A Jesuit and His Faith
Frederick C. Copleston, SJ (1907-1994)
by William Doino, Jr.
In its long and illustrious history, the Society of Jesus has
produced many outstanding figures who have made a unique impact
upon Western culture. One thinks of the Society's founder and
leader, Ignatius of Loyola; the great missionary and 'Apostle of
the Indies,' Francis Xavier; the famed Catholic apologist and
bishop, Robert Bellarmine; St. Isaac Jogues and the North American
martyrs; and the eminent poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is
undoubtedly true that the twentieth century, with its rampant
secularism, has proven less fertile ground for the role of such
men. Yet even here, numerous Jesuits have risen to modernity's
challenge, and brought the treasures of Christianity to an
unbelieving world. One such priest was Fr. Frederick C. Copleston,
SJ, who recently passed into eternal life at the age of 83.
Born on April 10, 1907 in Taunton, England, the future Jesuit was
the son of Frederick Selwyn Copleston, a distinguished judge, and
his demure wife, Nora. Both adherents to the Church of England,
they raised their son to be a strict Anglican; so it came as quite
a shock to both when Frederick Jr., soon after reaching his
eighteenth birthday, announced he would be entering the Church of
Rome. The elder Copleston was so appalled by this decision that he
threatened to disown his son; fortunately, his anger soon passed,
and he saw to it that Frederick Jr. received a proper education at
Oxford University. Upon graduating in 1929, the young Copleston
entered the Society of Jesus; he was ordained a priest in 1937.
Always concerned with the deeper questions about life, Copleston
became a professor of philosophy and joined the faculty of
London's Heythrop College in 1939. It was there, where Fr.
Copleston taught for over thirty years, that he undertook the
project that was to forge his reputation: the nine-volume <A
History of Philosophy>, which covers the entire span of philosophy
from ancient Greece to the present day. So lucid and superb are
Copleston's explanations of the most complex intellectual matters
that his work is still the first place many philosophy students go
to comprehend their subject. Indeed, the nine books that
constitute <A History of Philosophy> are as popular today as when
they first appeared, if not more so. As <The Washington Post Book
World> recently commented: "Copleston's volumes are still the
place to start for anyone interested in following man's
speculations about himself and his world."
Fr. Copleston's intellectual achievements earned him many
accolades and honors throughout his career, including visiting
professorships at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome
(1952-1968), and the University of Santa Clara (1974-1982);
selection as a lecturer for the British Council in nine European
countries; and membership in the Royal Institute of Philosophy,
the Aristotelian Society and the British Academy. Remarkably,
despite a full-time schedule of teaching, lecturing and writing
his <History>, Fr. Copleston found time to publish separate
studies on <Nietzsche> (1942), <Schopenhauer> (1946) and <Aquinas>
(1955), as well as volumes entitled <Contemporary Philosophy:
Studies of Logical Positivism and Existentialism> (1956); <A
History of Medieval Philosophy> (1972); <Religion and Philosophy>
(1974); <Philosophers and Philosophies> (1976); <On the History of
Philosophy> (1979); <Philosophies and Culture> (1980); <Religion
and the One> (1982) and <Philosophy in Russia> (1986).
Shortly before his death, Fr. Copleston received the Queen's
"Commander of the British Empire" honor (1993), and also published
his long-awaited <Memoirs> (Sheed and Ward, 1993). It is in this
latter, autobiographical work that we discover Fr. Copleston's
profound spirituality, and learn of his lifelong commitment to
Catholic orthodoxy.
Spanning the greater part of the twentieth century, these
<Memoirs> provide a moving and fascinating account of Fr.
Copleston's eventful life. He begins by recalling the earliest
reservations he had about the Church of England, which coincided
with his growing interest in the Church of Rome.
When I was still a boy... about fourteen or possibly fifteen... I
wrote an essay in which I castigated the Church of England for
reducing Christianity to bourgeois mediocrity and for failing to
uphold the ideals of the New Testament. I do not remember
precisely what I wrote, but I have no doubt that I compared the
Church of England with Catholicism to the former's
disadvantage.... My main point was that though the Church of Rome
certainly had its dark aspects (Torquemada, the fires of
Smithfield, some of the Popes, and so on), it had at any rate
upheld ideals of sanctity and otherworldliness and had not equated
true religion with being an English gentleman. At the time I had
not heard of Kierkegaard, but my line of thought bore some
similarity to his in his attack on the State Church of Denmark.
The reference here to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard is
relevant, since his famous blasts against his country's Lutheran
establishment were frequently contrasted with his high regard for
the Catholic Church.
Indeed, Kierkegaard's biographer, Walter Lowrie, as well as Fr.
Henri de Lubac, maintain that the officially Lutheran Kierkegaard
was in many respects <Catholic>-at least in thought, if not in
practice-and that he would have converted had he not died so
young, or been placed in different circumstances. As Fr. de Lubac
comments:
In spite of... a body of thought strongly marked with the heritage
of the Reformation, M. Paul Petit observes that, in the last years
of his short life, Kierkegaard seems to have increasingly followed
a course which was clearly taking him towards positions not far
removed from Catholicism. He is ready to admit, in the realm of
critics like Brandes and Hoffding, that if Kierkegaard had been
born later he would have been a Catholic.... That, with slight
shades of difference, is the contention of the Rev. Fr. Przywara
also. In his book <Das Geheimnis Kierkegaards> he "proposes to
show that in Kierkegaard an anonymous Catholicism is to be found";
by his call for objective authority and by his views on the
ordination of priests as an intermediate objective authority,
Kierkegaard is asserted to have crossed the border-line of
Lutheranism and pointed the way to "Holy Mother Church."
It was precisely this "objective authority" that Fr. Copleston
found in the Catholic Church; an authority that he eventually
recognized as emanating from the will of Christ. He writes: "It
seemed to me that if Christ was truly the Son of God and if He
founded a Church to teach all nations in His name, it must be a
Church teaching with authority, as her Master did. Obviously, one
might deny that Christ was the Son of God, and one might reject
the claim that He founded a Church. But if these two claims were
accepted, it seemed to me that in spite of all its faults the
Roman Catholic Church was the only one which could reasonably be
thought to have developed out of what Christ established."
Ultimately, what played a decisive role in Fr. Copleston's
conversion was the spiritual pull he felt toward the Catholic
saints and mystics. "St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross
opened up for me vistas of a new world, which exercised a powerful
attraction on my mind," he writes. "I was indeed aware ... that
some Anglicans had written profoundly spiritual works. At the same
time it seemed to me that mystical religion was a foreign body, so
to speak, in the Church of England, and that religiously inclined
Anglicans were inclined to turn to Catholic writings, such as the
<Imitation of Christ> and books by Pere Grou. The atmosphere or
tone of Anglicanism, as I had experienced it... seemed to me to be
far removed from the sort of ideals which had been exhibited in a
concrete manner in the lives of Catholic saints."
Father Copleston's reflections on the Anglican and Catholic
communities call to mind those once voiced by John Henry Newman.
Shortly before his conversion, Newman remarked: "If the Roman
Catholic Church is not the Church of Christ, there never was a
Church established by Him." Later, as an esteemed Catholic
prelate, Newman wrote: "From the time I became a Catholic, I have
been at perfect peace and contentment. It was like coming into
port after a rough sea." Despite such clear and unequivocal
statements, Cardinal Newman often had to endure rumors and
insinuations-planted by disgruntled Anglicans-that his conversion
was insincere. When the London <Globe> published a report
suggesting that he had become disillusioned with Catholicism, and
was preparing to return to the Church of England, the Cardinal
could take no more, and retaliated in kind. In a widely publicized
statement, he declared: "I have not had one moment's wavering of
trust in the Catholic Church ever since I was received into her
fold. I have no intention, and never had any intention, of leaving
the Catholic Church and becoming a Protestant again. And I hereby
profess <ex animo> with an absolute internal assent and consent
that the thought of an Anglican service makes me shiver, and the
thought of the Thirty-Nine Articles makes me shudder. Return to
the Church of England! No! I should be a consummate fool (to use a
mild term) if in my old age I left 'the land flowing with milk and
honey' for the city of confusion and the house of bondage."
In his Memoirs, Fr. Copleston makes his commitment to Rome equally
clear, albeit in a less combative fashion: "If anyone feels
prompted to ask whether I have ever thought seriously of returning
to the Church of England, the answer... is a decided 'no.' ...I
have great respect for sincere Anglicans, whether clerical or lay,
and I have been much impressed by devoted Nonconformist and
Presbyterian Christians whom I have come across. But I still
believe that the centre of Christian unity is to be found in the
Catholic Church, and that though Anglicanism certainly has a
contribution to make to Christian life (as, indeed, have other
Christian religious bodies too), this contribution should be made
through some form of real communion with the Holy See."
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Copleston's <Memoirs> is
his description of how he was able to maintain his religious faith
despite encountering constant challenges against it. Secular
philosophy, by its very nature, is a discipline that lends itself
to doubt, relativism and irreligion. It is a rare scholar who is
able to immerse himself in its precarious world without somehow
being affected-usually for the worse. Copleston acknowledges that
his prolonged study of a wide spectrum of philosophical thought
"could hardly fail to exercise some influence" on his mind. He
admits to having experienced doubts-even serious ones- about his
religion, but realizes that this is a common temptation among
Christian believers, even for the most committed. Indeed, the
saints themselves have not been immune to doubt. One thinks
particularly of St. Therese of Lisieux, who underwent a profound
crisis of faith during her short life. The year before she died,
she told her Mother Superior that the worst kind of atheistic
arguments had entered her mind-specifically, the notion that
science, by making ever-increasing progress, would eventually
explain everything away naturally and would provide a
materialistic answer for all that exists, thus destroying the
basis for Christianity. According to Fr. Guy Gaucher, the foremost
authority on St. Therese, some anti-Christian literature
apparently fell into the hands of the young nun, and when she read
it, her faith was shaken to its core. Only after undergoing an
intense psychological struggle, culminating in a profound mystical
experience, was St. Therese able to secure the peace that
permitted her a tolerable death. (For a full account of the
saint's religious travails, consult Fr. Gaucher's definitive
biography, <The Story of a Life: St. Therese of Lisieux>, Harper &
Row, 1987.)
On a more intellectual level, Fr. Copleston experienced a similar
crisis of faith. Fortunately, he was able to overcome it, as he
tells us-
by employing a distinction, well known to moral theologians and
spiritual counsellors, between doubt and difficulty, a distinction
which had been made by J.H. Newman in his <Apologia Pro Vita Sua>
(chapter 5), when he stated that "ten thousand difficulties do not
make one doubt." He had certainly been conscious of difficulties,
but a hundred difficulties, he claimed, do not amount to one
doubt....[This] can be explained easily enough by an example...
Consider a student of theology, who in the course of his studies
is introduced to a number of difficulties or possible objections
to this or that Christian doctrine. The lecturer, let us suppose,
offers solutions of the relevant problems. The student, being a
bright youth, finds the alleged solutions intellectually
unsatisfactory or inadequate. For him, the difficulties or
problems remain unsolved. But it does not necessarily follow that
he therefore doubts the truth of the relevant articles of belief.
For in spite of difficulties, problems or puzzles which can be
brought against certain doctrines, he may still accept the
doctrines on faith, as revealed by God through the mediation of
the Church. Again, many people have seen in the evil and suffering
which permeate human life and history a powerful objection to
belief in the existence of God as conceived in traditional
Christianity. But even if a Christian is quite ready to
acknowledge an inability to provide any complete solution of the
so-called "problem of evil," he or she may nonetheless cling to
faith in the divine love and providential care.
These reflections are reminiscent of Cardinal Newman's line of
argument in his famous essay, "Faith and Doubt." Newman held that
Christian faith is invalid if it does not have the courage of its
convictions, and that no true Christian could believe that his
faith might someday be undermined by a scientific discovery or
scholarly argument. For if he believed such a thing, his faith was
empty to begin with. As the Cardinal remarked:
If it is true that God became man, what is the meaning of my
anticipating a time when perhaps I shall not believe that God
became man? This is nothing short of anticipating a time when I
shall disbelieve a truth. And if I bargain to be allowed in time
to come not to believe, or to doubt, that God became man, I am but
asking to be allowed to doubt or disbelieve what I hold to be an
eternal truth. I do not see the privilege of such a permission at
all, or the meaning of wishing to secure it:-if at present I have
no doubt whatever about it, then I am but asking leave to fall
into error; if at present I have doubts about it, then I do not
believe it at present, that is, I have not faith. But I cannot
both really believe it now, and yet look forward to a time when
perhaps I shall not believe it; to make provision for further
doubt, is to doubt at present. It proves I am not in a fit state
to become a Catholic now. I may love by halves, I may obey by
halves; I cannot believe by halves; either I have faith, or I have
not.
Once in possession of a secure faith, Fr. Copleston waged
intellectual warfare against the errors of his age, engaging the
most influential minds of the twentieth century. The most famous
of these battles was undoubtedly his legendary debate with
Bertrand Russell over the existence of God. Aired by the BBC in
1948, the debate culminated in a technical knockout for the Jesuit
philosopher. In his <Memoirs>, Fr. Copleston is far too humble to
gloat over his victory, but he does expose Russell's viewpoint as
morally bankrupt. Commenting on how he cornered Russell into
defending an extreme brand of relativism, Copleston writes:
"Russell agreed, of course, that he felt this way. But he found
some difficulty, he admitted, in squaring the implications of this
admission with his professed ethical theory. He even said: 'I find
myself in a dilemma. On the one hand I certainly want to condemn
the Nazis' behaviour towards the Jews as wrong in itself. On the
other hand, my ethical theory does not allow me to say this."'
Father Copleston is equally adept at detecting the errors within
his own community-exposing charlatans like Teilhard de Chardin,
and arguing against Modernists who try to "redefine" or "re-
formulate "
Christian doctrine until they empty it of all supernatural
content. But Copleston is at his finest in expounding the
necessity of orthodoxy. Copleston on the ecumenical movement, for
example: "Christians should certainly be prepared to recognize the
values present in other religions. Short of embracing all mankind
there can be no limit to the reach of the out-going love which
lies at the heart of the Christian religion, and which can be seen
as demanding the extension of the ecumenical movement to relations
between Christians and adherents of other religions.... [But] one
should not close one's eyes to the danger of abandoning Christian
belief in the unique status and role of Christ and treating him
simply as one among other prophets and religious leaders, a danger
which is by no means illusory."
Copleston on dissenting theologians: "We are sometimes told by
'progressives' that we should think of the Church as seeking the
truth, rather than as being in possession of the truth. That the
Church's theologians seek truth is not a claim which I would
venture or wish to deny. But they discharge this function as
members of the Church, not simply as lone individuals. And the
final court of appeal in doctrinal issues can hardly be anything
but the Church herself, speaking as a teaching authority, through
what is called the <magisterium>... My point is simply that if a
theologian claims to be a <Catholic>, he or she should act as
such, operating within the Church, as one of its members."
Copleston on the afterlife and the reality of Hell: "The ideas of
Heaven and Hell are complementary... if the one idea expresses
revelation, so does the other. The orthodox Christian can be
expected to accept both; and I do accept them.... Possession of
freedom implies that a human being can accept or reject God.... I
do not see how one can exclude the possibility of a human being
persisting in his or her choice against God and so remaining in a
state of alienation from God. Given this possibility, Hell would
be more something chosen by the human being in question, than
simply imposed by a ruthless judge."
Copleston on the current-and apparently weakened-state of
Christendom: "The Christian is not committed to believing that if
Christianity finds itself widely regarded as moribund and as
unable to act as an effective source of inspiration, this shows
that Christ has failed. Where in the Gospels is He "recorded as
having assured His followers of a triumphal march through history?
Perhaps I may add that Christ did not claim that if His followers
encountered difficulties and opposition they should set to work
revising His teaching and adapting it to the spirit of the age. He
called for persevering loyalty."
Looking back over his career, Fr. Copleston's <Memoirs> express
profound gratitude for a life richly blessed. He had no regrets
about devoting his life to the study of philosophy, despite its
inherent risks. Indeed, Copleston maintained that, far from
weakening or confusing his Catholic faith, his conflicts with
alien philosophies ultimately sharpened and strengthened it. He
also provided a measured defense of historical study, arguing that
"it is rash to assume that the study of the past is necessarily
irrelevant to life and action in the present. After all,
historical study is study of some aspect of the one developing
world in which we live and act." Yet as valuable as academic
scholarship was to the success of his life, Fr. Copleston never
lost sight of his true goal. For as he movingly states in the last
sentence of his book, "The only really important evaluation of
one's life and work is God's evaluation. And in the closing years
of one's life it is just as well to bear this in mind."
William Doino, Jr. freelances for, among others, <National
Review>, <Modern Age> and <Crisis.>
This article was taken from the Fall 1996 issue of "Sursum Corda!"
Published quarterly and mailed in December, March, June and
September by the Foundation for Catholic Reform. Send all
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