Tractatus de divina traditione et Scriptura

ON THE RELATION BETWEEN FAITH AND SCIENCE.

In general, all heresies ever devised against the Catholic faith have drawn their origin and growth from a perversion of the subordination and genuine relation which God, the author of nature and of grace, willed to be between natural manifestation and supernatural revelation, between reason and authority, between science and faith. But in our times not only heretics but certain learned men even among Catholics have attempted to set up and vindicate the false principle of full liberty in the treatment of the sciences, on which, they said, there chiefly depended both a valid defense of the faith against unbelievers and especially the perfection of all human disciplines and particularly of philosophy¹. They demanded, namely, that full liberty and autonomy of inquiry and of opinions in the sciences, independent of every authority and particularly independent of the doctrine of faith, be admitted and recognized by the Church itself. But this autonomy lies not only in this: that the human sciences rest upon their own proper rational or empirical principles, diverse from the principles of faith; and that philosophy cannot advance except from principles seen by reason, admitting “nothing into itself that has not been acquired by itself under its own conditions or that is foreign to it” — which would indeed be the “just liberty of philosophy”²; but they wished to obtain this: that the doctrine of faith should not even be held as a norm by which errors to be avoided are pointed out in advance, as the Supreme Pontiff Pius IX (letter of 21 Dec. 1863) laid down that “Catholic cultivators of the natural disciplines must keep the divine revelation before their eyes as a guiding star, by whose leading light they may beware of quicksands and errors.” Hence they also denied that, in truths which both stand by faith and can be demonstrated by reason, revelation must be so regarded that it must in advance be held as ratified and fixed that in scientific investigation no principles may be laid down nor conclusions deduced and held except those agreeing with the faith already possessed and already shedding its light, or at least not adverse to it; for this, they said, would be no serious but a mock treatment of science³. For from their principles liberty is so essential to science that without it science could not subsist and would cease to be science; liberty, I say, is essential, consisting “in the right of following without any impediment the laws of science alone, so as to be in no way limited or circumscribed from without”⁴. And hence follows proposition XIV condemned in the Syllabus: “Philosophy is to be treated without any account taken of supernatural revelation.” Further, with a distinction made between the philosopher and philosophy, they conceded that for the philosopher there may perhaps arise a right and duty of submitting himself to an authority which he himself has approved as true; but that science neither ought nor can be subjected to faith and authority, since thus it would be destroyed in its very essence and formal character. It is not for authority to correct science even when erring; but science itself can best emend errors from its own proper principles⁵.

But since the same philosophers at the same time denied that revealed truths extend more widely than the power of the light of reason for understanding and demonstrating truths, from their posited principles it evidently followed that, in the whole amplitude of truths even revealed, philosophical inquiry in the manner described must be autonomous and independent of the fore-shining light of revelation, so that of itself and directly not revelation but the proper laws of human reason alone constitute the norm of investigation and science, although revelation indirectly exerts its force upon science itself, insofar as it aids and promotes the historical culture of the human race⁶. In this sense Propositions VIII and IX were condemned in the Syllabus. “Since human reason is made equal to religion itself, therefore theological disciplines are to be treated just as philosophical ones.” “All the dogmas of the Christian religion without distinction are the object of natural science or philosophy; and human reason, merely historically cultivated, can from its own natural powers and principles arrive at a true science concerning all even the most recondite dogmas, provided these dogmas have been proposed to reason itself.”

In opposition, therefore, to these errors we shall consider in two ways the subordination of human reason and science to faith and to the authority of the guardian of faith, as it stands 1°. in the merely natural sciences; 2°. in the science of the truths of faith, or sacred theology.

1. No inner subordination, whether among the different sciences mutually or between the sciences and faith, can be understood, except insofar as they in some way have in common the formal object or the material object¹. For branches of cognition or sciences that had nothing in common, whether by the formal aspect under which they consider their object or by the very object known, would be wholly disparate and without any connection; nor therefore could one be subordinated to the other². But among sciences which have a common formal object in such a way that what is understood or demonstrated in one, the other assumes as principles on which it rests, there is a subjection whereby the lower is governed not by its own principles but by those of the higher; hence sciences of this kind were called subalternate by the ancients³.

Hence it has come about that those recent authors who did not rightly distinguish the formal object of faith and of science have, some of them, reduced the whole of rational cognition and the science of supersensible things to faith — of whom we spoke in ch. III, § I — while others, against whom we dispute in this chapter, have converted faith itself into a mere rational science. For since both admit a single formal aspect of the whole of our intellectual cognition — the former, authority and tradition; the latter, truth evident to the light of reason and inwardly seen — hence for the former all rational science is subalternated to faith, on which it wholly rests, while for the latter religious faith, as they call it, is subalternated to science, or rather is some part of philosophy.

Catholic doctrine admits neither such a subjection of science to faith, and still less the subjection of faith to science which these men have introduced. For such subordination has place only insofar as (as we have said) the formal object is the same on both sides. But according to Catholic doctrine the formal object on each side is different. Nor can science, as rational or natural philosophy, exist under that formal aspect under which a truth is believed on account of the authority of God revealing; nor can faith properly so called, and much less divine faith, exist under that formal aspect under which a truth is understood from its inwardly seen reason (above, ch. II). Unless therefore there be some nexus between faith and science in the material object, with only the formal object considered, natural science cannot be said to be inwardly subordinated to divine faith.

Now faith and science do have a material object in common, not indeed adequately in all things, yet in many. For the truths revealed by God stand in a threefold diverse relation to human reason: there are revealed mysteries, which can be understood from the principles of reason neither as to existence (whether they are) nor as to essence (what they are), except analogically, even with revelation supposed; there are revealed dogmas, whose existence indeed becomes known from revelation alone, yet whose essence (once they are revealed) is understood by proper notions; finally there are truths which are both intelligible by the natural light of reason and proposed to be believed by supernatural revelation, and which therefore constitute the material object common to reason and faith — though under one formal aspect insofar as, as inwardly intelligible, they are referred to the natural light of the mind, and under another formal aspect insofar as, as revealed, they are referred to the supernatural light of faith. But just as in mysteries the authority of God revealing and the very nature of divine faith require that the truths be believed as most certain, though they are not understood by reason, even if apparent contradictions present themselves to reason, so altogether the same holds also in revealed truths which are of themselves intelligible to reason, if as it happens they are not understood or contradictions present themselves, which can only be apparent. For whatever be the matter of the dogma, the formal motive of faith is always the same, the authority of God revealing; and therefore whoever believes with divine faith thereby believes to be false, either simply or at least under that aspect under which they are opposed to the dogma, all things that seem to contradict a sufficiently proposed dogma, whatever dogma be at issue, whether pertaining to mysteries or to truths not of themselves impenetrable to reason. The only difference is that in the former ignorance arises from the very nature of the human intellect, and is therefore indeed the negation of a higher perfection but not the privation of a natural perfection; in the latter ignorance is a privation, and is vincible — if not proximately, by moral power and for individual men, at least remotely, by physical power, for human reason considered in itself (cf. ch. III, §§ III, IV).

From these things it is now deduced in what sense revelation, and the authority of the Church proposing and declaring revelation in its genuine sense, and divine faith, is not a norm, and in what sense it is to be kept in view as a norm and «guiding star» in the merely natural sciences.

2. The Church, in virtue of her office of infallibly guarding the whole deposit of faith, judges of the things handed down in the human sciences only from revealed principles, insofar as those things agree with the doctrine of faith and Christian moral discipline or are adverse to it. Conversely, merely rational and philosophical science cannot proceed from principles insofar as they are believed by faith, but solely from rational principles insofar as they are understood by the light of reason; nor can it admit anything as its proper object «which has not been acquired by itself through its own reasons.» And so revelation, and the Church proposing revelation, furnishes principles to theology indeed, but not to philosophy, in that theology rests upon them as believed by faith; for this very thing is the essential difference between philosophy and the theology of faith. Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 1. a. 1. ad 2. For since the formal object of faith and of merely rational science is different — there, supernatural revelation through the word of God; here, natural manifestation through inwardly seen truth — therefore, in the sense declared, revelation and faith cannot be the principle and positive norm for rational and philosophical science.

«Those natural disciplines rest upon their own principles known by reason» (S. P. Pius IX, letter of 21 Dec. 1863); «nor indeed does she (the Church) forbid such disciplines each in its own sphere to use its own principles and its own method» (Vatican Council, Const. on Faith, ch. 4.)

3. But if the truths which are revealed and constitute the material object of faith be considered, and compared with them the sentences and opinions which are established in the human disciplines from natural sources and resources, it is evident that it can happen — and mournful experience shows that it often does happen — that things are assumed as principles or deduced as conclusions which are directly or indirectly repugnant to the doctrines of faith in the sense in which they are understood and proposed by the Catholic Church. Human reason indeed, in those things in which the evidence or true certainty of truth dawns upon it, is never deceived, nor in the act of evidence and true certainty can it be deceived (ch. I, § II), and so in these there can never be a real opposition against revealed truth; for God, the author of the created light of reason ordered to knowing the true and the infinitely truthful revealer of truths through His word, cannot contradict Himself, nor can the true be repugnant to the true⁴. But very many things are knowable which, for the limited and infirm light of human reason, are not, or even cannot become, evident and truly certain in act, and about which man nevertheless often presumes to judge as if their manifestation were full and adequate. For often what is certainly known as true under one aspect is judged to be true under other aspects, under which it is neither certainly known nor true; or what is true hypothetically is judged true absolutely; or from apparent reasons the false is assumed for the true, because comparison with the opposite reasons is either not instituted or sometimes cannot even be instituted. Hence it comes about that in almost all sciences, just as in general the false is sometimes assumed for the true⁵, so too sentences opposed to the revealed true can be set up.

The matter is clear of itself, if the question is of the contemplative sciences which have for their object God and spirit, the operations of God and the relations of creatures to God and among themselves, and therefore religious and moral doctrine; for all these things, even insofar as they can be investigated by the light of reason, are at the same time contained in supernatural revelation (ch. III, § III). But since very many facts, which in the wider signification of the name we can call historical, are contained in the word of God as revealed either per se or per accidens (cf. Tract. on Scripture, th. XIX), and since revelation itself is wholly an historical fact and is in great part composed of historical facts, hence also the historical sciences, and those that can be reckoned with them (archaeology, ethnography, geology)⁶, not infrequently meet revealed doctrine in their object. Universally no one can deny what Günther admits (Symposion Peregrini p. 365.): «there is no science absolutely separated from all the others, and on account of this organic nexus there can occur in each discipline an opposition against the object of theology.»

Such sentences therefore are not only philosophically false, but are also theological errors, and can be judged from the revealed principles to which they are opposed, and indeed must be judged and proscribed by the guardians of the deposit in virtue of their divinely enjoined office. That in this office of guardianship and in the definitions pertaining to it the magisterium of the Church is infallible, no Catholic can deny, as has been sufficiently demonstrated in the whole Tract on Tradition, whether that magisterium be considered in the body of the teaching Church or in the sole head and centre of the unity of faith, the Roman Pontiff.

4. A higher scope indeed is prefixed to revelation and to the Church, the guardian and interpreter of revelation, than the doctrine of the human disciplines; nevertheless the Apostles and their successors in the office of infallibly teaching, unto the consummation of the age, just as they received «the apostolate for obedience to the faith in all nations» (Rom. I. 5.), so in this very preaching of the faith have «the weapons of their warfare not carnal... destroying counsels and every height that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ» ⁷. 2. Cor. X. 4. 5. By the same apostolic office they confirm the faithful, lest they «be deceived in loftiness of speech, through philosophy and vain fallacy according to the tradition of men» Col. II. 4. 8., and they proscribe «the science falsely so called, which some promising have fallen away from the faith» 1. Tim. VI. 20. 21.

Truly the sentences repugnant to the truths revealed by God do not for that reason cease to be errors against faith, but indeed create the greater danger because they are produced in scientific form. Hence the very principle was already condemned as heretical by the ecumenical Fifth Lateran Council. The Neo-Peripatetics of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries divided an autonomous philosophy from theology in such a way that the laws according to which judgment about the true is to be made in philosophy could be opposed to the laws according to which the true is to be believed in theology. What therefore is deduced according to philosophical laws, they said, is to be held philosophically true, though according to the laws of another wholly distinct order, by which theology is governed, it is to be held not true but theologically false. Thus they said that according to philosophy there is one numerically single rational soul (the agent intellect), while the human souls distinct in individual men are mortal; and such conclusions they demanded license to hand down with impunity as consequent upon philosophical principles. If you remove the absurd composition of the true and the false, which could never be put forward except by simulation, as was done more recently by Peter Bayle (Dictionn. T. IV. Eclaircissement II. et III.), in all else exactly the same is established when in our times it is asserted: «philosophy is to be treated with no account taken of supernatural revelation.» This principle therefore must be held to have been pre-condemned in the Lateran Council (Const. Apostolici regiminis). «Since the true in no way contradicts the true, we define every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith to be wholly false; and lest it be permitted to dogmatize otherwise, we strictly forbid it; and we decree that all who adhere to assertions of such error, as sowing most damnable heresies... are to be avoided and punished» (Hard. IX. p. 1719.).

Most distinctly the errors concerning the relation between faith and reason were condemned in the Syllabus published by order of the Supreme Pontiff, and finally by the ecumenical Vatican Council (Const. on Faith, ch. 4.).

5. Now it is also established what is to be thought of that essential liberty without which they say science cannot stand. From what has been said, the subordination of reason and science to authority and faith is not placed in this, that philosophy and profane science receive their laws, their principles, their conclusions from faith and through faith. Those who affirm this of human cognition in general surely both undermine the very foundations of faith and, with certainty universally removed, are carried into scepticism (ch. III, § I). Still less is the subordination of such a kind that what is known as true by the light of reason with evidence or with properly so-called certainty must ever be held false because faith teaches the contrary. Those who speak thus set up, or rather simulate as a screen, the absurd hypothesis of the Neo-Peripatetics condemned in the Lateran Council, by which it is said that the true in philosophy can be false in theology. «For although faith is above reason, yet no true dissension and no disagreement can ever be found between them, since both spring from one and the same source of immutable and eternal truth, God the Best and Greatest» (S. P. Pius IX. Encyclic. 9. Nov. 1846.). These things therefore being set aside, the whole subjection of reason and science is reduced to this: that the word revealed by God and proposed by the Church (whether by ordinary preaching or by formal definition) is infallibly true, both by reason of God revealing and by reason of the Church proposing, and is to be believed with unchangeable faith estimatively above all things (ch. IV, § IV, coroll. 2.); by this very fact, with the same infallibility, whatever in reality and not only apparently contradicts the truth so proposed and to be believed is false and is to be held as false with the same certainty, and consequently is not demonstrated according to the genuine laws of any science, nor demonstrable nor probable⁸.

This certainty of faith, coming in advance, not only does not destroy or impede the science of the true — which alone indeed merits the name of science — but greatly aids and promotes it.

a) Those things contained in revelation which are indeed of themselves knowable by the light of reason, yet sometimes beset with great difficulties (ch. III, § III), are shown beforehand by faith to be infallibly true; whence it comes about that reason can from its own principles more easily and securely understand and demonstrate them. But the things opposed to revealed truth, even if they sometimes seem to wear a great show of truth, are foreknown through faith to be (as they truly are) false, and by this very fact reason is both forearmed against error, though it perhaps does not yet understand why and how it is error, and is aided to understand more expeditiously and profoundly by its own light the truth in direct opposition to the error. «But whatever they shall have brought forward from any volumes of theirs contrary to these our letters, that is to the Catholic faith, let us either show by some faculty also or believe without any doubting to be most false» August. de Gen. ad litt. l. I. n. 41. Hence in the Lateran Council, in the Const. cited, it is enjoined upon the masters of philosophy «that when they shall have read or explained to their hearers the principles or conclusions of philosophers in which they are known to deviate from the right faith, they be bound... with all zeal to exclude and resolve to the best of their power such arguments of philosophers, since all are soluble.» Cf. S. Th. 1. q. 1. a. 8; in Boëth. Trin. prooem. q. 2. a. 3.

b) Through the revelation and faith of superrational truths reason is no less forearmed against errors in the sciences that are even merely natural and rational; for things repugnant to a truth, though superrational, are necessarily simply false, nor indeed can that be philosophically true which is theologically false. Then too, positively, the cognition of such truths through faith not only illustrates and perfects the human mind in a higher order (ch. III, § III, coroll. 2.) — the theological science of which we do not now speak — but also greatly aids toward an ampler and profounder science of rational truths. For just as in the ontological order the gifts of grace which are above nature do not destroy nature but elevate and ennoble it, so in the logical order superrational truths are not wholly disparate from rational ones, but cohere with them by a manifold analogy; and therefore what we know through faith to be true in superrational things leads us to a profounder penetration of the true in analogous rational things. Thus the notions, in themselves rational, of nature and hypostasis, of generation, of sacrifice, of the extension of bodies, of sensible phenomena, can and must be manifoldly refined from revealed truths, as we have often seen in the Treatises on the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Eucharist.

In the sense we have stated (besides its efficacy upon the wills and morals of men), supernatural revelation intellectually aids and promotes the natural and rational sciences themselves; and in this sense it is true that human reason, historically cultivated through revelation, makes progress in the human sciences too, and that Christian philosophy is quite rightly compared with pagan philosophy and shown in many ways to excel it — unless perhaps this comparison were more rightly instituted between the philosophy of Christians and the philosophy of pagans⁹. But that saying, in which some take too much delight and others take too much offence — that philosophy is neither Christian nor pagan but only rational — is indeed true if the formal object and principle of philosophy be considered; but as to the former part of it, it is not true if all the aids be considered which contribute to true philosophy both materially and remotely through the culture of the mind and formally and proximately. For in this sense there wholly exists a Christian philosophy, not in opposition to rational philosophy, but which is itself rational in a more perfect manner.

6. From all that has been said it can be estimated what worth belongs to that distinction, introduced by some recent authors, between philosophy, which can never be subjected to faith or to the authority of the Church, and the individual philosopher, «who perhaps can even command his conviction and subject it to an external authority» (Frohschammer Introduct. in phil. p. 272.).

a) If philosophy is taken objectively, as it is (metaphysically) the sum and mutual nexus of rational truths, and (dialectically) the complex of the laws by which science is governed, in this sense there is in philosophy mere truth, though not the whole truth, and therefore there can be no opposition there against the truth and authority of revealed faith. «As sacred doctrine is founded upon the light of faith, so philosophy upon the natural light of reason. Hence it is impossible that the things which are of philosophy be contrary to those which are of faith; but they fall short of them, yet contain certain likenesses of them (of superrational things) and certain preambles to them, as nature is a preamble to grace. But if anything be found in the sayings of philosophers contrary to faith, this is not of philosophy but rather an abuse of philosophy from defect of reason» S. Th. in Boëth. Trin. prooem. q. 2. a. 3. (Cf. S. P. Pii IX. Encyclic. 9. Nov. 1846. Tract. de Tradit. p. 125. sqq.).

b) If philosophy is taken subjectively, as it is investigated, acquired, held by the human mind, in this sense not only are all superrational truths excluded from the ambit of philosophy — which belongs to the former signification of philosophy objectively and in itself considered — but first of all philosophy or philosophical science does not extend at all to many truths in themselves rational, or attains them imperfectly, in an uncertain manner and only probably, from the imperfection of human reason. Then from the same cause, as was declared above (n. 3.), it can happen and frequently does happen that human reason, left to itself, erringly assumes as principles or as conclusions of science things which in reality are not such, but are errors contrary to the infallible revealed truth, and consequently contrary also to the truth of science. Hence, since, with faith supposed, it is evident according to reason itself and objective philosophy that there is a most grave duty of avoiding errors of this kind, by this very fact faith and the infallible authority of the guardians of the deposit is constituted a directing norm to be kept before the eyes in the manner stated. Not only therefore the individual philosopher, insofar as he is a Christian and wills to remain one, can perhaps (as they say) subject himself to the authority of faith; but from the nature of infallible faith and authority and of fallible human reason and genius it follows, and therefore in objective philosophy itself is contained the law and duty of subordination for the rational inquiry after truth and for the sciences as they are cultivated by the faithful, who hold the revealed true through faith and seek the natural true through reason.

This very thing is enunciated in the words of the Supreme Pontiff (letter to the Archbishop of Munich, 11 Dec. 1862): «Never will it be lawful, not only for the philosopher but even for philosophy, either to say anything contrary to what divine revelation and the Church teach, or to call anything of the same into doubt because it does not understand it, or not to receive the judgment which the authority of the Church shall determine to pronounce concerning some conclusion of philosophy which hitherto was free. It is added also that the same author (Frohschammer) so keenly, so rashly champions the liberty of philosophy, or rather its unbridled license, that he does not fear to assert that the Church ought never to take notice of philosophy, but ought even to tolerate the errors of philosophy and leave it to correct itself¹⁰; whence it comes that philosophers necessarily share in this liberty of philosophy, and thus they too are loosed from every law... The Church, from the power committed to her by her divine Author, has not only the right but especially the duty of not tolerating but proscribing and condemning all errors, if so the integrity of faith and the salvation of souls shall have demanded, and upon every philosopher who wills to be a son of the Church, and even upon philosophy, there lies the duty never to say anything against what the Church teaches, and to retract those things concerning which the Church shall have admonished them. But the sentence teaching the contrary we declare and pronounce to be wholly erroneous and most injurious to the very faith of the Church and her authority.»

Corollary. Just as there are revealed truths as principles, according to which doctrines and propositions opposed to them, which are set up or deduced in the natural sciences, can be judged and are authentically and infallibly judged by the Church, so nothing prevents even private faithful who are sufficiently prepared by science from judging scientifically and theologically, even before the formal judgment of the Church, concerning such propositions according to the principles of faith. Theological judgments of this kind are either certain or only probable, according as these three things are known certainly or only probably: the true sense of the revealed principle according to which judgment is made; the true sense of the doctrine which is judged; the real and not merely apparent opposition between these two. When these three, as is frequently easiest, are known with true certainty, beneath which the false can never lie (above, n. 3.), then indeed, even before the direct and formal judgment of the Church, there is an obligation to hold doctrines thus repugnant to the already sufficiently proposed truth of faith not as legitimate deductions of science but wholly as false, though from the very principles of science it may not yet be clear where and how the error lies: «whatever... contrary to these our letters, i.e. to the Catholic faith, they shall have brought forward, let us either show by some faculty also (from science itself) or believe without any doubting (from the principles of faith alone) to be most false.» What Günther therefore advises (Euryst. and Heracles p. 251.) — that in the hypothesis of such an opposition between faith and science, as they speak, i.e. between the truth of faith and error in a scientific system, judgment be suspended in hope of the progress of science — is the same as advising doubt in faith, and consequently at least a virtual defection from faith, namely when those three things of which we spoke are certainly known. For then suspension of judgment cannot without guilt be admitted as to the truth of the revealed principle and the falsity of the opposed doctrine, but only as to the reasons why and how there is opposition, the elucidation of which from the progress of science (as the history of the sciences shows) is deservedly hoped for.

But so long as those three things of which we spoke are not clear, one must proceed with all caution in such obscure and difficult matters, lest by rashly affirming some sense in the word of God, which perhaps is neither the sense of revelation nor true in itself, we feign oppositions as between faith and error in science, where in reality the opposition is not between faith and the doctrine to be judged, but perhaps between our own false opinion and scientific truth. On these things St. Augustine admonishes most wisely and gravely (Gen. ad litt. l. I. n. 37. sqq.): «In obscure matters and far removed from our eyes, if we shall have read anything thence even in the divine writings which, with the faith wherewith we are imbued kept safe (with ecclesiastical preaching and the Catholic understanding kept safe), can beget diverse and diverse sentences, let us not cast ourselves by precipitate affirmation upon any one of them in such a way that, if perchance the truth more diligently discussed shall rightly have undermined it, we fall — fighting thus not for the sentence of the divine Scriptures but for our own, so that we will that to be of the Scriptures which is ours, whereas we ought rather to will that to be ours which is of the Scriptures.» He then sets forth examples from physical things. In Gen. I the discourse is of the creation of light, of day and night before the creation of the firmament and the sun; the question is therefore asked whether corporeal light is said to be created in the Scriptures in such a way that, before the sun and the firmament existed, days and nights succeeded one another, or whether rather the question there is of light and spiritual creatures. Hear the most cautious answers to this and similar questions. «That there is spiritual light in the spiritual creature our faith does not doubt (this namely is certain from faith); but that there is a corporeal light, heavenly, or even above heaven or before heaven, which night could succeed, is not against faith so long until it is refuted by most certain truth¹¹. But if this shall have been done, this was not what divine Scripture held, but this is what human ignorance conceived. But if certain reason shall have demonstrated this to be true, it will still be uncertain whether the writer of the holy books willed to intend this in those words, or something else no less true... It generally happens that even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, about heaven, about the other elements of this world, about the motion and revolution or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about the certain defects of sun and moon, about the circuits of years and seasons, about the natures of animals... and other such things in such a way as to hold it by most certain reason or experience. But it is too shameful and pernicious and above all to be avoided that a Christian speaking of these things as though according to the Christian writings should be heard by any infidel to declare them in such a way that, as the saying is, seeing him err by the whole heaven, he can scarce keep from laughter. For what trouble and sadness rash presumers cause to prudent brethren cannot be said enough, when, if at any time they begin to be reprehended and convicted of their depraved and false opinion by those who are not bound by the authority of our books, to defend what with the lightest rashness and most open falsity they have said, they attempt to bring forth the same holy books whence to prove it... neither understanding what they say nor whereof they affirm.» These admonitions certainly were kept before their eyes by those prudent theologians of whom we spoke in the Tract. on Tradition (pp. 150. 151. in the note).

1. It is one thing to speak of the relation and subordination of reason to faith, and another to speak of the use and subordination of the sciences in the explication of the doctrine of faith, or in sacred theology. Of the former we have said enough throughout this whole treatise. «We could not believe, unless we had rational souls.» For reason itself, or the soul insofar as it is rational, elevated and strengthened by grace, believes the revealed truths on account of the authority of God revealing. Hence with explicit faith, which is virtue and divine faith, no one can believe without knowing these three things: a) the infallible veracity of God; b) the fact of divine revelation; c) what the revealed truths are, and thereby what the sense of the truth to be believed is. For some analogical and at least confused knowledge of the sense of the word of God is necessarily required for explicit faith; for it is not the sound of the words, but the sense, that is proposed to be believed¹. But for faith and its firmness to be as it ought, supernatural namely and proportioned both to the end and to the formal object, an elevation of will and intellect by grace is necessary. The use of reason therefore precedes (actual) faith, and conducts man to it with the aid of revelation and grace (Propos. 3. of the Sacred Congreg. of the Index, 1855.).

Now indeed this knowledge of these things, as much as is needed for the simple faith by which men become Christians, in the economy instituted by Christ does not of itself presuppose or demand a natural cultivation of the mind through the human sciences. For as the apostolic preaching is not «in the persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the showing of the spirit and of power» (δυνάμεως); so too «faith is not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God» 1. Cor. II. 4. 5. (Confer above ch. V. §. II.).

Yet that threefold knowledge which already accompanies faith itself and is included in explicit faith, can and for the explication and defence of revelation itself ought to be cultivated in the Church of God into a more distinct and ampler science of faith, which is sacred theology (see Tract. on God, Prolegomen. §§. II. III.). This science, both according to its formal object and according to its material object, supposes faith and rests wholly upon it, since it considers all truths insofar as they have been revealed to us by God or are connected with revealed truths, nor except under this aspect is it science in the proper name and sacred theology (Tract. on God l. c. §. I.). But as faith itself (actual) cannot be without the use of reason and without that threefold knowledge of which we have spoken, partly preamble and partly fundamental; so the human mind, for cultivating sacred science, needs the aid of manifold natural and rational sciences (cf. on Tradit. th. XXV. n. II.). Revealed doctrine, therefore, or, as St. Thomas is wont to speak, sacred doctrine, can be regarded in three ways: objectively and in the aspect of revealed truth; insofar as it is believed by faith; insofar as faith seeks understanding. If it be regarded in the first and second way, the aid of the natural sciences is not required; in the third way it is required. For although revealed truths in themselves are most intelligible, to us they are not intelligible except according to our mode. This is what St. Thomas says 1. q. 1. a. 5. ad. 2. «This science can receive something from the philosophical disciplines, not as though it stood in need of them of necessity, but for the fuller manifestation of the things handed down in this science. For it does not receive its principles from other sciences, but immediately from God by revelation. And therefore it does not receive from other sciences as from superiors, but uses them as inferiors and handmaids; as architectonic arts use those that minister, and the civil art the military. And this very fact that it so uses them is not on account of its own defect or insufficiency (regarded objectively), but on account of the defect of our intellect, which from the things known through natural reason, from which the other sciences proceed, is more easily led by the hand into the things that are above reason, which are handed down in this science» ². But these things need some ampler explication, that what the bearing and subordination of the natural and rational sciences to theology is may be more distinctly understood.

2. The scope unto which other sciences come into use in sacred theology is not that truths under that formal aspect, insofar as they are demonstrated by reason and by natural resources in other sciences, be assumed and held as the proper object of theology. In this way theology would be subordinated to other sciences; or rather, from its very formal object, it would be philosophy, and not theology of faith. The scope toward which through other sciences theology tends, faith being supposed, is «the fuller manifestation of the things handed down in sacred doctrine;» and so it is not the intellect that seeks faith, which is presupposed in its supernatural certainty and firmness; but faith that seeks understanding.

a) That «fuller manifestation» can be considered in the knowledge of the fact of revelation, and consequently of the motives of credibility in the whole history of supernatural providence and of the revelations of God; and likewise in the knowledge of the way in which the revealed word of God has come down to us and is perpetually preserved untainted (in Scripture and Tradition through the ministry of the divinely instituted Church); and consequently in the knowledge of the foundations, sources, and rules of faith, from the scientific demonstration of all of which apologetic theology is constituted.

b) The «fuller manifestation» is to be regarded through the intellection and demonstration of what truths, whether theoretical or practical, and in what manner they are contained in the word of God, as it is preserved in Scripture and Tradition and proposed by the Church. This science of what and in what manner is contained in the word of God is dogmatic (and moral) theology, which is wont to be called positive.

c) Further, the «fuller manifestation» of the dogmas according to their inward reason (as much as the intellect enlightened by faith can know through a mirror and in an enigma), is perfected through speculative theology. For the intellect enlightened by faith can know even superrational things analogically through rational notions, or (as St. Thomas speaks) according to likeness, what they are; can discern their mutual nexus, the consequence of one truth from another, the agreement of one with another, and some congruity with rational truths themselves. «Reason, led by the hand through faith, grows in this, that it more fully comprehends the believable things themselves; and then it in some way understands, whence it is said Is. VII. 9. according to another reading (LXX): unless you shall have believed, you shall not understand» S. Th. prolog. ad ll. sentent. q. 1. a. 3. sol. 3.

d) With all these finally coheres, and in them is included, polemic theology for the defence of revealed doctrine against contrary errors, whether they turn upon the very sources of doctrine through perversion of the foundations of faith, or upon the several dogmas through false interpretation of the word of God, or upon the true understanding of the same through abuse of philosophy.

Now that for rightly discharging all these things an aid drawn from almost all the natural and rational sciences is not only opportune but within certain limits wholly necessary, is evident of itself. Criticism, philology, hermeneutics, the historical sciences, but most of all sound philosophy, come into use almost everywhere³; though if in those former ones a defect of his own science can in some measure be supplied to the theologian by the mental eyes of other learned men, in philosophy it cannot.

3. Since the truths to be believed are not drawn from these rational sciences, but are manifested immediately by God; while the sciences stand as aids and instruments toward some more distinct intelligence of those same truths, therefore theology «does not receive from other sciences as from superiors, but uses them as inferiors and handmaids»⁴. The subordination of the sciences under faith, in their application to theology, must be regarded in two ways, finally as of means to a higher end, and formally in the aspect of a science directed by faith as by a norm.

a) As among all beings there is subordination according to the lower or higher end to which each is directed from its nature; so also in the order of cognition among sciences which have an object in some way common, there is a certain hierarchy and subjection of one to another, according as they have a lower or higher immediate end. From this principle St. Thomas thus declares what we say of the subordination of the sciences to the theology of faith. «All who have rightly judged have placed the end of human life in the contemplation of God. But the contemplation of God is twofold, one through creatures, which is imperfect (because it proceeds from effects not proportioned to the knowledge of the cause as it is in itself), in which contemplation the philosopher (Ethic. X. 9.) placed contemplative happiness, which yet is the happiness of the way; and to this is ordered the whole of philosophical cognition, which proceeds from the reasons of creatures. There is another contemplation of God, by which He is seen immediately through His essence; and this is perfect, which shall be in the fatherland, and is possible to man according to the supposition of faith. Hence it behooves that the things which are unto the end be proportioned to the end, inasmuch as man is led by the hand unto that contemplation (in the fatherland) in the state of the way through a cognition taken not from creatures, but immediately inspired from the divine light (objectively through revelation, subjectively through supernatural faith), and this is the doctrine of theology. From this we can have two conclusions: one is, that this science (of faith) commands all other sciences as principal; the other is, that it uses in its service all other sciences as vassals⁵; as is plain in all ordered arts, the end of one of which is under the end of another, as the end of the pigmentary art, which is the confection of medicines, ordered to the end of medicine, which is health; whence the physician commands the pigment-maker, and uses the pigments made by him unto his own end. So since the end of the whole of philosophy is below the end of theology and ordered to it, theology ought to command all other sciences (cf. §. I. of this chapter), and to use the things handed down in them» ⁶ S. Th. in 1. sent. prolog. a. 1.

b) In the inquiry and science of theology, as has been said (n. 2.), faith and its supernatural firmness is supposed as foundation, and consequently there is also supposed the supernatural knowledge already included in faith itself, both namely of God revealing or of the existence of divine revelation, and of the sense of the revealed truths, in which they are proposed by the Catholic Church. This knowledge before all scientific inquiry has the same supernatural certainty and firmness as faith itself, with which it is implicated. As therefore in the natural and rational sciences there goes before the knowledge of principles and of certain truths, which through the subsequent science can indeed be understood more distinctly and unfolded more amply, but can never be shaken, but rather are the norm of the whole subsequent science, so much so that it rests upon them, and whatever is adverse to them cannot be true; in altogether like manner faith and the knowledge of truths included in it precedes theological science, and those very truths apprehended and believed by faith with supernatural firmness are principles on which the whole science of theology rests and by which as norms it is ruled ⁷. «This science receives its principles immediately from God through revelation.» Hence the things treated in other sciences are not principles and norms to which the truths of faith are to be accommodated; but they are assumed as an aid unto apprehending those truths, in the sense in which they are proposed by the Church, more distinctly with our intellect and defending them more copiously. For that reason that very sense of the dogmas apprehended and believed by faith shines before, in the application of the things assumed from other sciences unto theology, as a «guiding star,» so that unto the intelligence and proof of that sense they be accommodated, and where need is, be polished or even corrected according to it (cf. on Tradit. th. XXV. n. III.).

As therefore the intellect «with the aid of revelation and grace conducts unto faith» (Propos. of the Sacred Congreg. of the Index 1840. 1855); so faith seeks understanding. By this consecration, as it were, of reason through revelation, of science through faith, sacred doctrine or theology is ruled and sustained, which the holy Fathers and Catholic doctors have commended both by words and much more by their example, and have illustrated unto the great fruit of the Church with so many monuments of faith and wisdom. In what way this understanding is to be sought, St. Augustine most prudently admonishes in the whole of letter 120. to Consentius, which can be called a treatise on the relation of faith and theological science. «Far be it that we believe for this reason, lest we receive or seek reason; since we could not even believe, unless we had rational⁸ Clem. Alex. Strom. VII. p. 732. cf. p. 757. «Faithful wisdom, and wise faith is by a certain divine mutual consequence» πιστὴ τοίνυν ἡ γνῶσις, γνωστὴ δὲ ἡ πίστις θείᾳ τινὶ ἀκολουθίᾳ τε καὶ ἀντακολουθίᾳ γίνεται. Id. Strom. II. p. 365. cf. Anonym. in Ps. 115. n. 1. (among the Works of St. Basil T. I. p. 471.). «Although unless he understand something, no one can believe in God (see above ch. III. §. I.), yet by the very faith by which he believes, he is healed, that he may understand ampler things. For there are some things (foreknown and presupposed before faith), which unless we understand, we do not believe; and there are some things, which unless we believe, we do not understand.... Unless there were some things which we cannot understand, unless we first believe, the prophet would not say: unless you shall have believed, you shall not understand (Is. VII. 9. LXX.). Our intellect therefore profits unto understanding the things it believes, and faith profits unto believing the things it understands; and that these same things be understood more and more, the mind profits in the intellect itself. But this is not done by its own as though natural powers, but with God helping and granting» August. in Ps. 118. serm. 18. n. 3. souls. That therefore in certain things pertaining to salutary doctrine which by reason we are not yet able to perceive, but shall sometime be able, faith go before reason, whereby the heart be cleansed, that it may receive and bear the light of great reason, this indeed is of reason. And therefore it was reasonably said through the prophet: unless you shall have believed, you shall not understand (Is. VII. 9. LXX.). But if now a believer ask for a reason, that what he believes he may understand, his capacity is to be regarded, that according to it, with reason rendered, he take of his faith as much understanding as he can; greater, if he receive more, less, if less; provided that until he arrive unto the fullness of knowledge and perfection (in the beatific vision), he recede not from the way of faith... Now therefore if we are believers, we have arrived unto the way of faith, which if we shall not have left, we shall without doubting arrive not only unto so great an understanding of incorporeal and unchangeable things as in this life cannot be received by all, but even unto the summit of contemplation, which the Apostle calls face to face... These things I have said, that I may exhort your faith unto the love of understanding, unto which true reason leads, and for which faith prepares the mind» August. l. c. n. 3-6. Of this same subjection of reason to the first truth revealing and revealed, of science to faith, St. Anselm speaks, embracing much in few words. «I attempt not, Lord, to penetrate Thy height, since I in no wise compare my intellect to it; but I desire in some measure to understand Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I seek not to understand, that I may believe; but I believe, that I may understand; for this too I believe, that unless I shall have believed, I shall not understand» Anselm. Proslog. c. 1. In this way the sacred Vatican Council ch. 4. of the Constit. on Faith, on which this whole exposition of ours rests, desires and commends in the words of Vincent of Lerins (Common. n. 28.) to the sons of the Church, that «there grow and much and vehemently progress, both of each and of all, both of one man and of the whole Church, in the gradations of ages and centuries, understanding, science, wisdom; but in its own kind only, in the same dogma namely, in the same sense, and in the same judgment.»