Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

Preliminary Remarks: The Adversaries of Revelation.

Followers of revelation are called supernaturalists, its adversaries naturalists. Naturalists assert that all things which happen in the world come to pass by natural forces, without God's being able to intervene immediately in any way whatsoever. Yet this principal dogma is understood differently by different persons. Thus are distinguished also monistic, deistic, and rationalistic naturalism.

1. Monism, both materialistic and pantheistic, confuses the divine being with the world itself, denying a supramundane God. And because according to the tenets of monism God is not essentially distinct from the world or from nature, neither can He posit acts distinct from nature. Hence divine revelation is excluded. Nevertheless we have no business with monism, because apologetics presupposes the existence of the supernatural God to have been proven from philosophy.

2. Deism, originating in the seventeenth century¹ in England (Cherbury, Toland, Collins, Woolston, Tindal), propagated in the eighteenth century in France (the Encyclopaedists: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot) and Germany (the Illuminists), indeed admits a God who exists and is the creator of the world, but denies every further influence of God upon the world. The world, as soon as it is created by God, is sui iuris, subsists of itself alone, acts solely by its own forces, and governs itself according to innate laws. God no longer has care of it, and indeed cannot have care of it; therefore no providence of God exists, not even a natural one. But this doctrine has already been refuted in philosophy, where the divine concurrence and providence are treated. In truth we can neither conceive of a created and contingent world that does not at all times stand in need of divine concurrence and governance; nor can we conceive of a creating and absolute God who no longer wills or is able to take care of His own world. Consequently the Deists are constrained either to deny the very existence of God or to concede God's natural influence upon the world. This the history of deism clearly demonstrates. For some Deists (the English and French) soon lapsed into scepticism, monism, atheism; others (the Germans) into rationalism.

3. Rationalism professes a natural influence of God upon the world, whether physical, intellectual, or religious. God moves physical creatures by His concurrence and by common and special providence and directs them to their end. He assists intellectual creatures by aiding the ordinary progress of the arts and sciences, and moreover from time to time by sending forth men endowed with extraordinary character.

Religion, finally, He assists by giving each one rational faculties by which they may be able to know God from the works of creation; indeed by raising up extraordinary men to promote religion and to instruct men in religion. Men of this kind, imbued with "religious genius," were Zoroaster, Buddha, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, and others.

Yet these men themselves did nothing—nor indeed could they do anything—that would exceed the natural order of divine providence or the natural order of human knowledge and action. They received no supernatural revelation from God, nor did they hand one on to men. Hence both the origin and the nature of all religious truths are to be explained naturally. Natural reason alone attends to the business of religion.² Whence this system also received the name of rationalism. From the eighteenth century onward, nearly all Protestants follow rationalism, except for the "orthodox" and a few others who favor semirationalism.

4. Semirationalism, or moderate rationalism, indeed admits divine revelation, but denies that revelation contains mysteries surpassing the grasp of reason.³ "They say, namely (the semirationalists), that the truths are proposed historically in revelation, but that all of them, at least after they have thus become historically known, can also be understood and demonstrated from intrinsic necessary principles perceived by the light of reason—indeed that this very thing is the proper office of philosophy." Whence it follows that all revealed truths will gradually pass over into rational truths, and that "all the dogmas of the Christian religion, without distinction, are the object of natural science or philosophy."⁴ Among the semirationalists from the Protestants are to be numbered the "mediating theologians" (Vermittelungstheologen) Tholuck, Neander, Lange, Martensen; among the Catholics, Hermes, Hirscher, Baader, Guenther.

5. State of the question. From what has been said it is clear that apologetics has nothing to do with monistic and deistic naturalism (already condemned in philosophy), but only with rationalism. The rationalists attack revelation in respect both of the ontological and of the logical order.

In the ontological respect, indeed, they say that revelation considered in itself, or objectively, is disproved by reason; in the logical respect, however, they maintain that revelation considered in relation to us, or subjectively, is not known by reason. Hence we must first treat of revelation considered ontologically, then of revelation considered logically.

Rationalists, in order utterly to overturn revelation considered in itself, either corrupt its very nature, or deny its possibility, or call in question its necessity. And for this reason we must treat of the nature, the possibility, and the necessity of revelation.

In order that the nature of revelation may be fully understood, there must be set forth both its notion and its division.

1. The genuine notion. a) Etymologically, the Latin verb 'to reveal' (revelare) means "to remove a veil," which impedes the vision of a thing. The same notion underlies the synonymous Greek words (ἀποκάλυψις, φανέρωσις) and the vernacular words (Offenbarung, révélation, etc.). From physical things the word 'revelation' was transferred to signify an intellectual manifestation of a truth more or less unknown. And indeed, from general usage, the divine manifestation of religious truth is customarily called revelation.

Hence revelation in the broadest sense is defined: a divinely made manifestation of religious truth. There is understood, moreover, both the act by which the truth is manifested (active revelation) and the object, or the truth itself that is manifested (passive revelation). We speak only of the act, or fact, by which God manifests religious truths. God, however, can manifest religious truths by a twofold act, namely natural and supernatural. Whence we distinguish natural and supernatural revelation.

b) Natural revelation is a divinely made manifestation of religious truth through the works of creation. For God indeed left as it were his traces in the created world, so that through the works of creation he manifests his existence, his nature, and the other religious truths that are drawn from them. The work proclaims its maker; the creature proclaims the creator, mover, and governor of the world. It suffices to have employed sound reason, so that from the world we ascend to God and from the world we come to know God by the force of the principle of causality.

Since, however, he renders himself knowable through natural works and the exercise of natural reason, this revelation is rightly called natural.

The psalmist magnifies this natural revelation of God: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth the work of his hands"¹. Paul extols it: "God manifested it to them (the gentiles). For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made: his eternal power also, and divinity, so that they are inexcusable"². Theologians, however, when they speak of revelation, for the most part do not understand it as natural, but as supernatural.

c) Supernatural revelation, or revelation strictly taken, is a manifestation of religious truth made through the words of God to man. This revelation, therefore, consists in this, that God himself directly enlightens and instructs the human intellect concerning religious truths. Such an influx of God, moreover, is altogether supernatural, since it takes place apart from every concurrence, faculty, and exigency of nature. Apart from every concurrence of nature, because God no longer manifests himself through the works of creation, but through his own speech. Apart from every faculty of nature, because by inborn power man is able to draw religious truths from the created world alone, and indeed by his own reasoning. Apart, finally, from every exigency of nature, because it does not pertain to the constitution, or essence, of human nature that God himself directly instruct man.

Of this supernatural revelation the Apostle writes: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son"³ 2. Spurious notions. a) Certain rationalists, indeed — not to speak of the monists and deists — bandy about 'revelation.' Nevertheless, as is clear from what has been said, they do not understand it as supernatural. For the idealistic, or older, rationalists (Reimarus, Lessing, Semler, Wegscheider, and others) call 'revelation' every, and only, religious knowledge that we acquire by the help of natural reason. Thus Wegscheider, easily the chief among the earlier rationalists, writes: "Only natural revelation, or the manifestation of God through the works of nature, seems able to be rightly defended"⁴ Lessing adds: "that revelation, exactly like education, gives man nothing except what he already possesses by his own nature and can find by his own reason; and hence that there is to be substituted for supernatural revelation a natural revelation so-called only in an improper sense"⁵

b) The empirical rationalists also, under the leadership of Kant, acknowledge only "religion within the bounds of mere reason"⁶ Indeed they contend that "pure" or "theoretical" reason is not even apt for knowing any religious truths whatsoever. For by his intellect man does not know the supersensible "noumena" (transcendental things), but apprehends only sensible "phenomena" by the aid of external experience. "Practical reason," nevertheless, by the aid of internal or subjective experience, "feels" the utility, necessity, and existence of religious truths.⁷ This subjective experience, however, or religious consciousness (religiöses Erlebnis, religiöse Erfahrung, religiöses Bewußtsein), which is nothing but a dictate of the human will, or rather of human sentiment, they call revelation.

c) In almost the same way all the neo-rationalists, or modern Kantians, define revelation, to whom belong the liberal Protestants and those modernists who have come forth from the Catholics.

Albert Ritschl († 1899), father of the liberal school, teaches that Christian revelation arose from this, that God educated the human conscience.⁸

Aug. Sabatier († 1901), the leader of Protestant liberalism in France, calls revelation a manifestation of God in our conscience.⁹

Alfred Loisy, head of the modernists, understands revelation as the conscience, or experience, acquired by man of his own relation to God.¹⁰

The program of the Italian modernists judges revelation to be "an elaboration of religious consciousness." Religious consciousness experiences, or feels, the supernatural, just as the ear feels music. Revelation is that which is produced by this sensation, or subjective experience, and is convertible with it.¹¹

These systems, therefore, reject every revelation in the true sense of the word. They boast of the word 'revelation,' in order the more cunningly to attack it in reality.

Supernatural revelation is specified by reason of the object that is manifested, by reason of the mode in which it is manifested, and by reason of the end for which it is manifested.

1. By reason of the object that is manifested, revelation is either formal or material. That revelation is called formal whose formal object alone (the motive of assent) is supernatural; that is called material whose material object (the argument) as well is supernatural.

Formal revelation, therefore, contains truths that are natural in themselves and on that account accessible to human reason (e.g. the existence of God, the immortality of the soul). For whatever things are natural are also capable of being perceived by natural light. There are, to be sure, countless things in the bowels of the earth or in the firmament of heaven that escape rational cognition, e.g. the number of stars, the essence of electricity, of light, of matter, of animal and vegetative life. Yet these truths remain hidden only per accidens, not per se. They escape the grasp of reason because of external difficulties, not because of their substance or matter itself. If, therefore, they are divinely revealed, they become supernatural with respect to the formal object (or motive or principle) by which they are made known to us; yet they remain natural with respect to the material object (or argument or substance) of the truth itself.

Material revelation, on the other hand, contains truths that are not natural in themselves and on that account are inaccessible to human reason. The very matter (substance or argument) of these truths is such that it cannot be known without revelation.

But a truth to be known can be inaccessible to reason in two ways: either absolutely (simpliciter) or only relatively (relative seu secundum quid).

That truth exceeds reason secundum quid whose existence reason cannot prove before revelation, but whose essence it is able to grasp after revelation, e.g. the institution of the Church, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. That these truths exist, reason cannot prove with certainty before revelation, although it can affirm their possibility or even their probability. After revelation, however, reason can understand what these truths are, how they are, and why they are. Hence they are rightly called praeterrational truths, or mysteries secundum quid (broadly so called, of the second degree).

That truth exceeds reason simpliciter whose existence reason in no way can prove without revelation, and whose essence it cannot grasp even after revelation has been made. For this reason truths of this sort are called suprarational truths, or mysteries simpliciter (strictly so called, of the first degree), e.g.¹ the mystery of the Trinity. Reason left to itself can prove the existence of the Trinity neither as certain, nor as probable, nor even as possible. Through revelation, however, it learns with certainty that the Trinity is; it also partly understands, i.e. by analogous notions, what the Trinity is; finally it shadows forth at least somewhat, by fitting similitudes, how and why there is a Trinity of persons in God.

2. By reason of the mode in which it takes place, revelation is either mediate or immediate.

It is immediate when God Himself communicates the truth with no legate interposed; it is mediate when God manifests the truth through a legate. The revelation that Moses, the prophets, and the apostles received was immediate; the revelation that the Israelites received through Moses, and Christians through the apostles, is mediate.²

In immediate revelation God must so affect the cognitive faculties that man clearly perceives the truth that is communicated, and knows with certainty that it is communicated to him by God. Since, however, the cognitive faculty is threefold, immediate revelation is likewise distinguished into a threefold kind: sensitive, imaginative, and intellective.

It is sensitive when God speaks to the external senses by voices and other sensible signs. To this belong not only audible voices, but also theophanies (God appearing in the flame of the bush; Daniel seeing the writing on the wall), symbolic visions (Peter seeing unclean animals), and types (the paschal lamb; the bronze serpent; the sacrifice of Melchisedech). Imaginative revelation is present when God opens the truth through a power or influence upon the internal senses. This He can indeed do either by impressing imaginary forms not received through the senses (for instance, if likenesses of colors were impressed in the imagination of one born blind) or even by forms divinely ordered from those that have been received from the senses (Jeremiah 1, 13 seeing a boiling pot; Amos 8, 1 a basket of summer fruit). Intellective revelation consists in this, that God produces intelligible species in the mind itself, as in an internal vision, in prophetic illumination, very often in ecstasy, and likewise in those men who receive infused knowledge and wisdom.³

In mediate revelation God must make men certain that the immediate revelation from which the mediate one is derived is true and divine; in other words: the preacher of revelation must prove that he is sent by God and is a legate for communicating the truth to men. But this divine mission He can render certain by divine signs, especially by miracles and by fulfilled prophecies.⁴

3. By reason of the end for which it takes place, revelation is either private or public.

Private revelation is that which is given for the benefit of one man alone, or at least not of all men. The persons to whom private revelation has been made are bound to believe it with divine faith; the rest, however, neither ought nor can believe it with divine faith, since such a revelation does not pertain to them. Moreover, certainty of its divine origin is had only most rarely; indeed, even the Church in approving private revelations does not declare them truly to be divine, but only that they contain nothing contrary to faith and morals. It is not lawful, however, to despise them, since they are probably divine and certainly useful.

Public revelation is that which is given for the common benefit of all men, namely to found, to develop, and to complete the true religion for the whole human race. It is of this revelation alone that we shall treat.

Rationalists deny that any revelation at all can take place; semi-rationalists, however, contend that at least the revelation of those mysteries which are strictly so called cannot take place. Hence we lay down a twofold thesis: on the possibility of revelation in general and on the possibility of the revelation of mysteries.

Revelation is the communication of truth by the speech of God to men. Three things, therefore, are contained in every revelation: the truth to be revealed; God who reveals; and man who receives the revelation. Accordingly, if these three things are not incompatible, revelation is possible. But revelation is not incompatible either on the part of the truth to be revealed, or on the part of God who reveals, or on the part of man who receives the revelation. Therefore revelation is possible.

1. Revelation is not incompatible on the part of the truth to be revealed, because there is no lack of truths that can constitute the object of revelation, both formal and material.

a) Many truths of the natural order are already unknown to us. For although all natural truths are in themselves open to reason, still in reality some are not known at all, while others are not known by all, or are known only in an uncertain and imperfect manner. Of this ignorance history and daily experience are indeed an unanswerable witness. There are therefore natural truths present that constitute the formal object of revelation.

b) Moreover, there exist very many truths of the preternatural order (mysteries in a qualified sense) that are wholly inaccessible to reason. Not to speak of mysteries in the strict sense, God knows very many things that are wholly inaccessible to man, e.g., simply future things; the free decrees of God. The reason for this is that the divine intellect is infinite, the human intellect wholly finite. For to the infinite intellect belong both infinitely perfect objects and an infinitely perfect mode of cognition; while the finite intellect knows merely finite objects in a merely finite manner.

St. Thomas illustrates this by an example: "Of two persons, one of whom perceives some thing with a subtler intellect than the other, the one whose intellect is more elevated understands many things that the other cannot grasp at all, as is evident in a rustic, who can in no way grasp the subtle considerations of philosophy. But the intellect of an angel exceeds the human intellect more than the intellect of the best philosopher exceeds that of the most uneducated idiot, because this distance is contained within the limits of the human species, which the angelic intellect exceeds... And much more does the divine intellect exceed the angelic than the angelic exceeds the human..." Hence not all things that God understands in Himself can an angel grasp by natural cognition, nor does human reason suffice for all things that an angel understands by its own natural power."¹ There exist therefore also preternatural truths that constitute the material object of revelation.

Hence revelation is not incompatible on the part of the truth to be revealed.

2. Revelation is not incompatible on the part of God who reveals, because God lacks neither the power by which He reveals, nor the manner in which He reveals, nor the end for which He reveals.

a) The divine omnipotence does not lack the power by which it reveals. God gave man the power to perceive truth with the intellect: why would He who conferred the power be unequal to putting that very power "into act? Why could He not represent some intelligible object to the intellect?

God moreover gave men the power by which they could manifest and communicate to one another their cognitions and thoughts; therefore He Himself will also be able to reveal to men the truths known to Himself.

Finally, it is more perfect that God be able to manifest His cognitions to other beings than that He be unable to do so. For the latter circumscribes the omnipotence of God within limits. But if the former is more perfect, it is certainly to be posited in God.

b) The divine omniscience does not lack the manner in which He reveals. For once the absolute power of revealing is admitted, the adversaries insist, saying that we do not grasp the manner in which God can converse with men so as to be understood by them.²

But even if we little men did not grasp this manner at all, would it therefore have to be concluded that God too is devoid of the manner in which He reveals? Certainly not, since the ways of God are unsearchable to our ignorance. In fact, however, notwithstanding this ignorance, we are able to determine certain obvious manners by which God can communicate His knowledge:

α) By signs already known, both external, by which the senses are affected (e.g., voices, sensible images, etc.), and internal, by which the species of the things to be revealed are represented to the imagination or to the intellect.

β) By signs not yet known. For it is lawful for God to manifest His will by means, both external and internal, of which man was as yet ignorant, provided that with divine help the meaning of those signs be clearly made known.

c) The divine wisdom does not lack the end for the sake of which He reveals.

The adversaries imagine revelation to be a repair or correction of primitive nature, and consequently unworthy of divine wisdom. In reality, however, God does not reveal in order to correct primordial nature, but:

α) To aid human nature. For although it was abundantly equipped for attaining its end, it is nevertheless capable of new divine aid. If it was not unseemly for God to create man for a natural end, assuredly neither is it unseemly for Him to direct him toward the appointed end by manifesting truths and sustaining natural powers.

β) To restore human nature, fallen perhaps and wounded. For by the abuse of liberty a nature originally quite perfect could be violated. But God, the best of fathers and teachers, could first permit that defect, in order afterwards to heal it with a suitable remedy.

γ) To elevate human nature to the supernatural order. Revelation is added to the work of creation as a kind of new creation. God, infinitely good and bountiful, sets for man a new and indeed supernatural end, and bestows on him the means suited to this end, without in any way touching or disturbing nature.

Revelation therefore wonderfully manifests the wisdom, omnipotence, and knowledge of God, and is most consonant with the whole concept of God. The rationalists, on the other hand, while they declare revelation impossible, in reality destroy the very idea of God, confining His operation to the world and the natural order.³

3. Revelation is not incompatible on the part of man who receives revelation, because revelation is detrimental neither to the faculty, nor to the activity, nor to the evolution of human reason.

a) Revelation does not injure the faculty of reason. According to the adversaries, the very nature of reason is such that it cannot suffer instruction on the part of God. Reason, they say, as an intellective faculty, is the sole source from which all cognition gushes forth. It can therefore take on no cognition from outside, none on authority, even divine authority.

But this opinion, long ago theoretically rejected in philosophy, is also refuted by practical life.

As philosophical science teaches, reason is autonomous or independent only in the sense that it admits nothing as true except what is proved to it as true; by no means in the sense that it rejects everything that is proved as true not by internal evidence but by external authority, whether human or divine. External authority, whether human or divine, is a source of cognition no less than reason.

Practical life bears witness to the same thing. For man is an "erudite being" (Lacordaire: "L'homme est un être instruit"). Children are taught solely on the authority of parents and teachers. Otherwise they would be ignorant even of the greatest truths of daily life, e.g., who their parents are. But even adults receive nearly all their domestic, social, political, geographical, historical, and juridical cognitions on the authority and faith of others. Indeed even the learned and those most versed in the sciences must in very many matters trust other men expert in art and science. In short, the whole progress of the sciences and of knowledge rests on the foundation of authority.

But if man can be instructed by man, why not by God! If created and fallible authority is admitted, why not the uncreated and infallible authority of God? In truth the very faculty of reason naturally possesses the power to draw truths from any authority whose credibility it has examined. Accordingly, even divinely revealed truth, once the fact of revelation has been proved, is reasonably admitted by reason, and is rejected both irrationally and impiously.

b) Revelation does not eliminate the activity of reason.

The rationalists insist that revelation is detrimental, if not to the faculty or power of reason, at least to its activity or exercise.

For they think that the human intellect, while it undergoes revelation, conducts itself merely passively, like an inanimate vessel into which an external liquid is poured, or like a dead mouth through which an alien subject speaks.⁴

If these things were so, revelation would indeed be incompatible with reason, which can perceive truth only by a vital act.

But man who undergoes revelation exercises a twofold activity, both concomitant and consequent.

Concomitant. At the very moment in which one receives revelation, he acts in exactly the same vital manner as in every other cognition, although he acts illumined by God. For God merely supplies to reason the species which in natural cognition created objects supply. Just as the impression of species, which takes place on the part of the objects, does not eliminate our vital activity, so neither does the impression of species that takes place on the part of God. This activity is no more eliminated by revelation than by the natural divine concurrence in all our acts.

Consequent. For, once divine instruction is received, the intellect by no means rests inert and idle. For no small labor is required that the truths which we have known by the divine light we may also, as far as possible, apprehend by the natural investigation of reason. Moreover, as often as revelation answers one question, so often it raises several others, stimulating and sharpening reason to further study. So far is it from the truth that the progress of human cognition and of scientific investigation is eliminated by revelation!

c) Revelation does not disturb the evolution or harmony of reason.

The rationalists contend, finally, that revelation breaks the continuous, organic, pragmatic coherence of the human mind. For they say that the intellectual evolution both of individual men and finally of the whole human race is woven together with a wonderful internal harmony. Revelation, however, introducing supernatural cognitions from without, disturbs and perforates that natural harmony of individual minds and of the whole of history.⁵

Just as if God could not instruct supernaturally without by force oppressing and injuring natural instruction! "Thus it is to be understood that God operates in things, yet in such a way that the things themselves have their own operation."⁶ "God operates in each thing according to its own property."⁷

In reality revelation joins and unites itself to nature, helps and elevates nature, and builds upon nature the supernatural world of faith and grace. Just as a good branch grows with the wild tree into which it is grafted; just as education adapts itself to the child's disposition, so entirely does the revealing God operate in and with the natural soul. Indeed, revelation adapts itself so perfectly and so delicately to the natural culture and history that the rationalists foolishly deny the revelation of the Old and New Testament for the very reason that they nowhere see culture and history disturbed!

Briefly, therefore, it must be said: so far is it from the truth that revelation harms the faculty, the activity, the evolution of reason, that it rather fosters and promotes them to the highest degree. Revelation, I say, wonderfully safeguards the rights and privileges of reason, since it makes it capable not only of understanding natural things, but also of investigating supernatural things under the light of divine instruction. The rationalists, on the contrary, contract and deprave reason, unduly restricting it to merely natural objects and manners of knowing.

Hence the ecclesiastical censures, which affirm that revelation is possible, safeguard not only the rights and privileges of faith, but also those of reason, laying down: "If anyone shall say that it is impossible or inexpedient that man be instructed by divine revelation concerning God and the worship to be paid to Him, let him be anathema. ... If anyone shall say that man cannot be elevated to a cognition and perfection that surpasses the natural, a. s. ... If anyone shall say that human reason is so independent that faith cannot be commanded to it by God, a. s."⁸

The Semi-Rationalists indeed concede that rational truths — even suprarational ones — can be revealed. But they assert it can in no way come about that mysteries in the strict sense, which contain truths that are simply suprarational, should be revealed.

In truth, the revelation of these truths could not come about if it were contradictory either for them to exist, or for them to be communicated by God, or for them to be believed by men. But it is not contradictory either for mysteries to exist, or for God to communicate mysteries, or for man to believe mysteries. Therefore the revelation of mysteries is not impossible.

1. It is not contradictory that mysteries should exist.

We do not intend positively to prove that mysteries exist. For reason can neither establish the existence of mysteries, nor ought it to. It cannot. For:

a) A mystery is a truth that simply, or absolutely, surpasses the intellect. But those things that absolutely surpass the intellect do not have for it more of the character of being than of non-being.

b) Moreover, the existence of a mystery, since it is not established elsewhere, would have to be demonstrated from its own internal evidence. But this we are in no way able to do, since the internal nature of a mystery is evident neither before nor after revelation. Therefore reason, left to itself, can positively assert nothing about a mystery.

Nor ought it to. For the adversaries maintain that the existence of a mystery is contradictory. It suffices, therefore, to show that this contradiction is not established. But it is shown:

a) From the nature of a mystery. A mystery is a truth that simply exceeds reason. But of a thing that simply exceeds reason, reason cannot prove the contradiction.

b) From the infinity of God and our own finitude. The infinite is fully measured only by an infinite intellect, by no means by a finite one. But if our finite intellect does not fully measure the infinite God, neither can it affirm whether mysteries exist in Him or not.

c) From the human manner of knowing divine things. In this life we do not know God and divine things intuitively, but only discursively from created things. But created things do not represent God in an adequate manner, but only analogically and imperfectly. Therefore we can be ignorant of many things that are in God, for example mysteries. A man born blind, who judges the nature of light and colors analogically from the sensation of hearing, has only an obscure idea of the matter. So a fortiori man, who knows God solely from creatures, perhaps simply does not know a great many of God's (attributes).¹ Hence he would wrongly affirm that the existence of mysteries is contradictory.

2. It is not contradictory that God should communicate mysteries.

For it is evident that God does not lack the power by which to reveal, nor the manner by which to reveal, nor the end for which to reveal mysteries, if there truly are any.

a) Divine omnipotence does not lack the power by which to reveal mysteries. For men are able to hand on to other men truths whose internal nature the latter do not understand; a fortiori, therefore, God is able to do so.

Moreover, from the omnipotent only those things cannot be done which include a contradiction and are therefore internally not possible. But mysteries, if they exist, do not include a contradiction. Therefore the omnipotent God has the faculty by which He can reveal them.

b) Divine omniscience does not lack the manner by which to reveal mysteries. For by the very same ways and means by which He manifests natural and preternatural truths He can manifest mysteries as well. For he will achieve this either by devising and explaining signs not yet known, or by employing and combining signs already known — for example, if it is revealed that in the one nature of God there are three divine persons, the subject (the one essence of God) and the predicate (the three divine persons) are already known to us, although we do not comprehend that this predicate belongs to that subject.

It is by this double means that both the inventors of new things and, above all, the refiners of languages make use. Indeed, it is in these ways that all men communicate to other men truths whose internal nature the latter do not grasp. A fortiori, therefore, God can reveal mysteries to men in these ways.

c) Divine wisdom does not lack the end for which He reveals mysteries.

It is absurd to deny that God's wisdom has reasons for revealing mysteries, since His ways are unsearchable — indeed, since even we, fools that we are, can set down several reasons of this sort. His end can be, through the mysteries revealed:

α) That our knowledge be increased. For with the mysteries revealed we know subordinate truths, i.e. rational and preternatural ones, more easily and more deeply; for example, we know the nature of God better and more correctly through the revealed mystery of the Trinity. Indeed, all the arts and disciplines have progressed wonderfully through the benefit of the Christian mysteries. Mysteries are like the sun, which, although it cannot be looked at with the naked eye, nevertheless illuminates all things; or like the telescope, by whose aid many things are perceived which, on account of their distance, would not at all be reached by the simple eye. Moreover, mysteries add to the rational and preternatural object already known an object that is simply suprarational, higher and nobler than the rest. Whence it comes about that also:

β) Our mind is perfected. "Of the noblest things, however imperfect a knowledge may be, it confers the greatest perfection upon the soul. And therefore, although the things that are above reason human reason cannot fully grasp, yet it acquires for itself much perfection if at least it holds them in some way by faith."²

γ) The goodness of God is manifested. For by revealing His intimate and most profound mysteries God discloses to man His charity, benignity, mercy, liberality, and paternal affection. Thence He also excites and stimulates our love and gratitude toward Himself. Therefore the revelation of mysteries, if there truly are any, is not repugnant on God's part, but rather most fitting.

3. It is not contradictory that man should believe mysteries.

For if the assent to be given to mysteries were repugnant, this would come about either because mysteries objectively contradicted reason, or because subjectively they could not be known by reason.³

But neither of these can be said.

a) Mysteries do not objectively contradict reason.

The Rationalists falsely suppose that mysteries are against reason for the reason that they are above reason. For these two things are as far apart as the poles. Above reason, namely, is that proposition between whose terms reason, left to its own powers, does not suffice to detect either agreement or disagreement, e.g. that in the one essence of God there are three persons. Against reason is that proposition which in the terms of which it consists includes a contradiction, e.g. to say that a circle is a square, that twice two make five, that there is one God and three Gods. The difference between these two is manifest: not being able to be known, and including a contradiction.⁴

Indeed, since they are simply above reason, they cannot be proved to be against reason. For concerning those things that simply surpass reason, such as mysteries, reason can simply positively affirm nothing, neither agreement nor repugnance. Rather, the repugnance of a thing can be pretended only then, when the internal nature of the thing is clearly perceived. But we do not clearly perceive the internal nature of a mystery by reason. Therefore it will never be permissible to say that a mystery objectively contradicts reason.

b) Mysteries are known subjectively by reason.

Although mysteries are incomprehensible, reason nonetheless, with the help of revelation:

α) clearly and certainly knows the fact, or existence, of the mystery, i.e. that it is a mystery. Now a proposition is sufficiently set before reason if we understand the fact of the proposition, namely the subject and predicate, and know without doubt that the latter is connected with the former, although we are ignorant of the internal manner of this connection. For although this knowledge does not furnish the evidence of the thing, it gives at least the invincible certainty of the thing, in which reason reposes. This certainty of the fact alone suffices for us to assert scientifically innumerable profane things, although their internal manner, or internal nature, lies hidden — e.g. electricity, attraction, light, etc. Therefore the certainty of the fact, or existence, suffices, even when the matter concerns a mystery.

β) knows to some extent also the manner, or nature, of the mystery, i.e. what, how, and why it is a mystery. For a proposition containing a mystery can and ought to be clearly enunciated in such a way that we understand what is signified by it, i.e. that we acquire at least an analogous, even if not adequate, notion of the mystery. Moreover, by arguments that are not indeed necessary, but nevertheless fitting, we are able to confirm why it is a mystery. Finally, how it is, we are able to explain by selected similitudes.

All of which the Vatican Council comprehends admirably: "Besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed for our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless they are divinely revealed, cannot become known ... And indeed reason, illuminated by faith, when it seeks diligently, piously and soberly, attains with God's gift some and that a most fruitful understanding of the mysteries, both from the analogy of those things which it naturally knows, and from the connection of the mysteries themselves with one another and with the ultimate end of man; never, however, is it rendered capable of perceiving them in the manner of the truths which constitute its own object. For the divine mysteries by their very nature so exceed the created intellect that even when delivered by revelation and received by faith they remain covered by the veil of faith itself and enveloped in a certain, as it were, obscurity, as long as we are pilgrims from the Lord in this mortal life: for we walk by faith and not by sight."⁵

Once the possibility of revelation has been admitted, the rationalists nonetheless insist that man need not concern himself with it. For the human race is naturally led, by the use of reason, to know religious truths, to order its life honestly, and to attain its final end. Yet even if reason were able to discharge the business of religion well enough, nevertheless, as is evident, man is bound to embrace revelation if God truly revealed some religion and imposed it upon men.

Moreover, reason by no means furnishes a sufficient religion, but stands in need of revelation. Yet, that the thesis concerning the necessity of revelation may be rightly understood, this necessity must first be explained, and then proved.

1. The question is whether man can attain a religion accommodated to his end without revelation, or only through revelation. Hence one must carefully distinguish between man's natural and supernatural end, and between the religious cognition befitting each of the two ends.

a) By faith and theology we are taught that man was ordered at the beginning of creation to attain a supernatural end (the beatific vision and enjoyment of God) by supernatural means.

But both this end and the means suited to this end are beyond the reach of reason. They cannot become known from natural principles, since it depends on the free will of God whether He wills to set before us a supernatural end and by what way He wills to lead us to that end. Hence we learn of the ordination and the means to the supernatural end only by revelation. Indeed, even if we could learn them by reason, we would nevertheless have to apprehend them by revelation, since to the supernatural end only supernatural cognition corresponds. Hence also the natural religious truths, which are naturally known, are to be embraced by the light of revelation and the assent of faith, so that their cognition may correspond to the supernatural end. Therefore revelation is simply and manifestly necessary for man in the hypothesis of supernatural elevation. In truth, faith, teaching that man was from the beginning elevated to the state of grace and the supernatural end, also teaches that he immediately received a primordial revelation.

b) But in apologetics one may not yet suppose that man is ordered to a supernatural end and religion. Nevertheless it is established by reason and philosophy that he is at least destined to attain a natural end (the eternal beatitude proportioned to human nature) with the help of natural religion. It is asked, therefore, whether natural religion can be known by reason alone or only through revelation. To this question there answers:

2. Proposition: For a congruous cognition of natural religion, revelation is morally necessary for the human race in the present condition.

Therefore revelation is said to be necessary:

a) For a congruous, not for a merely any kind of, cognition of natural religion. For in truth, to attain the end neither a religious cognition that is too imperfect suffices, nor is one altogether perfect and complete required (since even many Christians do not perfectly know the natural law). Rather, a congruous cognition of the principal truths is required and suffices, without which a religious life agreeable to reason cannot be established. These, however, are: 1° theological: the existence of one personal, provident and rewarding God, and likewise the worship due to Him (the first table of the Decalogue!); 2° ethical: the first principles of the natural law (good is to be done, evil avoided) and the secondary ones (the second table of the Decalogue!) and their practical conclusions.

b) Morally, not however physically. Physically (absolutely) necessary is that means without which some end cannot be attained at all, e.g., sensing without a sense. Morally (relatively) necessary is that means without which some end can indeed of itself be attained, but so difficultly that in concrete reality it is never or almost never attained, e.g., describing a circle without a compass. In the former case the very faculty of performing the act is lacking, whence arises physical impotence. In the latter case the facility of performing the act is lacking, whence arises moral impotence according to the saying: "A potency which never passes into act is morally an impotence."

Now indeed one may not say that the cognition of natural religion cannot be attained at all without supernatural revelation. For nature ought to be so equipped that it can of itself accomplish natural things. If therefore revelation were absolutely necessary for knowing natural religion, that very revelation would be owed to nature and therefore in no way supernatural, but natural.

The physical necessity of revelation, therefore, can be defended only by ultra-supernaturalists, namely the traditionalists (Huet, Bonald, Bautain, Bonnetty, Ventura, Ubaghs, Laforêt), who affirm that nature was from the beginning not properly equipped, and the fideists (Luther, Calvin; Protestant pseudo-mystics; the Jansenists), who suppose that it was afterward destroyed (by original sin!). The former have been refuted in philosophy, the latter will have to be refuted in dogmatic theology.

Hence we defend only the moral necessity of revelation, contending: it is so difficult to know natural religion that without the help of revelation it is not really known. Indeed we even restrict this moral necessity of revelation, adding that it corresponds only:

c) to the human race taken collectively, not to each and every individual man. For if revelation were said to be necessary to individuals and to all, by that very fact not even one pagan could be said to have known natural religion and to have led a life agreeable to reason. Which can by no means be proved, since the life of not a few men is inaccessible to us. It must therefore be conceded that even the most studious and wisest men perhaps arrive by the mere help of reason at a congruous cognition of religion, although the common run of men does not reach that far. Which indeed holds:

d) in the present condition, not however in every condition of the human race.

For in the first age man ought to have been in such a state that he could know natural religion without excessive difficulty. For nature accomplishes natural things quite easily. God would have ill instituted an order in which man could not have arrived by the common effort of his reason at cognitions naturally necessary. Nor may one say that this effort no longer sufficed from the time when reason was weakened by original sin. For on the one hand original sin, known only by revelation, we cannot yet suppose at this point without begging the question; on the other hand it is theologically certain that by original sin man did not lose the powers he would have had in the state of pure nature.¹

It is certain, however, that men, by abusing reason and free will, fell little by little into idolatry, the monotheistic religion having been abandoned almost everywhere on earth. From that time up to the present time man's religious condition became sadder from day to day. The cognitive power of reason indeed remained essentially the same, but religious cognition is impeded by external circumstances. The pagan man, as it were, put on a second nature of errors against religion from his youth. Whence he must first emerge from this pit of errors before he looks upon the light of truth. In this present condition, therefore, the human race does not attain a congruous cognition of religion unless it is helped by supernatural revelation.

To prove the thesis many apologists employ a psychological argument, drawn from the native weakness of human nature. But the necessity of revelation does not arise from an internal weakness, but from external difficulties; for, unless we exaggerate this weakness more than is fitting (after the norm of ultrasupranaturalism), from it we can only conclude that revelation is useful or convenient, or at most that it is morally necessary for a perfect and complete, not for a fitting, knowledge of natural religion. Thus St. Thomas,¹ whose words the apologists we speak of cite, proves only the conveniency of revelation for the complete knowledge of natural religion, not the necessity of revelation for a merely adequate knowledge of the same religion. Moreover St. Thomas, loc. cit., already presupposes the existence of revelation, asking whether Christians draw the truths of natural religion more conveniently from philosophy or from revelation and believe them by faith; but we are not yet permitted to presuppose the existence of revelation. Hence it is dangerous and difficult to establish the necessity of revelation psychologically or a priori, arguing from human nature itself. In fact, since nature is so constituted that it can absolutely know natural religion, the question is only whether in the concrete, amid the obstacles of the pagans, it knows this religion or not. The answer to this question is found nowhere except in the history of the gentiles, who lived and live outside the compass of the revelation of the Old and New Testament. If the gentiles in the course of so many centuries never attained a fitting natural religion, they demonstrate in fact the moral impossibility of attaining that religion. To this impotence of their own efforts corresponds the moral necessity of divine aid, i.e. of revelation.

Now history establishes that the pagan peoples, having once lapsed from monotheism, never recovered a fitting knowledge of natural religion.

To illustrate the matter we briefly review the religions of the uncultivated, the cultivated, the most cultivated pagan peoples, and finally of the greatest philosophers among them.

1. The religion of the uncultivated ("primitive," "natural") pagan peoples, who inhabited or still inhabit America, Africa, Oceania and part of Asia (negroes, Indians, uncultivated Mongols). That they originally acknowledged and worshipped one God appears evident.

For they fear even to the present the Great Spirit, who inhabiting heaven rules over nature, men, and spirits. Besides him, however, they venerate innumerable gods, namely good and evil spirits, the stars, the elements of the world, wooden and stone images. And that they may render their gods propitious to themselves, they offer them prayers and sacrifices, sometimes even human ones. This cult is on every side surrounded by shamanism, magic and sorcery. The moral life of the uncultivated is for the most part corrupted by voluptuous unchastity, monstrous cruelty, horrible injustice (children, old men, slaves are very often killed or buried alive).

2. The religion of the cultivated pagan peoples, sprung from the Indo-Germanic, Mongolian, Hamitic and Semitic stock.

a) To the Semitic stock are assigned the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Canaanites, Aramaeans, Sabaeans, Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites, the Arabs and the Hebrew-Israelites. Originally all Semites adored one true God under the name El, Il, Ilu, Allah, Alloho.

Gradually, however, they fell irreparably into naturalistic polytheism, making gods of the things of nature and the stars of heaven; multiplying through their cities local gods and goddesses. Religious worship for the most part ran counter to the supreme principles of morality, e.g. to the god Moloch they offered human sacrifices; Astarte, the goddess of love, they honored with unchastities. From this ruin only the Israelites are excepted, as having been endowed with revelation, and likewise the later Arabs through Muhammad, by whom they were brought back to monotheism by the aid of the Old and New Testament.

b) The Hamites belong to the uncultivated peoples, except the Egyptians. As the theological books and the inscriptions testify, the more ancient Egyptians worshipped one only God, the creator of heaven and earth. In the course of time, however, many gods, both national and local, appear: shades, elements, stars; finally especially animals (the bull Apis, the crocodile, the cat) enjoyed divine worship. That the Egyptians were especially given to magic is well known.

c) The cultivated Mongols, namely the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese (500,000,000), once professed pure monotheism. As their sacred books testify (King), one God Shang-ti ("great and only"; "emperor of emperors") or Thien ("heaven = lord of heaven") is the creator, governor, remunerator of all things. Gradually, however, to the worship of one God was joined the cult of guardian spirits or invisible beings, and also the cult of ancestors, who are counted among the spirits. By which process polytheism gradually prevailed. In the sixth century B.C. Confucius, attempting to renew the earlier religion, in fact destroyed it utterly, preaching a moralism without a personal God and a religious worship purely political and subservient to convenience and utility. Thus he prepared the way for pantheism, scepticism, atheism, with which from the first century B.C. Indian Buddhism was mingled. The modern Mongols profess a gross idolatry and a religious indifferentism, united by the single bond of a superstitious cult of ancestors.

d) To the Indo-Germans are counted especially the Indians, Iranians, Germans and Scandinavians, Celts and Slavs, Greeks and Romans. That they anciently practiced the same monotheistic religion and adored one God, whom they called "father of heaven" (Diaus Pitar [Sanskrit], Zeus Pater [Gr.], Diespiter = Iuppiter [Lat.], Tyr [Germ.], Tius [Goth.], Osòs, deus, deinos), is certainly established. The later Indo-Germans, however, abandoned monotheism.

The Indians fell into pantheistic Brahmanism: Brahma is the universal and indeterminate being, from which the gods, the world, men, all things emanate. This pantheism the Buddha ("the wise"; by his proper name he is called Sakyamuni) in the sixth century B.C. changed into pessimism, scepticism and atheism, preaching: Nirvana, i.e. nothingness, to be the end of all religion and of life. The modern Indians adore partly Brahma, partly Buddha, together with innumerable other gods, whom they honor with superstitious and magical rites.

The Iranians (Armenians, Persians, Medes) in the sixth century B.C. were taught by Zoroaster or Zarathustra the Zend-Avesta religion (zend-avesta = books of the law). This religion essentially consists in a dualism. For it acknowledges two gods: Ormazd, the principle of good, and Ahriman, the principle of evil, to whom a third was afterwards added, Mithra, the solar god. To this insipid mythology were added certain most excellent doctrines and laws drawn from the Old Testament.

The ancient religion of the Celts, Germans, Scandinavians and Slavs cannot be clearly defined. We certainly know, however, that polytheism flourished among them. They acknowledged several principal gods, to whom many secondary divinities were added. To all these they offered sacrifices, sometimes even human ones. Their religious worship was debased by superstitious, impure and cruel rites.

3. The religion of the most cultivated pagan peoples, namely the Greeks and Romans, abounds in errors.

Above all it displays a depraved notion of the divinity. For although the supreme god Jupiter recalled the memory of primordial monotheism, nevertheless an insane polytheism flourished. Many principal gods and goddesses, almost innumerable secondary, national and local ones, were adored; indeed, eminent men (heroes), the forces of nature, rivers and springs (nymphs), animals, trees (dryads), images were reckoned among the number of the gods.

Religious worship was equally unworthy of God. Venus was worshipped by unchastity, Bacchus by drunkenness, Mercury and Laverna by theft and fraud; Jupiter himself was infamous for adulteries and other crimes. Sacrifice, the center of religious worship, was turned into a horrible crime; dread cruelty, foulest luxury and deadly superstition made up the elements of the sacrifices. "Not only human blood, but much more wickedly, human modesty perished, as it were, immolated."²

The principles of morals, therefore, since they were harmed even by the religious rites, were far less acknowledged in profane life and in public law. Suffice it to recall that slaves were deprived of liberty and often killed, infants exposed to death, men very often sacrificed to the gods, and that the most unchaste love of boys and the promiscuity of the sexes were commonly tolerated. Indeed the very conscience of these crimes had so perished that no one perpetrating those enormous crimes was thought to be evil, nor thought himself evil.

But this sad face was shown not only by the religion of the common people:

4. The religion of the pagan philosophers. Although the best and greatest philosophers taught certain splendid things, nevertheless their religious doctrine agreed neither with natural theology nor with natural ethics.

The doctrine of one, personal, provident God and creator was, as far as we know, rightly understood by none of the pagan philosophers.

Many philosophers did not acknowledge a supramundane God: the Ionians taught the divinity to be a natural force, the Pythagoreans the soul of the world, the Stoics and Eleatics the world itself, the Sceptics admitted none at all, so that Juvenal could sing: That shades exist and realms beneath the ground Not even boys believe, save those not yet washed in the bath.³

Those, however, who admitted a numen distinct from the world thought of it uncertainly and falsely. Socrates approved the Delphic oracles (as Plato and Alcibiades testify), and dying sacrificed a cock to Aesculapius. Plato subjected God to fate, held the world to be eternal, admitted secondary gods, contended that souls are particles of the divinity. Aristotle denied providence, contended that the world is eternal. Cicero denied divine prescience, seems to admit several gods, and maintained that we know nothing certain about the nature of the gods. "All these (philosophers)," says St. Augustine, "and others of the like kind, and even Plato himself, thought that sacred rites must be performed to very many gods."⁴ The philosophers' ignorance of God is followed by: a doctrine of morals adverse to the first laws of nature. No pagan philosopher taught that God is to be loved; none knew the nature of sin, of virtue, of holiness. Socrates calls good what is pleasant to man, evil what is harmful to himself; he approves luxury; he taught that the sum of moral duties is bounded by the civil laws. Plato professed almost the same errors as his master, defending besides drunkenness at the Bacchanalia, the exposure of infants and of the infirm, the community of wives, abortion, monstrous lusts and the concubitus of males, and dread slavery. Aristotle approved nearly all these things, praising in addition lascivious images, and calling the love of God absurd. Cicero taught only civil virtue, commanded hatred and vengeance against enemies, excused lying and perjury. The herd of Epicurus, preaching a voluptuous life, denied all virtue and all sin. The Stoics, holding and doing about the same, placed morality only in bearing and doing all things with a proud and unperturbed mind. — Finally, the principle and sanction of all morality, namely the immortality of the soul, scarcely any of the ethnic philosophers believed with certainty. Plato himself, who of all men thought and wrote more rightly about immortality, nevertheless seems to have doubted it.⁵ Whence Cicero, diligently going through Plato's book on the soul, says: "I know not how it is that, while I am reading, I assent; when I have laid down the book, and have begun to think with myself about the immortality of souls, all that assent slips away."⁶ Of the same book Paulinus of Nola more truly sings: "Which, besides the title, contains nothing certain within."⁷

It is indeed true that, after the promulgation of the gospel of Christ, the ethnic philosophers felt somewhat better about religion. Yet it is evident that they drew the few things, which are true and good and which they proclaim, from the Christian religion. Thus the later Stoics: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus show a knowledge of sacred Scripture. The Neo-platonists professedly attempted to regenerate the pagan religion with Christian ideas and institutions, though in vain. The "modern pagans" too, although they attack Christian revelation, nevertheless draw from it almost all the truths which they set forth. But if they recede from it, they immediately pass into atheism or monism, and thence deny the supreme principle of all natural theology and ethics.

With these things set forth, the argument from historical induction for the necessity of revelation is altogether conclusive. Revelation is morally necessary in the present condition, if it is established that the human race, from the time at which it is found in this condition, by its own effort has never sufficiently known natural religion.

But it is established that in the present condition neither the uncultivated, nor the cultivated, nor the most cultivated peoples, indeed not even their foremost philosophers, have ever sufficiently known natural religion. Therefore revelation is morally necessary in the present condition for the human race for a fitting knowledge of natural religion.

A fortiori the conveniency of revelation, or its moral necessity broadly taken, urges. Revelation, namely, is a help and a benefit most greatly to be desired for all men "for attaining more easily and more universally those things which are already contained in the natural manifestation and could be understood from it."⁸

Which doctrine the First Vatican Council splendidly comprehends thus: "To this divine revelation it is indeed to be attributed, that those things which among divine matters are not of themselves impervious to human reason can, in the present condition of the human race, be known by all with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error.

Not, however, for this reason is revelation to be called absolutely necessary, but because God out of his infinite goodness has ordained man to a supernatural end, namely to share in the divine goods, which wholly surpass the understanding of the human mind."⁹