Infallibility

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 4, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 18.

A well-known Catholic priest, Peter C. Yorke, of this city, has the following to say in a recent sermon on infallibility, as quoted in the San Francisco Examiner:—

The gift of infallibility is also necessary if we are to have a sure revelation. . . . Infallibility means that there is in the church the power of declaring without error that such and such a doctrine is the teaching of Christ. It is required in all societies that there be a supreme judge of controversies. Such a supreme judge must in the church be infallible in questions of faith and morals. This office also Christ gave to Peter. He foretold how Satan would sift the apostles as wheat is sifted. How He had prayed for Peter that his faith should not fail, and then gave him the commission, "Confirm thy brethren."

In this the Roman Catholic head becomes a test of its own infallibility. That is, the Papacy presumes as an infallible tribunal to pass upon the authority of certain scripture and scripture interpretations, and then it uses those interpretations to prove its infallibility. This is circular reasoning with a vengeance. There is one thing infallible, God's Word. That Word in itself demonstrates its own infallibility by its inherent morality, its response to human need, the fulfilment of its predictions; and man—any man—is infallible only when he is in perfect harmony with the infallible Word. Jesus said of Himself, "If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true." All that He said and did was but the demonstration of the Word in life, in teaching, in action. And he who will yield to that Word will ever have a twofold witness that he is accepted of God. He will need no self-constituted authority, no papal bull to approve or confirm his course. He will learn that "the head of every man is Christ." In matters of primal importance in the early church the apostle Peter was justly rebuked and properly corrected by the apostle Paul.