Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

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.