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

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.