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.