Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE NECESSITY OF FAITH CONSIDERED BOTH IN GENERAL

AND IN PARTICULAR OF DIVINE FAITH.

There can be considered a) the necessity of faith either in common and abstracting from the specific character of human or divine faith, or in particular of divine faith, universally in order to the knowledge of any truth whatever. b) We shall consider in detail the necessity of faith which is asserted to be included in the absolute necessity of a social and doctrinal institution for explaining the use of reason, and which faith must ultimately be traced back to a primitive revelation of God. c) The necessity of divine faith, and consequently of revelation by which the object of faith is contained, as the means for attaining the ultimate end of man in this present order of supernatural elevation, most of all demands consideration. d) To this doctrine is connected the further question concerning the necessity of revelation and faith for attaining the natural end of man, on the hypothesis that human nature had not been elevated to a supernatural end. This whole disquisition pertains to designating in general the limits of human reason, lest we deny powers which truly inhere in it, and without which faith itself could not subsist; and lest on the other hand we ascribe to it fictitious powers, by which the necessity and benefit of revelation and faith would be undermined. It is indeed not our purpose to treat in this compendium so most ample an argument worthily; it will be permitted us to be content to have indicated the principles alone.

As regards this former question, it is altogether repugnant that the first knowledge, as the foundation of all certitude, should be knowledge of faith; for there can be no assent of faith, unless there precede in the mind, if not in time at least prior in reason, an intellectual knowledge of many truths, which is not through assent from the external motive of authority in one testifying, but is altogether through assent from truth inwardly seen by the power of the inborn light; and the denial of this principle is fitted to undermine all certitude and faith itself.

1. Indeed faith is not assent to the believed truth from a seen internal reason, and much less assent to a truth known through itself and by immediate manifestation of itself; but it is essentially and from its formal character mediated assent to a truth on account of another truth foreknown as a foundation, on account namely of the foreknown authority of the testimony. Whence necessarily every assent of faith, and therefore also the first, is preceded in the mind by manifold intellectual concepts or ideas required for understanding in some measure the sense of the testimony, then by certain knowledge of the authority of the one testifying, and by certain knowledge of the existence of the testimony, as was said a little above. « No one believes anything, unless he first think that it is to be believed » Augustin. de Praedest. SS. c. 2. « Although no one could believe in God, unless he understand something, yet by the very faith by which he believes, he is healed that he may understand greater things » Id. in Ps. CXVIII. serm. 18. n. 3. « We could not even believe, unless we had rational souls.... If it is reasonable that, unto certain great things which cannot yet be grasped, faith precede reason, without doubt even the reason itself, however small, which persuades this (that we believe), itself also precedes faith » Id. ep. 120. n. 3. Namely « faith has not the inquiry of natural reason demonstrating what is believed; it has, however, a certain inquiry into those things by which man is induced to believe, e.g. because they have been said by God and confirmed by miracles » S. Th. 2. 2. q. 2. a. 1. ad. 1.

If anyone should perchance except that that preceding knowledge of the authority of the testimony is itself knowledge of faith, the equivocation must be cleared up. It can be called knowledge of faith, inasmuch as it is supposed as a foundation and thus enters as a necessary element into every assent of faith; but it cannot of itself be knowledge of faith formally, i.e. assent on account of the known authority of the testimony of another, without a halt being made at last in knowledge from an inwardly understood reason. For I ask, if you believe and receive the authority of testimony A on account of the authority of testimony B, how do you know this authority? whether from a known internal reason? Then I have what I contend. Or on account of the authority of a third testimony C? Then the same question will return, and there will be a progress to infinity. By this very fact it is evident that the authority of no testimony would be certainly knowable, in altogether the same way in which, in the singular contingent beings of any series whatever, there is no sufficient reason of existence, unless arrival be made at last at a necessary being. It is evident, therefore, that the first knowledge cannot be affirmed to be knowledge of faith on account of the authority of testimony, without the very foundation of faith being withdrawn ¹. The same argument recurs in the question how the existence of the testimony is certainly known, and whence originate the precognitions necessary for understanding the sense of any and consequently also of the first testimony.

This reason is altogether evident and ineluctable, at least as long as it is a question of merely natural faith. Nevertheless, to elude it, some have invented a new theory concerning immediate knowledge. They have said, namely, that the first knowledge is indeed through faith, yet is not from foreknown authority of testimony, but from a certain instinct of soul, which most obscure business they have called by a learned term immediate knowledge. But that assent to the true either is from discernment of the truth in itself, and then it will not be faith in the proper sense, of which it is a question, but immediate knowledge of truth known through itself by the light of the intellect (cap. II. §. I.), nor is there need of another instinct of soul; or if it is said to be assent, while the true in no way, internal or external, manifests itself to the intellect as true, assent of this kind would indeed be from a surpassingly blind instinct, but neither would it be faith (although Jacobius called that assent by this name), nor any knowledge of the true, and much less certain knowledge (cap. I. §. II.). It is equally absurd, if it is said to be assent to a thing proposed by testimony, yet from blind instinct, without the credibility and truth of the testification (science and truthfulness in the one testifying) being known ². Surely such a mode of assenting is indifferent to the true and to the error proposed, nor can it be in any way certain or necessarily connected with truth. Accordingly, however you conceive the assent of faith (at least as long as it is a question of the natural assent of reason), to which there is not supposed some certain knowledge from the internal reason of the true manifesting itself to the intellect, namely the oft-mentioned knowledge of the authority of the testimony, the certitude of the knowledge of faith cannot subsist; and when they posit such knowledge of faith, resting on no certain foundation, as the foundation or necessary condition of all certitude, this itself is subverted ³.

2. Others say that the foundation of faith is most certain, revelation itself of God the infinite truth; for this faith posits itself as the foundation of all certitude. But a) according to this doctrine, positive revelation and faith in it would have to be called the absolutely necessary complement of human reason, by which it is completed and rendered fit for its natural functions; in this principle, however, is contained the root of the confusion of the natural and the supernatural order. b) I ask, how are the authority of God revealing and the existence of revelation certainly known? For truth formally is in the intellect; nor can we affirm anything concerning an object, except inasmuch as it is known. If the authority of revelation is certainly known from internal reasons manifesting themselves to the intellect, then the first knowledge and the foundation of all certitude neither is nor can be faith formally taken, which is assent on account of testimony; if that authority of revelation is known through another revelation, the same question will return, until a halt is made in some knowledge from internal reasons, as declared above.

But they rejoin; if so, certitude is reduced to subjective knowledge, nor does man now believe God but himself. The very proposal of this difficulty betrays the confusion of all notions. Certitude formally is in knowledge, but knowledge is the vital act of the intellect; and so formal certitude repugns which is not subjective, i.e. which is not in the knowing subject; but there is simply no certitude, except inasmuch as firm assent answers to the objective dignity of the reasons demanding firmness of assent; and so subjective certitude answering to the known authority of the divine testimony is the certitude of faith of which it is a question. It is not, however, merely subjective certitude, which we do not admit, but which the adversaries are compelled to admit, if they assert firm assent to testimony without knowledge of the objective reasons by which the truth of the testimony manifests itself to the intellect (cap. I. §. II.). Further, for man to believe himself is an absurd locution derived from confusing formal certitude and the reflex knowledge of certitude with the motive or formal object of assent. In all certain knowledge man indeed himself knows with certitude, and can reflexively know this certitude; but no one believes or can believe except another, since to believe in its proper signification is nothing else than to give assent on account of the known authority of another testifying.

3. Lastly it could be said that not natural but supernatural faith is that foundation of all certitude; but that in this faith the infused light of faith itself determines the intellect to assent to the revealed truth, and therefore no previous knowledge of the reasons demanding assent is required. But a) if supernatural faith is thus constituted the necessary foundation of all certitude, by that very fact such faith is asserted to be due to rational nature, and so natural, not supernatural. Since, however, supernatural faith is the foundation and root of all supernatural justice (Conc. Trident. sess. VI. cap. 8.), from that doctrine follows the subversion of the whole truly supernatural and gratuitous order. b) Since nevertheless in words at least it is called supernatural faith, we say that assent of this kind without known reason demanding assent cannot be supernatural, because it is imprudent. For although the light of faith can supply what in the mode of proposing the object is perchance accidentally lacking, provided the knowledge of the reasons here and now excluding prudent fear precede (cap. II. §. III.), yet the light of faith cannot concur to assent, unless the object be manifested as credible. c) Nay, assent of faith without knowledge of the formal object, and without some knowledge by which the true sense of the material object is perceived, is impossible. « For it would follow, says Suarez, that faith (the habit of faith) does not give assent in a rational and intellectual manner but after the manner of a natural agent, which can neither be said nor thought; for how will the intellect give assent, unless it see and know some sufficient motive for assenting? » de Fide disp. III. sect. 3. n. 2. Whence d) the light of faith is so far from being ordained to excluding the necessary knowledge of the objective reasons (of the authority of God and of God revealing), that on the contrary it is given and is necessary for the supernatural elevation and conformation of the knowledge of those same reasons. Vide Conc. Vatican. Constit. de Fide cap. 3. can. 3.

Some have attempted to prove that the whole of our knowledge, at least of the metaphysical, theological, and ethical order, is received from faith, or rests upon faith as its necessary ultimate foundation, from that opinion which establishes the absolute necessity of instruction and erudition in human society, in such a way that without this instruction man would perpetually and necessarily remain devoid of all ideas and knowledge of this kind, and thus be deprived of the use of reason¹. A fuller disputation concerning these opinions being remitted to psychology, where the origin of ideas is treated, it will suffice for our present scope to declare the function of instruction ordered to the knowledge of the true from internal reasons, which for brevity's sake we shall call scientia, and the distinction of this instruction from tradition, by which an object is proposed as to be believed on account of the authority of testimony, to which faith corresponds.

²

1. Any instruction whatever, that is, any proposal of truth made from without, does not effect but supposes the subjective powers of understanding. But, the adversaries reply, instruction is necessary for unfolding the powers of human reason; for without instruction, as experience shows, man never arrives at the use of reason. Be it so; I now ask, what does it mean for man to have the use of reason? I think nothing else than that, with a sound harmony of the cognitive faculties supposed, his intellect is already informed with a sufficient amplitude of ideas and of truths (judgments in habit), which he can rightly use according to the inborn power of reason, and from which he can advance to the knowing of other truths. What is said, therefore, namely that instruction, whether connatural and common in human society or artificial and scientific, is necessary for unfolding the use of reason, cannot signify anything else than that instruction is necessary for acquiring a sufficient amplitude of ideas and of knowledge of the true (or judgments). Instruction must therefore be considered in relation to acquiring ideas or intellectual concepts, and in relation to forming judgments or knowing the relations of ideas and of the objects which are exhibited to the ideas.

a) Ideas cannot be formed except by the intellect itself, by its inborn power, from objects logically present to it, that is, knowably exhibited³. Instruction, therefore, for the forming of ideas, can contribute nothing else than to exhibit objects in a fitting manner to the cognitive faculties: first indeed those which fall under experience; then, once the intellectual concepts of those things have been formed by the inborn power of the intellect, and thereby relations already discerned and judgments and first principles formed by the intellect of its own accord, to represent knowably to the intellect, in fitting connection with things already known, other objects also, even those subject to no experience, that by its own power the intellect may conceive the ideas of them. In sum, the whole business of instruction in the conceiving of ideas is reduced solely to the fitting exhibition of objects. An idea, therefore, is not nor can be conceived from the authority of testimony, and hence not through actual faith; but the intellect, by its natural power or supernaturally elevated, forms the concept from the object represented to itself.

There are indeed objects which are exhibited to the intellect by divine revelation alone, and to whose apprehension it would never have attained without revelation; yet the simple apprehension, by which nothing is affirmed or denied, the intellect does not form from the authority of revelation; but while through revelation the object is exhibited in connection with other ideas and knowledge already possessed, it forms some analogous concept of the exhibited object itself. Thus we form some idea, for example, of the generation of the Son of God, of the procession of the Holy Spirit, of a person constituted by relation, of a human nature united to the Word according to hypostasis, etc. « Our intellect has a twofold operation: one by which it forms the simple quiddities of things, as what man is or what animal is; in which operation, indeed, the true and the false are not found of themselves, just as neither in incomplex words. The other operation of the intellect is that according to which it composes and divides by affirming and denying; and in this the true and the false are now found, as also in the complex word (in the proposition), which is its sign. Believing, however, is not found in the first operation, but in the second; for we believe true things and disbelieve false things » S. Th. de Verit. q. 14. a. 1. θ.

It is therefore altogether evident that external instruction and teaching, as regards the formation of ideas, cannot be of such a sort that ideas are conceived through faith or through assent on account of authority, since there is as yet no assent there; but that instruction pertains solely to the fitter exhibition of the object.

b) With respect to judgments, or the knowledge of truths properly so called, which we placed in the second place, instruction can be of two kinds; it can tend, namely, to ingenerate knowledge or to provoke faith. This second mode of proposal and instruction certainly has place in a great many objects of our knowledge, which we know only by faith, whether divine or human; but it neither is nor can be universal with respect to all knowledges, and namely with respect to those knowledges of truth which are necessarily presupposed to faith as its foundations and precede it, as has been sufficiently demonstrated above. But in the proposal and instruction directed to the knowledge of truths, everything holds that we have said of the function of instruction in relation to conceiving ideas. The whole business, namely, consists in the fitting exhibition of the true to the intellect, that by its own power it may discern the true from intrinsic reasons.

2. We can consider this instruction, both in relation to ideas and in relation to the knowledge of truths, more distinctly, as it is effected by things or by signs. Insofar as it is effected by things, it is nothing else than the representation of sensible objects and of natural signs (for the account of these is the same as of things) to the senses, that the inborn power of the intellect may form intellectual concepts and certain first judgments and principles; in which instruction, if yet it is to be called by this name, authority and faith have no part, no otherwise than when objects are exhibited of themselves with no one showing them.

Instruction properly so called then begins when it already uses arbitrary signs, among which words and the contexture of words (that is, speech) hold the first place. Concerning this properly so called instruction the following things are manifest.

a) It is repugnant that by instruction through arbitrary signs, of which kind words principally are, the first ideas and the first intellectual knowledges should be conceived. For unless the mind of the learner be already informed with many intellectual concepts and knowledges of truths, arbitrary signs (e.g., vocables) will not be signs to him formally, but things only, sound, I say. « When first those two syllables, when we say head, struck my ears, I knew not what they signified, any more than when I first heard or read saraballas (Dan. III. 27). But when head was often said, noting and observing when it was said, I found the word to be of the thing which was already most known to me by seeing. Before I had found this, this word was to me only a sound; but I learned that it was a sign when I found out of what thing it was the sign, which indeed, as I have said, I had learned not by signification but by aspect. And so the sign is learned rather by the thing known, than the thing itself by the sign given » s. Aug. de Magistro n. 33. Read the rest there.

b) When the mind already knows the nature of a sign, and what the words heard signify, and hence has already had many ideas beforehand, and is furnished with the understanding of many truths and principles, speech ordered to ingenerating knowledge can only exhibit to the learner, in connection with truths already known, through known signs, other truths in a fitting manner, that his intellect may discern these other truths from those already known and from intrinsic reasons. By instruction through words, therefore, which is directed to knowledge, nothing else is effected but the fitting exhibition of the true in connection with truths already known; but the light of the intellect, given, preserved, and aided by God (by natural or supernatural concurrence), discerns the truth from its innermost reason. By this instruction, therefore, neither the first ideas nor the first knowledges of the true can be acquired, but these are supposed to it as a foundation or necessary condition; nor does the knowledge to which instruction helps rest upon authority or have the character of faith.

St. Augustine discourses most subtly concerning this whole matter, l. c. nn. 38 ff., whose sense you have set forth by the Angelic Doctor. « In the acquisition of knowledge, the teacher leads another to the knowledge of things unknown in the manner of discovery, just as if someone leads himself to the knowledge of the unknown. But the process of reason arriving at the knowledge of the unknown in discovery is to apply common principles known of themselves to determinate matters, and thence to proceed to certain particular conclusions and from these to others. Hence also in this way one is said to teach another, in that he expounds to the other through signs that discursion of reason which he makes in himself by natural reason; and thus the natural reason of the disciple, through such things proposed to him as through certain instruments, arrives at the knowledge of things unknown... The knowledge of things is not effected in us through the knowledge of signs, but through the knowledge of certain things more certain, namely of principles, which are proposed and applied to us through certain signs, to other things which were before unknown to us simply, although known in a certain respect (in principles already known).... In the disciple intelligible forms are described, from which the knowledge received through teaching is constituted, immediately indeed by the agent intellect (of the disciple) but mediately by him who teaches. For the teacher proposes the signs of intelligible things, from which the agent intellect receives intelligible intentions and describes them in the possible intellect⁴; whence the very words of the teacher, heard or seen in writing, are related to causing knowledge in the intellect in this way, as are the things which are outside the soul... That something be known through certitude is from the light of reason divinely imparted within, in which God speaks in us, but not from man teaching outwardly, except insofar as he who teaches us resolves conclusions into principles; from which, however, we would not receive the certitude of knowledge, unless there were in us the certitude of the principles into which conclusions are resolved » s. Thomas de Verit. q. 11. a 1. Θ. et ad 2. 11. 13.

From all that has been said thus far we conclude as follows. It is one thing by far whether ideas and our first knowledges of truths, or indeed all certain knowledges at all, are received or can be received through faith, that is, on account of the authority of testimony; and it is another question whether and how far instruction, whether connatural in human society or artificial through discipline, is necessary for informing the intellect with a sufficient amplitude of ideas and of knowledge of truth in any order whatever. The former is evidently false, and would have to be denied even if the absolute necessity of instruction were affirmed. For this necessity would follow solely from the fact that the objects of knowledge could be exhibited knowably to the intellect in no other way than through instruction, as is clear from the declared function of instruction; but it would not have its origin thence, that truth is certainly knowable to us only from authority and through faith.

3. It remains for us to say, concerning this necessity of instruction for acquiring a sufficient amplitude of knowledge, what seems true to us. The necessity of instruction for acquiring a sufficient amplitude of ideas and principles, that the use of human reason may be judged sufficiently unfolded, does not arise from a defect of intellectual power for understanding the true in objects rightly proposed; for if it were so, all instruction would also be useless. But whatever be the necessity of positive doctrine and instruction, as regards truths rational and naturally knowable it is reduced to the necessity of a fitter manner in the proposal and exhibition of objects, that the intellect may arrive at the knowledge of truths more easily and promptly, and hence also more amply and distinctly.

The connatural state of man, for which he is made from his very nature, is certainly social, in communion and conjunction with other men. Since man, from the very condition of his composite nature as a rational animal, needs external supports for the unfolding, as of his other powers, so also of his intellectual powers, he has connatural supports for the congruous unfolding of the cognitive faculty in human society itself: that objects in the first place be proposed in sufficient amplitude and variety; that constant attention to objects be roused and fostered; that by fitting coupling of the same reason be led from some knowledge to others. But if there be supposed—an hypothesis which some wonderfully abuse—a man from infancy an outcast from human society, by that very supposition he is supposed destitute of the connatural supports for the fitter proposal of objects, for the rousing of attention, for the fitting comparison of ideas and judgments with each other. A great many objects, from which the formation of ideas and of principles, especially moral, is easier and prompter, will never be proposed to him; from those objects which of themselves thrust themselves upon him, he will abstract ideas and form judgments hardly other than those which arise spontaneously by the inborn power of the intellect; for consideration and any more constant attention cannot, in the present condition of nature where the lower appetites draw and distract far more vehemently, be expected in a man thus, as is supposed, destitute of external supports, unless God supply by special internal aids what is lacking in external subsidies.

For a more distinct declaration we can consider in man the subjective faculties of intellect and will, then the external proposal of objects to the intellect and the excitation of the will, and lastly the internal aids of God. The physical faculties, both of intellect and of will, belong to man from his very nature, yet so that for the intellect a fitting proposal of objects is necessary, that then a sufficiently constant attention and consideration be fixed and held by the will; but the will by moral necessity needs excitation and supports, even external ones. Now in that abnormal state the proposal of objects for the intellect does not indeed wholly fail, but it is exceedingly meagre; the external excitation and subsidies for the will, which in society are very many, are there almost wholly lacking. The intellect will therefore form intellectual concepts and first rational judgments only insofar as they arise spontaneously and necessarily from the proposal of objects, however meagre. The amplitude of these ideas and judgments cannot be defined by any certain norm. Without doubt there belong thither the universal ideas of sensible things; the consciousness of self and of one's acts, and the judgments spontaneously arising from these. That to cognitions of this spontaneous kind there must also be referred an obscure and confused notion of some superior being on whom all things depend, and thence likewise a confused knowledge of moral good and evil, is both philosophically persuaded from the nature of human reason as the image of God and from its natural destination, and theologically deduced from the manner in which the holy Fathers, with the Scriptures leading, constantly describe the first confused notion of God as inborn and congenital to rational nature, spontaneous, needing no instruction (ἐμφύτον, αὐτόματον, ἀδίδακτον χρῆμα). See Tract. de Deo, th. VI–VII. Once the mind is informed with first ideas and judgments, man could (by physical possibility), by fixing attention upon objects with free and deliberate will and by reflecting upon himself and his knowledge already acquired, arrive at some further progress and refinement of knowledge; yet from the very confusion and obscurity of his knowledge, from the less accommodated manner in which the objects to be considered present themselves, from the defect of all external excitation for the will, from the vigor of sensual desires, so great difficulties arise that there originates a moral impotence of arriving, in a condition so abnormal and destitute of connatural external supports, at any sufficient degree of clarity and distinctness of ideas and knowledge.

But in this consideration abstraction has been made from the special internal aids of God. These internal aids are to be considered insofar as they would rouse and direct man, that he might morally be able to apply sufficient attention for acquiring a clearer knowledge of God and of moral actions, that then he might morally be able to apply diligence in observing the natural law according to the knowledge already acquired; which if he should perform, God would promote him with more abundant aids, and in the present order of supernatural elevation would either provide him the external doctrine of revelation, or supply the external grace by extraordinary internal illumination. So indeed teach St. Thomas and other theologians. For they do not regard men of this kind, in relation to divine providence, as infants destitute of the use of reason, concerning whom, dying before baptism, how one must judge is explained in the Treatise on the salvific will of God (Tract. de Deo, th. LIII); but they consider them as sufficiently in possession of reason for meriting and demeriting, and hence as capable of and in need of actual grace. To the objection that, if explicit faith is necessary for salvation, consequently a man « brought up in the woods » would lack things necessary for salvation, St. Thomas responds in this sense: « It does not follow as unfitting, it being posited that each is bound to believe something explicitly, if he be brought up in the woods or among brute animals; for this pertains to divine providence, that to each it provide what is necessary for salvation, provided on his part there be no impediment. For if someone thus brought up were to follow the guidance of natural reason in the appetite for good and the flight from evil, it is most certainly to be held that to him God would either reveal by internal inspiration the things necessary to be believed, or direct to him some preacher of the faith » S. Th. de Verit. q. 14. a. 11. ad 1; 3. dist. 25. q. 2. a. 1. sol. ad 2. In the same way speaks Hugh of St. Cher in the Scholia on Rom. II. 12: « Should there be someone brought up in a grove by some beast, and have been there long afterwards; such a one knows nothing of Christ, such a one seems to be excused... I respond, in such cases the judgments of God are a great abyss; yet that not even such a one is excused, because he had natural reason, which if he had acted according to it, doing what was in himself, the Lord would have conferred grace. »

For the rest, concerning this whole hypothesis of an abnormal state outside the society connatural to man, we hold the following. a) Such a condition is ineptly assumed as a term of comparison for judging the natural powers of human reason; no otherwise than if someone were to contend that the vegetative and animal power is to be learned, from the consideration of a man from infancy bound with the tightest bonds over his whole body. b) The unfolding of reason in men of this kind will be various according to diverse native character and diverse external conditions in which they live. But whatever that unfolding be, this one thing we can learn, which from elsewhere is most certain: that man needs a fitting proposal of knowable objects, and that according to the diverse degree of a more or less fitting proposal there are also diverse degrees of the unfolding of reason, of the acquisition of ideas and knowledge. If the objects proposed to the intellect were fewest and altogether uniform—as happened some fifty years ago to that poor young man Gaspar Hauser in Germany, shut up from infancy in a darksome prison—and if thence man in fact remained devoid of all ideas of the superior order, that would not prove the absolute necessity of instruction in human society for acquiring them, but would only demonstrate that some sufficiently ample proposal of objects is required. c) Ineptly is appeal made to experience, by which it would be proved that no ideas of the metaphysical, theological, ethical order can be acquired apart from instruction in human society. For the examples as terms of comparison are very few; but even if in them the supposed fact of the defect of all ideas of this kind were conceded, it would not yet be proved that they could not or could have been acquired, since besides the privation of instruction there are many things which could have impeded the acquisition. But the proof itself of the fact cannot be had from experience alone; for it is established that the memory of obscure and confused ideas and knowledge is obliterated by supervening clear and distinct ideas; the later testimony, therefore, of those men declaring that they were destitute of all ideas of this kind, is worth no more than our forgetfulness, in that we do not recall our obscure ideas and knowledge from earliest childhood.

1. The ultimate end of the rational creature cannot be constituted except in the knowledge of God, the supreme truth, and in the love of God, the highest good, in such a way that the destination of intellect and will to the true and the good be fully satisfied, and thereby the creature attain its ultimate perfection, and in its ultimate end of the true and good be fully blessed. But the mode of final knowledge and love can be twofold: a) so as not to exceed the exigency of created rational nature, but to be accommodated to its powers constituted in ultimate natural perfection; b) so as, above all exigency of nature and of natural faculties, through a superadded gift and through a singular participation (assimilation) of the divine light by which God sees Himself, the created intellect be elevated to seeing the divine essence, the infinite truth, intuitively in itself (not by ideas acquired from elsewhere), clearly as it is in itself, and consequently the supernaturally elevated will love God, the infinite good, with a love corresponding to the intuitive vision; and thus the creature be blessed with supernatural fruition of God. The ultimate end of the creature considered in the former mode is the natural end, following upon the supposition of creation, not from a free destination of God distinct and diverse from the creating will, but from the necessary objective order, namely from the necessary perfections of God and from the perfection of the rational creature. Hence this end can be known by the light of reason from the very perfection of God insofar as He manifests Himself in the works of creation, and from the perfection of the rational creature. Considered in the latter mode it is the supernatural end, to which, even supposing creation, the creature could have not been destined, and to which it has been elevated only by the free largess of God; and hence this end can be known by us only from the revelation of God through faith.

Now if the rational creature—and since we treat of man alone now, if man—is constituted on the way to that term, the state of the way must needs in some proportion answer to the state of the term; the means by which man is directed by God to the end must be fitted to the end to which they are ordered; the dispositions of man by which he is prepared for attaining the end, both in intellect and in will, must pertain to that order as inchoation, in which is the final vision and fruition as consummation.

Since therefore in the present order man has not been left in his merely natural destination, but elevated to that which we have called the supernatural end, and constituted on the way to it, natural knowledge and the love corresponding to knowledge does not suffice, but the knowledge and love directly tending to that end must be supernatural, first subjectively, by reason of the eliciting principle and of the powers which, superadded to intellect and will, constitute faculties apt for supernatural acts proportioned to that end. Then objectively, besides the manifestation of God in His works of creation corresponding to the natural end of man, there is required another, immediate manifestation of God, corresponding to the final manifestation face to face, in which we shall see Him as He is. But this manifestation on the way is not such that we intuit God as He is; for such intuition is the end, not the means and preparation for the end; but revelation on the way is through the testimony of God Himself, by which (as St. Thomas says, 1, q. 1, a. 2) the truth, as known in the knowledge of God, becomes known to us, to which revelation, accordingly, no longer vision but faith corresponds. « There is therefore a threefold knowledge of man concerning divine things. The first of which is according as man by the natural light of reason ascends through creatures to the knowledge of God; the second is according as the divine truth, exceeding the human intellect, descends into us by way of revelation, yet not as demonstrated for seeing, but as uttered in speech for believing; the third is according as the human mind is elevated to the perfect intuiting of the things revealed » S. Th. contr. Gent. l. IV. c. 1.

2. More distinctly, the necessity of revelation and of the supernatural faith corresponding to it, on the hypothesis of elevation to a supernatural end, can be considered both according to the end itself and according to the means proportioned to the end.

a) The supernatural end itself, to which man was to be directed in a rational manner, had necessarily to be known to him, nor could it be known except through revelation and the faith corresponding to revelation. Moreover, if not absolutely necessary, it was yet certainly highly consonant with the very nature of the end that man should know, already on the way to this end, God, his objective end to be possessed in the term by the fruition of immediate vision and of corresponding love, also according to those perfections which are not manifested from the works of creation to the light of reason; not only according to the « known of God » (Rom. I. 19) which of itself corresponds to the natural end, but also according to the « depths of God » (1 Cor. II. 10) which correspond to the supernatural end, where « we shall see God as He is » and « we shall know even as we are known. » But these depths of God, as they can become known for understanding, as they are in themselves, only by supernatural and immediate vision, so can they become known for believing only by the testimony and revelation of God¹. But hence also, after they have been revealed to our faith, they are yet not understood by the light of the intellect in themselves from their own proper reason, because with creatures, from which the intellect receives its knowledges, they have not such an intrinsic connection that the intellect could either discern their essence—what they are—with proper notions, or demonstrate their existence—whether they are—from its own principles. They are therefore simply superrational truths, which in the proper sense are called mysteries (see Tract. de Trin., th. XVII).

b) The means ordered to the supernatural end and proportioned to it, and hence at least in the formal character of means, are supernatural. That the knowledge of these is necessary for man tending to the end is evident; yet they could become known only through revelation and faith. For partly they are not necessary from themselves and from the nature of the end, but are constituted in the character of means by the free will of God, by which very fact what we say is manifest. Partly indeed they are necessary from themselves and from the nature of the end; but first, the end itself is known only by revelation, whence the knowledge of the means ultimately rests upon revelation; then, since the nature of the end, even with revelation supposed, is not known in its proper and intrinsic character, it is not a consequence that, with the end revealed, the necessity of such means, however of themselves pertinent to such an end, would already be known without explicit and special revelation; and much less is it a consequence that the inborn character and nature of the means be understood².

What we have said is confirmed by the words of the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX in the letter to the Archbishop of Munich (11 Dec. 1862), where, after speaking of the superrational things of faith, he immediately subjoins: « and to dogmas of this kind those things especially and most openly pertain which regard the supernatural elevation of man and his supernatural intercourse with God, and are known as revealed to this end. And indeed, since these dogmas are above nature, they cannot therefore be attained by natural reason and natural principles. »

It is established, therefore, that with the order of elevation to a supernatural end supposed, some revelation of the mysteries of faith, at least of the supernatural end itself, was simply necessary for the human race; and revelation was necessary in that extension in which God willed the inchoate knowledge of the « depths of God » on the way by reason of the object to correspond to the vision in the homeland—the knowledge « in enigma » to the hoped-for vision « face to face. » This necessity of revelation as means and objective principle for the knowledge of those truths must be judged absolute, and as it is commonly called physical, since the mysteries are above the compass of the natural light, and hence the powers for knowing them from its own principles are simply lacking to reason.

3. But he would err wholly who would restrict the fact itself or the necessity of revelation to truths alone superrational of themselves, or mysteries properly so called. There is another, yet most true necessity of revelation in the present order, also with respect to those truths pertaining to religious and moral doctrine which of themselves do not transcend the powers of reason.

Without doubt, both concerning God, who is the ultimate end of all created things also in the natural order, and concerning the means necessary to this end, many things are of themselves intelligible by the light of human reason apart from revelation—such as the existence of God and His absolute attributes, the natural ordination of man to God, the natural law—which therefore are in themselves simply rational truths. The question is, then, what is the necessity of revelation and of faith with respect to these truths. We say the necessity is threefold: from the nexus of these truths with the superrational; from the mode in which they are to be known; from the very necessity of knowledge considered simply and (as they say) as to substance.

a) These truths would have to be known also on the hypothesis that only a natural end had been appointed to man, whence they are commonly said to constitute natural religion. But now, as the supernatural end of man is not the negation but the elevation of the natural end, so also natural religion must be judged not excluded but elevated to a superior order through revealed supernatural religion. Hence truths of this kind are contained as at least implicitly revealed in the very revelation of superrational and preterrational truths; these cannot therefore be revealed without those also being revealed.

b) All truths of this kind, insofar as they are now referred to the supernatural end of man, are to be known in a mode proportioned to the end, and hence by supernatural knowledge. But since the proper supernatural mode of knowledge on the way is faith, or at least has faith for its foundation³; therefore these truths also are to be believed by faith, and hence, that the mode of our knowledge might answer to the end, the divine revelation of these also was necessary.

c) But not only with the supernatural mode of knowledge considered, but with knowledge simply considered in itself, must revelation be affirmed necessary in the present order—of truths although rational of themselves—which for brevity we can call the truths of natural religion. There is no question of all rational truths without distinction: that all of them taken in the complex can be known by no one without extraordinary charism is so evident that it is a wonder arguments are sought by theologians to prove the thesis by which they establish that « no one without grace can attain all natural truths in the complex. » Our question is of the theoretical and practical truths, religious and moral, not of themselves impervious to human reason. Moreover, concerning these very truths it is not asked whether all in the complex can be known by all and singular men by the light of reason alone; for that is neither necessary, and that it cannot morally be done is almost equally evidently established as what we said a little above. Finally, neither is it asked to which truths individuals could and should attain by the light of reason apart from revelation, so that ignorance of the rest would be excused in them as invincible; for this invincibility of ignorance in the greater or greatest part of men with respect to truths necessary of themselves, although it could excuse individuals from sin, would yet itself be the reason why the revelation even of rational truths for the human race should be judged necessary. The state of the question, then, is this: whether in the present order the rational religious and moral truths can be judged sufficiently manifested to the human race taken in common through the light of reason, so that revelation would not be necessary for attaining the substance of knowledge. What is and what is not the necessity of revelation thus considered is declared from certain principles.

α) Revelation considered in the mode we have said is a certain aid toward the knowledge of truths; but the degree of necessity of an aid for an act answers to the degree of potency in the subject for the same act. In the human race there is no physical impotence for attaining rational truths; for they are called rational precisely because the powers of human reason can attain them; therefore, with only the substance of knowledge considered—that is, abstracting from the supernatural mode of knowledge which is required in the present order—there would not be, with respect to these rational truths, a physical necessity of revelation. Yet at least for the greatest part of men, and hence for the human race taken in common, for attaining these truths in due time, with sufficient amplitude, with sufficient clarity and full certitude, without admixture of errors, so great are the difficulties that, after the manner and fashion in which men always act in difficulties of this kind, the physical potency, at least in the greatest part of men, would never without special aid arrive at the second act of such knowledge. Difficulties so constituted make up a moral impotence. To moral impotence answers the moral necessity of an aid. Therefore in the present condition of the human race, for that sufficient knowledge even of rational truths, there is a moral necessity of a special aid. Moreover, although many sufficient aids were at hand to the divine omnipotence, where it has chosen one before all other possibles, that one must indeed be called the necessary aid. Since therefore God has in the present order chosen revelation before other aids, revelation also with respect to these rational truths, with knowledge considered simply and according to substance, must be called morally necessary for the human race in the present order.

β) Scripture itself, in the passages in which it teaches the manifestation of God afforded to the light of reason through the things that have been made (see Tract. de Deo, th. II ff.), everywhere distinguishes the possibility of knowledge, and actual imperfect knowledge itself, from the fact of knowledge sufficient for rendering the worship naturally due to God. Possibility it affirms; but at the same time it teaches that men universally (by their own fault, indeed) have not arrived at such sufficient knowledge and at its practical application, and to this infirmity and indigence it opposes, as a salutary and necessary medicine, the merciful aid of God through revelation, which in the present order is indeed given to a supernatural end even with respect to these truths natural of themselves. « For since in the wisdom of God (poured out upon all His works) the world through wisdom (through human wisdom, by which it could and should have known) knew not God; it pleased God (εὐδοκησεν ὁ θεος—God mercifully decreed) through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe » 1 Cor. I. 21.⁴; Acts XIV. 15; XVII. 30; Wis. IX. 14–19.

The causes from which arises that moral impotence, and consequently the moral necessity of revelation answering to it, are customarily declared in the well-known words of St. Thomas, 1, q. 1, a. 1; 2-2, q. 2, a. 4; Verit. q. 14, a. 10, Θ; contr. Gent. l. I, c. 4: « It is necessary for man to receive through the mode of faith not only the things which are above reason, but also those which can be known through reason; and this for three reasons. First indeed... the science to which it pertains to prove that God exists, and other things of this kind concerning God, is proposed to be learned by men last, with many other sciences presupposed, and thus man would arrive at the knowledge of God only after much time of his life. Second, that the knowledge of God be more common; for many cannot profit in the study of science... Third, on account of certitude; for human reason is much deficient in divine things... That there might therefore be undoubted and certain knowledge of God among men, it was necessary that divine things be handed down to them through the mode of faith, as things said by God who cannot lie » S. Th. 2. 2. 1. c. To be compared is th. VI of the Tract. de Deo, where, n. III, you will also find explained how St. Thomas at one time affirms that God can be known « easily, » at another not except « with great labor. »

4. All, therefore, that has been said in this paragraph concerning the necessity of revelation and of supernatural faith for the present order of elevation is reduced to this sum. The proper supernatural mode of knowledge, for those tending to the supernatural end of the vision of God, is in the present order faith. The truths revealed by the word of God are in a threefold difference: truths, namely, superrational simply in existence and essence, superrational in existence, and rational of themselves. Hence for the supernatural mode of knowledge—that is, that the truths be apprehended by divine faith—the revelation of them all is necessary; that there exist a sufficient manifestation of them, and hence that knowledge simply as to substance (with abstraction made from mode) may have place, the absolute necessity of revelation holds in the truths of the first and second order, and moral necessity, for the human race taken in common, with respect to the truths of the third order also. Of the objects of the first order, even with revelation supposed, neither can existence be demonstrated from rational principles alone, nor can essence (τὸ τι ἦν εἶναι, or quiddity) be apprehended by proper ideas, but only by analogical ones; of the objects of the second order, existence indeed is certainly demonstrated only from revelation, but essence (what they are) can be understood by proper notions; of the objects of the third order, existence can also be demonstrated by reason, although essence is sometimes apprehended only by analogical ideas. See the Vatican Council, Constit. de Fide, ch. 2.

Corollary 1. For every finite intellect which does not comprehend all truth, absolutely speaking, there can be place for faith on account of the testimony of God, the infinite intellect comprehending all truth. In the present order, where divine faith is the preparation for the beatific vision as the way to the term, faith will be emptied in vision, as inchoation, insofar as it is something imperfect and in potency to perfection, ceases with perfection succeeding. 1 Cor. XIII. 10 ff.; cf. S. Th. de Verit. q. 14, a. 10, ad 8.

Corollary 2. With comparison instituted between knowledge and faith, if they are in the same order, knowledge perfects the intellect more than faith; but if faith is of a superior order, from it there arises for the intellect a greater perfection than from knowledge of an inferior order. « Concerning the most noble things, however imperfect the knowledge, it confers the greatest perfection of soul; and therefore, although human reason cannot fully grasp the things which are above reason, yet much perfection is acquired for itself, if at least in some manner it hold them by faith » S. Th. contr. Gent. l. I, c. 5. If this is true by reason of the nobility of the objects, much more is the soul perfected above natural knowledge by faith, which, both in habit and in act supernatural, inheres in the first truth.

From what has gone before it might seem to follow that revelation, even on the supposition of a merely natural end, would be necessary to the human race with moral necessity. But if this be conceded, it will seem that it must further be inferred that the immediate revelation of God is not supernatural, as being due to human nature from its very creation and essential destination to its natural end; or if revelation is nevertheless called supernatural, it will seem that it must be conceded that the state of pure nature would be such that in it the attainment of the natural end would be morally impossible for the human race. But with this posited, such a state, considering the divine perfections, would have to be called simply impossible, although its possibility cannot be denied without disturbing the distinction between the natural and the supernatural order.¹ 1. To solve this difficulty and to declare the whole matter, the notion of what a supernatural gift is must be kept before the eyes. Supernatural is whatever, creation supposed, exceeds the exigency and powers of nature (taken in the theological sense, as the complex of created substances and of the accidents which belong to them of themselves); exceeds, I say, the exigency and powers of the whole of nature, whether considered ontologically in itself (entitatively and as to substance, as they say), or as to the mode in which it is effected and conferred. A gift can therefore stand in a threefold relation.

a) There can be a gift of such a kind as ontologically in itself to exceed the exigency of nature, and thus to perfect the creature beyond the whole order of nature. For just as there are in nature itself grades of diverse orders differing in whole genus, from inorganic material substance and its accidents up to pure spirit, so there is a certain order of divine communication and of fellowship with the divine nature, superior to all natural orders. In this sense are to be understood those definitions of theologians, of whom some call supernatural what is constituted in the divine order, others what participates the divine nature as it is in itself, others what pertains to the order of the intuitive vision of God (see Ripalda, De Ente supernatur. disp. IV. sect. 3. n. 22.). Hither pertain first of all the beatific vision itself, and then all gifts proportioned to it as inchoation and preparation for consummation. This is the deification (θεωσις) preached by the holy Fathers through grace, and the adoption of sons through intimate transformation and the impression of likeness with God, and through the indwelling Holy Spirit who has been given to us. See Tract. de Trin. th. XLIII. With this grace are connected or referred to it other gifts and aids and charisms and virtues and acts, whether as dispositions or as effects and consequences. Besides these, ontologically supernatural in the highest, albeit in a diverse, order is the hypostatic union of the human nature of Christ, and whatever intrinsically coheres with it.

b) There can be an undue gift, beyond the exigency of nature, which indeed neither follows from nor is exacted by any principles of nature, yet does not elevate nature to that higher and divine order. These can be called preternatural gifts, or supernatural secundum quid, or are called by others supernatural quoad modum, although this latter appellation will more fittingly be reserved for the mode of gifts, of which we shall speak at once. Thus supernatural secundum quid would be a habitual exemption from an imperfection consequent upon the principles of nature, which exemption should be effected by God not through an infused quality supernatural in itself, but only by a tempering and directing of the natural faculties, and that in the nature of the whole species. In this way supernatural was the state of integrity ² (immunity from concupiscence and from the necessity of dying) in human nature.

c) Supernatural only quoad modum is what is indeed in itself natural, yet is effected in a mode exceeding the exigency and powers of nature, as are very many miraculous effects properly so called.

Further, the supernatural can moreover be distinguished into what is intrinsic and what is only extrinsically supernatural. The former is supernatural in itself in one of the three modes indicated; the latter will be so, insofar as from the divine will it is ordered to a supernatural end. Hence in the present order even natural goods are extrinsically supernatural; whence it is clear that what is only extrinsically supernatural is not supernatural simply and in the proper sense. Conversely, in another order even preternatural and supernatural quoad modum things could be directed to a natural end, and thus not be even extrinsically supernatural.

Moreover, from what has been said you will gather that a thing is not already supernatural because it is an undue and gratuitous benefit to him on whom it is conferred, unless it be at the same time above the exigency and above the powers of the whole of nature. Whoever thought otherwise would have to call supernatural very many goods of soul and body, and even external goods, in almost the same way as the Pelagians called natural gifts, indeed human nature itself, by the name of grace, than which no greater confusion of the two orders could be devised (see Ripalda l. c. disp. I. sect. 4. n. 27.).

2. With the supernatural state and gifts hitherto declared is to be compared the state of pure nature.

Pure nature is so called in opposition both to integral nature through gifts supernatural secundum quid, and to nature elevated through gifts simply supernatural; by it, therefore, is understood nature without all these gifts, furnished only with the gifts coherent with the internal exigency and with the internal principles and powers of nature itself. It would therefore be first of all a nature destined to the natural end of the knowledge and love of God according to the exigency of nature. It would be under the providence of God the creator and natural ultimate end, by which it would be directed to this its end. God creating to this end, infinitely wise and infinitely good, who hates none of the things which He has made (Wis. XI. 25), would by His antecedent will will all men to attain to their end; and by that very fact He would have prepared sufficient means by which the attainment of the end would be rendered morally possible. Since the end would be far other than in the present supernatural order, the means to the end would also stand otherwise, and hence the order of providence would be other. All the means would answer to the character of the formal end itself (natural knowledge and love), and to the inborn character of composite human nature (the rational animal). Manifold external aids toward the apt proposal of objects, toward the removal of insuperable difficulties; internal aids through the honorable thoughts and affections excited by the very objects proposed, would render morally possible a sufficient knowledge of God and of the natural law, and the fulfilment of the law, so that men could attain their natural end. Nor would it be a supernatural gift, if God in men, according to special circumstances, should by immediate operation excite good natural thoughts and affections, and of the same character as are the affections excited through the representation of objects; indeed, neither would it be a supernatural gift, if God, under the condition of natural contrition, should in that state will to remit sins committed. For although these would be gratuitous benefits to single persons, they would nevertheless not exceed, for the whole of nature, the natural providence of God directing men to their natural end. Hence in that state there would without doubt also be place for the impetration of benefits from the divine merciful providence, both through prayer and through good works of the natural order. Nor does the objection hold, that these benefits are undue, and by that very fact supernatural. For that natural things are called due to nature is certainly not to be understood as if God were obligated to human nature; but by the name of due is understood both the exigency of connection from principles inborn in nature, and the exigency of necessity. Hence if the moral necessity of these subsidies for obtaining the natural end be considered in relation to the providence of God, infinitely good, directing to this end, such aids, which in themselves and ontologically would not be supernatural, would in that state be according to the exigency of nature and simply natural; and thus neither could they be reckoned supernatural quoad modum in such a way that through them the state would cease to be of pure nature. For although they would be conceded gratuitously to individuals, there would nevertheless be in human nature, in view of its destination to the natural end, a certain moral exigency of them, which suffices, according to what was said above, so that things which are (by hypothesis) ontologically natural could not either be reckoned supernatural quoad modum in the strict sense. See Suarez, De Gratia Prolegom. IV. c. 2. n. 15 and in 1. 2. disp. XV. sect. 2. n. 11; Ripalda, De Ente supernat. disp. I. n. 27; disp. V. n. 17. 31; disp. CXIV. n. 26-29; disp. CXVI.

3. Now at last, from the notions laid down, we must come to the very question proposed at the outset concerning revelation.

a) It is understood from what has been said that the revelation of supernatural truths is in itself and ontologically supernatural, because not only the mode of such a manifestation, but the manifestation itself of such truths is above the exigency of the whole of nature. This is clear both from the fact that the principles of nature do not exact the knowledge of simply superrational truths; and it is the more established, because to such a revelation, if not from an intrinsic necessity, at least from a great congruity, supernatural faith ought to answer, and hence with such external grace is connected supernatural internal grace, and thence further also destination to a supernatural end. Where, therefore, such revelation is given, there is now no longer the state of pure nature, but the state of the supernatural order.

b) The revelation of rational truths, considered in itself, is at least supernatural quoad modum; for although the manifestation and knowledge of such truths is not above the exigency of nature, yet such a mode of manifestation is above the exigency. By that very fact even the acquisition of knowledge, which is supposed to come about through external revelation and through connatural internal acts, would have to be called supernatural quoad modum. In the present order, however, and as it has in fact occurred, certainly even this revelation is simply and ontologically supernatural, inasmuch as it has an intrinsic relation to the supernatural act of faith, and, wholly directed to the supernatural end of man, is one of the elements constituting this order, in itself and ontologically supernatural. In another order of providence, where only a natural end had been appointed to man, such a revelation of rational truths could indeed have place only as an aid to the attainment of the natural end, yet in itself, as being above the exigency of nature, it would be supernatural at least quoad modum, and therefore such a state would not be simply of pure nature, but supernatural secundum quid.³.

c) From all these things it is now gathered why in the present order the revelation even of truths rational in themselves is necessary and yet supernatural, whereas in the state of pure nature it would not be necessary; and if it were affirmed to be necessary, by that very fact it would be denied to be supernatural. In the present order, namely, it is necessary first, because the knowledge ought to be supernatural, as we declared above (p. 630. 631.). Then it is necessary for the human race with moral necessity even for the sufficient knowledge of these truths simply and considered in themselves, abstracting from the supernatural mode of knowing, because in the present order God has willed to render morally possible to the human race in common a sufficient knowledge of these truths not by other natural aids apart from revelation, but through revelation itself; the other, remote aids which He imparts to individuals are directed to this, that men be led to the knowledge of revelation, and in it to the knowledge of faith proportioned to this supernatural state. On the contrary, in the state of pure nature, although the inborn natural powers would be the same as they now are, yet the providence of God in the direction of this nature would be other, answering namely to the appointed natural end, so that by natural aids the attainment of the end would be rendered morally possible. Among these natural aids, therefore, would above all be contained those which should prepare and lead to a sufficient knowledge of natural religion, so that this would be rendered morally possible to the human race. Without doubt, therefore, they err who compare the present order of providence with the state of pure nature in such a way that they consider the present state with all supernatural helps removed, and with no other natural aids substituted than those which now exist; and then persuade themselves that such would be the state of pure nature. With this supposed, it is indeed a consequence that the revelation of rational truths, just as it is now morally necessary to the human race for the very substance of sufficient knowledge, should likewise be deemed morally necessary for the state of pure nature; whence it follows either that such revelation is natural and according to the exigency of nature, or, what amounts to nearly the same, that the state of simply pure nature is impossible according to the wise and benign providence of God the creator. But if the diverse providence in each state, as just declared, be kept before the eyes, this whole difficulty ceases. See Ripalda l. c. disp. CXIV.