fidei, and they dared not undertake the defence of more than it was necessary for their position to defend, or than they could defend satisfactorily."[1]
This passage draws out with remarkable force the distinction between the Infallibility of an institution and that of an individual. It raises the question whether the two can ever really be entirely identical in scope. It therefore suggests that uncertainties attend upon the Vatican statement of their equivalency. Can the Infallibility of a world-wide Communion be the same as that embodied in a single individual? Certainly in any case the impression created upon the devout by the one cannot be the same as that created by the other. Men will inevitably expect and demand from an individual Infallibility what they will never dream of acquiring from a collective.
- ↑ Idealism in Theology, p. 31.
