Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE OBJECTIVE PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE AND OF THEOLOGY CONSIDERED IN GENERAL.

The material object of divine faith, as it is called, or the object to be believed, are the truths revealed by God concerning Himself and His works; the formal object of faith, or the reason on account of which and under which credence is given and assent is rendered to revealed truth, is the authority (the infinite knowledge, truthfulness, dignity) of God who speaks; and so the adequate object of divine faith is the word of God. Assent to revealed truth on account of the authority of God revealing is and is called subjective faith, or the faith by which it is believed. The revealed word of God itself, in its wide extent, is and is customarily called in ecclesiastical usage objective faith (πιστις), or the faith which is believed.

Theology properly so called, as it is distinguished from philosophy, is the science of faith or the science of the truths revealed by God under their formal character, insofar as they have been revealed; and so it is the knowledge, acquired by demonstration, of which truths are contained in the word of God, and how they are contained therein; what the genuine notion of each is, as determined explicitly or implicitly through revelation; what their mutual bearing and connection is; what the dependence of one upon another is; what agreement or analogy they have with rational ideas and truths; and finally what other truths depend upon the revealed truths themselves and follow from them.

As therefore the word of God is that on which subjective faith rests and by which objective faith is constituted, so the science of faith or theology has its proper seat of arguments and its proper locus, from which it draws its demonstrations, namely the revealed word of God itself. But other principles, such as reasons and truths known only by the natural light, and merely human authority, serve theology insofar as they pertain to persuading, illustrating, and conceiving more distinctly by analogous notions the revealed truths themselves, and in turn to deducing and confirming other truths which are connected with the revealed ones. «To argue from authority is most proper to this doctrine, says St. Thomas, since the principles of this doctrine are held through revelation. And so it must be that credence is given to the authority of those to whom revelation was made..... The locus grounded upon divine authority is the most efficacious. Yet sacred doctrine also uses human reason, not indeed to prove faith...... but to make manifest certain other things which are handed down in this doctrine; since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason must serve faith» 1. q. 1. a. 8. Cf. Melch. Cano bk. I. chs. 2. 3.

So long as it is said in this general way that the word of God is the object of faith, and the proper locus from which truths are demonstrated in theology, the matter is evident from the very notions of faith and theology, and there can be no controversy about it among Christian men. Disputation with others who deny either all revelation or the Christian revelation is indeed prior, but it is not to be undertaken by us here. Supposing therefore the truth of the fact that God in Christ and through Christ has revealed Himself—doctrines, precepts, and institutions which pertain to our salvation—and so has handed down to men a divine religion to be believed and observed, the first question spontaneously presents itself: where the Christian revelation is to be found whole and unmixed, so that from thence each one must draw the truths to be believed, the precepts to be observed, the means of salvation to be employed, and the religion to be practiced.

For God has never revealed Himself immediately to each and every man who is bound to embrace the divine religion; but in revealing Himself to certain men He constituted these very men His legates, distinguished by the marks of a divine mission—miracles above all and fulfilled prophecies—so that they might promulgate the divine revelation to others, to be known and received. But with revelation now completed through God Himself manifested in the flesh and through the Apostles, there no longer exist legates of this kind through whom a new revelation necessary for salvation might be handed down to men, to be believed and embraced by all. Since therefore the Christian revelation was completed so many centuries ago, yet was not destined for the men contemporary with the fact of revelation alone, but for all men to come until the consummation of the world, it follows a) that the Christian revelation still remains whole now and in every age among mankind, since its ever failing would contradict its very end and destination and its intimate truth; for permanence until the consummation of the world belongs to the very proper character and inborn perfection of the Christian religion. Hence b) it is manifest that the same divine revelation is wholly received from our forebears, and propagated from the Apostles down to us through the series of generations. Whence c) it is plain that it is absurd to await new revealers, as happens in many Protestant sects of our age (see Edmund Jörg History of Protestantism vol. II.); but that the sole care must be that it become certainly known by what instruments and monuments, or by what living organs and guardians, the revelation has been preserved down to us whole and sincere, as it was first handed down by Christ and the Apostles for the whole human race, and how the same is to be received by us whether from those monuments or from these guardians.

These very things we call, as indeed they are, the principles of Christian knowledge. A principle is said to be anything from which something proceeds in any way whatever, says St. Thomas (1. q. 33. a. 1.). Hence a principle of knowledge can be spoken of in many senses; here we speak of the objective principles of knowledge. These are certain supreme truths which, once known to us, are a norm for knowing other truths (the so-called formal principles); or which implicitly contain in themselves other truths, to the knowledge of which we advance from them (the so-called material principles). Now in Christian knowledge, which is knowledge of truths resting upon the authority of God revealing, the supreme directing principle as norm is without doubt the known infallible authority of God; but this very authority is applied to our knowledge in the concrete in the infallible means, if any such exist, by which revelation is derived to us. Hence in the known authority of these means (whether they be monuments or infallible guardians of revelation) is contained the directing principle of all our knowledge of revealed truths, just as the first principles of metaphysics are the norm of all rational knowledge. Further, the abstract principle—whether that the authority of God revealing is infallible in and of itself, or that the authority of God itself is applied to us by infallible means—is not indeed so constituted that all revealed truths could be derived from its analysis; nevertheless the things enunciated by that principle, considered in the concrete—namely the monuments and the infallible guardians of the faith, as the means by which the whole revelation reaches us—are such that from them all revealed truths are to be known. Hence in these means for preserving revelation and applying it to us is contained first indeed the directing formal principle, but then in a most true sense also the supreme material principle (as it is called) of all Christian and theological knowledge. For once it has been established whence, from whom, and how revealed truth is to be known, that truth itself will also be found sincere and whole¹; but if error has been committed in these, then not one or another single truth will be called into peril, but the whole of Christian knowledge will be overthrown, since the very foundation and principle of knowledge will be either false or at least defective.

The principle of knowledge, as constituted by the Reformers of the sixteenth century and retained thereafter by the Protestants, is such that in it is contained and displayed the proper character of the whole of Protestantism—which is the anti-Christian denial of authority constituted by God among men and in men—and hence the final explication of that same heresy, down to mere rationalism and the denial of all supernatural revelation, is already prepared. The principles of the Catholic Church, by contrast, cohere intimately with the first institution, with the preservation, and with the nature and character of the Christian religion, which is the obedience of faith toward the apostolate among all nations (Rom. I. 5.), and, as the nature of principles requires, so underlie the whole of revelation that it is already implicitly contained in them, and from them the way lies most open to a certain knowledge of revelation, immune from the peril of error, for all who are bound to believe—not for the learned alone but for the unlearned as well; all of which will become manifest in the progress of our treatise.

That fundamental principle of the Protestants, common to all their sects at least the principal ones, is expressed in their symbolic books and confessions thus: «Scripture alone is acknowledged as judge, norm, and rule, to which all dogmas are to be referred and by which they are to be judged» (Epitome of the Formula of Concord in Meyer Lutheran symbolic books p. 350; Solid Declaration ibid. p. 389.). All the principal confessions agree, as read in Niemeyer (Collection of Reformed Confessions pp. 110. 330. 350. 362. 467. 602.). Cf. Möhler Symbolism §. 44.

In the first place, then, it is affirmed that revelation and the Christian religion, although first promulgated by preaching by Christ and His Apostles, have been preserved and propagated down to us by no other means than through the Scriptures, so that they can be safely known by us. For unless it were so, Scripture would not be the sole but there would still be another norm and rule to which dogmas are referred. Though therefore the Protestants, and the Anglicans by name, have admitted into their symbolic books the ancient symbols of faith and the definitions of the first four Councils, and have adopted their own symbolic books themselves, this is nevertheless not done, nor could it have been done in consequence of their fundamental principle, on the ground that they acknowledge authority and a rule of faith in these documents; but because—or (as those more self-consistent say) insofar as—such monuments, upon examination instituted by each individual, are found conformable to the Scriptures.

Further, something else is contained in that principle of the Protestants which is the gravest of all absurdities, and by which the formal character of the principle itself is completed and perfected. Scripture is not only the objective norm of faith—which no one denies who acknowledges that the word of God is contained in it—and not only the sole objective norm in the sense that it is deemed to contain the whole revelation and the adequate material object of faith; but also in the sense that for understanding Scripture there is given no other authentic norm besides Scripture itself. Hence it is said to be not only the sole norm and rule, but acknowledged as itself the sole judge. An instrument, a written document, such as sacred Scripture also is, can contain doctrine, law, and if you please the sentence of a judge, and so can be a norm according to which judgment is to be made; but it plainly cannot be a judge. That in those professions Scripture alone is said to be judge can therefore be understood only in a negative sense; namely, that there is no judge, no visible and living authority, to which belongs the right of passing judgment on dogma, i.e., of authentically declaring what is consonant with the objective rule of faith (whether this be deemed to be Scripture alone or something else besides it) and what is alien from it². Yet since Scripture is said to be the «norm to which all dogmas are to be referred and by which they are to be judged,» and since the norm cannot be Scripture not understood but its sense understood (not Scripture to be expounded but Scripture expounded), it remains that, with all authority removed, individuals «refer and judge all dogmas» by the sense of Scripture determined by themselves. Hence not Scripture anymore, but each individual man is constituted judge of dogmas. In this sense the Protestants have always expounded and do expound their fundamental principle, at least in theory, except when, pressed by those who pursue it in practice to its ultimate consequences—which they themselves would reject—they are compelled, abandoning their own principle, to appeal to a principle of authority, upon the denial of which, however, the whole so-called Reformation rests. «The seventh office (of Christians, who are all priests) is to judge and decide concerning dogmas, said Luther (On the institution of the ministers of the Church vol. III. fol. 584.)... Let each one, rendering account of his salvation for himself, be certain what he believes and follows, and be the freest judge of all who teach him, taught inwardly by God alone. We are all altogether of the same right........ hence we may not only recover this office of judging; but unless we recover it, we shall deny Christ our brother.» Compare the similar declarations of the minister Claude (in Bossuet, Conference with M. Claude 1816 ed. vol. 23. p. 286.), and of the Protestants in Germany in the years 1852. 1854. 1855. (in the distinguished Jörg History of Protestantism vol. I. pp. 41. 114. sqq. 130. 137. 140. 148.).

It remains, as far as is required for defining the state of the question, to set forth compendiously the Catholic principles of knowledge; for their fuller declaration and demonstration will constitute our entire treatise itself. These principles were defined by the Catholic Church in the Council of Trent, sess. IV, in this sense. a) The Gospel, prepared and promised in the Old Testament, as appears from the Scriptures of the same Old Testament, afterwards promulgated by the mouth of Christ Himself, and, at Christ's command, preached by the Apostles as the fount of all truth and discipline of morals, is contained in the written books of the Old and New Testaments, of each of which the one God is the author; and no less in unwritten Traditions. b) The manner in which the Traditions, as first promulgated by Christ or at the dictation of the Holy Spirit by the Apostles, have reached us sincere and whole, consists in this, that as it were handed down from hand to hand they have been preserved by continuous succession in the Catholic Church. c) It belongs to the Church to judge concerning the true sense and interpretation of the sacred Scriptures. The true sense, therefore, is that which holy Mother Church has held and holds, in matters pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine; for of these the Church is solicitous. The authentic interpretation of the Church becomes known both from the unanimous consent of the ancient Fathers and from the present consent and judgment of the Church herself.

The whole of revealed doctrine and discipline, therefore, is objectively contained in the Scriptures and in the divine Traditions. The organ for preserving the Traditions, and therein also the canon of the sacred Scriptures themselves, is the perpetual apostolic succession in the Catholic Church. Of the true sense of the Scriptures and (by parity of reason) of the Traditions, when doubts or controversies arise, the authentic interpreter is the Church herself, who proposes the Scriptures and Traditions to be expounded as expounded, whether by antecedent or by present consent or judgment.

According to these principles, the treatise to be undertaken by us concerning the principles from which Catholic knowledge of revelation and sacred theology proceed and upon which they rest is distributed into two parts, on Scripture and on Tradition. For under the name of Tradition, which we consider in the concrete and together with the apostolic succession as the organ of preservation and explication, is comprehended also the whole of what was said in the third place concerning the authentic interpretation and declaration of dogmas. Further, upon Tradition regarded in this way depends both the fuller Christian knowledge of the authority, divinity, and canon of the sacred books, and the Catholic interpretation of the true sense of the Scriptures; indeed Scripture universally is understood as something handed down. Hence the treatise on Tradition is to be undertaken first by us, and to it the other, on sacred Scripture, is to be subordinated.