De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

That the dogmas of our religion are truly and properly from heaven, and that by this very fact they would still resist the notion of relative truth by a special title, even if it were not otherwise evidenced by contradictory and mutually conflicting notes. And that the same absurd device, when it is applied to the evolution of sacred tradition, destroys the formal motive of faith, destroys its material object, destroys the mode of supreme certainty that faith ought to have in the believer.

It is scarcely intelligible, indeed, by what hallucination they are seized, when our neocritics seriously transform themselves into reformers of theology and promoters of a higher understanding of Catholic dogma, while among them the confusion of ideas grows to such a point that they no longer know how to say whether the doctrine of faith is from God or from men. For behold, in order to persuade [us] that there is in our faith nothing more than relative truth, they now do not hesitate to affirm that the conceptions which the Church proposes as revealed dogmas are not truths fallen from heaven, because those dogmas, however divine as to origin and substance, are nevertheless human as to structure and composition¹. But what is to be understood by origin and substance, in opposition to structure and composition, they do not explain. Nor do they need to explain it, especially since, where they speak clearly of the divine element which they retain in name only in our dogmas, it also clearly appears that it is in reality human, so that all things are at last contained in the same human order: both origin and substance and structure and composition. Once this is posited, it does not matter to know the proper differences of the individual words. But let us for the present omit these things. Let us take the distinction between the divine and the human element of dogmas in the best sense it can absolutely claim, and let us see whether from a distinction of this kind (whose legitimacy no one will deny on some sure ground) there finally follows that the conceptions which the Church proposes as revealed dogmas are not immutable truths fallen from heaven, but only mutable, reformable, relative conceptions, always to be purified by the progressive settling of the dregs and slag which they previously contained.

Certainly, in dogmas as they are proposed to us, there are first words; then there are concepts taken separately, and these either simple and incomplex, or complex and resulting from simples; finally there is the connection by which concepts are combined in judgment. What then do our evolutionists mean, when they say that dogmatic truths are not fallen from heaven?

That the words are not fallen from heaven? That indeed we concede, for we have never dreamed that a new language would come to us from above together with the revelation of God. That the concepts are not fallen from heaven? That too we grant indubitably, if the discourse concerns first and elementary concepts, because notions of this kind, if they had not been in us, would have had to come to be in us, in order that the discourse of revelation might become intelligible to us, either by miraculous infusion or by the fact that new objects would have been presented to our senses and our intuition. But revelation provides neither of these. It does not supply us with new intelligible species, it does not bring us visions, it does not elevate us to that new mode of understanding with which we shall be endowed only in the state of the end. It presupposed, therefore, our concepts, at least the first and elementary ones. For the account of complex ones is not altogether the same, because nothing prevents revelation from having brought certain new ones which our reason would not otherwise have had, as is clear from these names, consubstantial, Mother of God, transubstantiation, etc., in which the elements of the combination were commonly known among us, but the combination itself not so. But this does not much matter at present. For it will now suffice to observe this: that concepts taken separately are related to doctrines as the letters of the alphabet are related to words, or words to speeches; and that the same concepts enter into the most diverse doctrines of the most diverse origin, just as the same letters enter into the most diverse words of the most diverse signification. « The letters, says Augustine, are themselves repeated in so many thousands of words and speeches, they are not increased; words are infinite, yet letters are finite; no one can number words, anyone can number letters, whence there is a multitude of words. When one letter is placed in various places, and has force according to its place, it does not have one single meaning. What things are so diverse as God and the devil? Yet at the beginning there is the letter D, when we say Deus, and when we say Diabolus. Therefore the letter has force according to its place. But he errs, and is too absurd, and carries a childish heart, who, when he has read, for example, the letter D in the name of God, fears to place it in the name of the devil, as though he would do God an injury »². But now, do you too beware of a childish heart, and transfer the comparison to the question proposed to us, so that you may see even to evidence that words can be from the earth, elementary concepts can be from the earth, the structure and mode of enunciations can be from the earth, although the truths and dogmas are from heaven which are formed from these concepts, which are signified by these words, which are expressed by this structure of speech.

For tell me: from the fact that there are only twenty-four letters of the alphabet, that these twenty-four letters are in everyone's use, that I can write whatever I wish to write only with those same most common twenty-four letters, will you deduce that some truth which, for example, was known to me alone, and which I now manifest to you in writing, formally and precisely as manifested to you and directed to you, is not from me? Or from the fact that you use a language which you did not compose, which you learned wholly from others, whose vocabulary, idioms, structure, and rules owe nothing to you: from this, I say, that you use such a language, shall I at last have to conclude that the senses expressed by you in that language are not your senses; that the sentences uttered are not your sentences; that the assertions and judgments brought forward are not assertions and judgments originating from you, and clothed with your authority, if you have any? Think the same, therefore, in the present matter, and reason with proportion. For God was not the author of human concepts, precisely insofar as He is revealer. Yet nevertheless those same concepts were compared to Him as the alphabet to the scribe, as the vocabulary to the orator, as a language already fixed and preformed to the author who wishes to use it, so that in whatever way, whether by speaking, or by writing, or by dictating, he may manifest to others the hidden senses of his mind. What does it matter, then, that the letters of the alphabet and the words of the vocabulary used by God the revealer were not fallen from heaven? For sentences and dogmas reside nowhere in alphabetic, or phonetic, or even ideal elements, but only in the composition by which those elements are associated so as to rise into sentences and be formed into enunciations. But a composition of this kind in our case is beyond doubt from heaven, because it is from God revealing, because it is from God dictating³.

It is not permitted, therefore, to deduce from the fact that our dogmas keep the mode and structure of human conceptions that which the new masters want. But the only conclusion can be that the divine mysteries have one mode in the word of revelation and another mode in themselves, as St Thomas notes, 2-2, Q. 1, a. 2: « Things known, he says, are in the knower according to the mode of the knower. Now the proper mode of the human intellect is that it know the truth by composing and dividing. And therefore those things which are simple in themselves, the human intellect knows according to a certain combination, just as conversely the divine intellect knows incomplexly those things which are complex in themselves. Thus, therefore, the object of faith can be considered in two ways. In one way on the part of the thing believed itself, and thus the object of faith is something incomplex, namely the thing itself about which faith is had. In another way on the part of the believer, and according to this, the object of faith is something complex by way of the enunciable ». To this also comes what Augustine says, expounding the beginning of the Gospel of John, where [he speaks] of the Word which was in the beginning with God: « To speak as it is, who can? I dare to say, my brethren, perhaps not even John himself spoke as it is, but he too spoke as he could, because being a man he spoke of God, and indeed inspired by God, but nevertheless a man. Because he was inspired, he said something; if he had not been inspired, he would have said nothing; but because being a man he was inspired, he did not say the whole that is, but what a man could, he said »⁴. And the final reason is that in this supernatural revelation or dictation, the alphabet of the utterance is still our natural concepts, and such an alphabet does not contain the proper mode of God. Not that it says that God has another mode than the one He really has in Himself; for thus there would be falsity, as was said above. But because no one says, nor can anyone say, what that mode positively is, transcending all limitation and all admixture of imperfection, which through the manifold compositions of his letters, as it were, he expresses and declares most truly concerning God. Nor in this is there any difference between the dogmas of natural theodicy and the dogmas of revelation, because both have been and are expressed in the same intellectual language. But while in the former the association of the elements of the judgment is from reason moved by evidence, in the latter it is from God teaching us the agreement of the predicate with the subject, even where that agreement escapes every intuition of reason and exceeds every estimation of it. But in truth, if in judgments rightly formed by that same reason of ours there is always absolute truth, how much more in those which are directly from God, unless perchance you wish either to make God the author of falsity, or to deny Him the power of expressing the truth of His mysteries in a language, however imperfect and deficient, that is among us.

But it is scarcely necessary to demonstrate how, that device of relative truth standing in the dogmas proposed by the Church, it is all over with the Christian, that is, the theological, faith, from which there is now subtracted both the formal motive and the material object and the proper mode of firmness and certainty.

There is subtracted first the formal motive, which is that of the authority of God revealing. For where will there be a place for the authority of God in those conceptions which are by no means absolutely true, which only insofar as possible approximate reality, which consist in modes of speaking, which fluctuate and vary and are changed with the wind of the doctrine of men? We shall have, therefore, human opinions; but the faith which rests upon the first truth itself, or upon God testifying, we shall certainly not have.

There is subtracted also the material object. For what is it that we shall now be able to believe? Perhaps that there is some mystery confusedly analogous to the assertions which the Church proclaims and teaches? But these precise doctrines — for example, that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God and consubstantial among themselves, that Jesus Christ is one person having a divine and a human nature, that bread and wine are converted into His body and blood, that under the species of the sacrament His body itself and His blood itself are contained truly, really, and substantially — we shall not be able to believe. For we speak thus now, because we cannot speak better now. But the time will come in which, according to a better evolution of studies, it will be said otherwise, and more truly. Therefore, for the sake of discipline, we shall stand by the formulas authentically proposed: by the formulas, I say, not by the things which are signified by the formulas.

There is subtracted a fortiori the proper mode of believing which is necessary in divine faith, namely the mode of adherence that is indubitable and firm above all things. For certainly, I ought to give my life rather than call into doubt the consubstantiality of the Trinity, the duality of natures in the one supposit of Christ, transubstantiation⁵ in the Eucharist, etc. But, O blood uselessly shed, O life not esteemed at its true value, if it is only a matter of human formulas which are in favour today and will be changed tomorrow! If in the meantime it is lawful for me to think that consubstantiality is the proper vocabulary of a certain school, to which another vocabulary, and another sense, can one day be substituted! If I can think that perhaps Jesus Christ is not God except through some transformation of His soul, and I know not what acquired consciousness of I know not what conjunction with the Father! or that His eucharistic presence is perhaps not badly explained by the perennial permanence of His spirit in the midst of those who continue and promote His work in the world!

And with what mind, finally, with what disposition or credulity shall we hereafter utter the profession of faith, saying: I with firm faith believe and profess all and every one of the things contained in the symbol of faith which the holy Roman Church uses, namely, etc.? And again: This true Catholic faith, outside which no one can be saved, which I now spontaneously profess and truly hold, I promise, vow, and swear that I will most constantly retain and confess, with God's help, the same whole and immaculate even to the last breath of my life. So help me God, etc.?

Evident, therefore, is the complete opposition which the device of relative truth has with the first and most fundamental principles of the Catholic religion. But come now. There now fall to be considered somewhat more carefully the arguments drawn from the sources of history, by which they wish to persuade [us of] this same device.