On Error within Catholic Doctrine

The present dispute concerns the consistency and validity of Catholic dogmatic exegesis regarding the passage of scripture contained in the first book of Samuel, chapter 15, verses 1 to 11, taking as the core of the dispute the apparently irreconcilable conflict between the correct conception of the divine nature, the principles of biblical inspiration and inerrancy, and the postulate of magisterial integrity and continuity. The main object of the controversy lies in the extermination order contained in 1 Samuel 15, which strains hermeneutics and forces the stability of Catholic doctrine which, presumably, cannot contain error. The matter to be examined, therefore, does not deal only with the interpretation of a biblical text, but with the very rational viability of Catholicism, which, in its doctrinal body, affirms the unity of truth, which makes the coexistence of mutually exclusive and incompatible premises within it inadmissible.