Testimony of Our Predecessors

 We can deepen our understanding of what the full implications of a doctrine are. But that deepening of understanding is completely dependent on an antecedent stability of meaning —....I hasten to add that this need for a clear meaning to words and their stability over time does not mean that doctrinal formulations cannot at times employ the rather technical language of theological discourse in the interests of greater precision. But it does mean that even such highly technical language (e.g., “consubstantial with the Father”) denotes something clear and precise, which is the original reason for using more technical forms of discourse in the first place.

This is from a recent Larry Chapp article "How to Tell Doctrinal Development from Cultural Corruption".    This "antecedent stability of meaning" seems useful when you are talking about development of any form of language.   

Of course, meanings of words themselves can change and even reverse over time.   "Nice" used to mean fastidious precision and now it means moderately agreeable and pleasant.   However, the concept for which the term "nice" was used originally has not disappeared from the face of the earth.   If we needed the concept, we'd have to figure out a new term -- right now we'd probably use fastidious.  

When the concepts delineated by language are of crucial importance, it makes sense not to allow vocabulary slide, and that is I would say another reason why theology uses technical language.   Besides the precision, you achieve univocity.   You may not completely understand a word like "consubstantial" but it's there waiting for your understanding, insofar as it doesn't shade into mystery unknowable to human minds; whereas the post-Vatican "one in being with the Father" is vague enough so that any amount of Arians could cheerfully profess it and convince the unlearned that their meaning was the true one.

That's the thinking, anyway, and it does happen to be one of the unresolved issues with Vatican II and its purposes.   To what extent can you modify the language and yet keep the same content? 

  It's clear that if you could never use ordinary language to teach the faith, you wouldn't really be able to teach children, for instance, or catachumens.   In order to even teach yourself, you have to be able to define doctrines in your own understanding.   

At the same time, if you are confused in your own mind, you probably won't teach well; and if the Church comes to frown on careful delineation of concepts into precise language, you will have an increase in confusion from one generation to the next.  If this happens, you won't have a meaningful way to talk about doctrinal development.  The term will stand for any new thing.  In fact, we do see a fair amount of this in the post-Conciliar Church.    The only thing that has stood against it is a thinking understanding and proclamation of consistent doctrine.  

 I can't count all the times a religious teacher has told me or my kids something that was simply unorthodox, but because they were using ordinary language they weren't outright denying doctrinal formulas as such.   Like "you have to be guided by your conscience" or "God doesn't want you to bring suffering children into the world" (in favor of hard case abortion) or "Jesus didn't know He was the Messiah during his earthly life."   These are all real life examples, and as Dr Chapp says, if resorting to antecendent understandings is considered fundamentalist, this destroys the concepts of development and doctrine at the root.

Tradition, in fact, and built-up conceptualization of Revelation, is a safeguard for the ordinary folk against the "traditions of man" that the Savior warned about.  ... the human accretions, usually tied to the culture of the moment.    This is one reason why the ordinary folk that haven't more or less dropped out of the faith struggle tend to turn towards the older ways.