Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

On the Intimate Nexus of the Principle of Tradition with the Necessary Properties of the Christian Religion.

« The economy of the guardians of the faith, which we have proved from the historical origin of the Christian religion to have been instituted by Christ for the conservation and propagation of integral revelation, 1° coheres by an intimate causal nexus with the universality and unity of faith, so that without that principle of Tradition these properties, even taken alone, insofar as they are evidently understood as necessary postulates of the Christian religion, cannot stand, unless there be conceded, in another order altogether which nowhere exists, a charism of infallibility common to all the faithful. Hence 2° it is understood that universal Protestantism, shattered into mutually contrary sects, repugns an essential property of the divine religion, since this division follows from their very fundamental principle, while none of the sects can by right be excluded from the roll of the Protestant communion; while their so-called orthodox communion cannot stand except by again denying the very principle by which they defend their defection from the Church, and thus entangling their whole cause in manifest contradictions. »

I. In the first part of this thesis we show that the mode of Tradition demonstrated above from the institution of Christ — namely guardians of the faith as the perpetual organ for conserving revelation — coheres intimately, as principle and cause, with the necessary characters of Christian revelation, which are universality and unity.

1°. We take this universality of revelation in the broader sense, in which its necessity, and from this necessity the exigency also of that mode of Tradition, may be more evidently understood. By the name universality therefore we signify a mode of proposing revelation accommodated to all those to whom it is to be proposed, so that without peril of error they can by moral possibility believe, and are bound to believe. That such universality — on the hypothesis that God has revealed something, and much more on the hypothesis that He has destined His revelation for all nations and every creature (Matth. XXVIII. 20; Mark XVI. 15.) — is exacted by the wisdom and goodness of God, is altogether evident. But with revelation made immediately to individuals excluded, there is no mode of conserving revelation long since completed and of proposing it to all nations in a manner, as has been said, accommodated to all, except through the authority of the legates of God, who in this their mission and authority are easily knowable. Therefore upon that economy of the legates of God which was instituted for the perpetual custody and preaching of revelation long since consummated, as upon cause and principle, depends this necessary property of universality. The minor proposition is proved. For with immediate revelation set aside and the easily knowable authority of the legates of God excluded — from whom preaching and doctrine can and must be received as the word of God, not because it is demonstrated by arguments, but because it is authentically proposed by them — no other mode of proposing remains except through demonstration, by which one might be convinced by arguments without peril and without prudent fear of erring, not only in general that revelation and Christian revelation was made by God, in which there would be no insuperable difficulty; but indeed specifically that this determinate series of truths, precepts, institutions, and in this determinate sense, was revealed, and has been sincerely and integrally conserved through the course of the ages down to us; while all those many men, celebrated even by the fame of genius and learning, have erred and do err, who have admitted and admit as revealed either not all these truths, or more than these, or not in this but in another sense. All these things, I say, would have to be so demonstrated to individuals that they could and must be accepted, not on account of the authority of the demonstrator but on account of reasons seen through, with certain persuasion and without peril or fear of erring. In short, with the authority of the Church for conserving and expounding revelation set aside — which is not made immediately to individuals — demonstration of science alone remains. But evidently science is not accommodated to all men, and for so great a burden at least by far the greatest part of men is plainly unequal. I have said at least the greatest part unequal, because this is immediately evident and abundantly suffices for our present thesis; for the rest, if the question concerned universal revelation, moral impossibility could easily be shown universally and as regards all; for as regards matters of faith before faith received, all are foolish, as St. Augustine disputes at length in his book on the utility of believing. Therefore apart from the authority of the legates of God there is no mode accommodated to proposing revealed faith to all nations.

I see a double exception that can be and is wont to be made against this demonstration: first, that the grace of interior illumination supplies the defect of the exterior proposition; second, that provision can be made for the rude and unlearned, who are unequal to an inquiry and demonstration so manifold and difficult, by an authority albeit merely human and scientific, that of the learned.

But in the first place the grace of interior illustration is indeed necessarily conjoined with even the most accommodated exterior proposition of faith, that the assent may be, as it ought, supernatural; while grace which would supply the exterior proposition itself — because this is either null or, what amounts to nearly the same, unfit, and which therefore individuals cannot use — such grace of illustration, I say, is immediate revelation either simply or equivalently. That such illustrations are given even in the present economy as an extraordinary charism, which God sometimes concedes in the supernatural psychological order, there is no doubt; nor do we contend that an economy is absolutely repugnant in which the charism of immediate revelation for individuals would be ordinary, where there would be no further question of the necessity of an exterior proposition; but really and historically it is altogether certain that such an order of revelation has neither been promised nor ever existed nor exists. Of the mode in which the Protestants vindicated to themselves such a revelation as their own, we shall speak below.

To the second proposed difficulty we shall not make use of that answer, that on such an hypothesis faith would be merely human, as resting on merely human authority; for we judge that merely human authority can be the medium by which the authority of God the revealer becomes known to us and is applied to us, so that in the act of faith assent is yielded not on account of human authority but solely on account of divine authority; which controversy belongs to another place. Nor shall I say that, albeit most true, this exception cannot polemically be made in the name of the Protestants; for they reject even the authority of the Church itself in the business of faith from their fundamental principle, for the reason, as they say, that this authority is human, while in matters of faith there can be place for no human but only for divine authority. Although in fact, as will soon be patent, for the divine authority a human authority has been substituted by the authors and doctors of Protestantism, which at least the Protestant masses, insofar as they protest against the divine authority of the Catholic Church, all follow. But now we have not only a polemic against the Protestants but the more general question from the very nature of the thing concerning the necessary and fit proposition of faith, that it may be universal. The answer therefore is another, more general and evident. In the objection it is supposed as foundation that those learned men, of whose scientific authority we speak, have by their scientific inquiry arrived without peril and prudent fear of error at full certitude as to which truths, all and alone, and in what determinate sense are contained in revelation, and moreover have so arrived thither that this their most full science becomes certainly known to the unlearned and rude, nor can these prudently suspect any error of theirs. But each of these suppositions is proved false from the nature and character and difficulty of the truths of faith, from the diversity of genius and erudition among learned men, from the diversity of opinions thence arising among even the most learned in all difficult questions in which the norm of authority is wanting, from the impotence of the rude to judge prudently of the certain science of those men, and much more to discern between true and false in the diversity and opposition of opinions. Whence it comes about that this merely human and scientific authority of the erudite would for the rude be not only no foundation of sufficient certitude but a new crop of doubts, from which the moral impossibility of arriving at what is liquid by their own inquiry would be increased for them, and nothing else certain would remain but this one thing, that what in the business of faith is true and what false cannot be found, and hence ought not to be inquired into. Let it stand therefore, as we have proved, that, prescinding from immediate revelation made to individuals, there is no mode of conserving and proposing revelation accommodated to all nations besides the easily knowable authority of the guardians and doctors of the faith, divinely sent and constituted to succeed one another in perpetual succession; this economy therefore coheres with the essential character of universality proper to divine revelation as cause with its effect¹.

2°. Concerning the unity of faith scarcely anything else remains to be said; for the argument showing the nexus of the authentic magisterium with the necessary universality of faith also shows its nexus with the unity of faith, which indeed can be distinguished from universality but cannot be separated from it. When God reveals truths, in the very fact of revelation there is contained a divine necessary precept to the rational creature for whom revelation is destined, of believing all those truths. This is evident from the very notion of the authority, wisdom and sanctity of God revealing, and from the notion of dependence, indigence, and ordination to the true and the good on the part of the rational creature. Hence from those same notions it is evident that God the revealer necessarily wills with legislative will the unity of faith and profession in its universality. But with this unity of faith the institution of the legates of God, who with infallible authority conserve and teach the integral faith, so coheres that the former spontaneously follows from the latter, and without the latter — prescision made from the manifestly false hypothesis of immediate revelation made to individuals — cannot exist. For if both the authority of the magisterium and immediate, at least equivalent, revelation² be set aside, the whole business is necessarily, from what was shown above, reduced to the proper inquiry of individuals, which, as is likewise certain from what precedes, considering the character and difficulty of the truths in question and considering the variety of genius, science and cupidities, is fit to beget not unity of faith but diversity of opinions.

II. What we have shown from the very natures of things and as it were a priori is most luminously confirmed a posteriori, namely by the patent facts of which the whole history of Protestantism is composed. We have shown from the very natures of things that, with the authority of the legates of God who by continuous succession conserve the deposit of faith removed, no other mode remains by which faith may be proposed to individuals than either formal or equivalent immediate revelation to individuals, or inquiry instituted by individuals after the manner of a school; but with this posited, the unity of faith in its universality cannot be conserved. But the whole history of Protestantism from its origin down to this age constantly, always and everywhere, not only in manifold integral sects but in individual men also, has exhibited and exhibits these same conclusions in the facts themselves, nor can any fact be adduced in which they are not found true.

Indeed the first so-called Reformers, when they denied the authority of the magisterium and custody of faith in the Church, continuously substituted for it the inspiration of individuals who read the Scriptures, at least equipollent to immediate revelation. For they saw that between these three — between the authority of the magisterium, inquiry left to individuals, and the immediate revelation or inspiration of individuals — there is no mean; with the first therefore rejected, since they dared not appeal to the second simply and without tempering, it remained to flee to the third. They taught therefore that sacred Scripture is perspicuous to all by a supernatural clarity, in that the written word of God, when read or heard, by its innate virtue, which is the virtue of the Holy Spirit, illuminates and sanctifies individuals so that they easily understand the true and genuine sense, and thus for individuals the Holy Spirit Himself is immediately interpreter and doctor: « let each be the freest judge of all who teach him, taught inwardly by God alone » (see above p. 9.). The illumination therefore is not only the grace necessary for supernatural faith, which Catholics concede and believe; but it is an illumination which excludes the exterior authentic magisterium, and by which individuals are constituted judges of all teachers — by which name the Church herself is understood before all. Whence Protestant theologians also, e. g. Gerhard (in his Loci, bk. I, On the Interpretation of Scripture), are wont to teach that the sentence by which Scripture is said to be its own interpreter is tantamount to the Holy Spirit being the interpreter of His own proper sense. But when they assert that this interpretation made by the Holy Spirit is an ordinary charism for individuals reading Scripture, so as to exclude the necessity of an authentic magisterium, they evidently assert the inspiration of individuals, or at least equivalent immediate revelation. The mode of this illumination, as the first Reformers themselves conceived it, they thus describe: « as soon as any word of God (in Scripture) exists, the virtue of the Holy Spirit is with it inseparably always conjoined, so that the virtue and efficacy of the word with the virtue of the Holy Spirit is wholly one and the same, truly divine, nor can the word any more than the Holy Spirit Himself be or be conceived without this virtue » (Schmid, Lutheran Dogmatics).

With such a mode of illumination through the Holy Spirit Himself supposed, there would be no need of the authority of the legates of God for a certain and infallible understanding of the revealed word. Each man would suffice to himself, and would be a Church to himself; moreover the unity of faith would spontaneously follow, since to individuals one Spirit of truth, who cannot be repugnant to Himself, would infuse knowledge of divine revelation and of the true sense in the reading or hearing of the word ex opere operato.

But that this immediate inspiration as an ordinary charism of individuals, so efficacious that for the universality and unity of faith an authentic magisterium would not be necessary, is a mere figment, the Reformers themselves and the whole history of Protestantism have most luminously shown by their deeds — not to repeat here the arguments by which we have shown above the divinely instituted economy, that the obedience of faith in individuals unto the consummation of the age corresponds to the authentic magisterium and custody of faith concreted in the apostolic succession. For indeed the falsehood of this kind of charism, which the Reformers vindicated to themselves and their followers, is shown by the contrary and contradictory opinions of these inspired men on the gravest heads of Christian doctrine, and by the diverse judgments at diverse times of one and the same man, e. g. of Luther himself, concerning the sense of revealed doctrine; then universally by the historical fact that the persuasion of this inspiration was not the principle of unity of faith but of innumerable sects, which, all taught by the Holy Spirit, not only have oppugned and do oppugn one another's doctrines and those of the very authors of the Reformation, but also, raging with fire and sword, once filled Germany, France, Belgium, Scotland, England with slaughters.

Now if this inspiration of individuals in fact as an ordinary charism is null, that interpretation independent of any authority is reduced, if not to fanatical frenzy, as happened in many, to private inquiry and to the genius of individuals. But with this posited, we have shown the unity of faith in universality to be impossible. This the Protestants themselves easily understood, when experience had evidently shown the inspiration of individuals to be vain. Hence those who wished to save some positive religion and communion of doctrine revoked postliminiously the principle of authority — by whose negation they defended their defection from the Church — either only practically and in their mode of acting or even theoretically and in doctrine, as Luther himself did³, nowise solicitous about the evident contradiction. But those who wish to be consistent with themselves, from their very fundamental principle of independent interpretation, concede that unity of faith is impossible, and therefore affirm it to be unnecessary for religious communion and salvation⁴. This consequence cannot be denied to be legitimate: but the consequent is wholly absurd and repugnant to all the notions we most certainly have of the wisdom, sanctity and authority of God the revealer and of the absolute dependence of man. But the principle from which an absurd consequent is legitimately deduced cannot itself but be absurd.

Thus in our age matters have come to this, that all Protestants are compelled to concede, and in fact concede at least practically, most also theoretically, that the principle on which rests the whole Reformation of the sixteenth century and the defection from the Catholic Church is of such a sort that, with it applied, no unity of faith and religious communion, in which there ought to be one profession of all, can exist or be conserved. Compelled to agree in this theorem, clear of itself and shown by experience, while dissenting in all else, they are now discerned into the following chief factions: a) those who judge that the fundamental principle of independent inquiry or (as they speak) of free examination is to be sincerely and according to its whole force applied and put into use. These deny that the Scriptures themselves are the norm of believing, and affirm that in matters regarding religion that alone is to be followed which each man by his reason has understood as true, whether from the Scriptures and in the Scriptures or from elsewhere, or has seemed to himself to have understood — or rather as an opinion to be fostered meanwhile, until the elimination of all Christian notions be day by day further promoted. That all and only those who so think are genuine Protestants and sincere defenders of the fundamental principle (Rationalists, who now under diverse forms and names constitute the greatest part among learned Protestants or those tinged with some color of erudition)⁵ b) To these are next joined those who exact I know not what religious sense and confidence in Christ as Saviour, but hold doctrine and dogmas as ἀδιαφορα (Pietists); or postulate a certain general faith in Christ and in the Scriptures as a public instrument of the Christian religion, in other things vindicating full liberty to all who after the fundamental principle wish to pertain to « oecumenical Protestantism » (the so-called universal Unionists)⁶. c) With these are connected others, who postulate unity of profession in those things in which the diverse sects to be crowded into one exterior communion already seem to agree; in the rest, in which they dissent, they permit, in accordance with the fundamental principle, full liberty. These therefore, like the rest hitherto commemorated, wish there to be religious communion among men of most diverse faith and confession (the so-called positive Unionists). To these are now more nearly joined those Neo-Protestants who ἀντιφραστικῶς call themselves old Catholics. d) There follow those who prefer unity of profession of faith to the fundamental principle, and will an ecclesiastical authority to be constituted, from whose interpretation it were impious for individuals to depart. These again are discerned manifoldly. Some hold as objective norm the authority of the first Reformers and of the symbolical books, and hence the tradition derived from the sixteenth century, whence the authors of this tradition first arose precisely through the negation of the principle of Tradition and of all authority distinct from the Scriptures (Lutherans of the old profession); others will the divinely constituted authority of the Church, and say it was first founded by Christ and the Apostles, nowise adverting that by this very fact the schism and heresy of the whole Reformation is condemned (Neo-Lutherans); other fanatical men expect a new advent of Christ and a new more abundant effusion of the Holy Spirit; others seriously affirm that this effusion and new institution of the Church has already most recently taken place, and have their apostles, prophets, bishops etc. (the manifold sects which we comprehend under the name Pseudo-prophets).

From this compendium of the history of Protestantism I think it evident to anyone what I said at the outset, that a posteriori from the whole history of the recent sects, with no fact adducible to the contrary, it is confirmed that, with the principle of the Protestants admitted, the whole business of the proposition of faith is reduced either to the inquiry of individuals, by which unity of faith is rendered impossible, or the very foundation of the whole Reformation must be subverted, and an authentic magisterium for the custody and explication of revelation admitted, which cannot be but instituted by Christ Himself.

Moreover to acknowledge the principle of authority instituted by Christ, which by that very fact is perpetual, and hence before the so-called Reformation and at the time of the Reformation was contained in the very apostolic succession of the Church, yet at the same time not to confess the impiety of rebellion against this divine authority; likewise to acknowledge the falsity of the principle of the independence of individuals from the authority of the Church conserving and expounding the deposit of faith, yet at the same time to approve the Reformation, which rests wholly upon that principle and without its truth cannot but be false — this, I say, is a manifest and huge contradiction. But the so-called orthodox Protestantism must needs admit all these things at least practically and in its mode of acting, when it endeavors to defend itself against indifferentism and rationalism, so that it denies the principle of independence to which it owes its existence, and affirms the principle of authority by transferring the authority of teaching, to which the obedience of faith is owed, from the Catholic and apostolic Church to its Reformers — who by their own confession were or could be Reformers only by denying whatsoever authority of the Church; and further substitutes for the Tradition received from Christ and the Apostles a tradition whose origin in the sixteenth century at last was the negation of the very principle of Tradition. So indeed do the so-called Lutherans of the old profession⁷. But those who, a little more modest and wearied of this authority of the Reformers, concede and defend the divinely instituted authority of the Church, yet at the same time approve the Reformation of the sixteenth century — they deny the authority instituted by Christ in His Church, and at the same time affirm the authority of a Church which either nowhere exists but is still to come, or which arose from the negation of the authority of the apostolic Church. So do those called Neo-Lutherans. The whole of that pseudo-orthodox Protestantism therefore is ruled and sustained by a certain huge contradiction, or rather series of contradictions.