De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

That, in the first place, moral dogmatism vainly seeks a means of restoration on the side of the will, to which it ineptly attributes primacy in the business of acquiring and knowing religious truth. And that it appeals altogether without warrant, at this point, to the Catholic doctrine on the assent of faith, so as to procure for itself a certain semblance and appearance of orthodoxy.

For in truth there are not two notions of truth: one valid in the things that pertain to religion, and another in the rest. If anyone denies this, contention with him is useless, because either he is dreaming, or he is conscious in himself that he is shamelessly calling truth that which is not truth. « To whom at least this is manifest, says Augustine, de ver. rel. c. 36, that falsity is that by which a thing is thought to be what it is not, he understands that to be truth which shows what is ». To that faculty, therefore, most evidently belongs the discovery of truth in whatever order — to that faculty to which it belongs to see, to apprehend, to perceive things that are and as they are. But this faculty is not the will, which does not see, which does not perceive, which does not apprehend, but desires and pursues the good, whether true or apparent, whether real or imaginary, which the intellect shows. Therefore, once truth as perceived in the intellect and by the intellect has been destroyed, to attempt a restoration on the side of the will is as discordant and absurd as if, for a half-blind man, you provided the guidance of a blind man as a remedy for his infirmity. Not that every influence of the will should be denied in the business of acquiring and knowing truth; especially of that truth which is high above our minds, and which, both in itself and in its practical consequences, is contrary to the depraved inclinations of corrupted nature. But how the will is related to the intellect must be considered.

First, the will is related as removing an obstacle. For there are many things that disturb the judgment of reason, and inject rheum and phlegm into the eye of the mind. There are unbridled passions, there are perverse affections, there are swellings of pride: there are also contentions, dissensions, jealousies, which, like fire in wood fattened with moisture, breathe out only smoke and cannot have bright flames. Nor is it doubtful that a good will contributes very much to the removal of impediments of this kind. — Secondly, it is related as moving the intellect to seek the reasons from which the truth can appear, as applying the edge of the mind to a diligent consideration and discussion of them, as obtaining also from God the helps necessary in this great business. And because the will certainly does not do this if it hates the light, if it fears to come to the light, if it loves darkness more than light, therefore the discovery of truth is not undeservedly ascribed by Augustine to the love of truth itself, where he says: « If truth is not desired with all the powers of the soul, it can in no way be found. But if it is sought as it deserves, it cannot withdraw itself from its lovers. Hence that which you also are wont to have in your mouth: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you. Nothing is hidden that shall not be revealed. By love it is asked, by love it is sought, by love it is knocked, by love it is revealed, and finally by love one perseveres in that which has been revealed » ¹.

Thirdly, finally, the will is related as commanding the intellect's assent, when the intellect itself is not constrained by a perfect evidence of the truth, and is not necessarily carried away by that full perspicuity of the object which leaves no place at all even for a possible doubt. But here a distinction is especially needed. For either the will commands an assent proportioned to the dignity of the reasons that have previously become known to the intellect as the legitimate foundations of a mental assent, or it commands an assent disproportioned, and one that is resolved, either wholly or in part, into its own good pleasure or arbitrariness. If the former, well. But if the latter, what else will be had but the empty and vain figment of a certain irrational opinion? For in every judgment that is required according to the norm of right reason, the will must not intervene as substituting itself in the place of the reasons, or as adding to their weight, but only as making the intellect assent according to their merit — namely, wherever those conditions are absent in which a spontaneous, necessary, and altogether unimpedable adherence of the mind follows². And there is no need to dwell now on a longer demonstration, because these principles are evident, these principles are absolute, these principles admit no exception, not even in the business of divine faith, to which they appeal inconsiderately, so as to procure for their dogmatism a certain appearance of orthodoxy.

For they say that we have no reason necessitating belief in the divine institution of the Church; that faith is a gift, that it is a free act; that if faith resulted from our reasonings as the conclusion of a syllogism follows from the premises, no one not out of his mind could ever withdraw himself from faith, etc.³. And from this they further infer that our reasons for believing have not in themselves more firmness than those which are the foundation of free opinions; that the believer's intellect is not in a better condition, for its part, than that of the opiner; that it belongs to the good will, to the will assisted by grace, to add or supply by its free determination what is lacking to the weight of the reasons; and that by this means the general principle itself of moral dogmatism is most consonant with the things that orthodox doctrine holds and confesses concerning theological and saving faith.

But against all these things stands this: that when the reason for believing is at issue, the discourse can be either about the reason of faith itself considered in itself, or about the reason of the judgments that precede faith as its preambles. And if indeed the discourse is about the preambles of faith, we certainly have reasons necessitating us to judge most certainly that it is reasonable, that it is due, that it is obligatory to believe the divine institution of the Church as revealed in fact by God. And these reasons are called the motives of credibility, some absolutely, others relatively sufficient, according to the diverse capacity and the diverse condition of intellects, but in all ways always independent of the good pleasure of the will. Although, to be sure, it does not yet follow that free choice will have no part there — free choice in whose power it will always be, either directly or indirectly, to turn the mind away from the consideration of the premises from which this necessary conclusion arises: therefore the Catholic revelation is reasonably credible, therefore it is to be believed obligatorily. But now, if the discourse is about the assent of faith itself considered in itself, its reason is nothing less than the authority of God revealing. Which authority, to every man not carried off by the delirium of madness, most evidently becomes known as a foundation most worthy of the firmest adherence, inasmuch as it is constituted by the infinite wisdom and truthfulness of Him who is subsistent Truth, and whose attestations, from this very fact, from this alone that they are His attestations, are also absolutely indefectible from the order of the true. And yet, since to yield to authority as such is not placed in the spontaneity of the intellect, the intervention of the free will is still necessary — not indeed that it may add to the reason for assent, than which nothing can be altogether more sufficient, but only that it may determine the execution or exercise of the act, according as and insofar as the intellect judges that act reasonable, and due, and obligatory. Neither therefore in the preambles of faith, nor a fortiori in the act of believing itself, is the will in the place of a reason, or in the place of a complement of reason. And therefore the Vatican Council, assigning the unshaken solidity of the reason for believing, says: By reason of the authority of God Himself revealing, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. But concerning the reasons through which the fact of divine revelation first becomes known, it adds: That nevertheless the homage of our faith should be consonant with reason, God willed that with the internal aids of the Holy Spirit there should be joined the external arguments of His revelation, namely divine deeds, and in the first place miracles and prophecies, which, since they clearly demonstrate the omnipotence and infinite knowledge of God, are the most certain signs of divine revelation and accommodated to the intelligence of all. Signs, he says, most certain. Which therefore need no supplement whatever from the arbitrariness of the will.

So far, then, is moral dogmatism from receiving support from the Catholic doctrine on the reason and mode of the assent of Christian faith, that by this very doctrine it is rather evacuated, and already destroyed. But it is destroyed still more in this, that it wills sincere and true faith to depend necessarily on a will morally perfect with the perfection of love or charity. For they distinguish between the faith of love and the faith of fear, and say that the faith of fear is not sincere faith, because it contains in itself the desire not to believe; that with it and through it one walks in darkness; that it is a dead faith, and consequently a constrained one, etc.⁴. In which indeed they will seem to themselves to take some argument from the testimony of James the apostle, where he treats of the faith of demons who believe and tremble, compared with the faith of a man, which if it has not works is dead in itself. But against this is, first, that that faith of demons by no means depends on the free will, whether it be good or evil, but on the sole evidence of signs, and therefore can in no way be called either a faith of fear or a faith of love, unless perchance one pleases to call a faith of fear that which has fear as a consequent effect: in which sense the consideration is no longer to the point, as is evidently clear. But against this is, secondly, that the faith of a Christian without works is by no means compared with the faith of demons as regards the species of the act, but only as regards this: that just as to the demons all that knowledge which they have of divine things from the evidence of signs profits nothing for salvation, so to the Christian, as long as he does not strive to conform his life to his faith, faith itself will not be able to profit. But against this is, thirdly, that the faith of a bad Christian is called dead, not because it is constrained, not because it lacks sincerity, but because it is idle and does not pass into the effect of a good work. But against this is, finally, fourthly, that every doctrine which makes true Christian faith inseparable from charity and the state of justice is a heretical doctrine, a Protestant doctrine, long since condemned in the Council of Trent, Sess. 6, can. 28, and most recently in the Vatican Council, Sess. 3, cap. 3. For in the Council of Trent it is thus held: If anyone says that, when grace is lost through sin, faith is likewise always lost; or that the faith which remains is not true faith, although it is not living; or that he who has faith without charity is not a Christian, let him be anathema. And in the Vatican Council: Wherefore faith itself in itself, even if it does not work through charity, is a gift of God, and its act is a work pertaining to salvation, by which man renders free obedience to God Himself, consenting and cooperating with His grace, which he could resist. Again, therefore, they appeal in vain to Catholic doctrine, precisely at the point in which they openly contradict a solemnly defined dogma.

From first to last, therefore, it is falsely asserted that the knowledge of faith begs its value from a good will. Falsely is it said that the defect of adequation with objective truth is compensated in dogmas by what derives from the influence of a good life. Falsely is it supposed that in the things of religion our notions are worth just so much, no more and no less, as our moral life is worth, as the end toward which we tend is worth. Falsely, finally, is that new account of truth set up, which no longer shows what is, but what morality contributes. But now it will be worth while to investigate whether this very morality, which is the basis and foundation of the whole system, remains safe and whole in it. Of which let the following assertion be.