there but refusing to assent to it, on the other.
The problem is, I think, that there’s some ambiguity about the word “exposure” in “some exposure to revealed truth.” I’m not sure that – say – knowing that there is such a thing as the NT and that Christians believe in it necessarily constitutes exposure in the sense relevant to the possibility of “neglect.”
But it is possible that “neglect” could be meant more broadly.
Does the Catholic Church still recognize non-Jewish apostacy? Example, Catholic who leaves Catholicism to become a Baptist, Lutheran, etc..
As an apostate is one who repudiates Christ himself, not just the Catholic Church, a Catholic who leaves Catholicism for some other Christian communion would be be known in classical parlance as a heretic, not an apostate.
Usage note: In some Protestant circles (especially, I think, among Calvinists), it’s become common to use “apostate” to mean “so heretical that we can write you off as not Christian.” In particular one hears anti-Catholic rhetoric labelling the Catholic Church “an apostate church.” I find that one can often cut through this nonsense by referencing well-known historical precedent: “Arius was a heretic. Julian was an apostate.” (Of course after that they still need to be cleared up on their substantial gripes against the Church, but it gets things off on the right foot to show them that their anti-Catholic rhetoric is at least overblown.)
A Catholic who leaves the Church for some other Christian community is, as such, a schismatic.
I doubt that there are many schisms that do not involve heresy of one form or another.