La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

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.