Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE DISTINCTION OF THE FORMAL REASON IN SCIENCE AND IN FAITH CONSIDERED IN GENERAL.

For a truth (fundamental truth i. e. the object itself) to be known, its reasons must manifest themselves to the intellect and as it were shine upon it.

The reasons by which truth manifests itself to the intellect are called the formal object under which of cognition. These reasons, moreover, are either internal or external. The internal manifesting reasons in turn either are identified with the manifested truth — and thus it manifests itself through itself — or they are other foreknown truths, through which the truth to be known, included in them, is manifested. Speaking therefore in wholly general terms, there is a threefold diverse mode in which truth is manifested to our intellect; and to this diverse mode of manifestation there corresponds a threefold diverse mode of cognition: intellection specifically so called, which is the immediate cognition of truth in itself; science, which is the rational cognition of truth through foreknown internal reasons; faith, which in general is cognition of truth through the external reason of authority.

1. The internal reason in some truths shines forth immediately from the perceived terms themselves. There are namely truths in which either every intellect in possession of itself, or at least one somewhat more cultivated, sufficiently perceives by an easy intuition the comprehension of the notes in the one and the other idea — which are compared and are the terms of the judgment and of the proposition — so that from the very perceived notion their agreement or disagreement is immediately evident to it. Evident in this way to any intellect whatever are those truths whose elements are the most universal ideas, and therefore simplest in comprehension of notes, which the intellect first forms as it goes forth into act. These are the first principles, from which the intellect advances to understanding other things. Whence it appears why the simply first principle for us (in the logical order) is this: « that the same thing cannot at once be and not be. » For in the idea of being, which the intellect forms first of all, this principle is founded, and from it is immediately understood; in it, moreover, all subsequent cognitions are founded. For all subsequent concepts are formed by addition to being taken most universally and therefore most abstractly — not indeed by addition of something which is outside the character of being, outside of which there is nothing, but through a more express conception of the modes which effect all being (thing, one, something, true, good), or through the conception of the grades of being according to which there are the diverse genera of things. See S. Th. de Verit. q. 1. a. 1. θ.

Because the light of the intellect, or the intellectual power connatural to us, connaturally forms such fundamental concepts and first principles without study and the culture of discipline, as soon as it puts itself forth into its own proper acts, and because all subsequent activity connatural to the intellect advances from those first principles, they are therefore called principles innate in us. « There pre-exist in us certain seeds of the sciences, namely the first conceptions of the intellect, which are known at once by the light of the agent intellect through species abstracted from sensibles, whether they be complex as dignities (ἀξιώματα or principles), or incomplex as the character of being, of one, and the like, which the intellect apprehends at once. From these universal principles, moreover, all principles follow as from certain seminal reasons » S. Th. de Verit. q. 11. (de Magistro) a. 1. cf. q. 10. a. 6.

2. Sometimes the ideas to be compared, or the terms of the judgment and of the proposition, are sufficiently perceived according to their notes not by any intellect in possession of itself, but only by an intellect already preformed and cultivated by many notions, so that from the perceived terms themselves their agreement or disagreement is evidently understood. Truths of this kind, immediately evident not to all but only to the learned, are many in all disciplines.

Both classes of truths which are self-evident St. Thomas sets forth. « As Boethius says, some are dignities (ἀξιώματα) or propositions self-evident commonly to all, and of this kind are those propositions whose terms are known to all... But some propositions are self-evident to the wise alone, who understand what the terms of the propositions signify... In those things, moreover, which fall into the apprehension of men, a certain order is found. For that which first falls into apprehension is being, whose understanding is included in all things whatsoever one apprehends; and therefore the first indemonstrable principle is that it is not at once to affirm and to deny, which is founded upon the character of being and non-being, and upon this principle all others are founded » S. Th. 1. 2. q. 94. a. 2.

3. In truths which are understood from the perceived terms themselves, or which are self-evident, the material object (which is manifested to the intellect and which is known) is also the formal object (under which it is manifested and known); they are therefore rightly called truths known through themselves. Nevertheless even in these the material and formal object can be distinguished by the reason and consideration of the mind.

The cognition of truth manifested through itself, or self-evident, is, as is clear, immediate cognition, and this is specifically called intellection or intellect by the ancients in distinction from science (of which presently); whence they say: intellect is of principles. Hence also the faculty of the mind, or the mind itself insofar as it is referred to the intuition of self-evident truth, is called intellect in distinction from reason, which is referred to the science of truths known from others as from principles.

Corollary. When simply and without qualification we speak of self-evident truths, we mean truths self-evident for our human intellect. In themselves all necessary truths would be self-evident; for with the quiddity of the terms sufficiently understood, the agreement or disagreement of the same would thereby be understood. But when the human intellect does not sufficiently penetrate the quiddity of the terms, it comes about that neither can it understand the agreement and disagreement from the terms themselves; and thus truths of this kind for us are not self-evident. S. Th. de Verit. q. 10. a. 12.

1. In the ontological order there exists a connexion, dependence, and relation of beings among themselves. In the most general signification of the terms we can for the present matter reduce all relations to the connexion of cause and principle with effect and principiate. Whence also in the order of cognition truths, or beings insofar as knowable, are mutually connected, so that the human mind can advance from one known truth to the cognition of another. For a cause, considered according to its perfection, contains the effect in itself at least in potency, and insofar as it is a univocal cause, i. e. operating according to the perfection of its nature to produce a homogeneous effect of the same character as itself, its perfection simply determines the perfection of the effect; when however it is an equivocal cause, i. e. one not acting according to the whole perfection of its power and producing a heterogeneous effect of a character diverse from itself, its perfection in a certain measure determines the perfection of the effect. Further, a necessary cause, and a cause insofar as it is in act although not acting necessarily, is connected with the existence of the effect; but a cause in potency and not acting necessarily coheres with the possibility of the effect. Conversely the perfection of the effect is connected with the perfection of the cause, and the existing effect with the existence of the cause and of the series of causes up to the first, which has no cause. Hence in the order of cognition the effect can be known in such a way that its nexus and relation to the cause is understood, and with this nexus supposed, from the known nature and perfection of the effect the perfection of the cause is known, insofar as it is manifested from that nexus and from the perfection of the effect; conversely too the cause can be known in its perfection and formal character in such a way that its nexus with the effect is known, and from its perfection and action the proper character and perfection of the effect is known. What we say of the efficient cause holds in its own way of the formal cause in relation to what depends on it, and of the final cause in relation to what is for the end, and generally of any relation whatever of principle to principiate.

When human reason from that which is prior only in cognition but ontologically posterior knows that which is ontologically prior and posterior only in cognition, the cognition is said to be a posteriori. A priori cognition descends from that which is prior both in being and in cognition to the cognition of the posterior.

Insofar as a cause or principle is the medium from which the effect or principiate is known, or vice versa — in sum, insofar as one truth is the formal object under which another is manifested and known — the cognition is mediate. The faculty of the mind, moreover, insofar as it reaches from one or more known truths to others to be known, is specifically called reason, at least among writers before our age, as has already been said above. Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 79. a. 8.

2. The cognition of those things which depend on others as on causes and principles in the ontological order is never perfect, nor is the knowing mind fully satisfied, unless they are known from their very causes and principles. Then indeed not only the causes and the truths which are the medium of knowing in which, as they call it, but the effects themselves and the truths understood from principles are known in themselves and according to their inmost character. The higher the causes known up to the supreme, and the more fully the dependent effects and consequences are known from them, the more perfect is the cognition.

Cognition from causes is properly called science by the ancients. If it be science from the highest causes, on which all orders of knowable things depend — and so science from the eminent universality of principles, which contain under themselves as a norm the lower principles of particular sciences — it has the name of wisdom.

« Truth is doubly considerable, says St. Thomas: in one way as self-evident, in another way as known through another. What is self-evident holds itself as a principle and is perceived at once by the intellect, and therefore the habit perfecting the intellect for the consideration of truth of this kind is called intellect, which is the habit of principles. But truth which is known through another is not perceived at once by the intellect but through the inquiry of reason, and holds itself in the character of a term. This indeed can be in two ways: in one way as it is ultimate in some genus, in another way as it is ultimate in respect of the whole of human cognition. And because those things which are known later for us are prior and more known according to nature... therefore what is ultimate in respect of the whole of human cognition is what is first and most knowable according to nature. And about things of this kind is wisdom, which considers the highest causes... But for what is ultimate in this or that genus of knowable things, science perfects the intellect; and therefore according to the diverse genera of knowable things there are diverse habits of sciences, although wisdom is but one » S. Th. 1. 2. q. 57. a. 2.

You will notice from this by the way how God also in this sense is wisdom itself (ἡ αὐτοσοφία), namely insofar as in His essence as in the supreme reason He beholds the whole amplitude, all orders, and all relations of knowable things. All created wisdom, moreover, is a certain assimilation to and participation of that divine wisdom (see Lessius de Perfection. divin. l. IV.). In God there is not as in us a wisdom of reason advancing from understood causes to the understanding of effects and of whatever depends on causes and principles; but there is a wisdom of intellect beholding all things in His own essence as in the representation of all truth — beholding, moreover, not only as all truth is in the divine essence as in the supreme reason, but also as it is in itself (cf. Tract. de Deo th. XXXVI-XXXIX.).

3. All those who assume that the mode of our cognition is the most perfect, and that its order from its very first beginnings corresponds to the ontological order of knowable things, thereby also maintain that the first inception and progress of our cognition begins from the immediate intuition of absolute being, which is the supreme cause and reason of all knowable things; and consequently that whatever we know is known by us first of all under the character and through the idea of absolute being. Since, however, on the one hand absolute being cannot be beheld immediately in itself by the intellect without, on account of its very simplicity, being beheld according to all perfection as it is in itself (Tract. de Deo th. XVII.), and since on the other hand it is altogether evident that that character of being which we first know, from which we advance to knowing all grades of being, and under which we know all things, is abstract universal being; there is indeed imminent danger lest absolute being — infinite in intensity of perfection, one and singular, and eminent above the whole character of being which we can naturally know immediately in itself — be confounded with universal being, least in intensity of perfection of all things that can be conceived, as being the most abstract, consisting of a single note (Tract. de Deo th. XXIV.). Cf. Concil. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 1. can. 3. 4.

The mode of our rational cognition, therefore, is not such that it begins from the highest cause and advances from it to the understanding of the rest, which depend on that supreme cause; but on the contrary those things which are ontologically posterior are prior in our cognition. From phenomena and operations we first understand the substance underlying them, from effects the cause; from sensibles begins the progress of cognition to supersensible things, from lower to higher things to be in some measure understood. Most of all, indeed, we can know the first cause itself by the natural light of reason only a posteriori, insofar as it manifests itself in effects and in all things depending on it. From the known reality of the posterior we can know the reality of the prior, from the existence of the effect the existence of the cause; the perfection, however, and quiddity of the cause is known from the effect only insofar as the perfection of the transient action or effect manifests it. Where therefore the effect is equivocal, i. e. of a character altogether other than is the essence of the cause, the cognition of the cause from the effect — what it is — cannot be but imperfect, concluding from the foreknown perfections of the effect or action to analogous but eminent perfections of the cause itself (Tract. de Deo th. X. sqq.). Moreover the effects themselves and what depends on causes are not perfectly known, so that the mind is fully satisfied, so long as they are not known from their causes.

This a posteriori cognition, therefore, so long as one rests in it alone, is indeed imperfect in the character of science, yet is the necessary beginning of human science; it can however without doubt be called science simply, although this name belongs to it in a less strict sense than to cognition from causes. Once the cause is known at least in some measure from the effect, reason itself by more diligent consideration of the perfections of the cause can advance to a deeper cognition of the same, from them advance to knowing others, and finally turn back and as it were descend to the science of effects from causes. See S. Th. in Boëth. de Trin. lect. 2. q. 2. a. 1. solut. 3.

From what has been said it is also clear how mediate rational cognition, where one truth is manifested to the intellect through another, is nevertheless cognition from internal reasons. For the light of reason understands one truth which is to it the principle of cognition in such a way that it at once sees its inward nexus with another truth, and understands this truth by its own force from that inward nexus beheld with the truth foreknown as a principle. It is nevertheless true that the effect from its cause is known more in itself and therefore more from its inmost reason than the cause from its effect.

We can indeed know a truth not only inasmuch as it manifests itself to our intellect, through internal reasons, immediately or mediately in itself; but also from an external reason, inasmuch as we are rendered certain that it is known as true by some other intellect. Thus anyone, even one altogether without astronomical science, can know a future eclipse of the sun, inasmuch as he is rendered certain that it is known by astronomers as about to occur from fixed and (physically) immutable laws. The knowledge of the astronomer is knowledge of the truth in itself, from the causes seen through, and so is science from internal reasons; the knowledge of the unlearned man rests solely on the foreknown science and truthfulness of the astronomers. Although the science of the astronomers may be said to be connected with the future eclipse as the posterior with the prior, this foreknown connection does not, however, effect that the unlearned man understands the truth (that there will be an eclipse at such an hour) in itself, why it is so and how it is so; but for his intellect that authority of the astronomers is an external reason for knowing the existence of the object to which they testify.

This mode of knowledge is not science and understanding of the truth in the proper sense, because it does not read within, as the Scholastics are wont to say; but it is faith, because, trusting in the science and truthfulness of another, it gives assent to a truth, which assent itself is signified by the verb to believe. Inasmuch as the formal object is regarded, we believe someone; inasmuch as it is assent to the material object, we believe something ¹. Comprehending both we are said to believe in someone; but this is not properly said except in relation to the first truth which is God, inasmuch as by faith in God we tend toward Him as toward the supreme truth and the ultimate end; whence also in the Creed we believe in God, and we believe the holy Church (cf. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 1. a. 9. ad 5.). See on this whole manner of distinguishing Gregor. Nazianz. or. 31. (al. 37.) n. 6; Rufinum in Symbol. n. 36; s. Aug. in Io. tract. 29; serm. 144. c. 2; theologos in 3. dist. 23; in S. Th. 2. 2. q. 2. a. 2.

As therefore in the intellect specifically so called the formal object or motive of assent is the internal reason of the true immediately manifesting itself to the intellect, and in science specifically so called the formal object is principles a priori or at least a posteriori manifesting the truth to be known intrinsically and in itself, though mediately and through another; so the formal object or motive of assent in faith is the foreknown science and truthfulness (authority) of another, which, because it does not render the truth intelligible in itself for the intellect assenting, is for that intellect an external reason demanding assent to the truth. Faith, therefore, taken generically, is assent to the object of a judgment as true, given on account of the authority of one testifying. Cf. S. Th. de Verit. q. 14. a. 1.

2. It is established from what has been said that the knowledge of a truth to be believed is, from the very nature of faith, always mediated; we know, namely, the truth to be believed as the material object through another foreknown truth as through the formal object, by which the former is manifested as to be believed.

There is therefore presupposed to every assent of faith (whether natural or supernatural, whether of divine or of human faith) a manifold knowledge. For there is prerequired a) knowledge that the other neither errs in his acquaintance with or science of the truth, nor deceives in his manifestation of it; b) knowledge of the existence of such a manifestation; c) that in some way, if not distinctly at least confusedly, the sense of the testimony be understood; which cannot be done unless the mind apprehend, by at least analogical concepts, the very things signified by the external or internal terms or words. It is manifest, moreover, that these very prerequisite knowledges, namely in divine faith, i.e. to be rendered on account of the authority of God speaking, suppose the mind already informed by many ideas and intellectual principles. Whence the doctrine of those is evidently repugnant who think that either the first knowledge of the human mind, as the condition for explaining the use of reason and as the foundation of all certitude, or altogether all certain knowledge, must be derived from faith, in which the formal object and motive of assent is authority whether divine or human (the authority of the consensus, as they think, of the human race). As regards divine faith, hither pertains the proposition subscribed by order of the Holy See (8. Sept. 1840. and 11. Iunii 1855.): « The use of reason precedes faith, and leads man to it with the help of revelation and grace. » Cf. Encycl. S. P. Pii IX. 9. Nov. 1846.

Corollary 1. Faith differs from science by its formal object, by which the material object is manifested and on account of which it is to be believed, and consequently by its mode of knowledge. Nor does it follow thence, however, that there cannot be some science of faith, namely of the divine faith which is believed. For there can be a science of the foundations of faith; and, faith being supposed, there can be some science of the very truths of faith, while some are assumed as principles for understanding others as consequent upon them; and finally the truths of faith can serve as principles for understanding more fully and more profoundly other truths which of themselves are not of faith. Cf. Concil. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 4. This science of divine faith is sacred theology, which according to its accidental form, and according to its amplitude and even profundity, can be various in various ages, yet simply can never fail in the Church of God, because the guardians of the faith are by divine institution also teachers of the faith, and because from the sweet divine providence the human element is required for the custody of the deposit under the assistance of the Holy Spirit by this very fact, that the Church is governed not by perpetual new revelations and inspiration properly so called, but through the assistance of the Holy Spirit (de Tradit. th. XXV.).

Corollary 2. The Rationalists, of all the most diverse classes, can admit no faith which would be assent on account of the authority of God revealing, since they deny the very foundation, namely revelation. When, therefore, many of them are nevertheless loud in commending religious faith, they necessarily pervert its essential notion. They distinguish faith as it is in the common run of men, as knowledge of religious truths under symbolic coverings without scientific knowledge and therefore in the lowest grade; then the rational faith which others call metaphysical, as it is in learned men and philosophers, faith already refined and elevated to science. Since therefore this faith, to which alone they attribute pure truth, is nothing else than the science of divine things pertaining to religion, according to the diverse account by which they explain religion and the science of divine things, they hand down ever different definitions of religious faith. For the speculative Rationalists there is in its full truth no other faith than speculative science; whence for the pantheists the supreme perfection of religion and the ultimate refinement of faith consists in this, that man knows himself to be identical with God. The Kantians acknowledged no faith other than the approval of religious (moral) ideas on account of practical exigency, that man may preserve his own dignity. Those called Pietists place faith in a certain religious sense of soul or interior sensible experience, which is traced back to a certain blind instinct, whether fanatics derive it from the Holy Spirit (Methodists, Quakers etc.), or rationalistically place it in a certain vague sense of dependence, which, cohering with rational nature, is said to be the one essential mark of true religion (Schleiermacher). The Rationalists called vulgar say that faith in general is the assent of the mind to an object which is understood to be true not immediately in itself but mediately from demonstration; whence they declare religious faith to be the persuasion of reason concerning divine things (Wegscheider Instit. §. 2. et alii plurimi.)

Little different from these, as regards the very notion of faith, is the doctrine of George Hermes. For he calls every firm persuasion induced by constraining reasons, theoretical or practical, faith in the proper sense. « Excluding false credulity, he says, even that which by accident believes what is true, but according to reason is no less worthy of reprehension, the definition of faith must be this: faith is in us the state of certitude or persuasion concerning the truth of the thing known, into which state we are brought through the necessary assent of theoretical reason or through the necessary consent of practical reason. This rational faith is the supreme end of all philosophy, the one true norm of man in this life, and the necessary condition for his elevation » (Hermes Introd. philos. in theolog. p. 259.).

Other recent writers call faith the immediate knowledge of truths which have not been deduced and demonstrated from principles at least logically prior. In inverted order others (namely the Güntherians) signify by the same name of faith the knowledge of the cause from the effect, of the ontological foundation from phenomena, of what is ontologically prior from what is posterior; namely what is called faith by them is nothing else than science a posteriori. Such knowledge of the cause from the effect, where it has religious truths for its object, they think to be that faith by which we are named and are faithful. Thus one of them (in Lexico Ecclesiastico Friburg. T. IV. p. 522.). « What is faith in the sublimest sense? Faith is the apprehension of those things which underlie phenomena and experience. The Christian knows and believes the existence of God, while he beholds His majesty and divinity in the universe. » But this is certainly not the virtue of Christian faith; nay, knowledge of the cause from even supernatural effects, formally as it is an inference of reason, is not faith properly so called; but it pertains under one account to science, under another account to the motives of credibility, and again under another to the foundations of faith (Tract. de Deo th. VIII.).

In all these theories the formal object of divine faith, namely that the assent is on account of the authority of God revealing, is removed, another formal object, that of science, being substituted for it. By this very fact the essential character of faith properly so called, which is a theological virtue, is wholly perverted, and in place of the Christian there is introduced a philosophical faith, if it please to call that science, improperly and from some analogy, faith. Vide Conc. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 3. can. 2.

There is indeed, between the twofold mode of knowledge which, as we have said, is called faith by these recent writers, and faith properly so called, some analogy, which could have been the cause of the interchange of the name. For as to the former mode, where immediate understanding of truth is called by the name of faith, there is some analogy in this, that just as the immediately evident truth, so the truth of the word of God is not demonstrated from another ontologically prior principle. In this sense faith is called by Clement of Alexandria « grace leading from indemonstrables to the principle of the universe » Strom. 1. II. p. 364; l. VII. p. 757. 772. cf. inter Opp. s. Basil. comment. in Ps. 115. n. 1. The other mode, namely knowledge of the cause from effects, can be compared with faith, in that just as substance as the ontological principle manifests itself in its phenomena and operations, and from these manifestations we understand it (ἐκ τῶν φαινομένων το νοούμενον) cf. S. Th. 2. 2. q. 8. a. 1; so God manifests Himself and His truth in the word of the hearing of faith, and from this we know God. Further, just as knowledge of substance from its phenomena is direct and in a qualified sense immediate, as far as can be done for the present condition, yet in comparison with intuition of substance in itself is imperfect and mediated knowledge; so knowledge through faith in comparison with knowledge of God from creatures is more direct and immediate, but in comparison with intuitive vision is itself also mediated and imperfect « through a glass in a dark manner » 1. Cor. XIII. 12. But such analogies do not remove the essential distinction between faith and the rational knowledge of the cause from the effect, according to the formal object; which distinction is much greater still, if faith formally inasmuch as it is supernatural be compared with natural knowledge, of which matter there is no place to speak now. The name of faith, therefore, can be judged common to each mode of knowledge not univocally but only analogically.