Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

1. Explanation. Questions of the profane sciences are not in themselves subject to the magisterium of the Church, since they pertain to the natural order. Per accidens, however, certain natural questions constitute the object of the infallible magisterium, whether direct or indirect.

a) In most of the profane sciences, and especially in philosophy, there are found certain natural doctrines which are at the same time supernaturally revealed truths, e.g., the existence of God, the attributes of God, the immortality of the soul, the creation of the world, the freedom of man. Such doctrines are the direct object of infallibility, as is evident. Whence the Vatican council: "If anyone says that the human disciplines are to be treated with such freedom that their assertions, even if they are opposed to revealed doctrine, may be retained as true and cannot be proscribed by the Church: let him be anathema."¹ Of these truths, therefore, resp. errors, we are not speaking.

b) But there are, moreover, natural doctrines which, although they are not at the same time revealed, are nevertheless intimately connected with revealed truths, and indeed either as necessary presuppositions or as necessary consequences of revealed principles. These doctrines we say belong to the indirect object of infallibility.

2. Proof. a) From the end of infallibility. The deposit of faith could be destroyed if the Church were not infallible in judging doctrines of the natural order which affect the revealed realities themselves. For if, e.g., a philosopher affirmed that man is fit to investigate every truth, the dogma concerning the mysteries in the strict sense is consequently denied. Or if you imagine false notions of substance after the manner of Spinoza, or false notions of essence, person, supposit, you can no longer defend the right concept of God, of the Most Holy Trinity, of the hypostatic union of the Word. Therefore, unless the Church could judge infallibly concerning the truth or falsity of such natural doctrines, it would be all over with the deposit of faith as regards its custody and its integral transmission.

b) From the practice of the Church. The Church has often condemned philosophical theses which, although they are not directly opposed to revealed truths, nevertheless cannot be reconciled with them even indirectly. Examples are provided by the errors of Eckhart, Nicholas of Autrecourt, Georg Hermes, Anton Günther, Jakob Frohschammer, of indifferentism, of traditionalism, of ontologism² and many others, of earlier as well as of our own times, condemned by the Church. By her decrees, moreover, issued against these errors, the Church demanded absolute intellectual obedience. In general the Vatican council decreed: "The Church, which together with the apostolic office of teaching received the mandate of guarding the deposit of faith, has also from God the right and the duty of proscribing science falsely so called ... Wherefore all the Christian faithful are forbidden not only to defend such opinions, which are known to be contrary to the doctrine of faith, especially if they have been reprobated by the Church, as legitimate conclusions of science, but they are altogether bound to hold them rather as errors which present a fallacious appearance of truth."³ Finally Pius X proscribed this error of the Modernists: "Since the deposit of faith contains only revealed truths, under no respect does it pertain to the Church to pass judgment on the assertions of the human disciplines."⁴

Almost equivalent to theological conclusions are also: