ii. Religion and Human Reason
Validity of human reason--Anti-intellectualism--Modernism--Attitude of the
Church--Necessity of Revelation
iii. Supernatural Revelation
Meaning of revelation--Supernatural character of revelation--Mysteries --
Manner of revelation--Authentication of divine message--Revelation gradual-
-Definitive revelation in Christ--Committed to the Catholic Church
iv. Preliminaries to Faith
Faith man's assent to revelation--Evidence of credibility--Preambles of
faith--Fideism--Motives of credibility--Miracles and prophecy-- Certitude
in preambles of faith--Relative certitude--Other factors in the approach to
faith--The function of the will--Grace
v. The Act of Faith
Definition of faith--Motive, the authority of God--The will in the act of
faith: a free act--Motive of faith further explained--The certitude of
faith--The supernatural character of faith--Grace--Faith God's gift--
Perseverance in faith--Necessity for salvation
vi. The Church and the Object of Faith
The Church the appointed teacher of revealed truth--Revelation complete in
Christ--Sources of revelation--Tradition and its organs--Holy Scripture--
Dogmas--Divine and Catholic faith--"Secondary truths" --Further
explanation--Immutability and development of Catholic dogma--An
illustration .
vii. Theology
Definition--Sources and Method
FAITH AND REVEALED TRUTH
I: INTRODUCTORY
" I so run, not as at an uncertainty; I so fight, not as one beating the
air."1 The Catholic, strong in faith, might well describe his attitude
towards life in these confident words of St Paul. He is in no doubt as to
his destiny, nor as to the manner in which he must achieve it. God, his
attributes, his providential designs in man's regard, man's own duties to
his Creator and to his fellow men--all this, and much more, he knows with a
certainty that is supreme. These religious truths are the basis of his
life; his appreciation of them determines the whole course of his
existence; and if concerning them he had the slightest real doubt, his
outlook would be radically changed. He is certain that there is a God, his
Creator and Lord, whose loving friendship he must at all costs retain; did
he doubt it, his obedience to what he conceives as divine commands would
falter. He is certain that there awaits him a life after death in which, if
he has been faithful, he will enjoy God's eternal embrace; did he doubt it,
his life on earth would be deprived of all meaning and purpose.
If, therefore, a man is to lead a religious life--and a religious life is
synonymous with a good one--he must have firm and sound convictions
concerning God and his duties in God's regard. He must have convictions,
otherwise his life will be purposeless; they must be firm, else he will be
inconsistent in practice as his theory is vacillating; they must be sound,
for upon them depends the success or the failure of his life. The Catholic
has certainty on these vital matters because God has revealed them to him.
His hope rests upon the firm foundation of God's word. " Faith is the
substance of things to be hoped for."
But to judge the value of revealed truth merely by its use in action would
be to estimate it incompletely. Revelation extends the field of our
knowledge, and this itself is a perfection of the mind, the noblest faculty
of man. By revelation we receive something of the inner radiance of God's
glory; by faith we learn divine truths of which humanly we should never
have dreamed. By faith we are given a foretaste of the wonders which will
be fully disclosed only when we see God, do longer "through a glass in a
dark manner," but face to face. In the meantime the radiance is too bright
for our finite minds. We adore, but we cannot see. " Faith is the evidence
of things that appear not."
To display the riches contained in revelation is the object of the
subsequent essays. In this, the first, we must study the meaning of
revelation itself, and the act of faith by which we accept it.
n1. I Cor. ix 26.
II: RELIGION AND HUMAN REASON
The Catholic theologian sets out with the supposition--which as a
philosopher he is prepared to vindicate--that the human mind is able to
know truth. If anyone, therefore, in that unhappy state of mind which
despairs of attaining certain knowledge upon any subject whatever, should
hope to find in this essay a philosophical proof of the validity of mental
processes, then he is doomed to disappointment. The skeptic, before he can
approach the study of theology, or in fact of any science at all, must
first find his remedy in a sound and true epistemology Nor is it within the
province of the theologian as such --although again as a philosopher he may
be well equipped--to justify the first principles of analytical reasoning,
to prove that the conclusions which issue from the application of those
principles are valid, even though they may lead the mind into a realm of
reality of which no actual experience is given, and thus cannot be verified
by experiment. The demonstration of these and kindred truths belongs to a
branch of knowledge which is antecedent to the science of theology.
I venture to hope, however, that those who read this series of essays have
remained unaffected by the wave of skepticism and agnosticism which has
swept over Europe during the last two or three centuries. It is an
interesting phenomenon of religious history that the heresy of Luther,
taking its rise in a proud rebellion against the teaching authority of the
Catholic Church, issued in a pessimistic theology which, exaggerating the
effects of original sin, presented human nature as intrinsically corrupt.
The human will, bereft of freedom, was radically incapable of pursuing the
good, the human reason was powerless to know the truth. As man's broken
will must submit passively to the grace of God, so must his mind now,
darkened by sin, allow itself to be led by an occult and irresistible
force, a blind and unreasoning faith. The agnosticism of Kant and his
disciples, which, denying the validity of metaphysical argument, takes
refuge, in order to justify religious belief, either in the dictates of the
practical reason or in an unreasoning religious sense, is an essentially
Protestant philosophy; and of this tendency to rely upon a blind instinct
in religious matters the modern forms of exaggerated--and therefore false--
mysticism, the systems of religious pragmatism and sentimentalism, so
common outside the Church, are the more or less direct descendants.
From all such attempts to disparage the powers of the human reason the
Catholic Church has remained ever aloof. Some of her children, it is true,
have not been immune from the anti-intellectualist atmosphere of their
time; but they have been solemnly warned and, when occasion demanded,
condemned by the ever-watchful guardian of Divine Truth. Thus the
Traditionalists of the nineteenth century, convinced by the German
agnostics that the foundations of religious belief and practice, such as
the existence of God, the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul,
could no longer be justified by an appeal to reason, had recourse to the
inheritance of truth which the human race has received by tradition from
antiquity, and ultimately from God. The suggestion was well-intentioned
and, like most errors, contained a considerable measure of truth. The
Traditionalists rendered valuable service by emphasizing the great part
played by human authority in the acquisition of knowledge; it is true,
moreover, that we receive much of our religious knowledge from divine
revelation. But these faint-hearted apologists, by denying to human reason
the power to prove the existence of a God who reveals, rendered all faith
in him unreasonable. To save the ship they cast away the compass; and the
Church was not slow to reject this ill judged compromise with skepticism.
More recently certain restless spirits within the Church, anxious to
reconcile Catholic doctrine with the so-called exigencies of " Modern
Thought," formed the school known as Modernism. Rejecting with Kant all
rational demonstration of religious tenets, and borrowing from his disciple
Schleiermacher " the religious sense " as a criterion of truth, the
Modernists found the source and the explanation of all religion in a
subconscious " need of the divine." Thus the revelation which the
Traditionalists (rightly) sought from God the Modernists (wrongly) thought
to find within the nature of man himself. From this the way lies open to
pantheism, to the rejection of all dogmas, and indeed of all objective
religious truth. It would be beyond the scope of this short essay even to
enumerate the manifold errors which Modernism involves; it was rightly
stigmatized by Pope Pius X as " a compendium of all heresies."1
The teaching of the Catholic Church on this all-important subject is
stated clearly by the Vatican Council: " Holy Mother Church holds and
teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, may be certainly
known by the natural light of human reason by means of created things."2
The terms of the oath against Modernism render impossible any
misunderstanding of this definition. By " created things " are meant, not
merely human testimony, not merely a subconscious religious sense, but the
" visible works of creation "; and lest there should be any doubt as to the
manner in which our knowledge of God is acquired, the formula tells us that
it is by applying the principle of causality to the data of experience: "
God . . . can be known as a cause through his effects."
The Church, in thus vindicating the power of human reason to know God, is
but reaffirming what St Paul had said in his Epistle to the Romans: "The
invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made."3 But the power of the human
mind is not limited to the mere knowledge of the existence of God. Man is
able unaided to know much concerning the nature of God; he can know many of
his own duties in regard to his Creator, duties of worship, love and
thanksgiving; he can learn naturally much concerning his own nature and
destiny, his duties to himself and to his fellow men. There is, in short, a
whole body of religious truth--the truths of the natural order--which man
is able to acquire with certainty by the normal use of his natural powers.
But while the Church is solicitous to vindicate the just rights of the
human reason, while she has no sympathy with those who unduly disparage it,
she strenuously resists the claim of Rationalism that it is " the sole
judge of the true and the false . . . that it is a law to itself and
sufficient by its natural powers to procure the good of men and peoples."4
She asserts the essential soundness of the human mind and its radical
capacity for learning all natural truth; but she is mindful that man is in
a fallen state, that disordered passion and the manifold distractions of
material things hamper and retard him in his pursuit of religious
knowledge. What I have called truths of the natural order can be known and
demonstrated by the proper application of the principles of reasoning; but
such a process requires a special type of mind, it needs leisure,
concentration, an environment conducive to thought. Experience shows that
not all men have the ability to follow reasoning, be it of the most
elementary kind; some men have a practical rather than a speculative bent.
Many who have the ability have not the leisure for these studies. The
practical difficulties become more evident when one considers that the
rational proofs of such truths as the spirituality of the human soul, the
freedom of the will, if they are to stand the test of modern objections,
require as a preliminary a long and arduous study of metaphysics and
psychology. Add to this that religious knowledge is of paramount importance
for man's daily life, necessary especially in youth, when the character is
in process of formation, necessary precisely at the time when, through
mental immaturity and lack of concentration, he is least likely to be able
to acquire it.
Thus if we view mankind as a whole, if we consider the difficulties with
which men are beset, it is clear that, left to their own resources, very
few would gain adequate knowledge even of the truths of natural religion.
Nor does human authority offer an adequate solution of the difficulty.
History shows that the great thinkers of antiquity-- not to speak of more
recent or contemporary philosophers--have been unable to impose their
doctrine beyond a certain school. The clamor of diverse views, the
difficulty of the subject-matter, the lack of authority in the teacher to
impose belief upon those who cannot understand his reasoning--all this
rendered, and still renders, merely human teaching authority powerless to
supply the need of mankind for religious instruction. On this subject above
all man needs an omniscient and infallible Teacher.
Hence, even though the field of religious doctrine were confined to
"natural" truth, man's need of divine aid is apparent. But it should be
carefully noted that this need arises, not, as the Traditionalists
contended, from the radical impotence of the human mind as such, but from
other circumstances of human life which render it practically impossible
for all men to discover these truths for themselves with any sufficient
degree of accuracy and certainty. Briefly, just as in the practical order
grace is morally necessary in order that each man may observe all the
precepts of the natural law, so is revelation necessary so that all men may
reach a sufficient knowledge of the truths of natural religion.5The
exaggerated claim of Rationalism is thus seen to be unreasonable.
But here again, in a most important particular, the Church opposes the
Rationalist. According to the latter, not only can the human mind unaided
know all natural truth, but natural truth is all that there is to know. The
Church, on the contrary, teaches that there is an order of reality above
that of nature, an order of reality which is beyond the reach of the human
mind: the supernatural order.
And that such an order exists does not seem a priori unlikely. God, as St
Paul tells us, has left traces of himself in his handiwork, and man is able
from the consideration of created perfections to learn much concerning his
Creator. Even the little that we naturally know of God would lead us to
conjecture that there is much more of which we know nothing; that there are
divine perfections of which no clear trace appears in the works of
creation; that besides the natural truths of religion there may be hidden
truths concerning God and things divine, "mysteries"--i.e., truths which
must remain God's secret unless and until he vouchsafes to make them known.
The supernatural order, therefore, by its very character is outside the
scope of our natural knowledge and comprehension. We can know nothing of it
unless God wills to reveal it. The impotence of human reason in respect of
supernatural truths is physical and absolute. Natural truth is within the
reach of the human mind. The reasons which show an adequate and universal
knowledge of this order to be morally impossible without revelation are
concerned not with the powers of the human mind itself, but with such
concomitant circumstances as lack of ability, or time, or concentration.
But no course of study, however long, however arduous, could bring the
human--or indeed the angelic--mind to the discovery of a supernatural
truth. This calls for a special intervention of God, for the inauguration
of a divine intercourse with man whereby he communicates knowledge
otherwise unattainable; in other words a supernatural revelation.
Man's need of revelation is therefore twofold. He needs it for ease and
security even in the sphere of natural research; he needs it absolutely if
he is to know God's secrets. The first need God might have supplied by help
of the natural order, by an enlightenment or an inspiration which would
have been included in God's natural Providence in man's regard. God,
however, has willed to destine man for a supernatural end, and every help
that he grants is bestowed with that end in view. Man's twofold need is met
by one divine revelation which is supernatural in character, and in its
content partly supernatural and partly natural. By one and the same
revelation he supplies a remedy to man's natural weakness, and discloses
truths which no finite mind could ever have learned.
n1. I write of Modernism in the past tense, because for Catholics it is a
thing of the past. Nevertheless the tendency is still strong outside the
Catholic Church.
n2. "Const. defide cath.," chapter ii.
n3. Rom. i 20: cf. Wisd. xiii 1-9.
n4. "Syllabus of Pius IX, n. 3."
n5. Cf. Essay xvii: "Actual Grace," pp. 589 ff.
III: SUPERNATURAL REVELATION
It is important for a proper understanding of our subject to have a clear
idea of what is meant by divine revelation. The word "revelation" is used
in many senses. In common parlance it often means the disclosure of a fact
hitherto unknown: "What you say is a revelation to me"; and in theology the
word sometimes has this meaning. Or, again, it is said that God has
"revealed" himself in the works of creation; and in this sense the Psalmist
sings that "the heavens tell forth the glory of God." Moreover, God may
manifest some truth to man by an interior enlightenment of his mind in such
a way that the favored soul is unaware of the origin of his knowledge; he
simply begins to know what he did not know before. Of such a kind was the
infused knowledge granted to many of the saints. Such a mysterious
illumination also may be called a revelation. The Modernists used the word
in a special sense. By revelation they meant the manifestation of a
religious truth made in consciousness by the religious sense; for them it
was nothing else than a personal religious experience.
But when the Church uses the word "revelation" in connection with faith, it
has the definite meaning of a divine testimony. Revelation is the act
whereby God speaks to man, making a statement to the truth of which he
testifies. " God who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times
past by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by his
Son."1 Hence the Vatican Council describes faith as a " virtue whereby . .
we believe that the things which he has revealed are true . . . because
of the authority of God himself who reveals them, and who can neither be
deceived nor deceive."2 The oath against Modernism, to exclude the
perverted sense given to the word in that theory, uses even clearer terms.
Faith is there defined as "a true intellectual assent given to a truth
received by hearing from without, whereby . . . we believe to be true the
things that have been said, testified and revealed by a personal God, our
Creator and Lord."
Revelation, then, is not an interior emotional experience; it is a
statement of truth made to man in a definite place, at a definite time, by
a personal God who is outside and distinct from the recipient. Moreover it
is essential to the concept of revelation as understood by the Church that
the statement in question be authenticated: the statement is received by
the believer as made by God, and accepted because it is made by God.
Infused knowledge, therefore, unless it is infused with clear notification
of its divine origin, is not the revelation which faith presupposes.
Furthermore, this revelation is distinct from the manifestation of his
perfections which God has given to us in creation. It is true to say that
God "speaks" to us in the works of nature, inasmuch as those works "reveal"
his presence and activity; it is true, but it is metaphorical. Revelation
properly understood implies a personal intercourse between God and man,
wherein God truly speaks--i.e., makes an assertion, which man accepts on
God's personal authority.
Hence revelation is supernatural--supernatural not only because it
contains supernatural truths, but also because the very act whereby God
reveals is beyond the ordinary course of nature. In the ordinary course of
nature God teaches us through created things, through the voice of
conscience, through our own conscious needs and desires. By supernatural
revelation God teaches us himself. "All thy children shall be taught of
God."3
I have said that God's revelation contains supernatural truths. The essence
of revelation does not demand that what is revealed should be hitherto
unknown or otherwise unknowable. Much of what God has revealed man may
already have discovered by the natural light of reason; in which case the
authority of divine teaching but confirms the conclusions of the human
mind. But even if the truth revealed is a mystery properly so called--that
is, a truth which the human reason itself is incapable of discovering or of
comprehending when it has ascertained it--vet it contains an element which
is not new: the terms in which the revelation is made are familiar. It is
not true to say that the mysteries of our faith are unintelligible. The
unintelligible, the meaningless, precisely because it is meaningless, can
have no relation to the human mind. Thus an unknown language is
unintelligible, because it conveys no meaning; it corresponds to no idea in
consciousness. A mystery is incomprehensible, if you will, but it is not
meaningless; it conveys a very definite meaning. The proposition that Jesus
Christ is both God and man, that he is one person who has two natures, the
human and the divine, is incomprehensible indeed; but it is not without
meaning. It is full of meaning, so full that man with his finite mind will
never exhaust it.
If divine revelation is supernatural in character, if it is beyond the
ordinary course of nature, it follows that man can have no natural title or
claim to it. It is a grace, an entirely gratuitous gift of God. Hence,
although, as we saw in the previous section, the conditions of human
existence indicate the need of some help from God for a universal and
sufficient knowledge of religious truth, yet we cannot argue from this to
the existence of a supernatural revelation. Apologists rightly point out
how wonderfully revealed truth harmonizes with the intimate needs and
desires of mankind. But it is too little to say: "This is exactly what we
needed." It is far in excess of what we had any right to expect. In this as
in all else God has been more than just, he has been generously bountiful
to his creatures.
And how has this supernatural revelation been made ? Its history may be
given in the inspired words of Holy Writ: " God who at sundry times and in
divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of
all in these days hath spoken to us by his Son."4 "And Jesus spoke to his
Apostles, saying: Going therefore, teach ye all nations; . . . teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world."5
Undoubtedly, had God so willed, he might have communicated his testimony
directly to each member of the human race as soon as he was capable of
receiving it. The contention of Protestantism is (or was) that he does so.
There is no need to insist here on the inconveniences of such a method, had
it been adopted; it would have led to hallucinations of every sort. Sad
experience has shown how easily men may be led to think that they are
inspired. But apart from any other reason, an individualistic revelation
seems antecedently improbable because it would not be in keeping with what
we know of God's providential dealings with mankind. God deals with man
according to his nature; and man is naturally social. This being so, we
should have expected God to make his revelation to men as a body; and such
in fact was the case.
"God spoke to the fathers [i.e., to the ancestors of the Jews whom St Paul
was addressing] by the prophets." Whether by visions, or by an interior
illumination of the mind, or by the ministry of angels, God entrusted his
message to certain chosen men, who in their turn were to deliver it to
God's chosen people. Of that chosen people would be born Christ, the Word
Incarnate, who was to complete the divine message and found on earth a
universal kingdom in which God's word would be carried to the ends of the
earth until the end of time.
But God's message must be authenticated, his messenger must present his
credentials. In vain will the seer claim divine authority if he cannot
vindicate his mission. Hence that all men might know that the words of the
prophet were the words of God, he marked their teaching with unmistakable
signs of its divine origin. "They will not believe me," protested Moses,"6
nor hear my voice, but they will say: The Lord hath not appeared to thee .
. And the Lord said: Cast thy rod down upon the ground. He cast it down,
and it was turned into a serpent . . . that they may believe, saith he,
that the Lord God . . . hath appeared to thee." Leaving to its proper
place7 the discussion of miracles and prophecies as motives of credibility,
we must remark here on the consistent appeal made by God's messengers to
these irrefragable evidences of their divine authority Suffice it to quote
the words of the greatest of all the prophets; the Son of God himself: "Go
and relate what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the
dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them."8 In answer to
the Jews who ask him to say plainly if he is indeed the Christ, he says: "
I speak to you, and you believe not; the works that I do in the name of my
Father, they give testimony of me."9 Finally, we read of the Apostles of
Christ who " going forth preached everywhere; the Lord working withal, and
confirming the word with signs that followed."10
The revelation which God made to his chosen people was a gradual one.
Speaking to them " at sundry times," he suited his message to the degree of
culture and the condition of his hearers. The promise that God would send a
Redeemer was made at the very beginning, and that hope, fostered by
repeated revelations through the Patriarchs and Prophets, was the heart and
center of the Jewish religion. Belief in the one true God was safeguarded
by constant divine warnings against the idolatry of the surrounding nations
and by detailed instructions for the manner of divine worship. The precepts
of the natural law were fully expounded in the Commandments and enforced by
legal sanctions. Gradually in the books of the Old Testament beliefs
concerning the future life, at first fragmentary and crude, become more and
more detailed and definite. Of the great mysteries of Christianity, the
Incarnation and the Trinity, we find little more than mere traces--traces,
however, which become clearer and clearer as the fullness of time
approaches. It was a period of preparation and expectation, during which
truths were successively revealed according as they served to prepare men's
hearts to receive him who was to come. But this progressive unfolding of
God's providential plan was not to be indefinitely prolonged. At last
Christ came, and with him the completion of God's message of mercy.
The Son of God became man and, living in the midst of men, showed by his
fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies that he was indeed the divine
messenger whom all generations had expected; and of his divine mission he
gave still further proof--if further was needed--by the wonders that he
worked. The prophets of old had conveyed God's word to the chosen people
alone; Christ's message was for the whole world. Their revelation was but
partial, to be supplemented by those who should come after; his was
definitive and complete. They were the creatural mouthpieces of God; he,
while truly man, was God himself.
To the Jews first he preached his gospel, to the nation which throughout
its history had been so signally favored by God; and by these he was
rejected. But from the beginning of his ministry he laid the foundations of
his Church, collecting a chosen band of disciples who were to be witnesses
of his gospel, not merely in Palestine, but throughout the whole world;
they were his twelve Apostles. These with infinite care and patience he
trained for their important mission; to these he revealed " the mysteries
of the kingdom of God " so far as they were then able to bear them,
promising that when he should leave them he would send the Holy Ghost, who
would teach them all truth. To these, under the primacy of Peter, he gave
special powers: a teaching authority such that to hear them was to hear
Christ himself, that they might preach in its integrity the doctrine that
they had received from his lips; powers of jurisdiction over all believers,
that they might govern Christ's spiritual kingdom on earth.
In this way the Catholic Church was instituted, the visible, infallible
society in which and through which the revelation of Christ was to be
preserved and propagated. The Church, the mystical body of Christ, was to
perpetuate his work, to bear witness to the truth until the consummation of
the world. As the doctrine of Christ was the doctrine of the Father who
sent him, so the teaching of the Church is the teaching of Christ who
instituted her. Just as Christ had proved his divine mission, so the Church
bears in the sight of all men the manifest marks of her divine origin. "
The Church herself," says the Vatican Council,11 "by reason of her
wonderful extension, eminent holiness and inexhaustible fruitfulness in all
good things, her Catholic unity and invincible stability, is . . . an
irrefutable witness to her own divine mission."
n1. Heb. i I.
n2. Chapter iii.
n3. Isa. liv 13.
n4. Heb. i 1.
n5. Matt. xxviii 18-20.
n6. Exod. iv 1.
n7. P. 13.
n8. Matt. xi 4-5.
n9. John x 24; cf. ibid., 37-38; xi 4I-42.
n10. Mark xvi 20.
n11. "Loc. cit.," chapter iii.
IV: PRELIMINARIES TO FAITH
Having studied the need, the nature and the manner of divine revelation, we
now possess the elements necessary to understand the act whereby that
revelation is accepted, the act of faith; and if in the pages which precede
points of doctrine have been touched upon which are treated more fully
elsewhere in this essay, it has been in order to provide data for the
solution of the problem before us.
In fact, the nature of the act of faith has already been implied in what
has been said about revelation. Revelation is a divine testimony. But if
God has spoken, if he has testified to the truth of a statement, then it is
man's bounden duty to accept it by an act of belief, by an act of faith.
For our present purpose, then, it will be sufficient to describe the act of
faith as that act whereby, on the authority of God, we give mental assent
to a truth which he has revealed. All that is involved in such an act will
form the subject of the succeeding section, but here it should be noted
that the motive of assent is not the intrinsic evidence of the statement
itself, but the authority of God who makes it; in other words, I believe
simply because God has said it. Already it becomes clear that the act of
faith cannot be made without certain preliminaries. A motive, before it can
give rise to an act, must first be perceived by the mind; the authority of
God, then, must be known before I can make an act of faith. I must know
that there is a God, and that he has the authority--i.e., the knowledge and
the veracity--which is to command my assent. Moreover, by the act of faith,
I give my assent not merely to a vague generalization" whatever it may be
that God has revealed "--but to a definite truth, or body of truth, which I
know to have been revealed. A further preliminary, therefore, is to know "
the fact of revelation "--i.e., that God has revealed this or that truth to
which I am required to give my assent.
We begin to see, then, that the act of faith is no " step in the dark."
Faith is not an unreasonable credulity; still less is it a blind instinct
to believe whatever one is told. Man is a rational being, and God does not
call upon him to do anything ill-befitting his nature. It is reasonable,
prudent, to believe what one is told by a trustworthy witness. It is
imprudent, and even foolish, to believe a statement purporting to be made
by one whose existence is unknown, or at the best doubtful, or of whose
knowledge and veracity, even if he exists, one has little or no guarantee.
St Thomas Aquinas has been accused of being a Rationalist, but indeed he
only vindicates the just rights of a reasonable being when he says: " Man
would not believe (revealed truth) unless he saw that he must believe it."1
Hence, before a man can reasonably and prudently believe a statement, that
statement must be credible to him; he must have " evidence of credibility."
That evidence of credibility he obtains from the knowledge of those
preliminary truths which we have enumerated, called for the sake of
convenience the " preambles of faith."
How are we to know these preambles ? Should we not, some have suggested,
rely for this knowledge on the authority of God himself, so that not only
the act of faith but also its foundations should rest upon the firm ground
of God's infallible truth ? Even granting for the sake of argument, say the
Fideists, that the existence of God and the fact of revelation can be
discovered by the unaided human mind, yet even the Catholic Church is
forced to admit that without revelation man finds it practically impossible
to learn natural truths with certainty. Is our faith, then, to rest upon so
insecure a foundation ? It needs little reflection to see that such a
process involves a vicious circle, and, far from strengthening the
foundations of faith, removes them altogether. How can I reasonably rely
upon the authority of God when he reveals to me his existence, his
omniscience, his veracity, the fact that he has revealed this or that
truth, unless I am antecedently and independently of that same authority
convinced that the revealing and truthful God exists ? Others have had
recourse either to a blind instinct, or to an act of will, to bring about
adherence to these preliminary truths.
All such systems betray that distrust of the human reason to which we
referred in our second section. The Church, we repeat, has no sympathy with
those who disparage the powers of the human mind; nor is there any
antagonism between reason and faith. In the words of a famous preacher,
"they are two sisters who dwell together in the same home. The hospitable
doors of our soul are opened to receive these two daughters of God. Faith
dwells on high, reason a little lower. But faith will never kill her
sister; she will not betray the hospitality accorded her to reign alone in
the palace of them both."2 "The use of reason," says the Church in
condemning Traditionalism, "precedes faith and must lead us to it."3
The human mind, then, must discover for itself the truths which are the
basis of faith, and these must be known with certainty. It is not enough to
conjecture with some degree of probability that there is a veracious God
who has made a revelation. While doubt concerning the preambles of faith
remains the act of faith cannot be reasonable. No man believes reasonably
unless he sees that he must believe.
But how are all men to acquire this certainty ? In the first place it is to
be remarked that the existence of God, at least, can be certainly known by
the light of human reason. In fact, so clear are the indications of this
truth that the Gentiles were upbraided by St Paul as inexcusable for
failing to recognize it. Moreover, the arguments which prove the existence
of God show also that he is all perfection, and therefore omniscient and
incapable of deceiving. As to the third preamble, the fact of revelation,
we have seen that God accompanied his message with clear signs of its
divine origin, particularly by miracles and prophecies, and that, moreover,
the Catholic Church, founded by Christ for the specific purpose of teaching
men what God has revealed, bears upon her unmistakable marks of her divine
institution.
To set in full relief the arguments which show the divine origin of the
Christian religion--to expound, in other words, the "motives of
credibility"--is the function of the apologist, and therefore lies outside
our scope. These motives are many and varied; among them are some which
alone are fully convincing, others which convince only by their accumulated
force; some will appeal to all minds, others will appeal only to a few. It
is just, therefore, to that extent, that the apologist should accommodate
his procedure to the mentality of those whom he seeks to persuade. But of
the absolute efficacy of at least one motive of credibility no Catholic may
doubt, since it has been made the subject of an infallible definition in
the Vatican Council, namely; miracles worked in confirmation of a divine
mission. " Anathema to him who says . . . that by miracles the divine
origin of the Christian religion is not rightly proved."4 In the
corresponding chapter the Council goes further; it declares that miracles
and prophecies5 "are most certain signs of divine revelation, and suitable
to the intelligence of all." They are suited to the intelligence of the
learned as to that of the ignorant, to that of the scientist as to that of
the layman, to the modern mind, too often supposed to be infallible, no
less than to the mind of the ancients, too often presumed to be lacking in
common sense.
That a miracle, granted the existence of God, is possible is shown
elsewhere.6 If a true miracle, which is the work of God alone, is performed
by a man as a sign that his teaching is divine, it argues an extraordinary
intervention of divine power to vindicate his claim, and, since the true
God cannot confirm falsehood, the argument is peremptory. His statement is
thus rendered credible on the divine authority. It may not, however, be
superfluous to add that the miracle as such does nothing more. It is not an
intrinsic proof of the statement made; it is a completely adequate motive
of credibility.
The human mind, then, is able to learn with certainty the existence of God;
is able, by the proper investigation of the facts, to conclude that Christ
is the bearer of a divine message, that he founded an infallible Church for
the purpose of propagating that message; and finally, by the process
indicated in apologetics, to conclude that the Catholic Church is that
divinely appointed teacher of revelation. These things, I say, can be known
and proved, and by those who have the requisite leisure, opportunity and
ability, are actually known and proved with all the scientific certainty of
which the subject is patient. The preambles of faith, therefore, rest upon
the solid ground of human reason.
But while the human mind can satisfy itself by rational demonstration of
the existence of God, and by historical investigation of the "fact of
revelation," it remains true that for a great proportion of the human race
such a process of scientific demonstration is a practical impossibility. A
secure conviction that a good God exists is obtainable by all men, and by
the large majority is actually obtained. But how many are able, besides
justifying that conviction to themselves, to construct a scientific proof
of the existence of God which satisfies all the demands of human reason,
with all the apparatus of objection and answer which is needed by the
modern apologist ? Most men believe in the existence of God because they
have satisfied themselves, by reasons which for them are sufficient, that
God really does exist. Again, the divine origin of the Christian religion,
the divine character of the Catholic Church, being attested by so many
motives of credibility, is known by all Catholics, can be recognized by
non-Catholics. But relatively few Catholics have either the leisure or the
ability to investigate the historical documents, to sift for themselves the
evidence required for a scientific historical demonstration: relatively few
non-Catholics would have the opportunity of thus verifying the claims of
the Catholic Church. Moreover, the difficulty in the way of such scientific
certitude is infinitely increased when we consider the condition of the
uneducated and the young. Can these make no act of faith until they have
completed a course of philosophy, until they have satisfied their minds by
answering every objection that can be made against the existence of God,
proved the divinity of the Christian religion by a rigid demonstration, and
thus arrived at perfect evidence concerning the preambles of faith ? Such
perfect scientific evidence is unnecessary. The reason why one must, before
believing a statement, be convinced of the existence and trustworthiness of
the witness who makes it, is that otherwise the assent given would be
unreasonable, imprudent. Thus it is imprudent to believe a statement
supposed to have been made even by a most knowledgeable and trustworthy
person, if there is reasonable doubt as to his having made it. I say,
advisedly, if there is reasonable doubt, because there are doubts which are
unreasonable, imprudent. Nowadays, at any rate, whatever may have been the
case years ago, it is unreasonable to doubt the safety of traveling by
rail. It is unreasonable to doubt a proposition which you have clearly
demonstrated simply because an objection is made to it which, by reason of
your lack of ability or technical knowledge, you are unable to solve.
Briefly, without going into the vexed question of certitude and its various
kinds, we may remark that there is a state of mind which a reasonable man
demands before he will engage upon any serious undertaking. Call it moral
certitude if you will; I prefer to call it a prudent conviction. Complete
scientific evidence in many cases, either for circumstantial or personal
reasons, he cannot have. He asks those who are competent to know, in whose
judgment he has full confidence, and with the conviction thus obtained he
sets out upon his task. Absolutely speaking, he may have been deceived; but
in the circumstances he acted prudently; it would have been imprudent,
unreasonable to doubt.
And here follows a consequence of vital importance for the solution of our
question. What is prudent in some circumstances is imprudent in others;
what is prudent for one person is not prudent for another. This state of
mind, which I have called " prudent conviction," is not absolute but
relative.7 So, for example, it is prudent for the unlearned to believe
implicitly the teaching of those who "ought to know." A child acts
prudently on the advice, however misguided, of his mother. School-children
believe what their teachers, however incompetent, teach them; and to act
upon such information is prudent and reasonable--for children. In fact,
they would be imprudent to act otherwise.
And now let us apply these principles to the question before us. In order
to make a reasonable act of faith the prospective believer must achieve a
prudent conviction concerning the preambles of faith: a conviction--i.e.,
he must be convinced of the existence of God and the fact of revelation: a
prudent conviction--i.e., there must be no reasonable doubt. Such a state
of mind, then, is compatible with unreasonable doubts such as we have
exemplified above. Thus a child who learns from his teacher, or from his
catechism, that there is a God who has revealed certain truths through his
Church, of which the parish priest is an official representative, has a
prudent conviction regarding the preambles sufficient for a reasonable act
of divine faith. Again, motives of credibility which would not convince the
scientist, to the unlearned may carry a conviction upon which he could
prudently rely. Hence, a scientific demonstration of the preambles, so far
from being a necessary preliminary to a reasonable act of faith, is in most
cases impossible; in those cases, therefore, it would be unreasonable to
demand it.
Nevertheless, in all cases the legitimate demands of reason are met. Reason
demands that no man believe a thing unless he see it to be credible. Even
in the case of the child, even in the case of the unlearned, whatever be
the objective reliability of his grounds for admitting the existence of God
or the fact of revelation, the conclusion to which he is led--namely, the
judgment of credibility --is perfectly evident. He concludes that it is
evidently reasonable to believe on the authority of God a truth, or a group
of truths, which he is prudently convinced that God has revealed. But it
should be carefully noted, even now, that the motives which have led to the
"judgment of credibility" are not the motive of faith. The act of faith
remains yet to be made, and its motive is quite distinct; it is the
authority of God who reveals.
When the inquirer has reached the stage at which he regards revealed truth
as " credible," when, further, he has realized his obligation to believe,
he is on the threshold of faith. But before we consider the act of faith
itself, we have still to take into account other important factors in the
approach to it. In what has been said hitherto we have considered only the
intellectual activity of man; and we have purposely confined our attention
to this aspect of the question in order to stress the essentially
reasonable character of submission to divine revelation. But man is not a
mental machine. When he thinks of a subject he does so because he wills to
think of it. As we shall see later, the will plays a prominent and
essential part in the act of faith itself. But also in the preparation for
faith good-will is absolutely necessary. Moreover, man has various emotions
and desires which to a greater or less extent are under his control; these
too must be taken into account. It is not simply the human mind that
prepares itself for faith; it is the whole man, a vital unity, with all the
complex interaction of his mental, volitional, and emotional powers.
The first thing necessary in the approach to faith is attention to the
subject of religion; the inquirer must first make up his mind to think
about God and his duties in God's regard. And here, besides the effort of
will, the emotional factor may well enter to attract or to repel. Some have
begun their inquiry simply out of affection for a Catholic friend whose
good opinion they valued; others have desisted when they saw that such
inquiry would lead to self-denial. Some have been first attracted to the
Catholic Church by the beauty of her ceremonial; others have been repelled
by the squalor of an ill-kept church. Thus the most insignificant
circumstance may exert its effect, inclining a man this way or that; but
finally it is the will that directs the mind to God.
It is not only in the initial impulse, however, but throughout the
preliminary stages too, that these factors exert their influence.
Distractions must be firmly set aside that the mind may devote its
attention to a serious and difficult subject; prejudices must be overcome
so that the full force of the motives of credibility may be appreciated;
the temptation to dally with sophistical objections when they are seen to
be groundless must be suppressed; unworthy considerations of self-interest,
pride and human respect must be excluded lest they interfere with the
earnest inquiry after truth. In short, there are innumerable ways in which
desires and feelings may help or hinder man in his preparation for faith.
The will cannot make a thing to be true which is false; the will cannot
give force to an invalid argument. But it can and must prevent extraneous
considerations from obscuring the issue, and exclude from the mind anything
that may distract a serene and unbiased attention to the arguments
proposed. In the study of a purely speculative subject there is little
danger of such interference; one is not liable to unreasonable prejudices
in the solution of an algebraic problem. But religion is vitally connected
with man's moral duties, and for that very reason a purely unprejudiced and
rational study of it is particularly difficult. If a man is to devote
himself to it wholeheartedly and with unruffled mind, he needs above all
things good-will.
There remains the last, and yet really the first and most important factor.
With the intellect of a Plato, with the iron self-control of a Stoic, with
all the good-will of which man is capable, he can do nothing to prepare
himself for faith without the help of God's grace. "No man cometh to me
unless the Father draw him." Man's destiny is a supernatural one, entirely
beyond his natural powers to achieve. His acts, to be salutary--that is, to
be conducive to his eternal salvation--must be supernatural, must have a
quality, a modality, which raises them above their natural power and value,
making them proportionate to a supernatural end.8 It is by the act of faith
that man first sets himself in the path of salvation, and, as will be seen,
that act must be supernatural. But even before this vital step is taken man
must be guided by God's grace. God's supernatural providence, which wills
all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, watches over
all men, guiding them gently, but surely, to himself. The child who learns
his religion from his mother, whose mind is gradually opened to the wonders
of God's revelation, is acting under the impulse of God's grace. The
unbeliever who becomes conscious of a desire to know God, who earnestly and
perseveringly, in spite of obstacles, seeks after the truth, is being led,
enlightened and inspired by supernatural grace. The eloquence of St Paul
would not have converted a Lydia had the grace of God not opened her heart
to hear his words. The Apostle may plant the seed and tend it carefully,
but it will not grow unless God give the increase.9
In all these preliminaries, therefore, man must do his part. He must
endeavor, with good-will, to see that God's truth is credible; it is his
duty and his right as a rational being. But he must not rely upon himself.
"Our sufficiency is from God."10 His very goodwill must derive from him who
" worketh in us both to will and to accomplish."11 The urge of passion, a
deep-seated prejudice, a whole complex of circumstances for which he may be
but partly or even in no degree responsible, may blind him to the truth.
For such a one the grace of enlightenment is at hand, if he will but accept
it. His prayer must be that of the blind man: "Lord, that I may see." The
answer and the result will be the same: "And immediately he saw, and
followed him."12
n1. "Summa Theologica" II-II, Q. I, art. 4 ad 2.
n2. Monsabre: "Introduction," Conf. II
n3. Denzinger, "Enchiridion," 1626.
n4. "Defide," can- 4
n5. I make no distinction here between miracles and prophecies, since the
value of each, "mutatis mutandis," is equal in showing the divine mission
of the wonder-worker or the prophet. In fact, a prophecy is simply a
miracle of the intellectual order.
n6. Essay vii, "Divine Providence," pp. 226 ff.
n7. Obviously this view has nothing in common with the theory of "relative
truth," according to which a proposition objectively true to one is false
to another. I am speaking here not of objective truth but of a subjective
state of mind.
n8. See Essay xvii, "Actual Grace," pp. 595 ff.
n9. Cf. Acts xvi 14; I Cor. iii 4-6.
n10. 2 Cor. iii 5.
n11. Phil. ii 13.
n12. Cf. Matt. xx 30-34.
V: THE ACT OF FAITH
In the previous section we accompanied the believer in his progress towards
the act of faith until the stage at which, having acquired a firm
conviction concerning the preambles of faith, he forms an evident "judgment
of credibility ": "This truth, which I am convinced has been revealed by
God, is to be believed on God's authority." Passing to a judgment of the
practical order, he says: "I must believe it." Then, and not till then, he
proceeds to give his assent to the revealed truth: " I believe this truth
because God has revealed it." This assent is the act of divine faith which
we must now study.
The subject is of such vital importance that our definition of the act of
faith must be taken from the infallible pronouncement of the Vatican
Council. The Council directly defines the virtue of faith, but in doing so
it necessarily defines the act: " Faith . . . is a supernatural virtue
whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the
things which he has revealed are true; not because the intrinsic truth of
the things is plainly perceived by the natural light of reason, but because
of the authority of God himself who reveals them, and who can neither be
deceived nor deceive."
Faith, then, is an act whereby we believe something to be true. It is an
assent to truth, and therefore an act of the intellect: for truth is the
object of the intellect.1 There is, however, this important difference
between the assent of faith and the assent of immediate knowledge. The
assent in the latter case is caused by the perception of the intrinsic
truth of the statement; so that when it is made I say: "I see; of course,
that must be so"; and, when once the truth is seen, nothing further is
required to gain my assent. In the case of faith, I see indeed--otherwise
there could be no assent-- but I do not see within the truth itself. I
understand the terms of the revealed proposition, but neither the analysis
of those terms nor my own experience assures me that they should be
connected. The ground, or the " motive," of my assent to the proposition is
extrinsic to it, and that motive is the authority of God, who tells me that
it is true. In both cases there is evidence: in the former the evidence is
intrinsic, in the latter it is extrinsic. The believer sees the truth, says
St Thomas, " as credible; . . . for he would not believe unless he saw that
he must believe."2
I have said that when once the inward truth of a proposition is seen,
nothing further is required to evoke the assent of the mind; it is drawn of
necessity to adhere to its connatural object. But without that internal
evidence the mind, of itself, is powerless to assent. "Faith," says St
Paul, "is the evidence of things that appear not."3 Revealed truth is not
seen in itself; it is seen as credible, as clothed, so to speak, in the
garment of divine authority. Invested with such authority, it becomes
indeed a fit object for intellectual acceptance; but the intellect alone,
eager to "read within" (intus-legere) the truth, makes no spontaneous move
to accept it. It is here that the intervention of the will becomes
necessary. It has been seen in the previous section that the will has an
important function in the preliminaries to faith. To arrive at the judgment
of credibility the believer must focus his attention upon the motives of
credibility and set aside all that might distract from their unbiased
consideration. All this needs a firm and constant effort of will. But in
these preliminary stages the will has no direct causative influence upon
the assent of the mind.4 The intervention of the will in the act of faith
itself is of a different and more direct character. The act of faith,
though, as we have seen, it is elicited by the mind, is caused by an act of
will. By faith, says the Vatican Council, "man yields a voluntary obedience
to God himself." The mind sees the revealed truth as credible, and the will
bends the mind to accept it.
Now it is important at once to preclude a possible misunderstanding of the
function of the will in the act of faith. The will cannot make the mind
believe anything it chooses; it is not that "the wish is father to the
thought." Before the mind can accept a statement, even at the behest of the
will, the statement must be "credible"; it must be attested by a
trustworthy witness; and, moreover, it must not be nonsense. Nonsense is
meaningless and can have no relation to the mind. Briefly, a revealed
statement can be accepted by the mind provided that it fulfills the
conditions necessary to render it credible--i.e., fit for intellectual
acceptance. It is seen to be not unfit for acceptance because it has an
intelligible meaning; it is seen to be positively fit for acceptance
because it is attested by an infallible witness. In fact, since the witness
in this case is God himself, who has a right to our homage and obedience,
the fitness is presented as a positive duty.
The will therefore now deliberately intervenes and commands the assent of
the mind to revealed truth and the motive of the act is the authority of
God who attests that truth. This motive, it should be remarked, is one
which appeals to both mind and will, but under different aspects. To the
mind it appeals as endowing the statement with credibility; to the will it
appeals as a divine perfection to be worshipped: his love in revealing to
be repaid by a loving acceptance on our part, his wisdom and his veracity
to be adored by an unquestioning homage.5 "Since man," says the Council
which is our infallible guide in this matter, " is utterly dependent upon
God as upon his Creator and Lord, and since created reason is absolutely
subject to uncreated Truth, we are bound, by faith in his revelation, to
yield him the full homage of our intellect and will."6 Hence, although the
act of faith is an intellectual act, yet it is also an act of homage which
is in the power of the will to withhold. By faith " man yields free
obedience to God." To explain the freedom and other properties of faith, it
is necessary to examine a little more closely the precise nature of its
motive, the authority of God.7
It might seem at first sight that if a man is firmly convinced that a
statement has been made by one who is certainly telling the truth, then he
cannot possibly withhold his assent to it; nor is it apparent that such
assent would be an act of homage to his informant. If a man accused of
murder admits a fact which is damaging to his case, the jury--granted that
they find no other reason for his admission--cannot but believe his
testimony. And apart from all discussion as to the freedom of such an
assent, by no conceivable standard could such belief be termed a homage to
the veracity of the witness. The jury accept his statement because they
know that in the circumstances it must be true. Of a like nature is the
credence that we may give to an historian whom, however otherwise
unreliable, we have proved by the application of tests to be here and now
telling the truth. Critical students of history rely upon human testimony,
but their acceptance Or it implies no personal compliment to the narrator
of the event. They believe that this happened because, and in so far as,
they know that he is saying what is true. Is not the case the same with the
act of divine faith ? I know that God has revealed the Trinity. I know that
God is Truth itself. Surely the logical conclusion is inevitable: the
Trinity is true. Here is no free acceptance of God's word, no free homage
to his Person. I am forced by the laws of evidence.
But there is a radical difference between the assent of divine faith and
the assent given under the circumstances above described. The jury believe
the witness, the historian believes his informant, because and in so far as
they know him to be relating what is in conformity with reality. The motive
of their assent is the evidence that they have of the truth of the
statement; and such assent is probably not a free act; it is certainly no
personal compliment to the witness. The believer accepts a revealed truth
not precisely because he knows that God has revealed it and knows that God
is infallible. This knowledge is the necessary condition, but it is not the
motive, of his faith. He believes because God, who is infallible, has said
it. The difference is perhaps subtle, but it is important. The motive of
the act of divine faith is not my knowledge of that authority as
accrediting revealed truth, however certain, however evident that knowledge
may be, but the divine authority itself. My knowledge is finite, my
knowledge is fallible. God's authority is infinite; God can neither deceive
nor be deceived. If, when I believe, I rely upon my knowledge, I rely upon
what is human; if I rely upon God's authority I rely upon what is divine.
In the act of divine faith the believer abstracts from the arguments which
have led him to the judgment of credibility. They were a necessary
preliminary; they were, if you will, the tinder that lit the torch. But the
torch burns now by its own brilliance; the light of God's authority
illumines revealed truth with its infinite radiance; and this is the motive
of faith: I believe because God has said it. Reason has led me to faith.
Reason has told me that God's revealed word is credible, and in accordance
with her advice I freely and unreservedly submit myself to the guidance of
his Truth.
An instructive incident in the life of our Lord illustrates the nature of
divine faith. The Pharisees, as is well known, were constantly rebuked by
our Lord for their unbelief. They had seen, as others had seen, evident
signs that Christ spoke the words of God; and yet they stubbornly refused
to believe him. One day after they had made one of their frequent attempts
to discredit him,8 he took a little child and said: "Amen I say to you,
whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, shall
not enter it."9 The act of divine faith has more in common with the
trusting belief of a child in his mother than with the assent of the
critical historian. For the child it is enough to know that his mother has
said it, and he believes on that authority. His assent is a prudent one,
for he has motives of credibility which for him are sufficient, everything
leads him reasonably to suppose that his mother knows everything and would
not deceive him. But when he believes, he believes simply and solely
because his mother has said it. He does not advert to the reasons which
have led him to regard his mother as trustworthy. His belief is an
unaffected and trusting homage of love to his mother. So also in the Act of
Faith which every Catholic child recites: "O my God, I believe . . .
because thou hast said it, and thy word is true." To the motives of
credibility the child does not advert; he has probably forgotten them. But
the motives of credibility are not the motives of his faith. He relies not
upon them, but upon the authority of God itself. What is true of the child
is true of the Christian adult; and this the experience of each will
confirm. When he makes an act of faith, he thinks not of the proofs of the
existence of God, not of the miracles which Christ worked, but of the
authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
This is why faith is a " theological " virtue, this is why faith is an act
of free obedience to God; this, finally, is the reason of its sovereign
certitude.
The certitude of faith is supreme because the believer's assurance rests
upon a ground more secure than all human science, upon the infallible
authority of God. "If we receive the testimony of man," says St John,10
"the testimony of God is greater"; infinitely, unspeakably greater, since
God is very Truth. But, as in regard to the freedom of the act of faith so
also in regard to its certitude, a difficulty often arises from a
misconception of the precise motive of faith. It is sometimes urged that
since no chain is stronger than its weakest link, therefore the assent of
faith can enjoy no greater certitude than the assent given to any of the
preambles of faith which are its foundation. Metaphors are misleading here.
Even the word "foundation" may lend itself to misunderstanding. The
preambles of faith are the foundation of faith in the sense that they are a
necessary prerequisite. But they are not its foundation in the sense of
supplying the security of the edifice. The metaphor of the chain is no less
fallacious. There is no continuous "chain" of reasoning that leads from the
first argument which proves the existence of God to the truth, for example,
that in one God there are three Persons. If the act of faith were the
logical conclusion of such a chain, then evidently that conclusion could
have no greater weight than is warranted by the series of arguments that
lead to it. But the act of faith is not an inference from preceding
arguments.
The series of truths which we have called the preambles of faith leads
logically to the judgment of credibility, but no further. I aver, in view
of my previous reasoning, that it is reasonable, prudent, in fact
obligatory, to believe that, e.g., there are three Persons in one God. I
then proceed, impelled not by my previous reasoning, but by God's
authority, to believe it. I believe it, not precisely because and in so far
as I know that God has revealed it, but because God has revealed it. Hence
the firmness of my assent is measured not by the cogency of any one, or
indeed of the sum, of the reasons which led me to judge the truth as
credible, but by the infinite weight of the divine authority which is the
motive of my faith.
But although the certitude of faith is supreme, supreme as is the divine
authority upon which it is based, yet the mind of the believer is not
completely satisfied. Under the influence of the will it holds firmly to
the truth; but within the truth it does not see; and nothing save vision
can satisfy the mind. Faith is an evidence--i.e., a firm conviction--but it
is a conviction "of things that appear not." As long, then, as intrinsic
evidence is denied, the mental assent is not spontaneous and requires the
concurrence of the will. Hence it is misleading to compare the state of
mind of the believer with the complete repose of the mind in a truth
clearly demonstrated, or with the evidence of the senses. In the latter
case there can be little or no temptation to doubt. The believer, on the
other hand, precisely because he does not see within the truth, may be
subject to many such temptations. But temptations are not doubts, and the
believer is able by an effort of will to dispel them, to concentrate his
attention upon the infallible motive of his faith, and thus to achieve a
state of security from error as superior to that of human knowledge as the
Truth of God infinitely transcends the fallible reason of man.
The whole process of the act of faith, such as we have described does not
seem, absolutely speaking, to exceed man's natural powers. If we consider
those powers in the abstract, there seems to be no reason why, granted that
God has made a revelation, man should not be able for himself to
investigate the preambles of faith, naturally to recognize his obligation
to accept it, and finally to believe on God's authority the truths that he
has revealed. But even if we grant this to be physically possible, we have
seen that the difficulties which occur even in the preliminary stages are
such as to render it extremely unlikely of achievement, without the help of
God's grace. When, moreover, we consider that the act of faith, being the
initial step in man's progress towards his supernatural end, must itself be
supernatural, the need for grace becomes quite imperative.
We must now, therefore, give our attention to those words of the Vatican
definition which we have hitherto neglected. "This faith," says the
Council, "which is the beginning of man's salvation, is a supernatural
virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by God's grace, we believe," etc.
And later in the same chapter, quoting the Council of Orange (529) the
Council asserts the absolute impossibility of a salutary faith "without the
illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all men
sweetness in accepting and believing the truth."
Grace is necessary for the act of faith, in the first place, to make it
supernatural; to give it that quality which makes it conducive to a
supernatural end, in other words, to make it salutary. If that supernatural
character is needed--as we have seen that it is--even in the preliminary
steps to faith, still more is it needed in the very act by which man
submits to God's authority. "By grace," says St Paul11 "you are saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God." For
faith man must strive to his utmost; he must use all human endeavor to
learn the truth and to submit to it. But all his striving, all his
endeavor, would be utterly useless without the grace of God. He might even-
-we have surmised that it is not impossible--make an act of faith unaided;
but that act would not serve for his salvation unless it were made under
the inspiration and assistance of God's grace. It must be inspired by
grace. God does not wait until man conceives the desire to believe; he puts
that desire supernaturally in his heart. It must be assisted by God's
grace. In the very act of submission to God's truth, the mind is
enlightened, the will is strengthened by God, who works in us "to will and
to accomplish."
The grace of God is essential; but to none is it ever lacking. If even
during man's progress towards faith God enlightens the mind and strengthens
the will, anticipating every act with his grace, still more abundantly,
when the act of faith itself is to be made, will God give his supernatural
help. It is not the lack of grace that man should dread, but rather his own
power to resist it.
But grace does more than make the act of faith supernatural; it renders it
easy and delightful. The Holy Spirit gives "sweetness in believing." Grace
enlightens the mind, setting in vivid relief the desirability of paying
intellectual homage to God, giving to it a supernatural insight into the
meaning even of mysteries, and into the treasures of grace and glory which
will be the reward of our faith. Grace helps the will to adhere firmly to
God's word, putting aside all considerations of self-interest, all
distractions of worldly things, to cleave to God, the inexhaustible source
of every good.12
In the fullest sense of the term, therefore, faith is God's gift. Hence it
is for man to treasure and preserve it. Until we see God face to face the
mind will be restive, and temptations to doubt will be frequent. The will
must be prompt to reject them, and in this task man has always the abundant
help of God's grace. He who has once committed himself to the keeping of
God's Truth need not fear that he will be deserted in time of temptation.
But he must do his part. He must take all those measures which are humanly
possible to guard his treasure against attack. The mind of man is fickle;
error seduces by its very novelty, sophistical reasoning by its display of
ingenuity. The Church, therefore, while she encourages her more learned
children to study, in order to refute, the written works of those who
attack the faith, wisely forbids the dissemination, and above all the
indiscriminate reading, of such books She knows well that many who have the
intelligence to understand an objection have not the ability to find, or
even to understand, its answer; that not all the faithful have the leisure
or the power to meet reason with reason and learning with learning, and to
rebut the objections so lightly made.
Those of the faithful who are troubled with such difficulties will do well
to meditate upon these infallible words of the Vatican Council: "Although
faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between
faith and reason; since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses
faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, and God cannot
deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth. The false appearance of
such contradiction is mainly due, either to the dogmas of faith not having
been understood and expounded according to the mind of the Church, or to
the inventions of opinion having been taken for the verdicts of reason."13
A further duty regarding perseverance in faith arises from what was said in
the previous section. It was there established that in order that the act
of faith may be reasonably made it is sufficient to have a conviction
concerning the preambles which, relatively to the circumstances of the
individual, is prudent. But what is the duty of the child, for instance,
when he grows to manhood and discovers-- as he may--that the motives upon
which he relied for his judgment of credibility no longer satisfy him ? Is
he to give up his faith until he has once more gone over the preliminary
ground and satisfied himself concerning the preambles ?
The answer of the Church as far as Catholics are concerned is peremptory: a
Catholic can never have a just reason for abandoning the faith that he has
once embraced. And the first reason of this is that the Catholic has
constantly before him an absolutely, and not merely a relatively,
sufficient motive of credibility--namely the Church herself, divinely
instituted, and assuring her children "that the faith which they profess
rests on the most secure foundation."14 The second reason is that faith is
not only a supernatural gift of God, but is accompanied by the graces
necessary to preserve it God's providence will not allow the faithful to
lack the helps which they need to protect their faith. The ever-watchful
Father, to whom his children daily pray, "Lead us not into temptation,"
will never allow them to be in such circumstances that the loss of their
faith would be inculpable. Whatever be the greater or lesser degree of
blame that may attach in individual cases, whatever be the mysterious means
that God may use to protect his faithful ones, it is certain that " God
does not abandon us until we first abandon him."15
It is clear, then, that in this matter the Catholic has serious duties. Not
only must he avoid temptations against the faith, not only must he pray for
an increase of faith, but he is bound to take care that his mental
development in secular branches of study shall be accompanied by equal
development in the knowledge of his religion. If he feels difficulties
regarding fundamentals it is his duty to inquire of those who are able to
solve them; and here he needs a humility of mind which recognizes that what
he does not know is well known to many others. There can be little doubt
that many defections from the Church are due to a culpable lack of
knowledge--culpable because the ordinary means of information upon this
important matter, whether they be Catholic books, sermons, or instructions,
have been culpably neglected.
But it is otherwise for those who belong to non-Catholic religious bodies.
None of these possesses, or indeed claims exclusively to possess, those
characteristic marks of divine institution which so clearly distinguish the
Catholic Church. Although members of such bodies may indeed assent by
divine faith to some truths which are revealed by God, yet that very grace
of faith, which strengthens Catholics in their adherence to the Church
which Christ has instituted as the pillar and the ground of truth, will
lead others to correct their errors and to submit to the infallible teacher
of God's word. The essential difference in this matter between the position
of Catholics and that of others is that whereas other religious bodies do
not claim to be divinely instituted as the only infallible teacher of
divine revelation, Catholics by their very faith profess that the Church is
their divinely appointed guide. As Tertullian said to the unbelievers of
his day, " We need no curious searchings, when we have Jesus Christ; we
need no further inquiry, when we have the gospel. When we believe, we need
to believe nothing more. For this we believe at the very beginning, that
there is nothing more to believe."16
A word in conclusion on the necessity of the act of faith. That in all
adults a supernatural act of divine faith is necessary as an indispensable
means of salvation is the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and may be
readily inferred from all that has been said concerning faith and
supernatural revelation. The primary truth of that revelation is that man
is called to a supernatural destiny which consists in the vision of God
face to face. Of this destiny man could know nothing without revelation,
and knowing nothing could never strive for it. Hence, in all who are able
to act rationally and to think for themselves the first and indispensable
step towards salvation is their recognition, by an act of divine faith, of
God as their supernatural end. " Without faith," says St Paul, " it is
impossible to please God." 17That act of faith, it is clear, must embrace
at least implicitly every truth that God has revealed, for the motive of
faith, the authority of God, applies equally to them all. As to the minimum
that must be known, and therefore believed explicitly, so that even its
inculpable ignorance would exclude from the hope of salvation, it is
commonly held that the two truths mentioned by St Paul18 are sufficient:
"He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and is a rewarder of them
that seek him." But however few, however many be the truths believed, they
must be accepted by an act of faith strictly so called. It is not enough,
therefore, to hold, simply because one thinks it reasonable to hold, that
there is a God who will reward those who seek him. It is necessary for
salvation to hold this because God has revealed it, whatever be the means
by which God's word has been made known. And the reason is that the reward
which is in store for man is a reward which he could never have expected
without God's revelation.
But apart from exceptional cases, it is normally necessary to know and to
believe explicitly far more than the two truths mentioned, for Christ has
instituted his Church to teach all that God has revealed. And this brings
us to the subject of the next section.
n1. Cf. the oath against Modernism: "Faith ... is a true act of the
intellect."
n2. "S. Theol.," II-II, Q, I, art. 4 ad 2.
n3. Heb. xi. I.
n4. This, of course, is true only of those preambles of which rational
demonstration is given. If the preambles are accepted--as they often are--
on human testimony, then the function of the will is the same as in every
act of faith, whether human or divine.
n5. The act of faith, therefore, involves an act of trust, of confidence in
God's authority. But this trust is not the act of faith itself; it is
anterior to it because it belongs to the motive of my assent. As a
consequence of my faith in what God has revealed I may then make a further
act of confidence in God that he pardons my sins; this is an act of hope.
The Protestant error concerning the "faith that justifies" consists in
confusing hope with the faith which it presupposes. But see Essay xvi:
"Sanctifying Grace," p. 550.
n6. Chapter iii.
n7. Here a preliminary remark may not be out of place. As in many matters
of theology, where it is a question of explanations, so in this matter
theologians differ. The explanation of the act of faith involves the
science of psychology which, although, or perhaps because, it deals with
ourselves, is full of difficulties and mysteries. It is fair, therefore, to
warn the reader that while all Catholics are agreed--as they must be--that
the motive of faith is the authority of God, not all are agreed as to the
manner in which this should be explained. The view here put forward appears
to the writer a reasonable one, and is held by many theologians of repute.
n8. Matt. xix 3.
n9. Mark x 15.
n10. I John v 9-l0.
n11. I Ephes. ii 8.
n12. The effects which, in those who have the supernatural virtue of faith,
proceed from that virtue are produced in others by actual grace. Cf. Essay
xviii: "The Supernatural Virtues," p. 643.
n13. Chapter iv.
n14. Vatican Council, loc. cit., chap. iii.
n15. St Augustine, "De natura et gratia," c. 26.
n16. "De praeser., c. 8.
n17. Heb. xi 6.
n18. Loc. cit.
VI: THE CHURCH AND THE OBJECT OF FAITH
A necessary condition for the act of faith, as we have seen, is that the
believer should know what God has revealed; the object of faith must be
presented to him as credible on the divine authority. But it is evident
that, so far as the act of divine faith as such is concerned, it matters
little by what means it is thus presented. The study of Jewish and
Christian literature simply as historical documents may convince a person
that certain doctrines are revealed by God; in that case he is bound to
believe such doctrines on the authority of God's word. There are
undoubtedly many outside the Catholic Church who, inculpably rejecting or
not knowing her claim to be the infallible guardian of divine truth, yet
believe some Christian doctrines by a supernatural act of divine faith.
They have their motives of credibility, they have the assistance of God's
grace; they have, in short, all that is necessary for the act of divine
faith which we have described.1
But--and the antithesis is to be noted--these are exceptional cases They
presuppose inculpable ignorance of the Catholic Church, the divinely-
appointed means for the teaching of revealed truth. Although by God's
admirable mercy many outside the Church are enabled providentially to
believe some small part of that divine doctrine, yet these must be content,
as it were, with crumbs from the table of that rich repast which is spread
for those who dwell within. " That we may be able to satisfy the obligation
of embracing the true faith and of constantly persevering therein, God has
instituted the Church through his only-begotten Son, and has bestowed on it
manifest marks of that institution, that it may be recognized by all men as
the guardian and teacher of the revealed word."2 This, then, is the way of
approach to God's truth which Christ himself has ordained: a visible Church
with a living teaching authority, infallible because the Holy Ghost is with
her, preserving her from error.3
The revelation made to the Apostles, by Christ and by the Holy Spirit whom
he sent to teach them all truth, was final, definitive. To that body of
revealed truth nothing has been, or ever will be, added. The duty of the
Apostles and their successors was clear: to guard jealously the precious
thing committed to their care and to transmit it whole and entire to
posterity. "Therefore, brethren," says St Paul, " stand fast, and hold the
traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle."4
"Hold the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and in
the love which is in Christ Jesus . . . The things which thou hast heard of
me by many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to
teach others also."5 Hence this important consequence: when the Church
teaches that a truth--e.g., the doctrine of original sin--is revealed by
God, she does not mean that God has just now revealed it to her; but, in
virtue of her office as the infallible custodian and interpreter of God's
word, she declares that this truth is contained, and always has been
contained, in the deposit of revelation committed to her care. In other
words, when the Church teaches a revealed truth she draws upon the "
sources " of revelation.
What are these sources ? It would be true, in a sense, to say that there is
but one source of revelation--namely, divine Tradition --understanding
thereby the body of revealed truth handed down from the Apostles; and it is
in this sense that St Paul uses the word when he urges Timothy to " hold
the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle."
Nevertheless, since a great and important part of that tradition was
committed to writing and is contained in the inspired books of Holy
Scripture, it is the custom of the Church to distinguish two sources of
revelation, Tradition and Scripture, the former name being reserved for
that body of revealed truth which was not committed to writing under the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost, but has been handed down through the living
teaching authority of the Catholic Church. We must deal briefly with each.
And first, that oral tradition is a source of revelation distinct from
Scripture there is little need to demonstrate. The manner in which Christ
instituted his Church is a sufficient indication of this. He instituted a
visible society to the rulers of which he gave power to teach infallibly;
in other words, he founded a living teaching authority. He may indeed have
given his Apostles instructions to write some account of his life on earth,
and of the chief points of his teaching; but the Gospels themselves do not
tell us so. At any rate not all of them did, or if they did their writings
have not come down to us. But he told them explicitly to preach the gospel
to every creature; and the accounts that we have of the early apostolic
ministry--and the Pauline texts above quoted--show that it was by oral
instruction that the revealed word of God was chiefly propagated. St Paul,
in fact, presupposes as a necessary prerequisite for faith the hearing of
the word and the preaching of the gospel.6
The Tradition which is a source of revelation is divine Tradition; and this
differs from human tradition not only because it is of divine origin, but
also in that, unlike its human counterpart, it is divinely guaranteed
against corruption and alteration. Daily experience offers examples of
statements which, made to one person and by him related to another who, in
his turn, relying partly on a faulty memory and largely on a vivid
imagination, relates them with embellishments to a friend, are brought back
to the original speaker mutilated, mangled, and unrecognizable. Divine
Tradition is authoritative and infallible; infallible because
authoritative--that is, transmitted through the teaching authority of the
Church, under the assistance of the Holy Ghost.
Circumstances may demand that the Church should exercise her teaching
office in a solemn manner, either by an infallible pronouncement of the
Head of the Church, by the definitions of an Ecumenical Council, or by the
authoritative proposition of some creed or formula of belief; all such
statements of doctrine form a part of divine Tradition. Ordinarily,
however, the Church teaches the faithful through their more immediate
legitimate pastors, and their universal consensus on a point of doctrine--
expressed either in official pronouncements, in catechisms issued by
episcopal authority, or through other channels--is an organ of divine
Tradition. Similarly the universal practice of the Church, if it
essentially implies a dogmatic truth, is a source of divine revelation.
Thus St Augustine rightly pointed to the universal practice of the Church
of baptizing children as an indication that the doctrine of original sin is
divinely revealed. Moreover, many of the theologians of the early centuries
of the Church, conspicuous for their sanctity and learning, are called "
Fathers." The consensus of these, similarly, considered as witnesses to the
general belief of the Church, is an indication that the truth which they
unanimously hold to be divinely revealed is in fact a part of the deposit
of faith. The same is true of the consensus of later theologians. For
although neither Fathers nor theologians as such represent the teaching
authority of the Church, yet they are witnesses to the universal belief of
the faithful which is the result of that teaching. Hence, finally, the
belief of the faithful themselves, expressed unanimously, is a further
indication that a truth is contained in the deposit of faith. For the
faithful, considered as a body, believe infallibly what they have been
infallibly taught.
The other source of revelation is Sacred Scripture. The books of the Old
and New Testaments are held by the Church as sacred, not merely because
they contain revealed doctrine, not merely because they are free from
error, but because they are the work of God himself. God is their author.
This is not the place in which to deal with the important subject of
inspiration; it is treated fully elsewhere in this work.7 Suffice it to
note here that inspiration is a supernatural work of God. Hence we can know
nothing of it except from revelation. No natural perfection of a book--
e.g., the fact that it contains true and holy doctrines, that its perusal
gives rise to pious thoughts--can show it to have been written under the
supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit. We can know that God is the
author of a book only through the testimony either of God himself, or of
the writer whom he has used as his instrument, provided that he was
conscious of being divinely inspired. In the latter case, unless the sacred
writer is able to present divine credentials for his assertion, the
testimony is but human and fallible. Whether, therefore, in regard to
inspiration in general--that there do in fact exist divinely inspired
books, or in regard to the canonicity of the sacred books--that this or
that book is divinely inspired, our sure and infallible knowledge can come
only from divine revelation. Now we have seen that the complete divine
revelation is transmitted to us from Christ through the Apostles in the
divine Tradition of the Church. Hence the only certain guide as t-o the
inspiration and canonicity of all the books of Sacred Scripture is the
authoritative pronouncement of the Church. " I should not believe the
gospel," says St Augustine, " unless I were impelled thereto by the
authority of the Catholic Church."8 Moreover, since the Church is the
divinely appointed custodian of revelation, it is evidently her office to
preserve not merely the letter of the Scriptures, but also their meaning.
The Church, therefore, is the authentic and infallible interpreter of
Scripture. Nevertheless, this intimate connection between Tradition and
Scripture does not imply that the inspired writings are not a source of
revelation distinct from the oral Tradition which transmits them to us. The
Church, infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost, tells us what God has
revealed. In the Scriptures it is God himself who gives us his revelation.
But so deep is the reverence in which the Church holds the inspired word of
God that she guards it most jealously, encouraging scholars, indeed, in
their endeavors more profoundly to penetrate its meaning, but keeping upon
them a salutary check, lest human ingenuity should corrupt the wisdom that
is divine.
These, then, are the two sources of divine revelation: Tradition preserved
by the living and infallible teaching authority of the Church, and
Scripture, the inspired word of God: sources of truth which the Church
preserves pure and undefiled, and from which she derives that divine
revelation which she proposes for belief in all ages.
What the Church, therefore, teaches as divinely revealed, that most
certainly is revealed by God and must be believed on the divine authority.
These truths, revealed by God--i.e., contained in Tradition or in
Scripture, or in both, and taught by the Church either in her solemn
definitions or in her ordinary teaching--are called by the technical name
of dogmas.
A little reflection will serve to show that the act of faith by which a
Catholic believes the dogmas of the Church does not differ essentially from
the act of divine faith. The motive of faith is always the authority of God
who reveals. Yet such an act of faith has an additional perfection, in
that, besides accepting the authority of God, it includes also submission
to the Catholic Church as the infallible and authentic interpreter of
revelation. This act of faith is therefore called by the special name of "
divine and catholic " faith. It is divine because its motive is the divine
authority; it is catholic because the truth is accepted as divinely
revealed on the authority of the infallible Catholic Church.
But the infallible authority of the Church is by no means confined to the
teaching of "dogmas." The Church is not only the teacher of revealed truth,
she is also its guardian; and in the office of protecting God's truth
against error she needs to pronounce infallibly upon many matters which,
although they are not formally revealed by God, are nevertheless intimately
connected with revelation. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that
Catholics are bound under pain of grave sin to believe the truths thus
infallibly taught by the Church. They are not dogmas, indeed, because in
themselves they have not been revealed by God. Hence the motive of the
assent which we give to them is not the divine authority. We believe them
on the authority of the Catholic Church, inasmuch as she is exercising her
office of guardian of revealed truth, an office committed to her by God
himself. Evidently, therefore, refusal to believe them would be a serious
sin against the virtue of faith.9
Having thus duly stressed the strict duty of Catholics in this matter, we
may now proceed, without fear of being misunderstood, to explain more fully
the important distinction between what for purposes of convenience I will
call these " secondary truths," and " dogmas " in the proper sense of the
word. The distinction is important for at least three reasons, for upon it
depends the understanding (1) of what is meant by " heresy," (2) of what is
meant by the " immutability " of Catholic dogma, and (3) of the
restrictions placed upon theological discussion. The third point will be
dealt with in the last section; of the first it is sufficient to say that "
heresy " is the willful denial of a dogma;10 with the second we must deal
here more fully.
A dogma, then, as opposed to a secondary truth, is a truth contained " in
the word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a
solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal teaching, proposes for
belief as having divinely been revealed."11 That the sources of revelation
are two has already been sufficiently emphasized. Two points, however, in
this definition need to be explained, since the neglect of either may lead
to the exaggeration or to the undue limitation of the field of dogma.
In the first place the truth must be contained in either of the sources of
revelation. That is to say, it must have been revealed by God either
expressly or in equivalent words--i.e., as the theologians say, "
formally." Hence from the field of dogma properly so called are to be
excluded those truths which are only connected--however intimately--with
revelation. Thus a truth which is deduced by human reasoning from revealed
truth--a theological conclusion-- even though it may be infallibly taught
by the Church and therefore binding on our assent, is not a dogma. Thus
varying practical or devotional applications of revealed truths are not
dogmas; the infallible decisions of the Church on points of historical
fact, such as the ecumenicity of certain Councils, though they are closely
connected with revealed truth, are not, properly speaking, dogmas. Nor does
the use of certain philosophical terms in the proposition of revealed
truths consecrate as a dogma any tenet proper to that philosophical system.
On the other hand, a truth, to be a dogma, need not be contained expressly
in the sources of revelation. It is sufficient that it be revealed at least
in equivalent words. Thus if two statements are revealed which together
involve a third, then that third is revealed equivalently. If, for example,
it is expressly revealed that man has free-will, and that Christ has a true
human nature, then it is equivalently revealed that Christ has free-will.
In this and many similar instances the third proposition is not deduced by
human reasoning, but gathered directly from the meaning of what God has
revealed.
In the second place, it is to be observed that to be a dogma a revealed
truth need not be solemnly defined by the Church. It is sufficient, as the
Church herself has repeatedly declared, that it be proposed as being
divinely revealed in her ordinary official teaching. But this at least is
necessary. Hence, regularly, a private revelation --i.e., a revelation made
by God for the benefit of one individual or group of individuals--binds
only those to whom and for whom it is made. It is not intended for all the
faithful, it is not accompanied by any divine guarantee that it will be
transmitted to others without adulteration, nor is it, as such, contained
in the deposit of faith committed to the Church. The approbation granted by
the Church to these revelations means nothing more than " permission, given
after due examination, to publish them for the edification and utility of
the faithful."12 Moreover, by such approbation the Church does not--at any
rate infallibly--guarantee even their authenticity.13 Truths so revealed
form no part of the dogmatic teaching of the Church.
Having thus, so far as space allows, cleared the ground of misconceptions,
we may now answer the questions: What is the meaning of the immutability of
Catholic dogma ? Does it in any way develop ?
The answer to the first question is contained in what has already been
said. The revelation of Christ is definitive. He, with the Holy Spirit whom
he sent, has revealed to his Apostles all truth. But a dogma, as we have
seen, is a truth which is contained in that revelation. Therefore dogma, in
the sense that it proposes for belief no truth which was not thus revealed
to the Apostles and by them handed down to the Church, is immutable.
But undoubtedly a certain development is to be admitted. The subject is
most complex and demands a far fuller treatment than can possibly be
accorded it in the present essay; we must be content with the merest
outline. In the first place clearly any "development" must be excluded from
dogma which would result in the adulteration of the original meaning of
God's revealed word. This would be incompatible with the immutability
already established. Thus the view that dogmas, being mere symbols to
represent the evolution of the universal religious consciousness, may in
course of time come to mean the opposite of what they meant before; the
view that dogmas develop in the sense that they are re-stated--and this
often means contradicted--to suit the practical or scientific needs of the
age; these and similar views must be definitely rejected as incompatible
with the essential immutability of divine revelation.
How, then, does dogma develop ? Albertus Magnus14 succinctly describes this
development as "the progress of the faithful in the faith, rather than of
the faith within the faithful." In other words, the whole of revealed truth
is contained in the sources of revelation, but in the course of ages it has
undergone, and still undergoes, a process of "unfolding," whereby the
faithful, under the infallible guidance of the Church assisted by the Holy
Ghost, arrive at a fuller understanding of the truths which God has
revealed. Of this "unfolding" process, however, the cause is not the
understanding of the faithful, but the infallible teaching authority of the
Catholic Church.
It is inevitable, in the nature of things, that a body of truth committed
to human understanding should undergo a process of development. The truth
is apprehended by the mind now under one aspect, now under another; every
new point of view is a development. A universal truth contains implicitly
its application to many individual cases; every such application is a
development. The human mind relates one statement to another by a logical
sequence, and thus is enabled more fully to understand them both; the
fuller understanding of truth is a development. Such development occurs in
every science. But there is this important difference in regard to revealed
truth, that whereas in human science progress is made from the totally
unknown to the known, often from error to truth and vice versa, in the
development of dogma there are no such vicissitudes, because the only cause
of development in Catholic dogma is the infallible teaching of the Church.
Theologians may study revealed truth, may find new modes of expression, may
discover or set into clearer relief new implications thereof; the denial of
a truth by heretics may orientate discussion towards aspects of the truth
hitherto but little studied; old formulas may be found to be not false, but
no longer adequate, in consequence of misunderstanding or misconstruction,
for the controversial needs of the day; the devotion of the faithful may
lead to a greater emphasis being laid upon certain aspects of the truth.
But when all is said and done, it is the Church, assisted by the Holy
Ghost, that unfolds the truth, since, until she has embodied in her
official teaching the results of theological study or of devotional
impulse, there is no development in Catholic dogma.
To illustrate this development of revealed truth " in one and the same
doctrine, one and the same judgement,"15 many examples might be taken from
history. One characteristic instance must suffice. The dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Lady was solemnly defined by Pope Pius
IX in the year 1854. It was defined, not as a conclusion drawn from
revealed doctrine, but as being contained in the revealed word of God. And,
in fact, if we examine the sources of Revelation (Scripture and Tradition)
we find that this is so. In the Scriptures, as interpreted by Tradition,
this truth is implicitly contained in the statement that Mary is " full "
of grace, that between her and Satan there is complete enmity, such that
she could never have been under Satan's power. During the first three
centuries we find in Tradition the constant teaching--as a doctrine
divinely revealed--that Mary is the new Eve, that she plays a part in the
Redemption analogous to that which Eve had played in the Fall--i.e., that
she is ever on the side of the Redeemer against sin. Hence the Fathers
teach that she is all-pure, so much so that St Augustine, in spite of his
insistence against the Pelagians upon the natural sinfulness of mankind,
yet refuses to mention the name of Mary in connection with sin. With the
impetus given to devotion to our Lady by the Council of Ephesus we find
lyrical outbursts, especially among the Eastern Fathers, extolling the
purity of our Lady, and--from the seventh century onwards--not infrequent
mention of the feast of her Conception. Differences of opinion among the
theologians of the Middle Ages as to the precise essence of original sin
prevented many of them from explicitly exempting our Lady from this
hereditary taint; but with the clearer understanding of that doctrine came
the explicit statement and universal belief that not for one moment of her
existence was our Lady stained with original sin.
The history of this dogma is very instructive as showing how a particular
truth, implicitly contained from the very beginning in a more general one,
may, under the successive influence of theological study, devotional
impulse, and even theological disagreement, come to be explicitly
understood, universally believed, and, in the end, solemnly defined by the
Church.
But the dogmas of the Church, though they are the most important part of
her doctrine, form but a part of her infallible teaching. Besides dogmas
strictly so called, our heritage includes a wealth of doctrine derived from
revealed truth, the fruit, in great measure, of the loving meditation of
our forefathers in the faith and of the devoted study of theologians.
n1. See Essay xvii: "Actual Grace," pp. 605 ff.
n2. Vatican Council, loc. cit., chap. iii.
n3. Cf. Essay xx: "The Church on Earth," pp. 711 ff.
n4. 2 Thess. ii 14.
n5. 2 Tim. i 13; ii. 2.
n6. Cf. Rom. x 14-17
n7. Essay v: "The Holy Ghost," pp. 166-179.
n8. "Contra ep. fundament.," c. 5: With regard to some books of Scripture
that revelation may be found in Scripture itself, where we find the
testimony of Christ and his Apostles to the inspiration of many of the
books of the Old Testament. Moreover, it may still be not unnecessary--
although it has been done so often before--to point out that the Catholic
is not guilty of a vicious circle in arguing "from the Bible to the Church
and from the Church to the Bible." The Catholic apologist does indeed argue
(partly, not entirely) from data found in the Bible to the divine
institution of the Catholic Church; but at this stage he does not use the
Bible as inspired, but simply as a trustworthy historical document. The
logical sequence, therefore, is not simply "from the Bible to the Church
and from the Church to the Bible," but rather from a trustworthy Bible to a
divinely instituted Church. Then follows an act of faith (made on the
authority of God and under the direction of his Church) in the inspiration
of the Bible.
n9. Cf. Essay xviii: "The Supernatural Virtues," p. 645. Since the motive
of this assent is the authority of the Church, such faith is called "
ecclesiastical."
n10. Ibid., p. 644.
n11. Vatican Council, loc. cit., chap. iii.
n12. Benedict XIV: "De Beatif.," etc., lib. 2, C. 32.
n13. Pius X: Encyclical "Pascendi."
n14. Quoted by Franzelin: "De Divina Traditione" . . . p. 260.
n15. Vatican Council, loc. cit., chap. iv, quoting Vincent of Lerins:
"Common.," n. 28.
VII: THEOLOGY
Theology may be briefly described as the science of revealed truth.
Presupposing revelation and faith, it applies the scientific method to the
study of revealed truth. The theologian not only accepts the truths which
God has revealed, but he links them together in their logical sequence,
showing the connection of one with another, their mutual harmony and their
analogy with the conclusions of human reason. Nor does he deal only with
revelation as such; by applying to revealed truth the principles of human
reasoning he deduces conclusions, and these in their turn he links up with
other conclusions and with other revealed truths, thus forming a complete
and harmonious system.
The chief sources used by theology are, clearly, the sources of Revelation:
Scripture and Tradition. The theologian shows how the various dogmas of the
Church are contained therein, traces their development from implicit to
explicit belief, the different aspects under which they have been studied
at different periods of the Church's history, and deals with the heresies
and the controversies that have arisen in regard to each. But he does not
confine his study of Tradition to the truths which have always been
believed as revealed by God. He investigates the conclusions which in the
past have been drawn from revealed truth, testing the consensus of Fathers
and theologians concerning them as a criterion of their accuracy, and as
indicating the common belief of the faithful on matters closely connected
with revelation.
Like other sciences, theology has its subsidiary sources. Chief among these
is philosophy, by means of which the theologian is able not only to
demonstrate the preambles of faith, not only to show that the data of
revelation are in perfect harmony with the conclusions of human reason, but
also to gain a most "fruitful understanding even of mysteries." These must,
of course, remain veiled in a certain obscurity as long as we walk "by
faith"; yet by the aid of philosophy the theologian vindicates their
reasonable character, defends them against the accusation of absurdity, and
is able to learn much of their meaning. As we have already seen,1 the terms
in which mysteries are revealed are familiar to us. Philosophy enables the
theologian to define more accurately the meaning of those terms, and in
this way to acquire a better understanding of the mystery itself.
But philosophy, though useful in theology, is subsidiary, and must take a
subordinate place. There comes a stage in the study of mysteries where the
philosopher must bow his head and be content, and even rejoice, to walk by
faith alone. Moreover, he must submit to learn from revelation the limits
of his own science. If a philosophical tenet is found to be in
contradiction with a revealed truth, then the philosopher must retrace his
steps to see where he has wrongly reasoned. To this extent the theologian
must always argue a priori. If a truth is certainly revealed by God--and
that, through the infallible teaching of the Church, he can always
ascertain--then any human conclusion or hypothesis, whether it be
philosophical, historical, or scientific, which contradicts it, is most
certainly erroneous. The theologian, on the other hand, must beware lest in
such matters he himself introduce confusion by expounding the word of God
otherwise than the Church understands it.2
Similarly other sciences, especially history and the natural sciences, are
used as subsidiary in theology. These are valuable as supplying knowledge
concerning the created universe, and particularly concerning the nature of
man, the most noble of God's visible creatures. But they too must be used
under conditions and safeguards analogous to those already described. It
has been said before, but it is worth while repeating, that between the
natural revelation which God has made of his perfections in the universe
and the supernatural revelation which he has given us through his Church,
there can be no real contradiction. In God's providence the one is
complementary to the other.
One important observation must be made before we conclude. Theologians are
fallible and therefore they differ. In the essays of the series of which
this is the first, there will be set forth not only the dogmas of the
Church, not only quite certain theological conclusions which, since they
are taught by the infallible Church, must be accepted by " ecclesiastical "
faith,3 not only more remote conclusions which, by reason of the common
consent of theologians, it would be " rash " to deny, but also other
statements, intended to explain, to amplify, or philosophically to justify
some doctrine of the Church, statements which have not the same infallible
certainty. On these matters, in which the integrity or the security of
revealed truth is not in question, theologians enjoy freedom of discussion.
Upon such controversies, since the sincere object of the participants is
the fuller understanding of revealed truth, the Church looks with no
unfavorable eye, solicitous ever to promote charity among the disputants
with that single-minded desire for truth, and loving appreciation of the
word of God, which are the heart and soul of theology.
n1. P. 7.
n2. Cf. above, Section V.
n3. See above, Section VI.
