Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus I: Demonstratio Christiana

We cannot give credence to a revelation unless it is certainly established that it is divine. Hence, if God bestows a revelation upon the human race, He must mark it with such arguments as would enable it to be recognized as truly of divine origin, to be accepted with rational assent, and to be carried out with humble obedience. For otherwise man would be defrauded of the fruit of revelation, and God, in revealing, would be doing useless things.

1. Notion. The arguments by which the fact — that is, the existence or the divine origin — of revelation is to be proved are called motives of credibility or criteria of revelation. They are called motives of credibility¹ with reference to the ultimate end, because by them the fact of revelation is rendered rationally certain, and from this certainty the individual revealed truths become evidently credible. They are called criteria of revelation with reference to the proximate end, because from them true revelation is recognized and distinguished from spurious revelation.

2. Qualities. In order, however, that the criteria may answer to their end, they must be certain and clear.

Certain, i. e. such as to convince every sound reason, excluding any prudent doubt concerning the divine origin of the proposed revelation. In the concrete, indeed, it is not required that each and every one of them be absolutely certain, because in view of the diversity of men a diverse, that is, a relative, certainty suffices. A child rationally assents to the simple authority of parents or teachers; the unlearned, to the testimony of trustworthy men; but the learned, and above all sceptics, are scarcely convinced even by the greatest reasons. Since, however, the criteria must be suited to all, it is necessary that at least all of them taken together possess not merely relative, but absolute certainty.²

Clear, i. e. such as can be grasped by every sound reason. Not, indeed, must all of them be of such great clarity that they are easily known by all men one and all, since the faculty of judgment varies with the variety of talent and learning. Nevertheless, let at least some criteria be of such a kind that any lover of truth can learn from them the existence of divine revelation.

The certainty of the criteria taken together must therefore be so great that it befits even the most learned absolutely; the clarity, on the other hand, so great that it lies open even to the most unlearned relatively. And the greater the certainty and clarity of the individual criteria, the more they have the nature and force of criteria.

3. Division. The criteria of revelation are divided according to the source from which they proceed and according to the end which they attain.

According to their source, the criteria are either internal (intrinsic) or external (extrinsic). The former are drawn from the philosophical character of the doctrine itself which is declared to be revealed; the latter consist in the historical facts which accompany the manifestation of the doctrine.

According to their end, each of the two is again either negative or positive. Negative are those which prove negatively, i. e. that nothing stands in the way of such a doctrine being revealed; positive, on the other hand, are those which prove positively, i. e. that such a doctrine has truly been revealed.

1. Negative criteria. A religious doctrine cannot have been revealed which — intrinsically — contains an error against sound reason and upright morals, or involves a contradiction with truths naturally known or perhaps already supernaturally revealed; or which — extrinsically — is proposed and propagated by means and in a manner that are illicit and unworthy, or produces disastrous effects and evil fruits. For God, the supreme truth and holiness, cannot reveal anything but what is true and holy; cannot employ anything but lawful and honest means; cannot produce anything but good fruits, and the best.

Hence, that religion cannot be divine which affirms several gods, a world eternal or subject to fate, men deprived of freedom, the soul to be mortal; which would be propagated by fraud or by force, etc.

Nay, even a religion, however commendable, whose first herald and founder was a vicious man would be suspect. For although God can absolutely speak through unworthy men, nevertheless for promulgating a religion He will hardly choose a messenger who is infamous, hostile to God, and abominable to men.¹

Hence the negative criteria are of the greatest importance for recognizing and refuting spurious revelations, but of the least for acknowledging the true revelation. For doctrines to which the negative criteria are wanting are at once, and without further examination, proven to be spurious revelations; but of a doctrine that is marked with the negative criteria it is not yet established that it is divine. Hence one must proceed from the negative to the positive criteria, both internal and external.

2. Positive internal or philosophical criteria. A doctrine which affords an adequate, nay a perfect, knowledge of the natural religion is probably, though not certainly, supernaturally revealed. Probably, because moral impotence stands in the way of men acquiring by their own effort not only an adequate but even a perfect knowledge of the natural religion; not certainly, because it is absolutely possible that a man of outstanding genius and industry should attain that knowledge.

If such a doctrine moreover adds to the natural religion certain excellent theoretical dogmas and moral precepts (which illumine and perfect the rational truths, are consonant with the legitimate aspirations and demands of mind and heart, and supremely promote the piety and edification of individual men as well as the common good of society), its divine origin is established as most probable, but not yet peremptorily. Most probable, since, given human weakness, it can hardly come about that natural reason should have found so excellent a doctrine; not peremptorily, since such an impossibility cannot be strictly demonstrated.

Moreover, a judgment on the excellence, sublimity, and utility of a doctrine is difficult. For it presupposes a diligent examination of the individual truths, which can be undertaken by few and is not infrequently disturbed by the subjective feelings of those who inquire.

Consequently, the positive internal criteria prove the divine origin of revelation neither with absolute certainty, so that every doubt is excluded, nor with such clarity that they are understood by all, especially by the uneducated. They are nevertheless of great importance not only in themselves, but in view of the concrete disposition of many men. For many are moved more by internal than by external criteria; nay, unless they are first prepared by the internal ones, they refuse, held back by prejudices, to approach the external, especially miracles and prophecies.

3. Positive external or historical criteria. Beyond all doubt divine is that religion whose propagation, preservation, and efficacy are so wonderful that they cannot be explained from human effort, or whose founder excels in such personal sanctity that the moral powers of men do not suffice to attain it. For if the moral powers of men do not suffice to produce those historical facts, they must have been produced with the special help of God.

Facts, moreover, which proceed from a human cause under the special concursus of God are not so much human facts as rather divine facts. God, therefore, Himself bears witness to the supernatural origin of the religion for which such external or historical criteria militate.

Nevertheless, the historical criteria thus set forth do not fully satisfy, nor satisfy everyone. For it is difficult to define with certainty and clarity how far the created moral power extends and where the special concursus of God begins.

But this last difficulty vanishes where historical facts occur which are brought about immediately by God alone, without the intervention of a secondary cause: namely, miracles and prophecies.

These works indeed, since they are seals of God, prove most certainly and most clearly the divine origin of the religion in whose favor they are wrought.

1°. We say: "they prove the divine origin of the religion most certainly and most clearly": most certainly, because God cannot confirm a false religion with His seal; most clearly, because everyone easily recognizes the sensible seal of God. "The force of a seal and of a miracle is the same. For the royal seal is always better known and more firm than the king's letters. For all know how to distinguish the seal; not all distinguish the letters; and the seal without letters has authority, while the letters without the seal have none. So too a miracle is better known and more efficacious than preaching; for all who see a blind man given sight or a dead man raised up understand that it is a supernatural and divine work, and are accordingly moved to believe that which is confirmed by such a testimony."² Hence: 2°. We say: "they prove the divine origin of the religion in whose favor they are wrought." For just as the royal seal confirms only those letters to which it is impressed or attached, so miracles and prophecies prove only that religion divine in whose favor they are wrought. Consequently, the relation of miracles and prophecies to the proposed religion must certainly be established, if they are to have demonstrative force. That relation, however, is for the most part most easily recognized from the fact that the wonder-worker or prophet asserts that he performs divine works, so that men may know that he speaks in the name of God and discharges an embassy of God. Thus, e. g., Jesus Christ appeals to His miracles and prophecies as to signs of His divine mission, as we shall see in the treatise on His prophecies, miracles, and resurrection.

Against this demonstrative force of miracles and prophecies unbelievers wrongly object:

1°. That almost all religions, even the falsest, boast of miracles and prophecies. They indeed boast of vain miracles and prophecies, but they do not show true miracles and prophecies. But the probative force of divine works is not impaired by the fact that many fabricate false miracles and prophecies, just as neither is the force of the royal seal or of genuine coin destroyed by the fact that some fashion forged seals or false coins. This one thing follows from the difficulty objected: that miracles have no demonstrative force unless their truth is established beyond doubt.

2°. That proving the supernatural revelation of God from the supernatural works of God is a vicious circle (Schelling, Strauß). For we prove the intelligible and invisible revelation from the sensible and visible works of God. Which is wholly consonant with reason. For "it is natural to man to apprehend intelligible truth through sensible effects. Hence, just as by the guidance of natural reason man can arrive at some knowledge of God through natural effects, so through certain supernatural effects, which are called miracles, man is led into a certain supernatural knowledge of the things to be believed."³

3°. That a historical and contingent event cannot prove a metaphysical and necessary truth (Lessing). But we do not contend that the internal truth of the individual doctrines of the proposed religion is proved immediately by miracles and prophecies; rather we contend that the divine origin of the religion, that is, the fact of revelation, is proved by miracles and prophecies. But if this divine origin of the religion, that is, the fact of revelation, is established, from that very fact the internal truth of the doctrines which constitute that revealed religion is logically deduced. For God revealing can neither be deceived nor deceive.

Hence the Vatican Council, passing over the other criteria in silence, rightly extols miracles and prophecies in this way: "That nonetheless the homage of our faith might be in accord with reason, God willed that external arguments of His revelation be joined to the internal helps of the Holy Spirit, namely divine facts and above all miracles and prophecies, which, since they clearly show forth the omnipotence and infinite knowledge of God, are the most certain signs of divine revelation and accommodated to the understanding of all... If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and therefore that men ought to be moved to faith solely by the internal experience of each one or by private inspiration: let him be anathema."⁴

The same Pius X prescribed to be confessed under oath against the errors of Modernism: "I admit and acknowledge the external arguments of revelation, that is, divine facts and above all miracles and prophecies, as the most certain signs of the divinely originated Christian religion, and I hold that they are most accommodated to the intelligence of all ages and of all men, even of this time."⁵

By the decrees just praised the Church wishes not only to defend the suitable criteria of revelation, but also to rout the unsuitable ones. For the Vatican Council rejects sentimentalism, while Pius X rejects apologetic immanentism. Both agree in this: having rejected the philosophical (intrinsic) and historical (extrinsic) criteria, above all miracles and prophecies, they have recourse to purely psychological arguments — that is, arguments drawn neither from religion itself nor from the divine facts that accompany religion, but from the man who practices religion. They differ, however, as follows:

1. The apologetic sentimentalism of the Protestants¹ appeals exclusively to the subjective movements which the human soul undergoes while it undergoes revelation.

The older Protestants (the Pietists), indeed, maintained that every believer is moved or inspired interiorly by the Holy Spirit in such a way that he discerns the genuine word of God by its "savor" and "taste," with that same evidence by which he distinguishes white colors from black and pleasant foods from bitter ones.²

But an inspiration of this kind, a private inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is affirmed gratuitously. Indeed, it is proved not to exist, since individual Protestants believe contradictory and plainly false things, all the while appealing to the "testimony of the Holy Spirit." What they call private inspiration is in reality a private motion or subjective feeling.

Hence the more recent Protestants, under the leadership of Kant and Schleiermacher, substitute for the imaginary testimony of the Holy Spirit the natural religious sense or internal experience (religiöses Gefühl, inneres Erlebnis). For almost the whole of Protestant theology and philosophy, following Kant, teaches that pure or theoretical reason is incapable of religious knowledge (agnosticism); religion is grasped by practical reason alone, i. e. by conscience or internal experience.

But a criterion of this sort: 1°. takes away all objective certainty of religion and of revelation. For if those things, and those alone, are said to be revealed which please each person's internal experience, every religious truth dissolves into each person's subjective opinion. One and the same proposition one man could call revealed, another not revealed. Indeed, the said criterion 2°. destroys even all subjective certainty of revelation. For the "religious sense" and "internal experience" do not proceed from the cognitive faculty of reason, but from the will or rather from blind feeling. Hence they produce no certain knowledge, and they vary continually at the whim of feeling, so that one and the same man calls now these things, now those, revealed.

It is clear, therefore, that this Protestant criterion is altogether unsuitable for attesting true revelation.

2. Apologetic immanentism does not indeed judge revelation from the subjective movements of the soul alone, but holds it to be divine for this reason: that it answers to the aspirations and exigencies of the whole of human nature and life.

In the nineteenth century, indeed, Kantianism and positivism struck such deep roots that not only most non-Catholics but many Catholics too grew weary of "traditional" apologetics, which proves revelation by philosophical and historical reasons. To win over these "modern" minds, certain Catholic men, among them Ollé-Laprune, Fonsegrive, and Brunetière,³ invented what they call the "new" apologetics. Its novelty consists in this: that it exalts psychological arguments more than is fitting and regards them as primary criteria.⁴ It strives with all its might to show that man by his nature desires and demands revelation; that revelation not only agrees with the noblest desires and strivings of mind and heart, but is altogether necessary for rightly ordering intellectual and moral life. The other criteria, especially miracles and prophecies, it does not indeed despise, but employs in second place, once modern minds have already been won over by psychological motives.

Soon, however, the Modernist authors, above all Loisy, Blondel, Laberthonnière, and Tyrrell,⁵ rejected outright every philosophical and historical criterion, and above all miracles and prophecies. They do not tolerate a truth brought in from without ("extrinsicism") and known and proved by reason alone ("intellectualism"). They hold that alone to be true which gushes forth from one's own "ego" and is demanded by one's own "ego," i. e. by the whole soul and human life ("immanentism"). Every transcendent truth must, by its origin, prove itself immanent.

Hence the Modernist apologists work solely and exclusively "to persuade man that in himself and in the innermost recesses of his nature and life there lies hidden a desire for and an exigency of some religion — and not of any religion whatever, but of one altogether such as the Catholic religion is; for this, they say, is demanded outright by a perfect explanation of life."⁶

This apologetic immanentism Pius X condemned both in the encyclical "Pascendi"⁷ and in the "Oath against the errors of Modernism,"⁸ teaching that miracles and prophecies are "the most certain signs of the divinely originated Christian religion, and the same are most well suited to the understanding of all ages and of all men, even of the present time." He disapproves, moreover, of those Catholics "who, although they reject the doctrine of immanence as a doctrine, nevertheless use it for apologetics; and they do this so incautiously that in human nature they seem to admit not only a capacity for and suitability to the supernatural order — which Catholic apologists have always demonstrated with appropriate qualifications — but a genuine exigency in the true sense of the word."⁹

In truth, we have already proved¹⁰ that revelation is morally necessary for the human race in its present state, but is not of itself demanded by human nature. If it were demanded by nature, it would no longer be a supernatural and gratuitous revelation, but a natural one owed to nature. Consequently, the Modernists understand revelation not as an objective locution of God, but as subjective religious experience in the neo-Kantian sense.¹¹ Hence the apologetic method of immanence does not build up revelation, but destroys it.¹²

From everything we have so far said about criteria in general, it is clear that the Catholic Church defends miracles and prophecies as the principal criteria, whereas the adversaries of the Catholic cause either make light of those divine facts or reject them outright. Hence we must now treat of miracles and of prophecies one by one.