La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

OBJECTIONS AGAINST DOGMATIC EVOLUTION IN GENERAL

299. FIRST OBSERVATION.—As the objections we are about to address were presented to us in the form of observations, we will transcribe them in that same form. Here is the first one:

“I understand by dogma of faith every truth formally or immediately revealed by God in divine Scripture or Tradition and proposed as such by the Church to all the faithful.”

Answer.—If our objector begins by not holding as a dogma of faith, or as definable of faith, anything but what is formally or immediately revealed, then he assumes the very point in dispute and precisely what he ought to prove.

For a thing to be definable as of divine faith, the Church has never required that it be formally or immediately revealed, but simply that it be revealed. Let us hear the Vatican Council: “Moreover, all those things are to be believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God, written or handed down, and which are proposed by the Church, whether by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium, as divinely revealed things to be believed ¹ As can be seen, not a word about its being formally or immediately revealed, but solely and simply that it be revealed.

If we pass from what the Church teaches to what traditional Theology teaches, we will find that, with the sole exception of Molina, all the great theologians before Suárez, Suárez himself and Lugo, and a multitude of theologians after Lugo and Suárez teach that for a thing to be definable as a dogma of faith by the Church, it suffices that it be mediately or virtually revealed. Let us content ourselves for now with quoting the following text from Suárez, which perfectly summarizes the theological tradition. It reads thus: "It must be said, thirdly, that the theological conclusion, which was previously contained only virtually in the revealed truths, once it is defined by the Church, is most properly and formally of faith... This assertion seems to me certain, and is held by the common consensus of theologians... Nor do I find any theologian contradicting this" ².

Our objector is free to hold an opinion contrary to what Suárez calls, and rightly so, the certain doctrine and common opinion of theologians. But let him not make the mistake of taking his own opinion as his starting point, much less of making it a necessary element in the very definition of dogma, even if certain compendiums of Theology, even Thomist ones, do so. In the definitions of theological concepts, such as the concept of dogma, no elements should enter except those that the Church teaches, or that are unanimously admitted by theologians: never those that are debatable, and much less those that go against the nearly common opinion among the great masters of Theology.

300. SECOND OBSERVATION.—"Likewise, I understand by theological conclusion, strictly and properly so called, every truth virtually or mediately revealed, that is, everything deduced from the revealed deposit as 'an effect from a cause' or as 'a property from an essence.' This is, I believe, the definition given by the Salmanticenses and Billuart."

Answer.—That definition of the theological conclusion is well given, and it is the traditional definition (42). But the divergence or the defect is not in the definition, but in the way of understanding it. The Salmanticenses, whom Billuart merely summarizes, understood the virtually revealed or theological conclusion in the manner of Suárez and Lugo, and thus understood, they did very well and were very logical in denying its definability as a matter of faith.

Indeed, from cause to effect, or from essence to property, one can reason or pass by two radically different paths, namely: a) by way of metaphysical-essential connection, which is a connection of identity or objective inclusion, and which not even God Himself can make fail; b) by way of natural, or purely physical, connection, which is a connection without identity or objective inclusion, and which, therefore, God can make fail whenever He pleases.

All the meaning, therefore, of that classic definition depends on how one takes the cause or essence, and how the effect or property, when it is a matter of passing by reasoning from one extreme to the other.

If to deduce as a conclusion an actual effect one takes as a principle or as the major premise the cause in a purely natural or physical sense, that is, the so-called real cause or in essendo, e.g., "it is fire, therefore it burns in fact," such a conclusion is not a theological conclusion, which demands absolute certainty, but a physical and fallible conclusion. Likewise, if to deduce as a conclusion an actual property one takes as a principle or major premise, not the integral or perfect essence, but the pure or bare essence, between which and the actual properties there exists only a natural connection, e.g., "he is a man, therefore he is actually capable of laughter," such a conclusion is not and cannot be a theological conclusion, but a physical conclusion (98, 107).

Now then, let the Salmanticenses be read carefully, and it will be seen that this is what they understand, with Suárez and Lugo, by theological conclusion or virtual revelation, although at times they mix in some concepts derived from the traditional Thomist idea. The same happens with quite a few modern compendiums^3.

By denying, then, that theological conclusion or virtual revelation is definable as of divine faith, such authors in reality deny only the definability of a thing that is neither a true theological conclusion nor true virtual revelation. On the other hand, by affirming that the formal-confused revealed is definable as of divine faith, they affirm the definability of true Theology, for they have placed within that formal-confused, without realizing it, all true, and proper, and unique Theology, which does not exist without an essential or absolute connection^[³ or objectively infallible, between the principle or major and the conclusion (82).

301. THIRD OBSERVATION.—“The Salmanticenses, in number 124 of the first disputation De Fide, cite St. Thomas and a great chorus of ancient Thomists against the definability by divine faith of the virtual revealed or theological conclusion.”

Answer. — Let our objector distinguish two questions that must always be distinguished in this matter.

The first is “whether what is virtually revealed or theological conclusions are per se matters of faith, that is, prescinding from the definition of the Church.” This is the true question that the Salmanticenses treat in the said numbers 124 to 127. To this first question, the Salmanticenses respond, and very well, in the negative; and they cite, and very well cited, Saint Thomas and that great chorus of Thomists of which our objector speaks to us. To whatever the Salmanticenses say in those numbers, we subscribe against Vega and Vázquez, and every Thomist will subscribe.

The second question is “whether the theological conclusion or the virtual revealed are definable as of divine faith by the Church, or, which is the same thing, whether they are formally of divine faith after being defined.” The Salmanticenses do not touch this question at all until numbers 143 and following, on the occasion of an objection. To this second question, the Salmanticenses also respond, it is true, negatively; because, having taken the virtual and the conclusion in the same sense as Suárez and Lugo, they had to respond that way. But in this second question, the Salmanticenses cite, nor will anyone cite, a single text of Saint Thomas or of any celebrated Thomist prior to the Suarezian confusion against the definability of faith of the true theological conclusion. On the contrary, texts of all of them can be cited in favor of that definability.

Anyone who reads the Salmanticenses on this question must note three things:

• First, that the Salmanticenses, far from already combating Molina’s opinion, as all earlier Thomists do, including John of St. Thomas, cite Molina, on the contrary, in their favor.

Second, that whenever they cite Suárez or Lugo in order to refute them, the citations or references are to the places where Suárez and Lugo speak of the physical-connective virtual, and not to the places where they speak of the confused formal or metaphysical-inclusive virtual.

Thirdly, that whenever they cite as an example of a theological conclusion the well-known "homo: ergo risibilis", not once do they fail to say "homo perfectus" instead of "homo".

All these, and several others that could be cited, are indications that the Salmanticenses understand by confused formal and by pure virtual the same thing as Suárez and Lugo, or, at least, that they have used the new nomenclature of Suárez and Lugo, without realizing the anti-Thomist contraband that these new names contained. In any case, whether the true mind of the Salmanticenses and Billuart was this or that is, for us, and ought to be for every Thomist, a point of secondary importance; since the mind of all the classical Thomists before the seventeenth century is evidently established, as it is, and that of very many others after it, whose clear and decisive texts the reader will find in the last chapter of this work.

302. FOURTH OBSERVATION.—"What is not known by divine revelation, but by reason, cannot be an article of faith. Now, the theological conclusion is known by reason, not by revelation."

Answer.—That the theological conclusion is not known by revelation? A Thomist should never say that. The formal medium by which every true theological conclusion is known is divine revelation, although the instrument, and nothing more than an instrument, which our theology needs, due to the weakness of our intellect, is the minor premise of reason. Let our objector hear what Saint Thomas set down at the head of his Summa Theologica in his first question and how the two foremost commentators commented on it:

“They are known by the light of divine revelation” ⁴ “They are knowable by divine light” ⁵ “The proper knowledge of this science is through revelation” ⁶ “The reason for knowing in theology is the light of divine revelation” ⁷ “The medium shining with divine light constitutes the theological knowable” ⁸ “The divine light revealing is the formal reason under which our theology [operates]” ⁹

Thus, both divine faith and sacred Theology have as their object what is truly revealed. With no other difference than that what is truly revealed, but revealed in itself, is known without the instrument or means of reasoning, by simple divine authority, and for that reason is called revealed without mediation or immediate. On the other hand, what is truly revealed, but revealed in another, cannot be known by us except through the instrument or means of reasoning, and for that reason we call it mediately revealed. The difference, as can be seen, is not between revelation and non-revelation, but between two different modes of true revelation, or two distinct means of knowing what is truly revealed.

Important Distinction.—Certain theologians, after the sixteenth century, do not seem to distinguish well between these three things: a) formal revelation; b) the formally revealed; c) the virtually revealed.

Both formal revelation (revelation in the active sense) and that which is formally revealed (revelation in the objective sense) are designated by St. Thomas and by his ancient commentators by the name of "divine revelation" (114, 215).

Of these three things mentioned, the first, that is, formal revelation or active revelation, is the formal motive or ratio sub qua of divine faith. The second, that is, what is formally revealed or objective revelation, is the material object of divine faith and, at the same time, the formal motive or ratio sub qua of theology. The third, that is, what is virtually revealed, is the material object of theology.

Indeed, we believe with divine faith what is formally revealed by formal revelation; and we know theologically what is virtually revealed by formal revelation. Now, what is believed or known is always the material element in every cognitive habit, and that by which it is believed or known is the formal element. “Every cognitive habit regards formally the medium through which something is known, and materially the object which is known through the medium” ¹⁰.

What is virtually revealed, or a theological conclusion, is therefore not known immediately by active revelation, the formal motive of divine faith; but it is known by or through objective revelation or the principles of faith, the formal motive of theology. But since, in turn, the principles of faith or objective revelation are known by active revelation, it follows that the theological conclusion is known proximately by the principles of faith or formally revealed truth, and mediately by formal or active revelation, the formal motive of divine faith. Hence the ancient theologians commonly said that the theological conclusion is immediately of theology, but mediately of divine faith (453).

The so-called “virtual revelation” is none other than the second of the three things mentioned, that is, the formally revealed, insofar as it contains within itself and through it is known the third of those things, that is, the virtually revealed or theological conclusion. Thus, then, of these four things, namely: a) formal revelation; b) formally revealed; c) virtual revelation; d) virtually revealed, the second and the third are really identical, when it is a matter of inclusive virtuality. It is the same to say that the virtually revealed or inclusive conclusion is known through virtual revelation as to say that it is known through the formally revealed. And since the formally revealed is nothing other than objective revelation, for that reason Saint Thomas and all the ancient theologians prior to the introduction of the physical-connective virtual, said more briefly, and with great truth, that the theological conclusion is known “by divine revelation” or “by the light of divine (objective) revelation.”

The double sense—active and objective—that the name "revelation" possesses, as well as the different meaning that the names "immediate" and "mediate" have in the systems of Saint Thomas and Scotus , which was further complicated by the introduction of Suárez's mediate or physical virtual , is what has contributed to a horrifying confusion of nomenclature in this question. And it is well known that almost whenever nomenclature becomes tangled, ideas end up becoming tangled as well.

303. FIFTH OBSERVATION.—"As you have told us so many times, the formal or specific object of divine faith is what is immediately revealed; and the formal or specific object of Theology is what is mediately revealed. Now, the formal or specific objects of the sciences or habits are unchangeable, just as species are, unless we admit transformism in dogma, as the modernists wish. The Church cannot, therefore, convert what is mediately revealed into what is immediately revealed. That, not even God Himself can do, as the Salmanticenses very well say. You dealt with this difficulty in an article, but you did not answer it directly, but rather with 'circumlocutions,' as I believe Fr. Matías pointed out to you in his Theological Bulletin."

Answer.—Here goes our direct reply and without "circumlocutions," since this is a very clear matter for anyone who has penetrated the Thomistic doctrine on the true nature of sacred Theology, which is to always use an inclusive procedure.

What is known by deductive reasoning is called mediate; what is known by simple authority is called immediate. But every Thomist knows that if reasoning is inclusive, as in the mathematical, metaphysical, and theological sciences, what we call mediate is only mediate with respect to us, but it is immediate in itself. Let us hear Saint Thomas: "Any proposition whose predicate is in the definition of the subject is immediate and self-evident as far as it is concerned" ¹¹ "For a proposition is self-evident for this reason, that the predicate is included in the definition of the subject" ¹²

Since, then, we are dealing with inclusive conclusions, as all truly theological ones are, that which so frightens our objector, namely that "the Church would convert the mediate into the immediate," is reduced to this other simple thing: "the Church would convert what is immediate in itself into immediate for us," which no one will deny the Church can do. And that is the only thing the Church does when it defines as dogmas of faith theological consequences, or, better said, theological inferences.

Another matter would be if it concerned the mediate or virtual non-inclusive, understood in the manner of Suárez and Lugo, in which in the minor premise the predicate is not really included in the subject, nor, therefore, is the conclusion really included in the revealed major premise. Then, neither can God Himself make that mediate pass into an immediate one, except through a new revelation. In this, the Salmanticenses are right.

What our objector adds about species or specific objects being unchangeable is true; but only in the case where the means of knowledge is not changed. If the means of knowledge is changed, what belonged to one habit passes ipso facto to also belonging to another, because what is formal or specific in cognitive habits (and cognitive habits are Theology and faith) is not the matter or reality of what is known, but the means of knowledge. "Every cognitive habit, formally indeed regards the medium through which something is known; materially, however, that which is known through the medium" ¹³ "The species of any thing is chiefly considered according to its formal aspect, not according to its matter or subject" ¹⁴

Now then: with the dogmatic definition of a theological conclusion by the Church, the means of knowing that conclusion changes for us. Before the definition we knew it only by revelation with reasoning, the formal means of Theology. After the definition we know it already by revelation without reasoning, that is, by revelation explained and proposed by the Church, the formal means of divine faith.

There are changes in the means of knowledge, and, therefore, a change in habits and in assent. But there is by no means any change of matter or of objective reality: nothing, therefore, of transformationism or modernism.

In summary: the Church does not convert, nor can it convert, the mediate non-inclusive into the immediate; but it can convert, and does convert, the mediate inclusive into the immediate, which is nothing more than converting the immediate in itself into the immediate for us (168).

We believe that with this our objector may perhaps accuse us of repetitions, unnecessary for his clear understanding, but not of our having failed to answer him well, categorically, and without "circumlocutions."

304. SIXTH OBSERVATION.—"Nothing is or can be of divine faith if it is not spoken by God. I do not believe that theological conclusions are what God said, but rather what we deduce from what was spoken by God. They are our deductions, not divine utterances."

Answer.—It is evident that nothing can be of divine faith unless it is truly spoken by God; but it is false, in the doctrine of St. Thomas and of traditional theology, that God has spoken only the principles and in no way the conclusions. Let us hear St. Thomas: "He who says one thing, in a certain sense says many things; and these are what precede the article and follow from it, and in this respect the article of faith can be explained and divided" ¹⁵.

If in that text St. Thomas uses, with his habitual precision, the word quodammodo, it is because there are two true modes of saying or of sayings: a) saying something, explaining it fully; b) saying something, but without explaining it fully. There are, therefore, two kinds of sayings of God: fully explained sayings and unexplained sayings, or implicit ones. The former are the articles or greater [truths] of faith: the latter, the theological conclusions. Let us hear St. Thomas again: "To explain the articles of faith can happen in two ways... In another way, with respect to those things which are contained in the articles themselves implicitly, which indeed happens when a person knows those things which follow from the articles" ¹⁶. "Because there are some things which are contained in the faith of the Church as conclusions are contained in principles" ¹⁷.

Thus, then, the First Truth, or God, finished speaking or revealing with the last of the Apostles; but He has not finished, nor will He finish, explaining what was said or revealed. Every definition of the Church is nothing other than an explanation that God gives of what He had already said with the Apostles. That is why Cardinal Cajetan graphically calls the Church "the minister of the object of faith... through which the First Truth proposes and explains itself and the other things to be believed" ¹⁸.

Thus, both the theologian with his undefined conclusions and the Church defining those conclusions give us nothing more than the explanation of what God has said implicitly.

ARE THE DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCH “THE WORD OF GOD”?—

The difference lies in the fact that although theological conclusions, if they are inclusive, are truly what God has said, because they are included in what God said, they are not, however, until the Church defines them, anything other than what God has said explained by man. On the other hand, those same conclusions, after being defined, are already what God has said explained by God, although for that explanation God makes use of the ministry of the Church.

Therefore the theologian, however wise and holy he may be, and however clear his deduction or conclusion may be, can say no more than it seemed to me. In contrast, the Church, in every infallible definition—and infallibility extends to theological conclusions and not only to principles—can say, and does say without any metaphor: It seemed to the Holy Spirit.

ARE THE DEFINITIONS OF THE CHURCH “THE WORD OF GOD”?—
Here one clearly sees the answer to be given to the question of whether the definitions of the Church are or are not the word of God: the word of God.

The name “word,” like the name “writing,” can be taken in two senses: objective or material, and subjective or formal. One thing is “what is written” (objective writing), and another thing is “the writing” (formal or subjective writing); just as one thing is “what is said” (objective word), and another is “the diction” (subjective word). Peter may write his own ideas or write what John said. In the first case, what is written and the writing are Peter’s; in the second, the writing is Peter’s, but what is written is John’s. In the same way, if Peter says his own ideas, both what is said and the diction are Peter’s: but if he says or repeats what John said, the diction (subjective word) is Peter’s, but what is said (objective word) is John’s.

In Sacred Scripture, the inspired authors, both what is said or written and the diction or writing, are from God. It is, therefore, the word of God, both objectively and subjectively. In the definitions of the Church, what is said is from God, since the Church does nothing but repeat, more explicitly, what was already implicitly said by God; but the diction is not from God: for God does not move it to say it, as in inspiration, but simply assists it so that it, and it alone, says it. The definitions of the Church are, therefore, the word of God objectively, but not subjectively: for this reason they are not Sacred Scripture.

When, therefore, numerous and classical ancient theologians deny that the definitions of the Church are divine word, let the reader note, as he reads them, and he will clearly see two things: a) that they say this not only of infallible definitions, but also of definitions of divine faith, which no one will deny are God's objective word; b) that they take the phrase "divine word" in the sense of "Sacred Scripture" or "inspired word," and in that sense every theologian must deny that the definitions of the Church, even those of faith, are "the word of God."

305. SEVENTH OBSERVATION.—“With the Apostles the revealed deposit was closed and complete. This is the common doctrine of theologians, which has already been consecrated by the Church in the twenty-first proposition of the anti-modernist Syllabus of Pius X.”

Answer.—With the Apostles, the deposit was closed and complete as regards Revelation; but not closed nor complete, but open and complendus through the divine magisterium of the Church, as regards the explanation of the truths already revealed. That dogmatic or divine explanation of the Church extends, as we have already seen through Saint Thomas, not only to the principles of the deposit, but also to the conclusions (those things which follow from the articles), without thereby ceasing to be an explanation of what was revealed: explanation of the faith.

Let our objector not confuse, then, these two propositions, which are radically distinct: first, that with the Apostles the Catholic Revelation was closed and completed; second, that with the Apostles the divine explanation of the Catholic Revelation was closed and completed. The first proposition is true, and it is the one taught by the unanimous consent of theologians and consecrated by the Syllabus of Pius X. The second is false.

306. EIGHTH OBSERVATION.—“For there to be a theological conclusion, strict or properly so-called, I agree that it is not necessary for the conclusion to express a new objectivity; but it is necessary, as you yourself confess, that it express a new concept and not merely a new formula.

Now then: a new concept is the same as a new meaning or a new dogma. Therefore, if the Church were to give us as a matter of divine faith any properly so-called theological conclusion, we would have new dogmas. That is inadmissible. The Church cannot give us new dogmas, although she can and does give us new formulas of the same and ancient dogmas.

Answer.—There are three kinds of new concepts. First, new concepts, but ones that are not completely new, since they are deduced or derived from the old ones, and for this reason they are called derived or conforming concepts. Second, concepts that are not only new, but are completely new, since they do not come from the old ones, although they are not incompatible with them either, and they are called diverse concepts. Third, concepts that are not only completely new, since they do not come from the old ones, but are also incompatible with them, and for this reason they are called contrary or opposed concepts.

We have, then, three kinds of new concepts: a) derived or conforming; b) diverse; c) contrary or opposed.

An example of the first kind is absolute immutability and eternity, or spirituality and immortality, or immateriality and knowability, and, in a word, all those concepts that, like the attributes in God, are distinguished only per modum impliciti et expliciti (in the manner of the implicit and the explicit). An example of the second kind is the concepts of quantity and quality, or of color and flavor. An example of the third kind is the concepts of spiritual and material, of uncreated and contingent, of white and black.

Derived or conforming concepts emerge from one another by inclusive reasoning; diverse or opposite concepts do not emerge nor can they emerge from one another, since what is not within cannot emerge.

When something new is acquired, but it does not proceed from within what was already possessed, it is called in Thomistic doctrine new quoad substantiam; when something new is acquired, but it proceeds entirely from within what was already possessed, it is called new quoad explicationem.

The concepts, then, that are diverse or contrary are new not only with respect to their explanation [quoad explicationem], but also with respect to their substance [quoad substantiam]; derived concepts are new with respect to their explanation [quoad explicationem], but not with respect to their substance [quoad substantiam].

With this, it is easy to perceive clearly where the weakness of the objection lies.

When our illustrious objector, along with so many modern authors, objects that if the Church could define as a matter of faith the inclusive theological conclusions, then we would have new concepts, new senses, new dogmas, a simple distinction suffices in any of the following three ways:

First distinction: new, that is, completely new, I deny; new, but not completely new, I grant.

Second distinction: new, that is, contrary or diverse, I deny; new, but not contrary nor diverse, but derived entirely from the old, I grant.

Third distinction: new, that is, new as to substance, I deny; new, that is, new as to explanation, I grant. These three ways of distinguishing express exactly the same thing.

WHAT IS THE EVOLUTION OF THE DOGMA CONDEMNED BY THE CHUR-

SIA?—What the Church condemns, then, is not the evolution of dogma in the same sense, which is the homogeneous evolution, but the evolution of dogma in a diverse sense, and, therefore, much more so in a contrary sense, which is every transformist evolution. "I utterly reject the heretical invention of the evolution of dogmas, passing from one to another sense, diverse from that which the Church previously held"¹⁹. The evolution of dogma in the same sense, far from being condemned, is taught by the Church: "May it grow, therefore... but in the same sense" (Vatican Council). Or as St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure had already said: "There is a twofold addition: either something that is contrary or diverse, and this is erroneous or presumptuous; or that which is contained implicitly, by way of explanation, and this is praiseworthy"²⁰. "There is an addition in which what is added is contrary: and one in which what is added is diverse: and one in which it is consonant. The first addition is of error: the second, of presumption: the third, of faithful instruction, because what is implicit, it makes explicit"²¹. What is meant by implicit, St. Thomas himself tells us: "When many things are contained virtually in one, they are said to be in it implicitly, as conclusions in principles"^{22 23}. "A diversity of reason does not vary anything on the part of the thing"²⁴. The so-called new dogmas, therefore, as long as they are not really, but only conceptually, distinct from the primitive dogmas, do not in any way alter the primitive or revealed datum. It is a conceptual or subjective novelty: not a real one. It is novelty in a certain respect: not substantial novelty. The mode is new, a new aspect: the objectivity, which is what is substantial, is not new, but the same. That is why Lirinensis said very well: "So that when you say newly, you do not say new things"²⁵. "From one to another according to reason, which is not another according to the thing"²⁶. That is what happens in every conceptual conclusion, in every rigorously theological conclusion.

When an ancient tree sprouts a new branch, the branch is new, but not completely new nor new as to its substance; because that branch springs from the same substance or sap that the tree already possessed. The analogy of the tree with the revealed deposit is not complete, because in the tree the sap is formed with elements that come from outside. If the sap of the tree were formed exclusively from the very substance of the tree, without the intussusception of any foreign element, then the analogy of the development of dogma with the development of the tree would be more perfect (223). Thus are the new dogmas defined by way of implicit virtuality: new branches of the ancient tree of the revealed deposit.

Therefore we said elsewhere (180), and we will repeat again now, that dogmatic progress after the Apostles is neither purely subjective nor purely objective, but subjective-objective. Speaking in strictly Scholastic terms, it is formally or "simpliciter" subjective, but "secundum quid" objective.

It is "simpliciter" subjective because the distinction and, therefore, the novelty of that progress are not in the object itself or independently of the subject, but are made by the subject, as happens in every virtual or conceptual distinction.

It is objectively "secundum quid" because the foundation of that distinction and, therefore, of that newness is not solely in the subject, as happens in a purely logical distinction or one of mere formulas, but rather it is in the object itself, that is, in the fecundity and richness of objective aspects, already implicitly contained from the beginning in the object itself or in the primitive deposit.

Therefore, when certain overly meticulous theologians do not dare to say that the deposit itself grows and take refuge in the sacred phrase that what grows is "our" explanation of the deposit, they fail to notice that what they call "our explanation of the deposit," by being "ours," does not cease to be "of the deposit," and since this new or greater explanation, when made by the Church, comes to be incorporated into the deposit itself and to form an integral part of it, it is just the same to say that the explanation of the deposit grows as to say that the deposit itself grows with regard to the explanation (186).

One thing, then, is that the deposit grows in itself, that is, in its real objectivity, and another thing is that the deposit itself grows, not in its objectivity, but in its greater explanation. Through the definitions of the Church, the deposit does not grow in itself, but the deposit itself grows as its explanation grows and that new or greater explanation comes to form an integral part of it. Progress of explanation, but progress of the revealed deposit itself (173).

307. NINTH OBSERVATION.—“John of Saint Thomas says expressly and repeats several times that nothing can be defined as of divine faith by the Church unless it is immediately revealed.”

Answer.—In the place to which our objector alludes (De Sacra Theologia, d. 2, a. 4), John of Saint Thomas says expressly and clearly five things:

1.º That the question of whether the true theological conclusion is or is not of divine faith cannot be answered except by distinguishing between before and after the definition of the Church ²⁷ 2.º That before the definition of the Church the true theological conclusion does not belong to faith immediately, but mediately, and therefore belongs of itself (per se) to theological science. This is, he adds, the most common opinion of the theologians against Vázquez, and John of St. Thomas adheres to it ²⁸

3rd. That after the definition of the Church that same conclusion becomes a matter of divine faith and a true principle of theology. This is, he says, the opinion commonly followed by the Thomists against Molina²⁹

4th. That although such true conclusions may be known before the definition by reasoning alone, nevertheless, the Church does not define them as matters of faith insofar as they are known precisely by reasoning, but insofar as they are intended, although in a hidden manner, by the Holy Spirit. To know or discover that hidden intention of the Holy Spirit, the Church has divine assistance³⁰

5th. If we call immediately revealed everything intended by the Holy Spirit, it follows that nothing can be defined as of divine faith by the Church unless it has been immediately revealed, at least in a hidden or implicit manner³¹

In these five assertions is faithfully condensed everything John of Saint Thomas says. Now then: does our objector admit those five assertions, and especially the first three, and very particularly the third, of which John of Saint Thomas says: The Thomists commonly follow this opinion? If he admits them, we agree on everything substantial, and only an imprecision of nomenclature remains regarding the names of immediate and mediate; an imprecision that dates from Suárez, and from which some later Thomists, among them John of Saint Thomas, are not entirely free.

That imprecision or vagueness of nomenclature is found in the fifth proposition, which is the only one to which our objector seems to have paid attention. There John of St. Thomas takes the word immediate as synonymous with intended by the Holy Spirit. Taken in this sense, it is clear that nothing can be defined as of divine faith without being immediately revealed, that is, without being intended by the Holy Spirit. Taken in this way, the word immediate would give no meaning to the question disputed between the Thomists and Vázquez on the one hand, and between the Thomists and Molina on the other, since all without distinction admit that nothing can be defined as of divine faith without being truly revealed, that is, without being truly intended by the Holy Spirit. But true revelation or what is truly intended by the Holy Spirit has always been divided into two members: a) revealed or intended in itself; b) revealed or intended in another. The first is called, for our reason, revealed immediate or formal, never mediate or virtual; the second is called revealed mediate or virtual, never immediate or formal. The first is revealed not only in reality, but also in itself; the second is, for our reason, revealed in reality, but not in itself. This precisely constitutes the specific difference between faith and our theology.

That small imprecision or vagueness of calling everything revealed or intended by the Holy Spirit immediate has led John of Saint Thomas into a genuine contradiction in nomenclature, for he ends up calling—and rightly so—virtual implicit and revealed IN RE what he had earlier ambiguously called revealed IMMEDIATE ³². This is precisely what Saint Thomas calls immediate in itself, but mediate with respect to us.

That is the true name of the true theological conclusion: virtual implicit or revealed in re. Thus are all true theological conclusions. Virtual, because to know them or explain them or deduce them we need true reasoning, and we cannot know them without reasoning. Implicit, because the reasoning is one of real identity or intellectual inclusion.

Thus, then, and setting aside ambiguous terminologies, the doctrine of John of Saint Thomas, which is that which “the Thomists commonly follow,” is a middle doctrine between the extreme opinions of Vázquez and Molina, and it comprises these two parts: a) the opinion of Vázquez is false, namely, that the true conclusion or true mediate or virtual revealed truth is de fide divina before the definition of the Church; b) the opinion of Molina is false, namely, that the true theological conclusion is not de fide divina after the definition of the Church.

Anyone who wishes to see with perfect clarity that this is the true meaning of John of Saint Thomas should turn to the treatise De fide, where John of Saint Thomas, making express allusion to that very fourth article cited by our objector, says the following:

“From what has been said it is inferred that virtual revelation, or mediate revelation, or revelation deduced by way of reasoning, such as is found in theology, is specifically distinct from immediate revelation, which is had from the testimony of the one speaking, and which attains that which is to be believed by faith, as we have taught more fully in the first part, q. 1, d. 2, article four, where we rejected two extreme opinions: that of Vázquez, who holds that a conclusion deduced from the premises of faith is so certain for one who knows the reasoning as is a proposition defined by the Church; and that of Molina, who holds that even if the definition of the Church should supervene upon some [proposition],”

However, although John of Saint Thomas clearly defends with all Thomists against Molina the definability of true and proper theological conclusions, he has a small weak point. This consists in not indicating any objective or ante factum criterion for discerning which ones are definable and which are not. Definable, he says, are all those conclusions that were intended, albeit hiddenly, by the Holy Spirit. And all those that the Church, with divine assistance, defines were intended hiddenly by the Holy Spirit. Which is equivalent to saying: the defined are definable. This weakness of John of Saint Thomas was already noted by the learned Father Gardeil in his fine work The Revealed Given, p. 173. What we need and what the Church herself needs is an objective criterion of definability, for the Church does not enjoy revelation, but only pure assistance. That criterion, according to Saint Thomas, is the intellectually explanatory or implicit character that every true theological conclusion has with respect to the revealed major premise. The minor is nothing but an instrument of explanation. "To a proposition that previously was not of faith, it would not make it of faith, but the Holy Spirit assists the Church lest it err, not however to make of faith those things that previously were not of faith. Which opinions can be seen as impugned at the cited place"³³.

Any student of theology knows that Molina and Vázquez, whom John of Saint Thomas combats, speak of the true and proper mediate or virtual (409, 475).

308. TENTH OBSERVATION.—“The 'starting point' of Theology or, as it is commonly said, the 'principles of Theology' is or are the 'revealed'. Therefore, if a truth is truly revealed, it is not truly a conclusion or progress, but purely a starting point or principle. And vice versa, if a truth is truly a conclusion, it cannot be something truly revealed, for then it would be a principle of Theology and not a conclusion.”

Answer.—The starting point or first principles of Theology is not revelation taken bare, as our objector says, but what is revealed immediately or formally or in itself, or better still, what is revealed explicitly (37).

But in what is explicitly revealed there is much content or implicit revelation, and that implicit revelation is what constitutes progress and conclusion. If that implicitness is only of name or formula, that is, an implicitness so shallow or superficial that to explain or unfold it there is no need to employ reasoning of one's own or of different concepts, but mere explanation of names, then the progress or conclusion is also improper and there is not yet true virtual or mediate [revelation]. That is what is called formal implicit or immediate implicit. Such is the implicitness between the defined and its definition, between correlatives, between the whole and its parts, and between the unconditioned universal and its particulars.

On the other hand, if it is an implicitness so recondite or profound that to explain or unfold it requires a combination of concepts and not merely of names, and therefore true and proper reasoning, then the progress and the conclusion, without ceasing to be a true explanation of the implicit and, consequently, without ceasing to be an explanation of what is truly revealed, are already a true and rigorous progress of concepts or ideas, and not of formulas alone; they are already a true and proper conclusion and not a principle: such is true and proper and rigorous Theology (33).

When the Church, which has divine authority not only to propose what is revealed, but also to explain everything that is implicit in what is revealed, defines as of divine faith that conclusion, then what was a conclusion becomes a principle of Sacred Theology: what was not formally a matter of faith, but of theology, becomes formally a matter of faith.

In the human habits of simple intelligence and science, what is science can never become simple intelligence; for in human matters we have no means of knowing without reasoning or immediately what previously we could not know except by reasoning or mediately. But in the habits that deal with the supernatural or divine or revealed, as do divine faith and Sacred Theology, we have a means of knowing without reasoning or by divine authority the very thing that previously we did not know nor could know except by reasoning. Hence it is that we have a means of converting conclusions into principles or Theology into divine faith. That means is divine authority or the dogmatic definition of the Church, which presupposes reasoning as an instrument or as a prior condition, but which is not formally founded on reasoning, but on divine assistance. Therefore John of Saint Thomas profoundly says that Theology has something proper or exclusive that the other sciences do not have, and it consists in this: that its conclusions can come to be converted into principles. "And therefore it is special to theology that what at one time are conclusions can become principles" ³⁴

In parentheses, our objector has there a new proof that John of Saint Thomas, when he defends the definability by divine faith of the theological conclusion, speaks of true and proper conclusions. Improper conclusions can become and are principles not only in Theology, but in all sciences. That would not be peculiar to Theology.

309. ELEVENTH OBSERVATION.—“For this very reason, the generality of Thomists maintain, against Contenson, that Theology is not formally supernatural, but only radically so.”

Answer.—We also hold, with the majority of Thomists, against Contenson, that Theology is not a formally supernatural habit, but only radically. But in Thomistic doctrine radically means the same as objectively or with respect to the thing known; just as formally means with respect to the mode of knowledge. Theological conclusions are, therefore, objectively supernatural or revealed, although modally natural or acquired. Now, since it is the mode or means of knowing, and not the thing known, that formally specifies cognitive habits, hence it is that the habit of Theology is formally natural or acquired, despite being objectively supernatural³⁵ The difference, then, between the major premises of faith or the habit of faith and theological conclusions or the habit of Theology is not a difference in the objectivity known, but in the mode of knowing it. Let us hear John of St. Thomas:

"To the arguments from the beginning, it is answered: to the first, that the object of theology is something supernatural, yet disposed in a natural manner, and penetrated or inferred, and therefore it belongs to a natural and acquired habit... And so, although it treats and infers many supernatural things about God, nevertheless it attains them under a natural and inferential mode through one's own industry and study... Whence, when it is said that the means of proving is supernatural, namely the truths of faith, I distinguish: as connected and penetrated in a natural manner and by acquired study, I concede; as standing precisely under supernatural light, I deny. Moreover, for the rationale of supernatural light, any dependence whatsoever does not suffice, but it is required that the very mode of illumination be supernatural, and not disposed, acquired, and penetrated in a natural manner... and from this we seek the formal reason"³⁶.

Our objector should note that entire paragraph of John of Saint Thomas and with how much insistence he repeats that the difference between the objects of faith and of Theology is one of mode of knowledge and not of known objectivity. Above all, let him note that profound and masterly definition of the object of Theology, that is, of the theological conclusion: "The object of theology is something supernatural, yet arranged in a natural mode." The conclusion or thing known is supernatural or revealed; the mode of deducing or knowing it is natural or scientific or acquired.

310. THEOLOGICAL EQUATIONS.—Many modern manuals, and with them our objector, imagine a distinction of objectivity where there is only a distinction of modality. Between faith and theology there is no objective-real distinction; both contain the same thing, but in a different mode or degree of explanation. The one is nothing other than a greater explanation or penetration of the other.

The idea that these modern manuals give, and which our objector seems to hold, regarding the formal objects of divine faith, of Sacred Theology, and of purely human sciences could be expressed in the following formulas or equations:

Divine faith = revealed. Sacred Theology = not revealed. Human sciences = not revealed.

The third of those equations is evidently correct. But in the first two there are, in our judgment, two fundamental deficiencies.

The first deficiency is found in the first formula concerning divine faith, and it consists in the fact that in that formula the "proposal and explanation by the Church" does not appear at all. Our objector will say that this matter of the Church is an accidental condition for divine faith. We will answer that, according to St. Thomas and the Thomistic school, it is an accidental condition for divine faith in itself, but it is an essential or formal condition for our divine faith, that is, for the faith of those who do not receive revelation immediately from God, like the angels, patriarchs, and apostles, but mediately (146). He will also say that the Church is required for Catholic faith, but not for divine faith. We will answer that this distinction between Catholic faith and divine faith is or can be good when it concerns private revelations; but when, without any private revelation, it concerns public or Catholic revelation, such as the revealed deposit, there is no divine faith that is not Catholic faith, that is, there is no divine faith without proposal or explanation by the Church. The contrary is precisely the doctrine of Vázquez ³⁷

The second deficiency, and an even more serious one, lies in the second formula or equation, concerning Sacred Theology. This deficiency consists in the fact that, since there neither are, nor can be, for those three formulas anything but two generic objects, namely, the revealed and the non-revealed, Sacred Theology is placed in the company of purely human sciences, as if they were two members or subdivisions of the same trunk, which is what is non-revealed, when Saint Thomas and the whole tradition have always placed it alongside faith as two members or subdivisions of what is revealed (323-325).

If Sacred Theology had as its object or as its conclusions that which is not revealed, as the profane sciences do, then such Theology would have nothing of sacred but the name, for in reality it would be as profane and as foreign to the supernatural life as any of the purely human or natural sciences.

It will be said that although Sacred Theology may have as its object or as its conclusions what is non-revealed, it has as its origin what is revealed, unlike the profane sciences. But that response saves nothing. What gives value to a thing is not its origin, but its being, and the origin has no value except insofar as it can influence some distinction in the being. The nature of the sight miraculously received from Jesus Christ by the man born blind in no way differs from the sight of other men, for although its origin was distinct or supernatural, its being is the same or natural. Hence such sight was completely natural as to its substance and only supernatural as to its mode. On the contrary, Sacred Theology is and must be the very opposite: that is, supernatural as to its object or material, and only natural as to its mode. Recall the text of John of Saint Thomas: "The object of theology is something supernatural, yet disposed in a natural manner" (309) ³⁸

311. Thus, in our judgment, the formulas or equations of divine faith, of Sacred Theology, and of the profane sciences are the following:

DIVINE FAITH... = revealed and explained by the Church. SACRED THEOLOGY = revealed, explained by reason.

SECULAR SCIENCES = not revealed, explained by reason. In these three formulas, three things of supreme and transcendental importance stand out at first glance: a) that between Sacred Theology and the secular sciences there is a difference regarding the substance (revealed and not revealed) and they agree only regarding the mode (explanation by way of human reasoning in both); b) that, on the contrary, between Theology and faith, the substance is the same (what is revealed in both), and the difference lies only in the mode (by way of divine authority or of the Church in faith, and by way of human reasoning in Theology); c) the possibility of the passage or conversion of Theology into divine faith, merely by changing the mode or means or way of knowledge; that is, merely by the Church proposing or explaining to us with divine authority or assistance that same thing that the theologian proposed and explained to us by way of human reasoning. Such is, in our judgment, the true Thomistic doctrine.

312. FIRST OBSERVATION.—“What the Church can define and does define as being of divine faith is that which, in order to be deduced from the deposit of revelation, needs only improper reasoning, and which is called formally implicit. For example: “Fundamentum indeficiens Ecclesiae: ergo infallibilis”; or also, “gratia plena: ergo immaculata”. Such conclusions, even before being defined, were already contained formally, and not only virtually, in the deposit of revelation.”

Response.—We agree that the Church can define as a matter of faith everything that is deduced from the deposit of revelation by improper reasoning. We also agree that what requires only improper reasoning to be deduced is called and is formally implicit. But we are surprised that our objector considers those two cited examples as though they were of improper reasoning or formally implicit. These are not examples of the formally implicit, but of the virtually implicit and of the truly virtual. They are not examples of improper reasoning, but of proper and most proper reasoning.

For there to be only improper reasoning or the formally implicit, it is necessary, as our objector himself confesses, that the deduced conclusion express not a new concept, but the same concept. Where there is a new concept, the reasoning is no longer improper, but proper; what is deduced is no longer formal, but virtual. Now, the concept of “indefectible foundation,” which is a concept from the Gospel, and that of “infallible by itself and not by the consent of the Church,” which is the concept defined by the Vatican Council, are not one and the same concept, but rather two concepts, albeit implicit one in the other. In the same way, the concept of “full of grace,” which is an evangelical concept, and that of “conceived without stain of original sin in the first instant of her conception by the foreseen merits of the death of her Son,” which is the concept defined by Pius IX, are not the same concept, but two concepts or different aspects, although of the same thing or reality. They are not, it is true, opposed concepts: they are not even diverse concepts; but they are indeed new or distinct concepts, derived one from the other. That is the true theology; that is the true virtually implicit; virtual, because there is a distinction of concepts, which is wherein virtual distinction consists; implicit, because one concept proceeds or is derived from the other.

To convince oneself of this, let our objector open any dictionary: let him look up the definition or formal meaning of "indefectible foundation," and see whether anything of "personal infallibility" or "without the consent of the Church" enters into that definition. Let him likewise look up the definition of "Mother of God" and see whether the concepts of "free from original sin," of "first instant," and of "by the foreseen merits of the death of her Son" enter into it. Now then: what does not enter into the definition cannot be for our intellect contained formally in what is defined.

Instead, seek the definition of "whole," and you will find in it the concept of "parts"; seek the definition of any correlative whatsoever, for example, of "father," and you will find in it the concept of the other correlative, of "son"; seek, finally, the definition of "universal," and in it you will find the concept of "singulars." Therefore, what is contained as a part in the whole, as a correlative in its correlative, or as a particular in an actual and unconditioned universal, is formal; because since the one enters into the definition or simple understanding of the other, there exists only one concept under two different words. Everything else is not formal, but virtual, for whoever knows how to distinguish our science or our Theology from simple understanding or from faith.

Our objector will say that, although in the two cited examples one concept does not enter explicitly into the definition of the other, it does enter implicitly; because by analyzing the concept of "unfailing foundation" or of "gratia plena," the defined concepts emerge. So it is. But precisely in that, for us, consists the true virtual implicit or the true and proper reasoning of the higher sciences: in analyzing a concept, decomposing it into two or more, whereby new concepts result. All the higher sciences are analytic. Theology is nothing other than the intellectual analysis of the revealed deposit.

Someone may also say: the passage from one concept to another in these examples is a clear and obvious step; it suffices to penetrate well all the biblical meaning of "inefficient foundation" or of "gratia plena" to see at once the other concepts defined by the Church.

We grant that, if one thoroughly penetrates all the biblical meaning of those concepts, the others emerge or are clearly seen. But in that very thing consists the true conclusion and the true virtual: in thoroughly penetrating all the meaning and not merely the superficial or formal meaning. If our objector takes as formal all the meaning contained in the principles or major premises of the reasoning, then it is clear that every conclusion by way of inclusion is formal. But by formal, all the meaning of a proposition or principle has never been understood, but only the explicit meaning, or also that meaning so superficially implicit that, for its explanation, a simple definition or explanation of names suffices. When, to explain the implicit meaning, conceptual analysis is needed, the implicitness is no longer formal, but virtual; it is no longer of simple intelligence or of faith, but of science or of Theology. Also, whoever thoroughly penetrated all that is contained or implicit in a mathematical or metaphysical principle or theorem would clearly and immediately see all its true conclusions. Which does not prevent that, for our intelligence, which cannot comprehend or penetrate all at a single stroke, such conclusions are true and proper conclusions, and, therefore, true new concepts or true virtual (33-39).

The only reason, in our judgment, why our objector considers those two cited examples as formal-implicit, and not as virtual-implicit, is because he is a priori persuaded that the Church cannot define as divine faith anything but the formal. And since it is a fact that the Church has defined as divine faith those two examples, he has no choice but to perform feats of nomenclature to defend that such examples are examples of the formal, albeit of the formal-implicit, as he says, or of the formal-confused, as others say with more wit. Our opinion is that instead of reasoning in this way: "The Church cannot define but the formal; therefore those examples are of the formal," one ought to reason in this other way: "Such examples are evidently of the virtual; therefore the Church can define the virtual." Thus our ancient theologians always reasoned. Thus the history of dogmas obliges one to reason.

A DIGRESSION ON THE ASSUMPTION OF THE MOST HOLY VIRGIN.* As we have noted elsewhere, it is not necessary, for a doctrine to be definable, that it have been known explicitly by the early Church. It suffices that it have been implicitly present in other explicit dogmas (173).

There is, therefore, absolutely no requirement that the early Church explicitly admitted the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.

These dogmatic truths, one of which is already defined and the other will not be long in being so, were implicitly contained, like almost all the dogmas referring to the Most Holy Virgin, in the scriptural texts: “I will put enmities,” “Full of grace,” and “Mother of Jesus”—formulas that Christian sensibility has rendered as “worthy Mother of God,” “new Eve.” The inclusive reasoning suffices to deduce them from these. And whatever might have been lacking in the evidence of reasoning has been amply supplied by the sense of the faith, because when this sense of the faith becomes the firm adherence of the entire Church, it suffices by itself to ground the definability of a truth.

We cannot but praise certain theologian-historians who devote themselves to studying and collecting all the texts and monuments of antiquity that refer to these dogmas. Frequently it results from this that the explicit belief of the Church has begun earlier than we ordinarily imagine.

But it is also necessary that these theologians not forget that it is not absolutely necessary that the Apostles taught these dogmas explicitly for them to be definable.

Suárez has admirably summarized the traditional doctrine on this question in the following text:

“What is necessary for something to be definable by the Church? I say first, nevertheless, that this truth, namely, that the Virgin was conceived without original sin, can be defined by the Church, when she has judged it expedient... Second, this is declared thus, because this truth is supernatural, highly relevant to the utility and piety of the Church, and the matter can reach that state in which, without a new and explicit revelation, the Church has sufficient motives to define this truth, from the implicit and tacit revelation of God sufficiently proposed to her; therefore. The antecedent is declared, because often the Church, by her own authority, with the Holy Spirit assisting her, has defined similar controversies without a new express revelation, as can be shown by clear examples in the question of infused habits, of the canonical authority of certain books of Sacred Scripture, of the absence of all venial sin in the Virgin herself. One can also add the example of her resurrection, of the glorious Assumption, and of the sanctity of her birth: for of these, some are already of faith, while others are proximate to faith, and no one doubts that they can ultimately be defined. For this definition it is enough that some supernatural truth be implicitly contained in Scripture or Tradition, so that, with the growing common consensus of the Church—through which the Holy Spirit often explicates traditions or declares Scripture—the Church can at length apply her definition, which has the force of a certain revelation with respect to us, because of the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit¹.

Cayetano had condensed the same doctrine in the following lines: "It does not matter in Sacred Scripture and elsewhere whether something is revealed explicitly or implicitly... except that it takes talent, labor, reason, and intellect to manifest these things that are said to be contained implicitly as necessarily connected to those in which they are said to be contained"².

Thus, then, although a truth may not have been the object of explicit belief in the early centuries, it can be defined, if it is implicitly connected with the primitive dogmas, and this in a manner that can be demonstrated with evidence, either by reasoning or by the sense of faith.

This is how the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is implicitly connected with the dogma of the divine Motherhood, and the dogma of the Assumption with the two preceding ones³

Just as Jesus Christ is by nature the "new Adam," Mary is, by the merits of Jesus, the "new Eve": thus has tradition always called her.

Jesus Christ, by nature, was free from all the consequences of original sin—apart from those which, such as death and the bodily defects common to humanity, He voluntarily assumed to redeem us—and the Most Holy Virgin had to be exempt from them by the merits of her Son.

By nature, Jesus had the right to the incorruption of His body, to the resurrection, and to the ascension. Mary, having been preserved, by the merits of her Son, from original sin, had to receive in fact these three privileges, since the corruption of the body, death, and separation from heaven are nothing but consequences of original sin. Therefore, even supposing that the Apostles did not teach explicitly, regarding the Most Holy Virgin, anything more than the dogma of the “worthy Divine Maternity,” they would have taught implicitly all the others, and to this capital dogma the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of the Assumption owe their being definable. Whether this “implicitness” be called formal, as the terminology of our objector would have it, or virtual, as ours requires, in the end it matters not at all, provided that they are truly implicit. The Church can dogmatically define everything that is truly implicit in the deposit of revelation, if this “implicitness” is not so hidden that only a new revelation could uncover it.

313. SECOND OBSERVATION.—“Throughout the whole Old Testament it is certain that there was progress not only in formulas, but also in new concepts, for there was progress in new revelations. But after the Apostles, new revelations are no longer possible, and progress is only in formulas, ever clearer and more precise, of the same concepts that God revealed to the Apostles, and which they delivered to the Church.”

Answer.—Our objector mixes together and almost identifies two statements that are radically distinct: First: in the Old Testament there were advances of new revelations, and in the New, after the Apostles, there are none. Second: in the Old Testament there was progress of new dogmatic concepts, and in the New Testament, after the Apostles, neither is it possible nor does it occur.

Of those two assertions, the first is indubitable; but the second, far from being indubitable, is contrary to what Suárez rightly calls certain doctrine and the common sentiment of traditional Theology.

According to the doctrine of Saint Thomas, neither in the Old Testament nor in the New was there or is there progress as regards the substance, but only as regards the explanation. The reason is that all the dogmas revealed by God, both in the Old and in the New Testament, as well as all the dogmas that the Church has defined or will define, were already truly implicit in the two most general articles of faith. Some were implicit by the nature of the thing, such as all those that refer to the divine being. Others were implicit by the will of God, such as all those referring to the supernatural divine providence of God as rewarder. But, in one way or another, all of them, without exception, were and are truly implicit, and, therefore, everything that we call revelations of the Old and New Testament, down to the Apostles, or dogmatic definitions after the Apostles, agree on one thing: on being nothing other than an explanation of what was already implicit in the two most general articles of faith.

The difference, then, between the Old and the New Testament is not a difference or progress as to substance, but a difference in the degree of implicitness, and, consequently, in the means of explanation ⁴.

Because there are two different degrees of implicitness. One implicitness so profound and hidden that, although in itself it may be true implicitness, nevertheless, for human reason it is as if it were not, because neither reason nor human means suffice to explain or unfold it, and divine revelation is needed. Such is the implicitness with which the dogma of the Trinity is found in the dogma of the existence of supernatural God, or the dogma of the Incarnation in the dogma of God as rewarder. Those things which, although they are truly implicit in themselves, are not so for us, are called fundamental dogmas or articles of faith. That kind of implicitness was what God kept explaining more and more throughout the entire Old Testament; and therefore, although in the Old Testament there was no progress as to substance, but only as to explanation, it was progress of new articles or fundamental dogmas, and, consequently, progress of new revelations. This kind of explanation ended with Jesus Christ and His Apostles: “This explanation was completed through Christ” (ST. THOMAS).

On the other hand, there is another kind of implicitness, not so superficial that it requires only an explanation of names, nor yet so deep or hidden that it demands revelation, but rather one that requires only, and suffices, human reasoning to explain or develop it. Such is the implicitness with which the dogma of the two intellects and two wills of Christ is found in the dogma of the two perfect natures, or the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the dogma of the divine motherhood.

These things, which, because they are truly implicit, are truly revealed, but which, because they possess an implicitness explicable by human reason, do not require a new revelation, constitute the implicitness of the New Testament after the Apostles. If that explanation is made by human reason alone, without divine assistance or authority, it is called Theology or theological progress; if it is made by human reason, with divine assistance or authority, as is done in dogmatic definition, it is called dogmatic progress; but dogmatic progress, not of fundamental dogmas or articles of faith, but of derived dogmas or simple truths of faith.

All this had been said with his customary profundity and conciseness by Saint Thomas in the following words: “Ad quintum dicendum quod aliquid quod in articulo continetur potest explicari dupliciter: uno modo, secundum quod unus articulus continetur quandoque in alio, vel duo in communi (let the reader note that this concerns the containment of articles within articles) sicut resurrectio mortuorum continetur quoddammodo in resurrectione Christi, et passio et incarnatio in hoc communi quod est mysterium redemptionis: et sic fides implicita explicatur in articulis fidei determinatis, et haec explicatio completa est per Christum (that is, by Christ and his Apostles), whence to his doctrine, as regards the essentials of faith, it is not lawful to add or to subtract, as is said in the last chapter of Revelation. But before the coming of Christ it was not complete (this concerns articles); hence even as regards the greater ones it grew according to the different times. (Up to this point, the dogmatic progress of articles within articles, or of the Old Testament; now comes the dogmatic progress of articles into consequences, or of the New Testament.) Alio modo, id quod in articulo continetur, non est articulus sed aliquid concomitans articulum: et quantum ad hoc potest fides quotidie explicari et per studium Sanctorum magis ac magis explicata est” ⁵ Words worthy of being engraved in indelible characters for all who study the extent of dogmatic progress. It is well known what Saint Thomas understands by that “concomitans articulum”, that is, “ea quae ex articulis consequuntur” ⁶.

Today in almost all manuals, every dogma of faith is already called an article of faith. Such nomenclature is not only improper, but it also contributes to many people later failing to understand Saint Thomas and our classical theologians and failing to form a true idea of the immense extent of dogmatic progress after the Apostles. Saint Thomas has always distinguished between dogmas-articles and dogmas-conclusions. Of the former there was growth throughout the Old Testament, but there is none now nor can there be after the Apostles. Of the latter, progress continues and will continue until the consummation of the ages, for the revealed deposit is of such fecundity that we shall not finish penetrating it completely until we see the divine essence. “But as for the second kind of explanation, one is not bound to know in such a way that all things contained in the articles concerning salvation are explained, because this can only be in the homeland where the full truth of the articles will be seen” ⁷.

In summary, the difference between the Old and New Testaments does not consist in whether or not there are new concepts, but in the kind of new concepts. In both Testaments there has been and is progress of new concepts. In the Old Testament there was progress of concept-articles, which require revelation. In the New there is progress of concept-consequences, for which assistance suffices in the use of the human means at our disposal: inclusive reasoning and the sense of faith. The divine existence acts in the definition.

314. THIRD OBSERVATION.—“For this reason Saint Thomas, when speaking of dogmatic progress in the Old Testament and of how all subsequent dogmas were contained in the earlier ones, does not use the word virtually, but with admirable depth and precision always says implicitly.”

Response.—In the first place, our objector falls unwittingly into a manifest contradiction. Previously he had told us, and it is true, that in the Old Testament there was progress of new concepts. And now he tells us that rightly Saint Thomas never calls that progress progress of virtuality, but rather of implicitness. If it was progress or containment of new concepts, it had to be of virtuality, since virtual and new concept are the same thing. The equivocation lies in believing that, if it was virtual, it could not be implicit, when precisely it was implicit-virtual.

Secondly, it is true that Saint Thomas uses the name implicit with depth and precision; but it is simply because in this matter, for Saint Thomas, implicit containment amounts to the same as virtual containment. Let our objector hear the holy Doctor in a parallel passage where he treats exactly the same question: "When many things are contained virtually in some one thing, they are said to be in it implicitly, just as conclusions are in principles" ⁸.

Read also our objector to the Holy Doctor when he deals with how the New Law was contained in the Old, which is the same as how the dogmas of the New Testament were contained in those of the Old, and you will see that the Holy Doctor says expressly that they were contained “virtually, as a tree is contained in its seed” ⁹.

Let our objector also read any great commentator on the Angelic Doctor, for example, Bañez, and he will see that where St. Thomas says implicitly, Bañez always translates virtually implicitly or simply virtually 48. And even with regard to the New Testament, which is more serious, he says the following: "It is proved secondly, because the Church has hitherto proposed or defined nothing for the faithful to believe that was not contained in the Sacred Scriptures or in the Apostolic traditions, either expressly or virtually contained, so that it might be drawn from them by an evident consequence" ¹⁰. There our objector has the implicitly translated very clearly by virtually, which is the same thing we have so often repeated. That is the true Thomistic doctrine.

Therefore, the word implicit, whether applied to the Old Testament or to the New, generally means the same as virtual, the same as new notions. But applied to the Old Testament, it is a virtual implicitness so profound that new revelations are needed to explain it. Whereas applied to the New Testament, it means a virtual implicitness that does not require new revelations to explain it, but rather suffices with divine assistance. This divine assistance, precisely because it is mere assistance and not revelation, necessarily requires the use of human means. And the human means most connatural to man for explaining or developing an intellectual deposit is reasoning or the path of new concepts within the same thing. “From one to another according to reason, which is not another according to reality.” "Diversity of reason does not vary anything on the part of the reality" ¹¹

315. FOURTH OBSERVATION.—"In my judgment, the dogmas are contained in the revealed deposit not in a virtual manner, as the genus contains its differences which are extrinsic to it, but in an implicit manner, as being contains all other notions, or as the Divinity contains all perfections 'simpliciter simplices' or pure ones, that is, in a formal and actual manner, not a virtual or potential one." Response.—We agree that no dogma can be in the revealed deposit in the manner that specific differences are in the genus, that is, in an extrinsic manner. Therefore, we also agree that, understanding by virtual the extrinsic virtual or non-implicit, as our objector always understands it, no dogma is in the deposit in a virtual manner. That extrinsic or non-implicit virtual cannot be a dogma, and in this the Salmanticenses saw very well, but neither can it be nor is it a true theological conclusion. Every true theological conclusion is truly implicit in the revealed deposit, because it is deduced by an inclusive path; and since every true theological conclusion is virtual, hence it follows that every true theological conclusion is at once implicit and virtual. The reason is that in theology, as in metaphysics or mathematics, the rational procedure is always analytical, as we say today, or intellectual, as the scholastics said. "Whence it is clear that the consideration of metaphysics or theology is maximally intellectual" ¹². Being implicit, then, is not opposed to being virtual, nor is being virtual opposed to being implicit. It is precisely virtual-implicit. That is true theology. Because it is virtual and not formal, it is reason or science and not simple understanding or faith. Because it is implicit, it is definable as a matter of faith. Hence the double character of every true theological conclusion: a) not being per se or formally of faith, and yet, b) being definable as a matter of faith. Vázquez did not understand the first well; Molina did not understand the second. The Thomists have always positioned themselves between Vázquez and Molina, affirming both the first and the second.

Regarding what our objector says about the manner in which successive concepts are contained in being or in the Divinity, we believe that our objector does not distinguish two manners of containment, very different for our human reason, namely: a) the manner in which such concepts are contained in the objective reality of the Divinity or of being; b) the manner in which they are contained, not in the reality of being or of the Divinity, but in the concept that we have of that reality.

In the divine reality are contained formally, and not only virtually, all the concepts that we deduce from it, such as wisdom, immutability, eternity, etc. God is not virtually wise or immutable or eternal, but He is so formally.

On the contrary, in the concept that we form of the Divinity, all those attributes deduced in the treatise De Deo uno are not formally contained but virtually, although with intrinsic or implicit virtuality. The proof is that such attributes require for our reason true and proper demonstration, and true and proper demonstration amounts to the same as true and proper virtuality. Whoever believed that, once the existence of God had been demonstrated in the second question of the Summa Theologica, the remaining questions that follow on the divine attributes are not true and proper conclusions, but conclusions improperly so called, that person does not know what theology or a conclusion is. Those questions that follow on the divine attributes are already formally contained in the reality of God, whose existence is demonstrated in the second question; but they are contained not formally, but virtually, in the abstract and fragmentary concept that our intellect has of that reality. And whoever, on the contrary, believed that because there is true and proper conclusion and true and proper virtuality, therefore there was no implicitness, that person confuses metaphysical or theological virtuality with physical virtuality and destroys all the absolute or transcendent value of theological reasoning.

The constitutive element, then, of the entire treatise on God, which is the same as saying of every theological treatise, is the virtual implicit. The reason is the one already stated: at the beginning of the Summa or of Theology we possess or see the concept of God, not the reality of God; and although in the reality of God everything is formal, in the concept that we possess of God it is present only in a virtual manner.

Now then (and here lies the root and key of everything): what we call divine revelation or the revealed deposit is not a revelation of the divine reality itself, as is the revelation or vision of the blessed in heaven, but rather it is only a revelation of a set of formulas or concepts about that same and unique divine reality, which remains for us unseen and obscure. When, therefore, it is asked how the dogmas are contained in the revealed deposit, one is not asking how they are contained in that divine reality of the deposit that we do not see, but rather how they are contained in the concepts or formulas that God revealed to us about that reality.

If it is a question, then, of the reality of the revealed deposit, all dogmas are formally contained in the deposit; but if it is a question, as it is, of our concept of reality, not all dogmas are contained formally, but many are contained virtually, although with an implicit or inclusive virtuality.

CURRENT INCLUSION, “IN ITSELF”; BUT POTENTIAL, “FOR US”.

Therefore, since in the conceptual order of our reason formal is the same as actual, and virtual the same as potential, not all dogmas are contained for us actu-implicite in the revealed deposit, as our objector says, but many are potentia-implicite, as the Thomistic school has always taught. Let us hear St. Thomas: "An article is an indivisible truth as regards what is actually explained in the article: but it is divisible (developable, explicable, definable) as regards those things which are contained potentially in the article, inasmuch as he who says one thing, in a certain way says many; and these are the things that precede the article and follow from it, and in this respect (the potential or consequential), the article of faith can be explained and divided"¹³. "And in this respect the faith can daily be explained and through the study of the Saints has been more and more explained"¹⁴.

Let us also add the following text of Gravina: "Could any addition be made and still be made to the Apostles' Creed by the Church?... Catholic conclusion: An addition to the Apostles' Creed was lawfully made by the Church and can be made... The increase or addition commonly called addition can be understood in two ways.

One way is when something is added to another thing, and this addition is outside the substance of the thing, whether it is a form contrary to the subject to which it is added, such as heat to water, or beyond the essence of that thing, such as whiteness to a body.

Altero modo, something is added to something else by way of contracting and determining that which was only in potency with respect to what is determined... and according to this manner conclusions are added to principles. The same must be said about the addition to the Creed... for just as food that was in potency becomes actually flesh and living, nevertheless the same in number (the living thing) perseveres unchanged, so it happens in the explanation of dogmas, as Vincent of Lérins says: "Let the religion of souls imitate the nature of bodies, which, although over the course of years they unfold and develop their numbers, yet remain the same as they were," and later: "The small limbs of infants, the large limbs of young men, are still the same." Since, with the same rule remaining intact in its order, through the addition and explanation of subsequent synods, that which lay hidden in potency is explained, and what was in potency regarding us with respect to faith becomes actually a matter of faith through declaration" ¹⁵

Our objector can see here how dogmatic progress extends also to what is contained for us in the deposit in a POTENTIAL or consequential manner, even if it is a truly implicit potential.

Here is an example given by Cajetan of actual inclusion "on the part of the thing," and potential or virtual inclusion "on our part": "Regarding the second point, it is said that the Father does not understand essence and fatherhood as two formal objects in themselves, but as one formally and many virtually... Not in such a way that in that supreme THING and formal reason fatherhood and essence are virtually; but in such a way that they are formally and really: but their distinction is virtual... Therefore Augustine and the Doctors speak of essence and relation as of things formally distinct. For this on the part of the thing is founded on the fact that they are formally distinct virtually, although not actually. On our part, however, because by objective reason among us they are distinguished actually" ¹⁶

As we have observed elsewhere, and will note again shortly (306, 517), the distinction between the dogmas that the Church can define and those of the primitive datum is exactly the same as that which exists between the Persons and the divine Essence, or between the divine Essence and its attributes, and among the attributes. It is a distinction "by way of the implicit and the explicit," and not "by way of the excluded and the excluding." This is why all our dogmas were contained in the revealed datum in an actual manner "in themselves," but potentially, not actually "for us." "Those things that are contained potentially in an article" (ST. THOMAS).

Here is our objector shown how dogmatic progress extends also to what is contained for us in the deposit in a potential or consequential manner, although truly implicitly potential (296).

316. FIFTH OBSERVATION.— "One must clearly distinguish between the implicit virtual and the connective virtual. The former can be defined as of divine faith; the latter, not." Reply.—If the connective virtual is not implicit, as it is not when the virtual is understood in the manner of Suárez, we agree that it must be distinguished well, and very well and very radically, from the implicit virtual. But if the connective virtual is implicit, as it is in every true theological conclusion, then there is no need to distinguish between the one and the other at all. Exactly the same thing is connective-theological virtual as implicit virtual.

Therefore, if our objector concedes that the virtual implicit is definable de fide, as indeed it is, he already concedes that every theological virtual is definable de fide. The rest is merely a matter of names. Let our objector note but one thing. A conclusion that absolutely or by divine power can fail is not a theological conclusion. That is evident. On the other hand, a conclusion that not even by divine power can fail is necessarily implicit, since only that which is of the essence or de intellectu of the thing cannot fail. Every true theological conclusion is, therefore, de intellectu of the revealed principles or the revealed deposit. No clearer implicitness can be given, unless we play with names.

Conversely, since the formally revealed constitutes, according to all, the proper or per se object of divine faith, and the virtually revealed the proper or per se object of Theology, every theologian must always distinguish well between formal and virtual, and therefore never confuse the implicit formal with the implicit virtual. Whoever does not distinguish them, as our objector sometimes does, confuses theology with faith, or confuses their respective and specific nomenclatures. The formal-implicit does not comprise nor can it comprise for our reason anything but conclusions of nominal distinction, such as the passage from the definition to the defined, from one correlative to another, from the whole to the part, or from the universal to the singular. Wherever there is conceptual explanation or a combination of multiple concepts within the same thing, it is no longer for our intellect formal or immediate, neither explicit nor implicit, but virtual or mediate (61, 64). Dogmatic progress is a progress of new concepts within the very objectivity of the revealed datum; it is the virtual implicit. It is not merely a progress of formulas, but a progress of meaning, of implicit meaning; it is a progress of explication of meaning: in the same sense.

317. SIXTH OBSERVATION.—“Therefore, the conclusions of virtual connection, such as, for example, the conclusion that “Christ has infused science,” cannot be defined as of divine faith by the Church, for it is not revealed truth.” Response.—We grant that the conclusion of Christ’s infused science is a true and proper theological conclusion. We grant, therefore, that it is not revealed, that is, that it is not formally or in se revealed; for when revealed is said without qualification, what is always understood or ought to be understood among technical theologians is what is formally revealed. The language of the true theologian is always formal, and it is well known that the true and proper theological conclusion is not for us formally revealed, but virtually. All this is clear. But whence does our objector draw that this conclusion cannot be defined as of divine faith by the Church?

If our objector says this because for him such a conclusion is doubtful or not demonstrable, since it cannot be deduced with absolute certainty from any revealed principle, then let it pass that it cannot be defined as of divine faith. We say let it pass because in that supposition this example is completely irrelevant; for what cannot be deduced with certainty from any revealed principle is not a true theological conclusion, but a theological opinion or system, and that is not the issue here ¹⁷.

On the other hand, if our objector believes that this is a true theological conclusion, then he has no choice but to admit that it is definable as of divine faith. Why? For a very simple reason, which we hope anyone familiar with the treatise De Incarnatione will understand. That conclusion concerning the infused science of Christ is deduced from the same revealed principle, and by the same logical process or by the same minor premise of reasoning as the other conclusions that Christ has a human intellect, and that He has a human will, and that He has human knowledge, and that He has all the virtues, etc., etc.

Let any reader turn to Saint Thomas or his commentators, and he will see that the process for deducing all these conclusions is one and the same, namely:

Major of faith: “Christ is not only man, but a perfect man.” This major or principle of faith means, according to the Church’s understanding, that Christ is perfect in all orders, natural and supernatural, and in all those perfections that do not involve imperfection or that do not oppose the end of the Incarnation.

Menores de razón: Thus it is that the human understanding is a perfection; thus it is that the human will is a perfection; thus it is that infused knowledge is a perfection; thus it is that acquired knowledge is a perfection; thus it is that all the virtues are perfections, etc., etc.

Theological conclusions: Therefore Christ has a human intellect; therefore He has a human will; therefore He has infused knowledge; therefore He has acquired knowledge; therefore He has all the virtues, etc.

There is no escape here. Either one denies (as some deny) one of those minor premises, and then its respective conclusion is not a true conclusion and we are outside the case, or one admits the minor premises as true, and then all those conclusions are of the same nature, for they have the same principle and the same process.

Now then: the conclusion that Christ has a human intellect and a human will is not only definable as of divine faith, but is already defined. Likewise, the conclusion that Christ has all the virtues is either already defined by ordinary magisterium or, at least, is, according to all, definable. Therefore, the conclusion that Christ has infused science or any other perfection is also definable as of divine faith ¹⁸

The confusion of many in this matter, as we have already repeated several times, comes from the fact that in the classic example of "Christus est homo: ergo risibilis", they understand that "homo" as "man" pure and simple, when it should be understood and is understood as "homo perfectus". If we had not been revealed that Christ is "man," none of those conclusions would be a true theological conclusion, since absolutely or theologically speaking, one can be man without any of those non-essential properties or perfections. But if we have been revealed, as indeed we have, that Christ is perfect man, all those conclusions are true and proper conclusions, because not even God Himself can make one be perfect and yet lack that perfection. But then they are also definable as of divine faith, since they are deduced by the implicit or inclusive way.

The conclusion, then, that "Christ has infused knowledge" is not only virtually connective, as our objector says, but also virtually connective-implicit. For this reason it is a true and proper theological conclusion, but for that very reason it is definable as a matter of divine faith. That conclusion is implicit, not in the man, but in the "perfect man." In this way all true theological conclusions must be implicit, and in this way they always are.

Then if this doctrine of the infused knowledge of Christ cannot yet be defined as a matter of faith, it is not because it is not definable matter of faith, but because, not yet being demonstrated with evidence, nor admitted by the common and certain consent of theologians, it is not yet for the Church what is rigorously called a theological conclusion.

Consequently, either this example means nothing, since it is not a true theological conclusion; or, if it is considered as a true theological conclusion, one must also admit that it can be defined as of divine faith. Therefore, this conclusion is deduced from the revealed deposit by exactly the same inclusive process, according to which other theological conclusions—already defined, moreover, as of faith—have been deduced concerning the perfections of Christ.

318. SEVENTH OBSERVATION.—“Otherwise one would have to say that the Church can define as of divine faith the entire Summa Theologica. That is manifestly inadmissible.”

Response.—Our objector exaggerates and tries to take things to extremes. From the fact that every rigorous theological conclusion is definable as of divine faith, it does not follow that the whole Summa Theologica is; just as from the fact that a house is made of marble it does not follow that everything in the house is made of marble, since in a marble house there may be silk curtains and wooden paintings with a multitude of ornaments of all kinds, which are in the house without forming an essential part of it. Thus, in the Summa Theologica not everything is rigorously theological, although everything is of theological utility or theological ornament.

Let us, therefore, first set aside all conclusions that have no necessary relation to the revealed deposit, because they belong exclusively to the physical sciences; e.g.: "Whether light is a body; Whether it is a quality; Whether semen comes from surplus food" ¹⁹

Let us dismiss, secondly, all conclusions which, although they are not physical but metaphysical, likewise have no necessary relation to the revealed deposit; e.g.: "Whether the nature of good consists in measure, species, and order; Whether hope is the same as desire or longing; Whether habit is a determinate species of quality" ²⁰

Thirdly, let us set aside all conclusions that perhaps in themselves have a certain relationship to the revealed deposit, and therefore in themselves will be true and rigorous conclusions; but which, for human reason in general, or at least for the common run of mortals, have only a doubtful or merely probable relationship, and which have been and will continue eternally to be disputed among the various schools. Such conclusions do not constitute rigorous theology, but rather the theological systems or opinions. The Summa Theologica is filled with these conclusions, as with those of the two preceding groups. "The Summa of St. Thomas is full of such questions." ²¹ Although innumerable examples of this class of conclusions could be given, it is better not to give them, since often what today seems to us doubtful or probable may within a century be certain. But as long as they are doubtful or merely probable, they are not rigorous conclusions, and, therefore, they are not relevant to the question of definability.

From the whole Summa Theologica there remain for us, then, only those conclusions that are rigorously theological, that is, that have for us an absolutely certain and evident connection with the revealed principles. If our objector speaks of these, we have no difficulty in answering him that all of them are definable as divine faith, and that this, far from being inadmissible or unheard of, is the common doctrine of all traditional theology.

This, which to our objector and to so many others today seems unheard of and inadmissible, seemed the clearest and most ordinary thing to St. Thomas with all his disciples, and to St. Bonaventure and Scotus with all theirs. The only discordant voice came in the seventeenth century with Molina. But does our objector know how this new and strange opinion of Molina was received inside and outside his own house? The Thomists, through the mouth of Navarrete, unleashed the following broadside against him: "This opinion contains many false things, which for now we do not wish to mark with censure, because it is not sufficiently clear what this author meant" ²² And the great Suárez, who knew well the tradition of the school, could not help but cross himself in stupefaction (it must be wondered at!, are the words of Suárez) and declare it contrary to the common sentiment of the theologians ²³ All this is authentic history, rather forgotten by certain modern manuals, and which we have related at length elsewhere (84).

Let us take from the Summa Theologica an example, and the most extreme example that can be given, namely, the real distinction between essence and existence. It is not possible to choose an example more to the liking of our objector, who will surely say that such a conclusion is not definable as of divine faith, and perhaps even say that it is not even a theological conclusion, but purely philosophical. Well, then: that conclusion, for every true Thomist, is not a purely philosophical conclusion, but truly and properly theological, and precisely because it is truly theological it is contained objectively in the revealed deposit, which is the only thing required for it to be definable as of faith. Let us hear a witness who is by no means suspect, the most wise Cardinal Billot. He says the following: "And thus it is also clear that the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures is established by theological reasoning... This, I say, is the simplest analysis of the revealed principle... Hence it follows that the unity of the act of existing (in Christ) is objectively contained according to the Angelic Doctor in the doctrine which asserts the union according to subsistence, which is of faith" ²⁴ Such are all the rigorous conclusions of the Summa Theologica: analysis of a revealed principle. For this reason they are objectively contained in revelation. For this reason they are definable as of faith. By this same path of analysis, that other truth, apparently purely philosophical, was defined by the Council of Vienne, namely, that the human soul is per se the substantial form of the body. By this same path, many, if not all, of the propositions of the Thomistic Syllabus of Pius X could be defined.

To show how broadly our great theologians conceived of dogmatic progress, even after the Apostles, the following paragraph from Báñez is worthy of being read and meditated upon: "It should be noted in the fifth place, that neither the Supreme Pontiff nor the whole Church can grant a new article or new dogma as to its substance, just as they cannot institute a new sacrament: indeed much less so, because faith is the principal foundation in the Church. Wherefore even Christ the Lord Himself, although He instituted new Sacraments, did not however institute or make a new article of faith as to its substance. For just as all the truths of the sciences are contained in this principle, everything is or is not: so there is no truth of faith which, as to its substance, is not contained in that principle set down by the Apostle in Hebrews 11: He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. From which it follows that when we ask whether the Supreme Pontiff can err in defining matters of faith, we understand matters of faith to be explained by his definition. What is explained is shown by us by example. If someone were to consult a moral philosopher about some moral doubt, and he were to respond according to moral principles, then truly that philosopher rather explains what was hidden, than he is himself the author of the truth. In this manner when the Supreme Pontiff defines something as being held in faith, he acts as one explaining a hidden truth, not as the author of the truth. And in this way is St. Thomas to be understood in the article where he says that a new edition of the Creed pertains to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, namely as to a new explanation. From which it follows that heretics wrongly object against us (which is the same thing that our illustrious friend objects to our theory) that the Supreme Pontiff would make a new faith²⁵. "Because the Church has so far proposed or defined nothing for the faithful to believe that was not contained in the sacred Scriptures or apostolic traditions expressly or virtually contained, so that it could be drawn from them by an evident consequence"²⁶. "Therefore she could likewise now define as a matter of faith those truths in which the whole school of theologians agrees"²⁷. That is exactly what we have said and repeat. That very thing is what all the theologians before Molina and the vast majority of those after him have said, whose texts we will cite in due time (353-448).

319. EIGHTH OBSERVATION.—“But the Church,” says our objector, “cannot define as divine faith anything but ‘what is revealed.’” Response.—In that phrase “what is revealed” our objector is always confused, because that phrase is ambiguous. The Church can propose as divine faith not only “what is revealed,” but also “the explanation of what is revealed.” That is what traditional theology teaches and what the Vatican Council has already defined. Now, the true theological conclusion is nothing other than the intellectual explanation of what is revealed. Let us hear Saint Thomas: “To explain the articles of faith is possible... as regards those things which are contained in the articles themselves implicitly, which happens when a person knows those things which follow from the articles”²⁸.

From this arises that other fundamental affirmation of St. Thomas: "Fides quantum in se est, ad omnia quae fidem concomitantur vel sequuntur vel praecedunt, sufficienter inclinat" ²⁹. What traditional Theology understands by consequentia ad fidem, St. Thomas himself states there; but it will be well to add the authority of St. Bonaventure: "For the understanding of the aforesaid, it must be noted that the doctrine of the faith has certain antecedent things, certain consequent things, and certain principles or objects... Consequent things, such as corollary conclusions... or those which can be elicited from those articles, and which are bound to follow from those articles" ³⁰. Or as Scotus likewise says: "For the evidentness of which, it must be known that certain things belong so simply to the substance of the faith that all, even the simple, are bound to believe them explicitly... Other things similarly belong to the substance of the faith, but are to be believed explicitly only by the greater ones in the Church... Finally, other things pertain to the faith in such a way that neither the simple nor the greater ones in the Church are compelled to believe them explicitly: and of this sort are many conclusions necessarily included in the articles believed: for no one is bound to believe these explicitly before they are proposed by the Church as an object of faith... and these pertain to the order of conclusions virtually included in the articles of faith" ³¹. As we have already said, that the true theological conclusion is definable by divine faith is the common opinion of all theologians before Molina.

320. NINTH OBSERVATION.—“If every theological conclusion were definable as of divine faith, the Church would not take so long either to define dogmas or to ascertain whether a truth is definable or not.”

Answer.—It is not the same thing to be definable as of divine faith as to be proximately definable. For a truth to be definable, two conditions suffice: a) that it be explicitly or implicitly contained in the deposit of revelation, and we have already said that implicit-virtual containment is truly implicit containment; b) that this containment be knowable with certainty by human reason without new revelation.

But for it to be definable in the near future, a third condition is required, namely: c) that this continence be not only knowable, but that it be actually known with certainty.

Now then: since the Church does not have revelation, but only pure divine assistance, and divine assistance is nothing more than the infallible preservation from error in the use of human means, it follows that no truth is proximately definable while its containment in the deposit has not been known with certainty by a human means. The human means available to the Church for defining are the same, as Melchor Cano very well observes, as those available to the theologian for deducing, namely, the theological sources. "The Supreme Pontiff and the Councils, in settling matters of this kind, consult not only the Sacred Scriptures, but also the institutions of the Apostles, earlier Councils, the decrees of the Supreme Pontiffs, the writings of the ancient Fathers, the teachings of the scholastics, and sound philosophical reasoning. In short, the case under discussion is referred to those sources about which this book of ours is concerned. For they could not derive arguments from other sources for solving questions of faith or theology. But to seek new revelations and sacred scriptures is characteristic of the Jews, who even now await recent prophets" ³².

As a general canon, then, the following may be established: "Every truth is proximately definable as of divine faith whose explicit or implicit containment in the revealed deposit is established with theological certainty, that is, by means of one of the certain theological loci."

Of those theological sources, which are many, the Church is bound to none in particular. The Pope may define without relying on Sacred Scripture, relying only on tradition; he may likewise define without looking to primitive tradition, looking only to later tradition; he may, finally, define guided by present tradition, and in present tradition he is free to attend to the consent of the theologians or to that of the faithful of the present Church ³³.

Any of those criteria or theological sources, when it meets the true conditions, is a theologically certain criterion, and the Supreme Pontiff is not, as modernism would have it, a recording device of the Church’s social conscience, nor is he bound to this or that theological source, but rather he is the infallible judge and teacher of the doctrinal conscience of the whole Church and the supreme rule for the explanation and application of every theological source.

But although it is a theoretical truth, already defined by the Vatican Council, that the Supreme Pontiff is infallible of himself, not however by the consent of the Church, and that this infallibility and independence is understood not only with respect to the antecedent consent of the Church, but to all consent, whether antecedent, concomitant, or consequent, it is no less certain, historically and practically speaking, that the Church does not usually define a truth without there first existing the common consent of the theologians of the time, that is, such a consent that either it is universal or, at least, the few who hold the contrary are regarded either as insignificant, or as manifestly mistaken, or as blinded by school or party passions, as happened with the few theologians who still denied the Immaculate Conception or pontifical infallibility on the eve of their definition.

Thus, then, as a practical canon of proximate definability, the following may be established: "Every truth whose explicit or implicit containment in the deposit of revelation is affirmed as certain by the common consent of theologians is proximately definable as of divine faith."

Finally, since we admit, and believe that every theologian must admit with the traditional opinion, that implicit-virtual continence or a rigorous theological conclusion is true implicit continence, the previous canon becomes the following canon: "Every truly theological conclusion admitted as absolutely certain by the common consent of theologians is proximately definable as of divine faith." That is the truly Thomistic canon, which Báñez formulates thus: "Those truths in which the whole school of theologians agrees could now be defined as being of faith" ³⁴.

Whoever, then, wishes to have a true index of propositions that are proximate to being definable as of divine faith need not ask it of us, for he can easily form it himself. Let him first open Denzinger, and mark all the propositions already defined infallibly. Let him then open a true course or treatise on theology, and mark all the propositions that are truly theological and already admitted as absolutely certain by the common consent of theologians or by the common consent of all the faithful. The "last dispositio praevia" to definability. To form this common consent of theologians and of the faithful, that is, of the whole society of the Church, the "sense of faith" contributes as much as or more than reasoning, especially when it is a matter of dogma of a practical and affective character. This is why, as we have already observed (220), this sense of faith, from the moment it becomes general and becomes the common sentiment of bishops, theologians, and faithful, is for the Church a sufficient criterion of definability.

The purpose of this common and social consent of the Church is not to create a non-existent "implicitness" of the revealed datum, but to confirm it when it has already been discovered by speculative reasoning, or to discover it by way of affectivity when, existing from the beginning, it cannot be discerned with certainty by reasoning alone.

As we see, although it is true in theory that the Pope, in order to define a truth, does not necessarily depend on the consent of the Church, it is no less true that, in practice, he always or almost always counts on it. In this sense, we believe that Fr. Gardeil is right in affirming that the "social sense of the Church" or the "lived theology" is thus like the ultimate prior disposition to the definability of a dogma³⁵.

We have so often repeated the words "truly theological conclusions" because not all the conclusions found in theology courses are rigorously theological, but only those "from whose denial the denial of the premise of faith necessarily follows with absolute necessity". If the Church delays in defining such truths, it is for two reasons: first, because there is not always common consent of theologians regarding them, without which the Church never usually defines; second, because there are not always heretics who deny them or fervent pleas of the Christian people for them to be defined, which are the two occasional causes without at least one of which the Church is not accustomed to define.

321. TENTH OBSERVATION.—"But," insists our objector, "how can that be defined as of divine faith which is only connected or related to what is revealed? Because for a thing to be defined as of divine faith it is not enough that it be related to the deposit; it must be in or within the deposit.

The answer to this last objection, we believe, is the key to this entire question. Our objector focuses only on the fact that the conclusions are relations of other things to the deposit, when he ought to focus on the fact that they are also, and above all, relations of the deposit to other things. This latter, and only this latter, is the formal point of view from which such relations fall under the Church and Theology, not insofar as they are relations of other things to the deposit, but of the deposit to other things. They are, therefore, relations of the deposit, something belonging to the deposit itself. Sacred Theology does not study, nor can it study, other things distinct from dogma; it does not study, nor can it study, anything but dogma and its relations to other things. That is precisely what we call conclusions. They are relations of dogma itself, dogmatic relations. Our human reason would not know these relations or conclusions without the so-called minor premises of reason; but the minor premises do not create or invent these relations. They merely explain or discover them in the major premises of faith (245).

Thus, the Summa of Saint Thomas, insofar as it is rigorously theological, and all true Theology, is nothing other than an explanation of the implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit. If only God, in giving us the revealed deposit, had deigned to explain Himself further, we would have, instead of the deposit, the Summa of Saint Thomas. Therefore, the Gospel or revealed deposit is nothing other than the substance of the "Summa Theologica"; the Summa Theologica, insofar as it is rigorously Theological (318), is nothing more than the explained Gospel ³⁶

Of the four degrees or stages that constitute the whole of Catholic doctrine, namely: primitive datum, dogmas of faith, infallible truths, and theological conclusions ³⁷.

The first degree is the shrub, small still in development or size, but fruitful and pregnant with substance, with sap, with potential, with divine life. The other three degrees that sprout and emerge homogeneously from the first are the same shrub, the very same in terms of substance, but already grown and transformed into a gigantic tree with new branches, flowers, and fruits.

Two gardeners have contributed and will always contribute to preserving, cultivating, and developing that sacred shrub of the primitive deposit of faith—one human, the other divine: the theologian and the Church. Both, the theologian with his human and fallible reasoning and the Church with her infallible and divine authority, have an analogous mission; not the mission of adding, removing, or changing anything in the shrub, but rather of preserving and explaining it. In that sacred mission the theologian is a pope without authority or any divine assistance; the pope is a theologian with divine authority, a divinely assisted theologian.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE EXTENT OF DOGMATIC EVOLUTION WITH THE EXTENT OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH

322. THE FORMAL VIEWPOINT OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH.—When treating the six types of reasoning or connection, we said that conclusions or connections of the fourth type were not the object of the infallibility of the Church. When later treating the extension of dogmatic evolution, we also said that this extension was the same as that of infallibility (99-295).

Against those two affirmations of ours, intimately linked to each other and to the evolution of dogma, several observations have been made to us, which we shall answer in this section. But first it is fitting to say a few words about the formal point of view of the infallibility of the Church, the only way to properly appreciate its relationships with revelation, with faith, with theology, and therefore with the evolution of dogma.

To appreciate any question with exactness and depth, it is fitting to place oneself from the very outset at its formal point of view, which is what Saint Thomas frequently calls the per se point of view. The material or per accidens points of view often disorient thought unless one takes the greatest care to consider them solely and exclusively in their relation to the formal point ¹.

Now then, infallibility was given by God to the Church not for new revelations nor for doctrines unrelated to revelation, but solely and exclusively for the integral preservation and faithful exposition of the divine revelation or deposit of faith which the Apostles handed over to the Church.

To preserve and set forth the divine revelation or deposit of the faith is, therefore, the formal viewpoint or "ratio sub qua" of the infallibility of the Church. Nothing, therefore, can belong to the infallibility of the Church that is not divine revelation or related to divine revelation: nothing that is not the deposit of the faith or related to the deposit of the faith. On the other hand, everything that is an object of divine revelation or of the deposit of the faith, or that has a necessary connection with the preservation and exposition of divine revelation, must be an object of the infallibility of the Church, and to the same extent that it is an object of revelation and of faith.

Let us listen to the Vatican Council: “For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that, by his revelation, they might make known new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance (infallibility), they might holily guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith handed down through the Apostles” ². “We teach that the object of infallibility extends only as far as the deposit of faith extends and the duty of guarding it requires: and therefore that the prerogative of infallibility, with which the Church of Christ is endowed, embraces in its scope both the entire revealed word of God, and everything which, although in itself not revealed, is nevertheless of such a kind that, without it, that word cannot be safely preserved, certainly and definitively proposed for belief, or explained, or validly asserted and defended against the errors of men and the opposition of falsely so-called knowledge” ³.

Let us listen to Schaezler and Franzelin: “And therefore the magisterium of the Church, whose role it is to apply the light of divine revelation to nascent questions of faith, considers in that same light many things which, taken in themselves, lie outside the object of revelation, yet fall under its light insofar as they are referred to a question of faith to be decided by the Church from the light of divine revelation. Now, only under this aspect, that is, only insofar as truths of this kind, although of themselves natural, are nevertheless illumined by the supernatural light of divine revelation, are they subject to the magisterium of the Church” ⁴ “Thus the magisterium of the Church teaches such truths and can judge infallibly concerning such errors, not by teaching the human sciences from their own principles, but by judging from its own principles. Therefore the Church, which is infallible, never judges, nor can the Holy Spirit ever permit that it judge by way of definition, whether concerning truths or concerning errors, except in order to guard the deposit and by virtue of the office divinely enjoined upon it of guarding the deposit” ⁵

Examine these two propositions. First: Infallibility extends not only to faith and theology, but also to philosophy, sociology, etc. Second: Infallibility extends only to faith and theology. Both propositions are true. But the first is materially true and formally false or inexact. The second is formally true and exact. Philosophy, sociology, etc., do not fall under infallibility, but only and insofar as they are necessarily related to the revealed deposit. But from that point of view they are no longer formally philosophy, nor sociology, nor politics, nor history, etc., but theology.

The concept, then, of the infallibility of the Church is not an absolute concept or one of indefinite extension like the concept of the infallibility of God, but rather an essentially relative concept and one essentially limited to the preservation and exposition of revelation and of faith, and its field cannot extend beyond the field or departments of faith and revelation. Since, therefore, the infallibility of the Church is a concept relative to divine faith and divine revelation, it is fitting to assess with exactness the extent or departments of divine faith and divine revelation, if one wishes to assess duly and formally the extent and departments of the object of the infallibility of the Church. That is the only scientific and sure procedure in the examination of every relative concept.

**323. TWO GREAT DEPARTMENTS OF DIVINE FAITH.—**The Angelic Doctor, whose treatise De fide is among the most sublime and finished works ever written ⁶, divides the entire field of truth into two great departments, essentially and radically distinct: first, truths that in one way or another belong to divine faith; second, truths that in no way belong to divine faith. Since there are two different ways of belonging to divine faith, directly or principally, and indirectly or secondarily, the holy Doctor subdivides the first department into two others, corresponding to these two ways of belonging to the faith. With this, the entire field of truth is divided by St. Thomas into three departments, which, because of their importance, we shall set forth separately: First department: Truths that directly or principally belong to divine faith. Second department: Truths that indirectly or secondarily belong to divine faith. Third department: Truths that in no way belong to divine faith. These are, in Thomistic doctrine, the three formal departments of: a) divine faith; b) Sacred Theology; c) pure human reason. Whoever wishes to understand St. Thomas and his commentators when they speak of faith, infallibility, or theology must never lose sight of the classification of these three departments and the observations we shall take the liberty of making about them. But let us first cite a brief text from St. Thomas: "I answer that we are now speaking of heresy insofar as it implies corruption of the Christian faith. Now it does not pertain to the corruption of the Christian faith if someone holds a false opinion in matters that are not of the faith, for example in geometry or in other such things that cannot possibly pertain to the faith (thus far the third department of things that in no way are or can be matters of faith); but only when someone holds a false opinion concerning those things that pertain to the faith (now the subdivision of the first and second departments of divine faith will begin). To which something pertains in two ways, as was said above: one way, directly and principally, as the articles of faith (thus far the first department of the faith); another way, indirectly and secondarily, as those things from whose denial follows corruption of some article (thus far the second department of the faith): and concerning both (about the truths of both the first and the second department) there can be heresy, in the same way as there can be faith"⁷. When those truths of the second department, which can be matters of faith and heresy, pass in fact into being directly matters of faith, and their denial into being true heresy, the same holy Doctor explains in that same article, in the reply to the third argument: "Thus, therefore, some doctors (the Holy Fathers) seem to have disagreed, either about those things of which nothing pertains to the faith (third department) whether they are held in one way or another: or also about certain things pertaining to the faith that had not yet been determined by the Church (second department); but after they had been determined by the authority of the universal Church (by which they pass into the first department), if anyone were pertinaciously to resist such an ordination, he would be deemed a heretic" ⁸.

This is the classic and most finely crafted article of the Holy Doctor on the subject, for it is from the Summa Theologica and from the treatise De fide. The first part of the same Summa ⁹ with Cajetan's commentary and the Sententiaries ¹⁰, where he treats the same matter, may be consulted as parallel passages. Although, as an example of the second department, the Holy Doctor frequently places the secondary things of Sacred Scripture, such as that "Abraham had two sons," it is evident that he also includes in that second department all true theological conclusions, both because this follows evidently from the context; both because the Holy Doctor applies this doctrine to the treatise on the divine notions; both because theology does not fit into the third department, which is completely profane, nor into the first, which is of itself and formally of faith; both because the Saint expressly indicates this in the last of the parallel passages cited above (467-468).

Báñez has well expressed the mind of the Holy Doctor regarding what is indirectly revealed when he says: "It is asked what St. Thomas means by directly and indirectly pertaining to faith? Because either it is understood... or it is understood... or finally it is understood by that directly that something is what immediately falls under the habit of faith, that is, without a process of reasoning: but that is said to pertain indirectly to faith which is gathered by necessary consequence from some proposition that is immediate according to faith. To this doubt it is answered that St. Thomas is to be understood in this last way. And although he placed an example in the articles of faith, which pertain directly to faith, nevertheless he does not exclude that other things would pertain directly to faith. For all things that are in Sacred Scripture pertain directly to faith. Even the traditions of the Apostles and the definitions of the Councils pertain directly to faith. But those things are indirectly of faith through the denial of which it follows by good

consequentiam it is false that what is asserted by faith is false: as if someone denies "that Christ is capable of laughter," he errs in the Catholic faith consequently and indirectly. Because it follows well by a consequence known by natural light that "Christ is not a PERFECT man" ¹¹

324. OBSERVATIONS ON THE TWO DEPARTMENTS OF DIVINE FAITH.—Leaving entirely aside the third department, which, being completely profane, or without any necessary relation to faith, must also be foreign to infallibility and to theology, it is fitting to make, with Saint Thomas, the following observations on the other two departments:

1. To the first department belong all and only the truths revealed by God and defined as such by the ordinary or solemn magisterium of the Church, or, in other words, all and only the dogmas of faith.

2. To the second department belong all the truths that follow necessarily from the first, or that are necessarily connected with the first, or from whose denial follows the denial of the first, or from whose corruption follows the corruption of the first. All these phrases come to mean the same thing, and the Holy Doctor employs them indiscriminately.

3. Divine faith has as its primary object (or per se, or direct, or immediate, or formal, for all these terms mean the same thing) the truths of the first department: and as its secondary object (or per accidens, or mediate, or indirect, or virtual, for all these terms mean the same thing) the truths of the second department.

4. The infallibility of the Church, which exists only in relation to divine faith, must have and does have the same object as the latter, that is, as its primary object, the truths of the first department, and as its secondary object, the truths of the second department.

5. Sacred Theology, which, as is well known, has as its starting point the dogma and as its conclusions or proper object everything necessarily connected with the dogma, will therefore have and does have as its starting point or principles the truths of the first department, and as its conclusions or proper object the truths of the second department. The second department is, then, the proper, or specific, or per se object of theology, just as the first department is the proper, or per se or specific object of divine faith ¹²

6. If there are some truths that meet at once the conditions of both the first and the second department—that is, that on the one hand they are revealed and defined (medium cognitionis of the first department or of divine faith), and on the other hand they are a necessary consequence (medium cognitionis of the second department or of theology) of other revealed and defined truths—such truths will belong at once and directly to both faith and theology (126).

7. The truths of the second department, per se or without definition by the Church, that is, when they are known only through reasoning or through the necessary connection they have with the truths of the first department, are properly, rigorously, and exclusively theological conclusions, and they alone and exclusively merit theological assent. But since theological assent is neither of pure natural reason nor of pure divine faith, but an assent of reason-faith in that sense, they are said to belong mediately to divine faith. In the doctrine of Saint Thomas, to be mediately of divine faith means the same as to be immediately and formally of theology and of pure theology. It is in this seventh observation that Vázquez and Vega depart from Saint Thomas, by not distinguishing theology and faith well and formally (85).

8th. These same truths of the second department, after the definition of divine faith by the Church (after they have, however, been determined by the authority of the universal Church), pass into the first department, that is, they become true dogmas of divine faith, and their denial becomes true heresy. They pass from conclusions of theology to principles of theology and of faith, because they are now known by a new means, not by their mere connection with what is revealed, which is the formal means of theology, but by their revelation explained by the Church, which is the formal means of divine faith. In this, Vázquez, Vega, and Cano did nothing other than follow Saint Thomas and the whole Thomistic school, and Molina departed from this Thomistic theory, and Kilber and some others followed Molina.

These eight observations, which we recommend for the meditation of every Thomistic theologian, contain, in our judgment, the true key to the whole doctrine of Saint Thomas on divine faith and, consequently, on infallibility and theology, which are two things essentially related to divine faith.

325. TWO GREAT DEPARTMENTS OF DIVINE REVELATION.— Since divine revelation is the formal object of divine faith, the departments of the former must be the same as those of the latter. Or, speaking more logically, the departments of divine faith that we have described must have been taken from the departments of divine revelation that we are now going to briefly describe.

Thomist theology divides the entire field of truth into two great departments, completely and radically distinct: first, into truths that in one way or another have been revealed by God and truths that in no way have been revealed by God.

Just as there are two modes of true divine revelation, one consisting in revealing a thing in itself and another consisting in revealing a thing in another in which it is necessarily implied, and from which it can be unfolded or extracted, or drawn out or deduced, the first department is subdivided into two others: first, into truths revealed in themselves; second, into truths revealed in another.

Since the phrase in se means for the Thomistic school the same as “formally” or “immediately,” and the phrase in alio means the same as “virtually” or “mediately,” the whole field of truth is divided by the Thomists into three great departments, which we shall also set forth separately.

First department: Truths revealed in themselves, or formally revealed, or immediately revealed. Second department: Truths revealed in something else, or virtually revealed, or mediately revealed. Third department: Truths not revealed in any way: neither in themselves, nor in something else; neither formally nor virtually; neither immediately nor mediately.

Anyone who wishes to understand well the doctrine of Saint Thomas and of the Thomistic school should never forget the classification of these three departments, to which correspond the three that we made earlier when speaking of faith.

The third department is completely foreign to divine revelation, and, therefore, to divine faith, to infallibility, and to theology. Only the first two have to do with theology, infallibility, and faith, since they are the two departments into which divine revelation is divided. Let the same eight observations that we made when speaking of the two departments of divine faith be applied proportionally to these two departments of divine revelation. We omit them, since they would have to be transcribed again almost word for word. We will only recall the eighth observation, which is the most important, namely, that the truths of the second department are definable by the Church as of divine faith, and not only of ecclesiastical faith; and that this is the doctrine, not only of Vázquez, and Vega, and Cano, and Bellarmine, but of the entire Thomist school. What is peculiar to Vázquez and Vega does not lie in this, as is commonly said by the majority of modern theologians, but in the seventh observation, that is, in formally making the truths of the second department matters of divine faith, even without a definition by the Church, merely by knowing them through evident human reasoning.

**326. REVEALED “IN SE” AND REVEALED “IN ALIO”.—**As has been seen, the first and second departments of divine revelation, which are, respectively, the proper or specific departments of divine faith and of theology, are constituted and distinguished in the Thomistic school by the one being revealed in se and the other being revealed in alio.

But it is fitting to keep very much in mind that what is revealed in itself and what is revealed in another are for the Thomists two members of the division of the revealed or of divine revelation. Therefore, revealed in itself and revealed in another does not mean revealed and not revealed, for that would not be a division of revelation, but rather it means two different modes of true revelation.

Something similar happens in the vulgar divisions of the known in se (principles) and the known in alio (conclusions); or of the existing in se (substance) and the existing in alio (accident), by which knowledge and being are usually divided. Known in se and known in alio do not mean known and not known, but rather two different modes of true knowledge. Just as existing in itself and existing in alio do not mean existing and not existing, but rather two different modes of true existence.

To deny, therefore, that a thing is revealed in itself (or formally, or immediately), does not mean for the Thomists to deny its revelation, but only to deny one of the modes of revelation, without that preventing the thing from being truly revealed in the other mode, that is, revealed in another .

In the same way, to affirm that a thing is revealed "in alio" (or mediately or virtually) does not mean improper or metaphorical revelation, but rather another mode of true and proper revelation; for true revelation, like true evidence, has two modes: the immediate mode, or in se or formal, and the mediate mode, or in alio, or virtual. "He who says one thing, says in a certain way many things" (ST. THOMAS) (304).

327. IMPLICIT CONNECTIVE AND NON-IMPLICIT CONNECTIVE.— "Revealed in another" means the same as "necessarily connected with what is revealed in itself."

But let it not be forgotten that connected and implicit are not two opposing or mutually exclusive concepts. On the contrary, the connected is divided into implicit and non-implicit. One need only observe that every true syllogism involves a connection of the conclusion with the major premise through the minor premise. Every conclusion, therefore, is connective. But there are minor premises, and therefore conclusions, that are implicit or inclusive in the majors, and there are others that are not implicit or inclusive, but merely connective. There will, then, also be implicit or inclusive connections and connections that are neither implicit nor inclusive. The former constitute the implicit virtual; the latter, the purely connective virtual: virtuale tantum (40-41). These correspond to the virtual or connected of the fourth type; those, to the virtual or connected of the other five types (46). To believe that what is virtual cannot be implicit, or that what is truly implicit cannot be truly virtual, is to have lost the idea of implicit virtuality: the idea of true theology, one of the keys to dogmatic progress.

328. REPLY TO SOME OBSERVATIONS ADDRESSED TO US. From what has been said, it will be very easy to reply to some observations that have been directed to us. For, because we said (89-99) that the consequent or conclusion of the fourth type cannot be the object of infallibility, a learned theologian thought that this was limiting the infallibility of the Church, and he made to us the following observations:

FIRST OBSERVATION.—All theologians, without exception, teach, and the practice of the Church in the infallible condemnation of errors also teaches, that the infallibility of the Church extends to everything necessarily connected with what is revealed: now, according to Fr. Marín, the infallibility of the Church does not extend to everything connected with what is revealed; therefore, Fr. Marín limits the infallibility of the Church too much, against the unanimous opinion of theologians and against the practice of the Church itself.

Answer.—The attentive reader will immediately notice that in this line of reasoning there is a fundamental flaw, namely that in the major premise it says necessarily connected and in the minor premise it only says connected, as if everything “connected” were “necessarily connected.” That is the latent flaw in all of our objector’s argumentation. He assumes that we deny that infallibility extends to everything necessarily connected, and that is not true. To see this clearly, we will examine separately the major and the minor premises of that reasoning.

The major premise of that reasoning is irreproachable. All theologians admit, and the practice of the Church teaches, that the infallibility of the Church extends not only to what is formally revealed, but also to everything necessarily connected with it. But we too admit that, and, therefore, that major premise is fully granted once and for all, and let it not be spoken of again. That is not the issue, for that is the ABC of theology.

All the force of that argument, if the argument has any force, must therefore lie in the minor premise. In that minor premise it is said that, according to us, the infallibility of the Church does not extend to everything “connected.” But to which “connected” thing does our objector refer? If he refers to one of the five well-known connected things, it is not true that we exclude them from the secondary object of infallibility. Not only do we make them the secondary object of infallibility, but we hold them to be definable as divine faith, and not only as the modernly so-called ecclesiastical faith. With respect, then, to those five connected things, which encompass all the rigorous theological conclusions deduced through inclusive minor premises, far from limiting the infallible authority of the Church, we extend it more than certain authors, and with them our objector, seem to extend it.

Does that minor premise refer only to the connected truth? Then he ought to know that we have said that this connected truth is not NECESSARILY connected with the revealed deposit, an indispensable condition, according to all theologians, for something to be a true theological conclusion (89102). It is therefore up to our objector to prove that, "according to all theologians and according to the practice of the Church," this connected truth is necessarily connected, and on this point he says not a single word nor will he ever prove it.

329. SECOND OBSERVATION.—Our objector proposes the same thing in another form, which may be summarized thus: All theologians extend infallibility, not only to what is really revealed, but also to what is necessarily connected with it; but Fr. Marín limits it to what is really revealed; therefore...

Answer.—In that argument, two essentially distinct questions are again being confused. First, whether infallibility extends to what is necessarily connected with what has been revealed. Second, whether what is necessarily connected, by way of conclusion, with what has been revealed is truly revealed. To the first question, which is the only one that has to do with the extension of infallibility, all theologians respond affirmatively, and we respond the same. To the second question, which has absolutely nothing to do with the present question of infallibility, but rather with the question of the definability of divine faith, not all theologians respond unanimously, as our objector seems to believe, but rather there are two schools. One school responds affirmatively, and we are of that opinion. Another school responds negatively, and of that school our objector seems to be.

The first school, to which we subscribe, far from diminishing the authority of the Church, as our objector believes, increases it. He who, holding what is necessarily connected as not really revealed, were to say that the infallibility of the Church extends only to what is really revealed, would diminish the infallibility of the Church, for he would exclude from it what is necessarily connected. But he who, holding all that is necessarily connected as really revealed, were to say that "the infallibility of the Church extends only to what is really revealed," extends infallibility to everything to which it ought to extend, which is to what is necessarily connected, and also extends to that same thing the authority of the divine faith of the Church. Let not, then, completely diverse questions and formulas be confused. Infallibility comprises two things: first, what is formally revealed, and this is its primary object; second, what is necessarily connected with what is formally revealed, and this is its secondary object. In this we all agree. The question of whether that secondary object is or is not really revealed is irrelevant to the question of the extent of infallibility.

330. THIRD OBSERVATION.—A text from the Bishop of Brescia, who in one of the preparatory sessions of the Vatican Council said that absolutely all theologians admit that it would be a most serious error to limit infallibility to what is revealed in itself, and not to extend it to everything necessarily connected with what is revealed.

Answer.—We say the very same thing; but that is not the question at issue. Our objector fails to distinguish these three propositions: first, all theologians extend infallibility to everything necessarily connected with the deposit of revelation; second, all theologians admit that a connection of the fourth kind is necessarily connected with the deposit of revelation; third, all theologians admit that what is necessarily connected with the deposit of revelation is not really revealed. Our objector devotes all his effort to proving the first proposition, which no one denies, and forgets to prove the second and third, which are the only ones that needed proving. The Bishop of Brescia affirms, and we do too, the first; but he says not a word, nor could he say one, about the second and third.

The question of whether what is virtually revealed, or what is necessarily connected by way of conclusion with what is revealed, is or is not truly revealed and, therefore, definable by divine faith, has remained as free and as debatable after the Vatican Council as it was before. On this there have always been and are two schools. Let Vacant be heard, commenting on the Vatican Council: “We believe as true the things that God has revealed, ab eo revelata. Behold the matter, or, to speak in scholastic language, the material object of the act of faith. The faith of which we speak here is, in effect, divine faith, that is, that which is founded on the authority of God who reveals. There is, therefore, only the assent to the revealed truths of God that is an act of faith; and conversely, every truth revealed by God can become the matter of an act of faith. But must we not rank among the revealed truths only those that are formally revealed, or can we join to them the truths virtually revealed? This is a question that our Council leaves the theologians free to discuss” ¹³. And further on he adds: “We have already said that one school demands that newly defined dogmas be formally contained in those that were originally of Catholic faith and that they be deduced from them by a reasoning whose universal principle is revealed; another school considers that it suffices that they be contained in them virtually and that they be deduced by a reasoning whose universal principle is supplied by reason” ¹⁴. There was not lacking, however, a Father in the Vatican Council who proposed an amendment asking that the Council decide that only what is immediately (or formally or in se) revealed can be defined as of divine faith; but the Council took no notice of such a suggestion. “An amendment proposed to the Council asked that they put in our text ‘quae in verbo Dei scripto vel tradito immediate continentur...’ But this amendment was not taken into consideration” ¹⁵. On the question, then, of whether “infallibility extends not only to what is formally revealed, but also to what is necessarily connected with it,” there is complete unanimity among theologians, and that same thing we have said and say. But on the question of “whether what is virtually revealed or what is necessarily connected by way of conclusion with what is revealed is or is not truly revealed and definable by divine faith,” there is no unanimity, as some believe, but rather two schools. It is a completely free question, after as before the Vatican Council. Thus, then, it is fitting not to confuse very distinct questions.

331. FOURTH OBSERVATION.—The Sovereign Pontiffs have defined ex cathedra propositions that are necessarily connected, as can be seen in several propositions that are cited in particular; for example, proposition 37 of the bull Auctorem fidei, in which the necessity of jurisdiction for the power of absolving is defined ¹⁶

Answer.—Always the same confusion. The Sovereign Pontiffs have defined propositions referring to the five inclusive connected concepts, which are not in question here; but they have defined none that belongs exclusively to the fourth or physical-connected concept, which is the only one in question. To see this, one need only open Denzinger, and the best proof of it is that very proposition 37 which our objector cites as an example or model. Does our objector think that the necessity of jurisdiction is deduced from the power of absolving (which is revealed) by way of the fourth connected concept, or as a physically distinct property? No, rather it is deduced by way of the other connected concepts, by the essential or inclusive way, by analysis of the concept of judicial power, from the reason or nature of judgment.

The argument or reasoning by which the Church has deduced that truth or condemned its contradictory is as follows, as every theologian knows:

“The Sacrament of Penance was instituted in the manner of a judgment (greater truth revealed or of faith); it is thus that the nature or essence of judgment (nature and rationale of judgment) include jurisdiction or superiority of the judge over the accused (lesser truth of reason inclusive, not physically distinct); therefore, every absolution without ordinary or delegated jurisdiction is invalid or non-sacramental” (theological conclusion, object of infallibility, as necessarily connective, according to all, and definable as of faith by inclusion, according to the Thomistic school).

In our judgment, one would need to have completely muddled ideas about the “connected” [proposition] not to see that this minor premise and this reasoning do not belong to the fourth connected [proposition], but to the other connected ones, since it is evident that it is deduced from the reason or essence of the judicial or imperative act. But if anyone doubts this, let him turn to the Summa Theologica ¹⁷, where Saint Thomas analyzes and deduces that conclusion, analyzing the essence of the act of command, which includes superiority or jurisdiction; or let him turn to the Council of Trent (which is alluded to in the very condemnation of that proposition), and there he will find the following: “Since therefore the nature and rationale of judgment requires that a sentence be passed only upon subjects, it has always been held in the Church of God, and this holy Synod confirms it to be most true, that the absolution which a priest pronounces upon one over whom he does not have ordinary or subdelegated jurisdiction must be of no effect” ^{18 19}.

The same thing that has happened to our objector with this proposition that he has cited to us as a model of a non-inclusive connected proposition, by trusting manuals, will happen to him with any other proposition from Denzinger.

**332. FIFTH OBSERVATION.—**The traditional opinion is that everything virtual is an object of infallibility.

Response.—The traditional opinion is not that everything virtual is an object of infallibility, but rather that everything virtually revealed, or everything virtual theological, is. Now, the physical-connective virtual is neither revealed nor theological, because it has no absolutely necessary connection with the revealed deposit. Nothing rigorously theological can ever fail, and the physical-connective virtual can fail and does in fact fail whenever it pleases God. If one wishes to call it “theological,” just as uncertain or probable conclusions are called theological, there is no difficulty in that; but such conclusions are not rigorously theological, since theology is a science of absolute certainty (89).

333. SIXTH OBSERVATION.—On the other hand, nothing truly virtual can be of divine faith. The virtual cannot be deduced except through one premise of faith and another of reason, and the rule of every syllogism is that "the conclusion always follows the weaker part."

Answer.—We admit the aphorism that the conclusion always follows the weaker premise. Therefore, if the premise of reason is physical-connective and, consequently, an objective addition to the premise of faith, the conclusion is also an objective addition. If the minor premise is metaphysical-inclusive and, consequently, an objective explanation of the premise of faith, the conclusion will likewise be an objective explanation of the premise of faith, and nothing more. If the objective explanation or metaphysical-inclusive minor premise is employed by human reason alone, the conclusion is not of faith, since reason, in explaining what is revealed, is the “weaker part” than the premise of faith: that conclusion will be only a human explanation of the premise of faith, that is, theology. If, instead of the minor premise, the definition of the Church is set down, there is no longer a weaker part, because the Church’s explanation of revelation is not a weaker part, but a part equal to revelation itself or to the premise of faith. In explaining what is revealed, the authority of the Church is neither less nor weaker, but equal to that of God and of the Apostles (176).

The syllogistic rule “the conclusion always follows the worse part” proves, then, very well that the theological conclusion cannot be formally of divine faith before the Church’s definition; but it does not prove the same way for after its definition. The minor premise of reason is for our human intelligence a part of the theological reasoning, and it essentially determines the nature of the “habitus” and of the certainty of the assent to the conclusion, since it is nothing more than a preliminary condition of the Church’s definition, and it does not determine in the least the nature of the “habitus,” of the certainty, and of the assent to the definition. Therefore, while in theology the assent we give to the conclusion depends on ourselves, necessarily, on the nature and value of the minor premise of reason, in the Church’s definition the assent is absolutely independent (132-133).

334. SEVENTH OBSERVATION.—That which is virtually revealed is not simpliciter revealed, but revealed secundum quid. Response.—If what is virtually revealed is virtual implicitly or inclusively, it already has revelation as to its substance, and only lacks explanation. It is not, then, "simpliciter" revealed, if by "simpliciter" is understood what is explicit; but it is "simpliciter" revealed, if by "simpliciter" is understood what is implicit. Its proper name is revealable, that is, explicable by the revelation already made by God, and in which it is truly implicit. Such an image is really imprinted on the photographic plate, although imperceptibly, asking for nothing other than to be developed (214).

335. EIGHTH OBSERVATION.—One thing is reality and another thing is truth. From the fact that two statements express the same reality it does not follow that they express the same truth. Response.—Reality and truth are distinguished logically or subjectively, but not really or objectively. Therefore, two statements whose predicates and subjects are really identical have the same objective meaning. The difference is only subjective, although founded on the fecundity of the object. Such are all really-identical conclusions. Such are all the successive formulas of dogmatic progress (515). It is true that the real identity of two propositions does not suffice for belonging to the same "habitus" if they are not known by the same means. We have already explained at length elsewhere (123), following St. Thomas and Capreolus, that the specific distinction of habits is not taken from the reality known (res cognita), but from the means of knowledge (medium cognitionis) or, as Cajetan aptly says, it is taken not from the object as it is (ut res est), but from the object as knowable (ut scibile) ²⁰. Thus, with regard to the same reality, the divinity, there is room for several specifically distinct habits: faith, theology, theodicy. The theological conclusion, really identical to the revealed datum, does not belong to faith, but to theology, as long as it is not defined. Because then it is known only by human reasoning, which is the instrument of theology to the exclusion of faith. But it follows that this same conclusion, once defined or explained by the divine authority of the Church, is known by another means: "Revelation explained by the Church", the formal means of faith. After its definition it is of faith, without ceasing to belong to theology, because it is known in two distinct ways (127, 168). It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish carefully these three means of

a) Explicit revelation. This is revelation explained by God Himself. b) Implicit revelation before definition, known only by reasoning. This is revelation explained by human reason; the theological conclusion before its definition. c) Implicit revelation defined by the Church. This is revelation explained by God through the Church; the theological conclusion after its definition.

The first and third of these means of knowledge have the same value, that of divine authority, of faith. Since the Church has the truly divine power to explain everything that is really implicit in the revealed datum, the value of the implicit revelation made explicit by the Church (third means) is the same as that in explicit revelation (first means), that is, the authority explained by God. The authority of the Church is certainly less than divine authority or apostolic authority with regard to new revelations and even to truths not implicitly contained in the primitive datum, but it is equal to them in everything that is truly implicit, given that the explanation does not require a new revelation (175-176).

On the contrary, the second means—implicit revelation explained by the theologian's individual reason—has only a human theological value, specifically distinct from the value of the other two means (309). Thus, the theological conclusion is a matter of faith in the third case, not in the second.

In these matters every true Thomist must avoid two extreme theories: that of Molina and that of Vázquez (87, 119).

Believing, with Molina, that the theological conclusion properly so-called has a completely new content relative to the revealed datum, which makes it undefinable as a matter of faith. Here there is an error. The theological conclusion, provided that it is inclusive, contains, it is true, something new by the very fact that it is a true conclusion; but because it is implicit, this newness refers to the explanation of the same doctrine. Thus, the Church, when defining, does nothing more than explain the revealed datum: this conclusion is, therefore, a matter of faith after its definition (306).

It would fall into the opposite extreme to think, with Vázquez, that the theological conclusion, being truly inclusive, should contain nothing new and, therefore, is a matter of faith not only after, but also before its definition, for a theologian who deduces it with evidence.

This conception is not, like Molina’s, contrary to dogmatic development, but rather favors it excessively; yet we do not believe it to be less erroneous, because it disregards the specific difference that exists between theology and faith and forgets the entirely divine character of this second habit (156).

In fact, every true theological conclusion, however implicit, contains something new. It is not a new doctrine, but a new explanation. Otherwise, it would not be a true conclusion. To be convinced of this, it suffices to consider the following two equations: Theological conclusion = revealed datum. Theological conclusion = revealed datum + explanation.

The first is formally false, because it identifies conclusions and science with principles and simple intelligence and confuses theology and faith.

The second equation is exact, but it indicates that the conclusion contains a new element, something more than what was found in the principle or revealed datum. When I make an act of faith regarding this conclusion, I embrace not only the revealed datum but also something new. For this, it is necessary that this "something new" be formally divine, because in the object of the act of faith nothing formally human must enter. Therefore, before the definition of the Church, this new element, constitutive of the conclusion, is formally human, as theology itself is (309). It is, then, necessary to have the intervention of the Church, which alone possesses the divine authority needed for the explanation of the revealed datum. This explanation, made by a theologian, is formally human; made by the Church, it is formally divine, and therefore, of faith. Hence, this definition of the Church is not only necessary so that the definition may not be erroneous; it is necessary, above all, so that the deduction may be formally divine.

Now, the real identity of the conclusion and of its principle, the revealed datum, is the reason why this conclusion is implicit, which in turn makes it definable by the Church. But neither its real identity nor its definable implicit character suffice to make it formally a matter of faith until it is defined, that is, known through "revelation explained by the Church," the medium of our faith.

Before the definition there was between the conclusion and the datum "identitas rei," but not "identitas scibilis." After the definition there is not only "identitas rei," but "identitas scibilis," or, better, "identitas credibilis," because then the conclusion is no longer known by rational demonstration, the means of science, but by the explanation of the Church, the means of knowledge of faith. Before the definition it is merely theological; after it, it is also believable, of divine faith. "Every cognitive habit formally regards the medium through which it knows: materially, however, that which is known through the medium... Moreover, the formal aspect of the object in faith is the First Truth manifested through the teaching of the Church: just as the formal aspect of science is the means of demonstration ²¹

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REASON FOR DOGMATIC PROGRESS.—As we have said (160-161), the psychological reason for human intellectual progress—whether in the natural order or in the order of faith—must be sought in our connatural way of knowing "by way of statement". Not being completely intellectual or intuitive, like God and the angels, but rational and discursive, we cannot know at one stroke everything that is implicit in our starting point, and we must use partial and successive statements, deducing some from others by an inclusive reasoning process.

While these statements serve only to develop what was from the beginning truly implicit in our starting point, we preserve the objective unity of science or of faith, despite the plurality of statements.

The reason for this is—as St. Thomas profoundly observes—that the act of faith, like that of science, does not find its term in the statement, but in the objective reality. "Now the act of the believer does not terminate in a proposition, but in a thing; for we do not form propositions except in order to have knowledge of things through them, just as in science so also in faith" ²²

From this point of view, the Holy Doctor assigns to us, at the beginning of the cited article, the reason for this assimilation of science and faith. Faith is a knowledge; now, all knowledge is made according to the connatural mode of the one who knows. Therefore, the human way of knowing is by proceeding through statements; such will consequently also be the human way of knowing and developing the supernatural datum. "Things known are in the one who knows according to the mode of the one who knows. But the proper mode of the human intellect is to know the truth by composing and dividing, as has been said" (I, q. 85, a. 3). "And therefore those things that are in themselves simple, the human intellect knows according to a certain composition" ²³ "From the same source it comes about that our intellect understands by discoursing, and by composing and dividing, namely from the fact that it cannot at once, in the first apprehension of some first thing apprehended (the natural datum or the revealed datum), inspect whatever is virtually contained in it: which happens from the weakness of the intellectual light in us" ²⁴ "And according to this, it must compose and divide one thing apprehended with another and proceed from one composition and division to another, which is to reason" ²⁵. These successive "compositions and divisions," these multiple statements when they are contained implicitly in the primitive datum, but our reason cannot see them except through reasoning, is what the Thomistic school has always understood by immediate or "per se notum quoad se" and mediate or "non per se notum quoad nos". We call them immediate or "per se nota quoad se" because they are objectively and truly implicit, and mediate or "non per se nota quoad nos" because they require from our reason a true demonstration (165).

This is why Saint Thomas, always so profound and so logical in his writings, placed at the beginning of his treatise On God the question "Whether the existence of God is self-evident"²⁶, because the nature of all our knowledge of God depends on it. And in parallel, at the beginning of his treatise On Faith he placed the question "Whether the object of faith is something complex, in the manner of a proposition"²⁷, a question which so many authors, even Thomists, have greatly neglected, when the entire nature of the genesis and development of our faith depends on it.

We are pleased to see that some modern Thomists are finally becoming aware of the paramount importance of these questions; we refer to the fine articles by Fr. Chenu, O. P., entitled "Contribution to the history of the treatise on faith: historical commentary on 2-2, q. 1, a. 2" and "The psychological reason for the development of dogma according to Saint Thomas"²⁸.

Nine years ago we wrote in Ciencia Tomista the following sentences: "One cannot thoroughly penetrate and successfully resolve the questions so burning today concerning modernist dogmatic evolution and Catholic dogmatic progress without deeply penetrating those per se nota and per modum enuntiabilis, which many regard as antiquated or little more, but which are the key to understanding all those most serious questions in which the nature and distinction of faith and science, of the Church and individual reason, of modernist evolution or Catholic progress are involved. For some reason, we repeat, the Holy Doctor, who always proceeds with admirable logical order from principles to conclusions, from the essential to the accidental, placed them at the head of his immortal treatises On God and On Faith. That is why we insist so much on these things, even at the risk of being accused of digressing or repeating what, for many readers, would be unnecessary" ²⁹

336. NINTH OBSERVATION.—If St. Thomas, for example, laid down a principle and the Thomists draw the consequences, no one will say that they are not two doctrines.

Answer.—Without a doubt, no one will attribute to an author the implicit conclusions of his writings if he has not foreseen and noted them. But if it is supposed that they have clearly seen these implicit consequences and that they have left to their disciples the mission of bringing them to light, then they are attributable to them, without any doubt.

Now then, God, in revealing the deposit of Sacred Scripture and Tradition, although He clearly saw all the implicit consequences, did not stop until He instituted the teaching authority of the Church to make them explicit. Such consequences, once explained by the Church, are divine conclusions, that is, dogmatic ones.

This distinction between the authors of human books and God, the author of Sacred Scripture, is one of the main arguments anticipated by Saint Thomas to prove the existence of a multiplicity of senses in Sacred Scripture, unlike purely human works. To the texts already cited, we add these others from Saint Thomas:

“Whether multiple senses lie hidden in the same words of Sacred Scripture.

“Fifth objection. Furthermore, any sense drawn from the words of a Scripture which the author did not intend is not its proper sense; because an author cannot understand more than one meaning by one passage of Scripture, since it is not possible to understand several things at once, according to the Philosopher. Therefore, there cannot be several proper senses of Sacred Scripture.

“To the fifth it must be said that the principal author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit, who in one word of Sacred Scripture understood far more than what is expounded or discerned by the commentators of Sacred Scripture” ³⁰

“Whether the aforesaid senses ought to be distinguished in other scriptures.

“Third objection. Furthermore, the Philosopher says that whoever says one in a certain way says many. Therefore, it seems that in other sciences many things can be designated in one sense.”

“Ad tertium dicendum that whoever says “one” in a certain way says many things, namely in potency, insofar as conclusions are in potency in principles, for from one principle many conclusions follow: not that in other sciences by way of signification what is said of one thing is at the same time understood of others as signified, although it can be drawn from it by argumentation

"Whether through the succession of times the faith has progressed. "Fourth objection. Furthermore, an article is indivisible truth. But what is indivisible cannot be further distinguished. Therefore, since the faith has always been contained under certain articles, it seems that it could not have been further distinguished, so that the articles might be explicitly known. "Reply to the fourth: it must be said that an article is called indivisible truth with respect to what is actually expressed in the article; but it is divisible with respect to those things that are potentially contained in the article, according to which one who says one thing in a certain way says many things: and these are the things that precede the article and follow from it; and in this respect the article of faith can be unfolded and divided" "And in this way the faith can be unfolded daily and has been more and more unfolded through the study of the Saints"

Upon carefully comparing these texts of Saint Thomas, two things will be observed with complete clarity: a) that he understands by potential or consequential continence (those things which are contained in potential in the article: those things which follow from the articles) the conclusions properly speaking; b) that these conclusions are not always foreseen and pointed out by men in their writings, but they are always so by God in Sacred Scripture.

If St. Thomas laid down a principle: if we further suppose that these are consequences implied in that principle: if we also suppose that St. Thomas saw those consequences and saw that his school would draw them out: if we suppose, finally, that St. Thomas commissioned his school to draw them out, everyone will say that his school, in drawing them out, does nothing other than develop or explain the very doctrine of St. Thomas. And that is the true case between God and His Church

Speaking of the consequences of the doctrine of St. Thomas, Nuño expresses himself thus: "Without a reasonable cause and without any foundation, Father Suárez contradicts Lord Cajetan. And first he says, that a certain negative proposition is not found in St. Thomas, which Cajetan concedes, namely: contrition by its essence is not a part of the sacrament of Penance... But certainly Master Suárez either did not understand Master Cajetan, or under that name he wished secretly to impugn St. Thomas. And indeed it is first proved that that proposition is clearly gathered from the very words of St. Thomas, and so much so, that it is contained in him implicitly and virtually" (Nuño, o. c., in 3 p., q. 90, a. 2, pp. 251-252). Everything, then, that is clearly deduced from the doctrine of St. Thomas is implicitly contained in it; and to deduce such evident consequences is not to teach another doctrine, but to explain, or unfold, or develop, or evolve homogeneously the same doctrine. When the Molinists or Scotists depart from what we, the Thomists, regard as evident consequences of the principles of St. Thomas, we do not tell them only that they depart from us, but that they depart from the doctrine of St. Thomas. And if they reject such an accusation, it is because they deny that such things are evident consequences of the doctrine of the Holy Doctor; but they would certainly not deny it if they confessed that they were evident consequences of the doctrine of the Saint. See the texts of Berthier and Pesch on the consequent sense of Sacred Scripture, which we cite in numbers 444 and 447. Related to this, we are going to cite another little text of Cardinal Cajetan, among a thousand that could be noted. Commenting on those words of St. Thomas: "The remission of guilt cannot be UNDERSTOOD without the infusion of grace", he expresses himself thus: "For it is certain that if it were possible according to absolute power, it could be UNDERSTOOD" (In 1-2, q. 113, a. 2). Everything, then, that can be by absolute power is intelligible, and everything that is repugnant by absolute power is unintelligible. Since a metaphysically-connected consequence is the same as an absolutely necessary consequence, it follows that every metaphysically-connected theological consequence is of the understanding of the revealed deposit, and that the Church, in defining it, gives us nothing more than the intelligence of the revealed deposit. That is the nature of the inclusive or intellectual character of true theology (103-109).]

337. TENTH OBSERVATION.—“The certainty of divine faith must be infinitely superior not only to physical certainty, but also to metaphysical certainty. Therefore, the metaphysically-inclusive conclusion is just as far from divine faith as is the physically-connective one.”

**Answer.—**The requirement that the conclusion be metaphysically inclusive in order for it to be definable as a matter of faith is not because metaphysical certainty has anything to do with the certainty of faith, which is infinitely superior, but rather because, when there is metaphysical connection, there is identity or objective inclusion with the greater revealed truth, which is a matter of faith. The conclusion is definable, not because of its metaphysical connection, but because of its inclusion. Therefore, metaphysical certainty has nothing to do with the certainty of faith; but the inclusion or implicitness of that conclusion in the premise of faith not only has to do with definability as a matter of faith, but it is all that is required and suffices for definability, provided that such inclusion can be known with evidence without new revelation.

**338. ELEVENTH OBSERVATION.—**That which is truly identical with what is revealed is contained in itself, but it is not contained for us.

**Answer.—**If our reason cannot draw it out with evidence without a new revelation, it is contained in itself, but not for us, like the Trinity in the unity of God. But if our reason can draw it out by its own powers, then it is also contained for our reason.

339. Two final objections. TWELFTH OBSERVATION.—“Between what God has said and its theological conclusions there is only a purely contingent connection.”

Answer.—In rigorous theology, as in rigorous metaphysics, there is never pure connection, but connection with inclusion. Theological and metaphysical conclusions, considered objectively, are not connected, but identical in their principles; they are only connected considered subjectively. The virtual distinction on which they are founded is not in the object, but in the subject.

THIRTEENTH OBSERVATION.—Events that occurred many centuries after the Apostles, and after the deposit of revelation had been closed, cannot be defined as matters of divine faith, and therefore as revealed.

Answer.—It is false that contingent facts which took place after the Apostles cannot be truly revealed and definable as of divine faith. The celebration of the Council of Trent, the drafting of the current canon of the Mass, the translation of the Vulgate, the election of such a pope, the conception of such a man... are contingent facts that occurred after the Apostles. Nevertheless, it is defined or definable as of divine faith, and therefore it is revealed, that the Council of Trent is ecumenical or a rule of faith, that the canon of the Mass is free from error, that the Vulgate is authentic in the essential matters of faith and morals, that Our Most Holy Father Pius XI is the true pope, that such a man has been redeemed by Jesus Christ.

It is true that the Council of Trent could have not been held, and in that sense it is a contingent fact; but once held, as it was held, it is not a contingent matter, but an absolutely necessary one, that it be ecumenical or a rule of faith. In the same way, Jansenius's Augustinus could have never been written, and in that sole sense it is a contingent fact, but once written, as it was written, it is not a contingent matter, but absolutely necessary, its formal opposition to the revealed deposit, that is, its heretical character.

Now then: upon the death of the last of the Apostles, the Church remained in possession not only of a doctrinal deposit, but also of a dogmatic authority to judge, by means of that deposit, the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of every doctrinal formula. Let the reader note that “every.” It is not only for judging oral doctrinal formulas, but also written ones; not only short formulas, but also long ones, even if they are so long as to form an entire book; not only the formulas that were already spoken or written before the deposit was closed, but also those that in the future might be spoken or written.

Before, then, Jansenius wrote his book, the Church already had the rule, which is the revealed deposit, and the dogmatic authority to judge it; but it could not apply such a rule or such authority to such a book while such a book did not exist. But as soon as such a book existed, the Church needed to do nothing more than apply to it the measure of the revealed deposit to see whether it was identical or contradictory to it, that is, to see whether or not it contained heretical doctrine. With that application the revealed deposit neither increases, decreases, nor changes in any way; just as an old meter or thermometer does not change, increase, or decrease because I measure with it the length or temperature of something new. When, then, the Church declares as a matter of divine faith a new dogmatic fact, there is no novelty in the ancient doctrine, but simply novelty of application or a new application of the ancient and always identical doctrine to a new doctrine in order to judge it.

When the last of the Apostles died, and the deposit of Catholic revelation was thereby closed, it was not yet of divine faith that the book of Jansenius contained heresy, but it was already of divine faith that if a book were written such as the book of Jansenius was written, such a book contained heresy. Therefore, when Jansenius wrote his book in the manner in which he wrote it, and when the Church declared that such a book contains heresy, there was nothing more than a simple verification of a condition that was already contained in the revealed deposit. That dogmatic fact, once defined by the Church, is of divine faith, not precisely because in the seventeenth century the Church said it, but because earlier, in the revealed deposit, God had already said it. Only, God had said it universally or conditionally, and the Church says it particularly, verifying the condition.

The difficulty that many theologians find in admitting this doctrine arises, in our judgment, from the fact that they have formed so narrow an idea of the dogmatic authority of the Church, as if that authority were reduced solely to the immutable preservation of the revealed deposit. It extends not only to preserving it immutably, but also to explaining and applying it faithfully. The definition of revealed virtuality or theological conclusion, provided that it concerns inclusive or implicit conclusions, for these are the only definable ones, is nothing other than an explanation of the revealed deposit. The definition of facts, provided that they are dogmatic facts, for these are the only definable facts, is nothing other than an application of the revealed deposit.

In reality, these three things (conservation, explanation, application) are nothing but three degrees or phases of the same thing, for the revealed deposit is a doctrinal deposit, and every doctrine, by being faithfully explained, is conserved, and by being faithfully applied, is explained. The dogmatic facts, which constitute that application, represent, with respect to the doctrine revealed by God, exactly the same thing that a work of moral cases by an author represents with respect to another work of moral doctrine by the same author. If the author in his work of moral cases has limited himself to faithfully applying to the resolution of such cases the same doctrine that he had already set forth in his moral work, no one will say that this constitutes a different morality, but rather an application of the same morality. Thus also, when the Church faithfully and infallibly applies the revealed deposit to dogmatic facts, she does not give us a doctrine different from the revealed deposit, but an application of the same doctrine; and all theologians agree or ought to agree that everything that is not new doctrine, but the same doctrine as that which God revealed, is definable as of divine faith and not merely of ecclesiastical faith. When, therefore, the last of the Apostles died, the revealed deposit was closed with regard to new revelations and with regard to new doctrines, but not with regard to new explanations or new applications of the same doctrine.

In short, since the infallibility of the Church extends also to those same three things (conservation, explanation, and application) and to them alone, it clearly follows that the extension of the Church's dogmatic authority or of divine faith, and the extension of infallibility or of the so-called ecclesiastical faith, are exactly the same. That is the precise extension of the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma.

OBJECTIONS AGAINST ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL PROOFS OF DOGMATIC EVOLUTION

340. Among the many proofs we adduced to establish the existence and extent of dogmatic evolution, the eighth proof was based on the character of opposition to the revealed deposit that must exist in every theological error. Since it is impossible for there to be objective opposition without a true implicit contradiction, and since there can be no contradiction without a basis of true identity, we deduced that every true theological conclusion must of necessity be objectively identical with the revealed deposit and, therefore, definable as of divine faith or an object of dogmatic evolution (247). In alluding to that proof in an article in La Cien- cia Tomista¹, we had written the following words: “The formal point of view of the Church, when infallibly defining a theological conclusion or infallibly condemning an opposed error, is not precisely the conformity or opposition of such a conclusion or error with the principles of natural reason, but with the revealed deposit. Errors that are not really opposed to the revealed deposit do not fall under the jurisdiction of infallibility or of Theology, however great and clear their opposition to the principles of natural reason may be. Real opposition to the revealed deposit is like the ratio sub qua by which infallibility and Theology look upon error.” “Now then—we added in that article—, there can be no true opposition between two doctrines or statements if the one is not the negation of something really contained in the other; if the one does not imply, even though it does not express it, a real contradiction with the other; if in both there does not exist one common and really identical sense, affirmed in the one and denied in the other. This—we concluded—is what Saint Thomas teaches, and what can be seen in any manual of Logic, in the treatise that deals with the nature of opposition.”

This assertion of ours that all opposition implicitly entails a contradiction, and our having alluded to Logic, has earned us the following observations.

341. FIRST OBSERVATION.—This is not required by the doctrine of logicians on the opposition of propositions. That doctrine, as Father Urráburu notes, refers to the opposition of propositions not material, ratione materiae circa quam, which logicians are not called upon to judge, e.g., "Peter runs," "Peter is still," but to the formal opposition, by the form or structure of propositions... The judging of the real opposition or "ratione materiae" pertains not to dialecticians, but to theologians.

Answer.—We agree with our illustrious objector that Logic deals directly with formal or terminological opposition and not with real or conceptual opposition. But one thing is what Logic deals with and quite another what is treated in Logic. Nor does Sacred Theology, in its treatise On Faith, deal directly with human faith, but rather with divine faith, and yet there is no theologian or theology manual that, when treating divine faith, does not have to treat what faith in general is and what human faith is, the only means of properly understanding what divine faith is. In the same way, there is no logician or treatise on Logic, if it is complete, that, in order to explain well what logical or formal opposition is, does not have to treat, and does not treat, the nature of opposition in general and the nature of real opposition, the only means of explaining and understanding well what formal opposition is, for if the object of Logic is formal opposition, formal opposition in turn has as its object and end real opposition. Let us hear the classic John of St. Thomas: “Opposition is either real or logical, that is, either of things or of propositions. And these two are so related that real or physical opposition is, as it were, the object of logical opposition, because that being and non-being which exists on the side of reality and in the objects themselves is signified through opposed propositions. Hence, although treating real opposition belongs to the metaphysician, nevertheless, because it belongs to the logician to treat the oppositions of propositions, he must also in some way touch upon what pertains to the opposition of things, insofar as they are the objects of the opposition of propositions.”²

That is why we appeal to Logic, so that in any manual of Logic, and above all in St. Thomas, it might be seen how every opposition involves a contradiction and, therefore, a truly identical sense, affirmed in one and denied in the other of the opposed affirmations. And that was the only thing that was to be proven and that our objector denies.

Well then, since the quotations from Logic, in this question we are treating of real opposition, do not seem to satisfy you, let us set Logic aside and go to Metaphysics, to which it properly belongs, as we have just seen from John of Saint Thomas, to treat such a question. All the more so because Sacred Theology is the metaphysics of the supernatural God or in the order of revelation, just as Theodicy is the metaphysics of the natural God or in the order of reason.

Let us, then, open the immortal Commentaries of St. Thomas on Aristotle's Metaphysics, and in book 10, lesson six, we shall find the following: "Contradiction is included in all other kinds of opposition as something prior and simpler. For things opposed according to any kind of opposition cannot exist at the same time. This indeed happens because one of the opposites by its very nature includes the negation of the other" ³ It could not be said more clearly. In every opposition a contradiction is included.

If simply because it deals with Theology, our objector still has some scruple about being guided by quotations from Metaphysics, even though Metaphysics is a transcendent science, let him turn to the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, and there, in the Prima-Secundae, question 67, article 3, where the Holy Doctor precisely treats a question relating to nothing less than divine faith, he will find the following: "I reply that it must be said that opposition is the proper and per se cause that one of two opposites is excluded from the other, insofar as in all opposites there is included the opposition of affirmation and negation."⁴

We have, then, that every opposition, even if it is not a formal contradiction or one of terms and expressly contradictory structure, involves or implies a real contradiction or one of meaning. And since no doctrine is erroneous in the theological order or in the order of infallibility unless it is opposed to the revealed principles or revealed deposit, we have that between every theological or infallibly erroneous proposition and the revealed deposit there is involved or implied a real contradiction or one of meaning. And since there can be no real contradiction or one of meaning between two doctrines or affirmations unless there is one and the same identical meaning, affirmed in one and denied in the other, we have that in the revealed deposit or principles of faith there must be a meaning identical to the one denied in the theological and infallibly erroneous proposition, or, which is the same thing, that between the revealed datum and the dogma (first and second degrees of Catholic doctrine), on the one hand, and the infallible truth and the theological truth (third and fourth degrees), on the other, there is an identity of meaning, which is what is called real or objective homogeneity of the four degrees of Catholic doctrine. And we will have, finally, that whenever the Church defines a doctrine as infallibly true or erroneous, or whenever Sacred Theology deduces a conclusion as demonstratively true or false, neither does the Church define nor does Theology conclude a meaning foreign to the revealed deposit or objectively distinct from the meaning of the revealed deposit, but rather a meaning really identical with that of the revealed deposit; a meaning not formally expressed, but truly included or implicit in the revealed deposit.

Anyone who meditates on and understands those two principles will infallibly have to arrive at these consequences: first, truth and error, in the order of infallibility as in the order of Theology, are relations of conformity or opposition, not precisely with the principles of reason, but with the principles of faith or the revealed deposit; second, every true opposition involves or implies, although it does not always express it, a contradiction. The first principle is fundamental in Theology; the second is fundamental in Philosophy. Both are expressly from St. Thomas. Both are evident.

If despite this evidence, and perhaps because he is familiar with the idea that the majority of modern manuals usually give of Theology, our objector still resists admitting a true contradiction involved between the revealed deposit and theological error and, therefore, a true real identity between said deposit and theological truth, he has only to look at that other elementary and indubitable principle—that "God can do everything that does not imply contradiction." Now then, can God make a true theological conclusion ever be false, or ever fail, or can He make a theological error ever be true? No, and a thousand times no. "For whatever is found in the other sciences contrary to the truth of this science (Sacred Theology), is wholly to be regarded as false" ⁵ Sacred Theology, the Wisdom among wisdoms, the Queen of the sciences, has an objective certainty superior to that of all other natural sciences, whether physical, mathematical, or metaphysical. "I answer that, since this science is partly speculative and partly practical, it surpasses all others, both speculative and practical. For one speculative science is said to be more worthy than another, both on account of its certainty and on account of the dignity of its subject matter. And in both respects this science exceeds the other speculative sciences" ⁶

If God, then, cannot cause a true mathematical or metaphysical conclusion ever to fail, much less can He cause a true theological conclusion to fail. If God cannot do it, then it involves a contradiction. If a contradiction is involved, then a real identity of meaning is involved. The principles of contradiction and of identity are correlative.

342. SECOND OBSERVATION.—The argument copied above from Fr. Marín-Sola has no force. Is it true that the Church, when giving those infallible definitions, looks to the revealed deposit which it is her duty to guard, and also to the very truths defined, under the aspect of their conformity or opposition to the revealed deposit? Perfectly, so it is; but from this it does not follow that this conformity is identity. What is conformable to a thing is not the same thing, although it may bear with it likeness, proportion, correspondence; what is identical with another thing is indeed the same thing.

Answer.—For starters, our objector concedes, as every theologian must concede, that infallible and theological truth, just like infallibly condemned error and theological error, are truths or errors by their conformity or opposition, respectively, with the revealed deposit. We have just seen that not only according to the logicians, but also according to the metaphysicians and theologians, and according to the prince of them all, Saint Thomas, every opposition between two affirmations implies or involves a contradiction between them. It is evident that contradiction presupposes identity, and not merely extrinsic proportion, similarity, or correspondence. Hence it is evident that, if there is true opposition between theological or infallibly condemned error and the revealed deposit, there must be a contradiction implied between those two extremes, and that if there is contradiction between those two extremes, there must be real identity, and not mere similarity or proportion, between the revealed deposit and infallible or theological truth. This is inescapable, granting what our objector grants, and what every theologian must grant. The concept of identity is deduced apodictically from the concept of opposition through the concept of contradiction.

The reasons why our objector, who admits the concept of opposition, nevertheless refuses to admit the concept of contradiction and, consequently, that of identity, are, in our judgment, two. One is that when speaking of a theological conclusion, his thought instinctively turns to the trite model of "Christ is a man; therefore he is capable of laughter"; but understanding in that model, in Suarezian style, the "man" in a purely essential or abstract sense and the "capable of laughter" in an actual sense. And, of course!, thus understood, that model has neither can there be identity between the "man" and the "capable of laughter," nor contradiction between the "man" and the "not capable of laughter"; but this is simply because between the "man" (essential) and the "not capable of laughter" (actual) there is no true opposition, nor, therefore, is there true theology nor a true object of infallibility. Of this we have already spoken at length in another section (89-102), and we shall touch upon it again at the end of this one.

The second reason why our objector does not see true identity or contradiction, respectively, despite admitting true opposition, is that he does not seem to distinguish between formal identity, which is not at issue here, and real identity, which is the only one that interests us. Nor does he seem to distinguish between total identity, which we do not need at all, and partial identity, which is what we seek and suffice. By partial identity we do not mean part of identity, which would make no sense, but rather identity with part of the revealed deposit, even if it is not with the entire deposit. Let us see this.

When two propositions or statements have the same subject and the same verb, all their identity or contradiction of meaning depends on the predicate or predicates. If one affirms or denies the predicate of the other, and affirms or denies it in the same form and, therefore, in the same concept and in the same reality, the identity or contradiction is formal. If it affirms or denies it with a different concept, but within the same reality, the identity or contradiction is only real. In the propositions "God is eternal," "God is not eternal" (which is the same as "God is non-eternal"), there is formal contradiction, for the predicate affirmed in one and denied in the other is the same under all concepts; but in the propositions "God is eternal," "God is not immutable," there is only real contradiction. There is real contradiction because the predicates "eternal" and "immutable," respectively affirmed in one and denied in the other, are the same divine reality: but the contradiction is not formal, because those predicates, although of identical reality, are distinct formalities or distinct concepts.

In turn, in the propositions "God is merciful and eternal," "God is merciful, but not eternal," there is formal contradiction, because one of the predicates is formally denied; but it is partial, because the other predicate is not denied, nor, consequently, is the whole predicate of the proposition. In the same way, in the propositions "God is merciful and eternal," "God is merciful, but immutable," there is real, but partial, contradiction. Real and not formal, because the predicates "eternal" and "immutable" are distinct formalities or concepts: partial and not total, because of the two predicates only one is denied, or from the total predicate only part is denied.

But, as can be seen, in all these affirmations and negations, whether formal or real, total or partial, as long as they are within the same reality, that is, as long as one of the predicates is inclusive or implicit in the subject, there is always an affirmation or negation of identity, not of mere similarity, proportion, or extrinsic correspondence.

343. APPLICATION TO THE DEPOSIT OF REVELATION—Let us now apply all this to the deposit of revelation. The deposit of revelation is not a single proposition or revealed affirmation, but rather a set of affirmations and, therefore, of revealed meanings. For an error to involve true contradiction with the meaning of the deposit of revelation, or for a truth to have identity with said deposit, it is not necessary that it involve contradiction or identity with each and every one of the affirmations of the deposit, but it suffices that it involve it with just one.

Thus, for example, the first verse of Genesis affirms creation, and the first verse of the Gospel of Saint John affirms the Divinity of the Word. Whoever affirms the Divinity of the Word affirms a meaning identical to the revealed deposit, because it is identical to one of the truths of the revealed deposit, to the first verse of Saint John, even though that affirmation is not identical to, nor has anything to do with, other truths of the revealed deposit, for example, with the first verse of Genesis concerning creation.

In the same way, whoever denies one of the truths of the revealed deposit, for example, the creation of the world, his denial is contradictory to the revealed deposit, because it is so with one of the truths or meanings of the revealed deposit, even if that denial has or would have nothing to do with the other truths of the deposit. Therefore, for there to be true identity or true contradiction with the revealed deposit, it is enough that there be such with one of the meanings or truths of the deposit, even if there is not with all the meanings or with the entire deposit.

This, which everyone knows and which may even seem to many a theological commonplace, will serve us as a stepping stone to explain something else which, though everyone knows it, some seem frequently to forget.

Each of the affirmations or propositions of the revealed deposit, although it expresses only one predicate or meaning, implies or may imply many predicates or concepts. This is proper to every affirmation, whether divine or human.

All those predicates or concepts not expressed, but indeed implied in each of the revealed affirmations, are not known nor can they be known all at once, but rather they demand time and study and are known successively, sometimes requiring for this deep and complicated reasonings, delicate analyses and syntheses, contact with diverse sciences and civilizations, a long chain of internal and external experiences...; in short, all that complicated and laborious series of factors that enter into every human progress, even if it is only a matter of the progress or development of what was already implicit in the primitive datum or point of departure. That is proper and exclusive to poor and, at the same time, rich human reason. Poor, because it needs time and work in order to know; because it knows by reasoning, that is, by passing from one

in aliud, something that neither God nor the angels themselves need. Rich, because in passing from one thing in aliud it can pass not only from one reality to another, as the senses do, but it can also pass from one concept to another within the same and identical reality, within the same and identical primitive datum, thus sharing in the procedure, not only rational, but intellectual, of the procedure of identity, proper to the angels and to God.

And of that procedure of absolute identity, of unconditional truth, human reason disposes, not in the contingent physical sciences, but indeed in the eternal mathematical and metaphysical sciences, and much more in eternal and divine Theology, for the theological procedure is the most intellectual of all sciences, and the one that most closely approaches the knowledge of pure intelligences, to the knowledge of simple intelligence: “The theological consideration is most intellectual” ⁷. But let us not digress.

344. EXAMPLE OF CRYSTAL-CLEAR CLARITY: JESUS CHRIST IS GOD.

We were saying that each affirmation of the revealed deposit, even if it expresses only one predicate, implies or includes many, really identical ones.

Thus, for example, let us take the following revealed proposition: “Jesus Christ is God.” For greater clarity, let us set aside entirely every other revealed truth except that one, or let us suppose that there is no other revealed truth than that one. In the same way that science, in order to study a sensible phenomenon, seeks to isolate it from every extraneous condition, so the best way to analyze any question is to isolate it or abstract it from everything else. “To abstract is not to lie,” runs the Scholastic adage. Let us therefore set aside every other revealed truth and suppose that we have revealed to us only this proposition: “Jesus Christ is God.” In that proposition there is explicit only one predicate: God. But implicit there are very many.

Indeed: what is God? Note that the question is not what things distinct from God are connected with God, nor what things are like or proportionate to God, but rather what thing is God. For to this question the Catechism of Father Astete answers us: “He is a thing the most excellent and admirable that can be said (ineffability) or thought (incomprehensibility); He is a Lord infinitely good, powerful, wise, just, beginning and end of all things.”

As if saying nothing at all, the explicitly unique concept of God has been broken down into eight concepts implicit in Him, namely: ineffability, incomprehensibility, infinite goodness, omnipotence, infinite wisdom, infinite justice, first principle and ultimate end of all things. And if, instead of asking the Catechism, which might be accused of speaking from faith rather than from demonstration or theology, we had asked the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, who in this matter of divine attributes demonstrates apodictically everything he says, it would answer us, not only with the eight concepts of the Catechism, but with many other divine attributes, deduced from the concept or idea of God, by a rigorous process of real identity, in his magnificent treatise on Deo Uno, for the Catechism does not even name in its definition of God the divine simplicity, His immensity, His immutability, His eternity, His providence, etc...

The verse, then, revealed as "Jesus Christ is God" expresses no more than one predicate, and yet, under that single predicate it contains implicitly, and really and identically, many other predicates. It expresses formally no more than one sense, but it implies really many senses or truths.

Now then: one who, after this truth has been revealed, were to affirm that very proposition that "Jesus Christ is God," that one would not only affirm a sense identical with the revealed proposition, but would affirm all the explicit sense of the revealed truth, since he would affirm it in the very form in which it is revealed. His affirmation contains an identity with the revealed truth, but an identity not only partial, but total; not only real, but formal.

Likewise, anyone who denied that revealed proposition by saying, “Jesus Christ is not God” would be denying not merely one sense of that revealed truth, but the whole explicit sense of that revealed truth, since he would be denying it in the very form or concept in which it is revealed. It is a contradiction of sense with the revealed truth; but a contradiction not only implicit, but explicit; not only partial, but total; not only real, but formal. That is the defining character of formal opposition or explicit contradiction: the denial of the whole meaning of its contradictory. For this reason, logicians call it of a malignant nature⁸, in contrast to the other oppositions, which carry only the implicit contradiction and do not deny everything, but do deny a real and implicit part of their opposite, as we shall see.

Continuing under the same hypothesis that we have only the proposition "Jesus Christ is God" revealed; suppose that one neither expressly affirms nor denies that proposition, but does affirm that Jesus Christ is one of the many concepts, virtually distinct, but really implicit, in the concept of God, saying, for example: "Jesus Christ is ineffable," or "he is incomprehensible," or "he is infinitely good," or "wise," etc. In affirming any of those predicates which we have seen are implicit in the word "God," but which human reason cannot know, or develop, or make explicit without true ratiocination, without discursive reasoning; in affirming, we repeat, those predicates, those true theological conclusions, one would not affirm something extrinsic to the predicate God, nor something purely similar or externally conformable to what God is, but rather one would affirm something intrinsic to God, really identical to the revealed predicate "God," really identical with the revealed proposition. The identity is not formal, because those predicates are distinct formalities, distinct concepts, virtually distinct; it is not total, since none of those predicates exhausts the predicate "God," just as no property, however metaphysical it may be, exhausts the essence, nor does any conclusion, however implicit it may be, exhaust the principle; but it is real identity, because those predicates are really identical with the revealed predicate "God." That is what constitutes theological truth, Theology. There is not, then, merely correspondence, proportion, likeness between theological truth and what is revealed: there is real identity of meaning.

If instead of affirming any of those predicates we were to deny them, saying, for example: "Jesus Christ is not ineffable," "He is not incomprehensible," "He is not omnipotent...", those negations would not only involve disagreement, disproportion, dissimilarity, but they would involve a true contradiction with the revealed truth that "Christ is God." The contradiction is not explicit, but it is implied; it is not formal, but it is real. Being God and not being ineffable, or not being incomprehensible, or not being omnipotent, are truly contradictory predicates; they imply a contradiction. And the palpable proof that they imply it is that not even God can do the opposite. And God can do whatever does not imply contradiction. Therefore, theological error implies, even if it does not express, a real contradiction with the revealed deposit. Therefore, theological truth implies a real identity with it.

This analysis of the treatise De Deo should suffice for anyone who considers what Theology is. The proper and primary object of Theology is God, and nothing enters into Theology except by relation to God. If in that treatise every theological truth is one of real identity, it follows that the process of identity constitutes and must constitute the proper and primary character of every theological conclusion and of every true theological reasoning. But let us see practically how the same thing happens in any other revealed proposition from any other treatise of Theology.

Second example: Jesus Christ is man.—Let us take, for example, the revealed proposition "Christ is man." In that proposition there is explicit nothing more than one predicate: "man," or, if you will, there is explicit one predicate: the predicate "man." But in this predicate there are implicit or enveloped many others, not only as similar or proportionate, but as really identical.

Indeed: if, as we previously asked what God is, we now ask what man is, it will be truly answered that man is a rational animal. Up to this point we are still in the formal realm, since rational animal is the very definition of man. But if we now ask what rational is, it will be truly answered that what is rational is really immaterial, spiritual, immortal, free, capable of morality, of merit, of beatitude, and capable of powers, and of wonder, of "laughter", etc., etc. All of this emerges through true reasoning, through true minor premises of reason, through true theological conclusion. And yet these conclusions retain real identity. And the proof that they retain it is that God cannot make a being rational and not immaterial, spiritual, immortal, or not have the capacity (radical properties) for merit, for morality, for powers, for wonder, for laughter.

Third example: Jesus Christ is perfect man —If instead of analyzing the predicate "man" we analyze the predicate "perfect man," or connatural man, or man like us in all things, we shall find that man in a connatural or perfect state is man with all actual properties: actual understanding, actual will, actual admirability, actual risibility, etc., etc.: for a man without any of these actual properties is not a man in a connatural state, but in a non-connatural state, which is precisely the negation of the revealed predicate. Therefore, the theological conclusions that affirm some radical property of the Savior's humanity affirm a sense really included in the revealed predicate "man"; and those that affirm any of the actual properties also affirm a sense really included in the revealed predicate: not in the predicate "man," from which they are really distinguished, but indeed in the revealed predicate "perfect man," or connatural man, or man like us. Just as we have analyzed the predicate "rational," so too can we analyze the predicate "animal," or the predicates "body" and "soul," or any other predicate of any other revealed proposition. Provided that, if only the essence of a predicate is revealed, no more than its essential or radical properties be deduced, and that if the perfection or connaturalness of such an essence is revealed, its actual properties be deduced; the deduction is rigorously scientific and rigorously theological, and, nevertheless, rather, precisely for that reason, it is also really identical and rigorously homogeneous.

345. COMPARISON OF THE THREE EXAMPLES.—Of the three models examined, namely: "Christ is God," "Christ is essential man," "Christ is perfect or connatural man," the first is a model of a divine predicate; the second, of a created-essential predicate; and the third, of a created-accidental predicate. These are the three fundamental types of revealed predicate and, therefore, of theological process, and no other type exists that does not reduce to one of these three. In all three we have seen that there is real identity or identity of meaning, and not merely proportion, or similarity, or mere extrinsic correspondence. Therefore, theological truth (the fourth grade of Catholic doctrine), from which infallible truth (the third grade) proceeds, is really homogeneous with the dogma and the revealed datum (the second and first grades), and there is homogeneity or real identity of meaning among the four grades of Catholic doctrine.

346. THIRD OBSERVATION.—When the bishop of Brescia affirmed, at the Vatican Council, that not all truths belonging to faith or morals are necessary in the same degree for the custody of the deposit, he clearly indicates that the revealed truths and the connected truths may be neither identical nor have an identical sense: that conformity is not identity. Response.—We agree that there are degrees in the truths of faith and morals, or in their necessity for the preservation of the revealed deposit. To prove something so obvious and which no one has denied, there is still a greater authority than that of the bishop of Brescia, namely that of the Vatican Council itself, and no less than in its dogmatic constitution on the Catholic Faith, at the end of which the following is read: "It is not enough to avoid heretical wickedness, unless those errors too are avoided which more or less approach it ⁹

But we do not see what relation that having degrees may have to having or not having identity. Our objector forgets again that we are dealing with identity, not formal, but real, and not total, but partial; that is, identity with part of the revealed deposit. In formal or total identity, degrees have no place; in real and partial identity, they do have a place, according to the greater or lesser part that is affirmed or denied of the revealed predicate. And not only do they have a place, but precisely because it is real identity, it requires degrees.

Indeed, being an identity and not a mere likeness or proportion, it must be within the deposit and not outside it: being real and not formal, it must be implicit and not explicit, for the explicit is always formal. Now, the fact that a truth is more or less implicit, more or less profound, more or less latent in another truth—that indeed admits of degrees, as is evident.

From that greater or lesser implicitness or depth in which a truth stands with respect to the formal object of the deposit or to what is already defined as of faith, depends precisely its greater degree of necessity for the preservation of the deposit, because on it depends the greater or lesser certainty or evidence with which human reason (for which the deposit was given and for which there is necessity of preserving and explaining it) sees the more remote or more proximate relation of such a truth to the formal object of the deposit or to what is defined of the deposit. On whether or not the relation of a doctrine to the deposit exists depends the necessity or non-necessity of such a truth; on the greater or lesser implicitness of that relation depends its greater or lesser degree of necessity.

Thus, for example, every doctrine or statement that concerns the Divinity or Trinity (revealed predicates) must be true or false by way of real identity, since with respect to God no other way is possible. And yet, every theologian knows that with regard both to the Trinity and to the Divinity there are doctrines of faith, there are those close to faith, there are those simply certain, there are those more probable, there are those merely probable, there are those improbable, there are those erroneous, there are those close to error, there are those simply rash, and there are even those completely doubtful or free. A complete range of degrees of implicitness in the deposit and of degrees of necessity for the preservation of the deposit. And yet, all those truths or all those errors conform to or oppose the deposit by way of identity, since with respect to the Divinity or Trinity no other way is possible.

What happens with the revealed predicate "God" happens with any other revealed predicate, provided that the true theological process is preserved, that is, provided that one passes from the revelation of the pure essence to the deduction of its metaphysical or radical properties, or from the revelation of the connatural or perfect essence to the deduction of its actual properties. The process is one of identity with what is revealed, but of real identity, not formal, and, therefore, of implicit identity, not explicit, and for that reason capable of various degrees of implicitness, of various degrees of relation, of various degrees of necessity. Every homogeneous progress carries with it those two characteristics: because it is homogeneous it carries real identity; because it is progress it carries various degrees or stages of implicitness or development ¹⁰.

347 FOURTH OBSERVATION.—But now we shall see where the root of all our objector’s confusion lies, who continues thus:

“An example will clarify this. Suppose it is not revealed that Jesus Christ is physically perfect man, but only that He is true man, a rational animal, and that later the Church defines as infallible truth, with a note lower than that of faith, that Jesus Christ has actual visibility. Will that definition teach us that this proposition: “Jesus Christ has actual visibility” has the same meaning as this other: “Jesus Christ is true man?” Clearly not, because actual visibility, as a physical power, is a reality really distinct from the essence of man. The propositions, therefore, will not be identical, although they are in conformity.

Answer.—Our reply is very simple and very clear: I DENY THE SUPPOSITION. That is: we categorically deny that the Church could define as infallibly true the proposition "Christ has actual risibility," or that she could condemn as infallibly erroneous the opposite proposition: "Jesus Christ does not have actual risibility," on the supposition which our objector makes that it was not revealed that Christ is a perfect or connatural man, but only that He is a true or essential man.

Our objector, like so many post-Suárezian manuals, has it fixed in his head, and even believes it to be the opinion of all theologians, that in the traditional type of theological conclusion “Christ is a man: therefore he is capable of laughter,” the “capable of laughter” can be taken in an actual sense, when man is taken in a purely essential sense.

In our judgment, they suffer in this an evident error with far-reaching consequences for the nature of true Theology and of infallibility, as we believe we have made clear elsewhere (99-102).

We do not deny, then, that the Church can define as infallibly true, and even as of divine faith, the proposition "Christ has radical risibility," since it is revealed that Christ is true or essential man. Nor do we deny that the Church can define as infallibly true, and even as of divine faith, the proposition "Christ has actual risibility," or any other of the properties really distinct from the essence, since it is truly revealed that "Christ is perfect man." In both cases there is a true theological conclusion, in both cases there is true definability: but in both cases there is also true real identity between the principle and the conclusion, and not mere likeness, proportion, or correspondence.

What we have denied and continue to deny is that the Church could define as infallibly true, and much less as a truth of faith, the proposition "Christ has actual risibility," on the supposition that only "Christ is essential man" were revealed. The reasoning "Christ is essential man, therefore He has such an actual property" can hardly be an object of divine faith or an object of infallibility when it does not even have theological certainty. It has the same and identical certainty as these other reasonings: "Christ is essential man, therefore He has human personality," or "Most Holy Mary is true Mother, therefore She is not a Virgin." What a beautiful theological certainty!

348. IN LIGHT OF THE OPPOSITION—In order not to repeat what we have reasoned and documented at length in the place already cited, let us be content with briefly examining such lines of reasoning in light of the concept of opposition, which is what we have been studying in this section.

Indeed, nothing can be condemned as erroneous in the domain of Theology or in that of infallibility unless it is truly opposed to the revealed deposit. This our objector admits. Well then: it is evident that between these two propositions: "Christ is essentially man" and "Christ has no actual risibility," there is no true opposition. One can be essentially man and not actually risible, just as one can be essentially man without being actually, or in fact, a human person, and one can be essentially a mother without ceasing to be a virgin. Such extremes can absolutely coexist: such propositions, which they try to make us pass off as opposed, can absolutely be both true, and two propositions that can absolutely be both true, or two extremes that can absolutely coexist, are not truly opposed, says Saint Thomas. "For opposites, according to any genus of opposition, cannot exist at the same time."

And so that no one might be confused by thinking of merely physical impossibility, the Holy Doctor immediately added that for opposition, absolute or essential impossibility was required. "This comes about from the fact that one of the opposites by its very notion (essence) has the negation of the other." And precisely from this the Holy Doctor deduces that fundamental principle that "Contradiction is included in all opposites" ¹¹

Now then: the propositions "Christ is essentially man" and "Christ is not actually capable of laughter" can absolutely both be true, can absolutely coexist in the same subject, involve no essential repugnance, involve no contradiction. Therefore they involve no true opposition. Therefore, on the supposition made by our objector that only "Christ is essentially man" were revealed, the proposition "Christ has no actual capability of laughter" would not be truly opposed to the revealed deposit, and not being opposed to the revealed deposit, it could not be condemned as erroneous either by infallibility or by Theology.

349. NOR SHOULD IT BE ARGUED THAT, at least, it could be infallibly condemned as rash. Undoubtedly it could. But here we are not at all dealing with the rashness that goes against prudence; rather, we are dealing with the erroneous, which goes against truth. The Church can also infallibly condemn as rash the proposition "the last judgment will take place next year," without its being deduced from this that its contradictory, "the last judgment will not take place next year," has theological certainty or is an object of infallibility, either as erroneous or as true. It is only an object of infallibility or of theology as imprudent ¹²

350. FINAL OBSERVATION.—Let us hear, finally, to close this already too-long chapter, the last observation of our objector, who speaks thus:

"For us, Catholic doctrine is the doctrine that the Church, through its solemn magisterium or its ordinary magisterium, teaches directly or indirectly to all the faithful as a dogma of faith revealed by God or as an infallible truth in accordance with revelation... To all of it can be applied the famous saying of the Lirinense, cited by the Vatican Council: "Let it grow, therefore... and make great and vigorous progress, in the understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of individuals as well as of all, of one man as well as of the whole Church, according to the stages of ages and centuries: but only in its own kind, that is, in the same dogma, with the same meaning, and the same judgment.""

Answer.—Very well said, and we make our own the entire preceding paragraph of our objector. But either our objector has suffered a slight distraction in that paragraph, or he comes therein to admit everything we have said about the real identity of meaning among all the degrees of Catholic doctrine, and to overturn everything he has tried to establish in his earlier observations.

Indeed, according to that paragraph of our objector, Catholic doctrine encompasses not only what is defined as a dogma of faith (and, therefore, the first and second degrees), but also what is defined as an infallible truth (third degree).

According to that same paragraph, all that doctrine of the Catholic faith may be applied the famous saying of the Lirinense, which the Vatican Council has made its own.

Thus, as every theologian knows, the phrase of Vincent of Lérins, “in eodem dumtaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia,” means not only likeness, proportion, and correspondence, but also a true implicitness, a true real identity of meaning.

Then, if the saying of Lirinensis and of the Vatican Council applies to all Catholic doctrine, and this embraces the first three grades, our objector thereby comes to acknowledge that there is an identity of meaning among those three grades of Catholic doctrine. We have claimed nothing more than that in this work, nor is more than that needed to recognize the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma.

It is true that our objector says nothing explicitly about the theological truth (fourth degree); but everyone knows, and our objector will surely not deny it, that this fourth degree is of the same nature as the third, since there is no true theological conclusion that cannot become an object of infallibility ¹³.

**351. SUMMARY.—**The two principles on which we have based this entire section are the following: First: Theological error, like error infallibly condemned, must necessarily be truly opposed to the deposited revelation and not merely to natural reason. Second: There can be no true opposition between two statements if a true contradiction is not implied between them. We do not recall any theologian or philosopher who has denied or called into doubt either of these principles, and what matters most to us, both are from Saint Thomas.

Anyone who, without allowing himself to be confused by a faulty understanding of "Christus est homo: ergo est risibilis", serenely meditates upon the scope of those two principles, will come to see with evidence, not only that there is real identity or objective homogeneity among the four degrees of Catholic doctrine, but also (and this is the foundation of the other) that the constitutive element of theological truth or theological conclusion is the virtual implicit. Its implicitness in the revealed deposit is what gives Theology the character of real identity or objective homogeneity with faith: its virtuality (or distinction of concepts within the same reality and, therefore, the need for true reasoning) is what gives it its character as a conclusion and its formal distinction from faith.

The implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit is, then, the essence of theological truth. Its character of implicitness in the sacred deposit is admirably condensed in that laconic phrase of the "Princeps Thomistarum," the illustrious Capreolus: "ALL (theological truths) ARE CONTAINED IMPLICITLY IN THE BIBLE," a golden formula that ought to be engraved on the mind of every Thomist and inscribed on the first page of every theological manual ¹⁴. Its character of virtuality was described by the prince commentator Cajetan in that other no less concise phrase: "Theological science is contained virtually in the principles of which faith is the habit" ¹⁵. Both characteristics, that of virtuality and that of implicitness, are united in that text of St. Thomas: "When several things are in something, they are said to be in it implicitly in the principles" ¹⁶ And even better in: to unfold the articles of faith happens in two ways: in one way, with regard to the very substance of the articles, the one knowing the articles distinctly; in another way, [unfolding] those things which are contained implicitly in the articles ¹⁷ happens while a man knows those things which [follow] from the articles*.

Let every theologian note the perfect pair of phrases that Saint Thomas takes as a) “those things which are contained in the articles” and b) “those things which follow from the articles”. These are the principles of theological truth, of sacred Theology itself, according to Saint Thomas; this is the root of the homogeneity of dogma in its four degrees of development. And the divine authority of the Church to explain through the homogeneous evolution of dogma.

¹⁸

Anyone who, without allowing himself to be confused by a faulty understanding of “Christus est homo: ergo est risibilis,” serenely meditates on the scope of those two principles, will come to see with evidence, not only that there is a real identity or objective homogeneity among the four degrees of Catholic doctrine, but also (and this is the foundation of the other) that the constitutive element of theological truth or theological conclusion is the virtual implicit. Its implicitness in the revealed deposit is what gives Theology the character of real identity or objective homogeneity with faith: its virtuality (or distinction of concepts within the same reality and, therefore, the need for true reasoning) is what gives it its character of conclusion and its formal distinction from faith.

The implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit is, therefore, the essence of theological truth. Its character of implicitness in the sacred deposit is admirably condensed in that laconic phrase of the “Princeps Thomistarum,” the illustrious Capreolus: “ALL THINGS (theological) ARE CONTAINED IMPLICITLY IN THE BIBLE,” a golden formula that ought to be engraved in the mind of every Thomist and inscribed on the first page of every theological manual ¹⁹. Its character of virtuality was described by the prince of commentators, Cajetan, in that other no less concise phrase: “Theological science is contained virtually in the principles whose object is faith” ²⁰. Both characteristics, that of virtuality and that of implicitness, are brought together in that text of Saint Thomas: “When many things are contained virtually in something, they are said to be in it implicitly, just as conclusions are in principles” ²¹ And still better in that other text: “To unfold the articles of faith can happen in two ways. One way, as regards the substance of the articles themselves, according as one knows the articles distinctly. Another way, as regards those things which are contained implicitly in the articles; this indeed happens when a man knows those things which follow from the articles” ²²

Let every theologian note the perfect parallelism of those two phrases that Saint Thomas takes as identical, namely: a) "those things which are contained implicitly in the articles"; b) "those things which follow from the articles." These are the two essential characteristics of theological truth, of the theological conclusion, of Sacred Theology, according to Saint Thomas. That virtual implicitness is the root of the homogeneity of Catholic doctrine in its four degrees of development. That implicitness and the divine authority of the Church to explain it are the two keys to the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma.

1.º In truth, no one should be surprised that many writers and historians of our day say that the Catholic Church has ceased to exist.—If this is not understood in this way, it is because we have not noticed the form in which the Church exists today, if it is compared with what it was at least from the second century until the French Revolution.

2.º It should not be surprising that this institution is judged to have lost its social effectiveness.—If this is not understood, it is because we do not know what kind of effectiveness the Church has had in the past, nor the kind it has today, under conditions and by means that were previously absolutely unthinkable.

3.º It should not be surprising that it is said that Catholicism, considered as a system, has ended or is in its death throes.—If this is not understood, it is because we have not distinguished the immutable doctrine of Catholicism from the contingent forms with which it has clothed that doctrine in History. The doctrine cannot die. But those historical forms not only can change, but necessarily will change continually.

4.º Finally, it should come as no surprise that it is said that Catholicism is, for the Latin peoples, a religion already surpassed, and for the Anglo-Saxons, an institution that is not in line with their historical vitality.—If this is not understood, it is because one has not seen how Catholicism has historically been one of the greatest generative forces of the culture of the Latin peoples, and one has not realized how Catholicism has had to undergo a purifying process of its strength in order to be grafted today onto other peoples, without it seeming that it is simply a survival of Latin culture.