La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

**491. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF DOGMAS.—**An interesting introduction to the history of dogmas has just been published, written by the learned professor of the Angelicum in Rome, Fr. Schultes. Its title is: Introductio in Historiam Dogmatum... Auctore, P. Reginaldo Maria Schultes, O. P., S. Theol. Mag. (Paris 1922). The illustrious historian of dogmas fundamentally admits, as we do, the evolution of dogma by way of theological conclusion. But since, regarding the theological conclusion or properly so-called revealed virtuality, he holds an idea, or at least a nomenclature, somewhat different from ours, the author frequently alludes, and by name, to our doctrine, and makes some observations to us. We believe that what we have already said in this work was more than sufficient to consider them answered. Nevertheless, we shall respond to them with all possible conciseness, indicating in parentheses the numbers of this work where the reader may see the doctrine more fully developed. Fr. Schultes's observations read as follows:

492. FIRST OBSERVATION.—"As is evident from the very term of revelation itself; dogmas must be truly and properly revealed. It is not sufficient, therefore, that some doctrine be revealed only improperly or in an analogous sense, as we will say ex professo below concerning virtual revelation..." ¹

Answer.—Our objector identifies there, and also further on, so calmly, the analogous with the improper. "Improperly or in an analogous sense".

The division of revelation into immediate or formal (in se) and mediate or virtual (in alio) is analogical, as divisions frequently are in Metaphysics or Theology; but it is not improper or metaphorical, but rather proper and real and intrinsic, exactly like the division of evidence into immediate evidence (in se) and mediate evidence (in alio).

Implicit-virtual revelation is, then, true and proper revelation, but in its own way. That way is the implicit or "in alio" mode, and for this reason it needs explanation. When that explanation is made by the private reasoning of the theologian we have Theology; when it is made by the divine authority of the Church, which uses reasoning or theology as its instrument, we have dogma (304, 326).

493. SECOND OBSERVATION.—"Although all dogmas are said to be revealed doctrine, nevertheless not all revealed things are suitable to become dogmas, but only those which by themselves or by reason of their very nature order us to God or to salvation" ²

Answer.—According to St. Thomas, both what is revealed directly, or in itself, and what is revealed indirectly, or in relation to something else, can become dogma by definition of the Church.

"To faith something belongs in two ways: in one way directly... in another way indirectly... and regarding both there can be heresy, in the same way as there can be faith" ³. "The judgment is the same about these (the indirect) and about those (the direct) which are determined in faith, because one follows from the other" ⁴.

There is no further difference except that the indirect scriptural is never or rarely defined by the Church; whereas the indirect theological is frequently defined by her (323, 466).

494. THIRD OBSERVATION.—"Unde Concilium Vaticanum expresse insinuat, per definitionem infallibilitatis Romani Pontificis nihil novi statui" ⁵ Response.—Nothing new as to substance or new revelation; something, and much, new as to new explanation. In that precisely consists the evolution of dogma. New or greater explanation of everything that is truly implicit, as is the implicitly-virtual (170, 173).

495. FOURTH OBSERVATION.—"Thus, dogmatic progress or the evolution of dogmas can be had, insofar as revealed truths are successively proposed by the Church for belief, and in the course of time are known by us more perfectly" ⁶ Reply.—There is not only proposition and knowledge of the explanation that already existed, but there is also a greater explanation than the one that existed before; and greater than the one that existed before, not only in the faithful, but also than the one that existed before in the entire Church, although not greater than the one that existed in the minds of the Apostles. Therefore, although it is not progress of the faith in itself or in regard to its substance, it is progress not only of the believer in the faith, but also of the faith in the believer; not only in individual believers, but in the Church herself (177, 182).

One thing is to catalog, order, classify, separate, formulate... concepts that are already known, and even to deduce known concepts from other known ones, and a radically different thing is to pass from known concepts to unknown concepts.

In the first case, intelligence remains within the formal, within the same concepts: in the second case there is a passage from the formal to the virtual-implicit, a passage to a new concept.

In the first there is only greater distinction, or greater clarity, or greater order of the same concepts; in the second there is not only newness of order, or of classification, or of formulation, but also newness of consequence or of concept. "To explain the articles of faith can happen in two ways: in one way, when one knows the articles themselves distinctly; in another way, when... one knows those things which follow from the articles" ⁷

It is evident that the Church, through its dogmatic definitions, not only orders, or classifies, or distinguishes previously known concepts, but also determines, or defines, or gives us new concepts, concepts previously unknown, although already implicitly contained in the concepts originally known. Let us hear the Vincentian: “Let posterity rejoice in the understanding of that which antiquity venerated without understanding” ⁸.

And let no one believe, as some imagine, that these are concepts unknown to the individual faithful but known to the Church; as if the Church did nothing else but define and teach what the faithful ignored, though she already knew it herself. These are concepts not previously understood either by the faithful or by the Church herself, although they were understood by the Apostles. Hence dogmatic progress is a conceptual progress, or a progress of understanding, not only of individuals but of the whole Church: “Let it grow, therefore... in the stages of ages and centuries, the understanding, knowledge, and wisdom—both of each and of all, of one man as of the whole Church” ⁹.

Dogmatic progress, then, always moves between concepts that are neither contrary nor diverse, but rather explanatory or mutually implicit. For this reason it is homogeneous and not transformist. For this reason it does not prevent these concepts from being new concepts. Not completely new, because they are not new as regards their objectivity or substance; but they are partially new, insofar as they are new in their development or explanation (20, 306).

496. FIFTH OBSERVATION.—“Where it should be noted that 'consequences or corollaries,' according to the opinion of the scholastics, are not so contained in the articles as if they could be deduced from them by reason alone, but in a certain similar way in which particular articles are contained in certain general articles, as the Passion of Christ is contained in the Redemption” ¹⁰.

Answer.—St. Thomas and all the great Scholastics expressly and clearly distinguish between the containment of one article in another, or of all in the two most general articles of the faith, and the containment of the consequences or corollaries in the articles.

Regarding the first continence, they affirm that it cannot be achieved by human reason alone, but that revelation is necessary, and therefore that deduction or explanation from article to article came to an end in Jesus Christ and his Apostles. “This explanation was completed through Christ”.

Regarding the second continence, which is the continence of “consequences or corollaries” in the articles, they affirm that these can be known and deduced, and in fact have been known and deduced, without revelation; by human reason alone, as in Theology, or by reason with divine assistance, as in the definitions of the Church. And in this regard, the faith can be explained daily, and through the study of the saints it has been explained more and more (134, 314).

497. SIXTH OBSERVATION.—“Thus according to St. Thomas, the articles do not contain what is revealed accidentally, yet they contain all that is revealed in itself, whether explicitly or implicitly” ¹¹

Answer.—St. Thomas expressly says that in the articles two kinds of things are contained, and can be explained or developed: a) things contained actually in the article; b) things contained potentially in the article.

Now then: every Thomist knows, and St. Thomas expressly adds, that by potential content or revelation is meant, not what is formally revealed, but what is revealed indirectly or consequentially: the things that follow from the articles. That is the famous potential or virtual revelation; that is the true and proper theological conclusion.

Let us listen to a Thomist who will be pleasing to Fr. Schultes. Commenting on a parallel text, John of St. Thomas says the following: “Where St. Thomas puts immediately revealed things for Scripture: for the science of theology, however, he puts revealable things, which are virtually or potentially revealed” ¹²

The content, then, potential of the articles of which St. Thomas expressly speaks, and which he says is divisible or explicable, is the same as that which Cajetan and later Thomists called virtual, properly speaking. All of this, according to St. Thomas, is truly contained in the article. “That which is potentially contained in the article” (134, 296, 365).

498. SEVENTH OBSERVATION.—“However, it must be noted that only determinate conclusions have been admitted as Catholic truths, that is, those which follow by good and necessary consequence; that is, those which follow with logical certainty, through some immediately evident proposition, from some truth of Sacred Scripture or from another dogma of the faith. Such conclusions, finally, will be nothing other than explanations or determinations of the sense of Sacred Scripture or of tradition” ¹³

Reply.—Our objector cites this text in reference to the theologians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, among whom he includes Scotus.

First of all, it is not accurate that all those theologians require the premise of reason to be of “immediate evidence,” but rather most of them are content with it being “necessary and evident,” as the reader can see by reading the texts of theirs that we have adduced (372-381).

Secondly, it is enough for us that our objector admit, as he there admits, that the conclusion is definable as a matter of faith from one premise of faith and another of natural reason, when that premise of reason is of "immediate evidence," for that suffices to admit the definability as a matter of faith of properly so-called theological conclusions, unless there is a Thomist theologian capable of saying that conclusions whose premise of reason is of immediate evidence are not properly conclusions, which would be the height of absurdity.

Thirdly, the reader is now instructed by this how he must understand the doctrine of our objector, when he so many times repeats in his book that nothing can be defined as dogma if it is not "formally" revealed or if it is not "explanation or determination" of what is revealed. He understands, apparently, by those phrases every theological conclusion, even though it may be deduced by means of a premise of natural reason, provided that that premise is of immediate evidence. With this alone, the definability of the conclusion properly so called is already admitted.

What happens in such theological conclusions is that, when the minor premise is of immediate evidence, or when the two premises are explicitly revealed, the conclusion is quickly and without any difficulty admitted by all theologians, and even by all the faithful; it is quickly taught by the ordinary preaching of the pastors; it quickly enters into the teaching and belief of the universal Church, and thereby it is quickly defined by the ordinary magisterium, without the need for a solemn magisterium.

But this does not take away from such conclusions their being true and proper conclusions, nor their needing a definition from the Church, at least a definition from the ordinary magisterium, in order to be believed as of divine faith.

The more evident the conclusion is, the more properly it is a conclusion and the more properly and rigorously theological it is. "Therefore, the evidence and firmness of the consequence does not take away theology, but makes it; it does not remove it, but brings it in" ¹⁴

Today, on the other hand, there seems to exist among many theologians a manifest tendency to regard the theological conclusion as all the more theological or more scholastic the more difficult, or doubtful, or obscure, or disputable it is. They have lost the true Thomistic idea of theological science and of the theological conclusion, properly so called.

499. EIGHTH OBSERVATION.—"According to Báñez, therefore, the later definitions of the Church represent a pure explanation of the knowledge possessed by the Apostles and handed down by the Church" ¹⁵

Response.—The reader who has read or rereads the texts of Báñez (396) will see clearly that Báñez distinguishes perfectly between the explanation that the Apostles had of the revealed datum and the explanation that the subsequent Church has.

If we compare the explanation that the Church has and gives us with that which the Apostles had, far from being the former greater than the latter, it is lesser. The Apostles had a greater explanation than that which the Church has given us, and as much as it can give us until the end of the ages (57, 58).

But if we compare the explanation that the Church of later centuries has and gives, not with the one the Apostles had, but with the one the Apostles gave to the Church, and which is what we call the revealed datum, the explanation is each time greater. And that explanation, according to Báñez, extends to every true and rigorous theological conclusion, and that, says Báñez, is the meaning of the indirect revealed of Saint Thomas.

Báñez, in this as in so many other things, is superior to certain commentators of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Our objector will not cite a single text of Bañez in which the definability by divine faith of the true theological conclusion is denied. On the contrary, we have cited numerous texts to him, and we could cite many more, in which Bañez expressly affirms it.

500. NINTH OBSERVATION.—“The formula of St. Thomas and of the other Scholastics was sufficient to explain the progress of faith through new revelations, but not to explain the unfolding of faith through the magisterium of the Church or in dogmatic progress” ¹⁶

Response.—St. Thomas not only gave us a clear formula for explaining the progress of the Old Testament, or the progress of new revelations, but he also gave us very clear formulas for explaining dogmatic progress after the Apostles, through the Church.

These formulas are: a) "those things which are contained potentially in the article... and these are the things which precede the article and follow from it." ¹⁷; b) "those things which are contained implicitly in the articles, which indeed happens when a man knows those things which follow from the articles" ¹⁸; c) "those things which are contained implicitly in the faith of the Church, as conclusions are contained in principles" ¹⁹; d)

"those things from the denial of which something contrary to the faith follows" ²⁰; e) "those things from which the corruption of any article follows" ²¹.

Here is the reader with five literal formulas of Saint Thomas that express the extent of dogmatic progress after the Apostles with such clarity and exactness, and with far less confusion and empiricism than any formulas that have been devised since.

Those five formulas of Saint Thomas amount to one and the same: the true theological conclusion, or true implicit virtuality, which is how Capreolus, Cajetan, Bañez, and almost all the classical commentators on Saint Thomas before the Salamancans translated it. (467-469).

501. TENTH OBSERVATION.—"Nevertheless, the general reason for the confusion was the lack of distinction between the division of revelation itself (namely, on the part of revelation itself) and the division of the manifold knowledge of revealed things, namely, on the part of the mode of our knowledge" ²². This is what our objector repeats at every step, and he believes that this is the principal distinction that must be made.

Answer.—We grant that this distinction must be made, for without it it is not possible to know what is immediately revealed in itself, or on the part of revelation, and what is immediately revealed for us, or on the part of our knowledge.

But more important than those two members is a third member that our objector never names, and it is that which is both immediate revelation in itself and mediate revelation for us. That is precisely the implicit-virtual revealed. Because it is mediate for us, it is virtual, and, therefore, rigorously theological. Because it is immediate in itself, it is implicit and, therefore, definable by the Church.

In this way the Church defines only what is truly revealed, for it defines only what was already implicit in what is revealed. In this way too the Church does nothing but turn what is immediate in itself into what is immediate for us, for everything implicit or inclusive is already immediate in itself, as Saint Thomas so often repeats (168).

502. ELEVENTH OBSERVATION.—"Among Suarez's followers, H. Kilber refutes him (Suarez) excellently, relying especially on this reason: a doctrine revealed only virtually cannot be held exclusively on the authority of God" ²³. This objection of Kilber's our objector then repeats on his own account on page 196.

Answer.—In the first place, if Kilber and our objector speak of the virtual-implicit, or inclusive, as they truly do, they do not do well to call it virtuale tantum, since everything truly implicit or inclusive, although it may be virtual or mediate for us, is formal or immediate in itself. They ought to call it either formal-confused, as Suárez and Lugo call it, or virtual-implicit, as John of St. Thomas calls it, or implicit pure and simple, or virtual pure and simple, as all the theologians before Suárez called it, or virtual identical-real or essentially connective, as most of the moderns call it.

Secondly, and setting aside useless questions of nomenclature, Kilber, like so many other non-Thomists, has not known how to distinguish well between the faith and our faith. That one must assent exclusive propter auctoritatem Dei, is true in the case of faith in itself, that is, the faith of those who received revelation immediately from God; but it is not true with regard to our faith, that is, the faith of those of us who received revelation through the proposal and explanation of the Church. In this our faith two elements enter: a) the object revealed by God alone; b) its explanation by the Church assisted by God. As to the revealed object, the formal motive is exclusively God. But with respect to its explanation, what enters is not as a formal motive, but rather as an integral or indispensable condition of the formal motive, the definition of the Church. And since the definition comes not through new revelation, but through assistance, reasoning enters as an instrument of the Church, just as history and criticism and all the other human means necessary for ascertaining the explicit revealed or for explaining the implicit enter as well.

Kilber's argument and that of our objector prove apodictically that no conclusion, even one drawn from two revealed premises, can be an article of divine faith before the Church's definition; because then human reasoning would be what explains and proposes the conclusion, and, therefore, we would assent with divine faith to a human explanation. But it proves nothing when dealing with implicit conclusions, defined by the Church, even when the Church has needed reasoning to unfold or explain them; for then reasoning enters in no way either into our knowledge or into our assent to the conclusion, which we know by simple and immediate definition. If reasoning does enter, it enters not into our act, but into the explanatory work of the Church, and there it enters not as the formal motive, but as a mere instrument or prior condition to the definition (129-134 and 135-156).

503. TWELFTH OBSERVATION.—"God does not reveal or manifest His entire knowledge of that matter, but only that which is signified by the terms"²⁴.

Answer.—This second reason of Kilber’s carries no more weight than the previous one. God reveals not only what the terms signify explicitly, but also what they signify implicitly, that is, what is implied or included in the predicate of the revealed proposition. This is the inclusive virtual or implicit.

Explanatory, or analytical, or conceptual reasoning, which is what we call inclusive reasoning, has as its object not to add some sense or meaning not implied, but to explain or develop what was already implicit in the revealed premise, and only in the revealed premise, just as the tree develops into branches, flowers, and fruits the sap that it already had within itself.

The only difference is that the tree, in order to do this, needs to take material from outside, while our intellect, because it has at its disposal a process called analytical or intellectual, which is purely and exclusively intrinsic, can do so without any mixture, addition, or change, by the simple explication or evolution of what already existed objectively and truly implicit in the starting point (224).

Elsewhere (96, 246) we have already cited the texts in which John of Saint Thomas and Gonet expressly teach that the true theological conclusion is already completely contained in the premise of faith alone, and is in no way contained in the premise of reason. Although this is a truth so clear for every true Thomist, we shall add the testimony of two modern Thomists. They say the following:

“The conclusion, in effect, is contained only in the principle of faith, and not at all in the principle of natural reason”²⁵.

“However—and this remark is capital—the theological conclusion is not contained virtually in the philosophical minor premise—it is absolutely extrinsic to it—but in the revealed major premise alone”²⁶.

If that is so, it is evident that the Church, in defining such conclusions as of divine faith, does not objectively increase the deposit of revelation.

504. THIRTEENTH OBSERVATION. — “But if some things are in no way immediately revealed, neither implicitly nor explicitly. The Church never proposes them as matters of faith”²⁷.

Reply.—Those words of John of Saint Thomas, which our objector underscores, as if they were a great argument, have force against the definability of the mediate non-inclusive, or physical-connective, which is “in no way immediate,” since it is mediate, both in itself and as regards us. But they have no force whatsoever against the mediate inclusive, of which neither John of Saint Thomas says, nor will any true Thomist dare to say, that it is in no way immediate; for although it is not immediate as regards us, it is immediate in itself (168). “Any proposition whose predicate is included in the notion of the subject is immediate and self-evident, as far as it is in itself” ²⁸

Our objector also repeats several times that for a truth to be a "proper conclusion" it is necessary that it be deduced from the revealed deposit "as an effect from its cause"; and that when it is only contained and deduced in that way, it is not definable as of divine faith. But our objector does not seem to notice, just as the Salmanticenses do not seem to have noticed, that this matter of being deduced "as an effect from its cause" can have two essentially different meanings:

First, it may be deduced as an effect of its “proper cause,” which is what is called the natural, or real, or physical cause. Then it is clear, and we grant, that such a conclusion is not definable by divine faith, nor even by ecclesiastical faith; for the simple reason that such a conclusion is not an inclusive or implicit conclusion, but merely a connective one: it is not a rigorously theological-metaphysical or absolutely necessary conclusion, but a physical conclusion and, absolutely speaking, contingent or fallible. It is the conclusion called of the fourth type.

Second, being contained in the revealed deposit and deduced from it as an effect of its “improperly so-called cause,” which is the so-called virtual or metaphysical cause with respect to its effects, or the whole or perfect essence with respect to its properties. Thus are contained in the revealed deposit, and thus are deduced from it, all rigorously theological conclusions. But then, the conclusion is not purely connective, but also implicit or inclusive. It is mediate as regards us, but it is immediate as regards itself. Therefore it is definable by divine faith. These are all the conclusions of the other five types.

Do not confuse, then, these two things: a) being a conclusion properly speaking; b) being deduced as an effect from its proper cause. The second is not required for the first. Most of those who deny the definability by faith of the theological conclusion do so because they understand by that the conclusion deduced as an effect from its proper cause. But that is a false idea of the theological conclusion (46, 53, 98, 300).

505. FOURTEENTH OBSERVATION.—“For something to pertain indirectly to the faith, it is indeed required that from its denial the denial of a principle of faith follows, but it is further required that it be revealed in itself” ²⁹.

*Answer.—*It is required that it be revealed, but not that it be revealed in itself, but rather it suffices that it be revealed in another, and this is what is called virtual implicit, and this is verified in every theological conclusion inclusive.

That implicitness is not created by our reasoning, but rather discovered, or explained, or deduced by that reasoning. For the implicitness exists objectively and, therefore, independently of our reasoning; hence it is true and objective implicitness, and that suffices for definability. But since our intellect cannot discover or explain it except by means of reasoning, it is therefore called virtual or mediate, that is, mediate for our intellect.

Read again the cited text of Cajetan (383) or of the many other Thomists we have adduced, and it will be seen that for definability they require nothing but implicitness, and for implicitness they require nothing but necessary connection; for since it is a matter of a theological and not physical connection, it is a connection of objective analysis and, therefore, it is a connection with implicitness. For St. Thomas and the Thomists, and for ninety percent of the other theologians, objective identity (provided it is evidently knowable without new revelation) is the same as implicitness, the same as definability of faith.

If Molina and Kilber, and some other theologians, hold a different opinion and there are those who prefer to follow them, they are within their rights, for these are free questions, not yet defined by the Church. But we find it difficult to understand that there are Thomists for whom what is really identical is not also objectively identical; or for whom what is objectively identical is not objectively implicit; or for whom what is objectively implicit in what is revealed is not implicitly revealed.

It seems to us that these theologians, like the ancient conceptualists, focus more on statements and subjective concepts than on the objective reality implied in such concepts and statements, and they forget that the term and purpose of the statement and of the concept, both in science and in revelation or in faith, is not the statement or the concept, but reality. “The act of the believer does not terminate in the statement, but in the thing. For we do not form statements except that through them we may have knowledge of things, just as in science, so also in faith” ³⁰.

506. FIFTEENTH OBSERVATION. — "Third corollary: The question of which conclusions are definable as dogmas cannot be properly determined from the fact that they are connected with something revealed in itself... (but rather because they are expositions or determinate expressions of revealed doctrine): for mere connection with something revealed does not render any doctrine definable as an object of faith" ³¹

Answer.—Granted that mere connection is not enough for definability. Hence what is needed is connection with inclusion or implicitness. That is the conceptual or analytical reasoning. That is the implicit virtuality.

Granted also that the definitions of the Church, both those of divine faith and the infallible ones (for the Thomists have never separated them when speaking of doctrines, though they have disputed when speaking of dogmatic facts), are nothing but an explanation of what is revealed. Therefore we do not admit that non-implicit virtuality is definable, and we require that the virtuality be implicit, for only what is implicit can be explained.

Granted, in short, that every definition of the Church is but a determination of what has already been revealed. But that—and only that—is what the true conclusion does, when it is an inclusive conclusion: to determine, or to develop, or to unfold, or to draw out (for all these amount to the same thing) the revealed principle.

In our judgment, those theologians who pile up texts from the Holy Fathers and from Saint Thomas in which it is said that the Church’s definitions of faith do nothing but explain and determine the revealed deposit are wasting their time and skimming the surface, without penetrating to the depths. That is undoubtedly true; but those terms in the language of the Holy Fathers and of Saint Thomas have not the superficial and empirical sense that is frequently given to them among the common people or among the casuists, but rather the philosophical, organic, ontological, vital sense that is given to them in Philosophy and Theology. In the language of the Lirinense, as in the language of Saint Thomas, the names to explain or to determine have the sense of unfolding or developing what was already found implicit; but with that virtual implicitness with which the branches are found before sprouting from the trunk, the members before acquiring all their development, the conclusions implicit, but true and proper conclusions, before being deduced from the principles. Let us set forth only one example from the Lirinense and some from Saint Thomas.

Let us hear Vincent of Lérins: "Let the religion of souls imitate the method of bodies; although these unfold and develop their various numbers in the course of years, yet they remain the same as they were" ³² There the reader has the name of explanation taken in the sense of development or evolution of the implicit virtual: "Unfold and develop."

Let us now listen to St. Thomas: "Of this natural knowledge, indeed, it is to take the beginning and the end. Its beginning is in a certain confused knowledge of all things: namely, insofar as man naturally has within him the knowledge of universal principles, in which, as in certain seeds, all things knowable that can be known by natural reason preexist virtually. But the end of this knowledge is when those things which are virtually in the principles themselves are EXPLICATED into act: just as when from the seed of an animal, in which all the members of the animal preexist virtually, an animal is produced, having all its members distinct and perfect, it is said to be the end of the animal's generation... And just as there was nothing in his body (namely, in Adam's body) that was not EXPLICATED in act pertaining to the perfection of his body itself, so whatever was seminally or virtually in the first principles of reason was entirely EXPLICATED according to perfect knowledge" ³³ There again the reader has, very clearly set forth by St. Thomas himself, what is the meaning of the word explicate. It is to develop the inclusive virtuality. It could not be said more clearly.

Let us hear another little text from Saint Thomas: "Since, therefore, the principal intention of this sacred doctrine is to transmit knowledge of God...; intending the exposition of this doctrine, we will treat: first, of God, etc." ³⁴ There we have again the to expound the doctrine, as synonymous with deducing proper conclusions. Let us add, finally, another little text from Saint Thomas on the meaning of the word to determine. Among a thousand places that could be cited, we will choose one in which there is clear talk of determining what is virtual. In the seventh article of the same first question of the Summa Theologica, treating of "Whether God is the subject of this science," that is, of Theology insofar as it is science, he says thus: "To the second it must be said that all things which are DETERMINED in Sacred Doctrine are comprehended under God, not as parts, or species, or accidents, but as ordered in some way to Him." (L. c., ad 2.) There is the word to determine applied not only to improper conclusions, but also to proper ones. "All things which are determined."

Those, therefore, who pile up texts from the Holy Fathers, from St. Thomas, and from the great Scholastics, in which they say that the definitions of the Church are nothing but explanations or determinations of the revealed deposit, and from this wish to deduce that they are not definitions of implicit virtuality, simply ignore the language of traditional Theology.

To the Thomist novice—as Cajetan would say—who wishes to understand well the thought of Saint Thomas, we will permit ourselves to give him two pieces of advice: First, that when he reads those phrases about explaining or determining the faith, he note that Saint Thomas applies them to every infallible definition of the Church, equally to those of divine faith as to those that today are called of ecclesiastical faith; for Saint Thomas never made a distinction between these two things, when it comes to the definition of doctrines. Second, that the terms explaining and determining ordinarily have in Saint Thomas the sense of developing or unfolding the implicit virtuality and, therefore, the conclusions properly so called ³⁵

All the articles of the Creed are but explanations or determinations of the two most general articles of faith; but explanations or determinations so profound that no human power can produce them, and for that reason they require a new revelation, which was concluded in Christ and his Apostles. "And this explanation was completed through Christ... In the determined articles" (St. Thomas).

In contrast, the non-article dogmas, or conclusion dogmas, are also explanations or determinations, but so relatively easy that human reason suffices, with simple divine assistance and without new revelation, to make them. "And in this respect, faith can daily be explained more fully, and by

Let any unbiased Thomist read those texts and countless others that could be cited, and he will clearly see what St. Thomas and the whole ancient Thomistic tradition understand by explaining what is implicit in the deposit of faith. the study of the Saints (the ecumenical Councils) has been more and more fully explained" (St. Thomas). With each blow of the sculptor's chisel, an explanation or determination results in the marble or features of the statue: from each stroke of the painter's brush an explanation or determination emerges in the lines or details of the painting; each new branch is an explanation or determination of the tree; each inclusive conclusion is an explanation or determination of the principles of science. Analogously, each definition of the Church, provided it is a true definition and not a mere redefinition (171), is also a new explanation or determination, a new development or evolution, a new facet or a new aspect of that divine deposit, but a living and fruitful deposit, which God entrusted to the custody and explanation of His spouse, the Church. There is no difference except that in the first three examples cited, of material things, no explanation or determination occurs, except by adding something from outside, or removing something from within; whereas the intellect, when it is analytical or inclusive, develops its principles, and the Church develops its deposit, without any objective change (224). The Church is, therefore, not only the divine guardian with the mission of faithfully conserving the deposit in what it already has of explicit and determined, but also the divine artisan with the mission of explaining or determining, of polishing and chiseling, of developing and maturing, of perfecting and finishing what the divine deposit has of virtual or unformed, of implicit or incipient. "Let it be cultivated, let it flourish, let it mature, let it advance, let it be perfected... If there are things anciently unformed and incipient, let it refine and polish them: if things already firm and defined, let it guard them" ³⁶ That is, in our judgment, the broad, fruitful, vital, philosophical sense that the terms explaining and determining have in Vincent of Lérins, in St. Thomas, and in all the great Scholastics when they apply them to the deposit of faith ³⁷

These two functions, that of guardian and that of craftsman, which the Church has with respect to the revealed deposit, and which the Council of the Vatican has called the functions of conserving and expounding the deposit, are both recognized and admirably set forth by the Lirinese.

The function of guardian is described by the Lirinense thus: “Guard the deposit, says the Apostle. What is the deposit? That is, what has been entrusted to you, not invented by you; what you have received, not what you have devised: a matter not of genius, but of doctrine; not of private usurpation, but of public tradition: a matter brought to you, not produced by you: in which you must be not the author, but the guardian; not the founder, but the follower; not the leader, but the one who follows. Guard the deposit, he says: preserve the talent of the Catholic faith inviolate and undefiled. What has been entrusted to you, let that remain with you, let that be handed on by you. You have received gold; return gold: do not substitute one thing for another for me: do not, for gold, either shamelessly place lead, or fraudulently place bronze. I do not want the appearance of gold, but its true nature plainly.” Thus far the office of guardian or custodian: the function of preserving.

Next, the Lirinense enters upon the task of describing the office of artificer or the function of explaining or developing the deposit [of faith], and he compares the Catholic doctor, that is, the Church, with the artificer Beseleel, of whom Sacred Scripture speaks to us³⁸, and he expresses himself thus: “O Timothy, O priest, O teacher, O Doctor, if the divine gift has made you fit, by talent and by practice of doctrine, be the Beseleel of the spiritual tabernacle, carve out the precious gems of divine dogma, fit them together faithfully, adorn them wisely, add splendor, grace, and beauty... Through you may posterity rejoice in the understanding that antiquity once venerated without understanding... Therefore, whatever in this Church of God, the field of the Father, was sown by the faith of the fathers, the same it is fitting that the industry of the sons cultivate and observe, the same let it flourish and mature, the same let it advance and be perfected. For it is right that those ancient dogmas of heavenly philosophy should, with the passage of time, be drawn out, polished, and refined; but it is wrong that they should be changed, wrong that they should be truncated, or mutilated... If there are any things informed and begun in antiquity, let them be perfected and polished; if any already confirmed and defined, let them be preserved” ³⁹ “To explain the articles of faith can happen in two ways... in another way with respect to those things that are contained implicitly in the articles themselves, which indeed happens when a man knows those things that follow from the articles” (D. THOMAS, 3 Sent., d. 25, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 3). “Just as, therefore, the article of the resurrection was contained in that saying: I am the God of Abraham and Isaac, which afterwards Christ the Lord explained to those of lesser understanding, so too certain things which are found obscure in the Sacred Letters have been explained by the Spirit of truth for the Church” (CANO, De Locis, 3, 3). “For the theologian gathers his conclusions from the principles of faith, and explains those [conclusions] implicit in the principles themselves through reasoning suited to nature” (CANO, De Locis, 8, 2). “As we have often said elsewhere, neither the Councils, nor the Pontiff of the Apostolic See, nor the interpreters of Sacred Scripture give new revelations to the faithful, but they either express or interpret what the Church received from the Apostles, or certainly gather the consequences and connected [truths], and manifest what is adverse and contradictory” (CANO, De Locis, 12, 3). “And with respect to this, the article of faith can be explained and divided.” (D. THOMAS, 3 Sent., d. 25, q. 2, a. 2, ad 4). “And with respect to this, faith can be explained daily, and through the study of the saints it has been explained more and more” (D. THOMAS, 1: c.). “I answer that it must be said that the articles of faith, with respect to their explanations, are related as general principles, not otherwise than general rules of conduct with respect to human laws; whence both those explanations and human constitutions are related as conclusions deduced from their general principles” (GRAVINA, O. P., Catholicae Praescriptiones [Neapoli 1619], l. 4, a. 5, p. 361).

Some historians of dogma give us a magnificent idea of the first function of guardian of the deposit that corresponds to the Church; but they seem to deny, or at least to conceal, the other function of artisan or gardener, which also corresponds to her. That idea of artisan, far from opposing dogmatic immutability, completes it, as long as the artifice or cultivation is reduced only to passing “from one to another according to reason, which is not another according to reality,” that is, to the conclusions of distinction of reason or conceptual distinctions. For as St. Thomas very well says: “Diversity of reason does not vary anything on the part of the thing” ⁴⁰

507. SIXTEENTH OBSERVATION.—“Thus, finally, Saint Thomas teaches the same as the Vatican Council when it says: ‘To the successors of Peter the Holy Spirit was promised... so that, with Him assisting, they might holily preserve and faithfully expound the revelation handed down through the Apostles, or the deposit of faith’” ⁴¹

Response.—That text from the Vatican refers not only to definitions of faith, but to every infallible definition of the Church, and since infallible definitions extend, according to all theologians, to the virtual or properly so-called conclusion, it follows from that text that by setting forth or explaining the deposit is also meant unfolding or defining its implicit virtuality (248). All the more so because every development of implicit virtuality is nothing other than setting forth or explaining what has been revealed. (240).

508. SEVENTEENTH OBSERVATION.—“It must be firmly held: every doctrine subsequently defined as a dogma of faith is properly and in itself (formally) revealed” ⁴²

Answer.—Our objector once again sets out to unite and confuse, as if they were identical, proper revelation with formal revelation or in se, as if revelation in alio or virtual were not also proper revelation. Now, it is true and "firmly to be held" that only proper revelation can become a dogma of faith. But it is not true nor "firmly to be held," but on the contrary, "freely disputed," whether revelation in alio or virtual can or cannot become a dogma.

Theologians, both ancient and modern, are so far from regarding the non-definability of the virtual as “firmiter tenendum” that, when it comes to inclusive virtuality or conclusions identically-real or metaphysically-connected with the deposit, the vast majority say the opposite. Whether only what is formally revealed is definable, or also what is virtually revealed, is a completely free question, both after and before the Vatican Council (330).

Fortunately, the author comes to acknowledge this expressly on p. 195, at the foot of which the following laconic and expressive note is inserted: “The conclusion is the controversy.” There we have it!

509. EIGHTEENTH OBSERVATION. — “Thus, through a proposition explicitly and implicitly revealed, one and the same thing—indeed, the same formally known object—is known by distinct concepts under a different aspect” ⁴³

Answer.—We understand very well that one thing, materially the same, can be known through formally distinct concepts.

What we do not understand—and that is precisely what is at issue in dogmatic progress—is that one thing, formally the same, can be expressed with concepts formally distinct from it, without departing from the formal. Wherever there is a concept formally distinct between the conclusion and the principle, there is already virtual distinction and a conclusion properly so called, and that is precisely what happens in many of the Church's dogmatic definitions, namely, that they are conceptually distinct, although really identical, from the revealed premise as it existed in the primitive datum.

Thus, for example, if we were to suppose that in the revealed datum there was, regarding transubstantiation, no other phrase than that of “hoc est corpus meum,” and that from there the primitive Church drew out transubstantiation, as Saint Thomas and the Council of Trent drew it out, then there has been a passage from the formal to the virtual, although the virtual is implicit (210).

Likewise, if we suppose that, regarding the sacrament of Penance, there was no more phrase in the primitive datum than that of “Receive the Holy Spirit, whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain, they are retained,” and that from this the Church derived the necessity of confessing the circumstances that change the species, then there has been a transition from the formal to the virtual implicit (211).

In the same way, if we suppose that in the primitive datum there were, regarding the Immaculate Conception, only the phrases “I will put enmities...” and “Hail, full of grace” and “Mother of God,” and that from these the Church drew the definition of Pius IX, then it is a step from the formal to the virtual implicit (209, 312). And so it is with many other examples.

One thing is to pass from the knowledge of a known thing to the knowledge of other concepts formally identical with what is already known, and quite another thing is to pass to the knowledge of concepts virtually distinct, although really identical, from the concept originally known.

Our objector seems to fasten on the point that between the dogmatic propositions subsequently defined by the Church and the propositions of the primitive datum there is never anything but a distinction of formulas or of reasoning reason, but not a distinction of concepts or of reasoned reason or virtual [reason].

We, on the other hand, with all theological tradition and with the manifest facts of the history of dogmas, believe that there can be and frequently is a virtual distinction, a distinction of a conclusion properly so called, although an analytic or inclusive conclusion. “Because the Church has hitherto proposed or defined nothing to the faithful as to be believed that was not contained in the sacred Scriptures or in the apostolic traditions, expressed or virtually contained, so that it might be drawn therefrom by an evident consequence” ⁴⁴

510. NINETEENTH OBSERVATION.—To indicate that mediate or virtual revelation does not suffice for implicit revelation, our objector expresses himself thus:

“Truth is of course revealed, either immediately or mediately. Something is said to be revealed immediately or formally when it is revealed or manifested in itself, that is, if the truth as such is manifested through a proposition or the terms of a proposition: as if I actually say to someone: the treasure you have sought is in such a place. Something is said to be revealed mediately or virtually when it is revealed in its principles or causes, that is, if some principle is manifested through which, or from which, by one’s own intellectual operation, the truth or doctrine in question becomes manifest to me, as if what is revealed is a thing from whose knowledge I can arrive at the knowledge of another doctrine, whether by knowing the effect from the cause, or the cause from the effect, or the property from the essence, or the essence from the property, or by some other similar way: as if I were to show someone a divining rod by means of which he could find a hidden treasure” ⁴⁵

Answer.—In the first place, although one does not expressly tell me where his treasure is hidden, if he nevertheless gives me a divining rod that marks infallibly the place where it is, with that alone he reveals it to me implicitly, since I need do nothing more, in order to know it, than apply the rod. Now then: God has not revealed explicitly to us the treasure of theological conclusions or the mediate and virtual revealed, but He has given us the infallible rod of the definition of the Church to find that treasure. By merely applying that rod, the treasure becomes known. It is, therefore, revealed implicitly. In reality, simple common sense dictates that not only does the one who says, "the treasure you seek is in such a place" reveal the location of the treasure, but also the one who says, "the treasure you seek is in that place which this infallible rod I give you will mark out for you." And that is exactly what God told us when He gave us, in the authority of the Church, the infallible rod to determine or define the mediate or virtual revealed. It is, therefore, of divine faith, once defined, not because the rod of the Church marks it, but because God said that it was where the rod would mark it.

Secondly, by denying that conclusions in which the essence is deduced from the revelation of the property are implicitly revealed, our objector unwittingly departs from the doctrine of his much-praised Salmanticenses, who express themselves thus: "For this is the difference between the revelation of the subject and the revelation of the property: that the express revelation of the former is not necessarily implicit in the latter; on the contrary, the explicit revelation of the property is the formal implicit revelation of its subject, because the express revelation of the defined term is implicit in the definition. Moreover, every property is essentially defined through its subject in place of a genus or differentia, as is said in logic" ⁴⁶. Now then: how could authors as Thomistic as the Salmanticenses have fallen into such a manifest inconsistency as denying, on the one hand, that properly so-called theological conclusions are implicitly revealed, and affirming, on the other hand, that the essence is implicitly revealed once the property has been revealed? Is it possible that a Thomist does not see that deducing the essence from the property is a conclusion properly so-called? There our objector has new proof of the confusion of the Salmanticenses on this question of the definability of the virtually revealed. It is one of the effects of Suárez's confused formal and pure virtual.

Thirdly, St. Thomas expressly teaches that the mediate or virtual revealed is implicit revealed: "That is properly called implicit in which, as in one thing, many things are contained... Hence when many things are virtually contained in one thing, they are said to be in it implicitly, as conclusions are in the principle" ⁴⁷. Our objector, in order to evade that so clear text, has found no other solution than to say that "St. Thomas takes the terms 'explicitly' and 'implicitly' in a broader sense" ⁴⁸. Our objector has not noticed that this is exactly the same solution of Molina when he said: "St. Thomas spoke less properly" (169). Nor has he noticed that precisely St. Thomas took care to note that he speaks of the implicit in a proper and rigorous sense: "The implicit is properly so called". Nor has he noticed, finally, that if one must take that word "implicit" in a broad sense when St. Thomas says that the mediate or virtual is implicit, then one must likewise take it in a broad sense when he says that the Church cannot define as of divine faith anything but the implicit revealed, with the result that, according to St. Thomas, the virtual is equally definable as of divine faith. Whatever interpretation is given to those words "implicit" and "virtual" employed by the Holy Doctor, one must always end up there, provided that a uniform interpretation is given to them. The only means of evading that dilemma is to employ the uncritical and arbitrary method of giving one sense to those words in some texts and another sense in others when it is a question of parallel texts employed by the same author, on the same matter, in the same question, and even sometimes in the same article, as happens in the texts of St. Thomas relative to the implicit revealed.

In a word, let us return to the example of the treasure and the rod. To find in the revealed deposit or primitive datum the treasure of the virtual or mediate revealed, we can employ two rods. First, human reasoning alone. Since such a rod is not infallible and, above all, since God has not told us that the treasure would be where that rod pointed it out, what we find with it is not nor can it be of divine faith, but rather of theological assent. Second, the rod of the definition of the Church. Since that rod is not only infallible, but also God has told us that it was so and that the treasure was where it pointed it out, what we find is of divine faith, not precisely because we have found it ourselves or because the rod of the Church has marked it, but because implicitly God had said it.

For this reason we have said and repeated so many times throughout the course of this work that the virtually revealed or theological conclusion, however inclusive they may be, are not of divine faith before the definition of the Church, but they are after the definition.

511. TWENTIETH OBSERVATION.—“P. Marín-Sola... unless I am mistaken, confuses two distinct things, namely, the objective distinction of the mode of revelation, and the distinction of the mode of knowing on our part” ⁴⁹

Answer.—We distinguish these two modes, namely: a) immediate or mediate from the part of revelation, which is called in itself; b) immediate or mediate from the part of our knowledge, which is called for us. But far from confusing them, we add a third mode, namely: c) immediate from the part of revelation and mediate from the part of our knowledge.

This third mode is the one that St. Thomas and the Thomistic school always worked to distinguish carefully from the first two. This third mode is the one that Scotus confused, and it has given rise to the extreme opinions of Vázquez and Molina (169). This third mode is the one that we believe our objector has failed to understand. And in this third mode of revelation precisely consists dogmatic progress, for it is the inclusive-virtual revealed: immediately revealed in itself, but mediately revealed to us.

Of the two elements—namely: a) revelation; b) explanation and proposition of revelation—that virtually inclusive revealed content has the first element without the second. It does not, then, need revelation, for it already has it; but it needs a new explanation and proposition. Precisely in this does dogmatic progress consist: in explaining and proposing what is virtually implicit and revealed.

Our objector also repeats in various forms in his new work the following words which he had already written in La Ciencia Tomista: “Now those things which are shown, explained, and manifested by theology are not only theological conclusions in the proper sense, but primarily and principally, indeed according to the mind of St. Thomas, as it were regularly, the very revealed truths, namely, which are explained, set forth, and manifested... From this St. Thomas “almost identifies” sacred doctrine with Sacred Scripture.”

Our objector is right in saying that Theology is concerned with setting forth the immediate or formal meaning of its principles; but we believe he is not right in adding that this is its primary or principal object. Our “elders” of the Thomist school always taught us something very different about the conception and nature of Sacred Theology. Let us hear them:

“Theologiae scholasticae proprium munus, quantum et a maioribus accepimus, et huius facultatis alumni quoti- deals at times with conclusions not yet defined (fourth grade), at times with conclusions already defined as infallible (third grade), at times with conclusions or principle-conclusions already defined as dogmas of faith (second grade). Ninety percent of the truly demonstrative articles of the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas and of any other true course of theology deal with some of these three grades of properly so-called theological conclusions. Therefore, the ordinary, normal, and proper function of theology as a science is not the first principles, but its properly so-called conclusions⁵⁰.

Those who think otherwise are, in our judgment, unaware of, or restrict too much, with Molina, the true dogmatic function of the Church. They imagine the Church as a simple recording apparatus: not a recorder of social consciousness, as modernism says, but a recorder of revealed data. They imagine that for something to be formally of divine faith after the definition, it would already have to be so before the definition. And since nothing can be a principle of theology unless it is of divine faith, they consequently imagine that for something to become a principle of theology by definition of the Church, it would already have to be a principle before the definition. They imagine, in a word, that the authority or definition of the Church is reduced to certifying as a truth of faith or as a principle of theology what was already of faith and already a principle, but not to converting into a truth of faith or into a principle of theology what before was for us only a properly so-called theological conclusion.

Such theologians seem to forget that, by virtue of the divine authority of the Church, Sacred Theology has a property or peculiarity that the other sciences lack, and it consists in the ability of its conclusions to be converted into principles, because what was previously known only by theological reasoning can come to be known by divine authority (308): «And therefore this is peculiar to theology, that those things which at times are conclusions can become principles»⁵¹. «And from these things the error of Molina is evident, op-

In reality, all truly scholastic or rational theology is, by its very nature, a true internal history of dogmas; and therefore there is no better internal history of dogmas, just as there is no better course in theology, than the ever-perennial Summa of Saint Thomas. That immortal work is, for whoever knows how to penetrate it, the true anatomy and physiology of the organism of revealed truth, whose four degrees of development constitute the leafy tree of Catholic doctrine.

With the need to defend the revealed deposit, first against Protestantism, and then against rationalism and naturalism, Catholic theologians began to orient themselves more and more each day toward positive and apologetic theology. With this, they also began to consider Sacred Theology from the extrinsic point of view of the defense of the revealed deposit, rather than from the intrinsic point of view of the development or explanation of the deposit. Hence arose the fact that the extrinsicist idea of Sacred Theology was gaining ground each day, considering its conclusions as something exterior to the revealed deposit, not as something interior that is contained in, and proceeds from, the very entrails of the deposit (117, 245). Hence the natural and logical conception that the theological conclusion, being something exterior to dogma, is a true objective or substantial addition to the revealed deposit, and therefore cannot be definable. Hence the modern discredit in which many hold the idea of ratiocinative or scholastic theology, and even the very idea of theology. They have lost, in our judgment, the Thomistic idea of true theology or theological conclusion. of one who asserts" ⁵². We do not go so far as to label as error that opinion or novelty of Molina; but we do subscribe to the one must wonder! which, with as much justice as knowledge of theological tradition, the eminent Suárez applied to him (84).

When, then, our objector says and repeats so many times that the principal and quasi-ordinary function of Theology is to concern itself with the principles and not with the conclusions properly so called, this can have two meanings.

If by principles he understands "first" principles, that would amount to killing Sacred Theology, stripping it of its character as a science properly so called ⁵³. That would not be Thomistic doctrine, but the doctrine of Aureolus and of the nominalists.

If, on the other hand, by principles he understands secondary or derived principles, that is to say nothing against us or against the question at hand; for secondary and derived principles are theological conclusions properly and rigorously so called, and they were not known or defined as principles by the Church except through the path of proper and rigorous theological conclusion.

512. TWENTY-FIRST OBSERVATION.— "Father Marín-Sola similarly holds that the concept of virtual revelation from Suárez is vitiated. Here, however, if I am not mistaken, there is an equivocation that is resolved by an easy distinction. For Father Marín-Sola considers the real distinction of properties from their essences: Suárez, on the other hand, considers whether in two propositions something formally distinct is taught" ⁵⁴.

Answer.—Of Suárez and de Lugo we have said and repeated two things: first, that they affirm that everything really identical with the revealed deposit, even if conceptually distinct, is revealed formally in a confused manner, and not only is it definable by divine faith, but assent of divine faith can be given to it even without definition. Second, that they affirm that only that which is really distinct from the revealed deposit is virtual, properly speaking.

The reader may see the proofs of these two assertions of ours elsewhere (73). That this is the true mind of Suárez and Lugo is confessed by all the true disciples of Lugo and Suárez. That that is to corrupt the concept of virtual revelation or theological conclusion must be confessed by every true disciple of Saint Thomas.

It is true that Suárez did not express that doctrine in phrases as clear and emphatic as Lugo. If for that reason our objector prefers to place upon Lugo everything that we, with Lugo and Ripalda and with all the Suarezians, have attributed to Suárez, he may do so as far as we are concerned. For the question we are treating, it is of little importance whether it is Suárez or whether it is Lugo who is the author of that doctrine or innovation, by which the traditional and true concept of virtual revelation is corrupted. But it is of the utmost importance to make it clear that Suárez and Lugo, with all the theologians prior to Molina and with the majority of those after him, affirm against our objector, as we ourselves affirm, that whenever between the theological conclusion and the revealed principle from which it is deduced there is real identity, because they have predicates only conceptually distinct, there is also identity of doctrine and, therefore, definability of divine faith. With that, it is enough and more than enough for there to be true dogmatic evolution by way of theological conclusion properly so called. If our objector wishes to call that an improperly so-called conclusion, it is a question of names. The Thomists have always called it, as it is, a proper and rigorous conclusion .

As confirmation of our way of interpreting Suárez, we will cite three illustrious Suarezians. They say the following:

“Regarding the known object of the conclusion, derived from one premise that is revealed and another known by natural light, there is greater difficulty. The first opinion holds that such an object is credible by faith... The second opinion denies it... The third opinion is intermediate, namely, that the object of such a conclusion is credible by faith, when it is REALLY identified with the revealed object: but otherwise if it is REALLY distinct from it and separable... Thus Lugo and Suárez” ⁵⁵

“Let us now come to those conclusions which can be deduced from one revealed premise and another evident one. On this matter, the first opinion affirms that in general they are of divine faith... The second opinion denies universally... The third distinguishes. For if the property deduced is metaphysical, that is, only formally distinct from the revealed object, then it says it can be believed with divine faith. But if it is really distinct, it denies it. Thus Suárez and Cardinal De Lugo” ⁵⁶

“If the question concerns a truth which is implicitly contained in another explicitly revealed truth, with which, however, it is only REALLY not formally identical, Ripalda, the Würzburg theologians, and others hold that it is not revealed: De Lugo and Suárez, however, teach the contrary. And to this latter opinion one seems to have to subscribe” ⁵⁷

As our objector sees it, we have attributed to Suárez only the same doctrine that his most illustrious and fervent disciples attribute to him. Moreover, our objector himself comes indirectly to confess that Suárez corrupted the concept of virtual revelation. Speaking of Suárez's theory that the definition of the virtual by the Church is equivalent to a new revelation, our objector expresses himself thus:

“Tamen doctrina (Suarezii) lacks solid foundation... likewise perverts the doctrine of the old Scholastics: especially, however, after the Vatican Council it can scarcely be maintained: Certainly, upon the foundation of this doctrine the theory of the evolution of dogmas can scarcely be built” ⁵⁸

Now then; if this is so, as it truly is, our objector knows that that theory of Suárez that the definition of the virtual by the Church is equivalent to a new revelation arose precisely from his other theory of taking as virtual what is really distinct from the formal, as we have shown elsewhere (78).

In short, and although this may not be necessary, it will not be superfluous to add that even Montaigne himself, so praised on this question by our objector, interprets Suárez as we do. Let us hear him:

“It is contained identically in another, says Suárez (d. 19, On Faith, s. 2, n. 10), that which is contained in it as in a THING altogether the same: thus in divine things intellect and will, justice and mercy, paternity and nature are one and the same REALLY and identically” ⁵⁹

Let any reader now turn to that place in Suárez cited by Montaigne, and he will see that that real or identical is precisely what Suárez calls confused formal, and what we call and will call virtual implicit or inclusive; for although it is formal or immediate in itself, it is mediate or virtual for us, as Suárez himself confesses in that very place cited by Montaigne ⁶⁰ Like the Salmanticenses, they have not grasped the true meaning of Suárez's and de Lugo's confused formal.

513. TWENTY-SECOND OBSERVATION.—“Fr. Marín-Sola impugns the doctrine of proper or improper discourse... yet he does not touch the historical distinction between the proper and improper syllogism. For the improper syllogism is not called explicative as if it merely set forth the meaning of the terms of revelation in other words, but also insofar as it explains the revealed doctrine with distinct concepts” ⁶¹

Answer.—In the first place, deciding whether it is proper or improper reasoning is not a matter of history, but of logic.

Second and principally, it is not a matter, as we have already said (509), of concepts distinct among themselves, but identical with the revealed premise, but rather of concepts distinct from the revealed premise or primitive datum. If the new concepts are virtually distinct from the concepts of the revealed premise or revealed datum, the reasoning is proper, and the progress is one of virtuality properly speaking. This is elementary in Thomistic doctrine against Scotus and Aureolus. And it is precisely this that is at issue in the question of dogmatic progress.

Historically speaking, the first and most fundamental division of revelation is into explicit and implicit. All the great masters of the thirteenth century make this division, and they admit that not only what is explicitly revealed, but also everything that is implicitly revealed, is definable by divine faith.

Implicit revelation can be subdivided, and was subsequently subdivided, into immediate or formal and mediate or virtual, according to whether the explanation of the implicitness requires improper reasoning or one of nominal conclusion, or requires proper reasoning or one of conceptual conclusion; for the reasoning of real distinction is proper, but it is not explanatory of implicitness, but merely connective. From this arose the first of the three divisions of divine revelation, which we give in the next outline, and which is the one employed by almost all theologians up to the seventeenth century.

Instead of taking as its basis the division into explicit and implicit, the division into immediate or formal and mediate or virtual was subsequently taken as its basis, but introducing, with Suárez and Lugo, within the mediate or virtual, a virtual that is not implicit, as will be seen in the second division.

In short, Kilber and some others who, following Molina, denied that anything mediate or virtual could be implicit, reserved the name of implicit for only the immediate or formal, with which resulted the third of the three divisions that we give in the following scheme: I Revelation A) explicit = (does not need reasoning). B) implicit = (needs an explanatory reasoning, which ex-plains what is im-plied in it).

II Revelation A) immediate or formal................. B) mediate or virtual

III Revelation A) immediate or formal B) mediate or virtual or non-implicit = α) immediate or formal. a) = nominal conclusion: b) = (improper explanatory reasoning). β) mediate or virtual... a) = conceptual conclusion: b) = (proper explanatory reasoning).

α) explicit.

β) implicit ......... a) = nominal conclusion: b) = (improper explanatory reasoning).

α) implicit ......... a) = conceptual conclusion: b) = (proper explanatory reasoning). β) non-implicit ...... a) = conclusion of real distinction: b) = (non-explanatory reasoning, but purely co-nnective).

α) explicit.

β) implicit ..... .... a) = nominal conclusion: b) = (improper explanatory reasoning).

(no subdivision). α) = every conclusion, whether conceptual or real. β) = (all proper reasoning).

Of those three divisions, the first is perfect, and expresses in its substance and in its nomenclature, in our judgment, the true Thomistic doctrine.

The second division, although good in large part, already has a most serious flaw, namely introducing as a member of the division of revelation a member that everyone admits is not revealed. That member is the fourth member, the so-called mediate or virtual non-implicit, which is the one that Suárez introduced as proper virtual or virtuale tantum (73). But with that fourth member removed, the first three members coincide perfectly with those of the first division.

Simply by looking at either of those first two divisions, one immediately understands why the ancient theologians, even John of Saint Thomas, speak—and rightly so—of virtually implicit revealed truth; for that is one of the fundamental members into which revelation is divided in both divisions.

In contrast, the third division of Kilber is, in our judgment, anti-Thomistic in both substance and nomenclature. The whole of it is founded on a complete divorce between implicitness and virtuality. In that third division, the implicit virtual has disappeared entirely, for it begins by identifying a priori the mediate or virtual with the non-implicit.

According to that third division, nothing virtual or mediate can be implicit or inclusive, and nothing implicit or inclusive can be mediate or virtual. It forgets that, in every datum or knowledge, whether natural or revealed, there can be concepts truly inclusive or implicit in themselves, and yet be mediate or virtual for our human reason. That third division of Kilber is simply the radical denial of the concept of implicit virtuality: it is the denial of the celebrated division of objective propositions into per se known in themselves and not per se known to us, which marks the dividing line between Thomism and Scotism in many fundamental questions of Philosophy and Theology. On that third division of Kilber is founded the observation of our objector ⁶².

514. TWENTY-THIRD OBSERVATION.—"In another place, P. Marín-Sola distinguishes between a proper syllogism, in which the medium of deduction is a new and distinct reality, and a proper syllogism whose medium is only a distinct concept. However, even in an improper or explanatory syllogism, a concept of another thing as a medium can intervene, as is clear in exegetical demonstration. Nor is it necessary for the conclusion to be about a really distinct thing, if the medium of deduction is a distinct thing" ⁶³

Response.—With respect to any proposition of the primitive datum, e.g., a proposition of the Bible, reasoning may be employed for two essentially different purposes: a) to ascertain the immediate or formal sense of the terms or of the formula, when such sense is not yet known. This often happens when the terms are rare, ambiguous, obscure; or when the turn of the phrase is complicated, etc., etc. Examples could be given by the thousands. Hermeneutics and Exegesis, with all their auxiliary branches, deal with this. Their purpose is not to deduce a new formula, but merely to fix the sense of the primitive formula; b) when the formal or immediate meaning of the terms or of the scriptural formula is already known, reasoning may be employed to deduce new formulas. This no longer belongs to Hermeneutics or to Exegesis, but to Theology insofar as it is a science (27, note).

In the first case, where the aim is not to deduce any new formula, but exclusively to ascertain the immediate or formal meaning of the terms of the primitive proposition, any means may be employed: a dictionary, a grammar, another verse or another book of the Bible; or a bearded rabbi, as Saint Jerome and Cajetan did. Whatever of these things, or others, or all together, may be employed, we will still be within improper reasoning; because we are still within the formal signification of the terms, despite the fact that the dictionary and the rabbi are things really distinct from the biblical proposition, without our having thought or said otherwise up to now. To this first case refers the text that our objector cites on page 180 from the most wise Cardinal Billot, which reads as follows:

"Hic notadum occurrit non esse confundendum id quod expressis verbis in propositione aliqua significatur, cum eo quod prima fronte ex sola lectione vel auditione propositionis percipitur. Potest enim esse quod verborum sensus nonnisi ex studiosissima inquisitione innotescat, et ideo multae sunt veritates explicite revelatae quae tales non apparent, nisi multis adhibitis argumentis: iis porro argumentis, dico, quibus solum ostenditur qualis sit in determinato contextu secundum hermeneuticae regulas suppositio, potestas et connexio terminorum"⁶⁴ As can be seen, the learned cardinal speaks only of the demonstration or argumentation whose sole purpose is to ascertain the true formal meaning of the terms.

Many theologians do not properly distinguish exegetical argumentation, or apologetic argumentation, or the argumentation of theology as wisdom, from the argumentation of theology as science. The former never give rise to new formulas or propositions; the latter consists in deducing new propositions. And this is precisely what is at issue in the problem of dogmatic progress. Therefore, neither Hermeneutics, nor Exegesis, nor Apologetics are relevant here, but only theological science.

What is exclusively at issue here is the second case, that is, when, once the formal or immediate meaning of the terms of the proposition or formula of the primitive deposit is known, one wishes to deduce by reasoning another proposition or formula. The Church has done and does this second thing, for she has not only defined as dogmas the primitive formulas, but also other formulas, which are not primitive, employing reasoning for this purpose. It is of this second case, and of it alone, that we ask when the reasoning employed is improper and when it is proper.

The primitive proposition or formula has two terms, and a third is needed if a new formula is to emerge. Now then: we have said, and we repeat anew, that if this third term, necessary for there to be a new formula, is formally identical with the two primitive terms, the reasoning is improper. If it is formally distinct, but really identical, which is what we call a virtual distinction, the reasoning is proper, but proper to the higher sciences. If it is really distinct, the reasoning is likewise proper, but proper to the poor and inferior physical sciences. This is proper to natural science (ST. THOMAS). This, for us, is the ABC of Thomistic doctrine (27, 106).

On the other hand, to prove against us that rigorous theological conclusions are possible, even within the real distinction between them and the revealed principles from which they are deduced, our objector cites as examples the conclusions that "human personality is really distinct from nature," and that "accidents are really distinct from substance," which are deduced, respectively, from the dogmas of the hypostatic union and of transubstantiation, and are, nevertheless, our objector says, really distinct from them ⁶⁵.

Our objector could not have chosen less appropriate examples. The first of those conclusions is deduced as follows: “In the hypostatic union, human nature is really separated from human personality (premise of faith): but two things really separable are really distinct (minor premise of reason); therefore human personality and human nature are really distinct things (theological conclusion).” Now: either human personality is a purely negative thing, as Scotus thinks, and then such a conclusion is not a true theological conclusion, since it does not follow, and the example then is irrelevant; or, on the contrary, it is something positive, as the Thomists hold, and then it is a true theological conclusion. But then it is really identical with the revealed principle, for “real separation” and “real distinction” are really identical things, when dealing with two positive things. The second is included in the first. The minor premise of that syllogism is, therefore, a real identity.

In the same way, the second of these conclusions is deduced as follows: "In the Eucharist there are accidents really separated from the substance (principle of faith); but two things really separable are really distinct (minor premise of reason); therefore the accidents are really distinguished from the substance (theological conclusion)." Now: either the Eucharistic accidents are mere appearances, as the Cartesians and many others hold, and then such a conclusion is not a true theological conclusion and is irrelevant; or, on the contrary, the Eucharistic accidents are objective-real things, and then the argument concludes. But then, such a conclusion is really identical with the revealed principle from which it is deduced; for "real separation" and "real distinction," when dealing with objective-real things, are really identical things. The second is included in the first. Let the reader note the minor premises or means of both reasonings, and he will see that they are inclusive minor premises or of real identity.

What has happened to our objector with those two examples will happen to him with all the examples he may adduce, provided they are rigorous theological-metaphysical conclusions. The defect of our objector, and of many other moderns, lies in their taking disputable conclusions as the model of conclusions, without noting that such conclusions are disputable because it is disputed whether they are true conclusions, since many take the minor premise in such a sense that the conclusion does not conclude; but then, as is clear, it is irrelevant, for we are dealing with conclusions that do conclude. A mathematical, metaphysical, or theological conclusion that concludes, and yet is not really included in the principle from which it is deduced, is a manifest contradiction for every Thomist (103-109).

515. TWENTY-FOURTH OBSERVATION.—"That which is indeed included in the revealed matter or identified with it is not properly revealed, except, namely, in its principle or cause... For the real identity of the object of two doctrines or cognitions does not bring it about that, when one cognition is had, the other is had, nor that, when one cognition is manifested or revealed, the other is manifested or revealed"⁶⁶

**Answer.—**Propositions are called really identical, not precisely those that deal with the same reality, that is, with the same real subject, as our objector sometimes seems to understand it, for propositions that are really distinct, and even completely disparate, can deal with the same real subject, such as "Peter is Spanish" and "Peter is a priest."

Rather, propositions are called really identical when, having the same subject, they also have a really identical predicate, e.g., "the human soul is spiritual" and "the human soul is immortal." The subject is the same: "the human soul"; and the predicates, "spiritual" and "immortal," are really identical. It is of these propositions, which are called conceptual, that we have so often affirmed that, when one of them is explicitly revealed, the other remains implicitly revealed and is definable as a matter of faith, provided that its real identity is knowable with evidence for us without a new revelation.

Indeed: if we do not wish to fall into the nominalism or subjective conceptualism of Ockham and Aureoli, we must concede that the value of a proposition does not depend precisely on the words, but on its objective sense. In propositions, the words are the material element; the sense is the formal element. If two propositions, therefore, have really identical predicates, they also have a really identical sense. And since for definability of faith, implicit revelation suffices, and for implicitness it suffices to have the same sense, in the same sense [in eodem sensu], it follows that really identical predicates, a really identical sense, the implicitness of one in the other, and definability of faith are all the same.

Our objector, in effect, does nothing but repeat that for a conclusion to be definable as of divine faith, it is necessary that it "express" the same doctrine. In the first place, it is not necessary that it "express" it, but it suffices that it "imply" it; for not only the "explicit" is definable, but also the "implicit." In the second and principal place, we suppose that by the "same doctrine" he will not understand the "same words," but the "same meaning": in the same sense. Now, when two propositions have the same subject, all their difference or identity of meaning depends on the difference or identity of their predicates. If, therefore, the predicates are truly identical, the meaning will also be truly identical, and their doctrine will also be truly identical. To say the contrary seems to us to be nothing but a disguised nominalism or conceptualism. In our judgment, Kilber's opinion is a derivation from Roscelin's conceptualism, in which attention is paid to the statement rather than to the reality signified. St. Thomas in this, as in all questions, is a realist: "The assent of the believer does not terminate at the statement, but at the reality..., just as in knowledge, so too in faith" ⁶⁷.

We do not say, therefore, that such conclusions are definable, because there is inclusive connection, nor because there is identical reality, but because, given inclusive connection or identical reality, there is "ipso facto" identity of meaning. The reason for definability is solely and purely its implicit revelation; the reason for its implicit revelation is the identity of meaning; real identity or analytical reasoning is not the formal reason for its definability, but the means or instrument by which we discern whether or not there is identity of meaning, and, therefore, implicit revelation, and, by the same token, definability of faith.

In our judgment, Kilber and the few who follow him in this matter have fallen into a lamentable subjectivism or conceptualism by taking as their criterion the intention of the one who reveals, in order to know what remains implicitly revealed. Whether a thing remains or does not remain implicitly revealed by my words does not depend precisely on my intention or lack of intention to reveal it, but on the objective scope or real content of what is said by me.

Although I do not wish to reveal that such an event has occurred in Madrid, I do say, nevertheless, that it has occurred at such-and-such geographical longitude and latitude, which happen to be precisely the longitude and latitude of Madrid; the matter is then already objectively revealed, provided that among my listeners there is one person who understands geography and knows how to “work out the calculation” of what is already implicitly contained in my words.

Although I have no intention of revealing that the Apostles were twelve, if I nevertheless say that they were 4 + x = 10 + x/2, the matter has already been objectively revealed, provided that among my listeners there is someone who knows how to solve for that unknown, who knows how to “do the math.”

Although I did not wish to reveal that Christ had knowledge and virtue, if I say that he was a most perfect man, it is implicitly revealed, provided that among my listeners there is someone who knows how to penetrate well that concept of “most perfect man.”

Although I do not wish to reveal or disclose whether the human soul is immortal or not, if I say that it is spiritual, it is implicitly revealed and stated, provided that among my listeners there is someone who knows how to penetrate the entire implicit content of the concept of “spirituality.”

If there is no one among my listeners who knows geography, or mathematics, or physics, or metaphysics, if there is no one who knows how to "do the math," that is, to penetrate or unfold or solve or explain what is already objectively contained in my statement, the matter will be revealed or contained or implied in itself, but it will not be so for my listeners⁶⁸.

Now then; the listeners to whom God directed Catholic revelation are the listeners of all ages, all humanity, human reason⁶⁹. Therefore, what is objectively contained in Catholic revelation, but whose explanation or development human reason cannot achieve, but rather requires new revelation, is revealed implicitly “in itself,” but not “for us.” What is not only implicit, but can also be explained by human reason, is not only implicit in itself, but also implicit for us.

What we call, then, deducing with respect to theology, or defining with respect to the Church, is nothing other than "drawing up the account" of what God has said: "clearing the unknowns" of the revealed deposit, "unfolding" or "developing" the objective or implicit content of the divine word; in a word, explaining revelation. If human reason alone does this, it is a human explanation of divine revelation: it is theology, not divine faith. If the divine authority of the Church does it, since it has divine authority for everything that involves "explaining the deposit," it is divine faith, a dogma of faith.

If to know when a thing is revealed or not, one had to attend only to the intention of the one revealing and not to the real or objective content of the revealed datum, then no one could reveal a secret unintentionally. Now then; common sense and the language of all peoples tell us the opposite, that is, they tell us that one can reveal unintentionally.

Because man, through ignorance or inadvertence, frequently does not see the full scope of all that he says, he frequently reveals more or less than he intends to reveal; either because his intention did not reach as far as the content of his words, or because the objective content of his words is less than what he intended to reveal.

Since in God there is no ignorance or inadvertence, the content or scope of his words can never exceed his intention; but neither can his intention fall short of the real and objective scope or content of his words. Therefore, he not only reveals everything he intends to reveal, but he also intends to reveal everything he reveals, that is, all the objective content of what he says. “Because he who says one thing (we will repeat once more with Saint Thomas) in a certain way 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... And for this reason many things are now considered heretical which were not previously so considered, because it is now more clearly manifest what follows from them... And in this respect the faith can be explained daily, and through the study of the Saints (the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils) it has been more and more explained”.

Let us add to St. Thomas four interesting little texts from John of St. Thomas, Martínez del Prado, Nazarius, and Valencia:

“Nevertheless, St. Thomas, considering more deeply the self-evident proposition, spoke not only of it according to the formal notion of the proposition on the part of the concept or of the signifying word, but also on the part of the foundation that it has in the very THING signified: for that a proposition is demonstrable through some medium, or lacks a medium by which it is demonstrated, and so is immediate and self-evident, arises not from the very signification of the terms, but from the very CONNECTION OF THE THINGS signified ⁷⁰

That the proposition is mediate or immediate arises neither from the words nor from the formal concepts, but from the OBJECTIVE CONNECTION of the predicate with the subject ⁷¹

Thirdly, I say that to speak of a proposition with regard to what is principal in it, namely, with regard to the thing signified, is not to speak of it less properly (which is what Molina says and what Kilber says and what our objector says very frequently): especially since all knowledge of a proposition must be referred entirely to the thing signified by the proposition. For a proposition, neither with respect to its terms nor with respect to its concepts, is said to be known, whether in itself or to us, except by reason of the thing signified through the concepts. For concepts and words are not formed except for the sake of having knowledge of the thing: therefore, the thing is that which is said primarily to be known, whether in itself or to us, in the manner explained above ⁷²

Let us now hear Valencia: It is established, however, that not always is something really distinct from the meaning of the premises signified by the conclusion, as is evident in metaphysical demonstrations, in which the subject and the attribute are not really distinct, and consequently neither is the meaning of the premises and the conclusion ⁷³

Here is our objector shown how the main thing to which one must attend is objective reality, and how, given the same reality—as there is in every theological-metaphysical conclusion—there is also the same meaning: idem significatum. The rest is, in our judgment, nothing but pure conceptualism, with all due respect to Molina and Kilber.

516. TWENTY-FIFTH OBSERVATION.—Once the unity of God is revealed, the Trinity of Persons is not revealed, even though there is an identity of reality ⁷⁴

Answer.—Although it does not surprise us that Ripalda and Kilber have raised this objection, it does surprise us that a Thomist author raises it without immediately seeing its weakness. We are dealing with conclusions that are truly conclusions or objectively contained, not only in themselves, but also, at the same time, for us, that is, that human reason can see with evidence their objective containment or real identity, since without that there is for us no true conclusion. Now then: the Trinity is really identified with the unity of God and objectively contained in it in itself; but it is not so for us, since we cannot see with evidence such identity or such containment without a new revelation. Such an example, therefore, does not apply, because it is not for us a true theological conclusion. Let us hear a distinguished commentator on Saint Thomas:

"Respondeo dicendum that the total object of faith is contained virtually and implicitly in the Apostles' Creed, or in the articles of faith of which the said Creed is composed, as in its proximate and adequate principles: hence the object of faith has never grown as to its substance, but only as to its explication. Thus commonly the theologians at present...

To the third point, it must be said that the total object of faith is contained in different ways in the Apostles' Creed and in that statement of the Apostle: "He who comes to God" etc. For in the articles composing the Creed it is contained as in proximate and adequate principles: but in the truths expressed in the Apostle's statement (that God is and that He is a rewarder) it is contained as in most universal principles... There is therefore a difference in the mode of containing: for the Creed contains proximately and adequately all the mysteries of faith, not only in themselves, but also in relation to us... But that statement of the Apostle contains indeed virtually and implicitly all the mysteries of faith in themselves, but not in relation to us, as if from it we might arrive by evident consequence at knowledge of the mysteries of faith. For it does not follow evidently for us: "God is: therefore He is triune," although it follows necessarily in itself ⁷⁵.

In parentheses, the reader should note that the Trinity and any other revealed mystery was already contained objectively, as it were, in the two most general principles of faith, although it required a new revelation in order to be known. For this very reason, St. Thomas says so many times that, even throughout the entire Old Testament, there was no progress of substance or of real objectivity, but only of explanation, although by revelation ⁷⁶.

On the other hand, today there is scarcely an author who does not say, confusing all the traditional nomenclature, that progress in the Old Testament was not only one of explanation, but substantive or objective. It will be said that this is a question of nomenclatures. That is true. But one begins by giving to the names another meaning than that which Saint Thomas and the great theologians of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries give them and, of course, one ends up not understanding the language of those great theologians, or understanding them in another sense than they have.

517.—TWENTY-SIXTH OBSERVATION.—“Similarly, once the unity of God is revealed, the free will of God is not revealed, although the freedom of God can be deduced from the notion of God and in reality is the same as it” ⁷⁷

Answer.—It would be curious to know why, among so many attributes that exist in God, our objector has chosen as an example the attribute of divine freedom. He has chosen it, undoubtedly (as another theologian who raised the same objection expressly wrote to us), because of the great difficulty or obscurity that the demonstration of that divine attribute offers to human reason, on account of its apparent incompatibility with the attribute of immutability. And these theologians fail to notice that, to the extent that that conclusion is obscure for us, to that same extent it is not a rigorous conclusion; for the conclusion is defined as: what is deduced in an evidently certain manner.

Thus, then, our answer is very simple. Either human reason can deduce such a conclusion with evidence and absolute certainty, or it cannot. If it cannot, it is not for us a rigorous conclusion, and then the example is irrelevant. If it can, we grant that, once the existence of God is revealed, divine freedom is implicitly revealed, albeit with a virtual implicitness.

Because, let our objector tell us: Could the Church, with only the revelation of the existence of God, define as an infallible truth the divine freedom, or not? If it could not, that conclusion is not a true theological conclusion, and the example again is irrelevant. If it could, let our objector abandon this and other obscure examples, and give us a single example of a theological conclusion, already infallibly defined by the Church, that cannot be defined as of divine faith. Surely he will not provide one. Well then; if among all the conclusions already infallibly defined our objector finds no example that is not also definable as of divine faith, it follows that every true conclusion is definable as of divine faith, since all are infallibly definable.

When it comes to ascertaining whether the character of "definable as of divine faith" befits or not every true theological conclusion, it is an unscientific method to resort to obscure examples, aimed at striking the imagination rather than at enlightening the intellect. When in the sciences one seeks to ascertain the essential characters of a type, for example, the characters of a living being, one does not choose as a model a doubtful specimen, about which it is doubted whether it is living or inanimate, but a specimen about which there is no doubt that it is living. It is in that and in all clear and indubitable specimens of living beings that the essential characters of life are studied. Once studied, said characters are applied unconditionally to every living being; and if there is any specimen about which it is doubted whether it is living or an inanimate mineral, they are applied to it conditionally. It will have those characters if it is truly living; it will not have them if it is not.

Now then: doubtful or disputable conclusions are not clearly conclusions, for to doubt or dispute their truth is the same as to doubt or dispute whether they are conclusions. As examples, then, of rigorous theological conclusions, those must be set forth which are admitted as certain by all theologians, not those that are obscure, doubtful, or disputable.

Moreover; since even all the theologians of a given era can be mistaken, what is scientific in this matter, in order to ascertain whether the true theological conclusion is definable as a matter of faith or not, is to focus on those conclusions already defined as infallible by the Church, and in which there can be no error. If all those already defined as infallible can be defined as a matter of faith, then every truly theological conclusion can be so defined. Well then; we again beg our objector that, setting aside obscure or doubtful examples, he present us with a single example of a conclusion, already defined as infallible, that cannot be defined as a matter of faith. That is the truly scientific and sure method.

This was sufficient and more than enough to answer the example objected to us; but, for greater abundance, let us examine it in itself. Suppose a philosopher says the following: “God is not free,” or “He is not omnipotent,” or “He has no providence over the world.” We now ask: Has that philosopher said or has he not said implicitly by that alone that there is no God? We do not ask whether he had the intention of saying it, but whether he has said it.

Our objector, if he is logical with himself, must answer no; he must answer that this follows from the statement, but that it is not stated. Well, then; we affirm with Saint Thomas that, whether or not he had the intention of saying it, implicitly, but really, he has said it. Let us hear Saint Thomas: “A person says that God does not exist when he thinks that He is not omnipotent, and that He does not have care for human affairs ⁷⁸. If, therefore, the one who denies God’s freedom or His omnipotence says by that that God does not exist, the one who affirms or reveals the existence of God reveals or says implicitly His freedom, His omnipotence, or any other divine attribute that is evidently knowable by human reason without a new revelation.

Compare now that text of St. Thomas with that other one of the same Saint which we have already so many times cited, and which reads thus: "Because he who says one thing, in a certain way says many things: and these are what precede the article and follow from it. And in this regard the article of faith can be explained and divided." Compare those two texts, we repeat, and it will again be seen how by consequences St. Thomas understands the true and proper consequences, since the attributes of omnipotence, providence, or divine freedom are conclusions, properly speaking, of the essence of God.

All that is truly consequential of the revealed deposit, provided they are consequences without which the truth of the revealed deposit cannot at all be safeguarded, and that we can deduce them with evidence without new revelation, is implicitly revealed or said by God. But precisely because it is implicit, it is not yet explained nor proposed by God and, therefore, is not yet formally of faith. If that explanation and proposition is made by human reason, it is human science: Theology. If it is made by the divine authority of the Church, it is divine faith.

This is why we have said and repeat that the keys to dogmatic progress are not one, but two: a) the truly implicit virtuality of the revealed deposit; b) the divine authority or definition of the Church. Without the former, progress would not be one of homogeneous evolution or with respect to explanation, but of transformation or with respect to substance. Without the latter, progress would be theological, but not dogmatic (119, 156).

As a new though unnecessary confirmation of how broad for Saint Thomas is the truly implicit continence of Sacred Scripture, let it suffice to say that, according to Saint Thomas, in the phrase "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father," this other phrase is already implicitly and truly contained: "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son." Moreover, according to Saint Thomas, even in the phrase "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone," the phrase that "the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Son" is already truly contained. The reason for this is the real identity demanded by the mystery of the Trinity in everything in which there is no relative opposition, such as there is none between the Father and the Son in being the principle of the Holy Spirit. Let us hear Saint Thomas:

"Because, therefore, in the time of the ancient Councils the error of those saying that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son had not yet arisen, it was not necessary that this be set down explicitly... It was contained, however, implicitly in the very fact that the Holy Spirit was said to proceed from the Father" ⁷⁹ "Thus, therefore, when it is said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, even if it were added that He proceeds from the Father alone, the Son would not thereby be excluded: because with regard to this, namely, being the principle of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son are not opposed" ⁸⁰ "Nor can it be that all things are contained explicitly in that Creed, in which no mention is made of the descent into hell. The procession of the Holy Spirit (from the Son), however, is contained there implicitly, INASMUCH AS the distinction of persons, which cannot otherwise exist, as has been said, is contained there. But the Greeks ask how the Latins dared to add this (namely, the Filioque). To which it must be said that there was a necessity, as their error showed, and the authority of the Roman Church to convene a synod in which something might be expressed that was contained implicitly in the articles of faith" ⁸¹

Thus, the dogmatic truth that "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son" was already formally revealed in the words (because He shall receive of Mine) and other similar ones⁸² But even if it had not been formally contained in those words, it would be virtually contained, yet implicitly and truly, in the mere words "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father," and that alone would suffice, according to St. Thomas, for the Church to define as a matter of faith that He also proceeds from the Son.

If, then, the phrase "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father" implicitly contains the phrase "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son," for the same reason, and perhaps even a greater one, the phrase "God is being by essence," or another similar one, contains implicitly the phrase "God is free." Let every Thomist meditate on this, and he will see that the reason is the same. It is the containment objective for us, and not only in itself, of the one in the other; the inability to save or destroy the one without the other; the one being of the intellect of the other. That is the true implicit-virtual Theology; that is the root of the definability of divine faith of every rigorous theological conclusion.

Confirmation.—Elsewhere (249) we have already cited an interesting text from the wise Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, in which he confesses that in the concept of God or of any one of His attributes the concepts of all the other attributes are implicitly contained. Let us cite another text from a no less illustrious theologian of the Society of Jesus, the profound and clear Fr. De la Taille. After having said that the concepts of animality and rationality are extrinsic to each other and that the former does not include the latter, while the latter is a true objective addition to the former, he adds the following: "In God nothing of the sort: nothing of the sort in any divine attribute: none is exterior to another. I can, it is true, conceive a divine perfection, without attending to the fact that it envelops the others: but the others are there, and I have only to explore what I hold in order to find all the rest there. NOTHING, THEREFORE, IS ADDED TO IT" ⁸³. If, then, this is true, as it is, every theologian who does not allow himself to be blinded by preconceived ideas must confess that, once the existence of God or any one of His attributes is revealed or defined, all the other attributes remain implicitly revealed and are definable as matters of divine faith, provided that they are evidently knowable for us without a new revelation.

Let us add, moreover, some interesting texts from Billuart, Oviedo, and Marín:

"Foreknowledge, goodness, justice, and the other attributes are not the substance of God in a virtual and explicit sense or according to the meaning of the terms: otherwise in a REAL formal sense. For it is the very same THING signified by different names and apprehended by inadequate concepts, one of which does not explain the other, although it does so IMPLICITLY" ⁸⁴.

"In God, to be God and to have the attribute of justice are the same thing; and therefore the revelation that SAYS that He is God, SAYS that He is just, with respect to one who adequately penetrates what the meaning of this name 'God' implies IN REALITY" ⁸⁵.

You insist: God revealing his omnipotence only reveals what this word means among his hearers, because the meaning of a word must be common to the speaker and the hearer. But this word "omnipotence" only signifies "omnipotence," as distinct from immensity and from the other attributes: therefore.

I reply, with the major premise granted, by distinguishing the minor premise: It signifies only formally omnipotence, I grant the minor premise: REALLY, I deny the minor premise. And therefore the hearer forms only a concept of omnipotence formally: he nevertheless forms REALLY a concept of immensity; because that concept REALLY AFFIRMS immensity, although not formally" ⁸⁶

All this had already been said in a real way by Saint Thomas in the following text: "The act of the believer does not terminate at the statement, but at the THING... just as in knowledge, so also in faith" ⁸⁷

In a word: the distinction between the primitive dogmatic concepts, explained by the Apostles, and the new consequential dogmatic concepts, explained and defined by the Church, is exactly the same as the distinction between the divine essence and its attributes, or between the divine attributes themselves. Not only is it not a real distinction, but neither is it a greater virtual distinction, such as that which exists between concepts that are extrinsic to one another, and which the Scholastics call per modum excludentis et exclusi; for example, the concepts of animality and rationality. It is solely and exclusively a lesser virtual distinction, such as that which exists between mutually implicit or intrinsic concepts, and which the Scholastics call per modum includentis et inclusi; for example, the concepts of absolute immutability and eternity ⁸⁸

That is why we have said so many times, and we repeat again, that the development or evolution of dogma through the definitions of the Church gives us concepts new or distinct from the primitive concepts, but not completely or adequately new, but partially or inadequately new; not new simpliciter, but new secundum quid; not new as to substance, but new as to explanation. Because they are concepts new, they are conclusions properly so called. Because they are not new as to substance, but as to explanation, their definition by the Church is nothing other than an explanation of the primitive faith and, therefore, dogmas of divine faith (306).

518. FINAL OBSERVATION.—“Finally, the opinion of Fr. Marín-Sola leads to inconveniences. For it would follow that all theological conclusions about God would be definable. The same would hold with regard to other mysteries of the faith. Fr. Marín-Sola himself concedes and asserts that the whole Summa Theologica of St. Thomas would be definable... e.g., the real distinction between essence and existence in created things. Thus, finally, all metaphysics, indeed all philosophy, as well as mathematics, would be definable, as truth revealed by God!” ⁸⁹

Answer.—Here, on the last page of his book in which he cites us, our objector has pulled out all the stops, seeking with an oratorical flourish, which a metaphysician would call a quantitative argument, to impress the reader. Definable, he says, would be all the conclusions of theology, all the mysteries of faith, all of the Summa Theologica, all of metaphysics, all of mathematics. Fortunately, arguments based on number and quantity are usually very weak in metaphysics and theology. That argument resembles the one that the regalists customarily make against the power of the Church. When they hear that the Church has power over the State in everything related to the spiritual, they think that this affirms that she has it in everything, and that civil power disappears.

For our objector to see in two words the weakness of that argument, this single question would suffice: Can all those things that our objector piles up there be defined by the Church as infallible? Evidently not. Well then; nothing that cannot be definable as infallible truth can be defined as a truth of divine faith. That, we repeat, would suffice, for it is a very clear matter. But since the subject is interesting in itself, let us examine it piece by piece, despite having already touched upon it elsewhere (318).

First of all, let us set aside mathematics, which our objector has inserted there for reasons unknown to us. Mathematics never, or rarely, has any necessary relation to the revealed deposit, without which there is no definability. “Just as in geometrical matters and the like, which cannot in any way pertain to the faith” ⁹⁰

Secondly, when it is a matter of philosophy, and even of its principal part, metaphysics, let us also set aside all those conclusions that have for us no relation whatsoever to the revealed deposit. Whether or not they have in themselves a relation to the revealed deposit, if they do not have it for us, they cannot be defined as of divine faith, nor even as infallible. Of such conclusions there are innumerable ones.

Thirdly, even when dealing with those conclusions that, both in philosophy and in theology, have for us some relation to the revealed deposit, let us also discard all those whose relation to the revealed deposit is for us only probable, uncertain, doubtful, but not evidently certain. Of such conclusions there are plenty in theology and philosophy, just as there are in all other sciences. They constitute, not the science, but the scientific theories or systems.

Fourthly, even when dealing with certain and evident conclusions, let us set aside all those whose certainty or connection is only physically certain, such as the connection that exists, for example, between being a mother and not being a virgin, or between being a man and being a human person, that is, all the conclusions that we have called of the fourth type. Our objector knows very well that for us such conclusions are not only not definable as of divine faith, but are not even an object of infallibility (99).

With those four cuts or discards that every theologian must make, the stock of definable conclusions, whose bulk so frightened our objector, has been reduced to a much smaller quantity. It has been reduced solely to theological-inclusive conclusions, that is, solely to those that emerge from the revealed deposit through objective analysis; solely to those without which the truth of the revealed deposit cannot be saved; solely to those from whose denial the denial of the revealed deposit follows with absolute necessity, and provided that our reason can know them with evidence without new revelation. Those are the conclusions of which Saint Thomas says: “Those from whose denial follows something contrary to the faith... Those from whose denial follows the corruption of some article... And regarding both there can be heresy, in the same way as there can be faith” (467).

Now then: let the author tell us: Those conclusions, whether they be few or many, since quantity has nothing to do with metaphysical or theological questions, are they definable by the Church as infallible or not? Every Catholic theologian must and does answer that such conclusions, whatever their number, are the object of infallibility. For if this is so, as in truth it is, let our objector reflect on three things:

First, that St. Thomas dedicates an entire article of the treatise On Faith in his disputed questions to proving that no infallible faith is possible other than divine faith. We have analyzed that article carefully elsewhere in this work (239), and we had already done so before in La Ciencia Tomista. Our objector knew of St. Thomas's article and our analysis, and yet, throughout his entire work, in which he cites so many other articles and texts of St. Thomas, he has made not the slightest allusion either to that fundamental article of the Holy Doctor or to our demonstration based upon it.

Second, that, even setting aside whether there can be infallible faith that is not divine faith, all theologians before Molina, without the author having been able to cite a single theologian to the contrary, expressly affirm that such conclusions are definable as divine faith.

The unlearned reader who, without knowing well what point is at issue, reads the work of our objector, will perhaps be impressed by the many authors whom our objector seems to cite in his favor. But let the reader note that in this question we are dealing with there are two distinct points: a) whether the definitions of the Church are an explanation of the deposit of revelation; b) whether true theological conclusions can be defined as of divine faith by the Church. Our objector has uselessly accumulated a multitude of texts that affirm the former, without realizing that such texts are beside the point, for we all say that, and this is not what is disputed. But he has cited no text or author before Molina who denies the latter, and it is precisely the latter that is at issue. On the other hand, we have cited to him a multitude of authors, before and after Molina, in which not only is the former affirmed, but the latter is also expressly affirmed, that is, that every rigorous theological conclusion is definable as of divine faith, since, being every rigorous theological conclusion implicitly contained in the revealed premise alone, its definition is nothing but an explanation of what is revealed.

Third, that, even after Molina, and despite his great and well-deserved prestige, the vast majority of theologians, without distinction of religious orders or schools, has defended that such inclusive conclusions are definable as of divine faith. Among these theologians are names as illustrious as Vázquez, Suárez, Belarmino, Lugo, Tannero, Oviedo, Fabri, Annato, Platello, Tirso González, Gautier, Antoine, Simonet, Marín, Haunoldo..., of the Society of Jesus; Navarrete, González, Gravina, Nazario, Serra, Labat, Contenson, Preingue..., of the Order of Preachers; Gabardi, Berti, Villarroyo, Honorato del Val..., of the Order of Saint Augustine; Castillo, Boyvin, Gervase of Brescia, Hilary of Paris..., of that of Saint Francis; Mezguer, Herce, Schnell.... Benedictines; Philip of the Most Holy Trinity, Crassous..., Carmelites: Grandin, Silvio, Bijonio, Liebermann..., seculars, whose clear texts, which cannot be distorted, we have cited elsewhere (398-448).

Fourth, that very recently, so to speak, an illustrious theologian of the Society of Jesus has just written that this opinion of ours “is in a very common matter and far more probable... Among the older authors, they hold it... and the more recent ones commonly do, against Ripalda, the Würzburgers (or Kilber), and others” (490).

We feel, then, that a historian and theologian of the stature of Fr. Schultes should have preferred to follow Kilber against that other opinion (communissima et valde probabilior), which is also ours; but that is the condition and the right alike of human ingenuity in things that God delivered to the free disputes of men.

519. IMMUTABILITY AND EVOLUTION.—We do not wish to end this section without adding that the work of our illustrious brother Fr. Schultes on the history of dogmas seems to us an excellent manual in everything concerning the immutability of dogma; but we believe it is somewhat deficient, perhaps more in nomenclature than in substance, regarding the evolution of dogma.

In our judgment, the position of Fr. Schultes and our own have considerable analogy with the respective positions of Bossuet and Newman, which we have described elsewhere (359). The former emphasized the immutability of dogma; the latter, its life and homogeneous evolution. Both positions, far from opposing each other, complete each other.