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.