Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae Tomus I: De Christo Legato Divino, De Ecclesia Christi, De Fontibus Theologicis

26. Since dogmatic theology assumes revealed truths as its principles, it must necessarily be demonstrated before it whether God has revealed anything; for revealed principles are not self-evident, as natural principles are, from which philosophy proceeds.

First and foremost, the revelation at issue is that whose author is Jesus Christ. There have indeed been, or are said to have been, other divine revelations as well. But the Christian revelation alone was of such universality and efficacy that it changed the entire face of the world and is still of incomparable importance for the whole human race. Once this revelation has been established, it will not be difficult to judge what should be thought of the others.

27. Accordingly, another discipline is placed before dogmatic theology, commonly called apologetics, because it defends and secures the principles on which dogmatic theology is built. It is also called fundamental theology (or general theology), because its object is revelation, which is the foundation of theology. Nevertheless, apologetics itself is not properly theology, since it lacks what is most essential to supernatural theology: namely, reasoning from revealed truths. Apologetics, however, must show by historical and philosophical arguments that revelation has taken place, and its aim is to prepare the way for theology properly so called; only when it has proved that certain things really have been revealed will it be able to use them in further argument. Thus the subject of this science is the credibility of the supernatural order revealed by God; its formal object is the historical and philosophical knowability of this credibility; its material object is whatever about revelation must be presupposed before theology. Hence apologetics may be defined as: an account of those things concerning the supernatural, or revealed, order that must be known in order to pursue theology. For this reason, this discipline is rightly called a propaedeutic to sacred theology.

28. Apologetics, then, in itself concerns only supernatural revelation, especially that which was given through Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, many people customarily preface it with certain general considerations about religion and about revelation and its criteria. This abstract consideration belongs rather to philosophy than to theology, and is rightly treated in philosophy¹; yet, since this is not done everywhere and the subject is usually assigned to the course in theology, after some preliminary inquiry we shall consider these general and abstract questions very briefly.

Accordingly, the division of the treatise will be as follows: after the question of religion and revelation in general, we must first inquire whether Christ declared and proved himself to be a divine envoy. Thus the first part is On Jesus Christ, the Divine Envoy. Next, we must see how Christ wished the doctrine revealed by him to reach us, and we shall find that for this purpose he instituted a visible society, to which he entrusted the task of preserving, handing on, and explaining his doctrine. Hence the second part is On the Church of Christ. Third, we ask what the sources are from which the doctrine of the Church is to be drawn. Thus the third part is On the Theological Sources.

29. In our times, among certain Catholics, especially in France, the opinion has gained ground that the apologetics of immanence should be preferred to traditional apologetics. For, they say, since very many people, infected by Kantianism and positivism, no longer admit the possibility of demonstrating transcendent things—that is, things that are not purely experimental—those who strive by objective historical and philosophical arguments to prove the truth of the Christian religion labor in vain. Therefore, one should instead proceed from the subject and show that there is in man a certain moral and religious need, which only the Christian religion can satisfy perfectly. They criticize the “traditional” method of apologetics as “extrinsicism,” because it wishes to impose the duties of religion on people from outside; as “historicism,” because it wishes to prove by historical arguments what is above all history; and as “intellectualism,” because it supposes that it can accomplish everything by intellectual reasoning. To this obsolete method, then, they oppose the method of “vital immanence,” “religious psychology,” and “moral dynamism,” because, they say, this method teaches that through attentive consideration of himself, religious experience, and moral striving, man can arrive at supernatural religion.

30. What should be thought of the apologetic system of immanence? If those apologists intend only to offer a method for disposing the minds of people, deceived by false philosophical opinions, to embrace Catholic truth more readily, they put forward various things that are useful for this purpose. But if they wish to abolish the old apologetics and substitute their new system in place of the one abolished, they are seriously mistaken.

For a) there is nothing in man's natural powers and actions that can avail to know or embrace the supernatural order, since it belongs to the essence of a supernatural being to surpass every natural power and need. Hence Pius X, in the encyclical “Pascendi dominici gregis,” complains that there is no lack of Catholics who “use the doctrine of immanence for apologetics, and do so so incautiously that they seem to admit in human nature not merely a capacity and suitability for the supernatural order—which Catholic apologists have indeed demonstrated by applying appropriate qualifications—but a genuine and proper need.” The Pontiff says that such a method and such doctrines are “not suited to building up but to destroying, not to making Catholics but to leading Catholics themselves into heresy” (Denz. n. 2103). It is indeed true that all people are now in an order that is supernatural, and that no one who has the use of reason is deprived of the promptings of the Holy Spirit. But this is known to be so only from supernatural revelation, and it cannot be proposed to unbelievers as a fact better known than the Christian religion itself, in order to demonstrate that religion, which is less well known in itself.

b) In particular, the method of immanence, taken exclusively, conflicts with the very essence of Christian faith. For it belongs to faith to believe revealed dogmas on the authority of God revealing. But this is incompatible with faith so long as there is no sufficient certainty about the fact of divine revelation and the authority of God revealing. And because the revelation in question is not made immediately to every person, but was once made to certain chosen people and handed on through them to later generations, if those objective facts on which supernatural faith rests are unknown or called into doubt, the whole Christian religion and with it all dogmatic theology must necessarily collapse. Therefore, this objective, historical, intellectual foundation cannot be compensated for by any psychological or subjective considerations. They may employ these considerations to remove certain obstacles and to prepare minds to accept objective arguments more readily; but let them remember that exaggerated subjectivism is the worst enemy of the Catholic religion, since, before it is the subjective religion of individuals, it is essentially an objective religion that all people are bound by divine command to embrace.

By the “traditional” path, then, we shall prove the fact of Christian revelation. If unbelievers reject our arguments a priori, this does not trouble us, because the force of the arguments is no less for that reason. Nor is it our task here to convert Kantians, but to secure the foundations of theology. How individual people should be led to embrace the faith cannot be set out by any general method, since judgment must be made according to each person's internal and external circumstances².

Cf. Guil. Wilmers, De religione revelata, Ratisbonae 1897; G. van Noort, Tractatus de vera religione², Amstelodami 1907; A. de Broglie, Problèmes et conclusions de l’histoire des religions, Paris 1885; — Religion et critique, ib. 1896; Th. Specht, Lehrbuch der Apologetik, Regensburg 1912, 21 sqq. On the virtue of religion: S. Thomas 2, 2, q. 81 sqq; Suarez, De religione; Th. Bouquillon, De virtute religionis; I. B. Wirthmüller, Die moralische Tugend der Religion, Freiburg 1881; I. Mausbach, Das Wesen der Religion, in the work: Religion, Christentum und Kirche I, Kempten 1911, 1 sqq; Chr. Pesch, Praelectiones dogm. IX, n. 293 sqq.

Proposition I. God, whose existence is proved in philosophy, is a personal God.

31. Position of the question. There are also not a few among the learned who reject a priori every religion worthy of the name and the possibility of revelation, either because they deny that God exists (atheists, materialists) or, if they concede that there is some being that may be called God, because they deny that this being is personal and say that God is the Universe itself, or a part of the Universe, to which personality belongs only insofar as it has attained self-consciousness in the human being (pantheists). But religion and revelation are a kind of personal intercourse between human beings and God. Therefore, unless God is a person, religion and revelation are incompatible. Conversely, if God is a person, the question of religion and revelation must be properly explained so that every reasonable doubt may be excluded. Indeed, all those who are now¹ theists almost all profess religion and admit that revelation can occur; all who are pantheists can neither practice religion nor admit revelation. So long as each holds to his own principles, no fruitful discussion of this matter can be expected between the theist and the pantheist. Pantheists, too, do speak of religion and revelation, but they attach to these names certain vague meanings of reverence toward the Universe, of inward movements of wonder, and of sublime and “transcendent” feelings. These are pure imaginings and subjective affections, distinguished from the poetic frenzy only by the diversity of their object.

32. God is called a person analogically: that is, the perfection we indicate when speaking of human persons is attributed to God insofar as it is a perfection, with all the imperfections that accompany it in human beings excluded, so that in God it is a pure perfection in an infinite degree. There are two things that constitute the concept of personality: individuality and rationality. A person is first of all a supposit, that is, a complete nature, distinct and separate from every other nature. Yet only a rational supposit is a person; for things lacking reason, such as brute animals, are not designated by the name of persons. These matters are explained in philosophy (e.g. C. Frick, Ontolog.⁴ n. 226 sqq). Therefore, if we call God a person, we affirm that God is distinct from finite things, both individually and taken together, and that he is an infinite substance, infinitely perfect in intellect and will. By saying that God is infinite, we admit that we cannot grasp in our minds the proper manner in which God is personal; by saying that he is distinct from the world and endowed with intellect and will, we affirm that God truly subsists in himself, truly understands, and truly wills. What we affirm is in God; the manner in which we conceive and affirm that perfection is in us alone.

33. Argument 1. Personality is a pure perfection produced by God in the world. But whatever pure perfection there is in the world is also in God as the supreme cause of the world. Therefore, God is personal.

As to the major premise. The existence of persons in the world needs no proof. Personality, however, is a pure perfection because its concept includes no imperfection, and it can exist in every order and degree of rational beings. For a rational substance does not cease to be rational on account of attaining a certain degree of perfection, nor does this substance cease to be individual. But these two things, rationality and individuality, constitute the concept of personality; therefore, personality is a pure perfection. Every personality that we know through experience is indeed a limited perfection, as are also every life, every intellect, and every perfection whatever, because they exist in limited subjects. But just as life, intellect, and many other perfections are pure perfections, since they do not require that they exist only in limited subjects, so personality, too, does not require that it exist in a limited subject.

This perfection, like every other, was created in human beings by God; we do not prove that here, but take it as proved in philosophy. For although other causes, too, contribute to producing human persons, the ultimate cause and cause of all causes is God.

The minor premise is evident. For if there were in an effect a perfection that was not in its cause, that perfection would be without a cause, and the principle of causality would be overturned. There are indeed in effects mixed perfections that essentially have an imperfection attached to them, such as every material perfection, which cannot exist in a purely spiritual being, since it conflicts with the latter’s perfection. God, then, is the ultimate cause of these mixed perfections and, in that sense, contains them in himself as well; but he contains them not formally, with their accompanying imperfections, but eminently and virtually, insofar as the perfection of the divine being not only equals but infinitely surpasses the perfections of those created beings, and insofar as by the mere act of his will he can produce them from nothing. For infinite power cannot produce only what is contradictory, that is, what by its very concept is nonbeing.

34. Argument 2. God is of infinite perfection. But a being of infinite perfection is personal. Therefore, God is personal.

Proof of the major premise. A finite perfection is limited either because it is limited by its essence, as a human being is, or because it is received in a limited subject, as human cognition is, or because its efficient cause cannot or does not will to produce a greater perfection. This division is complete, because the cause of a limited perfection must necessarily be either formal, material, or efficient; otherwise it would have no cause, which is impossible. But God is limited neither by his essence, nor by a receiving subject, nor by an efficient cause. The latter two possibilities are excluded because God has no efficient cause, since he is from himself, and is not limited by reason of a receiving subject, because a being from itself is an unreceived act. Nor is God limited by his essence, since in a being that exists from itself, existence is not received in a subject but is its very essence. But existence, or actuality, is not restricted to any particular perfection. Therefore, God is not limited in perfection by his essence; rather, his perfection extends as far as the concept of existence or actuality.

The minor premise is evident. For an infinite being lacks no pure perfection. But personality is a pure perfection. Therefore, the infinite is personal.

35. Argument 3. For a being to be personal, two things are required: real distinction from every other being and rationality. But God is distinct from the world and is rational. Therefore, God is personal.

Proof of the minor premise. God is distinct from the world because the world, as a mutable and potential being, requires an immutable being and pure act as its ultimate cause; but pure and immutable act is really and essentially distinct from every mutable and potential being. Therefore, God, pure act, is distinct from the world and all its parts. God is also rational, because he is the cause of rational creatures, and because teleology, that is, consideration of the order prevailing in the world, requires a wise ordainer. Therefore, both elements of personality, individuality and rationality, are found in God.

Since these arguments are treated more fully in philosophy (e.g. Hontheim, Theodicaea n. 248 sqq 418 sqq 522 sqq 714 sqq), it is enough to recall these few points. Philosophy also shows that God is free in his external operations (with a freedom of power, not of potentiality), since an infinite being has no need of creatures but is fully satisfied, according to intellect and will, by his own infinite truth and goodness.

36. Objection I. God cannot be both infinite and personal if infinitude and personality conflict with each other. But infinitude and personality do conflict with each other: for the infinite is a being that contains in itself every notion of being, so that nothing of being can exist beyond it; whereas a personal being is one that subsists in itself, distinct from every other being. Therefore, God cannot be both infinite and personal.

I answer. I concede the major premise. I deny the minor premise, and distinguish the reason added: the infinite is a being that contains every notion of being in itself either formally or eminently and virtually, I concede the assertion; that it contains every notion of being formally in itself, I deny the assertion. An infinite being can contain formally in itself only perfection; what is imperfect, or insofar as it is imperfect, is excluded from an infinite being, because imperfection, as negation or privation, is nonbeing. Mixed perfections are in an infinite being insofar as they receive from it every notion of being, so that nothing can exist that does not have its ultimate foundation and first cause in the infinite being. Thus there is no more perfection in God and the world together than in God alone; there are only more beings. Nor do created beings, because they subsist in themselves, become independent of God; rather, all their perfection continually proceeds from divine causality. God subsists as a being from himself; other things subsist as beings from God. Hence, I deny the inference.

37. Objection II. Whoever is a person distinguishes himself as this “I” from other “I”s. But God does not distinguish himself as one “I” among many other “I”s. Therefore, God is not personal.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: whoever is a person necessarily requires that there be other rational supposits from which he distinguishes himself, I deny the major premise; whoever is a person necessarily distinguishes himself as one “I” among other “I”s, if there are other “I”s, I further distinguish: if there are other “I”s of the same order, which can be counted together, I concede the major premise; if there are other “I”s of an order so different that they cannot be counted together, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: God does not require that there be other rational supposits, I concede the minor premise; if there are other rational supposits, God does not distinguish himself as one of them, I distinguish under a distinction: God does not know that he is not those others, I deny the minor premise; God does not count himself together with them as a supposit of the same order, I concede the minor premise. God is not first, Adam second, and other human beings third, fourth, and so on; for things that agree only analogically cannot be counted together in this way. We do not count a human being, an ox, a tree, and a stone together. Much less, then, is God counted together with other things, with which he does not agree even in the notion of being univocally.

38. Objection III. We acquire the notion of person from consciousness of ourselves. But this notion involves limitation. Therefore, it cannot be applied to God.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: consciousness is one of the sources from which we draw the concept of person, I concede the major premise; we are so bound by the testimony of consciousness that we cannot develop a concept of person that could also be applied to beings other than human beings, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: the notion of a human person involves limitation, I concede the minor premise; the notion of a rational being subsisting in itself involves limitation, I deny the minor premise. I distinguish the inference: the notion of a human person cannot be applied to God, I concede the inference; the notion of a rational being subsisting in itself cannot be applied to God, I deny the inference.

39. Objection IV. Philosophy arrives at only one divine person. But according to revelation God is triune, or three persons. Therefore, the philosophical doctrine of God’s personality is false.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: philosophy teaches that God is one rational nature subsisting in itself, I concede the major premise; philosophy teaches that we know the proper manner of divine personality, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: according to revelation God is not one rational nature subsisting in itself, I deny the minor premise; according to revelation there are certain internal processions in the divine nature, about which philosophy neither knows nor teaches anything, I concede the minor premise. On the distinction given, I deny the inference, because revelation does not deny what philosophy teaches, but adds something. The philosophical concept of divine personality, then, is indeed imperfect, but it is not false.

Proposition II. Every human being must acknowledge God’s supreme excellence and show him reverence, that is, must profess religion.

40. Position of the question. If God were an impersonal being, whether the Universe or a part of the Universe, people could know this state of affairs and perhaps be struck with a kind of amazement by comparing themselves with the variety, vastness, and depth of the Universe. But in that case God would be only an object of speculation and sterile wonder, and no personal intercourse with him would be possible. Yet matters are not so: by his wisdom and love God produced the whole world from nothing, especially human beings, and continually preserves them, governs them, and leads them to their end. Should a human being, then, not also turn to God with intellect and will and pursue him by his actions, but instead somehow turn his back on God, who is always watching over and loving him? Surely this is contrary to sound reason and good morals. Whoever admits that God’s knowledge and love are continuously directed toward every human being, individually and collectively, must confess that it is the human being’s duty to raise his mind to God as the highest truth and to embrace God with his will as the highest good. To acknowledge God’s infinite excellence and make that acknowledgment known is to worship God, or to profess religion. For religion is the virtue by which we offer worship to God on account of his infinite excellence. Worship adds nothing to God’s perfection and beatitude, nor does human impiety take anything away from them. But it is of the greatest concern to human beings themselves to act rightly toward God; and because God wills human spiritual good and observance of the moral order, he therefore requires that human beings worship him.

41. Religion in itself is a virtue of the will, but it presupposes in the intellect knowledge of divine excellence, because we cannot revere what we do not know. Hence religion considered subjectively includes both right knowledge of God and of our relation to God, and a disposition of the will to act according to this knowledge. Consequently, religion considered objectively consists in the sum of truths and duties by which the moral relation of the human being to God is constituted. Therefore, on the basis of those objective truths on which religion rests, one can distinguish true religion and false religion. Considering the matter in a purely philosophical way (that is, abstracting from supernatural revelation), the religion that proceeds from a correct concept of God is to be called true; that which is the product of an erroneous opinion about God is false. The divine perfections at issue here are not, however, those considered according to purely metaphysical considerations, but the divine perfections insofar as they are relevant to the moral order. Provided that someone admits a supreme lord and ruler of the world, wise, holy, and powerful, and worships him as such, that person has true religion, even if he does not proceed to the concept of creation from nothing, or attributes some very subtle body to God, or does not know what God’s metaphysical essence is. But if someone conceives God after the likeness of a human being, subject to passions, cruel, wrathful, desirous of flattery, and in need of us and our affairs, or thinks other things about God that are morally unworthy, and worships God according to these concepts, that person has a false and superstitious religion.

42. A distinction is made between natural religion and supernatural religion. For although in the present order of things true religion is one and supernatural, because God has prescribed by supernatural revelation how he is to be worshipped, nevertheless God would have to be worshipped even if he had revealed nothing supernaturally; and because this religion would proceed from the natural light of reason alone, it is called natural religion. Hence even those people who have never heard anything about revelation must worship God.

43. The etymology of the word religion is obscure. See in St. Thomas (2, 2, q. 81, a. 1) what St. Isidore (Etymol. l. X, n. 234) collected from Cicero (De nat. deor. l. II, c. 28, n. 72) and St. Augustine (De civ. l. X, c. 3; De vera relig. c. 11 113; Retract. l. I, c. 13, n. 9); to these may be added Gellius (Noct. attic. l. IV, c. 9), Lactantius (Div. instit. l. IV, c. 28), and St. Jerome (In Amos 9, 6). Most probably, religion is derived from religendo, that is, frequently calling to mind, the opposite of which is to neglect. So think Cicero and Gellius, as well as scholars of our own time. A religious person, then, is one who is mindful of God and of his duties toward God, just as an impious person is one who neglects these duties. Less probably, the word religion is derived from religando, insofar as religion is a bond binding us to God. So thinks Lactantius. Or it may come from re-eligendo, insofar as we choose again the God we lost through sin. So thinks St. Augustine. Although they differ somewhat over the etymology of the word, they agree about the nature and acts of religion. What these acts are will become clear from the arguments.

44. Argument 1. From the human being’s complete dependence on God. A human being depends on God because he was created by God and is preserved in existence by him; because without God’s concurrence he can do absolutely nothing; and because God is the ultimate end by which the human being is to be made blessed. Moreover, the human being receives from God all the good things he uses, not only bodily but also spiritual goods, since God is the source of all truth and goodness. But human nature is such that a human being ought to acknowledge the truth and will the good. Therefore, he ought to acknowledge God as the supreme lord, beginning, and end of all things, and profess this acknowledgment, or submit himself to God.

This act of acknowledging God’s supreme excellence and submitting to God is adoration, which in technical terms is called worship of latria, and is the act most proper to religion. Adoration in itself is an interior act, either elicited or commanded by the will. For the will can not only elicit an act of submission to divine excellence itself, but can also direct acts of other virtues to this end, so that God may be honored by them; for example, it can elicit acts of humility, temperance, and obedience from this motive. A human being can and ought to perform not only interior acts but also external acts of religious worship, because he owes everything to God not only in soul but also in body, since he depends on God at every moment; and because interior acts that in no way manifest themselves outwardly soon grow weak, whereas they are strengthened and stirred up by sensible signs. For a human being is not a pure spirit but a composite of soul and body, and this whole composite ought to cooperate in worshipping God. Indeed, human beings ought not to worship God only privately by interior and exterior signs; public worship must also be offered, because a human being is a social being, and society as such also depends on God. The reason for external worship, then, derives from human nature; for although God immediately sees the human mind, a human being, insofar as he is a sensible and social being, ought not to be without acts of external worship. External acts, however, have no moral or religious worth except insofar as they proceed from and are shaped by an interior disposition.

Thus, although religion is a particular virtue, it nevertheless governs the whole of human and moral life, consecrating it to God and, as it were, turning it into a continual worship of God. A person is perfectly religious when he lives never for himself but in all things for God.

45. Argument 2. From the gratitude owed to God. God, compelled by no necessity but out of pure benevolent love, has conferred and continues to confer many things on human beings. But right order requires that we show due gratitude to a benefactor. Therefore, we ought to give the highest thanks to God, our supreme benefactor, and by giving thanks worship him.

The major premise is clear, because God, infinitely perfect and blessed, has no need of creatures, but freely produces them to bestow good things on them. He did indeed create all things for his glory. But what is this glory formally, if not the knowledge of the highest truth and love of the highest good existing in a rational creature? Therefore, if God willed to produce rational creatures, he must also have willed that they know and love him. God’s benevolence, then, does not consist in this: that, once creation has been assumed, he appoints possession of himself as the ultimate end for rational creatures; rather, it consists in his freely willing to produce creatures so noble that possession of God is due to them, and, moreover, in his willing, as revelation teaches, to raise these creatures to the supernatural order.

As to the minor premise: gratitude in general is a virtue distinct from the virtue of religion, and consists in readiness to acknowledge benefits received while praising the benefactor. But if we give thanks to God as God, we acknowledge him not as a private benefactor but as the supreme principle and lord of all things. This is an act of adoration or religion, distinguished from other acts of religion only in that it does not regard the whole of divine excellence but specifically God’s infinite beneficence. By an act of gratitude we do not love this beneficence as a divine good—for that would be an act of charity—but we consider it as the source of so many benefits flowing to us. God, however, is not our benefactor as other benefactors are, but is so omnipotently, omnipresently, with pure liberality, and without ceasing. At every moment, therefore, we are the recipients of innumerable divine benefits, without which we could neither exist nor act, and whose ultimate end will be God himself, making us blessed through possession of him. Therefore, gratitude shown to God as God is an act of latria (cf. St. Thomas 2, 2, q. 106, a. 1).

46. Argument 3. From the necessity of petitionary prayer. A human being ought to procure for himself those divine helps without which he cannot live rightly and attain salvation. But prayer is necessary in order to obtain these helps. Therefore, a human being ought to pray to God and also worship God for this reason.

As to the major premise: In the present order, the human being is subject to many bodily and spiritual miseries, from which he often cannot free himself either by himself or through other human beings. Setting aside purely bodily miseries, one cannot deny the great moral weakness involved in observing the natural law and living rightly without speaking against the facts. We do not ask here how this misery arose; the fact suffices for us, and no prudent person can call it into question. On the other hand, it is clear that God, who is omnipotent and free in acting externally, can help a human being if he wills; that he wills to help a human being live rightly and attain salvation follows from divine wisdom, goodness, and holiness. For God cannot assign the human being an end and a path to that end so difficult that the task must be called morally impossible. Therefore, since God did not at once grant, along with human nature itself, a corresponding ease, he undoubtedly willed that the human being obtain the necessary divine helps through his own cooperation.

As to the minor premise: That prayer is the means of obtaining divine help is already suggested by the fact that no people have yet been found who, in their needs, do not turn to God, or to those they regarded as gods. Ethnography and the history of religions bear witness to this (cf. O. Peschel, Völkerkunde; W. Schneider, Die Naturvölker; Fr. Ratzel, Völkerkunde; Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte). Formerly some objected, but they have been silenced by the consensus of experts. They therefore resort to another escape, saying that with the progress of the human race recourse to the divine power, and indeed all religion, will be abolished. This is a prophecy whose fulfillment must be awaited before it can be considered true. It will never be fulfilled, however, because natural reason will always perceive the truths on which religion rests, and because the magnificent promises of evolutionists cannot remedy the many forms of human need. Vices can obscure the dictate of natural reason, and the religious instinct implanted in human nature can be weakened. But if the human race as a whole is considered, truth will ultimately always prevail, and the laws implanted by the author of nature will assert their force. Religion will not perish, nor will prayer fall silent until the last human beings die. But God would not have created in rational nature this inclination to ask God for help unless he willed to hear petitions.

Why, then, does God want people who ask him to turn to him, when he already knows beforehand what they need? He wills this for their sake, because it is most useful for people to raise their minds to God and enjoy divine companionship. People who pray well and constantly grow day by day better and nobler through converse with God; for whoever keeps frequent company with someone is imbued with that person’s spirit, especially if he is a person of eminent character, and all the more if he is God himself.

God did indeed decree all things immutably from eternity; nevertheless, in this eternal decree he took account of the prayers that he foresaw would likewise be made from eternity, and according as he willed to hear the prayers, he ordered the course of things to be such as it would not have been had the foreseen prayers not been made.

In view of these points, it appears wholly improbable that God wills to grant all necessary and fitting helps to people who do not pray. He gives many things without prayer, namely all those things that a rational creature requires in order not to be futile, such as the whole natural order with its end and means to that end, together with preservation, general concurrence, and governance. Therefore, the things that flow from nature and its powers according to constant laws are not objects of petition. But within this natural order there is an immense range of divine gifts that are by no means determined by natural requirement. The distribution of goods of fortune, health or sickness, greater or lesser dangers to salvation, good or bad thoughts and feelings that arise, the company of this or that person, these and many other things that can greatly promote or hinder spiritual salvation are not so determined by the very nature of things that God could not arrange them one way or another. Thus, since God has not removed every misery from human beings by nature itself, nor supplied all the helps morally necessary, it must be thought that he wills a human being to do something on his part to obtain divine help. What else can he do but ask God for help? For human inability to keep the law and attain the end is a just title for turning to divine help; while the power, holiness, and goodness of God, who wills the human being to be saved, are a kind of tacit promise from God to provide help. Therefore, all the elements required are present for us to affirm not only the possibility but also the obligation of praying.

It is enough to have briefly explained these three duties of religion—that is, adoration, gratitude toward God, and petitionary prayer; for there is no need here to list all the specific duties of religion, since they will be discussed in the course of dogmatic or moral theology itself.

47. Objection I. It is a mark of a noble spirit not to care much about human honors. But God is the noblest spirit. Therefore, he sets little store by human honors.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: it is a mark of a noble spirit not to pursue empty glory, I concede the major premise; it is a mark of a noble spirit to refuse those honors required by right moral order, I deny the major premise. And, granting the minor premise, I distinguish the inference: God will not value human honors more highly than they deserve in themselves, I concede the inference; God will not care about the honors due to him that right moral order requires, I deny the inference.

48. Objection II. Every honor that human beings can offer to God is almost nothing in comparison with the honor owed to God. But when a debtor to a very rich creditor can pay only a tiny amount, for example a single coin, the creditor does not reasonably demand that this tiny amount be given to him. Therefore, by parity of reasoning, God should not be thought to will that he be given even the small measure of honor that human beings can offer.

I answer. I deny the assumption of the argument and the parity in the example given. For God requires honor not for his own advantage but for right order and the benefit of human beings, as has been explained. Nor is there parity between a real debt and a personal debt of honor. For a human being is undoubtedly excused from paying real debts as long as he has no means to pay. But anyone who has the use of reason can and ought to acknowledge divine excellence; and in this matter no equality is required between the honor and the one honored, as there is between what is received and what is repaid in real debts. God’s perfect glory is God himself, through knowledge and love of himself. This, however, does not prevent rational creatures from having to ascend to God with their intellect and will. Although God differs infinitely from creatures in the order of being, there is nevertheless in the intellect and will of a rational creature a proportionate relation to knowing, honoring, and loving God. Thus, in worshipping God, we truly worship him as God, place him outside the series of creatures, and acknowledge and magnify his infinite excellence. This honor, then, is infinite in its terminus, and can be given to no creature.

49. Objection III. Since religion consists essentially in interior acts, external worship is at least indifferent; and in this sense one religion is as good as another, provided that a person acknowledges and reveres God’s supreme excellence. Therefore, one religion is not to be preferred to another except insofar as one suits these people better and another suits those people better.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: if God by positive revelation or legitimate human authority has prescribed a certain form of religious worship, God can be worshipped in any other way while that worship is neglected, I deny the antecedent; for worshipping God contrary to his immediate or mediate law is not to honor him but to wrong him. So long as no worship has been prescribed by divine authority or legitimate human authority, it is permissible to worship God in any manner and with any rites one chooses, I subdivide: it is permissible to worship God with sound and reasonable rites, I concede the antecedent; with superstitious rites, that is, rites that conflict with right reason, I deny the antecedent. Just as it is not permissible to ascribe indecent and unworthy attributes to God, so it is not permissible to worship God with rites that signify such attributes. Good and true religion, even if purely natural, must proceed from correct concepts of God, as was said.

Scholium. On the origin of religion.

50. We can inquire into the origin of religion in three ways: historically, metaphysically, and psychologically.

Historically, one can ask when and for what reasons religion was introduced into the human race. Although this approach is not in itself impossible, it is closed to us, because the beginning of the human race is prehistoric and can be known only by divine revelation, which teaches that religion arose not by purely natural means but with God’s supernatural cooperation. History, however, no matter how far back it reaches by its own powers, never reaches a time when religion did not yet exist among human beings or was first introduced. Therefore, the history of religions describes only the development of various religions that had existed long before historical times. As for the rest, it can only conjecture by reasoning, with greater or lesser probability. In this way, among other things, the following conclusion has been reached: the more ancient religions are, the less polytheistic they are, and even in polytheistic religions certain traces of an earlier monotheism remain. Thus the Indo-Europeans, before their separation, worshipped Dyu, which is the root of the word for God and its derivatives. The God of the Semites was El. The Chinese revered Shang Ti (“Supreme Lord”). Something similar holds for other peoples, as I have explained more fully and substantiated with the testimony of scholars in three booklets entitled «Der Gottesbegriff in den heidnischen Religionen des Altertums» and «Der Gottesbegriff in den heidnischen Religionen der Neuzeit» (cf. J. Souben, Nouvelle théologie dogmatique I², Paris 1902). Polytheism and other forms of false religion arose from monotheism through the moral and intellectual corruption of human beings.

In individual people today, religion historically arises through the education they receive from other people already imbued with religion. For individuals do not each discover everything on their own from the beginning; rather, living in human society, they are enriched by its intellectual and moral treasures, or, conversely, infected by evils that already prevail. Philosophy, that is, polished and reflective knowledge, is not the origin of religion but an accidental supplement to it, which is absent in most cases without altering the essence of the matter.

51. The origin of religion is considered metaphysically when its material, formal, and final causes, and its conditions, are set out. We have briefly done this by saying that religion is an act or habit of the will by which a human being is rightly ordered with respect to God’s supreme excellence, rendering him the worship due to him and directing all moral life to God as first principle, supreme lord, and ultimate end. This worship, however, presupposes an intellectual and correct concept of God concerning the moral order that intervenes between human beings and God. Although we do not claim that human beings arrive at religion by philosophical reasoning, we do say that religion has an intellectual foundation, and that there cannot be religion worthy of the name that does not proceed from true knowledge of God. Many non-Catholics deny this very point, and among Catholics those called Modernists have joined them. They decree that all intellectualism must be banished from explaining the origin of religion, since the source of religious life is a certain instinct arising from a need for the supraphenomenal order, by which a human being is moved toward a transcendent being that the human intellect cannot grasp, but that the affections of the heart demand and that is apprehended by a certain special intuition (e.g. Loisy in Revue du Clergé franç. XXI [1900] 250 sqq). The intellect can neither produce nor overthrow this faith. Therefore, the origin of religion must be explained psychologically according to the system of immanence. This false opinion is the ultimate root of Modernism.

52. The origin of religion is considered psychologically when those vital acts that by their own nature lead to religion are shown in the human soul. This consideration differs from the metaphysical one in that it does not distinguish and define the concepts at issue and explain their relations to one another, but rather examines the concrete life of the human being and seeks the root of religion in it. For since religious life consists in immanent acts, the root of these acts must also be immanent. A human being perceives that he is a dependent being and unequal to attaining that noble moral state to which, unless he is already too corrupt, he recognizes by the guidance of nature itself that he is destined. Given, then, sufficient knowledge of God, it is innate in a human being to turn to divine help, so that God may supply what he lacks, as we explained above (n. 46). Therefore, religion truly arises psychologically from dependence and moral need (cf. what I wrote in Stimmen aus Maria-Laach LXVIII [1905] 381 sqq). Call this theory one of immanence, if you like, but do not confuse it with the false immanentism of the Modernists. For they say that people in their needs do not turn to a God already known, but are instead driven by their moral needs to posit God’s real existence, which is unknowable to the intellect. They confess that, according to the judgment of the mind, they do not know whether God exists or not, but trust that he exists because they need him. Certainly, arguments can also be drawn to prove God’s existence from the natural moral law, from the testimony of conscience, and from the innate desire for beatitude. But this would be an intellectual method, which the Modernists disdain in religious matters. Their “faith,” by which they perceive God, is not intellectual, is directed by no reasoning, but is an irrational appetite for God, which they sometimes adorn with the name of intuition, although in reality they intuit nothing. Hence their whole theory is contrary to reason, has no arguments in its favor, is a bare and empty way of philosophizing, is not at all supported by the testimony of conscience, and contradicts the common conviction of learned and unlearned people, who think that even in religious matters one ought to use the light of reason, not blind instinct. Finally, this theory removes the distinction between true religion and false religions, introduces religious indifferentism, and overthrows all religion, because it is an extreme subjectivism in which nothing is stable, but everything varies and flows from subject to subject and from day to day. The origin of religion worthy of the name, which is the first among the ideal powers of the moral order, therefore cannot be explained in this way.

Cf. M. I. Scheeben, Handbuch der kathol. Dogmatik I, n. 5 sqq; H. Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der religiösen Erkenntnis (book II, which reviews various opinions proposed on this matter); Fr. I. Mach, Die Notwendigkeit der Offenbarung, Mainz 1883; I. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit V, n. 536 sqq; J. Didiot, Logique surnaturelle objective, Paris 1892.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

53. God gave the human being a rational nature so that, by considering the visible world and himself, he might rise to know God as the maker, governor, and end of the world, and pursue him by acts of the will. This manifestation of God through created objective and subjective light proportionate to rational nature is sometimes called natural and broad-sense revelation of God. For, by the force of the word, revelation is a manifestation of hidden things; and since God is hidden from us in himself but is manifested to us a posteriori through creatures, it is permissible to speak of natural revelation of God. It is called revelation in a broad and improper sense in comparison with that strictly so-called revelation which theologians mean when they speak of revelation without qualification.

54. Divine revelation in the strict sense is God's speech by which God communicates to human beings some of the things he knows, so that they may believe them on account of the authority of God who speaks. This revelation differs in many ways from the natural manifestation of God. For 1. in revelation in the broad sense, God is treated as a thing about which a human being reasons; in revelation in the strict sense, God as a person speaks to persons. 2. To revelation in the broad sense corresponds, on the human side, science, by which from created things as effects one knows God and his attributes as cause; to revelation properly so called corresponds, on the human side, faith, by which a human being affirms that what God has said is true on account of the authority of God revealing. 3. The objects of revelation properly so called can be truths that natural revelation is not sufficient to teach. 4. Revelation properly so called is something that takes place beyond the natural course of things through God's immediate intervention. 5. Revelation in the improper sense cannot of itself lead a human being except to a natural ultimate end; revelation properly so called can lead, and does lead, a human being to an end that surpasses every natural requirement and power.

These distinctions must be observed so that from the very beginning the concept of the subject under discussion may be sufficiently clear. It will therefore be useful to add a few brief explanations, for the supernatural order, faith, and the other matters at issue here will have to be treated more fully in the proper dogmatic treatises.

55. Revelation is God's speech to human beings in the proper sense. How one human being speaks to another is well known. Most commonly this is done by spoken words, often by writing, and sometimes by gestures or other signs. The one essential point is that one person intentionally manifests some judgments of his own to another person. Therefore, it is not speech properly so called if a parrot utters certain articulate sounds. Nor is it speech if someone discloses his thoughts or feelings through involuntary signs. Speech properly so called is testimony by which someone testifies to what he himself judges, so that another may accept the things testified to. At least implicitly, the speaker appeals to his knowledge and truthfulness, and wants his words to be believed. If, in addition, the speaker has a right to demand that another hear what he says, there is full authority of a witness; knowledge and truthfulness alone do not yet suffice for this, because I have no moral duty to hear whatever any person wants to tell me, but may refuse to listen: “What is that to me? I do not want to hear you.” Often, however, it is not permissible to answer in this way; rather, we must hear and accept what another says. That God has authority to speak to us and demand faith from us follows from the concept of the supreme lord and first truth. But how does God speak to human beings?

56. God's immediate speech to human beings can take place in various ways: through voices or other external signs that human beings use when conversing with one another. But, in addition, God can produce in a human being's imagination or intellect, without external signs, species that cannot be produced in one human being by another except through external signs (cf. St. Thomas 2, 2, q. 173, a. 2 and Contra gent. 3, 154). Nevertheless, the production of species alone, whether through external signs or without them, does not suffice for there to be divine speech, just as it would not suffice among human beings if someone heard only voices but did not know who uttered them or whether that person meant to speak to him. An intellectual judgment must therefore be added, by which a human being understands that God is speaking to him and what God is saying; and because God revealing wills his word to be believed without doubt, and usually also to be announced to others as something to be believed in God's name, he himself must infuse into the human being an intellectual light by which the one who receives revelation certainly understands that these and those things are being revealed to him by God.

57. In receiving and believing revelation, a human being is not purely passive, any more than when he learns something from another human being. To perceive truth and assent to it is a vital act, even when the one teaching is God, who indeed strengthens the natural faculties but does not overpower them or cause the vital act not to be elicited by the human being. Therefore, even in divine revelation, the acts by which a human being perceives and affirms revealed truth are and remain vital acts; but these acts are only the means and manner of attaining revelation, not God's word itself. Only what is revealed and believed is the divine word. So that the imperfect manner of knowing proper to a human being may not impede the right apprehension of revealed truth, God helps the human being with interior light and strengthening. This divine help does not raise a human being to an immediate intuition of the revealed things, but ensures that divine things are represented by analogical concepts, which are indeed imperfect but not positively false. For it is not the manner of knowing that is proposed for belief, but what is made manifest through revelation.

58. This revelation, then, is called immediate, not as though it did not take place through the human being's subjective acts, but in comparison with natural revelation, in which the objects proposed for immediate knowledge are not divine words but created objects, from which a human being reasons upward to God.

Revelation is distinguished in another way as mediated or immediate with respect to the subjects to whom it is made. For God can reveal something to one human being and at the same time send him as a messenger to announce the divine words to others. If this happens, God must mark his messenger or surround him with signs by which it is certain that he is God's messenger and truly speaks in God's name. Such signs are especially miracles and prophecies. Under these conditions, then, revelation is immediate with respect to its subject only for the messenger himself, while the others receive divine revelation only mediately, whether from the messenger himself or from others who heard it from him. Nevertheless, we rightly say that the matter so handed on was revealed immediately by God and is properly God's word, because God's word remains God's word even if it is repeated by others and transmitted to others—especially if this transmission takes place by God's command and under the assistance of God, who sees to it that his word is not corrupted in this way.

59. On the human side, faith corresponds to divine revelation, not science in the strict sense. For science is knowledge of things from intrinsic principles, whether a thing is perceived immediately, a conclusion is drawn from cause to effect, or a cause is known from its effect. Faith, however, is assent to a thing on account of the authority of the witness affirming it. If that authority is certain, it does indeed give certainty that the thing is as it is affirmed to be; nevertheless, both the authority and the certainty prepared by authority are something external to the thing testified to. Hence, through faith there is no insight into the believed thing, but only assent to it; and the sole formal motive of this assent is the authority of the witness. This holds for human faith and also for divine faith. Human authority is fallible in itself; therefore human faith, too, is fallible. Divine authority is absolutely infallible; therefore the faith that corresponds to the authority of God revealing is infallible, and its assent is the firmest possible adherence. For it is not permissible to answer God revealing, “Perhaps it is as you say”; rather, one must answer, “Because you, the first truth, say so, it is so, and it cannot be otherwise.” Despite this, since in faith the intellect is not determined to one thing by the evidence of the thing itself, doubt is psychologically possible, and doubt is excluded only by the free command of the will, out of reverence for God. These matters will be explained more fully later in the treatise on faith; for now, however, they must be kept in mind, lest anyone think that we wish or are able to extort the assent of faith from people by apologetic arguments. Perhaps matters would proceed in this way if the question were one of acquiring science by perfectly evident arguments, as, for example, in mathematics. But apologetic arguments are primarily arguments of the moral order, which differ greatly from metaphysical proofs; moreover, even if we suppose them to be entirely evident, what they undertake to prove is the credibility and obligation to believe revealed things, that is, they show that we can believe them reasonably and have a duty to believe them. But the fact that I can and ought to believe something does not yet impose a physical necessity to believe; rather, the act of faith depends on the free will. And if I freely will to believe and do believe, by this act of faith I do not have insight into the thing believed, but simply assent that the thing testified to is true.

60. From what has been said it follows that revelation takes place beyond the natural order of things. Experience shows that, according to what commonly occurs, we do not perceive God's words properly so called; and from the concept of the matter it is clear that God's immediate speech does not take place through natural powers and laws. God can send angelic spirits as his messengers, but this itself is something beyond the natural order. God can also employ natural powers to produce certain external signs; but these do not occur by natural law and are not sufficient unless God brings about something from which it is certain that God is speaking. As long as only natural things occur, there is nothing that would lead us to suspect divine speech properly so called. Therefore, revelation is something praeternatural.

The revelation that is the foundation of the Christian faith is supernatural revelation, both with respect to its principal objects and with respect to its end: that is, God revealed truths that the human intellect is not able to discover by itself, and he revealed these truths in order to lead human beings to an ultimate end that surpasses every natural power and requirement. He did indeed reveal some things that can also be known naturally; this revelation may be called supernatural according to its mode. These, moreover, are secondary revealed things; but with respect to its principal objects and end, Christian revelation is supernatural according to its substance.

Therefore, as regards the fact itself, divine revelation belongs to the supernatural order; and just as an order of pure nature has never existed, so no revelation of a purely natural order has taken place. Nevertheless, one may ask whether, in a natural order, revelation supernatural according to its mode ought to or could have occurred. It is difficult to give a certain answer to this question. On the one hand, it would also have been useful for human beings in a natural order to be instructed by God about religious and moral matters; on the other hand, if God had instituted a natural order with a corresponding divine providence, that order would have had all the means physically and morally sufficient for the human being to attain his end. Therefore, it is not sufficiently clear how it would befit divine wisdom to intervene immediately and beyond the nature of things in an order in which the human being would have been fully equipped to attain his natural end. Absolute power would not have been lacking to God, but the question is whether he would have had ordained power. It is therefore better to abstract from this question and consider human beings and revelation as they actually are now.

Proposition III. God's immediate revelation is not incompatible with reason.

61. Position of the question. Immediate revelation is understood as that which is distinguished from natural and mediated revelation, as explained above (n. 53 sqq). We do not claim to know a priori whether God has reasons for speaking immediately to human beings; we only state negatively that there are no reasons for saying that such speech is incompatible with reason. For once its noncontradiction is established, its possibility is positively proved by the very fact of revelation. Here, then, we are rather removing the obstacles that are erected a priori against the fact of revelation. Moreover, that God knows many things human beings do not know, and has the power to manifest certain things to them, seems so evident—unless there is some other obstacle—that there is no need to dwell on it. The whole question is whether revelation can be reconciled with God's wisdom and human nature.

Modernists call “revelation” something that is not true revelation but fiction, because they imagine that a human being experiences within himself certain movements that the religious sense receives as a divine manifestation; this “revelation” proposes no truths to be believed, but only moves a person's feelings. If this whole thing occurred, it would remain within the sphere of subjective experiences. We, however, are speaking of revelation by which God teaches human beings truths to be believed, whether theoretical or practical, that is, pertaining to moral life; therefore, we are speaking of objective revelation.

62. Argument. If immediate revelation were incompatible with reason, it would be so either on God's side or on the human side. But it is incompatible with neither. Therefore, immediate revelation must be said not to be incompatible with reason.

Proof of the minor premise, part I. Immediate revelation is not incompatible on God's side. For God is infinite truth itself and the first source of all truth. Every ontological, logical, and ethical truth that exists in the world has God as its ultimate principle. Therefore, God can communicate truth to creatures. But the infinite divine truth is not exhausted by the limited truth actually granted to creatures, nor is divine power bound to one way of teaching human beings by means of created objects, that is, by revelation in the broad sense. Rather, just as according to his most wise and free plan he has granted human beings this degree and manner of knowing divine things, so God has many other degrees and manners in his power. This faculty of knowing and this actual knowledge are not in human beings because the nature of things makes it impossible for them to be otherwise, but because God freely chose it to be so.

If objective and subjective truth were a necessary development of a necessary world, as pantheists maintain, no other degree or manner of revelation of truth could exist except the one that actually exists naturally; indeed, no permanent truth would exist, but everything would constantly change according to unchanging laws. This is the ultimate reason why many people infected with pantheism deny that revelation can occur, and they do so in complete consistency with their own principles. But once an infinite, personal, freely acting God is admitted, there is no reason to doubt that God can impart to human beings, from the infinite treasury of his knowledge, cognitions beyond those they can acquire by their own powers, and in another way than that followed by natural laws. Therefore, if he wills, God can announce truths to human beings in such a way that they understand that it is God who is speaking to them; that is, he can give immediate revelation.

63. Does divine wisdom have reasons for giving human beings immediate revelation? This can neither be affirmed nor denied a priori, because we do not look into the divine mind; we know only the order of created things, which does not require praeternatural revelation, but neither excludes instruction communicated by God that surpasses nature. Divine providence is indeed necessary so that creatures, and especially human beings, can act and attain their end. Therefore, a certain immediate action of God in the world is also necessary: preservation and concurrence. But insofar as this action is required for things to exist and not be futile, the whole divine governance belongs to the natural order. Now, the human being, who has natural faculties and corresponding divine concurrence, lacks nothing for attaining his proper end. And if perhaps a lesser degree of divine help is not sufficient, even within the natural order God can give more and greater interior and exterior helps, so that human beings lack absolutely nothing in pursuing their end. Therefore, from natural principles alone one cannot derive a reason why God should reveal something praeternaturally. Whether God has higher designs for human beings that exceed the natural order, we do not know. In this matter, therefore, human reason has a purely negative role, and is very much in error if it attempts to exclude a priori the possibility of immediate revelation.

64. Proof of the minor premise, part II. Immediate revelation is not incompatible on the human side. For the human being was created by God, depends on him in his acts, and is subject to him as supreme lord. From God as creator he received the faculty of understanding; from God as preserver and cooperator he also received every actual cognition. Therefore, although actual cognition is elicited by the human being himself as a vital act, God also produces it insofar as it is a being. Now, if God cooperates with human cognition, he can also cooperate in a way that surpasses every natural power and requirement, so that by virtue of this cooperation the human being knows what he cannot know naturally, or knows in a more perfect way what he can know naturally.

This supernatural cognition can take place in different ways. If it is such that through it a human being knows created things from intrinsic principles, this is infused science, called infused because, beyond natural cooperation, the species of the things to be known are infused. If immediate knowledge of God is given, this is the beatific vision. If knowledge from intrinsic principles is not given, but only God's testimony about something is proposed, to which the human being assents with supernatural cooperation, this is faith. Thus, with the interior grace of faith, we believe the doctrine proposed by Christ. This doctrine reaches us through witnesses sent by Christ and specially safeguarded by assistance against errors in handing on and preserving revealed doctrine. A human being owes faith to God speaking and to the witnesses sent by him.

Therefore, revelation is not incompatible either with the vitality of human cognition, because vitality does not exclude divine cooperation, or with human autonomy, because a human being is not so autonomous that he can refuse faith to God speaking. It is not the human being but God who is the supreme norm of truth. A human being is not omniscient, but is subject to errors, ignorance, and doubts. Hence he must be instructed by other human beings. But divine teaching authority is better than human teaching authority, because God is infallible and teaches not only from without but also enlightens from within. To deny the possibility of immediate revelation is the same as making God a mute idol, unable to meet the intellectual and moral needs of his creatures, and separated from all personal intercourse with human beings. Such a God does not exist in reality, but is a figment of philosophers who have strayed far from the truth.

65. Objection I. God is immutable. But immediate revelation presupposes a change in God. Therefore, immediate revelation is impossible.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: God is immutable in himself, or entitatively, I concede the major premise; God is immutable in his external works, or terminatively, I distinguish under a distinction: the decree by which God established from eternity what would happen in time is immutable, I concede the major premise; there are no successions in the divine works themselves, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: immediate revelation presupposes an entitative change in God, I deny the minor premise; it presupposes a terminative change in the divine action, I distinguish under a distinction: it presupposes a new decree of God, I deny the minor premise; it presupposes a temporal effect of an eternal decree, I concede the minor premise. And I deny the inference.

66. Objection II. God's works are perfect. But praeternatural revelation shows an imperfection in the divine works. Therefore, praeternatural revelation is impossible.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: God's works are perfect relatively, insofar as they have everything due to them in their degree and order, I concede the major premise; they are perfect absolutely, so that nothing can be added to their perfection, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: praeternatural revelation shows an imperfection in the divine works, as though they did not have everything naturally due to them, I deny the minor premise; it shows imperfection insofar as God can add something to them beyond their due perfection, I concede the minor premise. And I deny the inference.

67. Objection III. It is unworthy to imagine God as a teacher instructing his pupils. But through immediate revelation God is shown to act in this way. Therefore, immediate revelation is unworthy of God.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: it is unworthy to imagine God as a teacher who knows little and instructs ineptly, I concede the major premise; it is unworthy to show God condescending to human beings, accommodating himself to their nature, and instructing them through suitable external teaching and interior light, I deny the major premise. I distinguish the minor premise: revelation shows God as an imperfect teacher, I deny the minor premise; it shows him as a divine teacher instructing human beings in a manner suited to them, I concede the minor premise. And I deny the inference.

Nothing unworthy of God is apparent in the teaching authority of Jesus Christ, even though Christ is God; rather, everything is full of wisdom, dignity, and beauty. Divine revelation, too, as it is presented historically, is most wise and gentle insofar as God did not announce all the things to be revealed to human beings at once from the beginning, but educated the human race gradually, as a teacher would, and led it through the various stages of the patriarchal law and the Mosaic law up to the fullness of Christian revelation; then he instituted a teaching office, under whose care and watch the understanding of the revelation made through Christ would be explained more and more each day until the end of the world. So far is the revelation recounted in the books of Sacred Scripture from being unworthy of God that it deserves the greatest admiration. On the contrary, many objections devised by rationalists against the possibility of revelation are trifles unworthy of philosophers. (Cf. Praelect. dogm. I, n. 150 sqq; IX, n. 195 sqq in the third edition.)

Scholium. On divine revelation announced through envoys sent by God.

68. Since the human being is a social being, a priori one should expect that if God wishes to reveal anything concerning human society, he will not speak immediately to each individual but rather to specially chosen men through whom he instructs others. All who admit revelation properly so called agree that God really acted in this way. In this manner of acting, not only is nothing contrary to reason apparent, but the nature of human beings and of human society is also perfectly taken into account.

They object, however, that by this way of proceeding it cannot be avoided that human elements become mingled with the divine words and that the usefulness of revelation is greatly diminished or even corrupted. The answer is: whether human beings receive revelation immediately or mediately, they undoubtedly know what is said in a human, not a divine, manner; for what is known is in the knower according to the manner of the knower. Nevertheless, this does not affect the objective truth of the things revealed. If, for example, God reveals that the dead will rise, the future resurrection of the dead remains true, even if a human being knows much less perfectly than God how this will happen. A human being ought to believe the objective truth, not the subjective manner in which he knows it. And insofar as human imperfection could put the objective truth itself in danger, God will help by a special assistance so that what must be believed remains intact. Therefore, if God wills to send envoys to carry a divine message to others, he will take care not only that the envoys themselves are not deceived, but also that he equips them with conditions such that they do not lead other rational people into error. Faith is to be given to these envoys insofar as they can prove by sufficient arguments that their doctrine has been revealed by God; and faith extends only to those things they have been sent to announce. In other matters they remain subject to error like other human beings.

Nor do divine envoys, through divine revelation and mission, become dead instruments, like phonetic tubes through which God speaks; rather, they are enlightened so as rightly to understand and announce the revealed things. In this matter God does nothing violent or contrary to rational nature, but uses instruments in a way proportionate to their nature.

Rationalists indeed pervert all these things either through ignorance or through malice, in order to mock supernatural revelation. It is enough to have noted them, since their distortions do not need refutation.

Proposition IV. The revelation of mysteries is not incompatible with reason.

69. Position of the question. In its broadest sense, a mystery is a hidden thing that we are unable to know. Four degrees of hidden things can be distinguished. a) There are some things that we do not know, although in themselves they are knowable by us, but they are not accessible to our cognitive faculty, such as things at the bottom of the sea or deep within the earth. b) Other things manifest themselves to us not immediately but through their effects. Thus we know that they exist, but do not see their inner nature. To these belong, for example, the soul and every vital principle, and especially God. c) Sometimes we know that a thing is possible but not that it exists, because its existence must be determined by the exercise of freedom; such things include the future free acts of creatures or God's decrees. d) Finally, some things are so remote from our knowledge that even after revelation we do not positively see their intrinsic possibility; such are the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

These last are mysteries in the strict sense, whose existence we cannot discover from natural principles, nor can we positively understand their possibility from intrinsic reasons in this life, not even when they have been revealed to us by God. Mysteries in the strict sense are above reason, but not contrary to human reason, because no principle of reason is overturned by them; indeed, a well-trained intellect can resolve all the objections raised against them.

If the word mystery is taken broadly, it is clear that there are many mysteries, since there are more things that human beings do not know than things they do know. The divine intellect is infinite and has an object of infinite perfection. Hence it is certain that God knows many things we do not, and in this respect the existence of mysteries and the possibility of their revelation are self-evident. Nevertheless, it is not evident a priori that there are mysteries in the strict sense, because we do not know whether there are truths that God cannot reveal to us in such a way that we positively understand their intrinsic possibility through analogical concepts. We speak chiefly about these mysteries in the thesis, and say that there are no sufficient reasons to deny a priori that God can reveal such mysteries.

Rationalists sometimes explain the origin of the doctrine of mysteries in this way: since the first Christians were not highly cultivated in intellect, and understood various points of Christ's doctrine too crudely, they could not reconcile Christ's words with the opinions of philosophers. Therefore they said that there are mysteries inaccessible to the human intellect but revealed by God. Once this way of escaping difficulties had been discovered, however, they began in a sense to luxuriate in inventing one mystery after another and to boast of them as a special prerogative of the Christian religion. “Our task,” rationalists say, “is to cleanse minds of this childish conception and explain everything rationally.”

How false this assertion is is evident from the fact that Christ and the apostles already taught that there are mysteries (cf. Mc 4, 11; Mt 11, 27; 24, 36; Lc 10, 21; Rom 16, 25; 1 Cor 2, 7; Col 2, 2 3); that among the first Christians there were men of the greatest talent and learning, such as Paul, Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian; that great doctors of later times would long ago have corrected this defect, if it had occurred; and that the explanations of the mysteries given by rationalists are not explanations but distortions of Christ's doctrine. Even if we consider the matter in a purely philosophical way, it is wholly improbable that all Christians, in unanimous agreement, misunderstood the doctrine handed down to them, while the rationalists' mutually conflicting accounts are true.

With these points assumed, we prove only that there is no incompatibility in the revelation of mysteries. We shall see later that mysteries have in fact been revealed.

70. Argument. The revelation of mysteries is not incompatible with reason if it is not incompatible with God knowing mysteries, nor with mysteries being announced to human beings. But neither is incompatible with reason. Therefore, the revelation of mysteries is not incompatible with reason.

Proof of the minor premise, part I. God is infinite pure act, whom we do not attain by our cognition through proper concepts in themselves. But we do not so clearly see a being that surpasses our intellect by so great a distance that we can know a priori that there is nothing in it that simply transcends our natural faculty of understanding. Indeed, since there is such a great difference in intellectual faculties even among human beings themselves that one person may be wholly unable to grasp what another understands, it must all the more be supposed that there are things in the infinite intellect that no human intellect can grasp. This does not mean that it is denied that God can elevate the human intellect so that it understands those mysteries; but this very thing, if it occurs, is a great mystery. We deny only that, by the manner of understanding we use in this life, we can penetrate all the hidden things of the divine intellect.

On the other hand, whatever is true agrees at least analogically with the adequate object of our intellect. Therefore, one ought not say a priori that there is some truth that God cannot manifest to us even by analogical concepts. In some way we know what a person is, what a nature is, what God is, and what a human being is. Therefore, we can also form some kind of concept of a divine person and human nature. But if someone asks, “Can a divine person assume a human nature?” we must answer: if the divine person were precisely of the same character as a human person, the thing would be impossible; but what an infinite person can do according to his own proper manner, we do not know. Hence, if God reveals that a human nature has been assumed by a divine person, we understand in some way what this means; nevertheless, we do not see the possibility of the thing from intrinsic principles, but divine testimony gives us external evidence that it is so. In this way, then, God can reveal mysteries in the strict sense to us, if such mysteries exist. Therefore, the revelation of mysteries through analogical concepts and through the external evidence of divine testimony should not be said to be incompatible with reason.

Proof of the minor premise, part II. The revelation of mysteries would be incompatible on the human side if it brought no knowledge at all, or no useful knowledge, to a human being. But neither is to be said. Even after revelation, knowledge of mysteries remains very imperfect. Yet imperfect knowledge is neither no knowledge nor always useless. For through faith in mysteries, better than through any natural knowledge, we understand the majesty of God, our lowliness in comparison with it, God's benevolence and love, our ultimate end, and many other things of the greatest importance for religious and moral life. Through faith in these things our intellect is joined to the first truth, and the principle of a new supernatural life is implanted in us, whose ultimate term is the beatific vision. Although these things are not known to us a priori, they show nevertheless that nothing on the human side stands in the way of the revelation of mysteries.

71. Objection I. Evidence is the principle of certain knowledge. But mysteries are not evident to us. Therefore, we cannot be certain about them.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: the principle of certain knowledge is either the internal evidence of a truth manifesting itself or the external evidence of testimony, I concede the major premise; it is solely internal evidence, I deny the major premise. For through faith we know more things than through internal evidence. I distinguish the minor premise: mysteries are not evident to us by the evidence of science, I concede the minor premise; they are not evident to us by the evidence of credibility, I deny the minor premise. And I deny the inference.

72. Objection II. Whoever does not see whether a predicate belongs to a subject or not knows nothing. But in the case of mysteries we do not see whether the predicate belongs to the subject or not. Therefore, we know nothing about them.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: whoever sees neither from the inner nature of the thing nor from testimony that the predicate belongs to the subject knows nothing, I concede the major premise; whoever at least knows from testimony that it belongs knows nothing, I deny the minor premise.

Some say that mysteries are empty formulas, by which our intellect is no more instructed than if we heard: x + y = z. But this is not true. For if we hear that we have been called to the immediate vision of God, we know that this concerns the most perfect knowledge of the highest truth, by which we shall be perfectly blessed. This is not an empty formula but a most weighty and useful truth. The same holds for the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and all the others.

73. Objection III. It is wrong to renounce the use of reason. But whoever believes mysteries renounces the use of reason. Therefore, he acts wrongly.

I answer. I grant the major premise; I deny the minor premise. For whoever believes mysteries is first certain, through the use of reason, that God has revealed them, and understands that it is reasonable to believe God revealing. Therefore, he does not act wrongly but rightly.

Indeed, the greatest doctors, such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas, did not renounce the use of reason by believing mysteries; rather, faith in mysteries became for them a source of many and very lofty kinds of knowledge about divine matters, both theoretical and practical. All the saints are offspring of faith, while faith is chiefly and principally concerned with mysteries. But a tree that has borne such fruits should not be called a bad or useless tree.

Proposition V. Revelation is morally necessary for the human race with respect to religious and moral truths of the natural order, but is absolutely necessary on the hypothesis of a supernatural order.

74. Position of the question. The natural order is understood as that order in which the human race, by natural powers alone and under corresponding divine providence, ought to pursue an ultimate end proportionate to human nature. In that order, too, God is the human being's external ultimate end, to be possessed by the most perfect cognition, though only analogical; to that order, too, belongs the providence of God governing human beings and directing them to their ultimate end, but this providence and governance remains within the limits of natural requirement.

The supernatural order, which we know from revelation alone, is that order in which the human being is destined to see God immediately as his ultimate end, and to pursue that end through proportionate acts, aided by special divine help. The supernatural order does not destroy the natural order but perfects it. Natural faculties remain with their acts; natural knowledge of divine and moral things remains; natural ethics remains; and the human being who attains the ultimate end will also know God most perfectly through analogical cognition. Therefore, although an order of pure nature no longer exists, it is nevertheless right to ask how revelation relates both to the natural order and to the supernatural order.

Moral necessity derives from the greatest difficulty of acquiring the knowledge required for living a good religious and moral life. Absolute necessity for supernatural revelation exists when natural powers are wholly inadequate for properly pursuing the end established by God.

We assert that this moral necessity applies to the human race as it is now; therefore, we mean neither each individual human being apart from many others placed in the best conditions, nor the whole race as it might have been in another order of providence, but human beings taken generally, as they really are now. Nor do we say that human beings in general cannot know some religious truth, for example, the existence of God, sufficiently easily; rather, we speak of the whole complex of those truths without which a religious and moral life worthy of a human being is impossible. God could indeed have provided for human need in another way than through revelation; but since no other remedy is offered, nothing remains but revelation.

75. Proof of the first part. Revelation is morally necessary with respect to truths accessible to reason. For a) history teaches that all peoples deprived of revelation lacked correct knowledge of God and the moral law. But what never occurs is morally impossible. Therefore, revelation is necessary for the human race to acquire correct concepts of religious and moral matters. The nations imagined abominable gods, worshipped them with abominable rites, and moral depravity was universal. This is a very well-known fact. Doellinger collected many testimonies (Heidentum und Judentum, Regensburg 1857, especially books 7 and 8), as did other writers; for the rest, it is enough to read the first chapter of St. Paul's letter to the Romans.

b) Natural philosophy could not remedy this evil. Even the works of the best philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, are filled with the worst errors; the greatest discord often prevails among philosophers, even on fundamental questions concerning God, the human soul, and the end of the human being; and if they taught anything good, their lives usually contradicted it. Moreover, philosophers despised the common people, and the common people thought nothing of philosophers. Do not philosophers of our time who reject revelation also very often fall into skepticism, agnosticism, and pantheism, and corrupt the whole moral teaching? The many evils produced by unbelieving philosophy are evident; what it has contributed to the advancement of religious and moral life is not apparent.

c) Nor can most people acquire for themselves by their own investigations the knowledge necessary for the religious and moral order, because of a lack of talent and diligence, lack of leisure, the danger of falling into grave error, and the urgency of religious and moral duties that cannot be postponed until all incidental questions have been resolved by scientific methods. Therefore, for all human beings to arrive surely, quickly, and without error at knowledge suitable to the religious and moral order, divine revelation is required as the sole remedy for the very great difficulties that obstruct this knowledge.

Even revelation does not compel a human being to admit the truth, but is offered to his freedom. Hence, if human beings resist it with ill will, their condition does not improve but worsens. But those who are well disposed can learn from revelation all the truths necessary to be known, especially when they are aided by divine grace. In fact, the desperate condition of human beings was healed through Christian revelation alone. We therefore rightly conclude that this revelation was morally necessary.

76. Proof of the second part. Revelation is absolutely necessary on the hypothesis of a supernatural order, because if a human being must pursue a supernatural end that he cannot know naturally, this end and the means necessary to attain it must be revealed. In the supernatural order, then, divine faith is the root of the whole religious and moral life, and all human acts must in some way proceed from this root so as to be proportionate to meriting the beatific vision of God. The nature of supernatural being and order is to be explained more fully in the treatises on God as elevating and on grace.

Although it is so necessary, revelation is a true grace, that is, an unowed gift. It is indeed owed to a human being that God provide him with the means necessary to attain a natural end. But an end and means so excellent as to surpass every natural power and requirement are not owed. Moreover, once God has promised supernatural gifts, he must also give them. But the promise itself is entirely gratuitous; God owes the fulfillment of his promise neither to natural merits nor to natural requirement, but to his own faithfulness and goodness.

From what has been said, the teaching of the First Vatican Council, session 3, chapter 2, is understood: «It must indeed be attributed to divine revelation that those things in divine matters which are not in themselves inaccessible to human reason can, in the present condition of the human race, also be known by everyone readily, with firm certainty, and without any admixture of error. Revelation is not, however, to be called absolutely necessary for this reason, but because God in his infinite goodness has ordained the human being to a supernatural end, namely, to share in divine goods that wholly surpass the understanding of the human mind» (Denz. 1786).

77. Objection I. God's works are not defective. But God's works would be defective if revelation were necessary for human beings. Therefore, revelation is not necessary.

I answer. I deny the minor premise. For religious and moral errors did not flow from God's institution, but from the abuse of human freedom. It would be a just punishment if God left human beings, polluted by so many sins, to their misery; and if he rescues them from this misery through his revelation and grace, this is a work of mercy. The institution of a strictly supernatural order, however, does not indicate a defect in nature but only its capacity for perfection.

78. Objection II. Even among Christians many false opinions about religious matters are current, there are many opposing doctrines, and there are many sins. Therefore, revelation is not even a sufficient remedy for religious and moral evils.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: many errors and evils have not been removed by revelation with regard to things that are not essential in relation to the ultimate end, I concede the antecedent; with regard to essentials, I distinguish under a distinction: insofar as human beings can resist revelation with ill will, I concede the antecedent; insofar as revelation does not make it possible for those who will to pursue and attain the ultimate end with sufficient certainty and ease, I deny the antecedent. And I distinguish the inference in the same way.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

79. In giving revelation, God imposes on human beings the duty of receiving it. Therefore he must furnish his revelation and his envoy, who announces it to others, with marks or signs by which people may become certain that divine revelation is truly being proposed to them. For God demands a rational submission. But it is not rational to believe lightly, that is, without prior certainty about the fact of revelation. The marks by which one recognizes whether a doctrine has been revealed by God or not, or whether an envoy has truly been sent by God to announce such a doctrine, are called criteria of revelation, or motives of credibility, because by them the credibility of revealed doctrine is shown.

There are internal criteria when they are drawn from the character of the doctrine itself; there are external criteria when they are drawn from accompanying facts. There are negative criteria when they show only that nothing prevents such a doctrine from being revealed by God; there are positive criteria when they show that the doctrine has in fact been revealed by God.

An irrational or dishonorable doctrine is not divine; if it is good and weighty, it may have been revealed by God. If it is so excellent and unique that nothing similar has ever been conceived by a human being, there is a strong probability and presumption of divine origin. Nevertheless, internal criteria by themselves do not provide perfect certainty about the fact of revelation, because they do not altogether exclude a human origin for such a doctrine.

If the person who says he has received divine revelation and has been sent to preach it is wicked, deceitful, buffoonish, he is not to be regarded as a divine envoy. If he is a good man and conducts himself worthily, he may be a divine envoy. If he stands out for exceptional holiness, the presumption favors him; indeed, the person who says he has been sent by God may be a miracle of the moral order, such as cannot be understood without a special intervention of God. If this occurs, there is certain proof of a divine mission.

Good religious and moral fruits arising from a doctrine show that so good a tree could have been planted by God; exceptionally distinctive fruits that cannot be explained by natural causes are signs of God's immediate intervention.

The most certain external marks, and the only ones sufficient in themselves, are sensible effects produced by God in confirmation of revelation; these effects are divided into miracles and prophecies. We shall therefore treat them specifically. The First Vatican Council says, session 3, chapter 3: «So that the submission of our faith might be in accord with reason, God willed that external proofs of his revelation, namely divine deeds, and especially miracles and prophecies, be joined to the interior helps of the Holy Spirit; for, since they clearly display God's omnipotence and infinite knowledge, they are the most certain signs of divine revelation and are suited to the understanding of all.» And concerning faith, canon 3: «If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore people ought to be moved to faith solely by each person's interior experience or private inspiration, let him be anathema.» Canon 4: «If anyone says that no miracles can occur, and therefore all accounts of them, including those contained in Sacred Scripture, must be dismissed as fables or myths; or that miracles can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of the Christian religion cannot rightly be proved by them, let him be anathema.» (Denz. nn. 1790, 1812, 1813.)

Cf. St. Thomas, Contra gent. l. 3, c. 98 sqq; — De potentia q. 6; J. de Bonniot, Le miracle et ses contrefaçons (also in German: Wunder und Scheinwunder, Mainz 1889); E. Müller, Natur und Wunder, Freiburg 1892; P. de la Barre, L'ordre de la nature et le miracle³, Paris 1900; L. Fonck, Die Wunder des Herrn I², Innsbruck 1907 (where many other books are listed on p. 3 sqq); I. Pohle, Natur und Übernatur, in the work Religion, Christentum und Kirche I, Kempten 1911, 317 sqq.

Proposition VI. Miracles can occur.

80. Position of the question. A miracle is a sensible effect produced by God beyond the powers and laws of nature. It is called a sensible effect because imperceptible effects, such as the production of grace, although they are brought about by God alone, are not usually called miracles; for whatever is not perceived does not arouse wonder, which is what the word miracle signifies. An effect may be sensible either in itself, as in the raising of a dead person, or insofar as it is manifested by certain signs, as when someone shows by words that he knows the hidden thoughts of others.

In producing miracles, God is either the sole cause or the principal cause. For God can use a human being or other creatures as an instrument for producing miracles. But in that case the human being does not act by his own power; rather, divine power is in some way joined to the human being (though transiently, except in Christ, in whom divinity itself is permanently present) and through the human being flows into the effect, as when God acts while a human being, moved by divine impulse, declares that a miracle is to occur.

By natural means we know only the visible world, including the human being, and from the visible world we know its author, God. Whether there are created pure spirits is not known with certainty by the philosopher. If such spirits exist (as faith teaches), they can produce effects beyond those to which the powers and laws of the visible world suffice. Hence by their own powers they can perform miracles in a qualified sense, or with respect to us (cf. Mt 24, 24). Nevertheless, divine providence does not permit evil spirits either to disturb the physical order or to lead those who use reason rightly into invincible errors. If, however, we are dealing with good spirits, they are God's ministers for human salvation; if God employs them to confirm some doctrine as revealed, this is no less effective an argument than if God himself performs the miracle. It is therefore superfluous for our purpose to inquire into what angels can do and what only God can do. For although it is theoretically certain that certain things, such as creation and knowledge of future free acts, are possible to God alone, nevertheless in individual miracles it is extremely difficult to determine whether they could absolutely have been performed by an angel.

81. Atheists, monists, pantheists, and all who do not acknowledge a personal God consistently deny, according to their principles, the possibility of miracles; for when the cause is denied, the effect is denied. We can therefore dispute with them about the falsity of the principles on which they rely; but as long as they retain these principles, we cannot dispute with them about miracles. Even if an evident miraculous fact were shown to them, they would answer according to their principles that they could not explain this fact, but that it was not a miracle, since there is no God to perform miracles. In this discussion, then, we assume people who admit a personal, omnipotent, wise, holy, freely acting God.

Although God can perform miracles for various ends, here we consider miracles only as signs of divine revelation. This aspect also prevails in Sacred Scripture, so that miracles are very commonly called signs, σημεῖα (cf. Io 2, 11 18; 3, 2; 20, 30). Miracles considered in this way are not merely events of the physical order, but belong chiefly to the moral and religious order, and are an important part of God's personal intercourse with human beings.

Just as the creation of the temporal world is the effect of an eternal divine decree, so miracles too occur in time because God decreed from eternity that they should occur at that time. Nevertheless, one must not think that created things contain, just as they contain natural powers and laws, certain seeds, as it were, of the supernatural that spontaneously develop into miracles. There is no reason to affirm such a thing; the special divine action required for a miracle is sufficient without such created dispositions; and miracles do not belong to the ordinary course of things but are unusual and extraordinary, arousing human attention. For although God's power and wisdom appear no less in creation and natural divine providence than in miracles, miracles nevertheless indicate a more immediate influx of God than the natural order does.

82. Argument. Miracles can occur if God lacks neither the power nor the reasons to perform them. But he lacks neither. Therefore.

Proof of the minor premise, part I. God does not lack the power to perform miracles. God did not produce the world with its laws and powers by necessity, but by a free decision. These powers, laws, and effects therefore exist in the world not because things could not have been otherwise, but because this was God's pleasure; he could and can make indefinitely many greater things than he has in fact made. Indeed, God cannot so exhaust his omnipotence that he is no longer able to do anything.

Thus, a) God can act above natural powers. For if he was once able to produce effects that require creative power, he can produce such effects again and again—for example, multiply matter, produce external effects by the mere command of his will, and accomplish in an instant what natural powers require a long time to produce.

b) He who gave natural powers and cooperates with them can, in this respect, act against natural powers: he can withhold his cooperation from the production of certain effects, for example, make fire not burn combustible things placed in it, or, when the force of resistance is prevented, make bodies penetrate one another. Something does then occur against the ordinary course of events, but nothing occurs against the law of causality, because all created causes are subject to the uncreated cause.

c) God can act against the disposition of matter and, for example, restore a corpse that is unsuited to being informed by a soul to its former state and unite it with a soul again. In this matter divine power is also required insofar as it belongs to God alone to recall a soul from the state of its term to the state of its way.

d) God can produce intentional effects without the action of a rational creature, such as human speech in the air. He can also act immediately on spirits and, for example, cast out demons.

Only one who denies the existence of an omnipotent and freely acting God can deny all this power to God.

83. Proof of the minor premise, part II. God must not be said to lack reasons for performing miracles. For one must not think that, by establishing the natural order, God renounced the ability to manifest himself personally to rational creatures. Although a priori this personal communication is not proved to be so fitting that the contrary would be unfitting¹, nevertheless, if it pleases God to act with human beings in this way, it is easy to understand how greatly God's power, wisdom, and love toward human beings are commended by it. Therefore, miracles, at least insofar as they belong to the moral order and are signs of divine revelation, must be said to be fitting and worthy of God; for the physical order is subordinate to and serves the moral order. This law is fully observed when the ordinary physical events are in some way broken through by the performance of miracles (cf. what I wrote on this subject in «Theologische Zeitfragen» V, Freiburg 1908, 102 sqq).

84. Objection I. God is not an inept craftsman. But he would be an inept craftsman if he had to remedy defects in his work by his immediate intervention. Therefore, God does not act in this way.

I answer. I deny the assumption of the minor premise. God does not perform miracles to repair defects in the physical world but for the ends of the moral and religious order. A craftsman is not inept if he makes a work that no one can handle with absolute mastery except himself, and thereby shows that he is a craftsman superior to others. This is how God acts in creating the world and performing miracles. In creating the world, he made a work that he alone can make; by performing a miracle, he shows himself to be the supreme lord and master of this work.

85. Objection II. He is not a good legislator who first establishes laws and then violates them. But God would act in this way by performing miracles. Therefore, God must not be thought able to perform miracles.

I answer. I grant the major premise; I deny the minor premise. God established no law by which he himself is prevented from immediately producing a sensible effect. The so-called natural laws are constant modes of acting followed by physical causes in their actions. We infer these laws by inductive reasoning based on a sufficient number of observations and experiments. These laws therefore state what effects causes produce if they act according to their own mode; they do not establish what another cause besides them can do, or how they themselves can be modified, impeded, employed, or directed in their actions by other causes. Therefore, no law of God is violated in miracles; for by implanting certain powers, inclinations, and modes of acting in things, God did not impose on himself a law never to do anything immediately by himself, or never to use created causes as instruments for producing certain praeternatural effects. Those who bring forward the unbreakable chain of physical laws against the possibility of miracles speak as though physical laws absolutely and unconditionally demand the same effects always and everywhere. But this is manifestly false. Various negative conditions (such as the removal of impeding causes) and positive conditions (such as divine cooperation) are required for certain effects to proceed from causes. Therefore, if conditions are changed through divine intervention, physical laws do not demand that the same effects nevertheless be produced. Physical law does not determine whether certain conditions are present or absent.

86. Objection III. All natural and scientific certainty would perish if miracles could occur, because we would never be certain that a miracle was not taking place. Therefore, miracles cannot occur.

I answer. I deny the antecedent. To object in this way is to speak against the facts. For those who admit miracles are no less certain of the ordinary course of things than those who deny miracles. We are certain that a miracle is not occurring where no special indication of a miracle appears. By miracles God wishes to make human beings attentive to a matter of the moral order. Hence miracles do not occur surreptitiously, with no human being noticing, nor so frequently that they cease to be unusual events and to arouse wonder.

The physical, chemical, and biological sciences proceed rightly if they formulate their theses and hypotheses without taking miracles into account, because it is their task to define the natural course of things, not the special effect of God, by which ordinary powers and laws are not changed. In this sense it is rightly said that a miracle is not an object of natural science. One must only take care not to draw this false conclusion: “A miracle does not exist within the province of science (physics); therefore it does not exist at all.” For the science of phenomena alone does not exhaust the adequate object of human knowledge; rather, by the principle of causality a step is made to a “transcendent” cause: there is an effect that cannot be explained by causes in the world; therefore, a cause beyond the world is required.

Proposition VII. Miracles can be known with certainty as miracles.

87. Position of the question. If God performs a miracle to show that some doctrine has been revealed by him, he will also bring it about that the human beings whom he wishes in this way to instruct understand that a miracle truly has occurred. Otherwise the whole thing would be futile. Nor can anyone who admits a personal God reasonably deny that God is powerful and wise enough, if he wills, to make human beings certain that a miracle has occurred. It will help only to add a few points to explain the concepts more fully and to reject certain quibbles.

We do not say that all human beings can judge with certainty about every miracle ever performed, but that nothing prevents those whom God performs a miracle to instruct from arriving at a certain judgment.

In a miracle one distinguishes the historical truth of the fact itself, for example, that a blind man receives his sight at the word of a wonderworker; the philosophical truth, that is, the supernatural or praeternatural character of such a fact; and its relative truth with respect to proving revelation. We shall speak later about this third property.

In this thesis we consider the knowability of the historical fact and the knowability of the supernatural character of such a fact.

88. Argument. A miracle can be known with certainty if both its historical truth and its philosophical truth can be known with certainty. But both can be known with certainty. Therefore.

Proof of the minor premise, part I. The historical truth of a miraculous fact can be known with certainty. For, given the proper conditions, sensible events can be known with certainty. But a miracle is a sensible event that differs in itself from other events only in being a fact that occurs rarely and outside the ordinary course of things. Its being rare and unusual does not alter its perceptibility, but rather increases attention to it. Thus, just as certain unusual events in history are for this very reason more conspicuous and certain than commonly occurring events (for example, the first crossing of the English Channel by an aircraft, the deed of Herostratus, or other singular events of past times), so also the sudden cure of someone suffering from a serious and perhaps incurable disease, and similar events, draw everyone's eyes to themselves and are usually investigated more carefully. Therefore, insofar as miracles are considered only as certain sensible facts, they can be perceived by those present under the same conditions and can come to the knowledge of posterity through historical testimony, just like any other sensible facts. There are accounts both of miracles and of natural events that lack sufficient testimony. According to the rules of criticism, these must be rejected or considered doubtful. But to say a priori that every fact reported as miraculous must for that very reason be regarded as not having occurred is a frivolous and contemptible assertion. It is reasonable to adhere to sound criticism, but it is foolish to speak against facts and testimony on the basis of a priori principles that are by no means evident. Such a principle is the one held by many unbelievers: “A miracle cannot occur; therefore, it did not occur; the witnesses were deceived or deceivers.” In fact, when unbelievers reject accounts of miraculous events, they are often entirely lacking in sound criticism, and they abuse the name of science so that it truly becomes a mockery of science.

89. Proof of the minor premise, part II. The philosophical truth, or praeternatural character, of a miracle can be known with certainty. For it can be known with certainty that certain events cannot be produced by natural powers, either in substance or at least in the manner in which they occur. But an effect that cannot be produced by natural powers requires a praeternatural cause. Therefore, in this sense miracles can be known as praeternatural events. In substance, those events are supernatural that never occur through the powers of nature, such as the raising of a dead person, the penetration of bodies, and the suspension of the law of gravity. In their manner, those events are praeternatural that do occur through natural powers but slowly and given certain conditions, not suddenly and independently of conditions, such as an instantaneous cure of a disease or the multiplication of bread, and similar things. It does not matter that we often cannot know with certainty whether a particular miracle belongs to the first or the second class. Whenever creation intervenes formally or equivalently, the effect is praeternatural in substance (cf. above, n. 82).

To judge the character of a miraculous fact, we do not need to be able to define accurately a priori what natural powers absolutely can and cannot do. The same is true of many natural things about which we nevertheless judge with complete confidence. Thus, we do not know what all human beings, present and future, can do, yet we know that no human being can fly like a bird, because the entire composition of the human organism prevents it. Similarly, we know that a human being cannot raise a dead person, perform any external effect by an act of will alone, or cure every kind of disease by saying, “I want you to be well.” Therefore, just as people are certain about what occurs according to natural powers and laws even though, theoretically, they do not know all these powers and laws perfectly, so they can also be certain that a given event, either in itself or at least in such circumstances, cannot occur through natural laws. Physical certainty and the knowability of miracles in this respect belong on the same footing.

90. It can also be known that miraculous facts are not portents performed by the devil. For God, whose providence governs all things wisely, cannot permit human beings to be led invincibly into error by the devil. Therefore, if he permits the devil to perform portents, he will also provide that their diabolical character can be known. If the work itself, its circumstances, and its end are all good, it is not a diabolical fact, because the devil always intends something evil. Everything dishonorable, irreligious, cruel, manifestly false, or ludicrous is a sign of an evil spirit, just as things that are entirely pure, holy, and beautiful flow from a good source. This moral examination, when conducted from principles known from elsewhere and not dependent on the truth of the miracle, is not a vicious circle, because one does not conclude: “Because it is a miracle, it is good; and because it is good, it is a miracle”; rather: “Because the work is good, it is not diabolical; and because it is a work that cannot be done by material or human powers, it is from an agent beyond the world.” Therefore, the work was done either by God or by a good angel (cf. Dt 13, 1 sqq; 18, 15 sqq; Lc 11, 15 sqq; Suarez, De myst. vitae Christi disp. 31, sect. 2, n. 8). Moreover, the devil can never raise the dead or generally do those things that presuppose supreme dominion over things and creative power.

91. Objection I. It is physically certain that miracles do not occur; that people are not deceived in perceiving a miracle, judging it, or accurately transmitting it to others is at most morally certain. But physical certainty is greater than moral certainty. Therefore, it is always more certain that a miracle did not occur than that it did occur.

I answer. I distinguish the major premise: it is physically certain that miracles do not occur through physical powers, I concede the major premise; through God, I distinguish under a distinction: where there are no indications of a miracle, I concede the major premise; where there are sufficient reasons for affirming a miracle, I deny the major premise. I grant the minor premise. I distinguish the inference: it is more certain that miracles do not occur through physical powers than that they do, I concede the inference; it is more certain that miracles do not occur through God, I distinguish under a distinction: where there are no indications of a miracle, I concede the inference; where there are sufficient reasons for affirming a miracle, I deny the inference.

This whole argument rests on a false assumption, as if physical certainty about physical powers and laws and moral certainty about divine intervention were conflicting testimonies about the same thing; this is manifestly false. Physical certainty testifies nothing about God's intervention, and moral certainty testifies nothing about the natural order; rather, they are testimonies of different orders and about different things, which are not commensurable with one another.

Almost the same should be said about the objection: “The experience of countless thousands of people establishes that the dead do not rise; the experience of a few testifies that a dead person rose.” The objection has no force. For these are testimonies about different things, that is, about the natural course of things and about a special divine action.

92. Objection II. Those who testify to a miracle say that they saw an event through powers and according to laws of nature, and at the same time say that something occurred in that event beyond the powers and laws of nature. Therefore, they contradict themselves.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: they say that the subjective act of cognition occurred naturally and that the objective fact was supernatural, I concede the antecedent; they affirm that the same thing is both natural and praeternatural, I deny the antecedent. And I deny the inference.

Similar objections can easily be multiplied. They are not serious difficulties, but rather show the straits of unbelievers when faced with supernatural events, which are the root of the Christian religion and manifest their existence and life through their fruits. Take supernatural facts out of religion, and religion will weaken and die. That is why these facts are attacked so vehemently; and when nothing else remains, they proclaim that all who admit miracles renounce science, since the rejection of miracles has long ago and forever been adjudicated in the court of science. But nothing is accomplished by worn-out phrases (cf. Praelect. dogm. I, n. 75 190).

93. Objection III. Most witnesses to miracles are unlearned people, prone to superstition and lacking critical skill, who lived in an age when many things now common and known to all would have been considered prodigious (steam and electric machines, telegraphy, telephony, and many others), as would also many cures of diseases now effected through suggestion or hypnotism. Therefore, it must be thought that people of former times, through their ignorance or even through the fraud of clever tricksters, were led to regard as miracles things that were entirely natural events.

I answer. I deny the assumption of the argument. Provided that the fact itself and its circumstances are sufficiently established, we ourselves, using our own intellect and the help of developed science, can judge the character of the fact; we need not entrust ourselves to the credulity of people of old. People could see the sensible fact itself. If an unusual fact initially seems prodigious when it is not, the matter will gradually be disclosed, as happened when steam-driven carriages or telegrams were first introduced. Furthermore, the question is not only what can now be effected by certain means, but how an event produced without such means is to be explained. For example, Christ did not use electrical instruments or the various techniques hypnotists employ to heal, but cured the most diverse diseases by his mere command. Let men who boast so much of scientific progress do something similar, if they can. Certain events that are praeternatural in substance can never occur through natural powers, such as the raising of a dead person. Moreover, not all learned men of our times have been or are unbelievers; many of them have admitted miracles and carefully investigated recent events. The supposition that wonderworkers may have possessed knowledge of hidden powers, or that several coincidences came together, is far too gratuitous to be serious.

Many miracles have been falsely asserted, just as many scientific doctrines have been falsely established. But just as science is not to be rejected because false theses have sometimes been established, so miracles are not to be simply denied because some accounts of miracles are fables.

Proposition VIII. Miracles performed in confirmation of revelation are certain signs of revelation.

94. Position of the question. Every miracle, simply by being performed, is a manifestation of a personal, supramundane God whose power surpasses all created powers. Therefore, if even one miracle has ever truly occurred, it is an effective argument for the existence of God and for various divine perfections. Hence it is no wonder that atheists and pantheists stubbornly deny every miracle, because once a miracle is admitted they must admit the moral and religious consequences they do not want (cf. Praelect. dogm. I, n. 128).

But a miracle also has, or at least can have, another power of proof. For if someone says that he is an envoy sent by God to announce divine revelation to human beings, and performs a miracle to prove this assertion, he appeals to God as a witness to his truthfulness. In this case, then, beyond the signification inherent in the thing itself, the miracle receives a new signification or truth in relation to the fact of revelation, in whose confirmation it is performed. This too seems clear from the concept of the matter. Nevertheless, for greater clarity let us explain it somewhat further and hear the objections of our adversaries.

95. Argument. God cannot testify as true to what is false. But when God performs a miracle after being asked to do so as a sign of revelation, he testifies that revelation has truly occurred. Therefore, under these conditions a miracle is certain proof of revelation.

Proof of the minor premise. God alone can perform a miracle, either by himself or through an instrumental cause. Therefore, a wonderworker who asks for a miracle to prove the fact of revelation invokes God as a witness to the truth of his assertion. Hence, if the miracle occurs, God grants this request and testifies that revelation has truly occurred.

If God did not wish to testify to the wonderworker's truthfulness, the performance of the miracle would coincide with the invocation of divine testimony only by chance. But to admit this is in itself irrational, because an explanation that resorts to chance explains nothing; and it also conflicts with God's wisdom and holiness, since in those circumstances God cannot act in such a way that people necessarily judge him to be testifying to the truth of what the wonderworker says, although in fact it is false. If someone is asked to manifest by an external sign that he assents to another person's words, and gives this sign, everyone takes it as testimony of assent. Therefore, if God were to give a sign under the same condition, even though revelation had not truly occurred, he would be a false witness, which is impossible.

Nor is it permissible to resort to certain hidden ends for which God might nevertheless have performed the miracle. For all certainty would perish if things that by their nature are signs of truth could be made by God for hidden ends in such a way that they confirmed falsehood. Much less can it be understood how God could mark the life of a human being who falsely claims to be a divine envoy with a continuous series of miracles, as happened in the life of Christ.

Finally, God can declare explicitly, by a miraculously produced voice, that this person is a divine envoy. But however God confirms a person's testimony, he can never confirm a falsehood as true by a miracle.

A human being, bound to the senses and unable to see the fact of revelation itself immediately, is moved to admit revelation by nothing more than seeing a sensible sign given by God in testimony to revelation. Therefore, by confirming revelation with a miracle, God accommodates himself to human nature and leads a human being to faith in the way most fitting to him.

96. Objection 1. A miracle is a contingent fact; the things proposed for belief are necessary truths. But contingent things cannot be an argument for necessary truths. Therefore, a miracle cannot be an argument for revelation.

I answer. I deny the minor premise and its assumption. The minor premise is false, because a contingent fact can very well lead us to knowledge of a necessary truth, just as from the contingent world we know its necessary cause, God. Certainly, contingent facts are not the ontological foundation of eternal truths, but they can be a logical means of knowing eternal truths, because our cognition, too, is a contingent fact. If this cannot be done, why do our adversaries write books, which are certainly contingent, to teach necessary propositions? Every proof of a necessary truth given to human beings is a contingent fact.

The false assumption of the minor premise is that miracles are performed to prove that the objects of faith are true. They are not performed for this, but to show that God truly revealed what the envoy preaches. The motive for believing revealed things, however, is not the miracle but the authority of God revealing.

Cf. St. Thomas, Quaest. disp. de verit. q. 12; Suarez, De fide disp. 8, sect. 3 sqq; H. Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der religiösen Erkenntnis II 402 sqq; I. B. Becker, Die Weissagungen als Kriterien der Offenbarung, Mainz 1890.

Proposition IX. Prophecies, too, can be suitable criteria of revelation.

98. Position of the question. Prophecy and prediction are sometimes taken in the same sense. But prophecy in a broader sense signifies any message brought by a human being in God's name (cf. Cornely, Introductio in libros V. T. II, n. 242 sqq). A prediction is a certain foretelling of a future event that cannot be foreknown from natural principles. Its object is chiefly the free acts of God or of creatures. Cardiognosia, by which someone knows the secrets of hearts, open to God alone, may be referred to this category.

A prediction is a miracle of the intellectual order. A miracle more clearly manifests divine omnipotence; a prediction manifests omniscience. In a prediction, as in a miracle, three things must be distinguished: the historical fact of the prediction and its fulfillment; judgment about the prediction's supernatural character; and its power to prove the truth of revelation. There is, however, this difference: a miracle, as soon as it is performed, is an object whose character can be investigated and whose power of proof can be discerned; a prediction, in itself, can be known as a true supernatural fact and as certain proof of revelation only once it has been fulfilled.

Just as a miracle, insofar as it is a sensible effect, is usually a natural thing, so in a prediction both the foretelling and the fulfillment can also be natural things. But just as in a miracle the manner in which the event proceeds from its cause is supernatural, so in a prediction the manner in which the prophet receives knowledge of future things is supernatural. Moreover, since supernatural knowledge of future things is revelation, what was said above (n. 54 sqq) about revelation applies here.

99. Argument. For a prediction to be a suitable criterion of revelation, it must be possible, it must be possible to know it as a supernatural fact, and it must have the power to prove revelation. But all three conditions are met. Therefore.

Proof of the minor premise, part I. A prediction is possible. For God, being an infinite intellect, knows all things, including future free acts, and can reveal to a human being some of what he himself knows about future contingents, as is evident from what we established above (n. 62 sqq) concerning the possibility of revelation.

100. Proof of the minor premise, part II. A prediction can be known as a supernatural fact. It needs no proof that one can hear a human being foretelling future events and afterward see whether what was foretold actually happens or not. We assume that the events in question are sensible and can be known by human beings. Knowledge of both the prediction and its fulfillment can also be transmitted to posterity by witnesses, so that certain knowledge of the matter may be obtained under the same conditions in which other historical facts can be known.

A prediction is known to be a supernatural fact if knowledge of the future event could have been acquired only through God's praeternatural intervention. Under the proper conditions, a judgment about this can be made with certainty.

For when the future free acts of creatures are in question, their prediction is either fortuitous, conjectural, or certain. The fulfillment of a purely fortuitous prediction is more surely excluded the more numerous and determinate the things predicted are. Someone who asserts without any foundation that something will happen may sometimes happen to say what later actually occurs, if the matter concerns some simple event that occurs often—for example, if someone were to say, “A year from today, on this very date, it will rain.” But even in such matters he will often be mistaken. The more numerous and minute the circumstances specified, however, the less likely it is that the event will correspond to a rash prediction; for things that happen by chance happen rarely. Therefore, if future free acts are rashly predicted with many specified circumstances, it is wholly improbable that the event will correspond to the prediction. Least of all can effects that depend on God's free will be predicted in this way (cf. Ottiger, Theol. fundam. I, n. 233 sqq).

The same holds for a conjectural prediction. A human being can sometimes infer from previous observations, with a certain moral certainty, how other human beings will act, but only when the matter is a bare and simple fact and not very remote in time. But no one can ascertain through psychological conjectures with certainty what this or that person will do after a long time, on a certain day, in a certain place, and under certain circumstances.

Accordingly, a prediction is a certain sign of divine revelation when complex events, remote in time, are foretold with certainty, together with circumstances that here and now are not determined in their causes, but depend in every way on the free will of God or human beings (cf. St. Thomas 2, 2, q. 171, a. 6 ad 2 and q. 172, a. 1).

Angels, whether good or evil, naturally know many things that human beings do not, and so they can foretell certain things that are prophecies with respect to us, as was said above (n. 80) about miracles. Perhaps this is how various events recounted about the oracles of the pagans are to be explained (cf. Act 16, 16 sqq), although many of them must be attributed to fraud, as even the ancients themselves observed, for example, Cicero (De divinat. 2, 56). Moreover, angels do not naturally know future free acts with certainty, least of all God's decrees about future things (cf. Is 41, 23 sqq; 46, 9 sq). Good angels can be employed in prophecies, as in miracles, as instruments of God. If this happens, God himself acts as the principal cause. But evil angels, too, are subject to divine providence, which does not allow rational human beings to be led invincibly into error; the malice of demons will appear either in the thing predicted, in the circumstances of the prediction, or in its end. For the devil does nothing that is simply good.

101. Proof of the minor premise, part III. A prediction can be known as a certain criterion of revelation. For God can predict that a human being will appear at a certain time and place, distinguished from all other human beings by these and those signs, and that this person will be his envoy and a truthful witness to divine revelation. This was done concerning Christ, as we shall see later, and the ancient Fathers often and effectively used this argument to convert the pagans. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a more evident argument for demonstrating that a human being predicted in this way is God's envoy.

In another way, a fulfilled prediction can be an argument for revelation when a prophet says: “So that you may know that I truly announce divine revelation to you, behold, I foretell to you in God's name this or that, which no one can now foresee except God alone, so that when it has happened you may know that I have spoken the truth.” For in this way God is invoked as a witness, just as in other miracles; and if what was predicted is then fulfilled, he testifies that the person spoke in God's name. God can no more permit someone to abuse knowledge received from him to deceive people than he can permit someone to abuse a miracle for deceiving them. The more evidently an envoy appears to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, the more forceful this argument is (cf. what I wrote in «Theologische Zeitfragen» V, 110 sqq).

102. Objection I. The prediction of future things is impossible precisely because free acts would thereby occur necessarily. Therefore, it must not be admitted.

I answer. I distinguish the antecedent: they would occur necessarily by consequent necessity, I concede the antecedent; by antecedent necessity, I deny the antecedent. Consequent necessity, however, does not hinder freedom. Just as an act, when it is done freely, cannot at the same time not exist, so an act that is going to happen cannot at the same time not be going to happen. This necessity is called consequent because it follows the present or future existence of the act; in this way even free acts are necessary. Antecedent necessity, on the other hand, exists when an act is already determined antecedently to its existence in its causes, as happens in all nonfree agents, which always produce the same effects under the same conditions. We will discuss this further later in the treatise on God's foreknowledge.

103. Objection II. Predictions are usually so indeterminate that we cannot judge with certainty whether they have been fulfilled. Therefore, they are useless.

I answer. This is a question of fact, which we shall examine later. For now, however, it is useful to note a certain trick of rationalists. When a prediction seems less determinate, they say, “It proves nothing.” When it is very determinate, they say, “This could not have been known so precisely before the event; therefore, it is a prediction made after the event.” They speak in this way for no other reason than that they hate predictions a priori just as much as miracles.

104. Objection III. The pagans, too, had oracles and other predictions, yet their religion was not divine. Therefore, predictions do not prove the divine origin of religion.

I answer. There is a great difference between the oracles of the pagans and true predictions, because those oracles were often ambiguous, as in this one: «Croesus, by crossing the Halys, will destroy a great kingdom» (that is, either he will overthrow the kingdom of his enemies or his own); they were often false. Cicero writes: «You [Apollo] have filled an entire volume with your oracles, partly false, as I think, partly true by chance, as often happens in every kind of speech, partly equivocal and obscure, so that an interpreter needs another interpreter and the oracle itself must be referred to other oracles, partly ambiguous and of a kind that must be brought before the dialecticians» (De divinat. 2, 56). True predictions, however, as we have said, must be certain and determinate.

There is another difference between true prophets and the pagan seers. The Pythia and other seers, raging in madness, uttered things they themselves did not understand. A true prophet is enlightened by God so as rightly to perceive what has been revealed and to be able to teach others. St. Paul already indicates this difference (1 Cor 12, 2; 14, 32 sq). The many shameful things that occurred in the oracles of the pagans sufficiently show that if some higher power was present there, it was a diabolical power, as many Fathers teach; this is supported by the fact that the oracles fell silent at the presence of Christ's servants (cf. Praelect. dogm. III, n. 414). For the rest, it is difficult to judge which things there were human frauds and which were operations of demons (cf. Fr. Leitner, Die prophetische Inspiration, Freiburg 1896, 29 sq).

It is not incompatible with reason that God gave revelation to the pagans, not to confirm idolatry but to lead them to the truth. Not a few Fathers judge that the Sibylline books truly contain divine prophecies about the future Messiah. But those books, in the form in which they now exist, are partly Jewish and partly Christian in origin. Hence we learn scarcely anything from them about the prophecies of the pagans (cf. C. Alexandre, Oracula Sibyllina, Parisiis 1856).

Somnambulism, magnetism, spiritism, and similar phenomena are not to be compared with prophecies, because the doctrine of the prophets is sound and promotes the moral and religious order¹, and is directed to ends worthy of God; those phenomena, by contrast, are morbid, harmful to soul and body, and often joined with evil moral effects. Magnetism and the more obscure phenomena of psychic life are usually treated in philosophy (cf. T. Pesch, Institutiones psychologicae II, Friburgi 1897, n. 695 sqq) and in moral theology (cf. Lehmkuhl, Theologia moralis I¹¹, n. 499 sqq). Therefore, it seems that nothing further need be added here.