La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

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.