Development of doctrine

In the 16th century, Erasmus controversially suggested, from historical evidence, the reality of the development of doctrine in some important areas: examples being papal supremacy ("I have never doubted about the sovereignty of the Pope, but whether this supremacy was recognised in the time of St. Jerome, I have my doubts"[1]: 197 ) and the Trinity and filioque ("We (now) dare to call the Holy Spirit true God, proceeding from the Father and the Son, which the ancients did not dare to do."[2]).

This thinking of Newman had a major impact on the Bishops at the Second Vatican Council, and appears in their statement that ″the understanding of the things and words handed down grows, through the contemplation and study of believers, [...] [which] tends continually towards the fullness of divine truth.

This view, mixed in with philosophical currents such as vitalism, immanentism and historicism, was at the heart of the modernist controversy during the papacy of Pius X, and was condemned in the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis.

Although modernist intellectuals such as George Tyrrell and Alfred Loisy did at times cite the influence of Newman's ideas on their thinking, their goal was not so much to understand the ancient roots of Church doctrine but to make it change meaning, according to their own ideas in the liberal spirit of the times.

[5] Archpriest Oleg Davydenkov wrote: "This theory is very convenient for Western Christians, because it makes it easy to justify arbitrary dogmatic innovations of both the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant denominations.