La evolución homogénea del dogma católico

520. SUMMARY OF THE SEVEN CHAPTERS.—We believe it is now time to summarize and conclude this study of ours, as long as it is arid, on the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma.

In the first chapter we have seen that the evolution of the entire doctrinal system is homogeneous as long as it confines itself to developing what was already truly implicit in the primitive datum or starting point.

In the second chapter we have seen that at the starting point of all Catholic doctrine, which is called the revealed datum or the explicitly revealed, there existed and exists a truly implicit virtuality, namely every metaphysical-inclusive virtuality; and that this is the virtuality which traditional theology, prior to Suárez, always designated by the names of virtual revealed or implicit virtual.

In the third chapter we have seen that the Church has truly divine assistance and authority, not only to preserve, but also to explain or develop everything truly implicit in the revealed datum.

In chapter four we have seen that theological reasoning, when it is truly inclusive or analytical, like the sense of the faith when it belongs to the whole Christian people, remains within a truly implicit potentiality, and that using them as human instruments, under divine assistance, the Church can define and has in fact defined many new dogmas; new not as regards substance, but new as regards explanation.

In chapter five we have seen that both the implicit virtuality of the revealed datum and the divine authority of the Church to explain it dogmatically extend to the last degree of Catholic doctrine, even to dogmatic facts.

In the sixth chapter we have seen that, however many objections are raised against the evolution of dogma, they only have force against substantial or transformist evolution, such as would be evolution by a physical-connective or non-implicit path; but not against evolution by way of implicit virtuality or metaphysical-inclusive evolution, which is explicative evolution, and for that very reason homogeneous.

In conclusion, in the seventh and last chapter we have seen that dogmatic evolution by way of virtuality or implicit conclusion is admitted by all theologians before Molina and by the vast majority of those after him.

521. The various factors in the evolution of dogma.— With this, we believe that the material, the process, the principal cause, the instrumental agents, and the extent of the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma have been sufficiently explained.

The material is the implicit virtuality: "that which is contained implicitly in the articles" (Saint Thomas).

The process is always and exclusively the development of what is implicit; a process of explanation: "explicatio fidei" (Saint Thomas).

The principal cause is the assistance of the Holy Spirit or, what is the same thing, the divine authority of the Church, that "minister of the object of faith, by which the First Truth explains Itself and other things to be believed" (Cajetan).

The instrumental factors, numerous and highly varied, like all human factors, are reduced to two: inclusive reasoning and the sense of faith; to intelligence and the Christian heart; to the work of the scholar and the work of the saint: "through rational inquiry and through comaturality with divine things" (Saint Thomas).

The extension is the same as that of divine assistance or the infallibility of the Church, the same extension as that of Sacred Theology, all the degrees of truly Christian doctrine. "All (theological truths) are implicitly contained in the Bible" (Capréolus). "And for this reason, many things are now considered heretical that were not previously so considered, because it is now more manifest what follows from them" (St. Thomas). "Nor is it necessary that what is immediately of faith be immediately revealed by God; but it suffices that, although it is mediately revealed by God, it be immediately proposed by the Church" (Serra). "Because the Church has thus far proposed or defined nothing for the faithful to believe that was not contained in the Sacred Scriptures or in the traditions of the Apostles, either expressly or virtually, so that it might be drawn forth from them by an evident consequence... And in this sense St. Thomas is to be understood in the article where he says that the new edition of the Creed pertains to the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, namely, as regards the new explanation. From which it follows that heretics improperly object against us that the Supreme Pontiff would be making a new faith" (Báñez).

Such is our conception of the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma after the Apostles; such we believe to be the true conception of Saint Thomas, Saint Bonaventure, Scotus, and of traditional Theology.

522. Two distinct questions.—In the exposition of this conception that we have made in this work, two questions must be distinguished: one principal and the other secondary. The principal question concerns the definability by divine faith of metaphysical-inclusive theological conclusions. The secondary question concerns the definability by divine faith of dogmatic facts.

Whoever admits the definability de fide of the metaphysical-inclusive theological conclusion—as all traditional theology before Molina and most later theologians admit it—already admits, by that very fact, a true and proper development of dogma, by way of theological conclusion properly so called; for such conclusions do not cease to be true and most proper theological conclusions merely because they are of implicit virtuality.

On the other hand, the other question of the definability de fide of dogmatic facts and the canonization of saints is a relatively secondary question, since it does not affect the existence or non-existence of true dogmatic development, but rather its greater or lesser extent.

Although we, then, have defended and do defend both questions, the principal and fundamental one for us is the first; and provided that this first one is admitted, it is of no great consequence for the question of the evolution of dogma whether the second is admitted or not.

Examining that first and most transcendent question, that is, demonstrating that, even after the Apostles, there exists and will exist true homogeneous evolution in Catholic dogma by way of rigorous metaphysical-inclusive conclusion, whether such conclusion is apodictically deducible by the speculative path of reasoning, or only by the intuitive path of the sense of the faith (218), has been the central objective of our work, not only because we are intimately persuaded that this is the traditional doctrine, but also because, in our judgment, this is the only doctrine that can faithfully explain, without forced distortions, the evident facts of the history of dogmas and victoriously resolve the objections that, founded on those facts, modernism presents against the homogeneity of Catholic dogma.

That doctrine of ours is the very one of which Bishop Simancas said in the sixteenth century: “This is the true, received, and Catholic opinion” (391).

It is that same one of which the Capuchin Gervase of Brescia repeated in the seventeenth century that in it “all Catholics agree” (478).

It is, in short, that same one about which the Jesuit Dániel Sola has just written: “It is in a very common and much more probable matter, and the more recent authors commonly hold it” (490).

523. THE TRUE FORMULA OF THE HOMOGENEOUS EVOLUTION OF DOGMA.—Let us, then, finish our work as we began it: with the two golden formulas of the homogeneous evolution of Catholic dogma that were bequeathed to us by Saint Vincent of Lérins and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The formula of the Lirinensian, already consecrated by the Vatican Council, is enclosed in those brief words: “LET IT GROW, THEREFORE... BUT IN THE SAME SENSE.”

St. Thomas's formula, which is also that of St. Bonaventure and Scotus, is still expressed in briefer words: in these two words alone, which are the best summary and epilogue with which we can close, and do close, our work:

“EXPLANATION OF THE FAITH”