La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

121. THE FORMAL CONCLUSION AND THE SPECIFICATIVE CONCLUSION. When dealing with the definability or non-definability of the theological conclusion as a matter of faith, two divisions or distinctions are usually made.

The first division that some theologians make consists in distinguishing, as Vázquez does, between the conclusion as conclusion and the conclusion as consequent. The conclusion as conclusion is the conclusion as deduced from the principles. The conclusion as consequent is the conclusion as included in the principles. The conclusion as conclusion is usually called the formal conclusion. The conclusion as consequent is usually called the material or specifying conclusion. To assent to the conclusion as conclusion is to assent not only to the truth of what the conclusion affirms, but also to the fact that such a conclusion is deduced from such a principle. To assent to the conclusion as consequent is to assent to the truth of the conclusion, while prescinding from its deduction. In this latter case, Vázquez says, deduction or reasoning does not enter as a formal motive, but merely as a condition for coming to know the containment of such a conclusion in its principles; and once reasoning has enabled us to know that containment, we assent to the conclusion not by reasoning but by its containment or inclusion in the revealed principles, that is, by its revelation. In this matter of conclusions, they say, something similar happens to what happens in the act of divine faith. There is no act of divine faith unless the motives of credibility precede it. But the motives of credibility are not the formal motive of divine faith, but a necessary condition for coming to certain knowledge of divine revelation. Once this divine revelation is known, by it, and not by the motives of credibility, we assent to what is revealed.

Thus also, they say, once the inclusion of a conclusion in the revealed premises is known by reasoning, the formal motive of belief is the inclusion or revelation, not the reasoning.

Thus Vázquez reasons, and many theologians reason likewise, at least with respect to metaphysico-inclusive conclusions. (85).

122. THE CONCLUSION BEFORE AND AFTER THE DEFINITION OF THE CHURCH.—The second division or distinction of the theological conclusion that every theologian, especially the truly Thomistic theologian, must make is to distinguish well and radically between the conclusion in itself, that is, without definition of the Church, and the conclusion after the definition of the Church. Before the definition of the Church, the conclusion is known to us only by one means: by reasoning. After the definition of the Church, we know it by two essentially distinct means, namely, by reasoning and by definition.

The Thomists usually call the conclusion, in itself or before its definition by the Church, "conclusion considered by itself" and also "conclusion as such".

In the following section we shall examine the conclusion after the definition of the Church. In the present section we shall speak exclusively of the conclusion in itself or before its definition. We shall show that, according to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, no true theological conclusion known only by reasoning can be of divine faith, nor can it ever merit the assent of divine faith while the Church does not define it. And this is so, however clear and evident the reasoning may be, however great its inclusion or implicitness; whether it be considered as a conclusion formally, or as a conclusion specifically, provided that we are dealing with true and proper conclusions, that is, with truths virtually or conceptually distinct from the revealed datum from which they are deduced.

To demonstrate this, let us set forth St. Thomas's doctrine on the nature and specific distinction of cognitive habits. Since both theology and faith are essentially habits of knowledge, it is impossible to know when there is only divine faith, when there is only theology, and when both exist at once, unless one clearly penetrates what is material and what is formal in the specific distinction of the habits and acts of our intellectual knowledge.

123. THE FORMAL AND THE MATERIAL IN ALL KNOWLEDGE.—For this, let us recall that, according to St. Thomas: 1st, theological reasoning must start from a premise of divine faith and believed with divine faith; 2nd, that the other premise must be of inclusive value and not merely connective; 3rd, that, consequently, the middle term employed is the revealed idea itself; 4th, that, consequently also, the theological conclusion, that is, the theological truth or the theology acquired through that reasoning, are of objective identity and real homogeneity with the premise of faith, that is, with the revealed datum (110).

Deliberately we have underlined the words objective and real when speaking of real homogeneity and objective identity. Because it must not be forgotten (as it is being forgotten in this matter since the ill-fated introduction of the physical-connective virtual as a theological constituent) that there are two kinds of identity and homogeneity, because there are two kinds of objects: 1st, material or real object; 2nd, formal object.

In all knowledge (and faith, like theology and like every intellectual or scientific habit, is knowledge) two things must be distinguished: what is known and the means by which it is known: the thing known and the means of knowing. If I know that the human soul is immortal, that is the thing known, the thing known; if I know this by divine authority, by scientific reasoning, by human authority, these are the means of knowing, three essentially distinct means for one and the same thing known or known truth.

Now then: for St. Thomas, the material, the secondary, the accidental, is the thing known; the formal, the specific, that which constitutes and essentially distinguishes knowledge and the cognitive habit is the medium of knowledge, the means by

The fact that the thing is known. This, which St. Thomas repeats to the point of satiety whenever he speaks of the specification and distinction of cognitive powers or habits in general, he states in particular, expressly and as a basis, from the beginning of his treatises on Sacred Doctrine and On Faith¹

Consequently, in order to ascertain the value of a statement, of a proposition, of any truth whatsoever that is an object of human intelligence, it is a complete Thomistic disorientation to fix oneself only or principally on the thing known by our intelligence, when one must fix oneself, first and foremost, on the means by which our intelligence knows that thing.

Thus, if two individuals know that the human soul is immortal, but one knows it only by divine authority and the other only by reasoning or scientific means, the thing known is materially the same, homogeneous, identical; but the knowledge is formally distinct; in the one it is divine faith, in the other it is science.

If one knows it only by reasoning and the other only by human authority, the thing known is the same; the knowledge and habit by which it is known are essentially distinct: in the one it is science, in the other it is human faith.

If even within reasoning or scientific means, the one it

it knows by reasoning or metaphysical means, and the other by reasoning or physical means, the thing known is always the same; but the medium of cognition and, therefore, the species and the formal aspect of the habit of knowledge and assent are distinct. In the one it is metaphysical, in the other physical.

Finally, if one and the same individual knows one and the same truth or proposition by different means at the same time—as by divine authority, by scientific reasoning, and by human authority—then there will be, or there may be², concerning the same truth, distinct cognitions, habits, and assents at the same time: habits, cognitions, and assents of divine faith, of science, and of human faith.

The consequence of all this is the following most fundamental principle in the doctrine of St. Thomas: To a single means of knowledge there can correspond only a single species of habit, assent, and certainty; to different means of knowledge there correspond different species of habit, assent, and certainty. “In the distinction of habits, one must consider not the object itself materially, but the formal character of the object. Therefore, insofar as they agree in one formal character of being knowable, they belong to one habit; according to different means, however, cognitive habits are diversified.”³.

124. THE “MEDIUM OF COGNITION” OF THEOLOGICAL TRUTH.—Let us now examine, in the light of this doctrine of St. Thomas, the specific or essential value of theological truth, however inclusive and identical the reasoning by which our intellect deduces it may be. Since the entire value of the propositions or truths of the last three degrees of Catholic doctrine depends on their containment and mode of containment in the first degree, that is, in the revealed deposit or datum, and not on their containment in the principles of reason or of the sciences of natural light, let us examine this proposition or truth not in relation to the principles of philosophy or natural reason—for this would be accidental or extrinsic to every truth of faith or theological truth—but with respect to the revealed deposit.

Let there be, for example, the proposition of Christian truth: “the human soul is immortal.” Three distinct cases may occur: 1st, that human intelligence finds this truth in the revealed deposit by simple intelligence of the literal meaning of the revealed deposit, but without passing from there to deduction or discourse properly so-called; 2nd, that human intelligence finds this truth in the deposit only as a deduction properly so-called from the simple intelligence of the deposit; 3rd, that both things are verified at once, that is, that in one part or place of the deposit our intelligence finds that proposition or truth by simple intelligence or without deductive reasoning; but that, even if it did not find it there, it could find it in another part of the deposit by means of deduction or reasoning properly so-called.

Between being found without reasoning, being found by reasoning, and being found in both ways at once, there is no middle ground, and it embraces everything. For, as we have already said, a fourth supposition that this truth were not found in the deposit in any way, neither by reasoning nor without reasoning, would take us outside the supposition; for such a truth, if it were not in the deposit in any way, would by that very fact cease to belong in any respect to faith, dogma, infallibility, or theology. It would simply be a profane truth, as the Holy Doctor says: “For example, in geometrical matters or in other things of this kind, which can in no way pertain to faith”⁴.

To make those three cases palpable, let us make the following three simple suppositions: First supposition: that the entire revealed deposit be reduced to this single proposition: the human soul is immortal. Second supposition: that the entire revealed deposit be reduced to encompassing no more than a single proposition; but instead of being the previous proposition, namely the soul is immortal, it were this other one: the human soul is spiritual. Third supposition: that the whole revelation or revealed deposit has been reduced to two propositions or verses that read as follows: Verse 1, the human soul is immortal; Verse 2, the human soul is spiritual. In each of these three suppositions, what is the value of the proposition or truth that we are seeking to ascertain, namely the human soul is immortal?

125. FAITH ALONE WITHOUT THEOLOGY.—The solution is very simple in the first supposition. In that first supposition, my intellect finds the proposition “the human soul is immortal” in the revealed deposit, in the word or authority of God, by simple understanding, without any reasoning, without any other means of knowledge than the immediate meaning of the revealed deposit. I know it directly, immediately, solely, and simply, by divine revelation, by divine word, by divine authority. There is only one medium of cognition, and this one is of divine revelation or authority; not

there is, then, more than a single habit, knowledge and assent; knowledge, assent and habit of divine faith.

In this first case, and not in the second, we would be in the same situation if, seeking to ascertain the truth value of the proposition “the human soul is immortal”, and having recourse for this to the revealed deposit, we did not find that same proposition explicitly, but we found these others: “the human soul will never perish”, “the human soul will live forever”, or any other proposition that was the same with different words, or that is, in which no true reasoning is needed, but rather mere explanation of terms to find it or see it in the deposit or divine word. This is what is called formal implicit: implicit, because some explanation is needed to find it; formal, because that explanation is a mere exposition of the meaning of the different terms (which is also called improper reasoning or only on the part of the form)—John of St. Thomas—⁵ with which one and the same idea is expressed; not a mixture or mediation of another idea, which is what true reasoning consists in (27, 61).

To that implicit formal belong, as we have already said, the nominal definition and the defined thing, the unconditional universal and the particular, correlatives, contradictories, and whatever is simultaneous in nature and knowledge, because among them there is no virtual distinction, but only a nominal one or one of ratiocinative reason (32).

126. FAITH AND THEOLOGY AT THE SAME TIME.—In the third supposition, my intellect finds that proposition whose value is under investigation in two distinct parts of the divine deposit, but in a different manner or by different means of knowledge. In the first verse I find it directly, immediately, formally, by simple affirmation, or divine proposition, or word, or authority, without reasoning or any scientific or deductive means. In the second verse I do not find formally, that is, by simple understanding, that the human soul is immortal, but I do find that the human soul is spiritual; and since my human intellect has available another means of knowledge, namely inclusive-analytic-identical reasoning—a human and scientific means of knowledge, which is not divine authority but is a means apt to operate without heterogeneity or objective mixture upon what has been said by divine authority—my intellect employs that means, and through it, that is, through the inclusive-analytic-identical-transcendent relation that objectively unites and identifies all spirituality (therefore also that of the human soul), I deduce and conclude with certainty the immortality of the human soul.

both the revealed spirituality) with immortality, I deduce and know deductively, through that means, a means distinct from simple divine authority, that the soul is immortal.

In this third supposition I have found the proposition I was seeking in two parts of the deposit or divine word, but by two distinct means of knowledge: one, of simple revelation or divine word or authority; another, of human discourse or deduction; a discourse very analytical, and very inclusive, and very homogeneous, and very identical, but a discourse, and a true discourse; the most rigorous and proper and scientific discourse that can be given; so rigorous and true and scientific that it is the characteristic one of the higher sciences, of the mathematical and metaphysical sciences, of almost the only ones that rigorously deserve the name of sciences and of demonstrations in the whole extension and fullness of the word⁶

In this third supposition, then, I have two means of knowledge: one of simple revelation or divine authority; another, of human discourse, albeit concerning divine truth. I will thus have two kinds of knowledge, two habits, and two assents, essentially or formally distinct: knowledge, habit, and assent of divine faith; knowledge, habit, and assent of theological science or theology.

127. THE TRUE AND PURE THEOLOGY.—So far there is no great difficulty, and it may be said that in this, in substance, all theologians, ancient and modern, agree.

The difficulty—or rather, the confusion that the theologians subsequent to the virtual Suarezian have caused—lies in the second case, the case in which a proposition or truth is not found in the deposit without reasoning, but rather, in order to find it and come to know it, the human intellect must employ deductive reasoning of inclusive virtuality, and only through that reasoning and as a result of that reasoning does our intellect know it. The problem is the following: what value does any theological proposition whatsoever or a truth of the last three have?

degrees of Catholic doctrine in the case where the intellect does not find it in the revealed deposit, but rather through metaphysical-inclusive reasoning or as an inclusive deduction from the deposit? That truth (before the Church’s definition), is it formally of divine faith, of theology, or of both at once?

Since Suárez, in order to save or attenuate Molina’s extreme and radical theory, made the physical or purely connective virtual the specific and essential constitutive of theology, there was no alternative but to cast the entire metaphysical or inclusive-identical virtual into the formal domain of divine faith and to affirm that this metaphysical virtual was of itself or formally a matter of faith; that the assent of faith could be given to it, and the theologian was bound to give it, from the moment he deduces it demonstratively (74).

But since it was seen that where there was reasoning or deduction there was science, and there was theology and theological assent, a second doctrine had to be added: that those conclusions, although known by a single means, namely by inclusive reasoning, could be given two species of assent—theological assent to the proposition considered as a conclusion, that is, to the conclusion formally, and assent of divine faith to the conclusion considered not as a conclusion but as a consequent, that is, to the conclusion specifically. That is, the doctrine already explained for the third case—when the proposition is known by two means, by divine authority and by reasoning—was applied to this second case, when the proposition is known only by reasoning, thus ending up at the very doctrine of Vázquez and Vega, whom, on the other hand, they combat.

And since, in short, the traditional theology of St. Thomas and his school had always regarded reasoning properly so-called as the antipode of faith (63), the theological confusion was consummated by saying, as Suárez and Lugo say, and with them a multitude of later theologians, that the implicit virtual or identical-real is not reasoning or virtual in the proper sense, but rather is immediate or formal, although... confused. It is the summit of confusion that could be reached, upsetting all the Aristotelian-Thomistic ideas (86).

Let us then examine this second case, which is the case of the true and mere theological conclusion and is the key to the specific distinction between divine faith and theology, upon which depends the correct understanding of what Catholics today call dogmatic progress and what modernism labels as transformist evolution. This case, as the reader knows, is the following: We have only explicitly revealed by God that “the human soul is spiritual.”

and in that case we try to ascertain the value of this other proposition: “the human soul is immortal”, which is a proposition virtually distinct from the first.

The first proposition, “the human soul is spiritual,” the human intellect knows under that supposition by one means, by divine revelation, without any truly deductive reasoning, by simple inspection or understanding of the revealed deposit, by divine authority alone. It therefore assents to it not by science, but by authority; not by theology, but by divine faith. But the second proposition, “the human soul is immortal,” how does the human intellect know it under that supposition? Does it know it by divine revelation alone, without true reasoning, without true deduction, without true science, without another means distinct from the means of simple divine authority? Can the human intellect see or know or apply immediately the divine revelation or authority (formal motive of faith) to the proposition “the human soul is immortal” (known thing or material object), or does it need another means, a human bridge, that mediately unites the revelation or formal motive, which is in the major premise, with the known thing or material object, which is in the conclusion?

The thing is quite clear: human reason needs, for this, to employ another medium, to employ a minor premise of reason. It is true that the medium employed is one of inclusion, objective identity, real homogeneity; and therefore the known thing, the matter of the conclusion (specificative conclusion), the known objective reality, the secondary or material element in every habit, knowledge, or assent are matter and reality and known thing and conclusion really identical and homogeneous with the revealed deposit, with the major of faith, and are therefore matter of faith, mediate or virtual object of faith, by identifying materially with the major of faith. But reasoning and deduction (the medium of cognition or the formal element of habit, knowledge, and assent) do not, by being reasoning or deduction of inclusion or identity, cease to be true and real and essential reasoning and deduction; nor do they thereby cease to be a scientific medium, and, therefore, essentially distinct from the medium of authority or faith; nor do they thereby cease to be a medium absolutely fallible, and, therefore, distinct from the First Truth, which is the formal medium of faith and a medium absolutely infallible; nor do they thereby cease to be a distinct medium of cognition, and, therefore, they belong and only can belong to a habit, knowledge, and assent essentially distinct from divine faith: to the habit, knowledge, and assent of theological science. Theological, because it is of inclusion or identity with the divine (primary material object of theology); theological-supernatural (and not natural theology), because of its identity with the revealed divine, that is, with the major of faith, from which it proceeds by rigorous identical-real analysis. Theological and objectively supernatural, we repeat; but not of faith, but of science, because it is knowledge, not immediate or of simple authority, but mediate or of true deduction.

Since, then, in this second case there are not two distinct means of knowledge, as there were in the third case, but only a single means—the intellectual deduction from what is revealed, deduction from revealed truths—assent, habit, and certainty can be only the assent, habit, and certainty of theology, not of faith. Without multiplicity or diversity of means of knowledge, there can be no diversity or multiplicity of habits in the doctrine of St. Thomas, and therefore no diversity or multiplicity of assent. “Nothing is subject to any habit or even to any act except through the formal reason of the object. But the formal reason of the object is the means by which the thing is known⁷.”

128. ANOTHER CONFIRMATION OF THE SAME.—For anyone who has penetrated the objective analysis of faith and science, according to St. Thomas, it is mathematically evident that nothing known only by deduction, even if that deduction is from the divine, is formally of divine faith.

For St. Thomas, the formal motive of divine faith is the testimony of God; the formal motive of science is the intrinsic-mediate evidence or deductive evidence, which we will call vision. One believes because God says it; one knows because one sees. Seeing deductively, characteristic of all science, is not for that reason the specific or distinctive constituent of any, but common to all. All science is vision, but each science is vision through a different medium or different principles.

There are physical, mathematical, metaphysical means or principles in the natural order; there are supernatural means or principles obscurely revealed—the principles of faith—and supernatural means or principles seen in themselves—the divine essence—. Of all these five principles or means the intellect may avail itself to see deductively or to see other things. Thus there is deductive vision by physical, mathematical, metaphysical, believed supernatural, and facial supernatural means. Physical science, metaphysical science, mathematical science, theological science of the wayfarers, theological science of the blessed (the latter without formal discourse). The first three are natural deductive vision by natural means; the fourth, natural deductive vision by supernatural means; the fifth, supernatural vision by supernatural means. In all there is intrinsic-deductive vision, the generic character of all science, and an objective means through which one sees, the specific character of each science.

Let us now reconstruct the theological reasoning by setting down not only the material propositions or “thing known,” which we shall place outside the parentheses, but also the “formal medium of cognition,” which we shall enclose within parentheses. The major premise of faith must bear the God says it; the minor premise of reason, the I see; the conclusion, which is scientific-theological, must bear the generic character of I see and the specific character or medium by which it is seen, which is in what is revealed or said by God. Here it is:

The human soul (God says that) is spiritual.

The spiritual (I see that) is immortal.

The human soul (I see by or in what God says) is immortal.

What is in each proposition outside the parentheses is for St. Thomas the material, the “thing known”; what is inside is the formal, the “medium of cognition.” What is outside is so material that if, keeping it identical, we inverted the parentheses in the major and minor premises, “by that very fact” the habit and the assent would be changed, and the major would become one of reason and the minor one of faith. Conversely, what is inside is so formal that, provided we leave it intact, the habits and assents of those propositions would not change even if we inverted what is outside. The lesser or greater similarity, then, that those propositions have in what lies outside the parentheses is material; only the identity or distinction of what lies inside will give them formal distinction or identity. Let the reader note, then, the different “media of cognition” or formal motives that are inside the parentheses of the major premise and of the conclusion, which are the two propositions that interest us. I know the major premise because God says it; I know the conclusion because I see it deductively in or by what God says. What God says is always and absolutely true; and in assenting to what God says, error is never possible in any respect whatsoever. That is the characteristic of the First Truth, of the divine object, of the formal object of faith. In contrast, in seeing deductively by what God says, error is always and absolutely possible, exactly the same error that is possible in seeing deductively by any other means. Every proposition, then, seen or known deductively BY WHAT God says (which is very different from BECAUSE God says it) is always a subjectively fallible proposition and, therefore, neither formally divine nor formally of faith. Finally, let the reader note how the “medium of cognition” of the conclusion or theological truth consists of two elements; one generic, common to every science, seeing deductively; another differential, which distinguishes it from all other human sciences, seeing deductively by or IN what God says. The differential or specific element is divine, that which is said by God; the generic is human, the deductive vision.

Therefore, when examining the structure of theological reasoning, comparing it with that of other sciences, we said that the objective “means of knowledge” of theology was divine, the formally revealed (114); now, when examining its dogmatic value and comparing it with faith, we say that the “means of knowledge” of theology is human, the deductive vision. Both things are true and inseparable. The former constitutes the objective dignity of theology over every other human science and its real or objective-material homogeneity with the divinely revealed. The latter constitutes the subjective fallibility of that theology and of that homogeneity, as long as it is only made and known by human reason, and its inferiority and specific distinction from divine faith.

The inclusive and homogeneous character of theology’s intellectual procedure causes its conclusions to approach the principles of faith as closely as possible, and for this reason it became customary for the ancient Thomists to call the true theological conclusion definable matter of faith, mediate object, and indirect object of faith; for, as the Holy Doctor had already noted, this is what is peculiar to the sciences of intellectual and inclusive procedure: that their conclusions (without ceasing to be pure conclusions and, therefore, essentially belonging to a habit distinct from that of the principles) are so homogeneous that they can be said to border on the principles themselves. “To proceed intellectually is not attributed to divine science as if it did not reason, proceeding from principles to conclusions, but because its reasoning is closest to intellectual consideration and its conclusions [are closest] to its principles”⁸.

But from this to saying that they are formally of faith or that they merit the assent of faith, there is an abyss—an abyss that cannot be crossed by anything human and fallible, but only by the divine and infallible authority that the Church has to explain and propose, by the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit, what is implicitly contained in the deposit, which is, as we shall see, what St. Thomas understands by explaining the revealed deposit.

How, then, can that theological conclusion, that inclusive deduction, that human intellectual elaboration of the divine material, which, because it is divine material, is theological, and because it is a human intellectual elaboration, belongs to science and not to faith, ever come to be of faith and deserve from the human intellect a divine assent, formally divine, which previously it neither deserved nor could deserve? We shall see this in the following section.

129. THE PASSAGE FROM THEOLOGICAL TRUTH TO TRUTH OF DIVINE FAITH.—It is possible that some readers are surprised at the very title of "passage from theological truth to truth of divine faith," that is, the passage from what—not for the intellect of God or of the Apostles, but for our intellect—was strictly, solely, and purely theology, to truth of divine faith, to dogma of faith. And yet that passage exists, and this is admitted by the traditional doctrine of Catholic theology. That is, in the end, the doctrine no less of St. Thomas than of St. Bonaventure and Scotus, no less of Vázquez and Vega than of Suárez and Lugo, no less of all the classical theologians of the sixteenth century before Molina than of ninety percent of those after him, when it is a question of true theology, of metaphysico-inclusive theology.

The surprise of some at this passage from theology to divine faith proceeds from the false idea that this ill-fated purely connective virtual has caused them to form of true theology, which, not being a true revealed virtual, nor therefore a rigorous theological virtual, can hardly pass into a dogma of faith.

On the other hand, if theology consists, as it truly does, in implicit or inclusive virtuality, the respective fields in which theology and divine faith move, although formally or specifically distinct, are materially or objectively identical. Such objective identity, or such implicitness of the object of theology in the object of faith, is what makes our theology not only depend essentially on divine faith, but also makes possible the passage from the one to the other through a new element or new means of knowledge. This new element is the authority of the Church; an authority not human, but divine, but which, because the Church possesses it not by revelation, as the Apostles did, but by assistance, needs to use as an instrument the human labor of theological reasoning, just as it uses any other instrument that leads to explaining or developing everything truly implicit in the revealed deposit. This will become clear by analyzing that human labor of the Church and comparing it with the equally human labor of theology.

• 130. Human Labor in Theological Reasoning and in

**THE DEFINITION OF THE CHURCH.—**Here is a most important point, and one upon which sufficient attention is not often fixed, despite the fact that the nature, course, and limits of progress, both theological and dogmatic, depend on it. Upon the slightest slip in examining the nature of that human labor, of that intellectual elaboration of the divine, depends falling into one of two extremes: modernist transformism or theologism, the denial of all true dogmatic progress or the making formally dogmatic of everything theological, the rupture or objective-real non-communication between faith and theology, or the absorption of theology by faith.

On its correct interpretation depends, instead, the profound and harmonious theory of St. Thomas, which unites theology with faith vitally, really, objectively, and homogeneously, while maintaining the formal, specific, and essential distinction between faith and theology, which admits true and perfect dogmatic development, not limiting it to the mere nominal explanation or to pure formulas, but to the intellectual development or explanation of the implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit, while safeguarding the homogeneity or objective-real identity and avoiding both modernist transformism and the theory of new revelations.

Indeed, for St. Thomas, both in theology and in the definition that the Church makes of the virtual inclusive there is true deductive human labor, not of pure nominal formalities of one and the same idea, but of distinct ideas or aspects within one and the same objectivity. But for St. Thomas, the nature and value of that true human labor is essentially distinct, although materially identical, in theology and in the definition of the Church, and, therefore, the resultant (theological conclusion) of that human labor in theology is essentially distinct from the resultant (definition of faith) of the human labor of the Church. The first resultant is scientific-human; the second, authoritative-divine. The first is formally theological; the second, formally dogmatic. Let us see why.

**131. IN WHAT THE TWO TASKS AGREE.—**The starting point, both for the theologian in deducing and for the Pontiff or Council in defining, is the same: the revealed datum alone if it concerns the first conclusions or definitions, and the revealed datum together with what has already been previously defined by the Church if it concerns later definitions. To reach from that starting point the theological conclusion or the definition, both the theologian and the Church need a human deductive means: the theologian, the minor premise of the reasoning; the Church, the reasons or considerations that in the

The definitions of the Council or of the Pontiff precede the definition. The human intellectual work in the theologian is represented by the theological minor; the intellectual work of the Church is represented by what we might designate, for short, by the name of ecclesiastical minor, and which represents the set of reasons (biblical, patristic, theological..., the so-called theological sources proper) that have preceded the definition for centuries, and which in the bulls themselves or dogmatic constitutions are usually recorded as preambles or justifications for the we declare and define.

Without that theological labor or minor the theologian would never know his conclusion; without that ecclesiastical labor or minor the Church rarely proceeds to definition¹.

Neither the theologian with his theological minor premise nor the Church with her ecclesiastical minor premise attempts to add anything objective to the major premise or revealed datum, but rather to develop or deduce what is included in the revealed datum.

Since the reasoning employed is one of identity or inclusive analysis, the minor premise is used and functions not as an objective concause that adds something objective to the major premise, but as an intellectual instrument for ascertaining the objectivity that already exists in the major premise as revealed beforehand, an objectivity that the human intellect can find only through genuine deductive reasoning (96). In all this both tasks agree, that of the theologian and that of the Church.

132. HOW THEY DIFFER.—But the essential difference between both tasks is that on that theological minor which the theologian employs in his reasoning depends essentially

In theological reasoning, the conclusion will be, for the human intellect, certain, more or less probable, doubtful, or completely false, according as the minor premise employed is absolutely certain, more or less probable, doubtful, or false. "The whole force of the argument is in the middle term"². Suppose for a moment that in a theological syllogism to whose conclusion we had assented because we believed it to be fully demonstrative, we later find that the minor premise, which we believed absolutely certain, is only probable. The conclusion loses, by that very fact, its certainty for us, and is only probable. Suppose we find reasons so strong against the minor premise that they make it doubtful: the conclusion becomes by that very fact doubtful. Suppose that this minor premise turns out not only probable or doubtful, but it comes to be demonstrated that it was absolutely false: the conclusion loses by that very fact all its certainty.

Result: In theological reasoning, in the theological conclusion, in theology, however inclusive the procedure may be, the species of knowledge or certainty, of the means of cognition, of what is formal in every habit, depends essentially, for the human intellect, on the minor premise of the reasoning, on human labor.

That, then, is not formally divine; that is not formally faith. What is human can enter into the divine as a divinely rectified instrument, never as something formal or as something on which what is formal depends. And the faith in question is divine, and its formal object must be characterized by absolute, infallible truth, by the First Truth itself; therefore, nothing that does not fall under the absolute, infallible, First Truth—nothing that can fail from any point of view—falls or can fall formally under divine faith. 'Nothing is subject to any power or habit or even act except by virtue of the formal aspect of the object... But it has been said that the formal aspect of the object of faith is the First Truth: hence nothing can fall under faith except insofar as it stands under the First Truth'³. 'Faith rests on the divine Truth itself as its medium'⁴. And the theological conclusion, known only by means of reasoning, however superior it may be to the physical conclusion, and to the mathematical conclusion, and to the metaphysical conclusion, agrees with all those conclusions in one thing: in not enjoying a guarantee of infallibility, exclusive character of the divine medium or of the human medium, when it enters only as a mere instrument directed and infallibly rectified by the divine.

It is not that theology is denied true demonstration and the supreme one in the genus of demonstration and scientific certainty; it is not that it is denied that it deals with divine things; what is denied is that anything known scientifically or by demonstration is absolutely infallible; what is affirmed is that every proposition known by reasoning alone can be erroneous, and much more if it deals with divine things, where human reason errs very easily. “For human reason is greatly deficient in divine matters... Man is frequently deceived in this, that he thinks to be a demonstration what is not”⁵. AND A FALLIBLE PROPOSITION (FROM WHATEVER POINT OF VIEW IT MAY BE SO) IS NOT A PROPOSITION FORMALLY OF FAITH.

133. THE OPPOSITE, COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE happens in the human reasoning or labor that precedes the definition of the Church. While in theology the nature of knowledge, certainty, and assent of the conclusion depends essentially on the value of the theological minor premise, in the definition of faith by the Pontiff or the Council the nature of knowledge, certainty, and assent of the definition is absolutely independent of the value of the human labor or ecclesiastical minor premise that precedes it.

Let us suppose for a moment that after a truth of that inclusive or analytic kind has been defined as a matter of faith by a Council or Pontiff, that is, one of those truths found in the revealed deposit through real identification with the formal statements of the deposit, it is discovered that one, several, many, or all of the preambles or reasonings of the dogmatic definition are not as certain as was believed, that they are only probable, that they are doubtful, that they are false. Does the definition or defined truth thereby remain false, doubtful, probable, or less certain? NO.

The definition is preceded by those preliminaries, those reasonings, that human labor, that ecclesiastical minor premise; but the definition is not founded upon them nor is it their conclusion. The definition is founded formally upon the divine assistance, and that divine assistance exists for defining, not for reasoning; it guarantees, divinely and infallibly, the truth of the definition, not the truth of the reasoning. It is true that, precisely because it is assistance and not revelation, it requires reasoning as a prior human condition; but reasoning with respect to which the assistance has no other purpose than to prevent that reasoning from ever leading to a false definition, not to ensure that the reasoning itself is true. Whereas, with respect to the definition or defined truth, the purpose of the divine assistance is to guarantee divinely not only that what is defined as of divine faith is true, but that it is revealed truth, that is, implicitly contained or included in the deposit or datum of revelation, in the common starting point of both theological labor and the work of the Church.

Thus, in the Church’s definition reasoning precedes, but it does not influence formally the definition; the definition, although not made without reasoning, is not made by reasoning. A minor premise precedes the definition, but it is mere material precedence, without formal influence on the definition. The definition succeeds and follows the minor premise, but without a formal bond with it: it is not the conclusion of that minor premise. Materially, externally, the Church’s work in defining the virtual implicit has the same procedure (starting from the revealed datum or major premise, positing an inclusive minor premise, and drawing a conclusion that in the datum was included by the virtuality of real identity) and the same visible appearance as the human-theological work: but formally there is no reasoning or work whatsoever. The nature and value of the knowledge, certainty and assent of that definition or defined truth is effected formally without any human means, by mere divine authority; divine authority not to reveal anything new nor even to reason about what has already been revealed, but to be infallibly right, by divine assistance, in discerning what is revealed from what is not, what is included in the deposit from what is not; to discover, in a word, what was already in the deposit, but which, because it is not formally stated in itself, but rather included in other formal statements of the deposit, is therefore said to be in the deposit not formally but mediately or virtually: because only by means of reasoning and in virtue of reasoning can weak human intelligence come to know it, for which not only what is not included in the principles, but also what is truly included, is mediate, virtual, and scientific knowledge, but whose inclusion is not knowable by simple intelligence, for it requires true deduction and true science, which are the opposite poles of faith.

Whereas, in the definition of the Church, the same included object, which the theologian only knew mediately and virtually by scientific reasoning, is now known immediately, formally, by divine authority, which is the character of faith.

134. THE "EXPLANATION OF FAITH" OF TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE.—This task of the Church which we have expounded is the meaning of the celebrated explanation of faith of traditional theology. That the Church has the assistance and divine mission, without new revelations or objective increase of the deposit, not only to preserve holily but also to expound faithfully and with dogmatic authority the revealed deposit, all theologians admit this, and it is defined by the Vatican Council: "For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not that by His revelation they might reveal new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might holily keep and faithfully expound the revelation delivered through the Apostles, or the deposit of faith"⁶. Dogmatic definitions are not, then, a definition of new things or doctrines, but an authentically divine explanation or exposition of what is implicit in the revealed deposit. "And this was the reason why it was necessary to publish several creeds, which differ in nothing else except that what is contained implicitly in one is more fully explained in another"⁷. "For the later creed does not abolish the earlier, but expounds it"⁸. "The Creed of the Fathers is a declaration of the Apostles' Creed"⁹. "Explanation of faith against insurgent errors"¹⁰. "The same faith more fully expounded"¹¹.

But this explication of faith is not limited to a simple change of formulas or a mere nominal unfolding among things distinct only by a distinction of ratiocinating reason, but rather extends to what is deduced by a procedure of inclusion or real identity, to what is distinct with a virtual distinction or one "of reasoned reason," that is, to the inclusive-intellectual virtuality of the deposit. This is what traditional theology understands by expounding the implicit of the deposit: "To explain the articles of faith happens in two ways: one way as regards the substance of the articles themselves, inasmuch as one knows the articles distinctly. Another way as regards those things which are contained implicitly in the articles themselves, which indeed happens when one knows those things which follow from the articles"¹².

The articles are substantial to the faith, and therefore the unfolding of some articles into others was completed in Christ and the Apostles: “This explanation, insofar as one article is contained in another, or two in one common article, was completed by Christ; hence, with regard to the essentials of the faith, it is not lawful to add to or subtract from His teaching”¹³. By contrast, the development or explanation by way of consequences is, as it were, accidental. “But those things that follow from these truths of faith are, as it were, accidental” ¹⁴ And what is accidental in the faith is not a matter of faith until it is defined by the ordinary or solemn magisterium of the Church. “But those things that are accidental to the faith are not necessary for salvation, except after they have been determined by preaching and teaching” ¹⁵

Treating of what things are definable as matters of faith, Cardinal Cajetan says: “Nor does it matter in Sacred Scripture and the others (that is, the traditions of the Apostles and the Creed) whether something be revealed explicitly, such as the creation of the world, the incarnation of the Word of God, and other things of this kind, or implicitly, as are all those things whose opposites cannot be maintained with the truth of Sacred Scripture and of the other things which we hold with certain faith: except that there is need of talent, labor, reason, and understanding to make manifest that these things which are said to be contained implicitly are necessarily connected to those in which they are said to be contained” ¹⁶ Or as Báñez says: “Because the Church has never proposed or defined anything for the faithful to believe that was not contained in the Sacred Letters or apostolic traditions, expressed or virtually contained, so that it could be drawn out from them by an evident consequence” ¹⁷ The same is said by all the theologians before Molina and most of those after him, whose texts the reader will find in chapter 7 of this work (352-448). We will also give later on eleven distinct proofs of this same truth (239-250).

Thus, then, divine faith is not limited to the articles of faith, nor even to what is explicitly revealed, but extends of itself, says St. Thomas, to everything truly implicit, whether it is implicit as an antecedent, as a concomitant, or as a consequence of what is explicitly revealed, provided that the Church explains or defines it: “Because faith, as far as it is in itself, sufficiently inclines toward all things that accompany, follow, or precede faith” ¹⁸ “And the same judgment is about these (the consequential or accidental) and about THOSE (the articles or the substantial) which are determined in the faith because one follows from the other” ¹⁹ There is no further difference except that the substantial or articles were defined or explained by the Apostles themselves, and the Church has always been teaching or preaching them by its ordinary magisterium, and therefore they have been from the beginning not only matter of faith, but formally of faith, whereas the accidental or consequential, although of itself matter of faith, does not become formally of faith until the Church defines or determines it by her ordinary or solemn magisterium. "Unless after they have been determined by preaching and teaching"²⁰. The Holy Doctor also expressly teaches both things in the following text: "It must be said that in faith there are some things (the articles) which every man is bound to know explicitly; hence if anyone errs in these, he is considered an unbeliever, and a heretic if he adds obstinacy. But if there are some things (the secondary or accidental) which man is not bound to believe explicitly, he will not become a heretic by erring in these, as if some simple person believes that Jacob was the father of Abraham, which is against the truth of Holy Scripture, which faith professes, until it becomes known to him that the faith of the Church holds the contrary"²¹."

And so that no one, paying more attention to the particular example adduced here by the Holy Doctor than to the general doctrine he sets forth, might think that this had no application to theological conclusions or to the inclusive virtuality of the deposit, the Holy Doctor continues: "And because certain things are contained implicitly IN THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH, just as CONCLUSIONS are contained in principles, therefore in these diverse opinions are tolerated until it is determined by the Church that something among them is against the faith of the Church, BECAUSE FROM IT FOLLOWS something contrary to the faith directly"²².

Therefore, in regard to divine faith, these two things are exactly equivalent for Saint Thomas: a) formal or immediate revelation, proposed by the Church; b) implicit-virtual or implicit-mediate revelation, explained by the Church.

But then, it will be said, is this not making the Church a formal element of divine faith? Is this not attributing to the Church the conversion of what is mediately or virtually revealed into what is immediately or formally revealed? We shall see this in the following sections.

135. ORDINARY MAGISTERIUM AND SOLEMN MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH.—After having set forth what, according to Saint Thomas, are the true relations between theology and faith, it remains to see what are the true relations of both with the authority of the Church, that is, the organic place that the authority of the Church occupies in our divine faith and, consequently, in our theology. We shall begin with some simple preliminary notes, but indispensable for the proper framing and correct solution of this fundamental question.

The doctrinal authority or magisterium of the Church has as its proper and specific end the conservation and exposition of the revealed deposit. To determine or infallibly fix the true sense of the divine deposit is what is called the definition of faith by the Church ¹.

But this magisterium or definitions of faith can be exercised and in fact are exercised by the Church in two ways: first, by solemn magisterium, whether of the Ecumenical Council or of the Pope alone speaking from the chair; second, by ordinary magisterium, that is, by the ordinary teaching or preaching of the universal Church.

Both means of exercising the magisterium over the content and meaning of the revealed deposit are of equal dogmatic value, and both are true definitions of faith. There is only an accidental difference, namely that the magisterium of the Ecumenical Council or of the Pope speaking ex cathedra is exercised with greater solemnity and apparatus of formulas, and is easily discernible by all, whereas the ordinary magisterium is carried out without special apparatus or formalism through the universal teaching of the Church, and sometimes its scope and significance are not so easy to distinguish.

It is advisable to keep very clearly in mind these two different ways of exercising the doctrinal magisterium or of defining revealed truth, since frequently, when speaking of definitions of faith, the mind tends to focus only on definitions by solemn magisterium, without paying sufficient attention to the fact that there are also definitions by ordinary magisterium.

Truth, then, of the revealed deposit, whose meaning has not yet been infallibly fixed either by the solemn magisterium or by the ordinary magisterium of the Church, is revealed truth, but not defined. Truth of the revealed deposit, whose meaning has been infallibly fixed or determined, whether by the ordinary magisterium or by the solemn magisterium of the Church, is truth not only revealed, but also defined.

To ask, therefore, whether divine faith is possible regarding a truth of the revealed deposit before the definition of the Church, is equivalent to asking whether divine faith is possible regarding that truth before, or without, its meaning having been infallibly determined or taught, whether by the solemn magisterium or by the ordinary magisterium of the Church.

136. WHICH CHURCH IS MEANT.—From that inclination of our mind to fix only or preferably on solemn definitions, when speaking of definitions of faith, there also proceeds our sometimes not giving to the word Church all the extension it covers, unconsciously fixing on the Church not from its foundation, that is, from apostolic times, but on the Church of later centuries, when ecumenical councils and solemn definitions began. And yet, definitions of faith or the doctrinal authority of the Church over the revealed deposit are exercised, as we have said, by ordinary magisterium as much as or more than by the solemn one, and that ordinary magisterium began not in the era of the first ecumenical councils, but from the first moment of the nascent or primitive Church, from the first moment of the apostolic preaching or teaching.

A truth, then, of the revealed deposit, whose meaning has been infallibly fixed or determined, whether by apostolic preaching or the primitive Church, or by the Church of later centuries, is a truth not only revealed but defined. A truth of that deposit, whose meaning has not been infallibly determined either by apostolic preaching or by the Church of later centuries, is revealed truth, but not defined. To ask, therefore, whether divine faith can be given to a truth of the deposit without a definition of the Church, is to ask whether divine faith can be given to a truth whose meaning has not been fixed or determined infallibly either in apostolic teaching or in the teaching (by ordinary or solemn magisterium) of the later Church.

137. IMMEDIATE AND MEDIATE REVELATION “ON THE PART OF THE PERSON”.—In the previous sections we have spoken continually of immediate and mediate revelation, but it was on the part of the object; in this section it is necessary to speak also of immediate and mediate revelation, but from a different point of view, namely on the part of the person. This twofold division of revelation into immediate and mediate from two different points of view needs to be well understood if one is not to become entangled in reading the theologians’ treatises On Faith and the Church.

Two things enter into faith: the revealed object and the person to whom it is revealed.

The object can be revealed in itself or revealed in another truth, in which it is latently enveloped. Revelation, in the first case, is called immediate or formal, and in the second, mediate or virtual. If God has revealed the proposition: the human soul is spiritual, spirituality is revealed in itself or immediately; but immortality would be revealed not in itself, but mediately in spirituality, in which it is intrinsically and essentially included. This is immediate and mediate revelation on the part of the object.

But in revelation, in addition to the revealed object, enters the person to whom it is revealed. This person can receive divine revelation in two ways: first, directly from God, without any interposition of other men; second, not directly from God, but through other men to whom God communicated it, or perhaps through other men who, by successive generations, have been receiving it from those to whom God first and directly had communicated it. The first is called immediate revelation, because between God who reveals and the person to whom He reveals there is no man in between; the second is called mediate for the contrary reason. The angels, our first parent, the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and evangelists, those who had the ineffable happiness of hearing the incarnate Word on earth, and even every soul to whom God, by Himself, or without the intervention of any man, has deigned to reveal His secrets, had immediate revelation; the rest, we, who have not had direct revelation from God, have only mediate revelation.

As can be seen, this division of revelation into immediate and mediate is on the part of the person, not on the part of the object. In it no regard is paid at all to whether the object has been revealed in itself or in another, but rather to whether the person has received the revelation immediately from God or has received it through other men. It is of this immediate or mediate revelation on the part of the person that we will speak in this section whenever, without expressing the contrary, we employ the words immediate and mediate.

138. IMPORTANTISSIME COROLLARY.—Our faith, then, that is, the divine faith which all the faithful of the Christian world give and must give to the truths of the revealed deposit, is (setting aside the unique case of private or special revelation) faith of MEDIATE revelation. This mediate character must never be lost sight of, for it is the key or formal reason for the necessity or existence of the ecclesiastical magisterium and for the nature and extent of its relations with our faith.

"To some, indeed, credible things are revealed immediately by God, as they were revealed to the Apostles and Prophets; but to others they are proposed by God sending preachers of the faith"². "Since those things which are from God are done according to a certain order, in the manifestation of those things which pertain to the faith, a certain order had to be observed, namely, that some would receive immediately from God, while others would receive from these, and thus in order down to the last"³. "Faith is twofold, namely, according to a twofold hearing and a twofold speech; for faith comes from hearing, as it is said (Rom. 10:17). There is a certain exterior speech by which God speaks to us through preachers; and a certain interior speech by which He speaks to us through internal inspiration. From both hearings faith arises in the hearts of the faithful. Through the interior hearing it arises in those who first received the faith and taught it, such as the Apostles and Prophets. Through the second hearing, however, faith arises in the hearts of other faithful who receive the knowledge of faith through other men"⁴. "We have the knowledge of faith, not through a revelation made to us, but through the fact that we adhere to revelations made to others"⁵. For our faith rests upon the revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets, who wrote the canonical books"⁶.

The failure of certain theologians to pay sufficient attention to this mediate character of the revelation on which our faith is founded (a character that is precisely the root of the necessity of the ecclesiastical magisterium and, therefore, of its nature and extent) has been the cause of their not having understood the great theory of St. Thomas on the relations of the Church with our faith and of their having taken as the criterion for determining those relations the question of whether private revelations are or are not of divine faith. The question of private revelations, by the mere fact of their being immediate, is completely irrelevant to the question of the relations of the Church with our faith to the revealed deposit, which is faith of mediate revelation. The nature of the faith that we must give to the revealed deposit, a deposit that is the formal reason of the doctrinal authority of the Church, and not the nature of the faith that we must give to private revelations, which are in themselves foreign to that authority, is the course that every true theologian must take in order to study the relations of the Church with our faith.

It therefore causes genuine surprise to see a theologian of Suárez's stature raise and frame the question in this manner: “Whether private divine revelation pertains to the formal object of faith and consequently (!!) whether the authority of the Church pertains to this formal object, and how faith is resolved into it”⁷. That consequently explains everything; with it Suárez closes the way for himself to understand St. Thomas's theory on the relations of the authority of the Church with our faith, which is of mediate revelation. Suárez, like Lugo and Ripalda, do not seem to have paid sufficient attention to the radical difference between faith and our faith, and to the mediate character of the latter, which is the key to the Angelic Doctor's treatise On Faith, as we shall attempt to show in this section.

139. REVEALED OBJECT AND ITS PROPOSITION AND EXPLANATION.—In faith, two essentially distinct elements must be distinguished: first, the revealed object; second, the proposition and explanation of that object.

In immediate revelation, both elements are divine. God is the one who reveals the object, and God is also the one who proposes and explains it.

In mediate revelation, the second element, that is, the proposition and explanation of the revealed truth, is made by men who, however much holiness and learning they are supposed to possess, are always of themselves fallible, unless they possess the divine assistance to propose and explain all and only what is revealed by God, without any human admixture or misrepresentation whatsoever⁸.

The essential or formal element in the assent of divine faith is, then, the revealed object; the proposition or explanation are conditions without which there would be no faith.

140. FIRST COROLLARY.—Although in faith, both by immediate and by mediate revelation, two elements enter, namely: the revealed object and its proposition or explanation, what is truly believed and to which assent is given is the revealed object, although one could not assent to it without prior proposition and explanation. The essential or formal element, therefore, in the assent of divine faith is the revealed object; the proposition or explanation are conditions without which there would be no faith.

141. SECOND COROLLARY.—Since divine faith founded on immediate revelation is as true as that founded on mediate revelation, if the latter requires some element that the former does not require, this element will belong to it not by being revelation, but by being mediate revelation; not by being divine faith, but by being ours.

142. THIRD COROLLARY.—Our divine faith is from mediate revelation, and mediate revelation necessarily requires human proposition and explanation. One cannot, therefore, argue: if it is divine faith, nothing human can enter into it; nor can one argue: if something human enters in, divine faith is no longer possible (but only human or ecclesiastical...); but one can and must say: divine faith is not possible if the human explanation that enters into it is of such a nature that it can alter or modify the divine object, the revealed meaning. For the object is essential to faith, and the object of faith is exclusively divine: nothing other than the First Truth.

143. STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION.—Having made these preliminary remarks, which were perhaps unnecessary for many readers, we shall enter upon an important and delicate question; we shall study the organic place that the infallible authority of the Church occupies in OUR FAITH, noting, once and for all, that by our faith we mean that divine faith which we, who have not had nor have immediate revelation from God, give to the truths revealed by God to the Apostles, and by them entrusted to the Church in the sacred deposit of divine Scripture and Tradition.

The questions that present themselves to the theologian are the following: Is the authority of the Church an indispensable element for every act of our divine faith in the revealed deposit? Can there be an act of divine faith in a truth of the deposit before it is defined by the Church? Is the act of our faith only I believe because God has revealed it or is it necessarily I believe because God has revealed it and because Holy Mother Church so teaches? In a word, setting aside a special revelation or intervention of God, is the Church the only means that unites our divine faith with the revealed deposit, or are there other means by which the human intelligence can come into contact, with divine faith, with the revealed deposit?

144. THE VÁZQUEZ-SUÁREZ THEORY.—The theologian Vázquez, illustrious on so many counts, was the first to respond clearly and openly in the negative to all these questions or aspects of one and the same question. For Vázquez, the authority of the Church is not an indispensable element for every act of our divine faith, except for the ignorant, for those who lack sufficient theology or learning to see or deduce with evidence the latent depths of the revealed deposit. But for the wise man, for the theologian, for the one who through his theological, exegetical, historical, and critical knowledge of the Bible and Tradition can by himself deduce with evidence the meaning of the revealed deposit, the authority of the Church is not indispensable.

The theological demonstration or individual reason is in such cases for the theologian what the authority of the Church is for the ordinary faithful. Nor let it be objected, says Vázquez, that what is known by science or by reasoning cannot merit greater assent than the scientific or theological, for the theologian who by evident reasoning deduces something from what has been revealed has at hand two assents: one, theological, founded on reasoning, which is the means by which he deduces it, and another, of divine faith, founded on divine revelation, which is the starting point from which he deduces it. And these two acts are possible, and are at the theologian’s disposal, and in no way require the authority of the Church. This is, laid bare, the famous theory of Vázquez, a theory to which everyone must come who formally makes theological conclusions a matter of faith without definition by the Church (85).

Suárez, in his eagerness to explain or soften a theory of Molina, came to fall into the said theory of Vázquez, admitting that the inclusive virtuality (which he calls formal-confused) of what is revealed is formally of faith, and presenting as possible for the theologian the two famous assents, one of them of divine faith, without any intervention of the authority of the Church (74, 86). In this matter Suárez was followed by Lugo and Ripalda, and since most modern theology textbooks are more or less influenced by those great theologians, it is not uncommon to find in them, as common currency, the following affirmations: The authority or definition of the Church is not indispensable for the act of our faith, since our faith is the same as that of the angels, patriarchs, and prophets, and these did not need any proposition or explanation from the Church in order to believe. The act, then, of our faith does not necessarily include the 'I believe...' because the Church so teaches, although the authority of the Church is ordinarily or for a better state necessary, especially for the simple faithful, who cannot rise without the Church to the pure motive of divine authority. But the theologian who, with his individual reason (theological demonstration), discovers with evidence a truth, or virtuality, or latent meaning of the deposit, must or may give to it an assent of divine faith (in addition to and distinct from the theological one) without any definition of the Church. That is what the two assents are for.

145. TEXTS OF VÁZQUEZ, SUÁREZ, RIPALDA AND FRANZELIN.— “A theological demonstration stands in the same relation to the theologian demonstrating as a Council, when it declares something to be of faith, stands to the whole Church. The only difference is that the Council proposes what it defines to all as to be believed, so that all are bound to believe; theological reason, however, proposes it only to those for whom the consequence from the articles of faith is evident”⁹.

“Nihilominus tamen, as far as we are concerned, the Church is proposed as governed by the Holy Spirit, as the proximate and sufficient rule of belief, because all the faithful cannot by themselves examine the doctrine of faith nor always make their resolution of faith in an expressly conceived divine authority, which is too excellent and spiritual; but the Church is a sensible rule which they more easily hear”¹⁰. “Lastly, it must be noted that we can use discourse in two ways to assent to a proposition inferred: one way, as the formal reason for assenting, and the proper and per se cause of the assent itself to the inferred conclusion; the other way, as proposing and explaining (here is the theological reason, as Vázquez says, substituting for the Council) what is contained and in what manner, under divine revelation, so that afterward we rely on that alone in assenting, as the formal reason and per se cause: for these two ways are possible, as is evident per se, and they depend on the will of man, and thus Vázquez correctly distinguished them, and others do not contradict”¹¹.

"Although that proposition is not necessary for the Church, nevertheless it is, for the faithful who know the infallible authority of the Church, sufficient and more fitting for the assent of faith" ¹². "Of those truths which the Church defines, some are contained in the things believed by faith through evident consequence... Therefore these truths..., even before they are defined by the Church, can be believed by many of the faithful, namely the wiser theologians, apart from the authority of the Church, by divine faith, because they evidently see through theological reasonings that they are contained in the other things believed by faith" ¹³.

But Ripalda was, at least, frank and logical, as usual, in drawing the consequences of that doctrine. “You will object, first: If the Church’s proposition is not required per se for believing, a heretic who denies one article can still believe the others through faith; because, setting aside the Church’s authority, he can still have other motives that sufficiently render them credible. Second, that he who is ignorant of the Church’s authority, or of something being proposed by the Church, can lose faith without heresy, by dissenting from some article sufficiently proposed to him through other means. I admit both consequences” ¹⁴.

It may sometimes happen that although the truth, about which a theological demonstration is sought, is not yet sufficiently proposed in the Catholic faith, yet for those who are able to perceive the force of the arguments, it is certain from a diligent examination of either Scripture or Tradition that this truth is contained in the revealed word of God. This being so, the arguments which demonstrate the truth contained in revelation are for them a sufficient application and proposal of revelation to elicit the assent of divine faith ¹⁵. "That which is enunciated in the conclusion is already implicitly contained as said in the premises, either in both taken together or in one alone, so that the other is assumed only to manifest that the conclusion is comprehended in that prior one. Hence, when it is established that both premises are revealed truth, or when one revealed premise already implicitly contains what is enunciated in the conclusion, and the other, although not revealed, evidently manifests this comprehension of the conclusion in the revealed premise, then without doubt the truth enunciated in such a conclusion is revealed... This being so, the truth following from revealed premises can be considered in two ways: either formally as revealed by God; then to the proposition corresponds the assent of faith because of the authority of God revealing; or it can be considered formally as a truth understood from the truth of the premises and from legitimate consequence and deduction; then to the proposition corresponds the theological assent" ¹⁶.

It is useless to adduce more authors, for this is already current doctrine in the theological manuals of today, and its influence is still felt in quite a few Thomistic manuals.

As can be seen, in this theory of Vázquez-Suárez, already current today, the explanation of the revealed deposit made by fallible human reason is of divine faith and merits for the wise man the assent of divine faith. In the proposition, then, and explanation of the revealed, reason is for the wise man what the Church is for the ignorant or for the common run of the faithful. The authority of the Church in the conservation and exposition of the deposit, of which the Vatican Council speaks, proves necessary for us; but in this theory by us is understood not all who receive the revelation mediately (a mediation which can only be saved by the infallible definition of the Church or by a new revelation or extraordinary intervention of God), but by us is understood only those who are not sufficiently theologians or exegetes to save by their own reason that mediation or distance, to propose and explain to themselves the meaning of the revealed deposit.

146. THE TRUE THOMISTIC THEORY.—All this, which is quite common in modern theological manuals after Suárez, is, in our judgment, a deviation from the true theory of St. Thomas and a failure to recognize the sublime and necessary place that the authority of the Church occupies in our faith.

For St. Thomas, and for all his faithful commentators, the authority or definition of the Church is indispensable for every act of our divine faith in any truth of the revealed deposit. The act of our divine faith is not merely "I believe because God has revealed it," but it is necessarily "I believe because God has revealed it and because Holy Mother Church so teaches"; the first because being essential to our divine faith, not because it is ours, but because it is divine; and the second because being necessary (and only replaceable by special revelation or divine intervention), not because it is divine faith, but because it is ours.

In a word: although science (theology, philosophy, exegesis, criticism, history...) has many means of arriving at the scientific, human, acquired knowledge of the truth of the deposit, and of making with respect to it acts of science or of human faith, without any intervention of the Church, our divine faith has only one single means, and this is the authority of the Church; that is, humanity has no other means than the authority of the Church to arrive at the truth revealed by the assent of divine faith.

As for many, perhaps, these affirmations will be novel, and even daring, let us first attempt to set forth the literal doctrine of the Holy Doctor, turning to the finished and immortal treatise De Fide from the Summa Theologica.

147.—THE FORMAL OBJECT OF FAITH.—The Holy Doctor begins his first question and his first article with the formal object of faith. St. Thomas never beats around the bush: from his very first article he places himself at the central, fundamental, formal, essential point of the question: the object. And since the essence of a thing is immutable and must be found whole and invariable wherever the thing is found, the object of divine faith is defined in that first article in itself, formally, without any relation to angels or to men: it is defined with the laconic and lapidary phrase NIHIL ALIUD QUAM VERITAS PRIMA.

In the formal object, in the essence of faith, according to St. Thomas, nothing created can enter, nor can there be the slightest mixture of creature; nothing of angels, nor of men, of patriarchs, nor of prophets, of apostles, nor of the Church. All of that lies outside the formal object of faith, outside the object of divine faith in itself, outside the object of divine faith insofar as it is divine. God, and God alone, is its author, its object, its end, and its rule. In divine faith, therefore, conceived from that formal point of view, the "I believe... because the Church, or the Bible, or Tradition so teach" enters not at all, but solely and exclusively I believe because God has revealed it. Nihil aliud quam Veritas Prima¹⁷.

148. THE FORMAL OBJECTS "IN THEMSELVES" AND THE FORMAL OBJECTS "OURS" OR "IN US".—But the formal objects themselves, although they do not admit variations or changes in themselves, can admit conditions that are not essential to the object in itself, but are absolutely necessary for the object in us.

Thus, for example, the formal object of the intellect in itself or of the intellect as intellect is being; the formal object of our intellect is also being, but with an essential condition or addition for us: it is being abstracted from sensible things. Without that abstraction, our intelligence could never come into contact with its object: with being.

The formal object of science in itself, or insofar as it is science, is the certain knowledge of one truth by means of another, or of one truth in another; the object of our science is the same, but with an essential condition for us: it is knowing one truth through another, but by means of reasoning or succession. Without this, our science is not possible.

The specific or formal principles of theology in itself are the divine supernatural truths; the principles of our theology are those same truths, but believed with divine faith, that is, obscurely seen. Without that condition of being believed or obscurely seen, our theology would never come into contact with its object: the divine-supernatural truths¹⁸.

Now then: the formal object of divine faith in itself is, as we have seen, nihil aliud quam Veritas Prima. What, then, will be the formal object of our divine faith, of that divine faith which we give, not by a revelation that we ourselves have received immediately from God, but mediately through the channel of the Apostles? Does the formal object of faith receive some condition or addition indispensable for it to be considered, not in itself, but in us; as the formal object, not of divine faith in itself, but of our divine faith?

149. THE FORMAL OBJECT OF “OUR” FAITH.—We pass to the fifth question, where St. Thomas treats of faith in relation to the various subjects in which it can be found: De habentibus fidem, concerning the diverse subjects of faith.

Let us pass over articles 1 and 2, in which he deals with faith in relation to the angels and to the demons, and let us stop at article 3, in which he treats of faith in relation to ourselves: of our faith. The Holy Doctor asks whether in the heretic who denies a single article of faith, divine faith with respect to the others remains. For this purpose, the Holy Doctor needs to fix all the elements that necessarily enter into the formal object of our faith. If, by denying a single article, all the indispensable elements of our faith nevertheless remain, faith remains. If, on the contrary, whoever denies an article thereby destroys some indispensable element of our faith; the faith is destroyed. What, then, are the indispensable elements of the formal object of our divine faith? Let us hear the Holy Doctor:

“The formal object of divine faith is the First Truth AS IT IS MANIFESTED in the Sacred Scriptures and the DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH, which proceeds from the First Truth”¹⁹. The formal object of faith in relation to us is no longer the First Truth simply, but the First Truth with a condition sine qua non, with an integral condition: the authority of the Church. “The First Truth as it is manifested... in the doctrine of the Church”. Not the First Truth alone, nor even the First Truth contained in Scripture and Tradition, but the First Truth contained in Scripture and Tradition, but as the Church understands and interprets it.

What follows from this for St. Thomas? Well, just as a habit disappears when something of the formal object—which is what gives the essence or species—disappears, so whoever tries to adhere to the First Truth of Scripture and Tradition by some channel other than the authority of the Church does not have true divine faith, but rather another faith of his own, created, human: scientific or acquired faith. "The species of any habit depends on the formal ratio of the object, and once this is removed, the species of the habit cannot remain. Hence, whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and divine rule, to the doctrine of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth made manifest in the Sacred Scriptures, does not have the habit of faith; but he holds the things of faith in a manner other than through faith"²⁰.

But does man have other means, apart from that of the Church, to know the meaning of the revealed deposit and to give it the assent of divine faith? Scientific, human means that lead to acts of human science or acquired faith regarding the revealed deposit, man has many, says the Holy Doctor; but to the assent of divine faith man can come only by one single means: the authority of the Church. Without that means, the act of our divine faith is totally impossible. “In diversis conclusionibus unius scientiae sunt diversa media, per quae probantur, quorum unum potest cognosci sine alio... sed OMNIBUS articulis fidei inhaeret fides propter UNUM medium, scilicet propter Veritatem Primam propositam nobis in Scripturis SECUNDUM DOCTRINAM ECCLESIAE intelligentis sane; et ideo qui ab hoc medio decidit, totaliter fide caret”²¹.

150. CARDINAL CAJETAN.—Though St. Thomas's thought appears quite clear to anyone who reads the two questions cited carefully and without prejudice, ²² it will be useful to present the interpretation of its most authoritative commentators, beginning with the prince of commentators. Whoever wishes to form a true idea of the analysis and economy of divine faith, and of the primacy that the infallible authority of the Church, or of the Holy Spirit who assists her, occupies in our faith, should read Cajetan's entire commentary on the two articles of St. Thomas already cited. We shall have to content ourselves with summarizing them.

Commenting on article 1 of the first question On Faith, in which St. Thomas defines the formal object of faith in itself by the phrase Nihil aliud quam Veritas Prima, he writes:

"Third, there arises a doubt as to how the First Truth alone is posited as the formal object of faith, when it is said that it is nothing other than the First Truth. And the doubt is considered both absolutely and ad hominem. Absolutely, because faith rests upon the judgment and doctrine of the Church as upon an infallible rule; otherwise heretics, who rely on the First Truth alone while rejecting the judgment of the Church, would be believers. And Augustine says: 'I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Church moved me to do so.' Yet it is evident that the judgment and authority of the Church are something other than the First Truth, since they are created realities. Therefore, the First Truth alone is not the object of faith.

*To the third doubt it is answered that, insofar as faith can depend upon a created cause, it can also have some created rule. Now it is evident that two things concur in faith, as will become clear below: namely, assent, and the proposal and explanation of the things to be believed. On the side of assent, faith depends upon God alone as efficient cause, object, end, and rule. But on the side of the proposal of the things to be believed, it can depend upon angels and men, through whom God proposes this or that to be believed. Hence, from this point of view, faith comes by hearing the word of God, as is said in Romans 10. Therefore, lest error should occur in proposing and explaining the things to be believed, the Holy Spirit has provided an infallible created rule, namely, the judgment and doctrine of the Church, so that the authority of the Church is the infallible rule for proposing and explaining those things that must be held by faith. Thus, since two infallible rules concur in faith, namely, divine revelation and the authority of the Church, there is this great difference between them: divine revelation is the formal reason of the object of faith, whereas the authority of the Church is the minister of the object of faith. For the act of faith is joined to its material object, that is, the things believed, through this medium, namely, that God has spoken or revealed them. And the habit of faith itself inclines the mind to assent to the things proposed because God has so revealed them. But we believe that this or that, understood in this or that sense, has been revealed because the Church so hands it down. Again, divine revelation is an infallible rule belonging to faith per se; whereas the judgment of the Church belongs to faith only per accidens, that is, on account of us, to whom these things are proposed. For the angels, to whom God Himself revealed and explained the mystery of the Trinity, had no need of this rule. Likewise, the first Fathers, to whom the mysteries of faith were revealed, had no need of this rule for the same reason, namely, because God Himself revealed these things to them and gave them the understanding of them by enlightening their minds, as is shown below in the treatise On Prophecy."

Thus far Cardinal Cajetan commenting on article 1 of the first question, in which St. Thomas, speaking of the formal object of faith in itself, defines it as Nihil aliud quam Veritas Prima. When he then comments on article 3 of the fifth question, in which St. Thomas, defining the formal object of our faith, appears as though he were correcting the statement Nihil aliud quam Veritas Prima, while in fact doing nothing more than introducing an addition or condition that belongs not to the formal object of faith in itself, but to the formal object of our faith, Cajetan writes:

"In the third article of the same fifth question two great doubts arise. One is how it is to be understood that the doctrine of the Church is an infallible rule, such that whoever departs from it departs from the formal reason of the object of faith. But since this has already been explained in the first question, article one, there is no need of repetition, but only of an addition. For the Church is a rule in proposing and explaining the things to be believed, modifying the divine Truth as Revealer in this respect, at least for us. Therefore, whoever departs from the condition modifying the formal reason, namely, the divine revealing Truth, departs from the formal reason of the object of faith. Thus, one departs from the formal reason of the object of faith not only because one departs from the rule of the Church by rejecting one revealed article, as we said above, but also because one departs from the condition or mode of the formal reason of the object of faith with respect to us. And this corresponds plainly to the meaning of the text. For it posits the First Truth in Scripture and in the doctrine of the Church as the formal reason of faith: the First Truth indeed as the very reason for believing; but the manifestation through Scripture and the Church as the condition by which the First Truth proposes and explains itself and the other things to be believed. Such a condition, although with respect to faith simply considered it does not belong to the integrity of the formal object of faith (as is clear in the case of the faith of the first man, had he remained alone forever, and in the faith of the angels during their earthly state), nevertheless does belong to the integrity of the formal object OF OUR FAITH." ²³

151. LET US HEAR BAÑEZ.—"Third conclusion: The testimony of the Church, insofar as it is governed by the Holy Spirit and insofar as believing the Holy Catholic Church is one of the articles of faith, is that into which our faith is ultimately resolved with regard to the distinction and explication of the things to be believed. For the understanding of this, note that the conclusion is understood of our faith, we who have not received the revelation from God immediately with the distinction of the things to be believed"²⁴ "For we gladly confess that the testimony of the Church determines the potentiality of the light of faith with regard to proposing and distinguishing those things which pertain to faith"²⁵ "Secondly, it is answered that in the acquired sciences there are many material means which vary according to the variety of the quiddity and essence of things for inferring distinct conclusions. But nevertheless in faith there are not many means, neither formal nor material, for assenting to the things revealed by God: but all things are immediately believed from divine revelation manifested through the ministry of the Church"²⁶

152. LET US HEAR JOHN OF ST. THOMAS.—"A heretic does not accept divine testimony as proceeding from God, but as it seems to him, and therefore he does not lean on divine testimony, but is borne toward the thing testified from his own judgment, by which he persuades himself that that thing was said by God, not through that medium by which God speaks, namely through the Church; hence he believes fallibly, because dependently on his own judgment, by which he wishes to discern divine testimony, and this judgment is fallible; hence if it seems good to him, he will change it and will not believe; wherefore the heretic does not regard divine testimony as from God, and in the manner in which it is from God, but as subject to his own fallible judgment; and therefore such faith of the heretic is not infused by God, but acquired by himself, like other human faith"²⁷

We recommend that the reader meditate carefully on the preceding paragraph, substituting the word haereticus with theologus, if he wishes to understand well what kind of faith must be given to the virtual inclusive (or formal confusum of Suárez), or to any other theological conclusion before the definition of the Church. But let us continue by quoting John of St. Thomas:

“But if you insist: therefore faith does not have as its formal reason the testimony of God, but rather the proposition of the Church. The consequence is proved, because this man is not a heretic because he denies the testimony of God, but because he does not accept the proposition of the Church... It is answered that the heretic denies and destroys the true testimony of God by denying the proposition of the Church to which the true testimony of God is attached, not as to the formal reason, but as to the applying condition and instrument of the divine testimony. Nor is it required, in order to destroy a form, that one oppose it directly; it is sufficient to destroy the necessary conditions without which such a thing cannot subsist. Thus, one who removed obscurity from faith would destroy faith, although obscurity is only a condition; and one who destroys the dispositions required for the soul to be in the body kills the man.” ²⁸

“Faith is not directed to the proposition of things as made by this or that particular proposer, who is an inferior minister and can err or be deceived, nor does he possess the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit. Rather, it is directed immediately to the proposition of the Catholic Church, as it comes from the Pontiff, who cannot err. Therefore, if what such a minister proposes is false, faith is not endangered, because it does not elicit assent concerning the thing proposed absolutely and as proposed by that minister, but as it is proposed by the Church; and this is virtually included in every act of believing. Thus, if such a thing has not been defined, it is not believed by him. But if someone assents to that thing absolutely, and without presupposing the condition that it has truly been defined by the Catholic Church, he does not believe with infused faith but with acquired faith.” ²⁹

“The material object of faith, that is, the thing to be believed and attained through such a revelation, in order to be matter of faith, requires two conditions, which St. Thomas explains here. First, that such a thing be not evident... The second condition required for the matter of faith, which pertains to our present purpose, is that it be proposed by the Catholic Church and by her Head, in whom resides the infallible rule of faith and of those things that pertain to faith. This is what we are treating here. In order that you may understand this, note that this condition and this visible rule are not required in faith in just any way, but in relation to us, because God does not speak to us immediately, nor does He immediately propose revealed truths by Himself, but through the mediation of men... But if God were also to propose immediately to us those things that are to be believed, there is no doubt that we would have no need of a visible rule proposing them, but would be certified immediately by the very Spirit of God concerning the matter proposed for belief, just as the Apostles and Prophets were instructed, who did not receive these things from the Church, but rather themselves handed down the matters of faith to the Church.” ³⁰sunt, qui non ab Ecclesia acceperunt, sed ipsi potius tradiderunt Ecclesiae res fidei”³¹.

153. GONET AND CONTENSON.—Let us likewise hear the commentary of two other Thomists, Gonet and Contenson: “A believer cannot assent to God revealing His mysteries, unless the divine revelation be proposed to him and made known through the Church”³². “The formal reason of faith is divine revelation as notified through the altogether infallible doctrine of the Church, so that such doctrine and the persuasion of its infallibility is a condition altogether necessary for us in order that divine revelation may move our intellect to assent to the truths revealed by God”³³. “Wherefore divine authority is the formal reason of believing: ecclesiastical authority, however, is the condition without which we would by no means believe: just as proposed goodness is the motive attracting and drawing the will to itself; but the proposal of goodness exhibited by the intellect is the condition without which the goodness shown would in no way ensnare the will”³⁴. “The second condition of the object of faith is: formal or virtual revelation declared by the Church. The object of faith must be not only virtually, but formally revealed, or at least expressly declared by the Church... and then the proposition begins to pertain to the object of our faith, not precisely because it is virtually revealed: but because, since it is virtually revealed, it is formally declared by the Church and drawn forth from an article”³⁵.

154. THE SALMANTICENSES.—The same Salmanticenses, who in this matter of the virtual revealed or theological conclusion employed, as we said elsewhere, the nomenclature of Suárez, and even came to admit the doctrine of the two assents, although only for conclusions deduced from two premises of faith (80-85), remained, nevertheless, faithful and profound expositors of the doctrine of St. Thomas on the question of the relations of the authority of the Church with our faith.

For this, note that the formal motive of believing by theological faith is not the testimony of God taken in a signified sense, but as applied to the article which we believe by such faith... Hence, in order that the assent of faith may become certain and firm, and may consequently be elicited by theological faith, it is necessary that the testimony of God be certainly and infallibly applied: otherwise, the aforesaid assent will waver on this part. Moreover, that this application may be certain and infallible, it can happen in a twofold manner: in one way, by the fact that a man evidently knows that divine revelation or

Deum sibi loqui, as happened to the prophets and to those who received knowledge of the mysteries of faith immediately from God. In another way, insofar as the aforesaid revelation is asserted and applied through an infallible rule established for this purpose by God, which is the Church. Hence, the formal motive of theological faith with respect to us is the testimony of God proposed and applied through the Church, so that the aforesaid testimony is the formal reason for believing; while the proposition or application made by the Church is a necessary condition so that the aforesaid testimony is applied infallibly... For since theological faith is an intellectual virtue, it entails an infallible ordering toward the true and cannot elicit a false assent: but in a heretic it cannot entail such an ordering, because for faith to entail an infallible ordering toward the true, it is not enough that the motive of assent be in itself infallible, but it is required that it be infallibly applied to the object of assent; indeed, it matters little that the motive be in itself infallible if it has no or only a contingent connection with the object; for this reason, many times an opinionable or contingent conclusion is inferred from a necessary principle, due to its non-necessary connection with the object. But the testimony of God, although in itself infallible, in a heretic cannot be infallibly applied to the object of assent: since such an application is not made through the evidence that the heretic has of divine revelation, nor is it made through the infallible rule of the Church... It remains, therefore, that the testimony of God is not applied with a certain and infallible application, either of evidence (of revelation) or of the Church's proposition; but that it is applied because he himself so judges³⁶

As we have already said, change in these texts the word haereticus to that of theologus, and it will be seen what kind of assent can be given to theological conclusions deduced by means of fallible human reasoning before the definition of the Church.

155. CARDINAL GOTTI.—To avoid wearying the reader with citations from other commentators, we shall conclude with the words of Cardinal Gotti, who, speaking of the twofold assent, theological and of faith, says: "There is not a twofold assent concerning a conclusion, one concerning it in itself, the other concerning it as inferred; for a conclusion, whether considered in itself or as inferred, always belongs to the same habit, namely, science*."* ³⁷ And concerning the necessity of the Church's definition for every act of our divine faith, he concludes: "These and other similar things can easily be inferred by the student of theology, provided he always keeps before his eyes that nothing can be immediately of faith unless it has been proposed by the universal Church as revealed in the word of God." ³⁸

156. SUMMARY.—In a word: for St. Thomas, in the act of divine faith nothing purely human can enter, but all its elements must be divine, and whatever is human must of necessity enter only as directed by God or as a mere instrument of the divine. Now, since faith has two elements, the object and its proposition or explanation, both elements must be divine. In immediate revelation, both elements are of themselves divine; both the revealed truth and its proposition and explanation come immediately from God; for those, therefore, who received immediate revelation, no Church is needed. But since in mediate revelation, although the revealed truth comes from God, its proposition and explanation comes from men, from a human element; for divine faith to be possible, that proposition and explanation must be made not by the fallible human reason (theology, exegesis, history, etc.), but by God Himself, that is, by the human reason assisted by God, or namely by the definition of the Church, which alone has the divine assistance, not to reveal anything new, but indeed to set forth and explain infallibly the revealed truth.

In this way, according to Saint Thomas, the Church becomes a true rule and a true reason why for every act of our divine faith. A rule and a reason why, not of our faith insofar as it is divine, or of divine faith in itself, but of divine faith insofar as it is ours. A rule and a reason why that conditions or modifies the First Truth itself or the revealed deposit, not in themselves, but in relation to us. A rule and a reason why, not of the formal object of faith, but of its proposition and explanation. A rule and a reason why, finally, as necessary for every act of our divine faith as the proposition of the object by the intellect is necessary for the act of the will, so that there can be no true act of will, but only of passion or sensitive appetite, when that proposition of the intellect is lacking and there is only the proposition of the lower order of the senses. The proposing or proximate rule must belong to the same order as that which is regulated.

Therefore, whoever performs an act against this rule of the Church's definition performs an act against divine faith: an act of heresy. Whoever performs an act without this rule performs an act without divine faith: an act of science or human faith.

All explanation, therefore, of the implicit or inclusive virtuality of the revealed deposit, made against the definition of the Church is a heretical explanation. Made without the definition of the Church, it is purely scientific or human. Made by the definition of the Church, it is a divine explanation, a dogma of faith.

The theological conclusions, then, arrived at through lesser reasonings that are inclusive or explicative (and even, in our judgment, those deduced from two revealed premises, although this is secondary for our purpose) do not belong to our faith, nor can they merit from anyone (without special divine revelation) a true act of divine faith, before the definition, whether by solemn magisterium or by ordinary magisterium, of the Church. Before that definition, they certainly possess the formal motive of our theology, which is the inclusive deduction from what is revealed; but they lack one of the indispensable conditions of the formal motive of our faith: the definition of the Church.

157. In the second section, when showing that what is mediately or virtually revealed, when it is implicit, becomes a matter of divine faith by definition of the Church, we concluded thus: “But then, is that not making the authority of the Church a formal element of divine faith? Is that not attributing to the Church the power to convert what is mediately or virtually revealed into something immediate or formal?” (134).

To the first of those two questions we have just responded in the previous section. There we believe we have shown that for Saint Thomas, the authority of the Church is not the formal motive of faith, as Durandus and Michael de Medina would have it, nor even part of the formal motive, as Lugo claims; but neither is it something necessary only for better being [ad melius esse] or for the simple faithful, as Vázquez and Suárez suggest, but rather it is, for the learned and the ignorant alike, a condition so necessary and indispensable of the formal motive of our faith, that without it no act of true divine faith concerning the revealed deposit is possible, apart from the case of a private revelation or of an extraordinary or miraculous intervention of God.

The importance of this doctrine is self-evident. All theologians agree that between divine faith and human faith there is an essential and most fundamental difference. All likewise agree, on the other hand, that between divine faith and Catholic faith the difference is most secondary and accidental. To make, then, the authority of the Church an element indispensable only for Catholic faith, but not for divine faith, as is frequently done today with Vázquez and Suárez, is to make the authority of the Church necessary, but necessary only for a most secondary and accidental thing; it is to make of it an element, not organic and of universal necessity, but of convenience or perfection. On the other hand, to make the authority of the Church an indispensable condition, not only for our Catholic faith, but also for our divine faith; not only for the simple or ignorant, but for every man, as St. Thomas does, is to make it an organic element; necessary, humanly irreplaceable.

God can today, as He always could, explain by Himself to a soul the revealed deposit, whether by employing the means of a private revelation, or by confirming with a miracle the explanation that one of His envoys gives of divine revelation. But setting aside that extraordinary case of divine intervention, no act of divine faith is possible, either for the ignorant or for the wise, regarding the meaning of the revealed deposit, without the authority or definition, by solemn magisterium or by ordinary magisterium, of the Church. Theology, exegesis, history, human reason, in a word, are instruments, and nothing more than human instruments or aids, in the explanation of the divine meaning of the revealed deposit. Employed not only against the authority of the Church, but also without her authority or definition, they can produce nothing more than human assent, of acquired faith or theological science; only the divine authority of the Church in proposing and explaining the meaning of the deposit can lead to an act of true divine faith. To the infidel and to the heretic of good faith the truth already taught by the Church can come; but never, according to Saint Thomas, can any man, whether infidel or heretic, whether simple Christian or learned Christian, make acts of divine faith on the doctrine that the Church has not yet taught or defined; never will any man, without an extraordinary privilege of God, have his divine faith more explicit than the Church has it. The Church, and not human reason, is the rule, not only of the conservation, but of the explanation of the revealed deposit; every explanation that reason alone makes of the deposit or of revealed principles is a human explanation, an assent merely and solely theological.

The sacred bridge, therefore, between the human and the divine, between theology and faith, is not the theologian's reason nor the least of his scientific reasoning, but the authority of the Church. Without that authority or definition there will be theological development or progress, never dogmatic; with that authority or definition there is progress not only theological, but also dogmatic, not only in individuals, but also in the entire Church. Not thereby is the Church the formal motive of faith, but she is indeed the intrinsic and indispensable condition of the formal motive of our faith, since she is so of the proposition and explanation of the divine deposit of revelation.

158. THE PASSAGE FROM THE MEDIATE OR VIRTUAL TO THE IMMEDIATE OR FORMAL. It remains to address the second question: whether granting the Church the authority to define as divine faith (and not merely as ecclesiastical faith) the theological-inclusive conclusions—conclusions which we have defended, and which for us are of mediate or virtual revelation—is not granting it the authority to convert into the immediate or formally revealed (without which there is no divine faith) that which is mediate or virtually revealed (without which there is no true and proper theological conclusion). For it is well known, and we have repeated it so many times, that, according to traditional theology, the immediate or formal revealed in se is the specific constituent of faith, just as the mediate or virtual revealed, or in alio, is the specific constituent of theology. To this end, it is necessary to examine carefully what St. Thomas and traditional theology understand by immediate and mediate.

159. IMMEDIATE AND MEDIATE PROPOSITIONS IN GENERAL.—Immediate, says St. Thomas with Aristotle, means only without a medium. An immediate proposition will therefore be every proposition in which between the predicate and the subject there exists no medium. From this the Holy Doctor deduces this general principle, which he so often repeats: "Every inclusive proposition, that is, every proposition whose predicate is included in the subject, or whose predicate is of the essence of the subject, is in itself immediate." Or in other words: "Every identical proposition is in itself immediate"¹.

160. REAL OR OBJECTIVE ORDER AND IDEAL OR INTELLECTUAL ORDER.—In God, the real and the ideal, the objective and the intellectual, the known and the means by which He knows it, are perfectly identified and adequate. In the judgments of the divine mind, the predicate is most perfectly identical and one with the subject; or more precisely stated: in God there is no composition of predicate and subject, there is no knowledge per modum compositionis et divisionis, there is no knowledge complexum per modum enuntiabilis, but rather a simple intuition infinitely comprehensive that embraces in a single Word all subjects and predicates, all principles and conclusions, all the reality and ideality of being. There, in the infinite sea of light of the divine mind, nothing is mediate, virtual, potential, notum per aliud; everything is immediate, formal, actual, per se notum. There there is no movement, no progress, no becoming whatsoever; by His existing and, therefore, His understanding and His acting, they are identified with His essence. It is the most perfect and absolute unity and adequacy between the real and the ideal, the objective and the intellectual.

In us it is not so. One thing is the known reality and quite another the idea or concept by which we know reality. The known and the believed, both in the order of science and in the order of faith, is reality and not only the idea; but that reality and that objectivity, already wrapped up or included in the datum or starting point of our knowledge, reach us only through partial and successive ideas or predicates that express something of the reality of the subject, but never fully correspond to it. The human idea, expressed in propositions, in subjects and predicates, in knowledge per modum enuntiabilis, in successive acts of judgments or reasonings, contains and expresses something of the objective reality of the subject, but does not exhaust it. That is a sign of the weakness of our intellect; but that is, at the same time, the indispensable basis of our progress in all orders of intellectual life. Because we are not pure act like God, we do not know the whole reality and ideality of being, but only a small part of it; because we are not purely intellectual, like the angels, but rational, that very small part of being and ideality that we know, we know through an abstractive and not intuitive idea; through judgments or reasonings that imply succession and progress, not through simple vision or understanding that grasps from the beginning everything included in the natural or revealed object, nor everything that over time we can come to know about it. Our knowledge is abstractive, imperfect, successive, discursive.

161. SENTENCES OF THE ANGELIC DOCTOR.—Although this is evident, let us cite some texts from Saint Thomas: “In God, the intellect that understands, and that which is understood, and the very act of understanding, are entirely one and the same”² “Hence, since God sees all things in Himself as in their cause, His knowledge is not discursive³. “Just as God knows material things immaterially and composite things simply, so He knows enunciable things not in the manner of enunciables, but He understands each thing by simple intelligence; as if we, by the very fact that we understand what man is, understood all things that can be predicated of man. This indeed does not happen in our intellect, because it discourses from one thing to another, due to the fact that the intelligible species (the concept or idea) so represents one thing that it does not represent another. Hence, in understanding what man is, we do not thereby understand in it the other things that belong to it, but separately according to a certain succession. And for this reason, the things we understand separately and distinctly we must reduce to unity by way of composition and division, forming an enunciation”⁴.

Just as in the angels essence is distinguished from existence and, therefore, from operation, their real being is not the same as their ideal being; and, therefore, what is known is distinguished in them from the idea by which they know it. But since their essence, although not pure act, is not mixed with material potency or matter, which is what is opposed to knowledge, their understanding or their idea is not potential or successive, but actual and of simple intelligence. In them there is no discourse as in man, but simple intelligence. Although they do not know everything knowable, as God does, they know in a single act and from the beginning everything that is knowable by them in their idea or proper object. Their mode of understanding resembles that of God, not that of man.

“Sic igitur et inferiores intellectus, namely of men (not only of the ignorant, but of the wise; not only of simple believers, but of the greatest theologians) through a certain movement and discursive reasoning of intellectual operation attain perfection in the knowledge of truth (whether natural, supernatural, or of faith), namely, while they proceed from one known thing to another known thing. If, however, they immediately saw in the very knowledge of the known principle (the natural or revealed datum) all the consequent conclusions as it were known, discursive reasoning would have no place in them. And this is the case in angels (and in those who received revelation immediately and fully from God, such as the Apostles), because immediately in those things which they know naturally, they see all things whatsoever that can be known, and therefore they are called intellectual, because among us those things which are immediately grasped naturally are said to be understood: whence intellect is called the habit of first principles. However, human souls (of the theologian as of the simple believer) rationales vocantur: which indeed happens from the weakness of the intellectual light in them. For if they had the fullness of intellectual light, as the angels do (or as the Apostles), they would immediately, at the first sight of the principles (that is, of the articles of faith, if we are dealing with the supernatural order), comprehend their entire force, by intuiting whatever could be syllogized from them”⁵.

Let us continue citing the Holy Doctor on the difference between our discursive knowledge and angelic or infused knowledge, the basis of the difference between our faith and faith in itself: “Ex eodem provenit quod intellectus noster intelligit discurrendo, et componendo et dividendo”⁶. “The human intellect necessarily has to understand by composing and dividing. For since the human intellect passes from potency to act (from the virtual to the formal), it has a certain likeness to generable things (vital or organic progress) which do not immediately have their perfection, but acquire it successively. And likewise the human intellect does not immediately in its first apprehension (the natural or revealed datum) grasp the perfect knowledge of the thing: but it first apprehends something (the explicit revealed formal element); for man would not assent by believing in certain propositions unless he understood them in some way” (2-2, q. 8, a. 2, ad 2). “Faith cannot pass into act unless it believes something determinately and expressly” (In 3 Sent., dist. 25, q. 2, a. 1 de ipsa); namely, the quiddity (the articles) of the very thing which is the first and proper object of the intellect, and then it understands the properties (the intellectual and the real virtuality) and the accidents and the relationships surrounding the essence of the thing. And according to this, it has to compose and divide one thing apprehended with another and from one composition and division to another proceed, which is to reason. But the angelic and divine intellect (and the Apostles by infused light) immediately and perfectly possess the whole knowledge of the thing. Hence, by knowing the quiddity of the thing (the primitive datum), it knows at once about the thing whatever we can know by composing and dividing and reasoning”⁷.

This mode of knowing “per modum compositionis et divisionis, per modum complexi, per modum enuntiabilis” which conditions our knowledge and distinguishes it from knowledge in itself, that is, the knowledge of pure or simple intelligences, also conditions our faith and distinguishes it (not as regards its object, but as regards its mode of proposition or explanation) from faith in itself, that is, from the faith of the angels, of the prophets and apostles, and of all those who, without any veiled or obscure representation, without any composition or division, without any discourse or argumentation, see and will see God face to face in the beatific vision.

received immediately from God the divine revelation. Hence the Holy Doctor, just as at the head of the treatise De Deo he placed the question: “Utrum Deum esse sit per se notum,” because on it depends the whole nature of our knowledge of God, so at the very beginning of his treatise De Fide he places this other correlative question: “Utrum obiectum fidei sit aliquid complexum PER MODUM ENUNTIABILIS. Respondeo dicendum quod cognita sunt in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis. Est autem modus proprius humani intellectus ut componendo et dividendo veritatem cognoscat, sicut in prima parte dictum est. Et ideo ea quae secundum se simplicia sunt, intellectus humanus cognoscit secundum quandam complexionem... Sic ergo obiectum fidei dupliciter considerari potest: uno modo ex parte ipsius rei creditae; et sic obiectum fidei est aliquid incomplexum: scilicet res ipsa de qua fides habetur. Alio modo ex parte credentis, et secundum hoc obiectum fidei est aliquid complexum per modum enuntiabilis... Actus autem credentis non terminatur ad enuntiabile, sed ad rem. Non enim formamus enuntiabilia, nisi ut per ea de rebus cognitionem habeamus, sicut in scientia, ita in fide...”⁸

**162. FIRST COROLLARY.—**In every proposition, then, one thing is the objective reality of the subject and the predicate, and another is the partial concepts that we form of that reality. From one and the same objective reality we can go on forming multiple concepts, using some to deduce others. All of them are really found in the subject, but none of them equals or exhausts it.

**SECOND COROLLARY.—**Since an immediate proposition is one that is known without a medium, and since there are two kinds of medium, a real or objective medium and an intellectual or conceptual medium, there will be different kinds of immediate or mediate propositions, according as the medium we need to know them is really distinct or conceptually distinct from the predicate and the subject. Or in other words: there will be different kinds of propositions according as between the predicate and the subject there exists a distinction or identity real or only a distinction or identity conceptual, which is what is called virtual or rationis ratiocinatae.

Only three combinations are possible, then: first, propositions of identity not only real, but also conceptual; second, propositions of distinction not only conceptual, but also real; third, propositions of identity real, but of distinction conceptual. Or in other terms: propositions really and conceptually immediate, propositions really and conceptually mediate, propositions really immediate, but conceptually mediate. Or as St. Thomas calls them: propositions immediate in themselves and in relation to us, propositions not immediate neither in themselves, nor in relation to us, propositions immediate in themselves, but mediate in relation to us. Let us examine them briefly.

163. IMMEDIATE PROPOSITIONS "IN THEMSELVES" AND "IN RELATION TO US".—Every proposition in which not only is the reality of the predicate included in the reality of the subject, but also the idea that we have of the predicate is identified with the idea that we have of the subject, is not only a real proposition, but also an intellectually immediate one; it is not only immediate in itself, but immediate in relation to us. Thus the propositions the whole is greater than its part, man is a rational animal, all points on a circumference are equidistant from the center, the son was begotten by his father, are propositions not only real, but also intellectually immediate. Because not only is the reality of the predicate identified with that of the subject, but the idea of the predicate is the same as that of the subject, only explained in different terms. The idea of generation enters not only into the reality, but into the idea or definition of the son; the idea of part enters into the definition of the whole; the idea of the equidistance of the points enters into the idea or definition of the circumference; the idea of rational animal enters into the idea or definition of man. The predicates of these propositions are not distinct ideas from the idea of the subjects: they are the same idea or concept of the subject expressed in different words. Between the predicate and the subject of this class of propositions, the distinction is neither real nor intellectual or virtual, but only nominal or of reasoning reason. They are propositions of simple intelligence, not of science or reason. To know or demonstrate them, no true reasoning is needed, but merely an explanation of terms; and if the form of reasoning is ever employed, it is improper reasoning, of pure form, merely explanatory. Without at least a virtual distinction between the subject and the predicate or between the middle and the extremes, no proper or true reasoning is possible (27). The predicate in these propositions is known through the same concept as the subject: they are known without any middle term.

164. MEDIATE PROPOSITIONS "QUOAD SE" AND "QUOAD NOS".—There are propositions in which between the predicate and the subject there is not only an intellectual or virtual distinction, but also a real or objective one; in which not only the concepts of the predicate and subject are distinct, but also the realities expressed by them; in which, therefore, in order to know or demonstrate them, our intellect needs a means that is not only intellectually distinct, but really distinct. The propositions every body is actually impenetrable or every heavy body actually falls toward the center are mediate propositions, not only intellectually, but really; not only mediate quoad nos, but also quoad se. The means by which impenetrability belongs to a body is not the essence or definition of the body, but its extension, which is really distinct from actual impenetrability, and can even exist without it. The means by which falling toward the center belongs to a heavy body is not its essence, but attraction or gravity, which is really distinct from falling toward the center and can exist without it. In such propositions, even if the essence of the subject is known by evidence or by revelation, never by that alone can one know with absolute or theological certainty the actual existence of the predicate. In such propositions, once the subject is revealed, the predicate is not thereby revealed, nor is the conclusion revealed once the principle is revealed. To such propositions, not only for us, but also in themselves, does not apply, as it does to those of the first and third group, that which says that once the predicate is destroyed the subject is destroyed, or once the conclusion is destroyed the principle is destroyed (*Ista est habitudo conclusionis ad principium, quod interempta conclusione, interimitur principium (ST. THOMAS, In Post. Analyt., lect. 38); for in the propositions of this second group the predicate or conclusion can absolutely fail, without the subject or principle thereby necessarily failing. It is these propositions or conclusions that constitute the inferior and contingent physical sciences, because they are not founded on objective or essential identity, but on pure physical connection without objective implication (37, 98).

165. IMMEDIATE PROPOSITIONS REALLY OR “QUOAD SE”, BUT MEDIATE CONCEPTUALLY OR “QUOAD NOS”.—This third group is the most important: these are the famous propositions per se notae quoad se, but not per se notae quoad nos, of which St. Thomas speaks so often, and which constitute the true and rigorous conclusions of the sciences of absolute certainty (mathematics, metaphysics, and theology); these are the bridge of union or objective continuity between the intellectus and the ratio in the natural order, or between faith and theology in the supernatural or revealed order: these are the key to dogmatic progress.

Indeed, there are propositions in which the objective reality of the predicate is included in that of the subject, and therefore they are objectively or in themselves immediate, but in which the concept that we form of the predicate is not immediately included in the concept we form of the subject, and which therefore are conceptually mediate or for us. In themselves they belong to the intellectus or intuition, but for us they belong to science or reason⁹

Thus, for example, the propositions "God exists" or "the rational soul is spiritual" are identical or inclusive propositions in themselves, and, therefore, really or in themselves immediate, because between the predicate and the subject there is no real distinction, there is no real middle term. But these same propositions are intellectually mediate, mediate for us, that is, for every human intelligence; they are, as the ancients said, "per se notae quoad se," but "non per se notae quoad nos." Between the predicate and the subject there is no real distinction, but there is a virtual one or one of concepts. The predicate is really included in the subject, but it is not formally so for us. For us to see the predicate included in the subject, the idea we have of the subject and predicate is not enough, but we must resort to another idea, to another means; resulting therefrom not a knowledge of simple intelligence or intuition (which never consists of more than the two ideas of the subject and predicate), but a knowledge of science or demonstration, which is the knowledge that results from three ideas or concepts, the ideas of subject and predicate along with that of the middle term, which in logic are called the major, minor, and middle terms. If this middle term is a reality distinct from the reality of the extremes, we have the poor, inferior, contingent physical sciences; if that middle term is really identical, but virtually or intellectually distinct, we have the superior, necessary, sublime mathematical-metaphysical-theological sciences. Thus, to know the eternity of God one must resort to the means of His absolute immutability; to know the immortality of the human soul one must resort to the means of its immateriality or independence in acting and in being. These are mediate kinds of knowledge for the human intelligence; they are scientific, not of simple intelligence or pure nominal explanation; they are what the great Scholastics always called virtual or "per causam"; although by being really identical or of the superior sciences of intellectual or conceptual analysis, the medium or cause or minor proposition that we employ cannot be physical-connective, but rather metaphysical-inclusive.

166. FIRST COROLLARY.—Let us not forget that fundamental distinction between the immediate or mediate in itself or in the real order, and the immediate or mediate as far as we are concerned or in the intellectual order. Between the intellectual immediate and mediate there is no real distinction at all, but there is a virtual distinction or a distinction of concepts. Between the real or objective immediate and mediate there is a distinction not only of aspects or concepts, but a real or objective distinction. To convert the real mediate into the real immediate, it would be necessary to add new reality, to increase the primitive objectivity. To convert the intellectual mediate into the intellectual immediate, it is not at all necessary to modify the reality or objectivity of the primitive datum; rather, it is necessary to change the mode or means of knowledge, knowing by a means of simple intelligence or without discourse the same thing that previously was known only by means of science or discourse.

167. SECOND COROLLARY.—Everything said regarding the relation between predicate and subject in propositions applies, without changing a iota, to the relation between conclusions and principles in reasonings and demonstrations; for, as St. Thomas teaches, and is self-evident, the relation of the conclusion to the principle in demonstration is exactly the same as that of the predicate to the subject in the proposition ¹⁰. The conclusions will, therefore, be really immediate or mediate or intellectually immediate or mediate according as there is or is not between the conclusion and the principle a real distinction or a virtual distinction, which will depend on whether the middle term employed is really or virtually distinct from the extremes. On the other hand, if the middle term is neither really nor virtually distinct from the extremes, but distinct only with a nominal distinction or a distinction of reasoning reason, then there is no proper reasoning, but an improper one or as to form, and the conclusion is not a true conclusion, but a principle explained with other words ¹¹.

There are, therefore, in the conclusions the same three groups that we have mentioned in the propositions: first, conclusions immediate, not only really, but also intellectually; second, conclusions mediate, not only intellectually, but also really; third, conclusions really or in themselves immediate, but mediate for us, that is, for the human reason.

The first are of improper reasoning or nominal explanation; the second are of proper reasoning, but of pure physical-distinct connection; the third are also of proper reasoning, but of inclusive connection (24-28).

The first are not properly conclusions, but principles in the form of conclusions, and belong to simple understanding; the second are true conclusions, and belong to the contingent physical sciences; the third are also true conclusions, and belong to the true and necessary sciences of a higher order, to the only rigorously true sciences—mathematical, metaphysical, and theological (36-41).

168. ANSWER TO THE QUESTION.—From what has been said, it is now easy to answer the question of whether the Church converts or can convert the mediately revealed into the immediately revealed. The answer must be negative or affirmative depending on whether we are dealing with the mediate non-inclusive type, such as the mediate or virtual type of the fourth kind, introduced by Suárez and Lugo, or with the mediate inclusive type, such as are all the other five kinds of the mediate or virtual, and in which St. Thomas always made the true and rigorous revealed virtuality or theological conclusion consist (102).

If the question concerns the mediate non-inclusive [truth], in which the predicate of the minor is not objectively included in the essence of the subject, and therefore the conclusion is not objectively included or implicit in the revealed major, it is clear that the Church does not convert nor can convert such a mediate [truth] into an immediate one. Such a mediate [truth] is not objectively revealed, because it is not included or implicit in the revealed major. To convert, therefore, such a mediate [truth] into an immediate one, defining it as of divine faith, would be equivalent to converting what is not revealed into what is revealed and objectively increasing¹² the deposit of revelation. Not even God Himself can do this, except by a new revelation. Therefore, to defend the definability of divine faith of such a mediate [truth], Suárez was consistent in appealing to new revelations. For this reason also were the Salmanticenses and Billuart logical, and all Thomists are so, in denying the definability of faith of the mediate or virtual [truth] understood in this way.

But if it is a question of the mediate inclusive, such as are all rigorous theological conclusions, it is evident that the Church can convert and does convert such a mediate into an immediate. The inclusive mediate, as we have seen, is only mediate quoad nos, but it is immediate quoad se. "Any proposition whose predicate is included in the definition (the essence) of the subject is immediate as far as it is concerned... Just as in the reasoning intellect the conclusion is compared to the principle, so in the composing and dividing intellect the predicate is compared to the subject" (D. THOMAS) (159-167). To convert, therefore, such a mediate into an immediate means nothing more than to convert what is revealed immediately quoad se into what is revealed immediately quoad nos, a thing which all theologians have always recognized that the Church can do. That is, then, everything and only what the Church does when she defines as of divine faith the virtual implicit or inclusive theological conclusions.

When, therefore, all Thomists, and even all theologians prior to Molina, affirmed that the Church can define and has defined as of divine faith not only what is immediately revealed, but also what is mediately revealed, and when they affirmed that not all our dogmas were contained immediately in the revealed deposit, but that some were contained only mediately or virtually, they spoke a great truth, because they understood this of what is truly inclusive in the mediate sense or of what is truly implicit in the virtual sense.

Because all these statements mean no more than that not all dogmas were revealed to us in themselves, but that some were revealed to us only in others, from which human reason cannot deduce or know them except through its own rigorous reasoning, although reasoning by inclusion. They mean no more than that not all dogmas were contained according to their own concept under which they are defined, but according to another concept really identical, yet virtually distinct, by which they are known and deduced. It means no more than that the dogmatic definition of the Church supplies to human intelligence not a new matter or reality or object not revealed, but a new means of knowing the matter or object primitively revealed. These truths or concepts virtually or mediately revealed, but truly revealed, are not known before the dogmatic definition except through the theological medium, which is the deduction from the revealed; or in other words, reasoned revelation; or in other words, revelation explained by reason. Whereas these same truths, after the dogmatic definition, are no longer known by another means distinct from that of faith, but by the very means of faith itself, which is revelation explained by the Church. Before the definition, those truths were mediately revealed or mediately of faith, because although they proceed from greater revealed truths or truths of faith, they proceed through lesser truths or means of reason, and reasoning or deduction is not the means of faith, but of science. After the definition they are known through the very means of faith, and that means is not revelation alone, much less reasoned revelation, but revelation explained by the Church: Veritas Prima per Ecclesiam manifestata (156).

Because before the definition they were known by another means than that of faith, they were and were called mediate; because after the definition they are no longer known by another means but by the same means of faith, they are and are called immediate. At the same time, because before the definition they already had the same objectivity (res cognita) as the revealed principles, but they only had the means of knowledge (medium cognitionis) of theology, they were materially of faith or definable matter of faith, but formally theological. Because after the definition they have not only the same objectivity as the principles of faith, but also the same means of knowledge, they are no longer only matter of faith, but formally and immediately of faith. "Every cognitive habit, FORMALLY REGARDS THE MEANS BY WHICH IT KNOWS: BUT MATERIALLY THAT WHICH IS KNOWN THROUGH THE MEANS"¹³. "THE FORMAL REASON OF THE OBJECT IN FAITH, HOWEVER, IS THE FIRST TRUTH MADE MANIFEST THROUGH THE CHURCH: JUST AS THE FORMAL REASON OF SCIENCE IS THE MEANS OF DEMONSTRATION"¹⁴.

169. SCOTIST ORIGIN OF VÁZQUEZ'S AND MOLINA'S EXTREME POSITIONS.—Let the reader now permit us a brief digression to show how in that third group of inclusive propositions (165) the dividing line arises between St. Thomas and Scotus regarding the nature and specific distinction between the intellectus and the ratio in the natural order, which are faith and theology in the revealed order. St. Thomas says: "Those inclusive propositions are immediate in themselves, but mediate for us; they are in themselves of simple intelligence, but for us they are of science or reasoning; and since the reality or thing in itself is the material element in every habit, and the means by which we know the reality is the formal element, those propositions are materially of intelligence, but formally of reason or science" (123).

Escoto, with whom Vázquez and Molina sympathized on this point, says: "Every objective proposition (since we are not speaking of the purely logical order) is either immediate in itself and for us, or it is immediate neither for us nor in itself; or it belongs materially and formally to the intellectus, or it belongs materially and formally to reason or science. With respect to objective reality or to the purely logical or formal proposition, there is a middle ground; with respect to the objective proposition, there is none. All objective propositions are either wholly immediate or wholly mediate” ¹⁵.

Up to this point it might have seemed a mere technical question, a divergence of terminology between the two great geniuses of Scholasticism over an insignificant point in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In reality, although it would be easy to show the relationship that this divergence bears to the most serious problems of ancient and modern philosophy, all that would matter little were it not that it has and has had a close connection with the problems and theories concerning faith, theology, dogmatic progress, and the authority of the Church.

Since revealed truth is not communicated to us through purely logical or symbolic propositions, nor through divinely realities immanently experienced, as modernism claims, but rather through conceptual-objective propositions, as Catholicism teaches, the same question that had arisen in the Posterior Analytics concerning the nature of those objective propositions known by divine revelation arises anew regarding their nature: ¹⁶

the propositions known by natural reason. Those propositions or conclusions that are found in revelation by way of or through inclusive virtuality—are they immediately or mediately revealed? Do they belong to the intellectus or to the ratio? Are they of faith or of theology? Do they represent for human intelligence divine values, or do they represent only human values or, at most, ecclesiastical values?

A true Thomist must say: All those propositions or conclusions of revealed-inclusive virtuality are immediate or of faith in themselves; but they are mediate or of theology for us as long as we know them only through the human medium of reasoning. If the divine authority of the Church did not exist, if for explaining them or developing their inclusive virtuality there were no other means than fallible human reasoning, that virtuality would never come to acquire for us divine values or those of faith.

Scotist theory must say and does say: Such propositions are either immediately revealed in themselves and to us, or they are not so either to us or in themselves. They are either de fide in themselves and to us (Scotus and Vázquez), or they are not so either to us or in themselves (Molina). They are either de fide in themselves and to the theologian, without the need for the intervention of the Church’s definition (Vázquez), or they are not so either to the theologian or in themselves, even if the Church defines them (Molina).

The theological reason or minor premise, says Vázquez, is worth for the theologian in this matter what the authority of the Church is worth for the believer: if they are immediate or of faith for the believer after the Church defines them, they must be immediate or of faith for the theologian when his reason deduces them with evidence.

The authority of the Church, says Molina, is worth no more to the faithful in this matter than the authority of the theologian. If the conclusions are not immediate or of faith, even if the theologian deduces them with evidence, neither are they so even if the Church defines them.

Thomists must say, and do say: those propositions and conclusions are of immediate revelation in themselves, but of mediate revelation for human reason, for the simple faithful no less than for the theologian; but in this matter, in this explication of the implicitly revealed virtuality, in this unfolding of what is included in the deposit, the authority of the Church is essentially distinct from and infinitely superior to the authority or private reasoning of the theologian. The former is divine authority, the latter is human authority. The explication of the implicit virtuality of those revealed propositions, made by the theologian's reason, is a human explication of the divine revelation, and, therefore, a subjectively fallible explication, a theological explication. The explication made by the divine assistance of the Holy Spirit to the Church is a divine explanation of divine revelation; it belongs, therefore, immediately to divine faith; it is true development, but divine or dogmatic development.

These three theories of St. Thomas, of Vázquez, and of Molina are, as we said, the only three that have existed and that are possible regarding the definability of faith of inclusive virtuality (87), and the last two have, in our judgment, the Scotist origin that we have just indicated and that is found in the two different theories that exist on the nature and distinction between the immediate and the mediate. Because these theories were not well distinguished, many authors after the sixteenth century have become entangled in the question of whether the Church converts mediate revelation into immediate revelation, without noticing that mediate revelation, if it is inclusive, is already immediate "quoad se," and the Church does nothing but explain it and propose it, whereby it is already immediate "quoad nos."

SCOTIST ORIGIN OF SUÁREZ'S "FORMAL CONFUSED".—The origin of Suárez's "formal confused" or "improper virtual" (73) is also found in Scotist doctrine. For Scotus, the reasoning of real identity is an "improper" reasoning or, as Scotus calls it, a "petition of principle," since in that reasoning there are not three terms but two. The Ferrariense, defending the doctrine of St. Thomas, rightly replies that, materially speaking, only two terms enter; but formally speaking, three enter, and therefore the reasoning is proper. Let us hear Scotus's objection and the Ferrariense's response:

“It is confirmed: because if such a proposition were self-evident, then in a demonstration in which the proposition is demonstrated through the definition of the subject, beyond the impossibility—namely, that what is indemonstrable would be demonstrated—there would be a begging of the question: because the same would be demonstrated through the same, and what is equally known through what is equally known.

In response to (Scotus), it is said that if all things are taken formally, there is no petitio principii there; because the same thing distinctly conceived is formally distinguished from itself confusedly conceived. If, however, they are taken materially, then there is a petitio principii, and there are only two terms there: because the middle term and the subject of the conclusion are materially the same¹⁷ 82.

The defect of Scotus, as later that of Vázquez, Suárez, and Lugo, was to treat these questions materially, when what specifically distinguishes between the habits of faith and of theology or of simple intelligence and reason is not the material, but the formal (123).

The known conclusion or the "res cognita"—allow us the repetition—is materially the same after, as before, the Church's definition; but the means of knowledge, or the medium cognitionis, is formally distinct. Before the Church's definition, the medium cognitionis was "revelation explained by the human reason of the theologian." After the definition, it is "revelation explained by the divine authority of the Church." "Formalis autem ratio in fide est veritas prima per Ecclesiam manifestata: sicut formalis ratio scientiae est medium demonstrationis" ¹⁸.

170. THE CONSERVATION AND EXPLANATION OF THE DEPOSIT.—The dogmatic magisterium of the Church has with respect to the revealed deposit two functions that the Vatican Council has very clearly indicated, and that the great exponent of dogmatic progress, Vincent of Lérins, had previously set forth with admirable clarity and beauty. These two functions are: first, to conserve the revealed deposit; second, to explain it; "sancte custodire et fideliter exponere" ¹. "If there are things anciently informed and begun, let him polish and refine them; if things already confirmed and defined, let him guard them" ².

Hence arise the two fundamental characteristics of the Catholic dogma: immutability and progress. Not only immutability as regards dogma and progress as regards discipline, as is commonly said, but immutability as regards dogma and progress as regards that very dogma itself, since as regards discipline, not only progress is possible, but also true transformation, by adding, removing, changing, reforming, and abolishing whatever may be fitting in purely disciplinary matters.

These two functions of preservation and explanation with regard to dogma itself are correlative, but distinct, and it is fitting to fix our attention carefully upon them ³.

Every living or progressive being, conserving itself, develops, and developing, conserves itself. Without the conservation of something fixed and identical, there would be not merely progress, but transformationist evolution; without the development or acquisition of something new, within that same conserved thing (for if it came from outside it would be addition and not pure development), there would be no real progress, but only nominal.

As in revelation, according to St. Thomas, there are two distinct elements, the object revealed and its proposition or explanation (139), God and the Apostles, in delivering to the Church the revealed deposit of Scripture and Tradition, delivered to her two things: first, a body of truths or propositions divinely revealed; second, a quantity or degree of explanation or explicit sense of those propositions. The primitive Church, therefore, received from the mouth of the Apostles the revealed object and the divine explanation of that object. This is the primitive datum, this is the starting point of dogmatic progress (55).

For there to be no transformism, it is necessary that this revealed object and this divine explanation be preserved substantially immutable; but for there to be true progress, and not merely verbal, it is necessary that this starting point develop, that is, that it acquire something new.

Given two things at the starting point—the revealed object and the divine explanation of that object—novelty can arise only through two channels: by an increase in new objects revealed, or by an increase in new divine explanation of the object already revealed. The former is not admitted by Catholic doctrine since the death of the Apostles; therefore, for there to be true progress, and not merely preservation of the revealed deposit, it is necessary to admit a new explanation or greater divine explanation of the revealed truth. That is the purpose of the Church's dogmatic authority; that is the second of the Church's two functions regarding the primitive datum; that is what the Church does in developing and defining the inclusive intellectual virtuality of the revealed deposit.

171. REDEFINITIONS AND DOGMATIC DEFINITIONS.—The Church’s definitions of faith or dogmatic authority must not, therefore, be conceived as repeating only the explanation already given by the Apostles and already possessed by the primitive Church. That is, without doubt, what the Church often does; but that is not properly definition, but rather redefinition; that does not properly belong to the second function of explaining, but rather to the first function of preserving, by repeating and solemnly proclaiming, the explanation already given by the Apostles themselves to the primitive Church. Rather, they must also be conceived as giving, by divine authority or assistance, a new explanation or a greater explanation regarding the explanation that the Apostles gave to the Church, resulting, therefore, in something new; not a new revealed object, nor a new revelation of the same object, but rather a new divine explanation of the very same object or deposit revealed by God to the Apostles and entrusted by them to the custody and explanation of the divine authority of the Church.

It is true, and we have already indicated it elsewhere (57), that the Church cannot give a greater dogmatic explanation than that which the Apostles received from God, but it is also true that it can have—and in fact has—a greater dogmatic explanation than that which the Apostles gave to the primitive Church.

172. FURTHER EXPLANATION THAT THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH.—The primitive Church was, then, in possession of two things: first, of a determined number of revealed articles; second, of a determined degree of divine explanation of those articles.

Future generations of Christians have found themselves, find themselves, and will find themselves until the end of the ages in possession of something new, of a third element that they acquire by virtue of the dogmatic authority of the Church. They find themselves, or we find ourselves, in possession, not of two, but of three things: first, the same revealed articles; second, the same explanation given of those articles by the Apostles. All of this the Church has preserved and will preserve unchanged and unchangeable, and to these two things corresponds the first function of preserving the deposit. But besides that we have a third thing, and it is a new explanation, which in no way contradicts the previous one nor comes from outside, but is drawn or deduced from within, and increases or develops, without changing it, the explanation given by the Apostles.

This third thing is what corresponds to the second function of explaining the deposit, of which Lirinensis and the Vatican Council speak. That new dogmatic explanation immediately passes to the first function of being preserved immutably as an integral and divine part or development of the deposit, so that from there new explanations and new preservations of what has been explained may emerge, which is what constitutes the true living, continuous, perennial, homogeneous progress of Catholic doctrine.

Of that dogmatic progress or development, human reason, with all its varied manifestations of theological, exegetical, critical, historical works, etc., etc., is nothing but a human and fallible instrument; the Church, with its ordinary or solemn magisterium, is likewise nothing but an instrument, although an instrument divinely assisted and infallible, and the Holy Spirit, who perpetually assists and guides the Church in the double progressive function of conserving and explaining what has been revealed is the author or principal cause.

173. GROWTH IN THE DOGMA ITSELF BY WAY OF EXPLANATION. From this it is clearly seen where the weakness lies in that common objection which many beginners are wont to raise against the evolution of dogma. They argue thus: "The formal object of dogma or of divine faith is divine revelation; but after the Apostles no new divine revelation is possible; therefore no new dogmas or dogmatic growth are possible."

If those theological novices paid more attention to the two elements that enter into the object of faith and to the two functions that the Church has, they would argue in this other way: The formal object of dogma or of divine faith is not only divine revelation, but also the divine explanation of what has already been revealed; and since the divine explanation of what has already been revealed can grow and does grow with the definition of the Church, therefore dogma can grow and does grow.

CAN IT BE SAID THAT THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH IGNORED SOME OF OUR CURRENT DOGMAS?—What is known only implicitly can be said in some way not to be known or to be ignored. “It must be said that just as something is believed implicitly, so it is known implicitly. That which is not known explicitly is said to be ignored” ⁴. “To believe explicitly is nothing other than to believe in the thing itself, so that it is the proximate object upon which the assent of faith falls: but to believe implicitly is to believe only in another, because what is thus believed is not really known, nor does the intellect form its own concept of the proposition which is said to be believed only implicitly, but of another in which it is contained” ⁵.

There is, therefore, no difficulty in saying that the primitive Church, setting aside the Apostles, ignored certain of our present-day dogmas, provided that by this is meant only that it did not know them explicitly, although it explicitly knew others in which such dogmas were implicitly contained.

When, therefore, the Councils or the Popes use the phrases “perpetuus Ecclesiae sensus,” “persuasum semper fuit in Ecclesia Dei,” “ab ipso Ecclesiae initio,” and others of the same kind, it is not absolutely necessary in every case to understand by those phrases that the Church knew or believed such a truth always explicitly, but rather in some cases it suffices that she knew and believed it implicitly in other truths which she already explicitly knew and believed, and in which that truth was implicitly contained. Speaking regarding the minor orders, Pesch expresses himself thus: “What the Council of Trent says: From the very beginning of the Church, the names and ministries of the following orders... are recognized as having been in use, refers to the time of Pope Cornelius: for it is certain that the Fathers of the Council had no such knowledge concerning earlier times”⁶. The Church, in teaching and defining, does not always need to rely on what is explicit, but can also rely on what is implicit in Scripture or Tradition.

But although it can be said that some dogmas were not explicitly believed or known in the first centuries, it would be false to say that such dogmas come neither from Sacred Scripture nor from divine Tradition, for then they could not be dogmas; just as it would be most imprudent to affirm without explanation that they were unknown, since that word, said without explanation, usually or can mean that they were denied or rejected by all. For this reason, the article Pensées sur la question de l'Union des Eglises, published in the newspaper "Roma e l'Orient", was justly censured by Pius X. Let us hear the Pope's words: "Nimirum ibi non minus temere quam falso huic opinioni fit aditus, dogma de processione Spiritus Sancti a Filio nequaquam ex ipsis verbis Evangelii profluere aut antiquorum Patrum fide comprobari: pariter imprudentissime in dubium revocatur utrum sacra de Purgatorio ac de Immaculata Conceptione B. Virginis dogmata a sanctis viris priorum saeculorum agnita fuerint"⁷. All dogmas, without exception, were known explicitly by the Apostles; and all are found, at least implicitly, in the apostolic statements that the early Church explicitly knew and believed.

174. THREE FACTORS THAT ENTER INTO OUR FAITH.—In the act of our divine faith in truths of the deposit of revelation, three factors intervene, although under different aspects: God, the Apostles, and the Church. We believe of the deposit of revelation or public revelation everything and only what was revealed by God to the Apostles, everything and only what was handed down by the Apostles to the Church, everything and only what the Church, by ordinary or solemn magisterium, teaches us. To appreciate accurately the distinct manner in which the authority of God, that of the Apostles, and that of the Church enter into this faith or revelation, one must recall two distinctions as elementary as they are important. First, that in divine revelation there enter two elements: a) the object revealed by God to the Apostles and by them handed over to the Church, and b) the proposition and explanation that the Church then gives us of that object. Second, that one thing is to be a mere organ or instrument, and quite another to be the originating source or principal cause.

God enters revelation or our faith as the originative source or principal cause, not only of every object revealed, but also of every divine sense or explanation of that object. No truth can be the object of true divine faith if it has not been really and truly revealed by God. No sense or explanation, even of truths really revealed, can be the object of divine faith if God, in revealing such truths, did not actually intend to say or signify such a sense or explanation.

Neither the Apostles nor any creature can be the source or principal cause of any divine or revealed truth, nor of the divine explanation of that truth. Every truth or every explanation of truth that originated in the Apostles and not in God would be human truth and human explanation, incapable of meriting divine faith. But although the Apostles have not been sources, either of the revealed object or of the divine explanation of that object, they have, on the other hand, been organs or divine instruments of both; that is, not only of the mere explanation of what was already revealed, but also of new objects revealed or new revelations. Through the Apostles the world received, not only the explanation of what was already revealed (as we now receive through the Church), but also new revealed truths or new revelations¹.

The Church agrees with the Apostles in that it cannot be the originating source either of new objects or revelations or of new explanation. It differs at the same time from the Apostles in that it cannot be the organ or instrument of new objects or revelations; but it agrees with the Apostles in being the organ of new explanation of the already revealed truth. Through the dogmatic magisterium of the Church we receive, not new objects or revelations, but rather new explanation (and not merely preservation) of the already revealed truth.

In summary: God is the principal source of new objects and new explanations; the Apostles are the organ of both new objects and new explanations; the Church is the organ of new explanations. As can be seen, this matter of new explanations pertains to God, to the Apostles, and to the Church.

175. COMPARISON WITH RESPECT TO NEW REVELATIONS.—When dealing, therefore, with comparing the authority of the Church with that of God or with that of the Apostles, the comparison can be established either with respect to new objects or revelations, or with respect to new explanations of already revealed truth.

If the comparison is made with respect to new objects or new revelations, the authority of the Church is evidently inferior to that of the Apostles and to that of God. While God revealed new truths to us, while the Apostles revealed or taught new truths to us, the Church cannot teach us new truths or objects, but rather its dogmatic magisterium is limited to the truths already revealed. But if the comparison is established, not with respect to new objects or revelations, but to new explanations of the truth already revealed, it can and must be said that the authority of the Church in this matter is the same as that of the Apostles and of God: divine authority.

To make this tangible, let us give an example. Let us transport ourselves to the end of the first century of the Church, when, the other Apostles being already dead, the beloved disciple of Jesus still lives in Ephesus, while in Rome a successor of Saint Peter, Saint Clement, for example, is the Head of the universal Church. In the Church at that moment there exist three means of arriving at divine truth: God (who can, if He so wishes, intervene extraordinarily and reveal or explain by Himself what has been revealed), the Apostle Saint John, and the Pope Saint Clement. The divine authority, the apostolic authority, and the authority of the Church. Let us compare them.

God obviously does not have His revealing authority limited to the revelations He already made to the Apostles, and He can, at the end of the first century, as He could on the day of Pentecost, reveal new truths; and if He had done so then, as if He were to do so now, God’s authority is always divine and the faith it merits is divine.

The Apostle Saint John, in turn, likewise does not have his authority limited to the truths already taught by the other Apostles, since the revelation of new truths, or at least their promulgation or teaching by the Apostles to the Church, was not closed until the death of the last Apostle, and those new truths that the Apostle might teach as revealed would be of divine faith and would merit divine faith². On the other hand, Pope Saint Clement has his dogmatic authority limited to the truths taught by the Apostles, without being able to teach dogmatically any truth not yet taught by the Apostles or not really contained in the revealed deposit; and if we suppose that he had taught such a truth, that truth or doctrine would not be divine, but ecclesiastical tradition, nor could it merit divine faith. As for new revelations, the authority of the Church is, therefore, less than the authority of the Apostles and that of God.

176. COMPARISON REGARDING NEW EXPLANATIONS.—But suppose that the matter at hand were not a new object or new revelations, but simply explaining the implicit meaning of the truth already revealed in a fruitful text, for example, of Sacred Scripture. Suppose that God intervenes in an extraordinary manner and Himself explains that text to the Church, or to one of the faithful; that, on the other hand, St. John also intervenes, and using his apostolic charism explains that same text to another faithful soul, or to other faithful souls: and suppose, finally, that Pope St. Clement in turn gives to the universal Church an explanation or dogmatic definition of the same text. We would then have God, the Apostle, and the Pontiff all giving, at the same time, not a new revealed object, but an authentic explanation of the ancient revelation. Which of these three authorities or explanations would be of greater authority? The three would be of identical authority; the three would be a divinely authentic explanation of divine truth; the three would be of divine authority; the three would be of divine faith.

The authority, then, of the Church is inferior to the authority of God and of the Apostles with respect to new revelations; but with respect to explanations of the entire real content of the deposit already revealed, it is the same divine authority, an authentic and permanent prolongation of the magisterium of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles.

The Apostles united in their persons the threefold divine charism of prophets, hagiographers (this one at least in some of them) and Apostles ³ The prophetic charism of public revelation has ceased in the Church; the hagiographic charism of inspiration has also ceased; but the apostolic charism of divine assistance for preserving and explaining or developing all the sense truly inclusive or implicit in the revealed deposit continues and will continue in the Church until the consummation of the ages.

177. CONSUMMATION AND CLOSE OF CATHOLIC REVELATION.—All Catholic theologians, both ancient and modern, agree that the deposit of Catholic or public revelation was completed and closed with the death of the last of the Apostles. The contrary doctrine has already been condemned by the Church in the following proposition: “Revelatio, obiectum fidei catholicae constituens, non fuit cum Apostolis completa” ¹ It is the twenty-first among the sixty-five modernist propositions condemned by the Congregation of the Holy Office in the celebrated decree Lamentabili, commonly called the “antimodernist Syllabus” of Pius X. Saint Thomas had already formulated this traditional doctrine of the Church when he said: “For our faith (the Catholic or universal faith) rests on the revelation made to the apostles and prophets, who canonical books wrote: but not to revelation, if any was made to other doctors" ²

178. SUBJECTIVE PROGRESS OR PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.—It is, therefore, unquestionable that no objective-real progress or progress of new revelations is any longer possible in dogma, but only subjective progress or progress of greater knowledge of what has already been revealed by God to the Apostles and by them handed over to the Church in the twofold deposit of Sacred Scripture and divine tradition. But these two phrases, "subjective progress" and "progress of knowledge," admit of several meanings, and certain theologians do not give them all the meaning and scope that St. Thomas and traditional theology gave them. To understand this well, one need only note that in all true progress two elements must enter: a terminus a quo, or a starting point of progress, which today is commonly called the primitive datum, and a terminus ad quem. The terminus a quo must be something substantially permanent and identical, for otherwise there would not be only progress, but also change or transformist evolution (18-19); the terminus ad quem must be something truly new or distinct from the terminus a quo, for without this there would be no true progress, but only nominal progress (22-26).

To appreciate, then, the nature and extent of the progress made at a given moment, one need only take careful note of the distinction between the term a quo, from which the starting point was taken, and the term ad quem, to which one has arrived: between what is new or acquired and what is primitive or permanent. And in the case of dogmatic progress, in the distinction between the body of dogmas that the Church of today believes and teaches and the body of dogmas as believed and taught by the primitive Church. If there is no distinction of any kind, there has been no progress of any kind; according to whatever distinction there is, so will be the kind of progress made.

There are two kinds of distinction: real or objective distinction and distinction of reason or subjective distinction ³ All theologians agree that between the dogmas of today and those of the primitive

In the Church there can be no real or objective distinction, but only one of reason or subjective. All our current dogmas and however many the Church may define in the future had to be, and are, really or objectively contained from the beginning in the deposit of revelation. The distinction or non-containment cannot be anything but one of reason, or of knowledge, or subjective. Thus the Church and traditional theology teach, and this is the firm foundation against modernism.

But now comes the important point, and what the theologian must never lose sight of if he does not wish, for fear of modernism, to fall into the opposite extreme, excessively restricting dogmatic progress and closing the door to understanding and explaining the undoubted facts that present themselves in the history of dogmas, and which are so fully explained in the profound and broad theory of Saint Thomas.

179. TWO KINDS OR GRADES OF SUBJECTIVE DISTINCTION.—Indeed, the distinction of reason, or subjective distinction, is itself twofold, namely: the distinction of pure reason (rationis ratiocinantis) and the virtual distinction (rationis ratiocinatae). Both are distinctions of reason, not real ones; both are subjective distinctions (23)⁴.

But the first is a distinction of pure reason, a distinction founded on the subject and not on the object, and for that reason it is called purely subjective. The second is not one of pure reason, since it is founded on the fecundity of aspects of the object itself, and for that reason it is called, and truly is, a subjective-objective distinction. This virtual or subjective-objective distinction is the one that, as we have so often repeated, exists between the conclusions and principles of the mathematical, metaphysical, and theological sciences; whereas between the conclusions and principles of the physical sciences, the distinction is not merely virtual or subjective-objective, but real or purely objective (40), ⁵

To those three kinds of distinction will correspond three degrees of progress: a) progress of real distinction, or purely objective; b) progress of virtual distinction, or subjective-objective; c) progress of nominal distinction, or purely subjective (26).

180. DOGMATIC PROGRESS AFTER THE APOSTLES IS SUBJECTIVE-OBJECTIVE PROGRESS.—With this, it is now easy to respond.

To the question so hotly debated today as to whether dogmatic progress after the Apostles is objective or subjective. Indeed, we have already seen in the previous chapters that the Church can define as of divine faith, and we shall see in the following chapters that in fact it has defined, true inclusive conclusions, that is, those conclusions which are distinguished from the revealed premise or revealed datum neither by a real distinction, nor merely by a nominal distinction, but by a true virtual distinction. This distinction, as we have just seen (179), is neither purely subjective nor purely objective, but rather subjective-objective.

Therefore, purely objective progress has no place in dogma after the Apostles, for that would be transformism, not homogeneous evolution. Purely subjective progress is possible, but it does not suffice, for it would be reduced to nominal progress or progress of mere formulas. Finally, subjective-objective progress is possible and in fact exists, and it is this that the great majority of Catholic theologians teach with the Lirinense and with Saint Thomas; and it is the only one in which, in our judgment, the evident facts of the history of dogmas find satisfactory explanation.

181. It is the progress of the believer in the faith and of the faith in the believer. Indeed, the nominal or purely subjective distinction is a distinction of the subject in itself, or of the subject independently of the object. The real or purely objective distinction is a distinction of the object in itself, or of the object independently of the subject. The virtual or subjective-objective distinction is a distinction not only of the subject in the object, but also of the object in the subject, for it is a distinction that the subject makes in the object, and that the object receives conceptually in the subject⁶.

In the same way, the progress of virtuality or subjective-objective that takes place in dogma after the Apostles is not only progress of the believer in himself, nor does it amount to progress of the faith in itself, but it is true progress, not only of the believer in the faith, but also of the faith in the believer: "Progressus tam fidelis in fide quam fidei in fideli."

182. FORMALLY SPEAKING, IT IS SUBJECTIVE PROGRESS.—Thus, then, both those who call dogmatic progress subjective and those who call it objective are to a certain extent right, for it is a means between the two, and it partakes of something of both, just as virtual distinction is a means between real distinction and nominal distinction, and partakes of something of each.

However, we believe that the dogmatic progress which exists in the Church after the Apostles neither should nor can be called simply objective progress, for two reasons: First, because the phrase "objective progress," if not explained, is today usually taken to mean objective-real progress, or purely objective progress, which neither exists nor can exist in dogma after the Apostles. Second, because just as the virtual distinction, although it is truly called a subjective-objective distinction, since it is founded on the object, is nevertheless formally a subjective distinction (23), so also the dogmatic progress of inclusive virtuality, although it may be called subjective-objective, is nevertheless formally subjective. Thus, then, dogmatic progress, objective secundum quid, that is, by reason of its foundation, remains nonetheless subjective "simpliciter" or "formaliter," that is, in itself; exactly like the virtual distinction among the divine attributes.

Although it may, therefore, be called both the progress of the believer in the faith and the progress of the faith in the believer, it is, nevertheless, and formally speaking, rather the progress of the believer in the faith than of the faith in the believer. "Progressus potius fidelis in fide quam fidei in fideli" ⁷. "Augmentum potius ex parte credentium quam creditorum" ⁸. "Progressus in scientia revelationis, non in obiecto ipso" ⁹. "Explicatio fidei contra nascentes errores" ¹⁰.

183. COMPLEMENT BY REVELATION AND COMPLEMENT BY EXPLANATION.—To finish studying the relations between the evolution of dogma and the authority of the Church, the object of this entire long chapter, there only remains for us to study the question of whether the Church, with its definitions, completes or perfects divine revelation. Although this question is as delicate as the preceding one, its solution is but a corollary of it.

To see this, one must recall that a thing is revelation and a very different thing is the explanation of revelation. In the same way, a thing is new revelation and a very different thing is a new explanation of the old revelation. Therefore, a thing is completing or perfecting the revealed deposit through new revelations or through new unrevealed truths, and a very different thing is completing or perfecting it through new explanations of the truths already revealed.

184. NO COMPLETION BY REVELATION IS POSSIBLE.—If the question is one of completing the revealed deposit with new revelations, we have already seen that all theologians teach that the Church cannot do this, and that this doctrine has been consecrated by the condemnation of its opposite in the twenty-first proposition of the Syllabus of Pius X (177). The deposit of Catholic revelation was closed with the Apostles, and since then no public revelation or hagiographic inspiration—which amounts to the same thing—can any longer find a place in the Church, but only mere divine assistance to preserve and explain what has been revealed. Thus the Vatican Council has defined ¹.

If it is also a matter of completing the revealed deposit with truths that are not contained in the deposit either explicitly or implicitly or inclusively, and that, therefore, are not truly revealed, it is evident that neither can the Church complete or perfect the revealed deposit with them by defining them as matters of faith. Nothing can be a dogma of divine faith if it is not truly revealed. That would not be completing or perfecting the deposit, but corrupting it. It would not be homogeneous evolution, but heterogeneous transformationism.

185. EXPLANATORY COMPLEMENT IS POSSIBLE AND EXISTS.—But if by completing or perfecting the revealed deposit one understands, not perfecting it with new revelations or with truths not revealed, but with a greater explanation of those truths that are called implicit virtuality or inclusive conclusions, there is no doubt that the Church can complete and perfect the revealed deposit with it, and she completes and perfects it whenever she defines as dogma one of those inclusive-consequential truths.

Because they are truly inclusive of the revealed deposit, they are implicitly and truly revealed. Because they are truly consequential, the Church does not need new revelation to know them, but rather divine assistance suffices, using human reasoning as a prior condition or as a mere instrument to deduce them, to unfold them, or, as the ancients said, to explain them, for a thing is rightly said to be explained when what was already previously contained or implicit in it is unfolded. Because, finally, they are a true virtuality of the revealed deposit and not mere subjective formulas of the believer, their development is a true development of the revealed deposit, whereby the latter is completed and perfected; just as every living being that does nothing more than develop its latent or implicit potentialities is completed and perfected without corruption or transformationism. This is nothing more than a simple corollary of the doctrine already set forth on the implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit.

Neither let it be said that with the Apostles the revealed deposit was already complete, and that what is complete admits no further complement. The revealed deposit was complete as regards revelation, but it was not closed or complete, but rather open and capable of being complemented as regards the divine explanation of what was already revealed.

186. THE DOCTRINE OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL.—Nor let it be argued that the Vatican Council teaches that the Church cannot perfect the revealed deposit. The Vatican Council does not teach that the Church cannot perfect the revealed deposit, but rather that it cannot perfect it in the manner of a philosophical system resulting from human inventions²

As we have already stated elsewhere, the development of any philosophical or human system entails three things: a) subtraction or expulsion of every datum, however ancient, that reason or experience shows to have been false; b) addition of every new datum that experience or reason proves to be true, even if it was not included in the primitive datum; c) modification of the meaning of the primitive datum when reason or experience shows that the old meaning was inaccurate. Thus all human systems develop, all institutions that are the fruit of man or of nature: removing, adding, modifying unceasingly.

In the development of the revealed deposit, which is not the fruit of man or of nature, but of God, and of a supernatural God, neither the Church nor true theology can do, nor do they do, any of these three things. In the process of development through lesser reasons inclusive, nothing old is taken away, nothing foreign is added, nothing is modified. The inclusive lesser reasons are not intended to take away, add, or modify anything in the greater truths of faith, but simply to unfold, develop, explain the inexhaustible fecundity enclosed in those greater truths revealed by God, and which, as divine, are pregnant and overflowing with divine truth, with dogmatic sap.

Let no reader, then, be scandalized if he hears us say that the Church perfects the deposit. She does not perfect it in the manner of a philosophical system, but she does perfect it, because she increases the explanation of the deposit, and that authentic explanation given by the Church enters into forming part of the deposit itself and comes to be preserved as a true and legitimate integral part of the revealed deposit.

Although we all know from traditional theology, and Vatican Council has already defined it, that the Church has the divine mission not only of preserving but also of explaining the deposit, there are some whom excessive fear of modernism or the reading of certain theological manuals has made so timid or of such narrow criteria, that they imagine that this action of explaining which the Church exercises is an action, not upon the revealed deposit, which they consider as completely immutable and intangible, but exclusively upon the subjective intelligence of the faithful.

In our judgment, they are very much mistaken. One thing is those to whom it is explained and another what is explained. Those to whom the Church explains the deposit are surely the faithful; but what the Church explains or unfolds is not the faithful, but the deposit.

The action of the Church is, then, not only upon the faithful, but also upon the very revealed deposit itself. With every action or dogmatic definition of the Church, a degree of development or growth is verified in the deposit itself, although always in relation to us. Growth not by something that comes from outside, but by something that comes from within, as everything vital or homogeneous always proceeds. Growth not of new substance, but of explanation or greater unfolding of the substance; yet true and proper growth, true and proper evolution, though never transformism³.

187. THE DOCTRINE OF VINCENT OF LÉRINS.—Vincent of Lérins, whose authority on this matter everyone acknowledges, has well expressed both what the Church cannot do and what it can do with regard to dogma or the revealed deposit.

What the Church cannot do and does not do is expressed by Lirinensis in the following phrases: a) it changes nothing; b) it diminishes nothing; c) it adds nothing; d) it does not cut off what is necessary; e) it does not append what is superfluous; f) it does not lose what is its own; g) it does not usurp what belongs to others. None of this does the Church do with regard to the deposit; as for that manner of acting, the deposit is sacred, it is immutable, it is intangible.

What the Church can do, and does, with regard to the deposit itself (and not only with regard to the faithful), it expresses with the following formulas: a) excolatur; b) floreat; c) maturescat; d) proficiat; e) PERFICIATUR.

Let our objector note those last two terms of the Lirinensian. Under the action of the Church, which is none other than the action of the Holy Spirit, the deposit itself grows (proficiat); the deposit itself is perfected (perficiatur).

And so in the primitive deposit not all dogmas were found for us in a formal manner, but some were found in an unformed manner; not all were found in a finished manner, but some were only begun. To the Church, whose instrument is theology, God has entrusted the mission not only of preserving what was already in a formal or finished manner, but also of explaining, that is, of developing, maturing, and completing what was for us only unformed and sketched out. "Si qua sunt illa antiquitus informata et inchoata, accuret et poliat; si qua iam firmata et definita, custodiat"⁴

Under the action, then, of the Church, the revealed deposit is not perfected in the manner of a philosophical or human system, but it is perfected. It is not perfected as to its substance, but it is perfected as to its explanation. It is not perfected by means of a new divine revelation, but it is perfected by means of a perpetual divine assistance. Because that authority or assistance is divine, the growth is dogmatic. Because it is assistance and not revelation, it must use and does use all human means; and the human means most connatural to our weak intellect for developing or explaining the content or inner fecundity of an intellectual deposit, such as the revealed deposit is, has been and always will be inclusive reasoning. By another name, the way of theological conclusion; the way "from one thing to another according to reason, which is not another thing according to reality." (ST. THOMAS.)