La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

55. REVEALED FORMULAS AND REVEALED MEANING.—In divine revelation, two elements must be carefully distinguished:

a) the revealed formulas, whether verbal formulas or imaginative formulas;

b) the revealed meaning of those formulas.

St. Thomas refers to these two by the names:

a) apprehension of the thing (acceptio rei);

b) judgment concerning the things apprehended (iudicium de acceptis).

Now then: the revealed sense, and not purely the formulas, is the formal element in divine revelation. If God had limited Himself to revealing new formulas to us without revealing their sense, that would not be true revelation, but mere vision, and such vision would be as useless for divine faith as Pharaoh’s divine dreams or Belshazzar’s divine vision of Mene, Tekel, Peres would have been, had God Himself not subsequently explained their divine sense through Joseph and Daniel.

For there to be true revelation and not mere vision, it is not necessary for the prophet or inspired author to understand the whole meaning that God intends to convey through such formulas, and which is truly enclosed in them. Nor is it necessary for the prophet or apostle, when promulgating the received revelation by word or in writing, to express in explicit terms the whole meaning that he is seeing with divine light in the divine formulas. Much less is it necessary for his hearers to grasp from the very first moment the whole meaning that the prophet's or apostle's formulas actually contain.

But it is indeed indispensable, for there to be true revelation and true divine faith, that God should have given some explicit sense to the revealed formulas; it is also indispensable that the prophet or apostle should have explicitly understood something, at least, of that divine sense; it is, finally, indispensable that the hearers of the prophet or apostle, which in our case is the primitive Church, should have understood from the very first moment some sense, but an explicit sense, of the apostolic formulas. Without any understanding of sense, neither would the one who receives the formulas from God be a true prophet, but rather a visionary or a dreamer, nor could the one who subsequently received them from the prophet or apostle perform any act of divine faith. The divine sense, and not the formulas, is therefore the formal element of revelation and of faith. The reception of divine formulas without a divine reception of any explicit sense, or progress in mere formulas without any progress of sense, does not properly deserve the name either of divine revelation or of dogmatic progress.

Let us listen to Saint Thomas:

Prophecy (or divine revelation) is a certain supernatural knowledge. Now for knowledge two things are required, namely reception (formulas) and judgment (meaning) of the things received. Therefore sometimes knowledge is supernatural in respect of reception only: sometimes in respect of judgment only: sometimes in respect of both. But if it is in respect of reception only (revelation of formulas without revelation of meaning) someone will not on this account be called a Prophet: as Pharaoh is not to be called a Prophet who supernaturally received a sign of future fertility and sterility under the figure of cattle and ears of grain. But if he has a supernatural judgment (sense), or simultaneously judgment and reception (sense and formulas), for this reason he is called a prophet¹.

“For unless the intellectual light is present for understanding the likenesses of sensible things formed in the imagination, he to whom such likenesses are shown is not called a prophet, but rather a dreamer. Sometimes he is called a prophet, but nevertheless improperly and very remotely”²

“It should be noted that there is a difference between vision and revelation: for revelation includes vision, but not vice versa. For sometimes things are seen whose understanding and meaning is hidden from the seer, and then it is vision only; as was the vision of Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. But when with the vision there is had the meaning and understanding of the things that are seen, then it is revelation. Therefore as regards Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar the vision of the ears of grain and the statue was only vision: but as regards Joseph and Daniel, who had the meaning of the visions, it was revelation.”³.

“Faith cannot be actualized except by believing something determinately and expressly.”⁴

“For a man would not assent by believing to some things proposed, unless he understood them in some way.”⁵

That is why Cardinal Billot rightly said: “The reception of revealed truth does not consist in the material possession of the dead letter, but in the attainment of the sense and understanding of the sentences”⁶.

The point, then, of departure of dogmatic progress must be an explicitly revealed sense. Without some explicit sense, there can be nothing implicit or virtual, nor, therefore, any progress or evolution.

56. THE MEANING OF THE FORMULAS IN THE DIVINE MIND.—As we have just seen, the divine meaning of the revealed formulas is what is essential in revelation and in faith. But that meaning can be considered in three distinct stages before reaching us, namely: a) in the divine mind, which conceived it and revealed it to the Apostles; b) in the mind of the Apostles, who received it from God and communicated it to the early Church; c) in the mind of the early Church, which received it from the Apostles and has transmitted it to us.

The meaning of the formulas was not in the divine mind partly explicit and partly implicit, partly immediate and partly mediate, partly formal and partly virtual, partly revealed and partly revealable. There, on the contrary, all meaning was and is most explicit, containing in a formal, immediate, actual state all the implicitness and virtuality of which such formulas are capable. If, then, when discussing whether there can be progress of meaning in dogma, we were to take as our starting point or point of comparison the meaning that this dogma has in the divine mind, in order to compare it with the meaning it has in us, it is clear that there has been no progress, but rather a diminution or regression. However much we unfold the dogmatic formulas, we will always know in them far less meaning than that which they contain and which God sees in them. When, therefore, theologians affirm that dogma progresses in meaning, it is evident that it is not progress if we take the divine mind as the term of comparison. Therefore, the starting point for assessing whether or not there has been an increase of meaning or dogmatic evolution is not the meaning as it exists in the divine mind. With respect to that starting point, no increase is possible.

57. THE MEANING OF THE FORMULAS IN THE MIND OF THE APOSTLES.—Concerning the mind of the Apostles, something similar must be said to what we have said about the divine mind, not precisely because they received the revelation immediately from God, for the prophets and hagiographers also received it immediately from God, but because they received it as heads or leaders of the Church of the New Testament, in whom the fullness of divine revelation on earth was consummated and closed.

When it comes to mere prophets or inspired authors, it is not absolutely necessary that they explicitly know all the implicit meaning of the formulas that God reveals to them or inspires in them. According to St. Thomas, even true prophets do not know everything that the Holy Spirit intends to signify through the visions, sayings, or deeds that He reveals to them, and there is no inconsistency whatsoever in saying that we today know the meaning of the prophecies and revelations of the Old Testament much more explicitly and fully than the prophets themselves, because of the greater divine or dogmatic explanation of those prophecies and revelations that Jesus Christ, the Apostles, and His Church have given us ⁷

But the Apostles were much more than mere prophets or mere hagiographers.⁸ As supreme masters of the full and definitive revelation and as foundations of the Church until the end of the ages, traditional theology recognizes in the Apostles the special privilege of having received by infused light an explicit knowledge of divine revelation greater than that which all theologians or the entire Church have or will have until the consummation of the ages.

Therefore, all dogmas already defined by the Church and as many as may be defined in the future were in the mind of the Apostles, not in a mediate or virtual or implicit manner, but in an immediate, formal, explicit manner. Their way of knowing the revealed deposit was not, as in us, through partial and human concepts, which implicitly and virtually contain much more meaning than they express, and require effort and time to go on unfolding or successively explaining what they contain, but rather it was by divine or infused light, which is a simple supernatural intelligence that actualizes and illuminates at one stroke all implicitness or virtuality.

If, then, the sense of the revealed deposit, as it was in the mind of the Apostles, is taken as the term of comparison, in order to compare it with the sense that we know, then one must say something similar to what we said when speaking of the divine mind, namely, that there has been no progress, but rather a diminution or regression. We know and will know about the revealed deposit less meaning and less explicitly than the Apostles knew. When we speak, then, of dogmatic progress, it is not understood as progress over the Apostles. Therefore, the starting point or primitive datum for assessing whether or not there is dogmatic progress cannot be the apostolic mind⁹.)

58. THE MEANING OF THE FORMULAS IN THE EARLY CHURCH..—Very different is what must be said of the revealed formulas, as they existed in the early Church. The Apostles communicated to the Church, in written or oral formulas, all that God had revealed to them for transmission. But concerning those revealed formulas, the Apostles did not give the Church the whole explanation or explicit sense that they themselves understood, and which was really and truly implied in those formulas. Instead, the permanent dogmatic magisterium gave it, which is nothing other than a perpetual prolongation of the apostolic divine magisterium, so as to go on explaining or unfolding more and more the implicitness of the deposit, as heresies, disputes, or the needs of each age might require.

The primitive Church thus received from the Apostles the entire deposit of Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition, without any need to expect, and without any possibility of, new revelation. But it did not receive from the Apostles that infused light which they had from God, enabling them to grasp at a single glance all the divine meaning truly included, though not formally expressed, in the revealed formulas. Therefore, such apostolic formulas, although of revealed and divine origin, are expressed in purely human language, and human formulas never succeed in expressing all the potentiality and meaning they implicitly contain, much more so when the sublime and fruitful divine realities are to be expressed by means of them. Such formulas resemble seeds pregnant with life or, better, trees overflowing with sap, which await only a favorable environment to develop into branches, flowers, and fruits the very potentiality and life that was already truly contained in them.

The true starting point, then, of dogmatic progress is the apostolic formulas just as they came from the pen or lips of the Apostles. Therefore, when the question is whether there has been dogmatic progress or evolution, or whether that progress has been only from the formal-implicit to the formal-explicit, or also from the virtual-implicit to the formal, it is a disorientation to focus on how those dogmas existed in the divine mind or in the apostolic mind. With respect to the divine mind or the apostolic mind, the question of formal and virtual, of mediate and immediate, of implicit and explicit has no meaning whatsoever. There everything was not only formal and immediate, but also explicit, and therefore the question of progress or evolution is meaningless.

What must be noted is how they were present not in the mind of God nor in the mind of the Apostles, but in the mind of the early Church: that is, whether in all our present dogmas they were already contained formally or only virtually in the written or oral formulas of the Apostles, giving to those formulas not precisely the meaning that the supernaturally enlightened intellect of the Apostles explicitly saw in them, but the meaning that such formulas of themselves express, understood as the early Church understood them.

59. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM OF THE EVOLUTION OF DOGMA.—As we have just seen, the starting point of all dogmatic progress is the revealed formulas that the Apostles delivered to the early Church. In these formulas, as in every formula of human texture, there is a part of meaning formally contained and another part of meaning virtually implied.

All Catholic theologians agree that not only are the formulas revealed, but also their immediate or formal content is revealed and, therefore, definable by divine faith. But is their mediate or virtual content also revealed and, therefore, definable by divine faith? If it is not, no true dogmatic evolution is possible, for there is no evolution without virtuality, nor dogmatic evolution without a virtuality that is truly revealed. If it is, dogmatic evolution is possible: evolution, because it is of virtuality; dogmatic evolution, because it is of revealed virtuality.

As can be seen, the whole problem of dogmatic evolution depends on the existence or non-existence of a true revealed virtuality. To resolve it, it is necessary, above all, that theologians be unanimous as to what is meant by revealed virtuality. But are theologians unanimous on that? That is what we are going to examine.

60. UNITY OF FORMULAS AND DIVERSITY OF MEANING.—As we said elsewhere (3), Catholic doctrine comprises four degrees: a) revealed datum; b) dogmas of faith; c) infallible truths; d) theological conclusions.

When it comes to determining the nature of each of these four degrees, all theologians agree on these four formulas or criteria: a) in Catholic doctrine there are truths revealed formally or immediately and truths revealed virtually or mediately; b) truths formally or immediately revealed constitute the proper or intrinsic object of divine faith; c) truths virtually or mediately revealed constitute the proper or intrinsic object of theology; d) the infallibility of the Church has as its primary object the truths formally or immediately revealed, and as its secondary object, the truths virtually or mediately revealed.

To avoid useless repetitions of synonymous names, we state once and for all that, in this matter, formal is the same as immediate, and virtual, the same as mediate¹.

On those four formulas or criteria that express the nature of the objects of divine faith, of sacred theology, and of the infallibility of the Church, there is complete unanimity among theologians, both ancient and modern. But unanimity in the formulas matters little if there is divergence in meaning.

Indeed, as the reader will have noticed, divine faith, theology, and infallibility are all defined in these formulas in terms of two objects: the formally revealed and the virtually revealed. Accordingly, depending on how the immediate and formal revealed and the mediate or virtual revealed are distinguished from or identified with each other, faith, theology, and infallibility will be distinguished from or identified with each other. The slightest variation in the nature or extension of these objects will necessarily carry with it the same variation in their respective habits. Under identical formulas, each author may say or understand different things simply by having a different idea of the meaning of those two names, immediate or formal and mediate or virtual.

Thus, when it is a question of knowing what a given author thinks about the nature or extent of divine faith, theology, or infallibility, it is useless to look at whether that author employs those formulas; rather, one must look at in what sense he takes the names formally or immediately revealed and virtually or mediately revealed, which form the basis of the four formulas. Everything depends on that.

Well, then: in this section we propose to show that, from Suárez to the present, the generality of theologians give to the names “immediately or formally revealed” and “mediately or virtually revealed” a meaning completely different from that which traditional theology, and especially St. Thomas, gave to them and understands; that, having a different idea of those two objects, they consequently also have a different conception concerning the nature and extent of divine faith and of sacred theology; that, by having modified the sense of those two objects, they have modified the true sense of the formulas, as a result of which there occurs the curious phenomenon of which I speak².

There are authors who, using identical formulas, understand radically different things, while others, using different formulas, understand exactly the same thing; and, in short, from that variation introduced by Suárez in the meaning of the terms “formal” or “immediate” and “virtual” or “mediate” proceeds that persuasion of many that no true dogmatic evolution is possible by way of virtuality or theological conclusion, and that exasperating difficulty which certain theologians and apologists find in reconciling the teachings of common theology with the evident facts of the history of dogmas.

To make this clear with all possible clarity, we will briefly set out four points: a) St. Thomas's doctrine on what is meant by properly virtual or mediate revelation; b) Suárez's innovation; c) the consequences of that innovation; d) the root of the modern confusion on this question.

I.—THE VIRTUAL REVEALED ACCORDING TO SAINT THOMAS

61. THE VIRTUAL OR MEDIATE AND THE FORMAL OR IMMEDIATE IN OUR NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.—To understand well what St. Thomas means by immediate or formal and by mediate or virtual, one must understand well the difference between simple intelligence and reason, or between intuition and discourse.

Indeed, our faculty of intellectual knowledge, although it is a single power, encompasses, unlike that of God and of the angels, two distinct functions or ways of knowing. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, gives them two distinct names: a), simple intelligence, which in Latin is called understanding; b), reasoning or discourse, in Latin reason.

By the first of those two functions of our one and only intellectual power we know through a single and simple act of intuition, immediately, without discourse properly so called. By the second, we know through successive acts, mediately, by discursive reasoning.

The fact of needing or not needing discourse proper marks the dividing line between simple intelligence and reason, between intuition and science, between the immediate or formal and the mediate or virtual.

When it is knowable by us without true discourse, it is simple intelligence, it is intuition, it is immediate or formal. When we cannot know it except through discourse properly so called, it is for us not simple intelligence but science; not immediate or formal, but mediate or virtual.

Therefore, when our intellect perceives the truth or falsity of a proposition merely by hearing it or by the simple exposition of the terms, without employing any new idea, the knowledge is immediate or formal, of simple intelligence. In that case there is no step or transition (discursive reasoning) from one concept to another, but rather an instantaneous perception of the relation between the predicate and the subject or, at most, a passage from the name to the idea, not from one idea to another. Thus, for example, to assent to the proposition that the whole is greater than the part, it is enough to hear the proposition or, at most, to define or explain the simple meaning of the terms whole and part, without the intervention of any other concept whatsoever.

From this follows the following corollary, of the utmost importance in Thomistic doctrine, namely: “For a proposition to be for us immediate or formal, and not mediate or virtual, two things are required and suffice: a) that to know its truth or falsity we need no reasoning whatsoever; b) that, if we do need reasoning, it be reasoning improperly so called, that is, reasoning ordered solely to ascertaining the formal meaning of the terms.”

Essentially different is the other function of our intellectual knowledge, called reasoning or science. Many times, in order to perceive the truth or falsity of a proposition, it is not enough for us to know or ascertain the formal meaning of the two terms, that is, of the predicate and the subject, but rather we need the intervention of a new term or concept, the intervention of a third term, virtually distinct from the two original ones. By means of that new concept, with which we compare the concepts of the subject and predicate, and only by means of it, can we know the truth or falsity of said proposition, by virtue of the principle of all reasoning which says: those things that are the same as “a third” are the same as “each other”.

This second manner of knowing is what is called, in the language of St. Thomas, mediate or virtual, because the truth or falsity of the proposition is not seen in itself, but through or by virtue of another concept. The function of our reason, which knows in this way, is called reasoning or science; the truths thus known are called virtual or mediate, and the discourse thus employed is called proper discourse, whether the new term is only conceptually distinct, without being really distinct, as happens, for example, in the mathematical sciences; or whether it is really distinct, as happens in the physical sciences.

62. COROLLARIES.—From which these two corollaries are also deduced, no less fundamental in the doctrine of St. Thomas, namely: a) for a conclusion or truth to be for us virtual or mediate and not immediate or formal, it suffices that we cannot know it without reasoning properly so-called; b) for there to be reasoning properly

That said, it is not required that the new formula or deduced conclusion be really distinct, but rather it suffices that it be virtually or conceptually distinct.

The reader will pardon us for having dwelt on explaining so obvious a thing and one which we had already indicated elsewhere (24-27), since it is a most fundamental point for anyone who wishes to understand the doctrine of St. Thomas on the nature and distinction of divine faith and theology and to penetrate well how dogmatic evolution is possible without an increase in real objectivity³

63. THE VIRTUAL OR MEDIATE AND THE FORMAL OR IMMEDIATE IN OUR SUPERNATURAL KNOWLEDGE.—Just as the ideas of simple intelligence and reason relate to each other in the natural order, exactly in the same way do the ideas of divine faith and theology relate in the supernatural or revealed order. The reason for this is that revelation is, in the supernatural order, what intrinsic evidence is in the natural order.

The starting point in the natural order is the first principles.

Principles of reason known by pure intuitive evidence, immediately, without discourse strictly speaking. Likewise, in the supernatural order, the point of departure is the first principles of faith or the propositions that compose the primitive or revealed datum, known by simple revelation, immediately, without any discourse (31).

Everything that our intellect perceives in the first principles of reason without any discourse, or with discourse improperly so called, such as all discourse ordered to knowing the meaning of terms, is immediate or formal, not mediate or virtual. In the same way, everything that our intellect finds in the revealed datum without any discourse or with discourse improperly so called is revealed immediate or formal, not mediate or virtual.

Everything that in the natural order our intellect cannot see without its own reasoning or without the intervention of a new concept is for us science or reason, not simple intelligence or intuition. In the same way, everything that in the revealed datum or revealed premise we cannot see without our own reasoning or without the intervention of another new concept is for us theology or theological science, not simple intelligence or divine faith.

As can be seen, the whole doctrine of St. Thomas on the distinction between faith and theology, or between what is immediately or formally revealed and what is mediately or virtually revealed, in the supernatural order, is perfectly based on the distinction between simple intelligence and reason, or between the immediate or formal and the mediate or virtual in the natural order⁴.

The parallelism could not be more complete. Intrinsic evidence is the formal motive of both understanding and reason in the natural order; revelation is the formal motive,

Both of faith and of theology, in the supernatural. Natural evidence is divided into evidence in itself and evidence in another; the former is immediate or formal evidence; the latter, mediate or virtual evidence; the former is the formal motive of simple intelligence or intuition; the latter, the formal motive of science or reason. In the same way, supernatural revelation is divided into revelation in itself and revelation in another; the former is immediate or formal revelation; the latter, mediate or virtual revelation; the former is the formal motive of faith; the latter, the formal motive of theological science.

St. Thomas does not have two philosophies or two nomenclatures, one for the natural order and another for the supernatural, but rather the same philosophy and the same nomenclature that he uses in the natural order for simple intelligence and reason and for immediate or formal and mediate or virtual evidence, which are the two cognitive habits and their two specific objects in the natural order, that same nomenclature, and in the same sense, he applies to divine faith and to sacred theology, and to immediate or formal and mediate or virtual revelation, which are also the two cognitive habits and their two specific objects in the supernatural order.

64. COROLLARIES.—Whence there likewise follow two other parallel corollaries, no less fundamental in the doctrine of St. Thomas, and which he who does not wish to become entangled in these questions must not forget, and they are: a) it is, for us, virtual or mediate revelation, and not formal or immediate, every truth that we cannot deduce from the revealed datum or revealed premise except by means of our own reasoning; b) it is, for us, our own reasoning, and, therefore, virtual or mediate revelation, every reasoning in which the new formula or deduced conclusion expresses a distinct concept, although it does not express a distinct reality from the revealed datum or revealed premise from which it is deduced (27).

Everything said thus far is the ABC of St. Thomas's doctrine, as every Thomist knows; if anyone, however, still desires a broader study of the difference between immediate and mediate revelation, he will find it later in the fourth section of the third chapter of this work, nos. 157-169, where we will examine the relations between the authority of the Church and mediate or virtual revelation.

II.—SUÁREZ'S INNOVATION ON THE VIRTUAL REVEALED

65. The eleventh section of the third disputation of Suárez's treatise On Faith is epoch-making in the history of theology. The title of that section is: "Whether virtual or mediate revelation suffices for the formal object of faith." To this title, so important for the question of the development of dogma, Suárez added this other subtitle: "Wherein is treated the formal distinction between the objects of faith and theology"⁵.

66. IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION.—The subtitle of the question very clearly indicates that Suárez fully recognized the importance of what he intended to treat, and that the distinction or formal identification between divine faith and theology depended entirely on the nature of what is revealed virtually or mediately.

Suárez begins by observing, and rightly so, that the question proposed in the title amounts almost to this: “Whether a proposition elicited by discourse from two principles of faith, or from one premise of faith and another natural one, is to be believed as a matter of faith.”⁶ Under this rubric, seemingly without consequence, and which many manuals dispatch in four words, as if it were some antiquated question, lies hidden the entire modern problem of the homogeneity or transformism of Catholic dogma.

That question, translated into modern terms, is exactly the following: When over the course of the centuries divine revelation (premise of faith) comes into contact or combination with what we call human civilizations or philosophies (premise of reason), is the result (conclusion) of that contact the corrupting or transforming of the primitive gospel, or only the developing of it homogeneously? Does that result, which the ancients designate by the name of conclusion, have the same value as the gospel, for that means being of faith, or does it have only human value, for that means not being of faith, but a pure theological conclusion?

We make these observations, which will be commonplace to theologians of the true stamp, because there is no lack of superficial theologians who seem to understand only the outer shell of scholastic nomenclature and who, when treating the development of dogma, say quite calmly that the ancients dealt little or not at all with this question. There is scarcely any modern question related to dogma that the ancient masters of Scholasticism did not treat, and treat very thoroughly; and to them the theologian must turn if he wishes to find truly fundamental principles for resolving it. But let us return to Suárez.

67. SUBDIVISION INTO TWO QUESTIONS.—Suárez, following in this the Thomistic tradition, subdivided the proposed question into two others: first, whether that conclusion, deduced from a

premise of faith and another of reason, it is of faith before the definition of the Church; second, whether it is of faith after the definition. The first question he treats from number 2 to number 11, and the second in numbers 11 and 12.

68. UNANIMITY REGARDING THE SECOND QUESTION.—Regarding whether the theological conclusion is of divine faith after the Church’s definition, Suárez notes that the affirmative answer is unanimous among theologians, to such an extent that, among all the great theologians who preceded him, there is only one who has said the contrary, and that one is Molina.

69. TRADITIONAL SPIRIT OF SUÁREZ.—Unlike his predecessor Molina, his contemporary Vázquez, or his successor Ripalda, Suárez is an eminently traditional spirit, and when an opinion is common among theologians, he very rarely takes the contrary side. Thus, despite the affection and almost respect with which he always treats Molina, Suárez cannot, in the present question, contain his astonishment (it is to be wondered at, he says in no. 3) that Molina has dared to deny, against all tradition, that the theological conclusion, even after its definition by the Church, is of faith; and against Molina he establishes, not as probable doctrine but as certain, the following thesis: “Thirdly, it must be said that a theological conclusion, after it is defined by the Church, is formally and most properly of faith, not only mediately but immediately. This opinion seems to me certain and to be held from the common consensus of theologians. Nor in this do I find a theologian contradicting”⁷

Thus far Suárez moves on firm ground, as does everyone who follows an opinion common to all the great masters of theology. That this opinion was not only common but completely unanimous before Molina seemed so clear to Suárez that he did not even wish to linger over citing the texts of those theologians. We will cite them later, classified by centuries, in the final chapter of this work (352-398).

70. ECLECTIC SPIRIT OF SUÁREZ.—Highly traditional when it comes to common doctrines, Suárez is one of the most eclectic spirits when it comes to questions in which his predecessors are divided. Between two opposing schools, Suárez rarely declares himself unconditionally for either of them. His most frequent approach is to make some distinction or observation of his own devising, with the laudable intention, no doubt, of shortening the distances between adversaries. An end, no doubt, very laudable in intention, but not always philosophical and frequently dangerous; for when one seeks to harmonize heterogeneous or contradictory systems, one runs the danger of, instead of settling anything, entangling everything. That is the danger of all eclectic or concordist spirits, and Suárez fell into it, as we shall see, when treating the first question of whether the theological conclusion was a matter of faith before its definition by the Church.

71. TWO OPPOSITE OPINIONS REGARDING THE FIRST QUESTION.—Regarding that question, Suárez found that theological opinions were divided.

A first opinion affirms that the virtually revealed or theological conclusion is of divine faith by itself or before the definition of the Church, and that anyone who deduces it by evident reasoning can give it the assent of divine faith. Such, says Suárez, is the opinion of Cano, Vázquez, and Vega, although we hope to show elsewhere (449), and Suárez himself later acknowledges ⁸, that Cano is not of that opinion. Finally, Suárez notes, and very rightly, that all those who do not specifically distinguish the habits of divine faith and theology have to follow that opinion of Vázquez and Vega.

A second opinion, which Suárez qualifies as radically contrary (extremely contrary), holds the negative view, namely, that before the Church's definition the virtually revealed or theological conclusion is not of divine faith, but a mere theological conclusion, and no other assent can be given to it than theological assent. This is the opinion, says Suárez, followed by Capreolus, Cajetan, all the Thomists, and clearly St. Thomas: Which is commonly held... by Capreolus, Cajetan, and the Thomists, and "clearly St. Thomas" ⁹

72. SUÁREZ'S ATTITUDE.—If Suárez had been a faithful Thomist, in the manner of Capreolus or Cajetan, Báñez or Medina, John of St. Thomas or Gonet, Gotti or Billuart, one could already calculate in advance what opinion he was going to follow. Having just confessed that the two opinions in question were irreconcilable with each other (extremely contrary), and that St. Thomas clearly followed the second opinion (and plainly St. Thomas), a dyed-in-the-wool Thomist would have declared himself without hesitation for that second opinion.

But Suárez, rather than a Thomist, is, as we have said, one of those eclectic minds who have never sworn on the word of the master, even if that master is called Saint Thomas.

Thus, instead of declaring himself wholly and frankly for neither of these two opposed opinions, Suárez prefers to declare himself partly for one and partly for the other, that is, to agree in part with Vázquez and Vega and in part with St. Thomas. To that end he introduces into this question an element of his own invention, to which he gives the name of the "formal-confused" revealed. In our judgment, this formal-confused has been the true cause of all the confusion that reigns in post-Suarezian theology regarding the definability of the true and proper theological conclusion as a matter of divine faith—or, what amounts to the same thing, regarding the development of dogma by way of a proper and strict implicit virtuality. The notions of the formal revealed and of the virtual revealed are correlative, and the slightest modification introduced into the understanding of one of them flows back upon the understanding of the other, modifying in parallel the notions of divine faith, theology, and dogmatic progress, which are notions correlative to those of the formal and virtual revealed.

73. THE CONFUSED FORMAL AND THE PROPER VIRTUAL, ACCORDING TO SUÁREZ.—In philosophy, two genera of properties are distinguished, and, consequently, two classes of virtuality and of conclusions. The properties of the first genus are those that express only a concept distinct from the essence or principle from which they are deduced; those of the second genus express not only a distinct concept, but also a distinct reality or objectivity. The former are really identical with the starting point, and, therefore, inseparable from it even by divine power; the latter are really distinct and absolutely separable. The former are called metaphysical, or essential, or radical properties, and constitute the implicit virtuality of the metaphysical and mathematical sciences; the latter are called physical, accidental, or formal properties, and constitute the virtuality that is not implicit, but purely connective, of the physical sciences (44).

Now then; Suárez considers that first kind of properties or virtuality not as virtual properly speaking, but as truly formal, albeit confused formal; and he regards as proper virtual only the second kind of properties, or virtuality, or conclusions.

Therefore, under the new name of formal-confused revealed, Suárez includes two classes of conclusions: a) conclusions deduced through improper reasoning or a simple explanation of terms, such as the conclusions in which the defined is deduced from the definition, the parts from the whole, the particular from the universal, or one correlative from another, and which modern theologians usually call formal implicit; b) conclusions conceptually distinct from the revealed premise, and which therefore are really identical with it and absolutely inseparable from it, which is what today is usually called virtual implicit, or virtual identical, or virtual connective-essential (32-33).

By contrast, under the name of proper virtual, or of theological conclusions properly so-called, he understands only those conclusions that express something really distinct and in no way separable from the revealed premise from which they are deduced. This is what modern authors call purely virtual, purely mediate, purely connexive (“only” virtual, “only” mediate, “only” connexive), and what we always designate as non-implicit virtual or physical-connexive virtual ¹⁰. This is for Suárez the true and proper revealed virtuality, the true and proper theological conclusion, the proper and rigorous theology ¹¹.

Perhaps to one who, without being versed in these matters, reads Suárez for the first time, it will not seem clear that Suárez understands under the name of confused formal all that we have just attributed to him. But we are sure that all the true disciples of Suárez, and even anyone who reads with attention all that eleventh section of the third disputation of the treatise On Faith that we have been examining, will agree with us that this is the true mind of Suárez. Suffice it to cite in confirmation a by no means suspect testimony, that of Ripalda: “The third opinion is middle (that is, middle between the opinion of Vázquez and Vega and the opinion of St. Thomas and the Thomists), namely, that the object of such a conclusion is believable by faith when it is really identified with the revealed object, but not if it is really distinct and separable from it: and therefore the metaphysical property of the nature is credible by faith as the revelation of the nature itself, but not the physical property. And hence the radical risibility, and remote, of Christ pertains to the faith by which we believe Christ to be a man; but not the formal risibility, and proximate, which we suppose to be separable and distinct from the nature, although the conclusion of both is deduced from the revelation of the humanity and at the same time from evident knowledge, by which humanity is radically and proximately risible. Thus Suárez and Lugo” ¹².

One may likewise see Lugo¹³, Haunoldo¹⁴, Cardinal Mazella¹⁵ or any other Suarezian author.

74: SUÁREZ'S SOLUTION.—Once that distinction between the confused formal and the proper virtual has been made, Suárez is already perfectly logical and traditional, and he does nothing more than apply Thomistic principles to the solution of the question. According to Thomistic doctrine, everything formally revealed is of faith, and everything virtually revealed is in itself a matter of theology.

Thus, then, to the question of whether the revealed virtuality or theological conclusion is of divine faith in itself or without definition by the Church, he very logically answers with the following two conclusions:

1st. If it is a question of that virtuality or conclusions called formally confused, they are in themselves of faith or before the Church’s definition, and the theologian can give them the assent of divine faith provided only that he knows them through evident reasoning. “On this—says Suárez—I agree with the first opinion, that is, with Vázquez and Vega.”

2. If we are dealing with conclusions qualified as properly virtual or purely virtual, they are not in themselves of divine faith, nor can they be given the assent of divine faith, but only theological assent. “In this—says Suárez—I follow Capreolus, Cajetan, and St. Thomas.” It is worthwhile to cite, in Latin and literally, the text of Suárez:

“I say therefore first: Formal revelation, even if confused, suffices for the formal object of faith and consequently for assenting by faith to the particular contents contained under such revelation, if it is sufficiently applied to them and a person uses reasoning in a suitable manner for assenting. In this assertion I agree with the first opinion... I say second: Merely virtual or mediate revelation does not suffice for the formal object of faith, and consequently an assent founded on it, with the help of some naturally evident principle, does not suffice for a proper assent of faith, but only for theology. Besides the cited authors... Cajetan holds this opinion not obscurely... and St. Thomas likewise thinks the same... where also Capreolus”¹⁶

75. TRADITION AND INNOVATION.—In this position taken by Suárez, one should carefully distinguish the part that Suárez has preserved from the Thomistic tradition and the part in which he has innovated.

Suárez has remained traditional in four things: a) in preserving the division of the revealed into immediate or formal and

mediato or virtual; b) in affirming that the former is of itself the object of divine faith, and the latter of itself the object of theology; c) in denying, against Vázquez and Vega, that what is virtually revealed is a matter of faith of itself, or without a definition by the Church; d) in maintaining, against Molina, that it is a matter of faith after the definition.

In contrast, Suárez has been innovative in two respects: a) in not considering as virtual properly speaking anything but the non-implicit or physical-connective virtual, really distinct from the formal and absolutely separable from it; b) in considering as formal, although with the qualifier of confused, the implicit or essential virtual, that is, all conclusions really identical with the revealed premise, although conceptually distinct from it.

Thus, in Suárez's theory the division between formally revealed and virtually revealed is nominally preserved, which are the two specific objects of faith and theology. But under the new label of confused Suárez has furtively transferred to the department of the formally revealed or of divine faith all implicit virtuality, that is, all theology strictly speaking; for, as is evident and as we shall see in the following sections, no rigorous theological conclusion is possible, just as no rigorous metaphysical or mathematical conclusion is possible, except through that implicit or essential virtuality.

76. GRAVITY OF SUÁREZ'S INNOVATION.—To understand the immense significance of this innovation of Suárez, it suffices to reflect on three things.

1.ª That implicit virtuality, in order to be deduced or explained by our weak human reason, always requires reasoning of its own, and frequently complicated and profound, as is seen in the mathematical or metaphysical sciences. Now then: to qualify such virtuality as formal or immediate, making it in itself of divine faith, is to overturn completely the whole doctrine of St. Thomas, who excludes from the domain of divine faith, which is simple understanding, everything that our reason cannot know without reasoning of its own.

2nd. That the implicit virtuality encompasses all conclusions really identical and objectively homogeneous with the revealed premise or deposit of faith. Therefore, to exclude that virtuality from the properly theological domain, in order to transfer it to that of faith, is to leave theology without any homogeneity or objective continuity with the revealed deposit, opening a hiatus or objective abyss between the dogmatic material and the properly theological material.

3rd. That the implicit virtuality, because it is based on a

real identity and the inability to fail without the very principle of contradiction failing is the only thing that can give reasoning or conclusion an absolutely certain certainty, which not even God himself can cause to fail. Therefore, to remove that virtual from theology is to leave theology properly so-called without absolute certainty, with a certainty inferior to metaphysical or mathematical certainty, with only the certainty of the absolutely fallible and contingent physical sciences (37).

III.—THE CONSEQUENCES OF SUÁREZ'S INNOVATION

77. This innovation of Suárez gave rise to an interesting historical-theological episode of incalculable consequences for the question of dogmatic progress, and one which, as far as we know, has not been noticed until now. Three first-rate theologians took part in it: Suárez, Lugo, and the Salmanticenses.

Before Suárez, no renowned theologian, with the sole exception of Molina, had denied the definability of faith of what traditional theology called virtual revelation. Consequently, none had denied the definability of faith of the third and fourth degrees of Catholic doctrine. Understanding, as they did, by virtual the inclusive virtuality, its definability offered no difficulty, since such virtual is in itself or objectively identical with what is formally revealed. In defining it, therefore, as of divine faith, the Church thereby taught us nothing other than what was from the beginning objectively implicit in the revealed deposit.

On the contrary, since with Suárez's innovation the virtual came to be understood as something really distinct from the revealed premise, and therefore not objectively implicit in what is revealed, which is the same as saying not revealed, the problem of the definability of faith and the objective homogeneity of the last two degrees of Catholic doctrine found itself faced with an insoluble difficulty. In his determination to resolve it, Suárez resorts to an unheard-of and dangerous theory: the theory of new revelations. Lugo tries to correct Suárez's slip; but without correcting the starting point, he ends up in another theory, not so dangerous but no less untenable: the theory of indefinite or transforming assistance. Finally, the Salmanticenses realize that the knot, as Suárez and Lugo had left it, was insoluble; and being unable to untie it, because they had not noticed where the tangle lay, they cut it with the bold stroke of their famous nego maiorem, denying, like Molina and against all theological tradition, that the Church has ever defined or can define as of divine faith the revealed virtuality:

Since this episode has had serious consequences for all subsequent theology and we know of no one who has noticed it until now, we are going to describe it, briefly setting out: a) Suárez’s new revelations; b) Lugo’s transforming assistance; c) the famous I deny the major of the Salmanticenses.

A) First consequence: Suárez's new revelations

78. The laws of logic are all the more inflexible the greater the talent of the one who employs them, and once a wrong step is taken, especially in the definition or understanding of primordial notions, the final outcome is always absurd. “A small error in the beginning is great in the end,” St. Thomas had already warned. This is what happened to the great talent of Suárez because he misunderstood the concept of the virtually revealed, which is a most fundamental concept, upon which depend the other concepts of faith, theology, and dogmatic progress.

Indeed, with the new definition that he gave of the virtual revealed properly so-called, Suárez immediately found himself between a rock and a hard place, for he encountered these two propositions: a) the virtual revealed properly so-called comprises only truths really distinct from the revealed truths and, therefore, not revealed; b) the Church has defined as of divine faith truths virtually revealed or properly so-called theological conclusions.

The antinomy between these two propositions is too evident to have escaped a talent such as Suárez. If the virtual properly so-called is objectively distinct from the formal revealed, it cannot be implicitly revealed, and nothing that is not truly revealed, at least implicitly, can ever be defined as of divine faith, unless we suppose that the definition of the Church is a new revelation that makes revealed what before the definition was not revealed. To admit new revelations is something unheard of in Catholic theology, and so far was Suárez from ignoring this that he frequently repeats it in various parts of his works.

However, Suárez rightly saw that there was no other means than that, if one wanted to harmonize the two aforementioned propositions; and of those two propositions, the first was Suárez’s personal doctrine on the virtual revealed, and the second was an undeniable fact of the history of dogmas. What to do? Must we deny the evident facts of history because they oppose certain theories, or should the theories be modified, insofar as necessary, to adjust them to the reality of History?

Suárez does not hesitate, and softening the phrases as much as he can, for he feels the extremely delicate and grave nature of his position, he resolutely affirms that the definition of the Church is a new divine testimony, a new revelation. God, he says, speaks to us anew in every definition of the Church; the testimony that He gives us of a truth through the Church has the same value as that which He gave us through the Apostles or prophets, and therefore amounts to a true revelation. Thus, what was not revealed before the definition becomes revealed through the definition, and is consequently of divine faith. Let us hear the words of Suárez himself:

"The reason, indeed, is that what the Church defines, God testifies through the Church. But the Church defines such a truth (that is, the virtual objectively distinct) in itself and formally: therefore by that very fact it is sufficiently constituted under the formal object of faith. For divine testimony is the same and equally certain, whether it is given through itself, or through the Church or another minister... Therefore it is a sign that the Church has proximate and immediate infallibility, from the assistance of the Holy Spirit, which is equivalent to revelation, or, so to speak, perfects it"¹⁷

Although Suárez's thought is quite clear from the whole context, it will not be superfluous to cite the testimony of two illustrious theologians, both of Suárezian affiliation: "Therefore, so that it may be believed afterwards as a matter of faith, it is necessary that it be revealed anew by God, and this will happen through the Church's definition, as Suárez held"¹⁸. "Suárez teaches that the theological conclusion is a matter of faith, because he thinks that in that case the Church's definition is a new revelation"¹⁹.

After the Vatican Council, this opinion of Suárez can no longer be maintained. Rightly, Cardinal Mazella, without naming its author, calls it intolerable: It can no longer be tolerated²⁰. Behold to what a false conception of the properly so-called revealed virtuality led a theologian of Suárez's stature"²¹

B) Second consequence: Lugo's indefinite assistance

79. Cardinal Lugo's treatise On Faith is neither less extensive nor less profound than that of Suárez. Lugo treats the question of revealed virtuality, the basis of dogmatic evolution, in the first disputation, thirteenth section, which bears the title: “The difference between the habit of faith and the habit of theology is inferred from what has been said.” Lugo divides the section into three paragraphs, the first of which is entitled “On the conclusion deduced from one premise of faith and another naturally evident”²².

Following Suárez and the entire Thomistic tradition, Lugo begins by subdividing the question into two further questions: a) the theological conclusion before the Church's definition²³; b) the theological conclusion after its definition²⁴. With regard to the first question, Lugo recounts the two completely opposed opinions that we already know: the opinion of Vázquez and Vega, which affirms that it is of faith in itself or without definition, and the opinion of St. Thomas and his school, which affirms that in itself or without definition it is not of faith, but purely theological²⁵.

Before deciding in favor of one of these two opinions, Lugo

According to St. Thomas, no private revelation can ever become a matter of Catholic faith. “Our faith rests upon the revelation made to the apostles and prophets, who wrote the canonical books, and not upon any revelation made to other teachers” (Summary of Theology, pt. 1, q. 1, art. 8, reply to objection 2). If the Church ever approves such revelations, that approval requires of us only a pious or human faith. “It must be known that this approval is nothing else than a permission for them to be published for the instruction and benefit of the faithful after mature examination; inasmuch as to such revelations thus approved, although the assent of Catholic faith is neither due nor can be given, yet the assent of human faith is due, according to the rules of prudence, according to which, namely, such revelations are probable and piously credible” (BENEDICT XIV, On the Beatification of the Servants of God, bk. 2, ch. 32, no. 11).

Various ancient theologians, even Thomists, sometimes call the definitions of the Church revelation. But since they expressly say that such definitions extend only to explaining more fully what was already truly implicit in the revealed deposit, they understand by revelation what today we call—and should call, in order to avoid confusion—mere divine assistance. In this sense of the ancient theologians, Valencia says: “However, whether that new assertion or clearer proposition of the Church, because it is infallible through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, who likewise assisted the canonical writers, is to be called new revelation, or because it does not contain a new truth unknown to the Apostles, is not to be so called, is a question of name (GREGORY OF VALENCIA. On Faith, d. 1, q. 1, point 6, vol. 3, p. 128).”

Suárez is not censurable, then, precisely for having used the name new revelation, but for having used it with regard to things that he himself confesses were not implicitly contained in the revealed deposit. In this sense Cardinal Mazella is right in saying that it can no longer be tolerated.

He explains the notions of formal and virtual revealed truth in exactly the same way as Suárez. For Lugo, every conclusion really identical, though conceptually distinct, with the revealed deposit is formal, albeit confused, revealed truth. The properly virtual revealed truth embraces only conclusions that are really distinct and absolutely separable by divine power²⁶. Having made this distinction, Lugo maintains with Suárez and the whole Thomistic school that the virtual is not of faith in itself or before definition²⁷, and he answers several objections against that doctrine²⁸.

It remains for Lugo to resolve the second question, which is the most important, namely, whether what is virtually revealed is a matter of faith after the definition. Lugo recounts the negative opinion of Molina and the theory of new revelations that Suárez has employed to support the affirmative opinion. The learned cardinal rejects both as contrary to the whole theological tradition. Against Molina he establishes that what is virtually revealed is truly of divine faith after the definition, and this—he says—is the common opinion of theologians and the constant practice of the Church. “Which, beyond the arguments adduced by Suárez, is confirmed by the practice and usage of all.” Against Suárez he also establishes that, in order to define the revealed virtuality, the Church neither has nor needs new revelations, and that this too is the common sentiment of theologians. “For here seems to be the common sense of theologians”²⁹.

Up to this point the path has been easy for Lugo, but upon arriving here he found, as he was bound to find, the same Gordian knot that Suárez had found. Lugo has just admitted, with Suárez and with the whole tradition against Molina, the definability as a matter of faith of what is virtual. Lugo has understood the virtual as revealed in the same sense as Suárez, that is, as the virtual objectively distinct from what is formally revealed, and therefore not revealed. Finally, he has rejected, with all the theologians, Suárez’s theory of new revelations, which was the only thing by which the difficulty seemed capable of being resolved. How is Lugo going to resolve it? How can something virtual that is not revealed be defined as a matter of faith, and therefore as revealed, if the theory of new revelations is rejected?

If it were a question of an implicit virtual, and therefore revealed, such as that which Suárez and Lugo have qualified as formally confused, its definability would offer no difficulty whatsoever³⁰.

Nor would there be one—adds Lugo—if it were a conclusion deduced from two premises of faith³¹. But it is not a question of that, but of a virtual, the so-called virtual in the proper sense, which evidently is not revealed. That such a virtual is not revealed had already been established by Lugo³² with these beautiful and convincing words, on which the Salmanticenses later relied: «However much revelation and the revealed object may be explained, the object of the conclusion will never be found to have been said by God». Now then: if such a virtual is not truly said by God, which is the same as not being revealed, how can it be defined by the Church as of divine faith, that is, as revealed, without a new revelation?

This is where Lugo gave a very clear demonstration of the skillful flexibility of his wit. Here is his curious solution. It is true—says Lugo—that such a virtual truth is not truly revealed. But it is no less true that the assistance of the Holy Spirit in all definitions of the Church is revealed, and therefore in each one of them. Hence, after the definition of such a virtual truth by the Church, we already have two revealed propositions, namely: a) the Holy Spirit assists the Church in all definitions; b) the Holy Spirit assists the Church in this definition of such a virtual truth. Thus, such a virtual truth, once defined, is deduced not from one premise of faith and another of reason alone, as it was deduced before the definition, but is now deduced from two premises of faith, and therefore is of faith. Let us copy from the literal text of Lugo:

«God could have testified not to the things themselves but only to His assistance, so as not to permit the Church to be deceived by proposing something false; and from this revealed assistance of God we infer that this object proposed by the Church is true: not because God has explicitly revealed this object, but because its truth follows from the revealed assistance of God. It follows, however, not from one revealed proposition together with another unrevealed one, but from two revealed propositions, namely from these: “what the Church proposes and defines cannot be false, with the Holy Spirit assisting her so that she may not err,” and again, “the Holy Spirit assists the Church when she defines that Christ is capable of laughter.” Of these propositions, the first is a matter of faith... the second is also a matter of faith because... (the first proposition) is universal and contains all particular cases, and therefore this one as well... Furthermore, that a proposition which follows from two revealed propositions is also a matter of faith is to be seen in the following points»³³.

Suárez had said: “Such a virtual, unrevealed [thing] is a matter of faith.”

after the definition, because the definition of the Church is a new 'revelation.' Lugo says: "Such an unrevealed virtual truth is of faith after the definition, because the assistance of the Holy Spirit to define it is revealed."

As can be seen, Lugo takes for granted the very thing he had to prove, namely, that the Church can define such a virtual. As we shall see in due time, such a virtual cannot be defined by the Church either as a matter of faith or as infallible. With this theory of Lugo one could equally prove that the Church can infallibly define the number of stars in the sky or the number of drops of water in the sea. Rightly too, Cardinal Mazella, referring to this theory of Lugo, though without naming him, said the following: "Therefore the Church will be able to define whatever it pleases, prescinding from other objects contained in the revelation handed down by the Apostles, and attending only to the promise of assistance that it may not err."³⁴

In these two theories of Suárez and de Lugo the problem of the homogeneity of the evolution of dogma would offer no difficulty whatsoever. However great the apparent changes in doctrine, however deep the hiatus or discontinuity between the primitive datum and subsequent developments, one easily escaped the difficulty by appealing to new revelations with Suárez or to the unlimited and transforming assistance with Lugo. That is where a bad definition or conception of the revealed virtuality properly so-called can lead, even to theologians as eminent as Suárez and Lugo.

C) Third consequence: a famous "I deny the major" from the Salmanticenses

80. Following Lugo and Suárez came the renowned Salmanticenses theologians, and with them the question of the definability, as of divine faith, of the virtual proper, understood in the manner of Suárez and Lugo, ended in lamentable tragedy.

The Salmanticenses treat the question of virtual revelation in Question IV of the first disputation of their notable treatise On Faith, from numbers 124 to 133³⁵.

By virtual revelation properly so-called, the Salmanticenses understand, with all theologians, what is deduced from the revealed deposit as an effect of its cause. But, in the style of Suárez and de Lugo, they understand by cause the natural or physical cause, which is always really distinct from its effect. Consequently, they only regard as virtual revelation

that which is really distinct from the revealed deposit and, therefore, not revealed; with which it is extremely easy for them to establish and prove with numerous reasons the following conclusion: “Thirdly, it must be said that the virtual revelation of some truth in its adequate or inadequate cause—as, for example, that Christ is visible was revealed in the proposition ‘He was made man’—does not suffice for the formal reason under which the habit of faith assents, and therefore the aforesaid truth is not of faith, but a theological conclusion”³⁶. The proofs continue up to number 134; but before finishing them, they warn us that in that cited conclusion they have spoken of the natural cause or in being. “It is answered by denying the major premise concerning the natural cause, whether in being and appearing, of which we have spoken in our third conclusion”³⁷.

Once the causality or revealed virtuality is understood in the sense of Suárez and Lugo, the Salmanticenses had to meet with the same difficulty with which they themselves had met, namely, with the fact that the Church has defined as of divine faith truths that are virtually revealed. That difficulty is all the more serious in that the fact clearly results from the history of dogmas and is admitted without any exception by all theologians before Molina.

The Salmanticenses are aware of it, as Suárez and Lugo had been, and they set it before themselves in the form of an objection, whose major premise is the following: “The Church often defines as matters of faith to be believed several truths that are not formally revealed in Sacred Scripture, but are legitimately deduced from what is made known therein, together with other natural principles”³⁸

To respond to that major premise, which is the basis of the objection, the Salmanticenses cite and reject the Suarezian theory of new revelations as contrary to the truth and to all theological tradition³⁹. They then cite and also reject Lugo’s theory of indefinite and transforming assistance as contradictory and worthless⁴⁰.

Once those two solutions of Suárez and Lugo are rejected, the Salmanticenses realize that it is futile to attempt any new solution. The virtually revealed, as the Salmanticenses together with Suárez and Lugo understand it, is a virtual that is not revealed either explicitly or implicitly, and what is not revealed can never be defined as a matter of faith. Now then: since what the Church cannot do must be supposed from the outset that it has never done, the Salmanticenses cut the Gordian knot with one bold stroke and, with a solemn I deny the major, make a clean sweep of history, denying that the Church has ever defined anything virtually revealed, any theological conclusion properly so-called. Here are their words:

— «Hence, having omitted this and other solutions, we respond to the argument, by denying the major. For the Church never defines as a dogma of faith that which is not presupposed to its definition as formally revealed in Sacred Scripture, at least confusedly (therein is indicated the mind of the Salmanticenses: the confused formal of Suárez) and implicitly... But that which only is included in a revealed proposition as an effect in its cause (the pure virtual or physical-connective of Suárez and Lugo), since it is not said and attested by the Holy Spirit, cannot be defined by the Church as a dogma of faith»⁴¹

Never had any theologian before Molina, whether of the Thomist school or of any other school, dared to hurl that I deny the major of the Salmanticenses, which is a complete denial of everything that the history of dogmas teaches and that the opinion of theologians unanimously admits up to the end of the sixteenth century. And yet, it must be confessed that the Salmanticenses are in this more logical than Suárez and Lugo. Once the non-implicit virtuality is understood as revealed virtuality, as Suárez and Lugo understand it, it is impossible to admit that the virtual is definable as an article of faith; and the Salmanticenses do well to deny it. But if the Salmanticenses showed more logic in this than Suárez and Lugo, Suárez and Lugo showed much more historical sense than the Salmanticenses⁴²

However, in principle, there is no human principle—however universal—that has no exception in particular cases; Homer himself is not so vigilant as never to sleep. Incomparably greater than the authority of the Salamancans is that of the Prince of Commentators, the Cardinal.

IV.—SUMMARY: TWO HISTORICAL DATES AND WHERE THE CONFUSION LIES

81. In the history of theology, as in the history of other sciences, there are facts that form an epoch by being the starting point of a new orientation, good or bad, but on which subsequent developments depend. Now then: in the capital problem of the definability as a matter of faith of the revealed virtuality, which is none other than the problem of the development of dogma, there are two historical epochs marked by two names equally illustrious: Suárez and the Salmanticenses.

Up to Suárez, all the great theologians, with the exception of Molina, had defended or taken for granted as indisputable truth the de fide definability of the virtual. For traditional theology the following equation was evident:

Virtually revealed = definable as a matter of faith.

The only question on which the theologians differed was whether the revealed virtual was a matter of faith before or after the definition. The former was affirmed by Vázquez and Vega and by all those theologians of more or less nominalist affiliation who did not distinguish between the habits of faith and of theology. The latter was affirmed by the Thomists and by all who know how to distinguish between theology and faith. But all were unanimous in defending the definability of the revealed virtual, for by revealed virtual they understood a virtual implicitly, but really and objectively, revealed.

Then comes Suárez, and with the new notion that he gives of the virtual revealed, and which Lugo later accepts, he completely modifies the first member of the equation, for he understands by virtual revealed a virtual that is not implicit, and therefore not revealed, although it continues under the name of revealed.

In every equation, once one of the mem-

Cardinal Cajetan. And a Thomist as conservative and moderate as the learned Father Norberto del Prado does not hesitate to write about him, with regard to the interpretation of a particular point in St. Thomas: "Cajetan, however, like good Homer who sometimes nods, certainly nodded in the interpretation of the corollary that St. Thomas placed at the end of the article" (St. Thomas and the dogmatic bull "Ineffable God" [Fribourg, Switzerland, 1919], p. 196).

Finally, notwithstanding the authority of John of St. Thomas, which is not inferior to that of the Salamanca theologians, a Thomist through and through such as Fr. Santiago Ramírez, O.P., wrote, last year, these words so expressive and ingenious that every Thomist ought to treasure in his heart: "It remains to be seen whether, in John of St. Thomas, everything is from St. Thomas, or whether there is also something of John!" (Thomistic Science, March 1922, p. 183).

The act of criticizing a theologian—however great he may be—on a particular point does not in the least diminish his authority. So that the other schools may be persuaded of the impartiality of the criticisms we direct at one of their theologians—even those as illustrious as Scotus, Suárez, and Lugo—the best means is not to avoid the criticisms, or to disguise them under euphemisms because they are our own theologians, be they called John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticenses, or Billuart.

brothers, the other cannot remain identical. But since the second member is supported by the whole theological tradition and by evident facts in the history of dogmas, Suárez and Lugo, with an excellent traditional spirit, strive to keep it intact, even having to resort for that purpose to theories as singular as that of new revelations and transforming assistance. With Suárez and Lugo, the traditional equation thus becomes converted into the following:

Virtual (not) revealed = definable as a matter of faith.

The word no, placed in parentheses, indicates that Suárez and Lugo still continue to give it the name of revealed, even though, according to the notion they give of it, it is not revealed.

The Salmanticenses come, and with them the traditional equation enters a new phase. These most learned Thomist theologians, who never forgive Suárez and Lugo any lapse, at once perceive the incoherence of that equation of Suárez and Lugo. But the manifest falsity of the theories of new revelations and transforming assistance which Suárez and Lugo have placed in the second member of the equation as props to support it draws all the attention of the Salmanticenses toward that second member; and this makes them fail to notice that the origin of the evil comes to that equation not from the second member, but from the first. Thus, with a solemn I deny the major premise, they correct the defects of the second member, hardly taking notice of the first, and the equation is thereby formulated in this way:

Virtual (not) revealed = not definable as a matter of faith.

As can be seen, the transformation of the traditional equation is complete. The two members, which were positive, have become negative. The first no was surreptitiously introduced by Suárez with his new notion of the virtual. The second no was the fruit of the inexorable logic of the Salmanticenses.

Modern theological writers, in their treatises on faith or theology, almost all depend on one of these three great theologians, as will be noticed at once by looking at their citations. The only difference among them is that, if they are not rigorous Thomists, they usually cite Suárez and Lugo preferably, and if they are, the Salmanticenses. Since these three theologians agree in understanding by "virtually revealed" a virtual that is not implicit and, therefore, not revealed; that is the notion of the virtual that the majority of modern authors give. And since to defend the definability of such a virtual one would have to resort to the inadmissible theories of

Suárez and Lugo, and almost all of them, agree with the Salmanticenses in denying the definability of what they call virtual revealed.

As for all the other theological conclusions—that is, the conceptual or really-identical conclusions—almost everyone, following Suárez and Lugo, conceals them under the name of confused formal, implicit formal, or virtual really-identical, and makes them not only definable as matters of faith, but as faith in itself or without definition.

This is what has confused certain apologists who have wanted to defend the homogeneous evolution of dogma or the homogeneity of the third and fourth degree of Catholic doctrine. They have seen that that third and fourth degree were evidently of revealed virtuality. They have also seen that almost all modern theologians seem to deny the definability of the virtual. From this they have concluded that it was not possible to defend dogmatic evolution without going against the almost common opinion of theologians. All because they fail to notice that in the formulas of formal and virtual, used since Suárez, there is frequently hidden a confusion that makes it appear that what is ultimately admitted is denied ⁴³

The difficulty on this question lies in two things: a) in that many reserve the traditional name of virtual revealed to signify only a non-implicit virtual, which is neither virtual revealed nor virtual theological, but virtual physical, incapable of being the object of true theological certainty or of the infallibility of the Church, as we shall see in sections 4 and 5 of this chapter; b) in that under the name of confused formal they have concealed and still conceal all that is truly and rigorously virtual revealed and theological.

From this there have resulted among modern theological writers two curious phenomena: a) that when they deny the definability of the virtual or theological conclusion, they deny only the definability of the Suarezian virtual or non-inclusive conclusion; b) that when they affirm the definability as a matter of faith of the confused formal or real-identical virtual, they affirm the definability as a matter of faith of the true revealed virtual and the homogeneous evolution of dogma by way of true implicit or conceptual virtuality.

82. CONFIRMATION.—To confirm this, we will cite two modern theologians, chosen from among the many we could cite. First, the learned Cardinal Mazella: “If the question concerns a truth that is implicitly contained in another explicitly revealed truth, with which it is nevertheless identical only really, not formally, Ripalda, the Würzburg theologians, and others hold that it is not revealed; De Lugo, Suárez, etc., however, teach the contrary. And this opinion seems to be the one to subscribe to... But if the question concerns an object that is said to be contained in another explicitly revealed object, insofar as it is only connected with it or follows from it (this they call a properly virtual comprehension), even Suárez, De Lugo, etc., deny that it is in itself spoken by God and believable by divine faith ... I would nevertheless employ here a distinction that seems also to be in accordance with the mind of those Doctors: for if the implicit object follows upon the explicitly revealed truth in such a way that in no hypothesis can it be separated from it, and this becomes known without a new revelation, I would say that it is revealed: for otherwise the truth of the explicitly revealed object could in no way stand; or it can be separated from it, at least by the absolute power of God, and then the opinion of Suárez, De Lugo, etc., returns, concerning which we will say immediately what we think. Thus our doctrine is established. Proposition XVII: That which is formally and implicitly contained in some explicitly revealed truth is in itself a material object of faith; but that which is contained in it only virtually, inasmuch as, although necessarily connected with it, it is nevertheless distinguished from it both really and formally, indeed can be separated by divine power, does not seem to belong as such to the object of faith.”⁴⁴.

Secondly, another wise theologian, Fr. Sola: “Thesis 76: A truth formally implicitly contained in what is explicitly revealed belongs, in itself, to the material object of faith. The same is more probably to be said of those things which are contained in the explicitly revealed [truth] materially and identically, or essentially connectedly, but not formally. Censure: the first part, that is, that a truth formally contained in what is explicitly revealed is, in itself, the material object of faith, or truly and really revealed, is certain and common against Arriaga... The second part is in reality most common and much more probable, at least if the real identity of both can be certainly known by us without a new revelation. Among the older [authors] Suárez and Lugo hold it... and the more recent [authors] commonly, against Ripalda, the Würzburgers, and others... Thesis 77: Things which are contained only virtually in what is explicitly revealed are not, in themselves, the material object of faith” ⁴⁵

Although expressed in different terms, this doctrine of Cardinal Mazella and Father Sola is found in most theologians after Suárez and Lugo. Anyone who reads them attentively will immediately observe that when they deny the definability of the virtual revealed or theological conclusion, they understand by virtual the false virtual of the fourth type; and when they admit the definability of the formal revealed or affirm that only the formal, or identical, or essential revealed can be defined, they understand by formal, or identical, or essential, the true virtual of the other five types (45-46).

Whatever opinion one follows on this point of the definability of the virtual revelation, it will be impossible to interpret the true thought of theologians after the sixteenth century, unless one clearly distinguishes between the false virtual of the fourth type—introduced into theology after Suárez—and the five remaining types of true virtual revelation.

83. The THEOLOGIANS BEFORE MOLINA.—Before undertaking to examine whether or not there exists true revealed virtuality, and in what that virtuality consists, it is fitting to give first a brief summary of the different opinions of Catholic theologians on this matter.

All theologians before Molina, without a single exception that we know of, maintain that the true revealed virtuality or true theological conclusion is definable as of divine faith, which is the same as maintaining that true evolution in dogma is possible.

There is no more difference between these theologians except that the Thomist theologians, who have always specifically distinguished faith from theology, are careful to note that, although the theological conclusion may be definable as of divine faith, it is not, however, formally of divine faith, but purely theological, before the definition of the Church. Whereas the Scotists and the nominalists, who have not distinguished or have not been clear in distinguishing specifically faith from theology, are content to say that every theological conclusion is of divine faith, without distinguishing between before and after the definition.

But all, Thomists and Scotists, agree that it is definable as a truth of divine faith, and, therefore, it is a true dogma of faith if the Church defines it. Hence Suárez, who knew well the tradition of the School, said without hesitation: "This opinion seems to me certain, and to be held from the common consensus of theologians, nor in this do I find any theologian contradicting"¹. And with no less reason and historical judgment, Lugo added: "That, besides the arguments adduced by Suárez, the practice and use of all confirm it"². On this point no historical doubt is possible.

84. MOLINA'S INNOVATION.—Molina was the first among the theologians to affirm that no true theological conclusion, however inclusive or implicit it may be, such as the conclusion that there are two wills in Christ, is or can be of true divine faith, either before or after the definition of the Church. If, then, the Church defines such conclusions, even though she defines them with the dogmatic formula of anathema, as she defined the two wills in Christ at the Sixth Ecumenical Council, they do not merit the assent of true divine faith, but a theological assent founded on reasoning, since it is by reasoning that the Church knows and defines them. There can, therefore, be no growth in dogma or truly dogmatic evolution³.

This truly innovative opinion of Molina was defended with no less ardor than talent by Granados and later followed in part by Ripalda, and in its entirety by Kilber or the so-called Wirceburgenses with some others. This is also the opinion that, at least in appearance, the Salmanticenses and Billuart followed, because they failed to notice the Suarezian confusion concerning the virtual revealed.

On the other hand, that innovation of Molina was vigorously opposed not only by all the Thomists before the Salmanticenses, including John of St. Thomas, but also by Suárez and Lugo and by the vast majority of theologians, without distinction of schools, prior to the introduction of the modern ecclesiastical faith.

That innovation of Molina, destructive of all dogmatic evolution, merited the following judgment from the illustrious Navarrete: “This opinion contains many false things, which for now we do not wish to mark with censure, because it is not sufficiently clear what that author thought... Therefore the aforesaid author (Molina) errs greatly in that he asserts that the theologian, by the habit of theology, assents to that truth, as the Church deduces it: for although the Fathers who were present at the said councils deduced that conclusion by the habit of theology, nevertheless, with the definition presupposed, they gave their assent to it by the habit of faith” ⁴. The Thomist Nazario labeled it, without mincing words, Molina's error ⁵.

That is that innovation of Molina which caused such astonishment in Suárez that he could not help exclaiming: It is to be wondered at ⁶. Finally, concerning this innovation, the Jesuit Schiffini has said in modern times: “Suárez marvels at the novelty of that (Molina’s) opinion, and censures it as contrary to the common consensus of theologians” ⁷.

85. THE POSITION OF VÁZQUEZ AND VEGA.—For Vázquez and Vega, every true theological conclusion is not only definable as of divine faith, in which they agree with the traditional opinion against Molina, but it is in itself of divine faith, even before being defined, and every theologian who deduces it by evident reasoning must or can give that assent of divine faith, in which Vázquez and Vega follow the Scotist or nominalist line against the Thomist.

Indeed, for Vázquez every evident theological conclusion can be considered, even before the definition of the Church, under two aspects: a) formally, or insofar as it is a conclusion; b) materially, insofar as it is contained in the revealed premise or premises. Under the first aspect, it merits theological assent; under the second, assent of divine faith, even before the definition of the Church. These are the two celebrated assents which Suárez later applied (and which almost all modern theologians apply) to the formal-confused or metaphysical-inclusive conclusions, and which the Salmanticenses, against all Thomistic tradition, later applied to conclusions deduced from two revealed premises⁸.

The reason on which Vázquez bases his claim that conclusions known by evident reasoning are for the theologian an object of divine faith even without a definition by the Church is that reasoning stands in relation to the theologian’s private reason as the definition of a Council stands in relation to the whole Church. “Theological demonstration is related to the theologian who demonstrates it in the same way as a Council, when it declares that something is a matter of faith, is related to the whole Church. The only difference is that the Council proposes to all what it defines as something to be believed, so that all may be bound to believe: but theological reason only for those for whom the consequence from the articles of faith is evident⁹.

From this theory of Vázquez have arisen both the distinction currently made between dogmas of divine faith and dogmas of Catholic faith, and the theory that the authority of the Church is absolutely necessary for the faith of simple believers, but not for the faith of learned theologians; a distinction and theory that are false and with which we will deal later (135-156).

In short, it is concerning this theory of Vázquez that the ordinarily so moderate John of St. Thomas says the following: "But that the opposite opinion seems to equate the certainty of a theological conclusion with the definition of the Church, cannot be tolerated at all... Otherwise, a conclusion derived theologically would not need the definition of faith as confirming it and as the rule of its certainty, if it has in itself as much certainty, with respect to the theologian who infers it, as the definition of the Church; and thus the theologian would be a sufficient rule for himself in the certainty of matters of faith, without recourse to the Church, which would be a most pernicious error"¹⁰.

86. THE THEORY OF SUÁREZ AND LUGO.—The reader already knows the theory of these two distinguished theologians. It consists in distinguishing two virtual revealed truths: the metaphysical-inclusive and the physical-connexive. With respect to the first, they affirm the same as Vázquez and Vega, namely, that it is not only definable as a matter of faith, but that it is of divine faith, even before being defined, for every theologian who knows it with evident reasoning. Consequently, they applied to this virtual truth or conclusion the two assents of Vázquez.

Regarding the second, they believed that that was the proper virtual itself and the proper theological conclusion itself, and they applied to it the same doctrine that the Thomist tradition applies to every true revealed virtual, namely, that it is not of divine faith, but purely theological, before the definition; but that it is of true divine faith after the definition. Only that, having considered as a proper virtual a non-implicit virtual and, therefore, the non-revealed virtual, they had to resort, as we have already seen, to the theories of new revelations or of indefinite and transformed assistance (72-79).

87. THREE THEORIES, NOT TWO.—With regard, then, to whether theological conclusions or the virtually revealed are or are not of faith, there are not, as the manuals commonly say, two opinions: one of Cano, Vázquez, and Vega, and another of the remaining theologians; rather, there are three essentially distinct theories: two diametrically opposed to each other, namely those of Molina and Vázquez, and one that occupies the middle ground between them, which is the Thomistic.

The first, which is Molina's, denies that they are of divine faith either before or after the definition. This theory, followed by few theologians and censured or abandoned by most, is what later gave rise, as we shall see in due course (233), to the so-called ecclesiastical faith, applying to dogmatic facts almost the same thing that Molina had applied to theological conclusions.

The second, which is that of Vázquez and Vega, takes the opposite pole, affirming that they are of divine faith not only after, but also before, the definition. Melchor Cano never followed this opinion, although the contrary is commonly said, as we hope to demonstrate fully later on (449-464). But Suárez and Lugo did follow it, with respect to the metaphysical-inclusive conclusions, and the generality of modern manuals follow it, scarcely realizing it, under the name of confused formal or of virtual identical-real.

The third, midway between the two preceding ones, is the traditional Thomist theory, which distinguishes between before and after the definition. Before the definition, no true theological conclusion, not even one deduced from two revealed premises, is of divine faith, nor can it merit an act of divine faith; rather, it is purely theological and can merit only theological assent, the same for the learned theologian as for the simple faithful. But after the dogmatic definition of the Church, every true theological conclusion (and only the metaphysically inclusive one is a true theological conclusion, as we shall soon see) is as much of divine faith as the articles of faith themselves.

These three theories concern the true theological conclusion, that is, the metaphysically inclusive conclusion; for before the Suarezian conclusion, no theologian had thought to call the physically connective one a true theological conclusion. Therefore, if we were to include that physically connective virtual under the name of theological conclusion or of the revealed virtual, one would have to say that there is a fourth opinion, namely, the opinion of Suárez and Lugo, who say about that false virtual or theological conclusion exactly the same thing that the third opinion says concerning the true conclusion or true virtual. This fourth opinion is the one that the Salmanticenses actually combat, and with irrefutable logic, by denying that the pure virtual (only virtual) is definable as a matter of faith; although in appearance they seem to combat the definability of every virtual, because they did not distinguish between the true virtual and the physically connective virtual.

The third of those theories, which is the traditional Thomistic one, John of St. Thomas expounds it thus: "The third opinion is that propositions evidently deduced from the principles of faith, if they are defined by the Church, immediately pertain to faith... The Thomists commonly follow this opinion, as can be seen in Master Navarrete and Master González"¹¹. And in the treatise On Faith, alluding to this same passage, he expresses himself thus:

"From the aforesaid it is inferred that virtual or mediate revelation, or that deduced by reasoning, such as is found in theology, is distinguished specifically from immediate revelation, which is obtained from the testimony of the speaker, and attains that which is to be believed as a matter of faith, as we have handed down more fully in the first part, first question, second disputation, fourth article, where we rejected two extreme opinions: one, that of Vázquez, who thinks that a conclusion drawn from the premises of faith is so certain with respect to one who knows the arguments just as a proposition defined by the Church: the other, that of Molina, who thinks that even if a definition of the Church should supervene upon some proposition that previously was not a matter of faith, it would not make it a matter of faith: but that the Holy Spirit assists the Church lest it err, not, however, so as to make matters of faith those things that previously were not matters of faith. These opinions in the cited place can be seen impugned"¹².

As the reader will have noticed, of those three theories about the metaphysical-inclusive conclusion, the third, which is the Thomist one, defends its definability as a matter of faith, and, therefore, defends the evolution of dogma by way of a true theological conclusion. The second, which is that of Vázquez and Vega, of Suárez and de Lugo, not only defends it, but defends it excessively by making such conclusions not only definable as a matter of faith, but also formally of faith in itself or without definition. Only the first, which is that of Molina, of Kilber, and of a few others, is the one that denies its definability as a matter of faith and, therefore, the true evolution of dogma.

It may, therefore, be said that the definability of faith of inclusive or conceptual conclusions and, hence, the evolution of dogma by way of implicit virtuality, is common doctrine among theologians, even among those of today, although many manuals seem to say the contrary because they do not distinguish between an inclusive conclusion and a physical-connective conclusion.

88. INTRINSIC STUDY OF THE PROBLEM.—Leaving aside, then, this question of the opinions of theologians—all the more so because at the end of this work we shall cite the literal texts of almost all of them (353-448)—let us now examine in itself the question of the evolution of dogma, which is not, at bottom, anything other than the question of the existence and nature of the virtuality of the revealed deposit, together with the question of the nature and extent of the authority of the Church with respect to that virtuality.

As we have already seen (46), the six types of virtuality or of reasoning are reduced to two: physical-connective virtuality, which is that of the fourth type of reasoning, and metaphysical-inclusive virtuality, which encompasses the other five types. In the following sections we are going to examine whether these two virtualities, or either of them, are truly revealed and capable of dogmatic evolution, and whether for that dogmatic evolution the definition of the Church is required or not. These are extremely important questions, for they are the center and the key of the existence of dogmatic evolution and of the specific distinction between dogmatic evolution and theological evolution.

89. THE VIRTUAL OF THE FOURTH TYPE.—We have seen how, from Suárez onward, what has been properly called the revealed or theological virtual is the physical-connective virtual, that is, the fourth virtual among the six types of reasoning or virtuality that we already know (45 and 73).

In this section we are going to try to show that this physical-connective reasoning is not rigorous theological reasoning; that it is not a rigorous theological conclusion; that it does not conclude in theology; that it is not virtual theological or revealed; that it is not necessarily connected with the revealed major premise or revealed deposit from which it is to be deduced. And if it is not virtual revealed or theological, if it is not necessarily connected with the revealed deposit, much less will it be an object of infallibility, and still less definable as divine faith. These assertions of ours will seem to many to clash with what, since Suárez, has been said in most theological manuals; but we believe that it is not difficult to give a conclusive demonstration of this and to show that in this whole question there is nothing but a confusion between pure essence or essence in the abstract and connatural or perfect essence¹.

90. THREE PRELIMINARY NOTES.—Let us recall, first of all, that in this physical-connexive reasoning the aim is to deduce, as a conclusion, not the metaphysical, or essential, or aptitudinal, or radical properties, but the physical-actual properties, and that we suppose these physical-actual properties are really distinct from the essence and absolutely, or by divine power, separable from it (44).

Let us recall, secondly, that to deduce such properties that are really distinct and in no way separable, we begin from the essence in its pure state or in the abstract, that is, we suppose that God has revealed nothing more to us than that N. has such an essence; but without saying a word to us, either expressly or implicitly, about whether that essence is in a connatural or preternatural state, in an integral or deficient state, in a perfect or imperfect state.

Let us recall, thirdly, that we are trying to deduce not a conditioned conclusion, but a simple or absolute conclusion. That is, assuming that we know by revelation that N. is a man (pure essence, or in the abstract), we are not trying to deduce “therefore N. is actually risible if he is in a connatural state,” but rather we are seeking to deduce in this way: “therefore N. is actually risible.” If we were trying to deduce the conditioned conclusion, we would also be outside the case, for deducing that “N. is actually risible if he is in a connatural state” becomes this other [proposition]: “N. is in a connatural state, therefore he is actually risible,” which is no longer the reasoning of the fourth, or physico-connective, type with which we are now dealing, but the reasoning of the fifth type, of which we grant not only that it is theological, but that it is definable as being of divine faith.

These preliminary remarks having been made, which, even at the risk of being accused of repeating too much, we have believed indispensable given the delicacy of the question, we are going to adduce the proofs on which we rely to believe that the reasoning of the fourth or physical-connective type does not conclude in theology nor can it, therefore, be or be called a true virtually revealed nor a true theological conclusion, except in the broad sense in which not only what is demonstrative or conclusive is called a conclusion, but also what is theologically uncertain and probable.

91. FIRST AND FUNDAMENTAL REASON.—It is an axiom in logic that from what is true nothing false can ever follow or be concluded, or that if a conclusion is false, it must be either because one of the premises is false, or because the reasoning is badly done. Let us, then, examine one or several reasonings of the true virtual physical-connective sort or of the fourth type, that is, reasonings in which, knowing by revelation the pure essence of a thing, one seeks to deduce in the conclusion a physical-actual property by means of a minor premise of physical necessity.

By revelation we know that the body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is true body; that the Eucharistic accidents are true accidents; that the fire of the Babylonian furnace was true fire, etc., etc. By physical science we know, with full certainty or physical necessity, that every body has local extension or occupation of place; that every accident has actual inherence in the subject; that every fire duly applied does in fact burn, etc. Let the following reasonings, then, be of the fourth type:

1.º The body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is a true body: now, every body in fact occupies a place, therefore the body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist in fact occupies a place.

2nd. The Eucharistic accidents are true accidents: now, every accident has actual inherence in the subject; therefore, the Eucharistic accidents have actual inherence in the subject.

3rd. The fire of the Babylonian furnace was true fire and applied under the proper conditions: thus all true and well-applied fire burns in fact, therefore the fire of the Babylonian furnace burned in fact.

4th. The fire of hell or of purgatory is a true body: since nothing corporeal can torment or imprison a spirit, therefore the fire of hell or of purgatory does not torment or imprison spirits.

5.º Elijah was a true man: since every man dies in fact, therefore Elijah has died in fact.

6.º Jesus Christ is true man: now every man is a human person and is conceived by the work of a man; therefore Jesus Christ is a human person and conceived by the work of a man.

7th. The Most Holy Virgin is a descendant of Adam and conceived by the work of a man: thus under those conditions original guilt is in fact contracted, therefore the Most Holy Virgin in fact contracted original guilt.

8th. Jesus Christ and His Most Holy Mother really and truly died: since no dead person resurrects or returns to life, therefore neither Jesus Christ nor the Virgin resurrected, etc., etc.

Let anyone consider carefully all these reasonings. They are true reasonings of the physical-connective virtual. In the major we know by revelation the essence; in the minor we lay down a physically necessary or certain principle. The conclusion, however, far from being a true theological conclusion, far from having theological certainty, far from having theological necessity or connection, is a theological error. Therefore the physical-connective virtual is not a true theological conclusion, has no theological certainty, has no theological necessity, has no necessary connection with the theological; that is, with the divine; that is, with the revealed major or the revealed deposit.

We are sure that anyone who, without worries or preconceived ideas, carefully reflects on those reasonings and does not let himself be deluded by considerations that are foreign to their intrinsic value will soon understand the radical difference that exists between physics and theology and that physical-connexive reasoning has no demonstrative value whatsoever in theology.

Indeed, all those reasonings we have just cited are true reasonings, or virtual physical-connective ones, and yet, far from concluding in theology, they lead to false conclusions. It is an evident principle that the falsity of a conclusion always proceeds from one of these two sources: either from one of the premises being false, or from the syllogism being badly formed. In the cited syllogisms none of the premises is false, for the major premises are revealed and the minor premises are physically certain. It follows, then, that those syllogisms are badly formed. That is to say, it follows that in theology a syllogism is not well formed in which the major expresses only the pure essence and the minor is not an essential minor, but one of pure physical connection. And since this is precisely what the virtual physical-connective reasoning, or the fourth type, consists in, it evidently follows that that power does not conclude in theology; it is not a theological conclusion.

92. A DODGE.—Let no one think of replying that those reasonings are not conclusive or that those conclusions are false, because we know, by revelation, the contrary of those conclusions.

In the first place, that would be an answer proper to simple believers, not to true philosophers or theologians, as Báñez, with Cardinal Cajetan, observes very well on another similar point².

Secondly and chiefly, those conclusions are not false because God has revealed the contrary; rather, the reverse is the case. God has revealed the contrary because they were false. Their intrinsic falsity is not caused by the revelation, but by their lack of necessary connection with the principles or premises from which they are intended to be deduced. God could surely have revealed to us only the major premises of those reasonings, and said not a word as yet about the conclusions, and yet such conclusions would still be just as false as they are. God could have revealed to us the real presence of the body of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and kept silent about whether it has local extension or not. He could have revealed to us the real existence of the Eucharistic accidents without telling us anything about their inherence. He could have revealed the death of the Virgin and told us nothing about her resurrection. He could have revealed the fact that the three children were cast into the Babylonian furnace without telling us anything about whether the fire burned them or not.

He could have kept silent about those supernatural facts, in which the connatural state of the essence is suspended by divine will, just as He must have kept silent about so many other supernatural facts of His supernatural providence; and yet, the facts would remain as true whether we know them or not, and the physical-connexive reasonings and conclusions in which those facts are denied would continue to be as false without His revelation, as we know they are by revelation. Revelation does not change the value of reasoning; it does no more than make us know what was already true or false, and which perhaps without revelation we would not know, or would not know so well.

Reasoning, therefore, of the physical-connective or fourth type neither leads nor can lead to theologically certain conclusions, nor does it conclude in theology.

93. WHY DO SUCH REASONINGS NOT CONCLUDE IN THEOLOGY? These reasonings do not conclude in theology or in metaphysics simply because they are badly made, because under the appearance of an impeccable form they are composed, at bottom, of four feet. In the major premise of these reasonings only the pure or abstract essence is affirmed, an essence that abstracts from the natural or preternatural order, from the state of integrity or the defective state, from the perfect or imperfect state.

In contrast, in the minor premises there is set down an affirmation which is not true of the essence in every state, but only and exclusively of the essence in the connatural state, not in the supernatural state. These arguments, then, have four terms. The middle term is not taken in the same sense in the major and in the minor; in the major it is taken in an essential or abstract sense, and in the minor it is taken not in an essential sense, but in a connatural sense. The reasoning thus consists of four terms instead of three. It is no wonder that it does not conclude.

Why do they conclude in physics?—Because in physics, as the physicist understands them, they are well made. In physics there are no essential or abstract premises of the natural and the supernatural. In physics, by its very formal object, every premise and every assertion is taken or assumed by the physicist in a connatural sense. The physicist, insofar as he is a physicist, does not know the supernatural. When physics and the physicist say: “N. is a man,” they take the word “man” not in an essential or abstract sense, but in a connatural sense; they take the essence insofar as it is subject to and governed by physical or natural laws. The physicist’s starting point is not the essence, but the nature. With the essence thus taken and understood in the major premise of the reasoning, the minor premise is irreproachable. In that minor premise it is said that every essence (that is, assuming it connatural, as the physicist assumes it) has always and unfailingly the actual properties. The conclusion, in that supposition of connaturality from which the physicist always starts and which he always tacitly assumes, is most correct. The conclusion has no more meaning than “N. will actually be risible in the supposition (starting point of the physicist) that the natural laws are fulfilled or that the connatural state is verified.”

But, as can be seen, the reasoning, in that hypothesis, is no longer physical-connective, but physical-connatural; it is no longer the fourth type of reasoning, but the fifth (90). The physical-connective reasoning, therefore, does not conclude in theology; and if it concludes in physics, it is because it ceases to be physical-connective, since poor physics is limited to the natural or connatural state and cannot rise to the supernatural or essential state in which theology and metaphysics, respectively, move.

94. WHERE IS THE THEOLOGICAL DEFECT OF PHYSICAL-ABSTRACT REASONING?—To see clearly where the defect of such theological arguments lies, one need only look at the middle term man, which is the predicate of the major premise and the subject of the minor. In this major premise it is only said, or we suppose that it is only said, that “N. is essentially man” or that he has the true essence of man. The word “man,” taken essentially, does not determine any of the states in which the human essence may be found, but rather abstracts from all states. For man is as essentially man in the natural state as in the preternatural or supernatural state, in the integral state as in the maimed or defective state, in the most perfect state as in the imperfect state, with all actual properties or without them. Since, therefore, man can have all these states without losing the essence of man, in the major premise of the reasoning we suppose that only the essence is affirmed and that the state is completely abstracted.

But then in the minor premise it is said that “every man has the actual properties.” That phrase “every man”—for whom does it stand? Does it stand perhaps for every man both in the natural state and in the supernatural state, both under the ordinary laws of nature and under the miraculous action of God? No. In that sense, that minor premise, far from being true, would be a very great falsehood; it would be the rationalist error; it would be the very negation of the supernatural order.

When in that minor premise, then, we say that every man has these or those actual properties, that every accident has actual inherence, that every fire burns, that every dead person remains dead, that every body occupies a place and is impenetrable, that every human nature has human personality, etc., etc., we say it of every being provided that be in a connatural state, provided that God has not intervened by a miraculous act. Then, either we must deduce the conclusion in conditional form, that is, “N. is actually risible, provided that God has not intervened” miraculously, and then we have already departed from physical-connective reasoning; or, if we deduce it in absolute and unconditional form, we draw in the conclusion something that is not in the premises.

One can also clearly see the theological defect of those physico-connective reasonings by noting how the physicist grants them and how every theologian distinguishes them. If we propose the following argument to a physicist: “The eucharistic accidents are true accidents: now every true accident has inherence in a subject, therefore the eucharistic accidents have inherence in a subject,” the physicist will reply: I concede the whole, and as a physicist, he will have replied well. On the other hand, if we propose this same reasoning or argument to a theologian, the theologian must distinguish and will immediately distinguish the minor premise and the conclusion in the following manner: “They have inherence in a subject,” I distinguish; inherence aptitudinal, I concede; inherence actual, I distinguish further; if they are in a connatural state, I concede; if they are not in a connatural state, but a supernatural or miraculous one, I DENY.

This elementary distinction, which every theologian makes and must make, clearly shows three things:

1st. That the reasoning in which from the essence of a thing its aptitudinal, or radical, or essential properties (first, second, and third types) are deduced must be granted in theology, that is, it is a theological conclusion.

2nd. That the reasoning in which its actual properties are deduced from the essence, under the condition that that essence be in a connatural or perfect state (fifth and sixth types), must also be granted in theology, that is, it is a theological conclusion.

3rd. That the argument in which, from the essence alone of a thing, one tries to deduce the actual properties in an unconditional way (fourth type) must be denied in theology, that is, it is not a true theological conclusion.

These three assertions sum up our opinion, and we believe that the true Thomistic doctrine on the nature of true and false revealed or theological virtuality.

95. THE SO-CALLED “PHYSICAL NECESSITY”.— But someone will say: physical necessity, is it not perhaps true necessity? Yes. Physical necessity is true necessity, but physical necessity, not metaphysical or theological, just as moral necessity is true necessity, but moral necessity, not physical or metaphysical.

The word necessity, as Cardinal Cajetan already noted³, is not a univocal term but an analogous one, which does not apply and cannot be applied equally to all orders of beings or sciences. A thing "morally necessary" or necessary in morals is not physically necessary, but is contingent or uncertain in physics. A thing "physically necessary" or necessary in physics is not necessary in metaphysics, and much less in theology; rather, in theology or metaphysics it is contingent or uncertain. Hence, a line of reasoning can conclude in morals and not in physics; it can conclude in physics and not in metaphysics or theology. A conclusion can be true or certain in morals and be an uncertain or probable conclusion (which is the same as not being a true conclusion) in physics; just as it can be a true and certain conclusion in physics and be an uncertain or probable conclusion in metaphysics and theology, which is the same as not being a rigorous metaphysical or theological conclusion.

Thus, for example, the principle that “every mother loves her children” is a necessary and certain principle in morals, but uncertain and contingent in physics, in metaphysics, and in theology. The reasoning “A. was the mother of B.; therefore A. loved B.” is a necessary, true, proper, and certain conclusion in morals; but it is not a true conclusion either in physics, or in metaphysics, or in theology. The principle that “every fire, applied under the appropriate physical conditions, actually burns” is a certain and necessary principle in physics, but contingent or uncertain in metaphysics or in theology. The conclusion of “N. is”

fire and is duly applied to a combustible, then "it actually burned" is a necessary, certain, proper, and rigorous conclusion in physics, but it is contingent and uncertain (and, therefore, not a true conclusion) in metaphysics and theology.

If God, then, has revealed to us that "A. is the mother of B." without telling us more, that is, without telling us that she was a good mother or that she behaved according to the impulses or moral laws of maternal love, the moralist will be certain, with moral certainty, that A. loved B. But the physicist will not be certain, but uncertain, because no physical principle falls to the ground whether A. loved or did not love B. And the metaphysician will be even more uncertain, because none of his principles is destroyed if A. did not love B. Since the theologian starts, as from a principle, from the revealed major premise, and the revealed major premise only says that she was mother (essentially, not good mother), the theologian is as uncertain as the metaphysician, for the revealed principle that A. was the mother (essentially) of B. remains completely intact and standing, whether A. loved or did not love her son.

96. THE MINOR PREMISES OF REASON.—The confusion in this matter stems, in our judgment, from not having understood or having forgotten the true function of the human sciences or of the minor premises of reason in the reasoning of the science of the revealed, or Sacred Theology. Theology, it is true, makes use of all kinds of sciences or minor premises of reason, whether metaphysical, physical, or moral. But it has frequently been overlooked that the starting point, the true principles, and the formal subject of theology are not those human sciences or minor premises of reason, but the major premises of faith, the revealed ones. The purpose of theological reasoning is not, then, to make use of the revealed major premises in order to extract or deduce the virtuality that may exist in the minor premises of reason, but, on the contrary, to make use of the minor premises of reason in order to extract, or deduce, or intellectually explain the virtuality contained in the principles or major premises of faith. The revealed major premises, then, are not instruments of the minor ones, nor do they even enter on an equal footing with the minor premises of reason in theological reasoning; rather, the minor premises of reason are mere intellectual instruments for developing or making explicit the objective virtuality with which the revealed major premises are pregnant, although they do not express it. Those minor premises of reason are in themselves or objectively unnecessary; if theology needs them, or rather, our theology, or rather, the theologian, it is only because of the weakness of our intellect, which cannot see intuitively or all at once everything that is really included in the revealed major premises, and needs those instruments or minor premises of reason in order to go on developing or discovering piecemeal what was already enclosed in the major premises revealed in the revealed deposit. This is the only true Thomistic conception of Sacred Theology ⁴

In theological reasoning, therefore, the revealed major premises must never be accommodated or subordinated to the rational minor premises; rather, the rational minor premises must be subordinated and accommodated to the revealed major premises. If the revealed principle gives us only the essence of a thing, the minor premise can be no more than essential. If the revealed principle gives us not only the essence but its connatural state, the minor premise can be physical or natural. If the revealed principle gives us the essence in a perfect or moral state, the minor premise can be moral.

Thus, and only thus, is preserved the subordination of the lesser truths of reason to the greater revealed truths, the subordination of reason to faith, in that most special and sovereign science in which faith and reason must function together, but not as equals. That is precisely what Saint Thomas Aquinas and all Thomists understood when speaking of the elevation of the lesser truths of reason by the greater truths of faith, which is precisely what makes theology have a certainty superior to moral, physical, and metaphysical certainty, even when employing lesser metaphysical, physical, or moral means.

Thus, one thing is to reveal that “A. was truly or essentially mother of B.”; quite another to reveal that she was not only essentially mother, but mother with all the physical or connatural laws of motherhood, and quite another that she was a good mother or with all the moral laws and instincts of motherhood. Fixing the sense of revelation belongs, as we said, to the Church; deducing the consequences is the function of theology.

If, according to the sense or doctrine of the Church, only that “A. is the true mother of B.” has been revealed to us, it follows theologically that A. has all the essential attributes or properties of motherhood; for example: consubstantiality of nature; but it does not follow with theological necessity that she has all the physical-natural requirements and attributes; for example: the company of a man, the loss of virginity, etc., etc. If the mere knowledge that she is truly or essentially a mother sufficed for it to be theologically certain or necessary that she is not a virgin, we would be theologically certain that the Mother of Jesus Christ was not a virgin, for we know by revelation that she was a mother.

If, on the other hand, it has been revealed to us that A. was not only the true mother of B., but was so in the connatural or ordinary manner that other mothers are, then we will be theologically certain of any conclusion that has a physical connection with motherhood; for example: that she conceived by the work of a man, etc., etc.; but we will still be uncertain of the moral attributes or conclusions, such as whether she loved her son or not.

In short, if it has been revealed to us not only that she was a true mother and in a connatural way, but that she was a good mother, then we will be theologically certain that she loved her son.

There can be, then, in theology minor premises (and, therefore, reasonings and conclusions), whether metaphysical, physical, or moral, but applied proportionally to the nature or sense of the revealed major. To set up as a revealed major a thing of purely essential sense and to attach to it an accidental minor is to ignore the homogeneity of all science, and far more to ignore the subordination of the minors of reason to the majors of faith; it is to make a reasoning that is neither theological, nor metaphysical, nor physical, but a hybrid amalgam of theology or metaphysics with physics. If in physics that class of arguments seem to conclude, it is, as we have already said, because the physicist supposes a priori, or by his very formal object, the connaturality of the essence, and excludes a priori the

Preternatural and supernatural state. But neither metaphysics nor theology can do that without destroying themselves.

97. THE ANALOGY OF BEING.—The same must be said of the word "being" that we have said of the word "necessity"; they are analogous words and concepts, not univocal; and therefore, when transferring them from one science to another, one must preserve their analogy of proportionality, that is, they must be applied in proportion to the being or science in question. If in the revealed major premise only essential being is affirmed (essentially man, essentially accident, essentially fire, etc.), in the minor premise it is not enough that being be affirmed in any way, but rather it is necessary that essential being be affirmed; for otherwise, under a common term "being" in the major and the minor, there will be two distinct concepts, and the reasoning will consist of four terms.

If in reasoning I say: "N. is (essentially) a man; therefore N. is (essentially) risible," which is the same as "therefore N. has radical or essential risibility," the reasoning is well made. The verb is not only has the same name in the major and in the minor, but it also has the same sense, an essential or radical or aptitudinal sense.

But if I say: "N. is (essentially) a man; now every man is (actually) risible; therefore N. is (actually) risible"; in that reasoning the verb is, with the same name in the major as in the minor, has a different sense, an essential sense in the major and an actual or accidental sense in the minor. With the same word is two different senses have slipped into the reasoning. With the appearance of three terms, the reasoning has four. But that does not conclude in theology⁵. If it concludes in physics, it is because the physicist takes the word is, like any other word or concept, in a connatural or accidental sense, and then there are no more than three terms. The essential concepts, like the preternatural or supernatural ones, are unknown to the physicist; they are ultraphysical, that is, metaphysical or theological. The necessity, therefore, of deduction or consequence in physical-connective reasoning is not theological necessity.

98. ANOTHER CONCLUSIVE PROOF.—Another proof, in our judgment completely conclusive, that physical-connective reasoning is not a true theological conclusion or a true virtually revealed truth, will be given to us by the Angelic Doctor. According to St. Thomas, it is of the very essence of true reasoning that, when the conclusion is destroyed or denied, the principle from which it is deduced is destroyed or denied. If, when a conclusion is denied, the principle does not remain denied, it is an infallible sign that such a purported conclusion is not a true conclusion of such a principle⁶

Now then: examine any physical-connective reasoning, that is, a reasoning in which the major premise affirms only the essence of an individual thing and in the conclusion its physical-actual properties are affirmed, and one will palpably see that the conclusion can be denied and be false without the major premise or principle being denied or false. Let us focus on the very classic example: “N. is a true man or essentially a man; therefore he is actually risible.” Does one cease to be essentially a man because one ceases to be actually risible? Does an accident cease to be a true and essential accident because it ceases to have actual inherence? Does a body cease to be essentially and truly a body because in fact it does not occupy a place or is interpenetrated by another body? Does fire cease to be true and essentially fire because in fact it does not burn? Does, in general, any thing cease to have the essence it had because it ceases to have the actual properties which, by supposition, are really distinct from it? Evidently not. Therefore, the actual properties are not a true theological conclusion from the essence. Therefore, the physical-connective reasoning, in which the revealed major premise only affirms the essence of an individual, and in the conclusion one seeks to deduce its actual properties, is not a true virtually revealed or theological truth, nor a true theological conclusion, but a hybrid mixture of theology with physics, which is neither physics nor theology.

On the other hand, if instead of deducing in the conclusion the actual properties, we tried to deduce the aptitudinal or radical properties, or also, if we wished to deduce in the conclusion the actual properties, but placing in the revealed major premise not the pure or abstract essence, but the connatural or perfect essence, we would immediately see that in neither of those two cases could the conclusion be denied or destroyed without denying or destroying the principle. The radical risibility cannot be denied without denying or destroying the very essence of man, with which we suppose it really identifies itself. Nor can the actual risibility or any other physical-natural property be denied without denying or destroying the connatural or perfect state of the essence. Therefore the conclusions in which the radical or essential properties are deduced from a revealed major premise in which the essence is affirmed, or the conclusions in which the actual properties are deduced from a revealed major premise in which the connatural or perfect state of the essence is affirmed, are true theological conclusions or true revealed virtuality; but the conclusions in which the actual properties are deduced from a revealed major premise in which only the essence is affirmed, are not.

The same exactly as we have said about the aphorism "deduction of properties from essence" applies to the aphorism "deduction of effect from cause".

There is a metaphysical cause, which is also called virtual, and a physical or real cause. The first is really identical, although conceptually distinct, to its effect, as, for example, absolute immutability is the metaphysical or virtual cause of eternity, and spirituality the cause of immortality. The second is really distinct from its effect, as the essence of fire is really distinct from its effect or action of burning (50). This physically-distinct cause can (as we said of the essence) be considered in a pure or abstract state or in a connatural or perfect state. Hence the following three consequences:

1st The conclusion in which the metaphysical effect is deduced from its metaphysical or virtual cause is a true, proper, and rigorous theological conclusion, such as: "N. is absolutely immutable, therefore he is eternal"; or "he is spiritual, therefore he is immortal."

2nd. The conclusion in which the physical-actual effect is deduced from its physical cause in a connatural or integral or perfect state is also a true, proper, and rigorous theological conclusion, as for example: “N. is fire in a connatural state and is well applied, therefore it burns in fact”, or “Christ had the powers in a most perfect state, therefore He had the acts of knowing and willing”.

3rd. The conclusions in which one seeks to deduce the physical-actual effect of the pure or abstract cause are not strictly theological or do not have theological certainty, such as: "N. was fire and well applied, therefore it actually burned"; "N. was a heavy body, therefore it sank in the water"; "N. was composed of contrary or corruptible elements, therefore it actually decayed." All these effects can fail in the supernatural or theological order; they are not, therefore,

rigorous theological conclusions nor revealed virtuality. With this, we believe that the traditional definition of the theological conclusion or revealed virtuality is perfectly explained, namely: "what is contained in the revealed deposit as a property in the essence, or an effect in the cause." Now then: to explain or understand well the definition of a thing is to explain and understand its true nature or essence. For definition signifies the form and essence of a thing."⁷

99. THE PHYSICAL-CONNECTIVE VIRTUALITY AND THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH.—Then, cannot the Church infallibly define that "N. is risible," or that it has any other property, on the supposition that it is revealed that "N. is true man," that is, that "N. has the essence of man"? .

The answer to this question, in our judgment, already follows from everything that has been said. If the question is to define radical risibility, or any other radical, aptitudinal, or essential properties, the Church can define them infallibly merely by knowing through revelation that he is essentially man. The revealed major premise that N. is a man cannot be saved or preserved if it is denied that N. is essentially or radically risible. This conclusion is therefore necessary for the preservation of the revealed deposit. It is, consequently, an object of infallibility.

If the matter concerns actual risibility or any other of the physical-actual properties, the Church can also define them infallibly provided that the sense of the revealed major premise is not only that N. is essentially a man, but that he is a man in a connatural state, or an integral state, or without defect, or like the common run of men, or in a perfect state. The revealed truth that N. is a man in a connatural, integral, or perfect state can be neither saved nor preserved if he is deprived of any connatural property, attribute, or perfection. This conclusion, therefore, is also an object of infallibility⁸.

But if the question is to define the actual risibility or any other of the actual properties of an individual, starting solely from a revealed major premise in which nothing more is said than “N. is essentially or truly a man,” without saying whether he is in the connatural or preternatural state, in the integral or defective state, in the perfect or imperfect state, our opinion is that neither can the theologian conclude with theological certainty, nor can the Church define infallibly that N. in fact has these or those actual physical properties. It may define that he requires connaturally to have them (radical property); it may define that he has them in fact, yes, provided that he is in the connatural state (reasoning of the fifth type, not of the fourth type); but to define infallibly that he has them in fact and unconditionally, that is impossible for it to be an object of theological science nor of infallibility unless one starts from other data than a revealed major premise in which only the essence is affirmed and a minor premise in which a physical law is affirmed.

It is perfectly preserved that something is essentially man, essentially accident, essentially body, essentially fire, without being actually risible, without having actual inherence in the subject, without having occupation of place, without actually burning. Therefore, to save or preserve the greater revealed truths or the revealed deposit that N. is essentially man, accident, body, fire, the truth or conclusion that N. is actually risible, actually inherent, that he actually occupies place, that he actually burns is not indispensable. If they are not indispensable for the preservation of the revealed deposit, if the truth of the revealed deposit is saved and preserved without such conclusions, they are not an object of infallibility as erroneous, although they may be so as rash, imprudent, etc. If revelation only states the essence of a thing, one who affirmed that such essence was not in a connatural and integral state, but in a preternatural or defective state, that is, one who affirmed that such essence, by miracle or divine intervention, was deprived of this or that actual property, could be imprudent, rash, foolish in affirming a miracle without that; such reasonings are not only perfectly theological, but are, as we shall see, definable as matters of faith, because they are inclusive.

If instead of saying: “N. is a being, contingent, therefore it is a created being”, we were to say: “N. is a being, therefore it is a created being”, that reasoning would not be conclusive in either metaphysics or theology, although there is room for only one exception, which is God, regarding a thing being “being” and not being “created”. In the same way, if instead of saying: “N. is a whole or perfect man, therefore he is actually risible”, or “therefore he has any other actual property”, we were to say: “N. is essentially man, therefore he is actually risible”, that reasoning is not theologically conclusive, for not only is there room for one exception in the matter of being “man” without being actually “risible”, but there is room for as many exceptions as God pleases.

reason. But one thing is to be without reason or rash, and quite another is to be against reason or, rather, against revelation, which is the only thing that constitutes what is erroneous in theology⁹.

100. THE ACTUAL PROPERTIES IN JESUS CHRIST.—For how has the Church defined as infallible, and even as of divine faith, certain actual properties of Jesus Christ, for example, the human powers of intellect and will? Here, in our judgment, lies the origin of the error or oversight of so many modern treatise writers. The Church has defined these actual properties of the most sacred humanity of our Savior because we have revealed not only that Jesus Christ is man essentially or in the abstract, but that He is man in an integral and connatural state and without defect, and not only that, but man perfect or most perfect in all senses not opposed to the hypostatic union or to the end of redemption. Starting from that revealed major premise of “integral and perfect man,” the Church can define as infallible, and even as of divine faith, not only the intellect and will of Christ, but each and every one of the properties or attributes that integrate or perfect human nature, such as actual risibility, the interior or exterior senses, quantity, gravity, and the other properties of the soul or of the body.

But if God had only revealed that Christ is essentially man, without telling us either explicitly or implicitly

whether that human essence was or was not in an integral or defective state, connatural or preternatural, perfect or imperfect, no theological certainty or infallibility could be had regarding any of its actual properties, just as none can be had regarding many other individuals of whom we know from Sacred Scripture that they were men, and yet the Church, like theology, does not know whether they were integral or without defect.

Of our adorable Savior it was necessary or fitting for us to know not only the essence in the abstract, but also His properties and perfections, and therefore God revealed to us not only the essence, but His state, connatural and perfect. Of very many other individuals or things revelation has told us only the essence, because it was not necessary for us to know divinely or theologically more. And from the revealed, and only from the revealed, proceed both theology and infallibility; and only that is theological or an object of infallibility, in the order of reasonings or conclusions, without which the revealed truth cannot be saved or preserved. And the essence can be perfectly preserved even if God has taken away from it some or all of its actual properties.

101. THE TREATISE "ON THE INCARNATION".—In the treatise "On the Incarnation" of the Theological Summa anyone can see how the Angelic Doctor carefully distinguishes the three revealed principles (Christ is true, or essentially, man—Christ is whole, or perfect, man—Christ is most perfect man) and how he uses each of them differently, depending on whether he is deducing essential parts or properties, connatural properties, or accidental perfections. When it is a question of whether Christ had something essential to humanity, for example, a true body, he has recourse to the first revealed principle of the essence of man: "Whether the Son of God ought to have assumed a true body. I answer that it should be said that... a threefold reason can be assigned for this. Of these the first is from the notion (essence) of human nature, to which it belongs to have a true body. Therefore, supposing from the premises that it was fitting for the Son of God to assume human nature, it follows that He assumed a true body"¹⁰

On the other hand, when the Holy Doctor tries to deduce some of the connatural properties of Christ, for example, whether He had the powers of the intellect, or of the will, or of the concupiscible and irascible appetite, he no longer has recourse to the revealed principle that "Christ is true or essentially man", but rather to the other principle that "Christ is man whole or perfect". "Whether in Christ there are two wills. I answer that it must be said that... For it is manifest that the Son of God assumed perfect human nature, as was shown above. But the will pertains to the perfection (not to the essence) of human nature, which is its natural power, as also is the intellect, as is evident from those things that have been said in the first part. Therefore it is necessary to say that the Son of God assumed a human will in human nature¹¹.

"Then it is urged by the reasoning of St. Thomas in this article. Because the faculty of willing is a perfection of human nature, without which it would not be integral and perfect: But the Word assumed human nature perfect and integral with all its properties: Therefore the Word assumed human nature with its own proper and connatural faculty of willing.”¹².

Finally, when the Holy Doctor attempts to deduce the accidental or acquirable perfections of human nature, such as knowledge or virtue, he likewise does not resort to the principle that “Christ is true man,” but rather to that of “Christ is perfect or most perfect man.” “Whether Christ had any knowledge besides the divine. I answer that... it was necessary that (Christ) have created knowledge for three reasons. First, indeed, for the perfection of the soul. For the soul, considered in itself, is in potentiality to know intelligible things. But that which is in potentiality is imperfect, unless it is reduced to act. Moreover, it was not fitting that the Son of God should assume human nature imperfect, but perfect. And therefore it was necessary that the soul of Christ be perfect through some knowledge”¹³.

“Then the conclusion is proved by the discourse of St. Thomas in this article, which we can reduce to this form: For Christ the Lord had a human nature whole and perfect: But without a created act of understanding, the aforesaid nature would not have had whole and perfect being: Therefore...”¹⁴

The same, and more clearly still, can be seen where the Holy Doctor asks: “Whether there were virtues in Christ. I answer that... the more perfect a principle is, the more it imprints its effects: hence, since the grace of Christ was most perfect, it follows that from it there came virtues to perfect the individual powers of the soul, as regards all the acts of the soul, and thus Christ had all virtues”¹⁵.

In the treatise, then, on the Incarnation, in which the properties or perfections of our Savior’s humanity are determined by reasoning, one starts not solely from the principle “Christ is essentially man,” but rather from these three principles: first, Christ is man in essence; second, Christ is man in His integrity, or without physical defect, in everything that does not oppose the hypostatic union or the end of redemption; third, Christ is a most perfect man, with all the perfections not opposed to that same end. From the first principle are deduced all the essential properties; from the second, all the actual or connatural ones; from the third, all the accidental or acquirable ones. Whoever denied any of the essential properties would oppose the first principle, that Christ is true man. Whoever denied any of the actual properties, by supposing that God had suspended them in the humanity of our adorable Savior, just as He suspended human personality, would not oppose the principle that Christ is essentially man, since being essentially man is preserved without having this or that actual property; but he would oppose the revealed principle that Christ is man in a connatural or integral state, or without defect, or like other men. Finally, whoever denied any of the accidental perfections, such as the knowledge or virtue of Christ, would oppose neither the principle that Christ is man nor the principle that He is man in a connatural state; but he would oppose the principle that He is a most perfect man. Because these three concepts—pure essence, connatural essence, and most perfect essence—have not been well distinguished, many have not rightly understood the aphorism “deduction of property from essence,” which is the classical definition of the virtually revealed or theological truth and the specific constitutive and distinguishing element between divine faith and theology.

**102. COROLLARIES.—**From all that has been said, we believe that these two corollaries are evidently deduced:

1st. They are true and proper revealed virtuality and true and proper and rigorous theological conclusions: a) all the conclusions in which, from the revelation of the essence (even pure or in the abstract), any of its essential or metaphysical or aptitudinal or radical properties are deduced by reasoning, that is, all the conclusions of the first, second and third types (45); b) all the conclusions in which, from the revelation of the integral or connatural or perfect essence, any of its physical or actual properties are deduced by reasoning, that is, all the conclusions of the fifth and sixth types (45). This is the true Thomistic understanding of the revealed virtual or of the "deduction of property from essence", the classical definition of the true and proper and rigorous and specific theological conclusion.

2nd. Neither true and proper virtual revelation nor true and proper theological conclusions are the conclusions in which, from the revelation of the pure essence or abstract essence of an individual, the physical-actual properties are deduced, that is, all the conclusions of the fourth type, which are those that constitute the physical-connective virtuality and the only ones that correspond to the third degree of the scale of progress (46).

103. A DIFFICULTY.—If, as we have just seen, the physical-connective virtual is not a true theological virtual, it follows already clearly that theological reasoning must be connective-metaphysical; it must proceed by an intrinsic and not an extrinsic way; it must be "from one to another according to reason, which is not another in reality"; it must be, in a word, purely conceptual reasoning or reasoning about distinct aspects within the same objectivity of the starting point.

But this seems not always to hold, or to present a great difficulty. Indeed, theology, like metaphysics, does not argue solely by formal causes, as mathematics or logic do, but also by efficient and final causes. Thus, for example, the existence of God and the creation of the world are true metaphysical and theological conclusions, and yet they do not seem to be deduced by the formal route, but by the efficient and final route. Now then: everyone knows that, while the formal cause is intrinsic, the efficient and final causes are extrinsic causes and really distinct from the effect from which our reason deduces them. Therefore, a conclusion can be a true theological conclusion and be really distinct from the revealed deposit and extrinsic to it. Many argue thus because they have not formed a clear idea of the true metaphysical process nor, therefore, of the true theological process ¹.

104. THEOLOGY USES ALL KINDS OF ARGUMENTS.—Let us begin by establishing that Sacred Theology is a true wisdom, and the supreme among human wisdoms; that it is the principal among all sciences; that it extends to the subject matters of all other sciences; that, for this very reason, it can use every kind of procedure.

Therefore, he can argue by every kind of argument: by probable arguments and by certain ones; among the certain ones, by arguments from cause or through cause, and from effect or through effect; among the arguments through cause, both by the formal cause and by the efficient, exemplary, and final cause²

But although metaphysics and theology use all kinds of arguments, not all their arguments are of equal value, nor are all of them rigorously metaphysical or theological.

Indeed, even setting aside probable arguments for not being rigorously scientific, there still remain among certain arguments three essentially distinct kinds of certainty: moral certainty, physical certainty, and metaphysical certainty. Therefore, only those arguments that possess metaphysical certainty will be rigorously metaphysical arguments. And since theology is nothing other than metaphysics applied to God, only those arguments will be rigorously theological in which there is a metaphysical or absolutely certain connection between their conclusion and their premises.

105. SACRED THEOLOGY IS THE METAPHYSICS OF THE REVEALED DEPOSIT.—All theology, as St. Thomas says, has God as its formal object, and can consider nothing else except in relation to God.

As there are two kinds of knowledge about God—natural knowledge, or knowledge through creatures, and supernatural knowledge, or knowledge through divine revelation—there are two kinds of metaphysics or theology. The first is called natural metaphysics, or natural theology, or theodicy. The second receives the name sacred metaphysics or sacred theology³

As neither in the natural order nor in the supernatural order do we have in this life knowledge of God in Himself, but only through His effects, both natural theology and sacred theology take as a means of demonstration not God Himself, but some effect of God. Natural theology takes as its means the natural effects of God that we call creatures. Sacred theology takes as its means that supernatural effect of God that we call divine revelation or revealed deposit. Applying metaphysical principles to creatures, the conclusions that we call natural theology or theodicy result. Applying the same metaphysical principles to the revealed deposit, the conclusions that we call sacred theology result. Only metaphysical principles, being the only analogous and transcendent ones, are applicable to the divine as to the human, to the supernatural or revealed as to the natural. Only metaphysical principles, because they are founded on the principle of contradiction, and therefore on that of identity, are capable of deducing conclusions that are really identical and homogeneous with their principles.

Since, then, theology is a true metaphysics, we shall endeavor to show, with all the clarity that may be possible for us, how every rigorous theological conclusion comes from the revealed deposit by an intrinsic route, not an extrinsic one; by an implicit or inclusive or analytical route, not by a purely connective or synthetic or additive route; by way of objective identity in the revealed deposit; by way of perfect homogeneity. And this, whether the process be by way of effect or by way of cause, whether by formal cause, efficient or final, provided that it be by a truly metaphysical process.

106. THE TRUE METAPHYSICAL-THEOLOGICAL "PROCESS".—Indeed: what is metaphysical certainty? The absolute certainty, or certainty "in every event," is called and is metaphysical certainty; that which can never fail; that whose negation would destroy the very principle of contradiction and, therefore, that of identity; in a word, that which is founded on the very essence of the thing, and which for that reason is of the intellect of the thing.

What, therefore, is a metaphysical proposition? That which has metaphysical certainty, that which has the very certainty of the principles of contradiction and identity, that whose predicate is of the essence of the subject, or vice versa⁴.

What is metaphysical reasoning? Just as the relation between the conclusion and principle in reasoning is the same as that between the predicate and subject in the proposition, that is metaphysical reasoning which has metaphysical certainty, whose conclusion cannot fail without the principle failing, whose conclusion, in a word, is of the essence of the principle.

Let us give, for greater clarity, some examples of metaphysical reasonings by the formal cause, and then of reasonings by the efficient and final causes.

When I say: The angles of a triangle are equivalent to two right angles or the spiritual is immortal, these are propositions of metaphysical, absolute, essential certainty; they are propositions of intrinsic truth, of absolute inclusion and identity. In them the predicate is of the essence of the subject. Predicate and subject are other in reason, but not other, rather one in reality.

When reasoning I say: It is a triangle; therefore its angles sum to two right angles, or it is spiritual, therefore it is immortal, these are reasonings or processes of metaphysical, absolute, essential certainty; they are inclusive processes and of perfect identity and homogeneity. And why? Because the conclusion is of the essence of the principle from which they are deduced; the conclusion and the principle are other and other according to reason; but not other according to the thing.

And the root of all this is that the value, structure, and nature of argumentation depend on the middle term or minor proposition ⁵.

This, which is most fundamental, is frequently forgotten, focusing only on what the external structure of the process is, whether by cause or by effect, when one should look at what the middle term or minor premise is, for everything depends on that. If that minor premise is of metaphysical certainty, the process and the conclusion are of metaphysical, intrinsic, identical, essential value. And what are the minor premises or middle terms in those two reasonings? They are the following: The angles of a triangle equal two right angles and the spiritual is immortal: precisely the same propositions that we set up as a metaphysical, intrinsic, essential model of one into another according to reason.

Let us now examine the metaphysical and theological process by efficient, final, and exemplary causes, which, because they are called extrinsic causes, have given rise to a difficulty set forth above. Let us take as our model the same two previously cited examples concerning the conclusions of the existence of God and the creation of the world.

The process or ways by which St. Thomas and First Philosophy prove the existence of God are: FROM THE REASON OF motion, FROM THE REASON OF efficient cause, FROM THE REASON OF contingent being, etc., etc.

Let us begin by focusing on that 'FROM REASON', for it is the key to everything, and without it the argument would not be metaphysical. Metaphysics also uses, like physics, the argument from the efficient cause of the effect, from motion, from contingency, and thus takes on the appearance of the extrinsicness of physics; but it uses only the reason or essence of causality, and of the effect, and of movement, and of contingency; and since nothing is more intrinsic than essence, the apparently extrinsic process turns out to be as intrinsic as that of mathematics itself.

When, in metaphysics or theology, to prove the existence of God, it is said: Mutable, or potential, or multiple, or contingent being exists; therefore God exists, that reasoning, apparently extrinsic and purely connective, is essentially intrinsic or inclusive; that process, apparently from one [thing] to another according to reality, is really from one to another according to reason. God is, certainly, another thing than mutable being; but the truth and, therefore, the being of the conclusion are essential to the truth and, therefore, to the being of the principle; the major or principle does not express, but includes, the truth and being of the conclusion.

When, from the datum of the major premise (there exists mutable being), the intellect passes to the truth and being of the conclusion (God exists), the step has not been toward something extrinsic, but rather a mere intellectual development of the twofold reality already essentially included in the same and single datum. This datum of the major premise contains two realities: one that expresses mutable being; another that essentially implies necessary being. To perceive the second reality, the intellect does not need to add in the minor premise another new reality, another new datum, but simply to analyze or decompose the reality or truth that already exists in the major premise, by means of a minor premise that is of the essence of the major premise (notion of motion, notion of contingency, etc.); a minor premise that is essentially inclusive, that is the same essence or reality as the major premise; and if our intellect were sufficiently powerful and intuitive, that minor premise would be superfluous. In the major premise itself we would see infallibly and quasi-simultaneously (and one does not truly see what is not there) the truth and reality that we express in the conclusion. The step, then, is not precisely from the reality of potential being to the reality of God’s existence, but rather the step from the reality of potential being plus the reality of God’s existence, essentially implicit in the word potential, to the reality of God’s existence, made explicit in the conclusion. The end of the process is the reality of God’s existence made explicit; at the beginning of the process that reality was already essentially implied; the process is, then, one of mere intellectual explication; it is, really, “from one to another according to reason.”

And this happens always in every truly mathematical or metaphysical process; this never happens in any physical-connective process or, as St. Thomas calls it, proper to natural or physical science⁶

CONFIRMATION.—It is beyond doubt that, while mathematics and logic admit demonstrations only “through the formal cause,” metaphysics and theology can demonstrate, as the physical sciences also demonstrate, “through the efficient and final cause.” “The logician and the mathematician consider things only according to formal principles”⁷. “But the things which the theologian considers are separate, existing in the nature of things. Such things can be the principle and end of motion; hence nothing prevents him from demonstrating through the efficient and final cause”⁸.

But since the metaphysical and theological sciences are essentially distinct from the physical sciences, the metaphysical process “by efficient and final cause” of metaphysics and theology must be essentially distinct from the way physics employs it. “For each science takes one part of being according to a special mode, different from the mode in which being is considered in Metaphysics”⁹. This mode in which metaphysics considers every being, and therefore the final, efficient, and exemplar cause, is to consider them not as such causes or effects, but from an essential or transcendental point of view. “*Metaphysics also considers individual beings not according to the proper reasons by which they are such or such a being, but according as it participates in the common reason of being¹⁰.

The relation, then, of efficient cause and effect by which one ascends from creatures to the existence of God is not a physical-connective relation or one belonging to natural science, but an essential-inclusive one or one belonging to the metaphysical sciences. Therefore this relation is one and the same in every creature. "For all creatures are referred to God under one kind of relation, as being His creatures"¹¹. "This mutability which belongs to every creature is not according to some natural motion, but according to dependence on God, from whom if they were abandoned they would fall away from the one by whom they are. Moreover, this dependence pertains to the consideration of metaphysics, rather than of natural science"¹².

The process, therefore, by which one passes from the contingency of being to the existence of God or to the necessity of creation is a process by way of essence, and therefore by the most formal way. The conclusion God exists or is the creator of all is essential to the principle There exists contingent or participated being. "Therefore the efficient cause is required not only because the effect is contingent, but because the effect would not exist (principle) if the cause did not exist (conclusion)"¹³. "Creatures are contained under the divine order and their nature is to depend on God"¹⁴. That essential relation between God and the creature, although not expressed in the definition of contingent being, is enveloped or implicit in the very essence of every contingent being. "Although the relation to a cause does not enter into the definition of the being that is caused, it follows from those things that are of its very essence"¹⁵.

While the physical-actual properties on which the physical-connective process is founded are intrinsic to the subject, but extrinsic to the subject’s existence, since it can exist absolutely without them, the existence of God or any other thing deduced by a metaphysical procedure is intrinsic, intimate, most immediate not only to the subject, but to the existence of the subject or principle from which it is deduced, because it is so to being, insofar as being, which is the most intimate and most formal thing that exists. “Since God is being itself by essence, it is necessary that created being be his proper effect, just as igniting is the proper effect of fire. Being, however, is that which is most intimate to each thing and which most deeply inheres in all things, since it is formal with respect to all things that are in it; hence it is necessary that God is in all things and intimately"¹⁶. "From all of which it is clearly gathered that God is intimate to each one, just as the proper being of a thing is inmost to the thing itself"¹⁷

When, then, from the datum or principle Contingent being exists one passes by that process to the conclusion God exists, one has not passed to a reality that lies outside the datum or principle, but to a reality that was already, albeit not made explicit, within the datum itself. It is, therefore, a real and essentially intrinsic process. It is a process that remains within the same reality of the datum. And this is what we wish to express when dealing with inclusion and homogeneity by the phrase "one into another according to reason"; not that the reality of the divine existence is distinct from the reality of contingent being, but that the reality of the divine existence is essentially required for (and is essentially included in) the reality or existence of contingent being.

"Hence, in short, the metaphysical conclusion or science is essentially intrinsic; according to St. Thomas, there is no room for faith and metaphysically certain science with respect to one and the same truth in the same subject, even though that truth is known through the process of cause and effect, as are the truths of God’s existence and of creation. And it is well known that, according to St. Thomas, only knowledge by intrinsic evidence is incompatible with faith. “The reason—says Gonet profoundly—why there is no room for faith regarding the existence of God in the one who knows it through that apparently extrinsic process of cause and effect is that the creature and God are essentially or intrinsically united, and therefore the process and the evidence are truly intrinsic. “The reason for the disparity is that, since every effect is not indeed formally but virtually in its cause, any creature can be said, with respect to all that it has, to be virtually in the intrinsic God"¹⁸. “Although the first cause, which is God, does not enter into the essence of created things, nevertheless the being that inheres in created things cannot be understood except as derived from the divine being" (St. Thomas, On Power, q. 3, a. 5, reply to the first objection). If the existence of God were not “of the concept” of the creature’s existence, the demonstration of the existence of God would be neither metaphysical nor theological¹⁹

107. TWO WAYS OF ARGUING FROM CAUSE TO EFFECT.—Replying, then, categorically to the proposed difficulty, we say that both physics and metaphysics or theology argue from cause (efficient, final, or exemplary) and from effect; but they argue by an essentially different process, because there are two essentially different ways of considering every cause and every effect. In every being there are two really distinct things: 1st The essence, in which are included the metaphysical properties and the essential or transcendent relations or connections. 2nd The physical properties and the accidental or contingent relations, which are really distinct from the essence. Hence there arise two ways of arguing, from cause or from effect: 1st Taking as the middle term the essence of the cause or of the effect, or, what is the same thing, the metaphysical properties or essential relations of the cause or of the effect. 2nd Taking as the middle term the physical properties or accidental relations of the cause or of the effect. Both are processes from cause or from effect. But in the first process there is taken from the cause or the effect, called extrinsic, what they have that is essentially intrinsic: the essence. In the second process not only are the effect and the cause employed, but they are employed precisely in that in which they are extrinsic: the physical-contingent properties or relations. The first process is metaphysical, and physics can never employ it; the second is proper to physics, and through it one can never arrive at the certainty proper to metaphysics or theology: absolute certainty.

Let us give simple examples of both kinds of processes: physical process through cause or through effect, and metaphysical or theological process through cause or through effect.

Physical process from cause. The physical effect of fire is to burn; the physical cause of the burn is fire. If, then, I argue: There is fire with all the physical conditions required for burning, therefore there is a burn or effect of burning; that argument is truly from cause, but not metaphysical, rather physical; not of absolute certainty, but contingent and fallible; and it really failed in the Babylonian furnace and can

"intrinsic, at least on the part of the relation that all creatures bear to the first cause" (John of St. Thomas, Philosophical Course, Logic, 2nd part, q. 25, a. 2, ed. Vivès, vol. 1, p. 688).

Thirdly, I say that there is a twofold consequence: one essential and intrinsic, another accidental and extrinsic. When the holy Doctor says that from the fact that something is a being by participation it follows that it is caused, he is speaking of the essential and intrinsic consequence, just as being an animal follows from being a man, because it is of the very nature of a being by participation to be caused (PAUL NAZARIUS, O.P., Disputations and Scholastic Commentaries on the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, q. 44; a. 1, at the end (Cologne, 1621).

"There are relations, not accidental but essential, which are implicit in a given essence. And the concept that expresses this essence expresses at the same time the relations it contains" (GARRIGOU-LAGRANGE, God, p. 542).

to fail whenever it pleases God. And what can fail is not metaphysical or theological.

And why is it not metaphysical, but physical; why is it not necessary, but fallible? Because I have taken as the middle or minor a thing that is not essential, that is not intrinsic to the essence: burning is not of the essence of fire; it is not of the definition or of the concept of fire.

But if, instead of arguing in that way, we had argued thus: There is fire, therefore there is aptitude or exigency to burn; then the argument was rigorously metaphysical and with no possibility whatsoever of failing. That aptitude or exigency the fire conserved in the Babylonian furnace²⁰ and will preserve it always and by absolute necessity, because it is of the essence of fire, it is an essential relation of cause to effect.

Let us now see examples of demonstration, physical and metaphysical, from effect.

Physical demonstration. Select whichever effect one wishes and argue thus: Effect N. exists, therefore its immediate cause exists, whether physical or secondary. For example: N. has been cured of such a disease, therefore the physical causes or conditions of his cure have existed; N. has been nourished with the Eucharist, therefore in the Eucharist there exists nutritive substance, etc., etc.

All these arguments in which one argues from the existence of an effect to its second physical cause are physical, not metaphysical; connective, not inclusive; contingent and fallible, not necessary and infallible. And they can fail by divine intervention whenever it pleases God, for the simple reason that the relation of the second cause to its effect, or of the effect to its second or physical cause, is accidental, not essential. God can Himself supply every action or effect of second efficient causes, just as He supplies it in every miracle, causing the so-called demonstration or physical process to fail, which is never a rigorous demonstration, since it is not a demonstration by essence or by the what it is of the cause or of the effect.

And let it be borne in mind that those demonstrations and every physical demonstration are not fallible and contingent because God makes them fail, but rather God can make them fail because they are fallible and contingent, because they are purely connective and not inclusive, because they are physical and not metaphysical (92).

On the other hand, when to demonstrate the existence of God I say: There exists potential or changeable being, therefore God exists; when to prove the creation of every being outside of God I say: God is being by essence, therefore every other being must proceed from Him; or every being outside of God is potential being or being composed of essence and existence, therefore it is caused being; the uncaused being is essentially one, therefore every multiple being proceeds from the uncaused being; all these reasonings, although through cause or through effect they are through the essence of the cause or of the effect, are metaphysical, not physical, arguments; they are absolutely necessary, not fallible, because essences are necessary and immutable, and God Himself can never make the nature of an essence or of an essential relation fail.

And as the relations of creatures to God as to their first efficient and exemplar cause or as to their ultimate end are essential relations, the metaphysical argument from efficient, exemplar, or final cause or from effect between God and the creature is a process not extrinsic, but intrinsic; not purely connective, but inclusive; not contingent, but essential.

And since nothing is more formal than essence, the argument between God and the creature made by way of efficient, final, or exemplary cause, and every argument from the notion of cause, end, exemplar, effect, etc., is always and in reality, despite all extrinsic appearances, a process by the formal way²¹

108. Two SOURCES OF ILLUSION.—The illusion or appearance of extrinsicality in this class of metaphysical or theological arguments from efficient cause or from effect arises from two points:

1st. From the fact that, the causes being divided into material and formal, efficient, final, and exemplary, and the first two being called intrinsic and the other three extrinsic, one is left under the impression that whenever one argues by efficient cause, final or exemplary, the process is extrinsic and not intrinsic. Without dwelling on the fact that these three causes, like the effect, can be taken to argue in an intrinsic sense (the essence and essential properties or relations of cause and effect), as metaphysics or theology takes them, or only in a connective-extrinsic sense (physical-actual properties or relations), as physics takes them.

2nd. From the fact that, it being commonly said that the procedure for being intrinsic or inclusive or of one into another according to reason must be by the formal way, it is forgotten that formal in a being is not only its form or formal cause, but everything essential to that being, everything that is of reason or of the intellect of the being; everything without which the thing cannot be understood, which is precisely one of the definitions of essence.

When I say: A is part of B, therefore it is less than B; when I say: A is the son of B, therefore B is the father of A; when I say: A has prime matter or prime matter exists, therefore A has substantial form or substantial form exists; all these arguments or processes are not truly extrinsic, but intrinsic; they are not purely connective, but truly inclusive; they are not from one into another according to reality, but from one into another according to reason. Not because the whole is identified with the part, nor the father with the son, nor the form with matter, but because the part, the father, and the form are essentially included, though not expressed, in the whole, in the son, in prime matter; because the one is of the essence or of the concept of the other.

Thus also when I say: Contingent being exists, therefore God exists, or it is contingent being, therefore it is created being, the procedure is truly intrinsic, inclusive, from one to another according to reason. Not that God, we repeat, is the same reality as contingent being, nor that the reality of the Creator is the same as that of the creature, but that the existence of God is essential to the existence of contingent being; the existence of the Creator is essential to the existence of created or potential being: the one is of the definition or of the concept of the other; the one is included in the other²². There is no further difference except that in the reasonings of whole and part, of father and son, the implicitness is simple and shallow (implicit formal), which requires only a mere explanation of terms, and therefore the reasoning is improper and the knowledge is immediate or of simple intelligence, whereas in the examples of contingent being and God, of matter and form, of spirituality and immortality, and of immutability and eternity, the implicitness is for human reason hidden and profound (virtual implicit or inclusive), which requires the combination of new concepts, and the reasoning is most proper, and the knowledge is mediate or scientific. But the new or minor concepts that human reason combines to discover those mediate or scientific conclusions are not new realities, but the very definition or essence of what is contained in the datum or principle; the definition or essence of the contingent and the necessary, of prime matter and form, of cause and effect, of spirituality and immortality, of immutability and eternity. The process is, then, by way of essence, by the formal way, by the inclusive way, by the way of perfect homogeneity.

109. COROLLARIES.—From what we have been saying, these five corollaries are deduced:

1.° Sacred theology proceeds, besides and above the process, always by formal cause. And therefore metaphysics cannot argue by secondary efficient or final causes, because its process would be physical-fallible, but by formal causes, or by primary efficient and final causes; and since, when it argues by these primary causes, its process turns out to be as essential and formal and intrinsic as that of the formal causes, therefore it is usually said more briefly that metaphysics argues only by intrinsic causes. “A metaphysical demonstration does not proceed except from internal causes” (PESCH, Philosophia Lacensis, bk. 4, n. 1.082).

In short, because the minor premises of every true metaphysical process must be intrinsic or of the essence of the major premises from which they proceed, Saint Thomas says that the conclusions of metaphysics or theology are proximate to the principles themselves. And since the principles of Christian theology are the truths of faith, its true and rigorous conclusions have always been held in the true Thomist school not only as definable as truths of faith, but even as already proximate to faith. “Whence it is clear that the consideration of metaphysics or theology is supremely intellectual. And hence it is also that it bestows principles upon all other sciences insofar as intellectual consideration is the principle of rational [consideration]... To proceed intellectually is not attributed to divine science as though it did not reason by proceeding from principles to conclusions, but because its reasoning is most proximate to intellectual consideration, and its conclusions are [most proximate] to its principles” (St. Thomas, On Boethius, q. 6, a. 1). “It seems to us that the first and principal grade of an erroneous proposition, according to the common manner of speaking of theologians, is when one says the contrary of a manifest theological conclusion which is gathered from faith by an evident consequence, and which nevertheless is not yet defined by the Church... Where it must be observed that this grade is so proximate to heresy that sometimes it can even be called heresy” (Báñez, 2-2, q. 11, a. 2).

The more carefully we study St. Thomas and his great commentators, the more stupefied we remain by the poor idea that that ill-fated virtual or extrinsic or non-inclusive process, in which, since Suárez, the essence of theological science properly so-called has been made to consist, has caused to be formed concerning true theology, the true theological conclusion, and the true theological process.

Physical-connective process, or from one thing into another according to reality, proper to physics; another intrinsic, inclusive process, strictly metaphysical and theological, which is a formal process, or from one thing into another according to reason, proper and exclusive to the mathematical-metaphysical sciences or to those of abstraction, superior in dignity and certainty to physics. This is the firm foundation on which objective homogeneity rests, without theology needing to have only that process or to deduce all its conclusions through that process. But for good measure.

2nd. Every rigorously metaphysical-theological conclusion is always deduced by a process of essence or of essential relations implicit in the same essence, whether the process be by effect or by cause, whether by the material and formal causes, or by the efficient, exemplar, or final causes.

3.º Every conclusion, then, that is rigorously metaphysical-theological arises through an intrinsic and inclusive process, through a process of objective identity.

4th. Every rigorously metaphysico-theological conclusion is homogeneous with the revealed deposit, because it is objectively implicit in it.

5.º The whole of theology, then, properly and strictly so called, and theological conclusions properly and strictly so called, far from being something extrinsic to the revealed deposit, as they are in the modern conception since Suárez, are, on the contrary, according to St. Thomas's conception, something intrinsic to the revealed deposit, of the very essence or of the intellect of revealed being, just as natural theology or metaphysics is of the essence or of the intellect of natural being (40).

110. THE STRUCTURE OF TRUE THEOLOGICAL REASONING.—From what has been said thus far, it already follows with sufficient clarity that the true theological conclusion—that is, the metaphysical-inclusive conclusion—is truly implicit in the revealed premise or revealed datum, from which our reason merely deduces it. But since that implicitness or objective containment is the true foundation or prerequisite of its definability as a truth of divine faith, and therefore of homogeneous dogmatic evolution, we shall confirm it anew by another route, examining the true structure of reasoning.

true and proper theology, but reasoning carried out according to all the conditions required by the doctrine of St. Thomas.

These conditions are four: First, that at least one of the premises be a matter of faith. Second, that the other premise, if it be of natural reason, be one of real or inclusive identity, but of virtual distinction—that is, that it be neither purely nominal nor of purely physical connection. Third, that this premise of inclusive reason be evidently demonstrated, and neither doubtful nor probable. Fourth, that the reasoning be well made, that is, that the conclusion be well deduced from the premises.

The first of those conditions is required because the true principles of theology are the truths of faith. Therefore, if none of the premises is of faith, the reasoning is not theological but philosophical¹

The second condition is required because, if the minor premise were merely nominal, without virtual distinction, the reasoning would be improper (27), and if it were of purely physical connection, without real inclusion, the reasoning would be of neither theological nor even metaphysical certainty, but of physical certainty (37). “One must engage intellectually in divine matters... From one to another according to reason: not from one thing to another, which is proper to natural science... Theology is supremely intellectual”². In this second condition there is already included, as can be seen, that other condition which many are accustomed to posit, namely, that the reasoning be proper and not improper, for, when there is a virtual distinction and not merely a nominal one, the reasoning is no longer improper, but proper and most proper.

The third condition is required because it is useless for something to be very certain in itself if it is doubtful to us, since we cannot demonstrate it with evidence. The Trinity is most certainly included in the Divinity; but for our natural reason it is as if it were not, because that inclusion cannot be demonstrated. For science to be possible, it is not enough

that the inclusion exists, but also that this inclusion can be seen or demonstrated without new revelation³.

The fourth condition is required because even with certain and evident premises one can reason badly, drawing a conclusion that is not in the premises or drawing it with greater extension than the premises require⁴

Of those four conditions, the third and fourth are common to every science. The second is proper to the supraphysical sciences or those of absolute objective certainty, that is, to the mathematical, metaphysical, and theological sciences. The first is characteristic and exclusive to sacred theology.

Therefore, in every definition of the true and rigorous theological conclusion, those four conditions must enter or be understood. The third and fourth, as remote genus; the second, as genus or quasi-proximate genus; the first, as ultimate difference. If any of them is lacking, there is no rigorous theological conclusion, because something essential is missing.

111. MODEL OF INCLUSIVE REASONING.—Let us set forth a model in which we suppose that these four conditions are met. Let it be the following:

Dios is omnimodally immutable (major premise of faith).
What is omnimodally immutable is eternal (minor premise of reason).
Therefore, Dios is eternal (theological conclusion).

We repeat that we suppose: 1st. That the major premise is of faith. 2nd. That the minor premise be of pure reason, that is, that revelation has told us nothing about eternity or about what relations unite eternity with immutability; or more simply: let us suppose that all divine revelation, the whole Holy Bible and Tradition, were reduced to God’s telling us the four words of the major premise and not one word more. 3rd. That the minor premise be inclusive and demonstrated. 4th. That the reasoning be well formed⁵.

In these four suppositions, necessary, according to St. Thomas, for there to be true theological conclusion and true theological science, let us examine what is the nature and value of that conclusion and of that theology.

112. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATION.—Note, first of all, how the subject of the conclusion is the very subject of the premise of faith. This, explicitly or tacitly, must always be verified. The reason is that the subject of the conclusion or of the science must be the very subject of the principles of the science, for the science or conclusion is nothing other than actually drawing out in the conclusion the virtuality contained in its principles. And since the true principles of theology are the truths of faith, the theological conclusion must take its subject from the premise of faith and not from that of reason⁶.

This observation, although not absolutely necessary for the demonstration of what we are treating, is useful for noting that the theological conclusion always aims to discover something in the revealed major premise and not in the rational minor premise; that it is the premise of reason that must serve to discover what is in the premise of faith, and not the premise of faith to find what is in that of reason; that the premise of faith and that of reason do not, therefore, enter on equal terms into theological reasoning, but rather the premise of reason enters as an auxiliary (handmaid) of faith or as an aid to human reason, because the latter is not capable of seeing at one stroke and in a single act everything that is in the premise of faith, and for this it needs an aid (the premise of reason), both because that is the condition and weakness of our reason insofar as it is reason, since it is not simply intelligence⁷, and also because the truths of faith are realities, divine truths, of inexhaustible fecundity, and that when they are enclosed in language hu-

On that particular passage from the Book of Causes) as proof that there is true reasoning and true science and true deduction of effect from cause, and property from essence, when one proceeds in theology, or metaphysics, or mathematics through an intrinsic cause or virtual cause (53). The reader may choose any other example that pleases him more among the forty-three questions of the treatise On God or of any other treatise of the Theological Summa.

hand cannot express all its implicitness, that it is there and is revealed and divine, but that it is compressed, hidden, deep, mediate, beneath the explicit and shallow sense of the human utterance of the divine, beneath the formal and immediate revealed⁸

113. THE PREMISE OF FAITH.—Note, secondly, that one of the premises is of faith. What does it mean to be of faith? It means, in the doctrine of St. Thomas, and it should mean in all Christian philosophy or theology, that in that major premise of faith we have divinely revealed, not two pure names (God and immutability) nor two pure subjective concepts nominally united by the verb to be; not two symbols of an agnostic reality or of some subjective experience or of some pragmatist attitude; all that is Kantian-Bergsonian philosophy, that is the basis and the starting point of all the varied forms of modernism. For St. Thomas, that major premise of faith means that in those two names of subject and predicate we have divinely revealed two objective ideas, and that those two ideas are an authentic and faithful expression of reality, reality expressed by a real verb, and transcendent to the human and to the divine by the verb to be.

For Saint Thomas it means that the theologian, through the premise of faith, finds himself in possession of two objective-real ideas; two ideas of divine truth and reality; two ideas of unconditional and absolute consistency; two ideas whose reality and union, affirmed by the divine word itself, give more certainty to human reason than all metaphysical evidence and shine before the eyes of faith with a light not so clear, but a thousand times more intense, firm, and sure than the very light of the first principles of reason.

Let the reader not forget: the theologian, at the first milestone and starting point of his reasoning, finds himself in possession of two divine ideas, the ideas of subject and predicate, whose objectivity and absolute truth are guaranteed by the very authority of God and illuminated by divine light, by the divine light of faith.

THE MINOR OF REASON.—Note, thirdly, that the minor of reason is a minor that is, or we suppose it to be, inclusive. This means for St. Thomas that the predicate eternity, although it expresses an intellectual aspect distinct from the subject all-embracing immutability, is really identical with it; that they are not two objects, or two realities, or two distinct things joined by a distinct physical bond, but one and the same and unique and identical objective reality, the same object, the same

thing under two aspects or intellectual expressions, and only intellectually distinct. In divine matters one must proceed intellectually... through an intrinsic cause... from one to another according to reason, which is not another according to reality.

UNFORGETTABLE COROLLARY.—The predicate of the premise of reason is the same reality, or object, or thing as the subject: it is the very essence of the subject.

THE MIDDLE TERM.—Note, fourthly (and this, together with the preceding corollary, forms the essential, the great, the sublime, the divine element of theology): that the subject of the minor premise is the very predicate of the major premise, the very predicate of the truth of faith, one of the two formally revealed ideas; that the middle term of theology is formally revealed and illuminated by revealed light; that it is of faith!

For anyone who knows what middle term⁹ means in reasoning, for anyone who knows what objective homogeneity is, there was no need to add another word.

THE MINOR TERM (or predicate of the minor premise, which is the very predicate of the conclusion and, therefore, which is the conclusion and the theological science) is really identified with the middle term, and the middle term is the revealed idea itself.

114. THE SUBLIME AND THE DIVINE IN THEOLOGY.—On carefully reading the immortal preliminary question of the Summa Theologica, in which St. Thomas examines the essence, object, and method of theology, one experiences a profound impression of respect for the sacred science before the majestic phrases which that intellect, who weighed the exactness of his words as gold, employs to designate the middle term, the reason of knowing, and the reason under which of theological science.

For readers unaccustomed to the reading of the holy Doctor and of his principal commentators to perceive the full scope of the texts that we are going to cite, we will point out that the phrases divine revelation and divine light or light of divine revelation have two senses, as will be seen. From the verb to reveal come two verbal nouns with a single name and a distinct meaning: 1.º Revelation or act of revealing; this is revelation in the active sense. 2.º Revelation or truth revealed; this is revelation in the objective sense. Both things are called the divine revelation (divine revelation). For the

Likewise, the phrase "light of divine revelation" also has two senses: 1st, the divine light that accompanies the transient act of revelation (infusing light, Cajetan). 2nd, the permanent light with which the revealed object is surrounded and which is emitting divine light (revealing light, Cajetan) upon the believing intellect, with much more reason than when we say that such a mathematical or metaphysical truth sheds much light upon this or that.

The Saint treats of the act of revealing (first sense of divine revelation) and of the divine light that transiently accompanies that act (first sense of the light of divine revelation) in the questions On Prophecy¹⁰, whereas here, in the first question of the Theological Summa, he treats of the object of theology. Whenever, therefore, the holy Doctor and his commentators speak here of divine revelation or light of divine revelation, it is understood in the second sense, in the objective sense, in the sense of the revealed truth itself (revelation) and the divine light itself of that revealed truth (light of divine revelation).

For that very reason, since here revelation is the same as revealed or revealed object, by revealable one must not understand the revealable by God, that is, what God has not yet revealed and can reveal, for the revealable by God in that sense can hardly be an object of science as long as God does not reveal it, but rather the revealable by the revealed object itself, that is, the knowable (unveiling-revelation) in the very divine light of the revealed object and not by anything distinct from it; revealable, that is, knowable by the light of divine revelation (Capreolus). And since it is in the middle term that all conclusions and all science are known and through which they are known, if the middle term is nothing distinct from the revealed object and its objective light (divine revelation, light of divine revelation), but really and essentially the same object or revealed truth, it can be said, and it is said with exactness and mathematical realism, that the middle term, that the reason under which, that the medium of demonstration of theology is divine revelation, divine light; that theological science is acquired by divine revelation, by divine light.

Let the reader now reflect on the following texts: “The different nature of what is knowable induces a diversity of sciences. For the astronomer and the natural philosopher demonstrate the same conclusion: namely, that the earth is round. But the astronomer does so through a mathematical middle term, that is, one abstracted from matter, while the natural philosopher does so through a middle term considered in relation to matter. Hence there is no prohibition with regard to the same things about which the philosophical sciences treat insofar as they are knowable by the light of reason."

natural, also to treat another science according as they are known by the light of divine revelation"¹¹ "The reason for knowing in theology is the light of divine revelation"¹² "A medium shining with divine light constitutes the theological knowable"¹³ "The revealing divine light is the formal reason under which our theology knows"¹⁴ "All things whatsoever that are divinely revealable share in the formal reason of the object of this science"¹⁵ "Sacred doctrine, being one, extends to those things that pertain to the various philosophical sciences because of the common formal reason which it considers in them; namely, insofar as they are knowable by the divine light"¹⁶ "And therefore the unity of theology is inferred in the letter from the unity of the divine light as from the formal reason under which"¹⁷

"This science transcends all the others, both speculative and practical. It is manifest that in every way it is more worthy than the others"¹⁸ "It is wisdom in the highest degree among all human wisdoms, not indeed in some particular kind only, but absolutely"¹⁹ But the proper knowledge of this science is that which comes by revelation, not by natural reason: and therefore it does not belong to it to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to judge concerning them. For whatever is found in the other sciences that is contrary to the truth of this science is wholly condemned as false"²⁰, etc.

The reader will immediately understand that if the middle term of theological reasoning is the very essence (inclusive procedure) of the idea or revealed reality, the very light revealed by God, and in turn revealing for our intelligence, all those phrases of the holy Doctor and of his principal commentators have a most formal sense; put as the middle term a physical-distinct connection, which is a thing really distinct from the revealed reality or idea, which is a thing not revealed, which is a contingent and fallible thing, and all theology and all those phrases of the holy Doctor go up in smoke.

115. Confirmation.—Let us put it within everyone’s reach in a simple mathematical formula. Let us call A the sense of the major term, which is revealed. Let us call B the sense of the middle term, which is also revealed. Let us call C the sense of the minor term, which is the predicate of the conclusion, or the theological predicate. We will have the value of the inclusive reasoning expressed in the following formula: A = B (major of faith) but B = C (inclusive minor) therefore A = C (theological conclusion)

The first identity is guaranteed by God. The second we suppose, since we suppose that the minor premise is inclusive or one of identity between the predicate and the subject. Therefore A = C, that is, what is meant by the revealed datum is the same as what is meant by the theological predicate. It is progress, but in the same sense: homogeneous progress.

Let the reader also note that B, which is the middle term, must have the same meaning in the major and in the minor premise, for otherwise there would be four terms in the reasoning. Now, where does our reason see C, which is the theological predicate? It sees it in B, since we suppose that the minor premise is analytic or inclusive. That is, it sees it in the formally revealed, in the very light of objective divine revelation.

Here is the true meaning of that phrase of Saint Thomas: “The theological conclusions are known by the light of divine revelation”. And of that other one of Cajetan: “The medium shining with divine light constitutes the theological knowable”. They could well say it, speaking, as they were, of inclusive conclusions.

116. The Theology of Non-Inclusive Virtuality.—When one has just heard St. Thomas or his principal commentators, one can hardly take seriously the matter of non-inclusive or physico-connective virtuality as constitutive of the theological conclusion properly so-called. With such virtuality, one can construct not only no wisdom, such as theology is, but not even a science that, in certainty, or abstraction, or dignity, rises an inch above Aristotle's Physics.

But, in the end, let us examine, at least lightly, that physical-connective virtuality. The reader already knows what the physical-connective virtuality or conclusion, or the fourth type (45), consists in: deducing from the revelation of the pure essence its physically distinct properties, taking as the middle term of the reasoning the bond of physical connection that exists between every nature and its physical or actual properties, really distinct from the nature itself.

Thus, if it has been revealed to me that N. is a true man, and I then deduce that he is physically or actually risible, that is to deduce the physically distinct property, and that is the theological conclusion properly speaking, that is the true theology in Suárez's innovation, now current in the manuals.

Let us posit a model of a purely connective theological conclusion, as we did with the inclusive theological conclusion.

The curious and almost comical thing is that we cannot give any example concerning God. Concerning God, reasoning of pure connection is not possible, but only reasoning of inclusion, for the very simple reason that, between His attributes and His essence, or between His attributes themselves, there is no real distinction, but only a virtual one. Hence, however blunt it may seem to say so, with the idea of theology, properly and rigorously understood, that Suárez and Lugo, and most modern manualists, give us, there is no theology or theological conclusion properly so called concerning God. And for St. Thomas, God is the subject of theology, which must deal principally with God, and can deal with nothing except in relation to God! This alone should suffice for that purely connective virtual distinction never to be spoken of again.

If we cannot give an example about God, we will give one about anything else. Here is the same from the authors:
N. is truly man (major, which we suppose by faith). Man is actually risible (minor, of reason). Therefore N. is actually risible (theological conclusion!).

What is the dignity, abstraction, certainty, and height of that class of theological arguments? Exactly the same as those of the following:
The Eucharistic accidents are true accidents (major premise, which we assume by faith). The accident has actual inherence in its subject (minor premise of reason). Therefore, the Eucharistic accidents have actual inherence in their subject (theological conclusion!).

What does any theology student say to this true theological conclusion ... of virtual connective? Well, that it is a sophism. And how can that which in physics would be and is conclusive be a sophism in theology? Let us listen to St. Thomas: “It is not the definition of an accident to be in a subject; but it belongs to the quiddity or essence of an accident to have being in a subject... Therefore in this sacrament it is not granted to the accidents that by the force of their essence they are not in a subject... nor is the definition of an accident separated from them, which is the aptitude of an accident for a subject, which always remains in them, not actual inherence, etc.²¹

Which means, plainly, for anyone who knows how to read: That argument and all those arguments fail or are not theological, because one does not argue by essence, by quiddity, by definition.

Not by aptitude or metaphysical property, but by actual inherence; inherence or actual property which fails here, which absolutely cannot always fail, and, when it comes to the supernatural order, often fails. And theology that can fail even once, a theological conclusion that can be false, as every conclusion from a virtual connection can be false, that is not theology, but physics (98).

Take in the natural order as a means of demonstration the essence or the inclusive properties of being, and one will have the sublime metaphysical wisdom; but take as a means the properties of physical-real connection, and one will have the poor, fallible physical science.

Take likewise in the supernatural order, as a means of demonstration, the essence or the inclusive properties of the revealed being of the true faith, and one will have the sublime wisdom among wisdoms, divine theology; but take as a means the physically distinct properties, and one will have the physico-theological, with exactly the same consistency, abstraction, and certainty as natural physics.

And whereas in the theological conclusion of St. Thomas, something inclusive-identical with the revealed, the essence of the formal revealed, is taken as the medium to draw from its depths the virtual implicit revealed, the sacred revealable or theological; in the theological conclusion of virtual connective, a physically-distinct connection is taken as the medium, something objectively distinct from the revealed, something that is not implicitly revealed; and what it has to produce as a result or conclusion is a physically-contingent conclusion, nothing of divine essence, nothing of theological essence.

117. In the preceding sections we believe we have made clear that in modern theology there reigned a great confusion about the understanding and nature of the immediate or formal revealed and of the mediate or virtual revealed, constitutive and specifically distinctive elements of faith and theology; that this confusion dates from a false notion of the virtual revealed, introduced by Suárez to mitigate an extreme theory of Molina; that with this Suarezian understanding of the virtual revealed, current today in most manuals, true theology and the true theological conclusion were confused with faith, Suárez’s doctrine thus entering into the Scotist currents of Vázquez and Vega; while what is left as theology and theological conclusion properly so called is a nominal theology, without any possible homogeneity with the revealed datum, with no greater certainty or abstraction than those of the physical-contingent order.

We believe that we have also made it clear that all that doctrine is not the doctrine of traditional theology, nor, above all, the doctrine of St. Thomas; that for St. Thomas the inclusive virtual—a virtual possessing the same reality and objectivity as the formally revealed—is the specific constitutive and distinguishing element of theology and of the theological conclusion; that theology and the theological conclusion are a conceptually distinct but objectively identical and homogeneous development with the immediately revealed truth; that between the theological conclusion and the revealed datum, or between true theology and faith, there exists a perfect objective-material identity, a complete real continuity, although with a distinct conceptual virtuality and a distinct formal motive; that true theology and rigorous theological conclusion are material found not outside the revealed deposit, through connection with what is within the deposit, but rather material found in the revealed principles, within the revealed deposit, through an identical intellectual analysis which human reason makes of the divine principles or statements contained in the deposit, using for this purpose not the physical connection that exists between what is within and what is without, but the transcendent notions of the human intellect, which are proportionally but really applicable to what is within as to what is without, to the human as to the divine, to the natural as to the supernatural, to the revealed as to the unrevealed. If this conception of ours of theology, which we believe to be the conception of St. Thomas, is legitimate, there result two conceptions of theology that are supremely distinct and even opposed.

To form an idea of this, one need only reflect that, since God has revealed not all truth, but a certain number or field of truths, there must be a limit distinguishing the extent of the revealed field from that which is not revealed; there must be two fields: one of revealed truth; the other of unrevealed truth; one of divine truth; the other of human truth.

Let it now be recalled that all the truths that make up Catholic doctrine are divided into four groups or departments: 1st, revealed datum, or the set of divine assertions recorded by the Apostles or inspired writers in the two sources of Scripture and Tradition; 2nd, dogmas, or the set of dogmatic assertions defined as of divine faith by the Church; 3rd, infallible truths, or the set of assertions defined as infallible by the Church, but not yet as of divine faith; 4th, theological conclusions, or the set of assertions demonstratively deduced from the principles of faith by theology (3).

All these four departments, that whole set of affirmations, must be either really revealed or really not revealed. All of them must be either really within the revealed field or really outside the revealed field. We deliberately avoid for this time the use of mediate and immediate, formal and virtual, whose poor or varied understanding could give rise to confusion, and we employ the word really; for between being really revealed and really not revealed, between being really in the revealed field and really in the non-revealed field, there is no middle ground.

Now let the reader ask himself in what field each of those four degrees of Catholic doctrine lies, and to what field one must go to find them; and he will plainly see two very different conceptions of theology, two very different theories about theological truth. Both conceptions or theories agree that the revealed datum and dogma fall within the revealed field; they also agree that, in order to seek infallible truth and theological truth, wherever they may be found, one must start from that revealed field. But for Suárez, theological truth is found in the non-revealed field, and one must go there to seek it. For St. Thomas, theological truth is found within the revealed field, and one must remain in it to find it.

For Suárez, theology, starting from the revealed field (the major premises of faith), uses as its procedure the physical connection (the minor of the virtual connective), by which it passes from the revealed field to the non-revealed, and in this non-revealed field it gathers its fruits (conclusions). For Saint Thomas, theology uses as its procedure the implicit virtual, or the bond of metaphysical-inclusive connection, which runs through the interior of the revealed field; and in the revealed field it gathers its fruits.

For Suárez, the theologian is properly a laborer who, placed in the revealed field, looks through the telescope at the objects that are in the other field, in the unrevealed field. For St. Thomas, the theologian's proper function is to apply the microscope or the scalpel to the very objects of the revealed field and to discover what lies within them.

For Suárez, the true theological minor premise is a path that, setting out from the revealed field, exits and runs through the exterior, and whatever the traveler finds along that path is a human, profane object, not divine, not revealed; although it is true that he would not have stumbled upon that object had he not set out from the revealed. For Saint Thomas, the theological minor premise is a path that runs through the interior and the depths of the revealed, never going outside, and therefore, whatever objects are gathered are objectively divine and revealed, though grasped by human reason, which can always mistake the path and slip outside without noticing, and which can always tarnish or distort, even unintentionally, the object gathered.

For Suárez, in a word, the true theological conclusion expresses an objective reality really distinct from the revealed deposit; it is not implicitly revealed; it is not definable matter of faith, except by a new revelation. For Saint Thomas, the true theological conclusion, theological truth, is really or objectively identical with the revealed deposit; it is implicitly revealed; it is definable matter of faith, without need of a new revelation.

This parallel that we have just made between the two divergent conceptions of Suárez and St. Thomas is most exact. The parallel concerns theology properly so-called, that is, theology as a rigorous science “which does not argue to prove its principles, which are the articles of faith, but from them it proceeds to show something else—(the conclusions)”. In that parallel, then, it is not a question of the other sapiential function of defense and explanation that theology exercises with respect to its own principles. “Hence sacred doctrine, since it has no superior, disputes against one who denies its principles”¹.

We note this so that no one may be moved to say that Suárez also admits that theology deals with the revealed field, since it explains its principles, which are revealed. It is not a matter of principles: it is a matter of the conception of theology as a science of conclusions properly so called.

In the following chapter we shall see how from those two diverse conceptions of true theology there have resulted in parallel, in Suárez and in St. Thomas, two likewise diverse conceptions of the organic place that the authority of the Church occupies in our divine faith and in the evolution or explanation of the revealed deposit.