De immutabilitate traditionis contra modernam haeresim evolutionismi

That moral dogmatism consummates the irreparable destruction of the truth of faith, by proclaiming the purely practical value of the dogmas of religion, that is, by asserting that no objective value can be in them, as being altogether unknowable to us, but that they are only norms or excitements to action, inasmuch as we ought so to conduct ourselves in acting as if those things were true which are presented to our intellect by faith.

For indeed nothing is more open and obvious than the practical value of the dogmas of the Christian religion. Nothing is more usual with the holy Fathers than that they say that right faith is the beginning of a good life; that Christians ought to be distinguished from unbelievers by works and morals, in the same way as they are distinguished from them by faith; that works are built upon faith, as a building is built upon a foundation. Augustine says, de fide et symbolo, n. 25: « This is the faith which, to be held in few words, is given in the creed to new Christians..., so that by believing they may be subjected to God, being subjected may live rightly, living rightly may cleanse the heart, the heart being cleansed may understand what they believe ». Leo the Great says, Serm. 37, n. 1: « The memory of the things done by the Saviour of the human race confers great profit upon us, if what we venerate as believed we take up as to be imitated. For in the dispensations of the mysteries of Christ there are both the powers of grace and the incitements of doctrine, so that Him whom we confess by the spirit of faith we may also follow by the example of works ». Gregory says, hom. 26 in Evangelia, n. 9: « For he truly believes who carries out in working what he believes. On the contrary, concerning those who retain faith in name only, Paul says: They confess that they know God, but they deny Him by their deeds ». And therefore, concerning the faithful who live badly, the same Gregory says, l. 25 Moral. c. 10: « They pursue in morals what they venerate by belief. To whom by divine judgment it often happens that, through this that they live wickedly, they also lose that which they believe wholesomely ». And below, l. 28, c. 7: « There are those who truly believe the eternal things which they hear, and yet contradict by living badly that faith which they hold. » But even if all the testimonies of the same sense and of the same doctrine had to be reported one by one, I do not think that even whole volumes could suffice. But concerning the sense of Scripture, who could doubt? Scripture teaches that faith without works is dead in itself; that the grace of God our Saviour has appeared, instructing us, that denying impiety and worldly desires, we should live soberly and justly and piously in this world; that those who profess the Christian faith ought to be, by virtue of their profession, chaste, prudent, sober, holy in all conversation, that the word of God be not blasphemed; and six hundred other things of this kind. And lest we seem to be content with these more general things, behold for you some things more determinate. What relation, for example, there is between the special dogma of the incarnation and the rule of morals, Scripture comprehends in few words, saying: Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who when He was in the form of God..., emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant... He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, death even of the cross¹. And concerning the special dogma of the resurrection of Christ the same Scripture says: If Christ is preached that He rose from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, neither has Christ risen. But if Christ has not risen,... your faith is vain... Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners². And concerning the special dogma of the Eucharist it says: The Lord Jesus, in the night in which He was betrayed, took bread, etc... Therefore whoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord³. And so, running through individual points, from the truth of the dogma one descends to conclusions that regard the purity of life, the correction of a bad will, and the exercise of virtues of every kind. Nor will it be right to exempt from that condition even those dogmas which would seem to be purely speculative, for instance that most high mystery of the Trinity, in which we certainly have an incitement to subject ourselves to God by the most full obedience of intellect and will, to begin the life that awaits us with the angels in heaven, to tend with all the powers of the soul toward that vision in which alone the enigma will be revealed, the apostle testifying where he says: We see now through a mirror and in an enigma, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known⁴.

And so it is by no means to be denied that our dogmas avail very much for directing right action, and if that new system which they call by the name of pragmatism intended nothing else, it would be enunciating a truth that belongs to the very first elements of Christian doctrine.

But this too belongs to the first elements, namely: that those dogmas avail something in order to the rule of morals to the extent that they are absolutely true, and as such are most certainly held by us, and believed without doubt. Prior must be the truth which shows what is: the truth about God the first cause and ultimate end, about God the legislator, about God the judge, about God the rewarder: the truth about the Son of God incarnate for us men and for our salvation, who suffered, died, and rose again from the dead: the truth about the Church instituted by that one Saviour of the human race, and having in herself the means conducive to the attainment of the beatitude which the blood of J. C. merited for us: the truth about the sacraments, the truth about the remission of sins, the truth about eternal life promised to those who have done good, about eternal damnation appointed for those who have done otherwise. And this foundation of absolute truth once presupposed, I certainly take the rule of action from the dogmas reasonably. This foundation being removed, is it not folly, is it not madness? « We stand at the bodies of the holy martyrs, said Gregory⁵. Would these have given their flesh to death unless it had been most certainly established for them that there is a life for which they ought to die? » And speaking universally, what, I ask, is more foolish than to take the rule of action from the unknown, from nothing, from empty formulas of which it is not known, nor can it be known, what corresponds to them in reality — indeed, this one thing is known, that they are not consonant with reality? But this is what moral dogmatism does, by proclaiming the purely practical value of the dogmas of religion. Therefore it destroys this very practical value together with the objective one, and the ruin is absolute, the ruin is total.

They think they are saying something when they say that the sense of our dogmas is that we ought so to conduct ourselves in acting as if those things were true which are presented to our intellect by faith: « God is personal is meant to say: Conduct yourself in your relations with God as in your relations with a human person. Likewise: Jesus is risen is meant to say: Be in relation to Him as you would have been before He died, as you are in relation to a contemporary. And likewise also, the dogma of the real presence is meant to say that you must have before the consecrated host the same attitude that you would have before Jesus made visible »⁶. In truth, we are in the midst of complete somnambulism. For, as I think, for everyone who wakes for a little from sleep, this proposition, God is personal, means that God is personal, that is, subsisting in Himself, distinct from the world and from all finite things that partake of being. This proposition, Jesus is risen, means that Jesus rose, that is, returned from death to life. This proposition, Jesus is really present in the sacrament, means that He is really present, that is, that under the species of the sacrament, in place of the substance of the bread, Christ Himself lies hidden, truly and substantially. Otherwise, what a logomachy! what a lying acceptance of words! and above all, ye immortal gods, what an absurd religion! I see bread, the senses report bread to me, there is no suitable, indeed no possible testimony except about bread, and you compel me that in regard to that which in my knowledge is bread, and nothing further, I should be in that attitude of worship, adoration, reverence in which I ought to be toward Jesus made visible? Jesus is or was a man; history testifies this to me. Besides, His divinity has not even a sense for my intellect, and you compel me to behave toward this man, concerning whom whether there is anything above man I not only know nothing but cannot know, as if He were God? Jesus died; of this again there is no possible doubt. But on the other hand, the resurrection of the dead, as regards intelligibility, is equivalent to the squaring of the circle, and you compel me to converse with this dead man, who as far as I am concerned at least has remained among the dead, as with a living man? Bitter is the present life, and full of many sorrows; yet it has certain sweetnesses from which a certain austere prescription of the law, as they commonly call it, forbids us. But on the other hand, the future life, whether it exists and of what kind it is, is always found in the same sphere of agnosticism. What then shall I do, wretched man, who would not abdicate present things for the sake of a vain hope or fear of future things? But behold, the philosophy of action provides you with a solution. Act thus, live thus, as if there were a future life, in which both rewards for the good and punishments for the wicked have been established.

You see therefore nihilism brought to its ultimate limit in moral dogmatism. For in truth I would as reasonably take the rule of action from some novelistic fable as from the gospel. Nor does it help if you say that, although in the dogma as it is in our intellect there is no reason legitimating the practice, there can yet be one in the underlying reality, unknown indeed to us, but known to God revealing. For, passing over other considerations now, moral dogmatism knows no more about God, and especially about the revelation of God, than about the rest. « It is wont to be said that God has spoken. But what does the word to speak mean in this case? Most certainly it is a metaphor, and what is the reality that is covered under this metaphor? » No one knows⁷. Whence nothing remains but the vital effort of the human mind. For they say that unless we wish absurdly to transmute religion into a logical entity or metaphysical abstraction, we must introduce into it the notion of motion and life, so that dogma is conceived as something living, all whose principles are immanent to man.

It remains therefore for us to show what kind of animal that living faith finally is. And this we shall take care to do by reporting the words and sentences of the author who has taken upon himself the task of popularizing whatever was devised among the rationalists of the century just past concerning the origins, growth, progresses, past and future metamorphoses of this singular animal. That indeed in the chapter that follows.