Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

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