La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

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.