De Deo uno

7. In this section we ask what revelation teaches about knowledge of God attained by natural principles alone. We answer by stating first the fact: God’s existence can be known with certainty and demonstrated by natural means, but only mediately; then we must speak of the nature and value of this knowledge: it is true, but imperfect knowledge. As a preliminary, however, we set out what the Church’s Magisterium has taught on this matter in response to various errors.

Ecclesiastical authority treated this question directly, especially from the beginning of the nineteenth century up to our own times¹.

8. L. E. BAUTAIN had sought truth and certainty in vain by reason alone, according to the various philosophical systems of his day; he found uncertainty and disagreement, but not truth. Christian revelation, however, supplied it to him. Thereafter he judged reason incapable of knowing God's existence and attributes, all the more because, as he thought, KANT had proved the impotence of pure reason; divine revelation, to be embraced by faith, is absolutely necessary for knowing God. For human reason has been so weakened by original sin that by itself it can no longer attain such knowledge; it is semi-Pelagian to assert that God can be known by reason alone. Divine faith must necessarily come first: FIDEISM².

He subscribed to contrary theses proposed by his bishop on 18 Nov. 1835 and 8 Sept. 1840, and on 26 April 1844 he was ordered by the S. Congr. Episc. et Reg. to promise by his signature “never to teach that, by the light of right reason alone, setting aside divine revelation, no true demonstration of God's existence can be given” (Denz 1622 ss.).

9. TRADITIONALISM: Rationalism exaggerated the powers and scope of reason, asserting that everything must be known and explained by reason alone and that nothing should be admitted unless it is proved by reason, and to the extent that it is proved by reason; it therefore attacked revelation and faith and denied the mysteries. Some Catholics went to the opposite error, excessively restricting the powers of reason. All certain knowledge of truth ultimately rests on authority; tradition, therefore, or instruction, is necessary, and faith corresponds to it. Thus, for example, DE BONALD³: ideas are in some way innate in us; nevertheless, without voice, speech, or language no knowledge is possible, at least of immaterial things. Ideas must somehow be awakened so that actual knowledge may arise. Neither an individual nor society itself could have invented language; rather, the first man received language, and with it the first knowledge of truth, from the “author” of his reason, and this rests on that author's “authority.” These truths had to be passed on by instruction from the first man to others, and this continues down to our own times. Thus all certain knowledge of such truths ultimately rests on God's authority. F. DE LA MENNAIS held similarly⁴: Individual reason can err; if it is fallible, it can never be certain that it is not mistaken. To seek certainty is to seek an infallible reason, whose infallibility must be believed—that is, admitted without proof; and this reason is not individual, but common reason. By the most universal tradition, and hence the most certain, common reason testifies to God's existence, indeed to the fact that God himself communicated himself to the human race: the principal truth of God's existence rests on the testimony of infinite authority. God manifested this truth to the first man through speech, which man could not have invented by himself (in this respect DE BONALD's view is similar). Through the first man, the truth is preserved in human society by continuous tradition from God to others. Faith in the testimony of the human race is the highest certainty for human beings, just as faith in God's testimony is the certainty of the human race. Outside these, there is universal doubt.

Such doctrines were accepted by many. Hence several provincial councils⁵ (Tours 1849; Avignon 1849; Aix 1850; Toulouse 1850) warned the faithful to avoid both extreme positions, rationalism and traditionalism. AUG. BONNETTY, who defended traditionalism in his writings, subscribed to the following four theses of the S. C. of the Index, approved by Pope Pius IX on 15 June 1855.

“1. Although faith is above reason, there can never be any true disagreement or discord between them, since both arise from one and the same immutable source of truth, God most good and great, and so mutually assist one another. (Encyclical of Pope Pius IX, 9 Nov. 1846).

2. Reasoning can prove God's existence, the spirituality of the soul, and human freedom with certainty. Faith comes after revelation; consequently, it cannot appropriately be invoked to prove God's existence against an atheist, or the spirituality and freedom of the rational soul against an adherent of naturalism or fatalism. (Proposition subscribed to by D. Bautain, 8 Sept. 1840).

3. The use of reason precedes faith and leads a person to it with the help of revelation and grace. (Proposition subscribed to by D. Bautain, 8 Sept. 1840).

4. The method used by St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and the other scholastics after them does not lead to rationalism, nor was it the cause of philosophy's falling into naturalism and pantheism in modern schools. Therefore, these doctors and teachers cannot be charged with having used this method, especially when the Church approved it or at least remained silent. (Propositions opposed to propositions taken here and there from D. Bonnetty).” (Denz. 1649 ss.).

10. ONTOLOGISM, so called by Gioberti in opposition to psychologism, holds that the direct object of knowledge is not some modification of the soul, but reality itself, being. To establish the objective truth and certainty of our knowledge, and to explain truth's universality, necessity, eternity, and immutability, the ontologists affirmed a certain direct and immediate intuition of God himself under the aspect of τοῦ esse simpliciter. This direct knowledge of God becomes reflective on the occasion of knowing sensible things. It was proposed in different forms by different thinkers, for example FABRE, BRANCHEREAU, ROTHENFLUE S. I., and GIOBERTI.

FABRE⁶ explains the matter more or less as follows: Universal ideas are objectively real; they are not forms or modifications of the soul, nor something created, but something necessary, immutable, and absolute. Their center is being simply. This infinite being is the first idea perceived by our mind, the first intelligible, the light in which we see and contemplate all eternal, universal, and absolute truths. These truths can have no reality outside the eternal essence; therefore, they can subsist only in union with the divine substance, and hence we can see them only in the divine substance.

BRANCHERAU extracted fifteen theses from his work “Praelectiones philosophicae”, which contain his doctrine⁷:

“1. Two things must be distinguished as essential to thought: the thinking subject and the object thought.

2. The object thought is itself divided into two kinds: being simply and being in a certain respect.

3. By being simply we mean a real, concrete, and infinitely perfect being, essentially distinct, therefore, from being in general, which is nothing other than an abstraction of the mind. In a word, being simply is God.

4. Being simply necessarily exists, whereas beings in a certain respect can be conceived either in a state of existence or in a state of mere possibility.

5. Considered in the state of possibility, beings in a certain respect are something eternal and necessary; in the state of existence, however, they are something temporal and contingent.

6. Since the eternal and necessary reality of beings insofar as possible beings does not exist in itself, it must be contained in a necessary being, that is, in God. This reality is called the metaphysical essence.

7. Essences, then, can be nothing other than divine ideas, or archetypes, according to whose pattern God produces all things.

8. The metaphysical essences, which can be actualized in an indefinite number, constitute the objective reality of universal ideas.

9. Actualization takes place through creation, by which God causes a being to pass from possibility to existence, not by communicating his own being, but by drawing it out of nothing according to the pattern of the archetype contained in himself.

10. Created things, therefore, can in no sense be called God, nor can they have anything divine in themselves.

11. We call realities ideas insofar as they intelligibly affect the mind. Thus, relative to our intellect, ideas are something objective; the operation by which we apprehend them is ideal perception.

12. From the first instant of existence, the mind enjoys ideal perception, not reflectively but directly.

13. Among the intelligible truths we apprehend ideally, God is foremost; our intellection of him, although essentially distinct from the vision of the blessed, terminates not in a representative image but in God.

14. We apprehend the metaphysical essences of things that we know in the divine intellect; their actualizability, however, becomes known to us through the concept of the creative power belonging to God.

15. We apprehend created things ideally neither in God nor in themselves. Their knowledge is produced as follows: 1) we know our own soul through inner sense, or consciousness; 2) created things distinct from the soul, however, we know through an invincible judgment founded on divine truthfulness, by which we affirm that some essence has been actualized through creation.”

Ontologists said that this immediate perception of God is altogether different from the beatific vision. It is natural knowledge, in some way essential to the soul, which (according to some) is continuously present in the soul as direct knowledge, but becomes reflective on the occasion of objects presented by the senses. It is an intuition of divine being under the aspect in which it is the exemplar of all being; the blessed, by contrast, see God's inner life, especially the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.

11. By a decree of the Holy Office (18 Sept. 1861), the following propositions were declared unsafe to teach:

“I. Immediate knowledge of God, at least habitual knowledge, is essential to the human intellect, so that without it the intellect can know nothing, since it is the intellectual light itself.

II. That being which we understand to be in all things, and without which we understand nothing, is divine being.

III. Universals considered as things are not really distinct from God.

IV. Innate knowledge of God as being simply eminently involves every other knowledge, so that through it we have implicitly known every being that can be known under any aspect.

V. All other ideas are nothing but modifications of the idea by which God is understood as being simply.

VI. Created things are in God as a part in a whole—not in a formal whole, but in an infinitely simple whole that sets its quasi-parts outside itself without any division or diminution of itself.

VII. Creation can be explained in this way: God produces a creature by the very special act by which he understands and wills himself as distinct from a particular creature, for example a human being.”

12. The doctrine of ROSMINI, which in many respects approaches the doctrine of ontologism, was condemned by a decree of the Holy Office (14 Dec. 1887).

“I. In the order of created things, something divine in itself is manifested immediately to the human intellect, namely, something of such a kind as to belong to the divine nature.

1. In the sphere of created things something divine in itself is manifested immediately to the human intellect, that is, something belonging to the divine nature. (Teosof. Vol. IV, n. 2, p. 6).

II. When we speak of the divine in nature, we do not use the word ‘divine’ to signify a non-divine effect of a divine cause; nor do we intend to speak of something divine that is so by participation.

2. When I speak of the divine in nature, I do not use the word ‘divine’ to signify a non-divine effect of a divine cause. For the same reason, I do not intend to speak of something divine that is so by participation. — (Ivi).

III. In the nature of the universe, then—that is, in the intelligences within it—there is something to which the designation ‘divine’ applies in its proper, not figurative, sense. It is an actuality not distinct from the rest of divine actuality.

3. In the nature of the universe, then—that is, in the intelligences within it—there is something to which the designation ‘divine’ applies, not figuratively but properly. (Teosof. Vol. IV, Del divino nella natura, num. 15, pp. 18-19). And it is an actuality indistinct from the rest of divine actuality, indivisible in itself, divisible by mental abstraction. (Teosof. Vol. III, n. 1423, p. 344).

IV. The indeterminate being, which is doubtless known to all intelligences⁸, is the divine reality manifested to human beings in nature.

4. Indeterminate being (ideal being), which is undoubtedly evident to all intelligences, is the divine reality manifested to human beings in nature. (Teosof. Vol. IV, nn. 5 e 6, p. 8).

V. The being intuited by a human being must necessarily be something of a necessary and eternal being, the creating, determining, and consummating cause of all contingent beings; and this is God.

5. The being intuited by a human being must necessarily be something of a necessary and eternal being, the creating, determining, and consummating cause of all contingent beings⁹; and this is God. (Teosof. Vol. I, n. 289, p. 241).

VI. The indeterminate being that abstracts from creatures and from God, and God as being not indeterminate but absolute, have the same essence.

6. In the one being (which abstracts from creatures and God, and is indeterminate being) and in the other (which is no longer indeterminate but God himself, absolute being), there is the same essence. (Teosof. Vol. II, n. 848, p. 150).”

13. Certain professors at the University of Louvain proposed a doctrine that was a kind of mitigated traditionalism: instruction in society is required for reason to develop to the point where it can know God and moral principles, not as an efficient cause, but as a necessary condition. Ontologism was later joined in part to this doctrine¹⁰. The doctrine is readily recognized from what the S. Ind. Congregation (3 June 1843) deemed worthy of note in the books of Professor UBAGHS:

“The Rev. D. UBAGHS teaches in his Theodicea, and sometimes also in his Logica, the following propositions, which the Sacred Congregation of the Index judges should be corrected.

I. ‘We cannot come to know any external metaphysical truth (that is, one concerning things that do not fall under our senses) without instruction from another, and, in the final analysis, without divine revelation.’

This doctrine cannot be admitted, because just as internal and mathematical truths can be known by reasoning, as the author himself admits, so it is at least possible to attain external truths whenever they are necessarily connected with internal truths, or when the internal truths themselves cannot stand without presupposing some external truth.

II. ‘External metaphysical truths cannot properly be demonstrated.’ (See Theod. p. 220, n. 413 et seq.).

Yet external truths are sometimes necessarily joined to internal ones as an effect to its cause, and therefore can be demonstrated through this connection by the kind of argument called a posteriori, whose certainty is no less than that obtained by an a priori demonstration.

III. ‘God's existence cannot be demonstrated at all. We deny that it can be demonstrated that God exists.’ (Theod. p. 73).

This untenable doctrine follows of itself from the author's opinions, which have already been judged.

IV. ‘Proofs of God's existence reduce to a kind of faith, or are based on this faith by which we do not so much see as believe—that is, we are naturally persuaded that this idea is trustworthy, something we cannot discern by purely internal evidence.’ (Theod. p. 73).

These words seem to mean that God's existence is believed rather than demonstrated, which is entirely contrary to the truth.

V. ‘The author reduces all proofs of external metaphysical truths to common sense.’

This doctrine cannot be admitted, because some external truths are demonstrated a posteriori through internal truths, without any reference to common sense. Thus, from our consciousness of our own existence, we directly infer the existence of a cause that bestowed existence on us; that is, from one internal truth we deduce another external truth without the intervention of common sense.

‘These are the principal opinions in the aforementioned book that appear to require correction. The Sacred Congregation therefore warns the Rev. Author to have his book corrected in a new edition and, in the meantime, to refrain from teaching these opinions in his scholastic lectures.’”

14. On 1 Feb. 1860, professors BEELEN, LEFEBVRE, UBAGHS, and LAFORET explain the doctrine concerning the necessity of instruction as follows:

“While on the one hand we defend the powers of human reason, on the other we profess, as we have already intimated, that we hold the view that the human mind should not be credited with that complete spontaneity or absolute independence which rationalists attribute to it. Rather, we think of the human mind in this way: the human mind possesses an inner power of its own and is continuously active of itself; nevertheless, for a person endowed with this mind to attain a ready use of reason, some external intellectual assistance is needed. We therefore hold that the principles of rational, metaphysical, and moral truths were implanted in the human mind by God the Creator; but we also judge this to be the natural, or psychological, law of our mind: a person needs some intellectual instruction in order to attain such a ready use of reason as will suffice to acquire distinct knowledge of God and of moral truths. We do not deny that, without such instruction, the human mind has a certain confused sense and vague apprehension of these truths; but here we are speaking of acquiring true knowledge, that is, a clear and certain awareness of them. By instruction we mean any external intellectual assistance, whether deliberately or unintentionally provided, whether by speech, writing, gesture, or any other means supplied by social intercourse. We mean that the need is absolute, not in the sense that we think God could not have created a human being otherwise, but in the sense that we think this need is common to all human beings as they are now born. We affirm that this absolute need for instruction exists if the matter is acquiring a ready use of reason; we do not at all say—and, on the contrary, consider it false—that knowledge of individual truths of the natural order must be acquired through instruction. For once a person actually enjoys the use of reason, he can discover and know very many truths by reason alone. We further note that, in our view, this instruction is not to be regarded as the efficient cause by which a person attains a ready use of reason, but as a mere condition without which he cannot attain that ready use; just as air, heat, and moisture are required as conditions without which the life actually present in a seed, though enclosed and hidden, cannot manifest itself. The principles of natural law are written in the human heart; but no one will ever be able to read them distinctly until, with the aid of that intellectual assistance of which we have spoken, he has attained the ready use of his reason.”

With the approval of Pope Pius IX, the doctrine of the Louvain professors was rejected on 11 October 1864, 2 March 1866, and 30 August 1866.

15. The Vatican Council¹¹, session 3, chapter 2, first part of § 1, says this about the natural knowledge of God: “The same holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created things by the natural light of human reason; for his invisible attributes, ever since the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood through the things that have been made”¹².

Canon 1: “If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason through the things that have been made: let him be anathema.”

16. According to Bishop GASSER's report¹³, three things are affirmed about the natural knowledge of God: “1) We say that a human being has a capacity for knowing God, and not merely a passive but an active one; this is to say that a human being has the powers needed to know God. Hence the words: ‘The same holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known.’ 2) We then say that means sufficient for this knowledge of God are available to a human being in the natural order, in the words ‘by the natural light of human reason from created things.’ And finally, 3) God can be known with certainty from creatures”¹⁴.

17. The rationale followed by the Fathers appointed to revise the earlier dogmatic schema is explained on this point as follows¹⁵:

“This definition¹⁶—that God can be known with certainty through created things by the light of reason—and the corresponding canon seemed necessary, not only because of traditionalism but also because of the widespread error that God's existence cannot be proved by any firm arguments and therefore cannot be known with certainty.

“As far as traditionalism is concerned, it seemed sufficient to lay down a principle that would effectively exclude it. The principle laid down is this: human rational nature has the power to know God with certainty through created things. Anyone who said that it is altogether impossible for a human being, even one with a developed ability to reason, to attain certain knowledge of God without positive instruction about God handed down would deny that principle. The question whether some instruction is necessary for a human being to attain the use of reason is not addressed.

“Although the word ‘Creator’ appears in the canon, this does not define that creation, properly speaking, can be demonstrated by reason; rather, the word used by Scripture in revealing this truth is retained¹⁷, without any addition specifying its meaning.”

18. Certain proposed amendments—some intended to uphold in some measure the system of mitigated traditionalism, others to condemn it explicitly—gave Bishop GASSER occasion to speak at greater length about traditionalism and the doctrine opposed to it. His exposition greatly helps in rightly understanding the meaning of the definition¹⁸.

“First of all, I will say very little about the system of traditionalism itself. To begin at the beginning, I will cite the well-known words of TERTULLIAN in his book against Marcion: We (that is, against Marcion) define that God is first to be known by nature, then recognized by instruction: by nature from his works, by instruction from preaching. According to Tertullian, then, the matter stands as follows: God can indeed be known from his works under the guidance of nature; but for this knowledge of God to be saving, God must not merely be known naturally—he must also be recognized through instruction and preaching. For Tertullian, the first is natural knowledge, not first in time but in order, and then comes supernatural knowledge. He says, ‘first to be known by nature, and then recognized through instruction and preaching.’ In this matter Tertullian certainly has Sacred Scripture on his side, as is clear to anyone who consults Wisdom chapter 13, Romans chapter 1, and Acts chapters 14 and 17; and, as far as I can see, the Fathers of the Church are also on his side.”

19. “But those generally called TRADITIONALISTS (I would never have used this name, Most Reverend Fathers, had it not already been heard so often in this very hall)—the adherents of this system, I say, reverse Tertullian's position and say: we define that God is first to be known by instruction, and then recognized by nature: by instruction from preaching, by nature from his works. That is, the first idea of God must be communicated to a human being through instruction or preaching, understood in general; and, once this idea has been communicated to and received by a person, God's existence can indeed be proved by arguments drawn from reason. The traditionalists differ greatly among themselves as to how this idea is communicated. Some say that this communication must truly take place through the teaching of the Gospel, or revealed teaching; consequently, a person must receive the idea of God and his existence through divine faith, and there can be no certainty about God's existence unless that divine faith is present first. These traditionalists are properly called fideists, and their system is also called cruder traditionalism.

20. “Others, however, do not derive this communication directly from the teaching of the Gospel or revealed teaching, at least not immediately, but in general from the idea of God already present in human society. They therefore consider it sufficient for a person to receive the idea of God by human faith, and then to formulate arguments from reason for God's existence. Although these mitigated traditionalists, as they are called, derive the idea of God proximately only from its communication through human society, it can scarcely fail to be the case that ultimately they derive it from its first source, God's original instruction communicated to the human race. The mitigated traditionalists again differ greatly among themselves about the reason why a person cannot attain certain knowledge of God, at least without human faith. This is not the place to go into each of these views.”

21. “What, then, should be said about this doctrine? The doctrine of cruder traditionalism must certainly be condemned altogether, as it has already been condemned: for this doctrine uproots the very foundation of our faith, certainty about God's existence. This is of the greatest importance, especially in our own times.

“For you know, Most Reverend Fathers, what opinion has prevailed in the minds of many people since the so-called French Encyclopedists and the beginnings of critical philosophy in Germany: the opinion, namely, that God's existence cannot be proved at all with certainty by certain arguments, and that the arguments held in such high honor at all times are not capable of establishing the point. Consequently, religion itself, as lacking a foundation, has come to be despised. Indeed, in our own times matters have most recently reached the point where people everywhere are trying to sever moral teaching from all religious teaching, saying this is absolutely necessary lest a person, as he grows older, see that nothing certain can be held in religion, not even God's very existence, and so, I say, fall into moral depravity. But you know, Most Reverend Fathers, how effective a moral education of this sort can be when its principle is not that of the Psalmist¹⁹: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

22. “But mitigated traditionalism too is certainly beset with dangers. Because it is beset with such dangers, the eighth amendment was proposed²⁰, directly attacking the doctrine in its formal principle. Other Most Reverend Fathers, however, considering the doctrine less unfavorably, proposed the third and fourth amendments, which seem to defend the cause of mitigated traditionalism”²¹.

23. “Having first set out these points about the doctrine itself and its relation to sound doctrine, I must explain the course the Deputation of the Faith thought should be followed in this matter. The Deputation of the Faith judged that none of the amendments coming from one side or the other should be accepted by the general congregation. Rather, traditionalism in general should be opposed by a certain principle that would directly condemn cruder traditionalism, since that doctrine indeed exposes the very foundations of religion to danger. The Holy Synod certainly cannot fail in this duty, even if the proposed principle or doctrine also touches mitigated traditionalism to some extent; all the more because, as I have already said, mitigated traditionalism too is beset by many dangers and, I freely admit, cannot be taught without danger. Since, therefore, traditionalism even in its mitigated form seems to need some remedy, and certain limits must be imposed on this doctrine, the Deputation of the Faith proposes its doctrine as a certain principle that directly attacks cruder traditionalism and that, since it cannot be otherwise, also touches mitigated traditionalism”²².

24. “The question now is whether this approach has in fact set limits to deviations. In the opinion of the Deputation of the Faith, such limits have indeed been set, provided the points we propose in the doctrine, in this very chapter, are taken in their natural force—that is, provided what I said about the means available to a human being, even in the natural order, for knowing God is taken in its natural force. I said: if they are so taken. To exclude every danger, however, the Deputation of the Faith judged that it would fulfill its duty only if the general Council also adopted in due course the admonition found at the end of this dogmatic constitution, where all decrees ever issued by the Apostolic See concerning the subject of this dogmatic constitution are confirmed by the Holy Synod itself.”

25. The definition says “can be known with certainty,” not “can be demonstrated.” The seventh amendment²³ proposed this wording: “The same holy mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known and demonstrated with certainty by the natural light of human reason, that is, by metaphysical, cosmological, and moral arguments. — Or simply: can be known and demonstrated with certainty by the natural light of reason.”

“As regards this amendment,” GASSER says in his report²⁴, “it can scarcely be approved, precisely because its presupposition is false. The Most Reverend proposer holds that our doctrine is opposed to the well-known arguments, or at least to the metaphysical argument. But this presupposition is entirely false: our doctrine supports these arguments; it does not oppose them. For if we say that God can be known by the natural light of reason through creatures—that is, through the traces impressed on all creatures—we exclude all the less the image impressed on the immortal soul of the human being. The metaphysical argument, therefore, is certainly not excluded. Which of us, having endorsed this doctrine we propose, thinks that it condemns that celebrated ontological argument of St. Anselm, whatever his view of the argument may be? The other amendment, in its second part, ‘can be known and demonstrated with certainty by the natural light of reason,’ is deficient in one respect and goes too far in another. It is deficient because it does not indicate the natural means by which a human being could know God naturally; it goes too far because it declares not merely that God can be known with certainty by natural light, but also that God's existence can be proved with certainty, or demonstrated. Although ‘to know with certainty and to demonstrate’ are in some measure the same thing, the Deputation of the Faith judged that it should choose the milder phrase, rather than this stronger one.”

When some later proposed (amendments 51, 52½, and 53)²⁵ that the word “with certainty” itself be omitted, the Deputation of the Faith judged that it had to be retained²⁶. Bishop GASSER explained this at greater length in the general congregation²⁷.

26. How the Council understood the knowledge of God appears in connection with amendment 11²⁸, which wished to add the following after the words taken from the Apostle's authority: “Hence they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks.” It added this rationale: “so that it might at least be indicated that human beings can not only know God by the light of reason, but also know their principal duties toward God.”

To this Bishop GASSER replied²⁹: “The reason that moved the Most Reverend proposer is this: he wants natural knowledge, which he thinks is restricted to theoretical knowledge of God, to be extended also to the principal moral duties. But in this respect the amendment seems superfluous, because when we say that a human being can know God as the beginning and end of all things, we also declare that a human being can understand and know the principal moral duties. For no one can tend toward God as his—natural, of course—end and author of nature without also knowing at least the principal duties toward God. Hence the pagan philosophers themselves joined moral knowledge of God to theoretical knowledge of God; Plato, for example, says in his Theaetetus that knowledge of God is true wisdom and true virtue. The Deputation therefore considers these words entirely superfluous.” It is therefore understood that the Council means the knowledge of God required and sufficient for a person to be able and obliged to lead a religious life.

27. The first canon had said: “can be known with certainty by a human being through the natural light of reason.” Amendment 49³⁰ proposed that “the words ‘by a human being’ be deleted, lest we seem to define as a dogma of faith that there can never be adults who are invincibly ignorant of God. The word human could be added to reason ...” The Deputation of the Faith judged that this amendment should be accepted and recommended it to the Fathers³¹; nearly all accepted it³².

28. Amendment 51 wished to give the first canon this form³³: “If anyone says that human reason as it now is cannot know God from created things by its natural light: let him be anathema.” Bishop GASSER replied³⁴: “This amendment cannot be accepted, because it does not fit the aim of the doctrine. For our doctrine does not simply ask whether God can be known with certainty by natural light by a human being as he now is; rather, it concerns the condition of human nature in general.” See also amendment 52 (7, 225) and Bishop Gasser's reply (7, 238).

29. The Council determined the following concerning the necessity of positive revelation:

“To this divine revelation it must indeed be attributed that, even in the present condition of the human race, all people can readily know with firm certainty and without any admixture of error those things in divine matters that are not in themselves inaccessible to human reason. Revelation is not to be called absolutely necessary for this reason, however, but because God, in his infinite goodness, ordained the human person to a supernatural end, namely, to share in divine goods that wholly surpass the understanding of the human mind. For what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”³⁵.

30. Bishop GASSER on this passage³⁶: “The question, then, is the necessity of revelation under two aspects: 1) in relation to the natural knowledge of God, and 2) in relation to the supernatural order. As for the necessity of revelation in the natural order, it is taught that revelation is not absolutely necessary, as stated at the beginning of the second paragraph: ‘Revelation is not to be called absolutely necessary for this reason.’ If, then, absolute necessity is not taught, some moral or relative necessity is nevertheless taught. In regard to revelation so-called formal, or the revelation of supersensible things, as we are accustomed to say in our German language, in order to distinguish supersensible things from supernatural things, the moral necessity of divine revelation is taught. That is, this necessity does not arise on the side of the object—for the objects are things in divine matters that are not inaccessible to human reason—but on the side of the subject, that is, the human being, even in the present condition of the human race. Third, the question is not the power of knowing God, though active, but actual knowledge of God: that all may know God readily, without a long delay for study and inquiry, with firm certainty even those scarcely capable of arguments drawn from reason, and, finally, without any admixture of error. If, then, the question is the actual natural knowledge of God in these circumstances, so many and such great difficulties confront a human being as he now is that supernatural revelation can be called morally necessary.

31. “The second part of this paragraph teaches the necessity of revelation so-called materially supernatural, and concerning this the following points are taught. First, in general it is said that this revelation is absolutely necessary, supposing, of course, the plan of divine goodness and wisdom already mentioned above. It is therefore called absolutely necessary, and the proximate cause of this absolute necessity is given first. The proximate cause of this absolute necessity is the ordination of the human person to a supernatural end, namely, to share in divine goods. The more remote cause of this necessity is the set of truths needed to know this supernatural order, which exceed the grasp of reason and must therefore be revealed positively by God. To prove this truth, the authority of Sacred Scripture is then cited from Paul's letter to the Corinthians, where it says: No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man. Therefore, without revelation these truths are unknown, the truths God has prepared for those who love him. Therefore, the supernatural end to which the human person is ordained is taught.”

32. Two amendments on the necessity of revelation (55½ and 56) were proposed³⁷, and Bishop GASSER addressed them³⁸: “The Most Reverend authors of these objections are displeased that supernatural revelation is said to be absolutely necessary only because it pleased God to raise the human person to the supernatural state. They would like some absolute necessity to be left, at least indirectly, even for the natural order.

“For they object, first: This doctrine of ours condemns the view that some instruction in human society is necessary for the exercise of reason.

“What is the answer? I deny it. I do deny it, provided one distinguishes, as I said just before, between the exercise of reason and the principles of reason³⁹. What, then, do we teach? What is our doctrine? Our doctrine is this: there are two orders of truths concerning God and divine things, namely, the natural and the supernatural. Just as there are two orders of truths concerning God and divine things, so there are also two ways of attaining knowledge of these truths: one through the principles of reason, the other through revelation. Revelation is therefore absolutely necessary for supernatural truths about God and divine things, but it is not absolutely necessary in the same way for knowing natural truths. Thus, we are speaking only of the way by which a human being can attain knowledge of both natural and supernatural truths; we are not speaking of the way in which a human being attains the exercise of reason. When we say that a human being can attain knowledge of natural truths about God and divine things through the principles of reason, we say nothing at all about the way a human being attains the exercise of reason.

“But they object a second time and say: Our best apologists maintain that, even if a human being had been left by God in a state of pure nature, revelation would have been absolutely necessary for the human being to know what worship should be offered to God, or what penance should be offered to God if the human being had sinned. Our doctrine, therefore, is too restrictive.

“What is the answer? I deny it. We merely say that supernatural revelation is not absolutely necessary for knowing things that are not in themselves inaccessible to human reason. We do not say that all natural truths are accessible to human reason. Accordingly, the hypothesis whether there are certain natural truths that are not in themselves accessible to a human being—a hypothesis that is certainly a mere hypothesis—is not touched by our doctrine”⁴⁰.

33. The Council did not deal with ontologism for a purely formal reason; hence no prejudice concerning ontologism follows. The second amendment, in fact, proposed another form for § 1 of chapter 2, whose first part was as follows⁴¹: “The same holy mother Church holds and teaches that, although God, the beginning and end of all things, dwells in inaccessible light, and no human being has ever seen him or can see him, not only face to face, which is granted only to the blessed in heaven, but neither may he be seen and contemplated naturally by a simple intuition of our mind while we sojourn in the body: nevertheless his existence and principal perfections can be known with certainty, as through a mirror and in an enigma, by ascending to him as it were by steps through created things by the natural light of reason ...”

Bishop GASSER said of this part⁴²: “This amendment contains, as we say, a passage against the philosophical system of ontologism, philosophical-theological ontologism. This amendment cannot now be admitted according to the opinion of the Deputation of the Faith, and for this formal reason alone: this very serious system of ontologism cannot be treated in this way, as though incidentally and in passing; given the gravity of the subject, it must be presented to the Council and then treated in a conciliar manner. The Deputation of the Faith therefore desires that this amendment not be approved here; but at the same time it says that no prejudice against the system of ontologism itself should arise from this, that the matter should remain in its former state, and that ontologism is omitted from this discussion here solely for a formal reason.”

For this reason Cardinals RIARIO SFORZA and PECCI (later LEO XIII) submitted a petition against ontologism, proposing for condemnation only that form of ontologism “which is openly opposed to Catholic doctrine and is the foundation of many errors now widely spread, and is contained in the proposition: Direct and immediate knowledge of God is natural to human beings.” See the whole petition in Coll. Lac. 7, 849–853.

34. The admonition mentioned by Gasser (above, n. 24) was added at the end of the Constitution: “Since, however, it is not enough to avoid heretical depravity unless those errors too are carefully shunned that approach it more or less closely, we admonish all of their duty to observe also the Constitutions and Decrees by which this Holy See has proscribed and prohibited such pernicious opinions, even when they are not expressly enumerated here.”

35. Many amendments had been proposed concerning this admonition⁴³, to which Bishop GASSER replied⁴⁴: “The Deputation of the Faith discussed this matter within its own sessions not once but repeatedly, and always judged, with precisely the same resolve, that this conclusion or admonition was absolutely necessary. For it could not fail to foresee how many evils would arise if the opinion prevailed that everything not contained in the chapters or canons of this constitution on the faith could be disputed in the schools freely, indeed with complete freedom. In the judgment of the Deputation of the Faith, the Vatican Council can meet this great evil—which would be all the greater because the Council followed the Council of Trent only after so many centuries—in no other way than by adding to the dogmatic constitution on the faith such a clause or conclusion, which reminds the faithful of their duty to ward off and eliminate errors and reminds teachers that it is not enough for a well-instructed Catholic to avoid only what must be avoided concerning the faith; he must also observe what has been defined by decrees of the Apostolic See ... Moreover, it is self-evident that, as regards dogmatic force—that is, the censure attached—nothing is changed in the decrees of the Apostolic See, even if this conclusion is approved and published by the Vatican Council. Their dogmatic force, or attached censure, remains exactly the same and unchanged as it was before the publication and decree of the Vatican Council.”

36. LEO XIII, in the encyclical Aeterni Patris (4 Aug. 1879): “And indeed, the most gracious God, in matters pertaining to divine things, disclosed by the light of faith not only those truths that the human intellect is unequal to attaining, but also revealed some that are not wholly inaccessible to reason, so that with God's authority added they might immediately become known to all, without any admixture of error. It followed that certain truths, whether proposed by God for belief or closely bound to the doctrine of faith, were known, demonstrated, and defended by sound arguments even by the wise men among the pagans, with only natural reason as their guide. For his invisible attributes are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made, as is also his everlasting power and divinity⁴⁵; and the Gentiles who do not have the law ... nevertheless show the work of the law written in their hearts⁴⁶ ... Yet the usefulness that flows from this philosophical method is not confined within these bounds. And indeed, the words of divine wisdom sharply rebuke the folly of those who from the good things that are seen were unable to understand him who is, nor by attending to his works recognized who their craftsman was⁴⁷. Thus, in the first place, this great and excellent benefit is derived from human reason: it demonstrates that God exists. For from the greatness of the beauty of created things their Creator can be seen by analogy⁴⁸. — Next, reason shows God to excel uniquely in the abundance of all perfections, above all in infinite wisdom, from which nothing anywhere can be hidden, and in supreme justice, which no perverse desire can overcome; consequently, God is not only truthful but truth itself, incapable of being deceived or deceiving. It clearly follows that human reason wins for the word of God the fullest faith and authority.”

In the encyclical Humanum genus (20 April 1884), he censures the Naturalists because they do not allow even those truths perceived by the natural light of reason to remain certain and fixed, such as God's existence and the fact that human souls are separate from every material composite and are immortal.

37. PIUS X had already counted among modern errors in the encyclical Iucunda sane (12 March 1904): “The very arguments by which God's existence is demonstrated are attacked, and with incredible audacity, contrary to the first judgments of reason, that invincible force of argument is rejected by which a cause—that is, God and his attributes, bounded by no limits—is inferred from effects. For his invisible attributes are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood through the things that have been made; likewise his everlasting power and divinity”⁴⁹.

38. On 8 September 1907, the encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis condemned MODERNISM⁵⁰, which on the one hand denies that God can be known through the intellect, since it restricts the power of reason to phenomena alone (agnosticism); on the other hand, it claims that through religious feeling (experience) a human being immediately reaches divine reality and draws from it the highest conviction of God's existence (vital immanentism).

The best exposition of the whole doctrine is found in the encyclical Pascendi. The principal points relevant to our subject are these: “To begin with the philosopher, modernists make the foundation of religious philosophy that doctrine commonly called agnosticism. By its force, human reason is wholly confined to phenomena, that is, to things that appear and the manner in which they appear; it has neither the right nor the power to go beyond their limits. Hence it cannot raise itself to God, nor recognize his existence, even through visible things. From this it follows that God can in no way be directly the object of science; as for history, God is not to be considered a historical subject. — Given these premises, everyone can readily see what becomes of natural theology, the motives of credibility, and external revelation. The modernists remove them entirely and consign them to intellectualism, a ridiculous system, they say, long since dead. Nor are they restrained by the fact that the Church has most clearly condemned such monstrous errors. For the Vatican Council decreed: If anyone says that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason through the things that have been made: let him be anathema⁵¹; likewise: If anyone says that it is impossible, or inexpedient, for a human being to be instructed by divine revelation about God and the worship due to him: let him be anathema⁵²; and finally: If anyone says that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore people ought to be moved to faith solely by each person's internal experience or private inspiration: let him be anathema⁵³. By what reasoning modernists pass from agnosticism, which is merely ignorance, to scientific and historical atheism, which by contrast is wholly based on denial; and by what right of reasoning they proceed from not knowing whether God intervened in the history of the human race to explaining that same history while entirely neglecting God, as though he had in fact not intervened—anyone who can may understand. This much, however, is settled and fixed for them: science and history must be atheistic, allowing room within their limits for phenomena alone, with God and everything divine completely expelled. — From this most absurd doctrine, what must be held about the most holy person of Christ, the mysteries of his life and death, and likewise his resurrection and ascension into heaven, we shall soon see clearly.

“In the teaching of the modernists, however, agnosticism is to be regarded only as the negative part; the positive part, as they say, consists in vital immanence. Their progression from one to the other is as follows. — Religion, whether natural or supernatural, like any other fact, must admit of some explanation. But once natural theology has been abolished, access to revelation barred by rejecting the arguments for credibility, and every external revelation wholly set aside, it is useless to seek that explanation outside the human person. It must therefore be sought in the human person himself; and since religion is a certain form of life, it must be found wholly in human life. Hence the principle of religious immanence is asserted. The first impulse of every vital phenomenon, and religion has already been said to be such a phenomenon, must be traced to some need or impulse. More precisely, the beginnings of life must be located in a movement of the heart called feeling. Since God is the object of religion, it must therefore be concluded that faith, the beginning and foundation of every religion, must be located in an inner feeling arising from a need for the divine. Since this need for the divine is felt only under certain appropriate conditions, it cannot itself belong to the sphere of consciousness; it lies first beneath consciousness, or, to borrow a term from modern philosophy, in the subconscious, where its root also remains hidden and undetected. — Someone may ask how this need for the divine, which a human being perceives within himself, finally becomes religion. The modernists reply: Science and history, they say, are enclosed within two boundaries: one external, namely the visible world, and the other internal, namely consciousness. Once they have reached either boundary, they have nowhere further to go; beyond these limits lies the unknowable. In the presence of this unknowable, whether it lies outside the human person and beyond the visible order of things or is hidden within in the subconscious, the need for the divine, in a mind disposed toward religion and without any prior judgment of the intellect (as the tenets of fideism require), stirs a certain distinctive feeling. This feeling contains within itself the divine reality itself, both as its object and as its intimate cause, and in some way unites the human person with God. This feeling is what the modernists call faith, and for them it is the beginning of religion.”

“Now, if someone wishes to know how the believer differs from the philosopher among the modernists, it must be observed that, although the philosopher admits divine reality as the object of faith, he finds this reality nowhere but in the believer's mind, as the object of feeling and affirmation, and therefore does not go beyond the sphere of phenomena; whether this reality exists in itself outside such feeling and affirmation, the philosopher passes over and ignores. The modernist believer, by contrast, holds it as settled and certain that divine reality truly exists in itself and does not depend wholly on the believer. If you ask on what this believer's assertion rests, they reply: on each person's private experience. — In this assertion, while they indeed differ from the rationalists, they depart into the opinions of Protestants and pseudomystics. They explain it thus: religious feeling must be recognized as a certain intuition of the heart by which a human being reaches God's reality itself without mediation, and draws such conviction of God's existence and action both within and outside the human person that it far surpasses any conviction obtainable from science. They therefore posit a true experience, superior to any rational experience; if someone denies it, as rationalists do, they claim this is because that person does not wish to place himself in the moral conditions required to produce the experience. Once attained, this experience properly and truly makes a person a believer. — How far this is from Catholic principles! We have already seen that such notions were rejected by the Vatican Council.”

39. In the motu proprio Sacrorum antistitum (1 Sept. 1910), the profession of faith is prescribed: “God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty, and therefore also demonstrated, by the natural light of reason through the things that have been made—that is, through the visible works of creation—as a cause through its effects.”

40. Pius XI, in the encyclical Studiorum ducem (29 June 1923): “The arguments by which Thomas teaches that God exists and that he is the one who is subsistent Being itself are still today, as in the Middle Ages, the strongest of all for proving this. They also clearly confirm the Church's dogma solemnly proclaimed at the Vatican Council, which Pius X aptly interprets as follows: ‘God ... can’” (as above in the motu proprio of Pius X).

Among the twelve propositions submitted to the Holy Office⁵⁴, which it judged “as they stand, to have already been proscribed and condemned as a group by the Vatican Council and the Holy See, or to pave the way for the same already proscribed and condemned propositions” (1 Dec. 1924), are the following:

“VI. Logical arguments, both for God's existence and for the credibility of the Christian religion, have no objective value in themselves, as they say; that is, of themselves they prove nothing about the real order.

VII. We cannot attain any truth in the proper sense without admitting God's existence, indeed even Revelation.

VIII. Whatever value such arguments may have does not come from their evidence or dialectical force, but from the ‘subjective’ demands of life or action, which need these truths in order to develop rightly and cohere with themselves.”

41. Pius XII, in the encyclical Humani generis (12 Aug. 1950): “It is called into question whether human reason, without the help of divine revelation and divine grace, can demonstrate from arguments drawn from created things that a personal God exists ... It is well known how highly the Church values human reason as regards the certain demonstration of the existence of the one personal God” (AAS 42, 1950, 570 s.).

42. Therefore, the doctrine contained in the Church's documents is this: God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the light of human reason from created things, in such a way that the obligation to worship God arises from this knowledge; this knowledge is possible without any positive revelation about God (Conc. Vatic.). God's existence can be demonstrated (Bautain, nr. 8; Bonnetty, nr. 9; damn. doctr. Lovaniensium, nr. 13 s.; Leo XIII, nr. 36; Pius X, nr. 37 ss.; Pius XI, nr. 40; Pius XII, nr. 41). The object of this knowledge is the existence of a personal God, his nature, attributes, and infinite perfections (Bautain, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius XII). Immediate natural knowledge of God, however, cannot safely be taught (Ontologismus, nr. 10 ss.).

PETRUS LOMBARDUS, 1. 1 d. 3; S. THOMAS, 1 q. 12 a. 12; c. g. 4, 1; In Boeth. de Trin. q. 1 a. 2; FRANZELIN, De Deo uno, thes. 1; 2; 5; De traditione et Scriptura, appendix on the relation of human reason to faith; KLEUTGEN, De ipso Deo, 1. 1 q. 1 a. 1-3; DE SAN, De Deo uno, nr. 32-35; BILLOT, De Deo uno et trino, thes. 1; PESCH, Praelectiones dogmaticae, tom. 2, prop. 1-3; MUNCUNILL, Tractatus de Deo uno et trino, nr. 18-33; VAN DER MEERSCH, Tractatus de Deo uno et trino, ed. 2, p. 40 ss.

43. The words of the proposition are the very words of the First Vatican Council, and are understood in the same sense in which the Council’s definition is to be understood: “can be known” means that the capacity is present; the exercise or use of the capacity is not at issue, nor in itself and immediately those things required for its development, unless perhaps positive revelation is precisely required for such development so that one can know God. What is meant, however, is an active capacity, not a merely passive capacity to receive this knowledge from another;

“by the natural ... from created things” indicates the means of this knowledge;

“natural” does not mean “in a state of pure nature,” but applies to every state in which true human nature is found.¹ “human” is said, not “by a human being,” “lest we seem to define as a dogma of faith that there can never be adults who are invincibly ignorant of God” (above, nr. 27);

“from created things” (the canon says: “through the things that have been made”) positively establishes mediated knowledge, though not yet exclusively. Therefore Ontologism is not touched, unless it denies mediated knowledge of God; nor is the system of innate ideas, insofar as it deals precisely with the origin of ideas. But if this system is established so as to deny certain mediated knowledge from created things, it is contrary to the thesis;

“with certainty” means true certainty, as opposed to probable opinion (above, nr. 25); this proposition does not yet say “demonstrated” (cf. nr. 25).

“God, the beginning and end of all things” (the canon says: “the one and true God, our creator and lord”); these words set forth the object of knowledge. As shown above (nr. 26), the Council intended to define knowledge of God that includes knowledge of moral principles and the obligation to worship God. What is therefore meant is knowledge of God as the supreme, personal being, distinct from the world, on whom the world, and humanity itself, depends as its author, and toward whom it ought to tend as its end. This does not require a scientific concept of God (which considers God not only in relation to the world but also as he is in himself and absolutely, and in a certain way presents a “definition” of God); a common concept suffices, one that designates God chiefly in his relation to the world, and especially to humanity. An obscure idea does not suffice (that is, one by which the object cannot be distinguished from others); a clear idea is required. It need not, however, be distinct; a confused idea suffices.

44. All those who deny that by natural human reason God, a personal being to be worshipped religiously by humanity, can be known with certainty oppose the doctrine proposed in this thesis—even if they affirm that a personal God can be reached by another, non-rational or non-intellectual way, or even concede that reason can know from created things the existence of some (impersonal) cause of the world. All, then, are opponents of this thesis in whose system agnosticism is contained, at least in religious matters, whether they establish it on theological grounds (human nature corrupted by sin, the insufficiency of natural powers, the necessity of grace) or on philosophical grounds (insofar as they deny either the possibility of certain intellectual knowledge in general or, specifically, of objects beyond the senses or divine objects). The number of those defending such opinions grew considerably after the Reformation, and not independently of it.

LUTHER himself, perhaps partly under the influence of nominalist philosophy, but also because of his false opinion about the condition of human nature after sin, denied natural reason religious knowledge; according to him, religious knowledge is attained by faith, which is properly experiential knowledge, a kind of feeling².

“Philosophers debate and speculate about God and arrive at some sort of knowledge, as Plato contemplates and acknowledges divine governance. But all of this is merely objective; it is not yet the knowledge Joseph (the Egyptian) had, that God cares, hears, and helps the afflicted. Plato cannot establish this. He remains in metaphysical thought, like a cow looking at a new gate.”³

The FORMULA OF CONCORD states as follows.⁴ “On this matter, this is our faith, doctrine, and confession: that the human intellect and reason are wholly blind in spiritual matters and can understand nothing by their own powers.” Likewise, II Pars. Solida declaratio, De libero arbitrio, 7.

The BAIANIANS and JANSENISTS proceeded in a similar way (cf. Denz 1391), unduly diminishing the value of natural reason in religious knowledge.

KANT restricts knowledge to phenomena; he denies metaphysics that transcends consciousness, especially knowledge of spiritual and divine things. On the other hand, however, the categorical imperative, the moral law that binds every rational being absolutely, truly exists. The will ought to follow the moral law absolutely and therefore ought to will everything that must be admitted for this end. Hence the will ought to will God’s existence; this belongs to the postulates of practical reason. Kant says of these postulates: “These postulates are not theoretical dogmas, but only presuppositions from a necessary practical point of view; thus they do not enlarge speculative knowledge, but they do give objective reality to the ideas of speculative reason.” Thus God’s existence is held as true by faith. He describes such faith as follows: “Faith (so called without qualification) is confidence that an intention will be attained, the furtherance of which is a duty, although we cannot discern the possibility of carrying it out.… It is a free holding-to-be-true, not of something for which dogmatic proofs can be found for the theoretically determining power of judgment … but of what we assume in order to pursue an intention according to the laws of freedom.”⁵.

Many, especially among Protestant theologians, followed Kant in holding that science and religion must be entirely separated from one another: religion lies outside rational knowledge and does not admit of rational explanation. While they agree with Kant in the negative element (agnosticism), they present the positive element in various ways. SCHLEIERMACHER replaced it with a certain sense of absolute dependence on something infinite. RITSCHL distinguishes theoretical and religious knowledge: the judgments of the former are judgments of being (Seinsurteile), while those of the latter are judgments of value (Werturteile). These judgments are so called because they are knowledge of an object that has value in relation to the knower himself, and because such knowledge is possible only to one who appreciates that value. Disinterested knowledge of God is excluded.

FIDEISM (in its cruder form, Traditionalism): God’s existence must first be believed by divine faith. Milder TRADITIONALISM: God’s existence must first be believed immediately by each individual by human faith; the persuasion about God’s existence that prevails in humankind, however, is to be traced back to God’s first positive revelation (above, nr. 8, 9, 19, 20).

Depending both on Kantian philosophy and on Protestant theologians, the MODERNISTS formed their system, which has already been discussed above (nr. 38).

In the most recent non-Catholic philosophy of religion, it is almost a common position that an irrational element enters into all religious knowledge, including knowledge of the existence of a personal God. If this is admitted, one can no longer say that the existence of a personal God can be known with certainty by the natural light of human reason. As an example, let OTTO be named. According to him, the primary religious element is not some knowledge but a certain irrational, sui generis feeling, which is something primary and therefore cannot be derived.⁶.

HOLY SCRIPTURE

45. Rom 1, 18 ss.⁷ After introductory words, the Apostle indicates the subject of the epistle (1, 16): the Gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes; in it the justice of God is revealed (17). Apart from the Gospel and outside the Gospel, the wrath of God is revealed against people who deserve God’s wrath because they are sinners (18). He then describes all people as sinners and guilty, both Gentiles and Jews (cap. 2; cf. 3, 9). The argument for our proposition is contained in this first part, where he shows that the Gentiles fell into vices and sins because they did not acknowledge or worship the God whom they had known; therefore God’s wrath is upon them: they are without excuse.

46. Verse 18: detinent (“suppress”): not merely to have or possess, but to hold back, restrain, suppress; in iniustitia (“in injustice”): deviation from the right norm. Verse 19: quia (“because”): gives the reason why there is injustice, or the reason for the revelation of God’s wrath; notum (“known”): in the New Testament, τὸ γνωστόν usually means what is known; in profane usage, what can be known. Either is possible here, though perhaps the latter is preferable. How God himself manifested it is stated in verse 20. Invisibilia (“invisible things”): Scripture often says that God is invisible; cf. 1 Tim 6, 16. A creatura mundi (“from the creation of the world”): κτίσις can mean active creation or the created order; if active, it is to be understood temporally; if passive, it indicates the source of knowledge: from created things. Intellecta (“understood”): νοεῖν in itself indicates the knowledge of νοῦς, in which spiritual knowledge, rather than sensory perception, is considered. Conspiciuntur (“are seen”): καθοράται, “I grasp with the mind’s eye; I know, perceive, understand something by reasoning, etc.” (ZORELL, s.v.). The invisible things of God, those known precisely from creation, are then specified more precisely: his eternal power and divinity. Ita ut sint (“so that they are”): εἰς τὸ εἶναι can be understood either consequentially—“and therefore they are without excuse”—or in a final sense: God manifested himself so clearly in creation precisely so that people could have no excuse if they did not thereby know and acknowledge God. And so it happened: cum cognovissent (“although they knew”): they not only could know, but actually did know. Non glorificaverunt … (“they did not glorify …”): the Apostle is therefore speaking of knowledge of God that entails an obligation of worship, and thus of a personal God distinct from the world. God had manifested himself to people in creation as creator, author of the world, to whom glory and thanksgiving are due. The Gentiles did not give these to God; indeed, they offered to false gods the worship due to the one true God. Evanuerunt (“they became futile”): they became vain, that is, lacking truth and right judgment (ZORELL; cf. the gods of the Gentiles are called τὰ μάταια). Stulti facti sunt (“they became fools”): what this foolishness consists in is stated in the following verse (23): idolatry; cf. Ps 105, 20. In verse 24, and again in verses 26 and 28, the Apostle emphasizes that those sins and vices are the punishment for sin, turning away from God, and idolatry. He does not, however, suppose that people lost right judgment about what is permitted and forbidden (v. 32). They are therefore truly without excuse (v. 20; 2, 1) and justly subject to God’s wrath.

47. It is readily apparent that the text, as explained, contains what our proposition affirms: 1) an active capacity to know God is present; indeed, the Apostle also affirms its exercise (21); 2) by the natural light of reason: understood, they are seen (20); from created things: through the things that have been made (20). Nothing is said about revelation; the Apostle would have had to indicate it if knowledge of God from created things were impossible without revelation. Moreover, he is speaking of the Gentiles, distinguishing them precisely from the Jews, who are the people of revelation. 3) Knowledge is certain: there is an obligation to worship God; people are culpable. 4) The object: God is the beginning, as shown by creation and his eternal power; God is the end, toward whom they ought to tend as their author by rendering him worship; God is personal, for only a personal being can be the object of worship.

48. Sap. 13. In the first part (c. 1–9), “the author exhorts the reader to pursue wisdom and teaches how it is attained.” “Wisdom is the right knowledge of God and divine things, which considers God in all things, so that one follows God’s will and fear throughout life. This wisdom, both speculative and practical, is a gift of God, which comes down from God himself, and a certain participation in uncreated Wisdom, by which God created and governs all things.” “In the second, historical part, he shows from the history of the people of Israel the blessings and effects of wisdom (10, 1–19, 20).”⁸ In this part, after recounting how wisdom saved the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt but punished the Egyptians in all those things in which they had been idolaters (12, 3 ss.), he treats idolatry itself (13, 1–15, 19), distinguishing a kind of more elevated idolatry, the worship of nature and its powers, the elements and the stars (13, 1–9), from crude, vulgar idolatry, the worship of human handiwork (13, 10–14, 7).

49. 13, 1. Autem (“but”): μέν, to which δέ corresponds (v. 10); there are two classes of idolatry. In the Greek text γάρ follows, indicating the reason and confirming what had been said at 12, 27 about the just punishment of the Egyptians. Vani (“futile”), as in the Epistle to the Romans above; in the Greek text φύσει (“by nature”) is added: as human beings are now, in fallen nature, they incline toward this futility, although (v. 3) that knowledge, as knowledge, is not so difficult. The sense cannot be that human nature is such as to include or entail this futility and foolishness in itself, because such an explanation would contradict what follows. Et de his … (“And concerning these …”): it indicates in what respect they are futile and foolish. Non potuerunt (“they were unable”): physical capacity is not denied (for he later explains that they ought to have known), but for the other reasons indicated there is a lack of moral capacity (vv. 6, 7). Bona quae videntur (“the good things that are seen”): in contrast with him who is, that is, God. Attendentes (“paying attention”): some take it concessively, so that the sense is “although they paid attention”; others take it causally, “because they paid too much attention.” The former is preferable. Therefore they are blamed because, from visible things, they did not see him who is, nor recognize the maker from his works. Verse 2 describes which creatures and powers of nature they took for gods of the world. From the beauty (v. 3) and power (v. 4) of creatures they ought to have known the greater beauty and power of their author. Cognoscibiliter (“in a way that can be known”), ἀναλόγως (v. 5): by comparison according to a proportion; videri poterit (“can be seen”), θεωρεῖται: is contemplated by the mind. Verse 6: minor querela (“less blame”), namely, in comparison with those of whom he will speak in v. 10 ss.; fortasse (“perhaps”): the sense is not “perhaps they are in error,” for there is no doubt about their error, but it indicates what may have been the reason or occasion for their error (vv. 6, 7). Thus, although they deserve less blame (v. 8), they are nevertheless not excused, for verse 9 says: it was easier to find the Lord than to estimate the world.

At verse 10 the description of the other class of idolatry begins. That they are much less excusable follows a fortiori from what has been said up to this point; 14, 23 describes the sins and vices into which they fell.

50. Verses 1–9 clearly contain the following: there is a capacity to know God by the natural light of reason, namely, the same light by which people know the greatness and beauty of the world (vv. 3, 4, 5, 9); from created things (vv. 1, 3, 4, 5, 9); with certainty (they are without excuse, v. 8). The knowledge concerns a personal God whom they ought to have worshipped: they are blamed for idolatry.

51. Act Ap 14, 14 ss. Paul had healed a lame man at Lystra; therefore the people of Lystra regarded Paul and Barnabas as gods, and priests came to sacrifice to them. Then Paul and Barnabas spoke to the people, v. 14 ss. He wished to turn them from vain gods to him who made heaven and earth, who, although he had allowed the nations to walk in their own ways, had nevertheless not left himself without witness. God’s witness is the benefits he bestowed on them. “He tells them gently, but clearly, that their ignorance of God is to be charged as their fault and that idolatry admits of no excuse, for in that very providence by which all things are governed toward necessary and useful ends, God’s witness to himself was always available to them” (KNABENBAUER in h. l.).

52. Act Ap 17, 22 ss. St. Paul’s speech on the Areopagus: God, who made the world and everything in it, needs nothing, but himself provides everything to everyone; he made the human race, and the whole history of the human race is directed by God. God wished people to seek him who made and governs all things (v. 27), if perhaps they might find him by groping—as someone in the dark reaches out a hand to find and touch something. Quamvis (“although”), καί γε, that is, “since in fact” (ZORELL, s.v. καί II 3 e): he is not far from each one of us. This indicates that it is not so difficult to find God. The Gentiles themselves recognized that God is near to us (v. 28). If, then, we are God’s offspring (v. 29), we ought not to estimate God as so degraded and base as to suppose him like inanimate things, human inventions; rather, it seems to be implicit in this thought that, by considering human nature, they ought to have arrived at a more perfect idea of God, of the living God, endowed with intellect and will.

THE FATHERS

The same doctrine is found among the Fathers, who distinguish this knowledge of God from the knowledge that comes through positive revelation.

53. ST. IRENAEUS⁹, Adv. haeres. 1. 2, c. 6 n. 1: “How, then, could either the angels or the maker of the world have been ignorant of the first God, when they were in his own domain, were his creatures, and were held together by him? He could indeed be invisible to them because of his transcendence, but not unknown because of his providence. For although, they say, they were very far removed from him by their descent, yet, since his dominion extends over all, they ought to know their ruler and to know this very thing: that he who created them is Lord of all. For although he is invisible, his power bestows on all a great intuition and perception of mind concerning his most powerful and almighty transcendence. Hence, even though no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father and those to whom the Son has revealed him, nevertheless all know this very thing, when the reason implanted in the mind moves them and reveals to them that there is one God, Lord of all” (MG 7, 124; R 197). Ibid. c. 9 n. 1: “Now it is enough to have the testimony of those who say the opposite of what we do, since all people ultimately agree on this: the ancients, who first guarded this persuasion from the tradition of the first-formed man and sang of one God, maker of heaven and earth; those who came after them, receiving this recollection of the matter from God’s prophets; and the Gentiles, learning it from creation itself. For creation itself shows him who created it, the work itself suggests him who made it, and the world manifests him who arranged it. The whole Church throughout the world received this tradition from the apostles” (MG 7, 733 s.; R 198). Cf. l. 2 c. 30 n. 3; l. 3 c. 25 n. 1.

Irenaeus’s words in l. 4 c. 6 n. 4: “The Lord taught that no one can know God unless God teaches him—that is, that God cannot be known without God; knowing him is the Father’s will. For those to whom the Son reveals him know him” (MG 7, 988 s.; R 227). The Traditionalists understood this exclusively of revelation in the strict, positive sense. But according to St. Irenaeus’s teaching the Word also “reveals” God through creation itself: “For through creation itself the Word reveals God the creator, and through the world the Lord, maker of the world; through the formed thing, the craftsman who formed it; and through the Son, the Father who begot the Son” (MG 7, 989; R 228).

TERTULLIAN¹⁰, Adv. Marcionem l. 1 n. 10: “From the beginning of things, their creator was known together with the things themselves, which were brought forth so that God might be known … For from the beginning the knowledge of God is an endowment of the soul; this is the same among Egyptians, Syrians, and people of Pontus” (ML 2, 257; R 332); ibid. n. 18: “We define that God is to be known first by nature and then acknowledged through teaching: by nature from his works, through teaching from preaching” (ML 2, 266; R 334); cf. Apologeticus, n. 17 (ML 1, 375; R 275).

54. ST. BASIL, Epistula 235 (ad Amphilochium) 1: “Which comes first, knowledge or faith? We say, generally, that in the sciences faith precedes knowledge. But if anyone were to say, in our teaching, that knowledge precedes faith, we would not contend with him, provided it is knowledge accommodated to human capacity. For in the sciences one must first believe that this letter is alpha; after you have learned its shape and pronunciation, only then can you grasp precisely the letter’s power. But in the faith that concerns God, the thought that God exists comes first; we infer this from created things. For, understanding his wisdom, power, goodness, and all his invisible attributes from the creation of the world, we thus know him. In this way we accept him as our own Lord. Since God is the creator of the whole world, and we are a part of the world, God is therefore our creator too. Faith follows this knowledge, and worship follows such faith” (MG 29, 871; R. 924).

55. ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN¹¹, Orat. theol. 2 n. 16: “We, however, aflame with desire for God, and so disposed in mind that we cannot in any way admit that this universe lacks a leader and governor, are met by reason; then, looking upon things subject to the eyes and considering those created from the beginning, reason did not stop there either. For it was not reasonable to assign primacy to things that are on the same level as we are in respect of sense. Rather, by their help and support it leads us to what is above them, by whose favor they exist. What, then, arranged the heavenly and earthly things, and those borne through air or water—or rather, the elements prior to these, heaven, earth, air, and water—in an orderly arrangement? Who blended and separated them? What mutual association, kinship of nature, and harmony do they have? I greatly approve this saying, even though it was spoken by a man foreign to our religion: What brought motion to these things and directs them in a perpetual, unhindered course? Is it not their maker, who implanted in all things the reason by which the universe moves and is governed? And who, then, is their maker? Is it not the one who brought them forth and produced them into the order of nature? Surely this power and capacity cannot be ascribed to chance and fortune. Even if we grant that all things came to be by chance, to what, finally, must their arrangement and ordering be ascribed? And even if we also grant this, if one wishes, to chance, whose work, I ask, was it to preserve and maintain them according to the principles by which they were first created? That of someone else, or of chance? Surely that of someone else, not chance. And what else could this be but God? Thus reason, which is from God and implanted in all, the first law established in our hearts and joined to all mortals, has raised us from the things seen by the eyes to God” (MG 36, 46 s.; R 897).

56. ST. CHRYSOSTOM, In epist. ad Rom. hom. 3 n. 2: “Just as someone entrusted with the king’s money, ordered to spend it for the king’s glory, would be punished as one who had gravely offended the king if he spent it on thieves, prostitutes, and magicians, making them splendid at the king’s expense; so too these people, after receiving knowledge of God and his glory, then ascribed it to idols, suppressed the truth in injustice and, so far as they could, dishonored knowledge by failing to use it as they ought. Is what was said clear to you, or must it be explained again more clearly? Perhaps it is necessary to go further. What, then, is meant? From the beginning God implanted knowledge of himself in people. But when the Gentiles ascribed that knowledge to wood and stone, they dishonored the truth, insofar as they could; for it remains unchanged, with its glory unmoved. And how do you know, Paul, that God implanted knowledge of himself in them? ‘Because,’ he says, ‘what is known of him is manifest in them.’ But this is an assertion, not a demonstration. You must prove and show me that knowledge of God was manifest to them and that they deliberately neglected it. How, then, was it manifest? Did he send them a voice? No; but he did what could attract them more than any voice: he placed the created world before them, so that the wise person, the unlearned person, the Scythian, or the barbarian could, from the mere sight of visible things, learn their beauty and ascend to God. Therefore he says (v. 20): For his invisible things, understood through the things that have been made, are seen from the creation of the world; the prophet also says: The heavens declare the glory of God¹². What, then, will the Gentiles say on that day? ‘We did not know you’? Did you not hear the heavens uttering a voice by their mere appearance—the harmony and concord of all things, crying more clearly than a trumpet? The laws of night and day, remaining forever unchanged? The firm and unchanging order of winter, spring, and the other seasons? The sea, useful amid so many storms and waves? All things remaining in order and proclaiming the Creator through their beauty and greatness? Paul summed up all these things, and more, in a few words: For his invisible things, from the creation of the world, are seen, understood through the things that have been made; his everlasting power and divinity also, so that they are without excuse. Even if God did not make them for that end, that is what happened. For God did not bring such a teaching forward to deprive them of an excuse, but so that they might know him; and since they were ungrateful, they deprived themselves of a defense” (MG 60, 412 s.; R 1182). Cf. Ad populum Antiochenum hom. 9 n. 2 (MG 49, 104 s.).

57. ST. AUGUSTINE, Sermo 141, c. 1 et 2: “Among other things, when the holy Gospel was being read, you heard what the Lord Jesus said: I am the way and the truth and the life. Everyone desires truth and life, but not everyone finds the way. Some philosophers of this age, too, saw that God is a certain eternal, immutable, intelligible, intelligent, wise life, making others wise. They did see the fixed, stable, unchanging truth in which are all the principles of all created things, but from afar; they saw it, but were in error. And therefore they did not find the way by which one might reach so great and ineffable and beatifying a possession. That even they saw the Creator through creation (insofar as a human being can see him), the maker through his work, the maker of the world through the world, is witnessed by the Apostle Paul, whom Christians must surely believe. For, speaking of such people, he says: ‘The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety.’ As you recognize, these are the Apostle Paul’s words: The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and the injustice of people who suppress the truth in iniquity. Did he say that they do not possess the truth? No: they suppress the truth in iniquity. What they possess is good, but the place in which they possess it is bad: they suppress the truth in iniquity.

“It might be objected to him: ‘How do those impious people possess the truth? Did God speak to any of them? Did they receive the law, as the people of Israel did through Moses? How, then, do they possess the truth, even in their very iniquity?’ Listen to what follows and shows it. Because what is known of God, he says, is manifest in them; for God has manifested it to them. Did he manifest it to those to whom he gave no law? Hear how he manifested it: For his invisible things, understood through the things that have been made, are seen. Question the world, the adornment of heaven, the brightness and arrangement of the stars, the sun sufficient for the day, the moon a comfort in the night; question the earth, fruitful with herbs and trees, full of animals and adorned with human beings in every way; question the sea, how full it is of creatures of every kind and nature; question the air, how it teems with so many birds. Question everything, and see whether, in their own way, they do not answer you as though they said: ‘God made us.’ Distinguished philosophers also sought these things and partly came to know the maker. What, then? Why is God’s wrath revealed against impiety itself? Because they suppress the truth in iniquity? Let him come and show how. For he has already said how they knew. His invisible things, that is, God’s, are seen, understood through the things that have been made; his everlasting power and divinity also, so that they are without excuse. Because, although they knew God, they did not honor or thank him as God, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. These are the Apostle’s words, not mine: And their foolish heart was darkened; for, claiming to be wise, they became fools. What they found by curiosity, they lost through pride. ‘Claiming to be wise’ means attributing God’s gift to themselves; thus they became fools” (ML 38, 776; R 1508). Cf. De spiritu et littera, c. 12 (ML 44, 211 ss.); De Civitate Dei, l. 8 c. 6 (ML 41, 231).

58. THEODORET, in Rom. c. 1 v. 20: “Creation, he says, and the things that come to be in creation—the changes of the hours, the succession of seasons, the sequence of night and day, the birth of clouds, the breezes of the winds, the production of fruits and seeds, and whatever else is of this kind—clearly teach us both that God is the maker of all things and that he wisely holds the key¹³ of creation. For he who made all things, moved by his own goodness alone, would never cast away all care for what he made. And therefore the divine Apostle did not say his invisible thing but his invisible things, that is, his creation and providence, his just judgment in each case, and the many and varied principles by which things are governed. For this reason those who, despite having had so many teachers, have received no benefit from so many lessons do not deserve pardon” (MG 82, 62).

OBJECTIONS

59. 1. The First Vatican Council itself teaches that revelation is necessary.

I answer: I distinguish the assertion. It is absolutely necessary, given the elevation of humanity, for knowing supernatural things: granted; for knowing God: I subdistinguish. It is absolutely necessary: I deny; it is morally necessary: I subdistinguish again. So that all may actually know those things about God that can be known by natural reason (not merely God’s existence), readily, with firm certainty, and without any admixture of error: granted; so that there be an active capacity to know God’s existence: I deny. Cf. above, nr. 29 ss.

2. The argument from the Epistle to the Romans is invalid, for: a) St. Paul presupposes revelation; b) at least, he presupposes instruction, and therefore some tradition; c) he speaks only of the wise, not of all people.

I answer a): the answer is given above, nr. 47;

to b) I distinguish: he presupposes instruction whose precise object is to communicate knowledge of God itself: I deny; instruction required for the suitable development of reason itself: I leave undecided. “It should be noted that we are not debating whether a human being brought up from infancy in the woods could of his own accord come to know God, nor whether instruction in general is necessary for an innate capacity to be exercised. Rather, we assert and defend that, according to Scripture and the tradition of the Fathers, a person who—whether in society or outside human company—has attained the use of reason, so as to know not only by sense but also by intellect, can acquire certain knowledge of divine things, even if he has received no tradition” (KLEUTGEN, De ipso Deo, pag. 71);

to c) Even if St. Paul were speaking only of the wise, he would already be teaching that God can be known by the natural light of human reason. It will be shown later, however (nr. 206), that he is speaking not only of the wise.

3. The objections commonly raised against the argument from the Book of Wisdom have already been resolved in the explanation of the text itself. They are: a) they are futile by nature; b) they were unable to know God; c) they are excused (v. 6); d) perhaps they are in error.

4. The theological arguments by which the possibility of natural knowledge of God is opposed—that nature has been corrupted by sin and that grace is necessary for knowing God—rest both on a false concept of the original state and its consequences, and on a confusion of the physical possibility of knowing with the capacity for salutary knowledge. As for the rational arguments commonly brought against our proposition (that God does not fall under the formal object of the human intellect, that God is too far removed from humanity, that there is no proportion between God and humanity, and the like), or those by which the necessity of tradition for attaining certain knowledge is defended, consult what has been said in philosophy.

PETRUS LOMBARDUS, l. 1 d. 3; S. TH., 1 q. 2 a. 1-3; FRANZELIN, thes. 2 et 6; KLEUTGEN, nr. 139-179; DE SAN, nr. 30 s.; BILLOT, thes. 3 et 4; PESCH, prop. 5 et 6; MUNCUNILL, nr. 34-57; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 53-97; CHOSSAT, Dict. de Théol. 4, 923-948; I. DE VRIES, Vom Sinn und logischen Aufbau der Gottesbeweise. Scholastik 15 (1941) 481-507.

60. The preceding thesis stated that God's existence can be known with certainty; the present thesis further affirms that it can be proved or demonstrated. The proposition does not hold universally: whatever can be known with certainty cannot for that reason always be demonstrated or proved. For example, what is immediately evident, and what must be used as principles of argument in the very act of arguing, can indeed be known with certainty, but cannot properly be proved. When, however, the question concerns existential, mediate, certain knowledge—that is, when, from an existing object that is known, the existence of another thing is known with certainty, or when the existence of an object is known with certainty from its relation to another known thing—what can be known with certainty in this way also seems capable of demonstration. For knowledge of this kind necessarily involves an inference¹, and if it is true and certain knowledge, the inference itself must be knowable as legitimate: this is what constitutes a demonstration or proof². The present thesis, then, follows from the preceding thesis and affirms that it can be shown that the inference is legitimate by which, according to the preceding thesis, God's existence can be known with certainty from created things.

61. The opponents of this thesis are

1. the same people who deny the preceding proposition;

2. the Ontologists, insofar as in their doctrine an immediate perception of God—as the light of the intellect and the foundation of all certain and universal knowledge—is presupposed by every argument (God is the first thing known);

3. among those who follow the system of innate ideas³, some denied that God can be demonstrated; for example, according to KUHN⁴, philosophical argument alone can lead to knowledge of some pantheistic absolute being, but not to knowledge of an absolute being who is the personal God, toward whom human beings can fulfill religious duties. For this, the idea of God is required, in which God is reflected as in a mirror.

62. 4) The same idea—that philosophical demonstration alone does not lead to a personal God—appears among several recent thinkers who recoil from “intellectualism” and say that affective factors should be given greater weight in the knowledge of God. For a person does not become religious through arguments; the person does not consist of the intellect alone, but the reasons of the “heart” deserve greater attention; it is not the intellect alone but the whole person who knows. Just as religion must be distinguished from metaphysics, so religious knowledge must be distinguished from rational knowledge. The personal God is the object of religious knowledge⁵. It is readily apparent that such views also oppose the thesis insofar as and to the extent that this irrational element is introduced into the knowledge of God.

CHURCH DOCUMENTS

63. In ecclesiastical documents, both before (BAUTAIN, Denz 1622; 1627; above, nr. 8; GREGORY XVI, Denz 1620; PIUS IX, Denz 1670; BONNETTY, Denz 1650; above, nr. 9; condemnation of the Louvain propositions, above, nos. 13 s.) and after the Vatican Council (LEO XIII, above, nr. 36; PIUS X, nr. 37 ss.; PIUS XI, nr. 40; PIUS XII, nr. 41), the demonstrability of God's existence is explicitly taught. In particular, arguments used by the Scholastics are defended, among them especially the argument from causality: PIUS X in the Oath against Modernism, and PIUS XI in the encyclical “Studiorum ducem.”

64. The VATICAN Council, as was already stated in nr. 25, refrained from an explicit definition of the demonstrability of God's existence. An amendment proposed in this sense was rejected. The reason why the Council acted in this way is not given. Some suspect that the Council did not wish directly to condemn the view of those who said that, without the “idea of God,” reason alone cannot know the personal God with certainty, and who denied that there are arguments possessing the full force needed to demonstrate God's existence⁶. Yet it seems simpler to explain this from the Council's intention to define a fundamental principle directly excluding crude Traditionalism; and that principle states precisely that God can be known with certainty by the light of reason.

Nothing, however, can be inferred in favor of the contrary view from the fact that the Council did not wish to define the demonstrability of God's existence. For the Council's proposed teaching also addressed “the widely spreading error that God's existence cannot be proved by any firm arguments and therefore cannot be known with certainty by reason” (above, nr. 17). Establishing a foundation for faith—the certainty of God's existence—seemed of the highest importance for our times, since the opinion had gained ground “that God's existence cannot be proved with complete certainty by certain arguments, and that the arguments which have always been held in such high esteem are not of a kind that can establish the matter” (above, nr. 22). The Council's definition is for the arguments (above, nr. 25); knowing with certainty and demonstrating are, in a certain respect, one and the same (above, nr. 25). From this it is clear that “know with certainty,” as the Council Fathers understand it in the definition, does not abstract from “demonstrability” in the sense that the question of demonstrability is untouched by the definition. Rather, the Fathers understand by it a certain knowledge with which demonstrability is intimately connected. Accordingly, Pope PIUS XI rightly said in the encyclical “Studiorum ducem” that PIUS X had admirably interpreted the dogma solemnly proclaimed at the Vatican Council with the words of the Oath against Modernism (“can also be known with certainty and therefore demonstrated”; above, nr. 40).

65. A PRELIMINARY NOTE on the argument from Sacred Scripture and the Fathers:

It is right to invoke as a supporter of the view affirming the demonstrability of God's existence 1) anyone who intends explicitly to show that the inference from created things to God's existence is truly legitimate; this is self-evident;

2. anyone who directly and in fact proposes the arguments themselves. For although he may not intend explicitly to vindicate the legitimacy of the inference, by proposing his arguments he nevertheless affirms it;

3. anyone who does not explicitly propose the arguments themselves as such, but only indicates the reasoning by which God's existence is known with certainty from created things. For in this way he seems at least implicitly to affirm that the inference from the reasoning he has indicated is legitimate and can be known as such.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

66. We should not expect Sacred Scripture first to propose the demonstrability itself; whether it proposes the arguments themselves—the second point—is perhaps open to dispute, since St. Paul (Acts 14; 17) seems to propose an argument, although not everyone admits this⁷. But the third point is certainly found in Sacred Scripture: Wisdom 13:1, the maker from the works, that is, cause from effect; vv. 3–5, from the world's beauty and power, its author, more beautiful and powerful, that is, cause from effect (perhaps v. 1 also indicates the argument from contingency). Similarly, Rom 1, 20: through the things that have been made, the eternal power and divinity, that is, cause from effect. Acts 14 and 17: providence.

Therefore, the teaching on the demonstrability of God's existence is found at least implicitly in Sacred Scripture.

THE FATHERS

The Fathers propose not only the reasoning by which certain knowledge is attained, but the arguments themselves as well; indeed, they may even be discussing demonstrability itself⁸

67. The principal arguments by which the APOLOGISTS already show that God exists are causality and finality.

ARISTIDES, Apology 1: “Observing that the world and all that is in it are necessarily in motion, I understood that the one by whom it is moved and preserved is God. For whatever moves is stronger than that which is moved; and whatever preserves is stronger than that which is preserved. Therefore I say that he is God, who created all things and preserves them” (MG 96, 1108; R 110).

THEOPHILUS, To Autolycus, bk. 1, nr. 4 ss.: “God made all things, when previously they did not exist, so that his majesty might be known and understood from his works. For just as the soul in a human being is not seen, but, though it escapes human sight, is understood from the body's motion, so God cannot be seen by human eyes, but is seen and understood from his providence and works. For example, when someone sees a ship fitted out at sea, under way, and making for the shore, he will no doubt judge that there is a helmsman on board by whom it is steered. So God must be understood as the governor of all things, though he is not seen with the eyes of the flesh, since he cannot be grasped.… Moreover, an earthly king is believed to exist, although he is not seen by everyone; he is known through his laws, decrees, powers, resources, and images. Will you not understand God from his works and powers?” (MG 6, 1030 s.).

68. MINUCIUS FELIX, Octavius 18: “If, on entering some house, you had seen everything cultivated, arranged, and adorned, you would surely believe that a master presided over it, and that he was far better than those good things. So, in this house of the world, when you perceive heaven and earth, providence, order, and law, believe that there is a lord and parent of the universe more beautiful than the stars themselves and all the parts of the world” (ML 3, 288; R 269).

LACTANTIUS, Divine Institutes, bk. 1, ch. 2, nr. 5: “No one is so uncultivated or so savage in character that, raising his eyes to heaven, even if he does not know whose providence governs all that he sees, he fails to understand from the very greatness, motion, arrangement, stability, usefulness, beauty, and balance of things that some providence exists, and that what stands together by a marvelous ordering could not have been brought about without some greater design” (ML 6, 121; R 624).

69. ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, see above, nr. 55.

ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA, On the Soul and the Resurrection: “Someone sees a garment and is led by reasoning to recognize the weaver; from a ship he understands its builder; likewise, as soon as a building has been seen, the hand of its maker comes before the mind of those who look at it. But these people, while looking at the world, are blind and deluded about the one who is disclosed through it.” When Gregory asked, “About this very point, indeed… how can our adversaries avoid doubt and uncertainty that all things are from God and that all things are held together and preserved by him, or whether there is any divine power at all presiding over the nature of things above?” Macrina replied:⁹ “It would be more fitting and proper, she said, to keep silent about such matters and not deign to answer foolish and impious propositions alike. For even a certain divine saying (Prov 26, 4: ‘Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you become like him’) forbids answering a madman according to his madness. But, as the Prophet says (Sap 13, 1), the one who denies that God exists is altogether foolish and senseless. Since, however, we must speak about these things too, I shall tell you the reasoning—not mine, nor that of any other human being, since it is too small, whatever it may be—but the reasoning that the creation of things unfolds and recounts through the wonders within it. The eye is the hearer of this creation, and what appears resounds in the heart through a discourse at once intelligent and artful. For creation openly proclaims its maker with a loud voice, while the heavens, as the Prophet says, declare the glory of God in ineffable voices. For who, seeing and considering the harmony of the whole universe and the wonders of heaven and earth… (she lists many), if he looks upon these things with the eyes of understanding and the keenness of the mind, is not plainly taught by what appears that a divine, artful, and skillful power is manifest in all things and extends and spreads through them all; that, while fitting and adapting the parts to the whole, it also fills the whole through its parts; and that the whole universe is held in check and sustained by a single power, while it remains in itself, moves around itself, and never ceases to move, nor passes to any other place than the one in which it is?” (MG 46, 23 ss.).

70. ST. AUGUSTINE¹⁰, Confessions, bk. 11, ch. 4: “Behold heaven and earth: they cry out that they were made, for they change and vary. Whatever has been made, and yet exists, has nothing in it that was not there before; this is what it means to change and vary. They also cry out that they did not make themselves: ‘We are because we were made; therefore we did not exist before we existed, so that we could make ourselves.’ And the very evidence is their voice. You, then, O Lord, made them…” (ML 32, 811; R 1596); cf. bk. 10, ch. 6; ML 32, 782 s.; City of God, bk. 8, ch. 6: “They [the Platonists] saw that whatever is changeable is not the supreme God.… Then they saw that every form in any changeable thing, by which that thing is whatever it is, in whatever way and of whatever nature, can exist only from him who truly is, because he exists unchangeably” (ML 41, 231). In On the Psalms 73, nr. 25, he says to an unbeliever who wishes to admit only what he sees: “Your soul is visible, I suppose! Fool! Your body is visible; who sees your soul¹¹? Since only your body is visible, why are you not buried? And he answers—for he understands this much—‘Because I am alive.’ How do I know that you are alive, when I do not see your soul? How do I know? You will answer, ‘Because I speak, walk, and work.’ Fool! From the body's works I recognize that it is alive; from the works of creation you cannot recognize the Creator!” (ML 36, 944). Sermon 197: “Just as, then, from the movements and governance of the body you understand the soul, which you do not see, so from the governance of the whole world and the rule over the souls themselves understand the Creator” (ML 38, 1022). Cf. above, nr. 57.

71. St. AUGUSTINE develops the argument of his own, commonly named after him, in On Free Choice of the Will, bk. 2 (ML 32, 1243 ss.). In chapter 3 he sets out the first question to be solved: “How is it evident that God exists?” He shows that nothing in the human being is higher and more excellent than reason (ch. 3–6); in this exposition, what judges another is considered superior. Augustine then asks: “What if we are able to find something that you not only do not doubt exists, but that is also superior to our very reason? Will you doubt calling it God, whatever it is?” Evodius: “I would not immediately call God whatever I might find better than the best thing in my nature. For I do not like to call God that than which my reason is inferior, but that than which nothing is superior.” Augustine: “Quite so.… But, I ask you, if you find that nothing is above our reason except what is eternal and unchangeable, will you doubt calling this God?… ” Evodius: “I shall certainly confess that to be God than which nothing has been shown to be higher.” Augustine: “Good; for it will be enough for me to show that something of this kind exists, which you will either confess to be God or, if something is above it, will agree is God himself. Thus, whether something is above it or not, it will be evident that God exists, when, with his own help, I have shown what I promised: that something is above reason.” In chapter 7 ss. he shows that there is one unchangeable truth. He asks (ch. 12, nr. 34): “Do you think that this truth of which we have been speaking for a long time, and in which one truth we behold so many things, is superior to our mind, equal to our minds, or even inferior? But if it were inferior, we would judge not according to it, but about it, as we judge about bodies because they are below us. We often say of them not only that they are or are not thus, but that they ought or ought not to be thus; and similarly, about our minds, we know not only that the mind is thus, but often that it ought to be thus. We judge about bodies in this way when we say: ‘It is less white than it ought to be,’ or ‘less square,’ and similarly in many cases; and about minds: ‘It is less capable than it ought to be,’ or less gentle or less forceful, as the standard of our conduct requires. We judge these things according to those inner rules of truth that we see in common; but no one judges those rules themselves. When someone says that eternal things are better than temporal things, or that seven and three make ten, no one says that they ought to be so, but simply recognizes that they are so. The examiner does not correct them; the discoverer merely rejoices. If this truth were equal to our minds, it too would be changeable. For our minds sometimes see it more and sometimes less, and thereby acknowledge that they are changeable; but truth remains in itself, neither growing when we see more of it nor diminishing when we see less. Rather, whole and incorrupt, it gladdens those who turn toward it with its light and punishes those who turn away with blindness. Further, we judge even our own minds according to it, although we cannot in any way judge it. For we say: ‘He understands less than he ought,’ or ‘He understands just as much as he ought.’ But the mind ought to understand as much as it is able to draw near to and cleave to unchangeable truth. Therefore, if it is neither inferior nor equal, it remains that it is superior and more excellent.” In chapter 15, nr. 39: “You had agreed that if I showed something above our minds, you would confess it to be God, if nothing were still higher. Accepting your agreement, I had said it would be enough for me to show this. For if something is more excellent, that is God rather; but if there is not, then truth itself is God. Therefore, whether that higher thing exists or not, you cannot deny that God exists; and this was the question we had set ourselves to discuss and investigate.” Cf. On True Religion, ch. 30 s. (ML 34, 145 ss.); Eighty-Three Different Questions 83, q. 54 (ML 40, 38).

72. ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, The Orthodox Faith, bk. 1, ch. 3: “All things that exist are either created or uncreated. If created, they are certainly also changeable. For whatever began to exist through change must also be subject to change, whether it perishes or becomes one thing after another through acts of will. But if uncreated, it necessarily follows that they cannot change at all. For things whose being is opposite have opposite modes of being and properties.” He then shows that everything both perceptible to the senses and among souls, angels, and demons is changeable, and continues: “Since, then, they are changeable, they must also be created. If created, there is no doubt that they were fashioned by some maker. But the creator must be uncreated. For if he too was created, he must have been created by someone, and so on, until we reach something uncreated. Since that maker is uncreated, then, he is also altogether unchangeable. And what could this be other than God?

“Moreover, the very structure, preservation, and governance of created things teach us that God exists: he it is who has joined this whole universe together, sustains and preserves it, and provides for it. For how could it have happened that natures at strife with one another—fire and water, air and earth, I mean—came together to constitute a single world and were bound together by such a firm bond that they could not be dissolved in any way, unless some almighty power had joined them and kept them forever from dissolution?

“What is it that assigned definite places to the things that exist in heaven and on earth, that range through the air and dwell in the waters, and even to what is prior to these—to heaven, earth, and air, and also the natures of fire and water? By whom were these things mixed and distributed? What is it that impressed motion upon them and sets them turning in a perpetual course, restrained by nothing? Is it not their maker, who gave all things the order and measure by which this universe is conducted and governed? But who is their maker? Is it not he who created them and brought them into being? For we cannot attribute such power and ability to τῷ αὐτομάτῳ, that is, to chance. Let us indeed grant that it was chance that they came into being; but whose work would it then be to have arranged them? And, if you wish, let us grant that too: whose work would it be to preserve and guard them according to those laws by which they were first created? It must certainly¹² belong to something other than chance; and what could that be but God?” (MG 94, 795 s.).

THEOLOGIANS

73. The Scholastics explicitly raised the question of the demonstrability of God's existence and developed the arguments themselves in various forms¹³.

ST. ANSELM († 1109) proposes in the Monologion an argument similar to St. Augustine's argument in On Free Choice of the Will (above, nr. 71). He sought, however, an argument wholly independent (especially of the existence of things), which he then sets out in the Proslogion: the argument Kant called “ontological.” This designation must therefore be understood in the sense Kant gave it. For Kant, “ontological” is a demonstration that intends to determine a real, actual object a priori, not from experience but from a concept of the intellect or reason, independently of experience¹⁴

RICHARD OF ST. VICTOR († 1173), in his work On the Trinity (ML 196), argues from being that had a beginning—which therefore is neither eternal nor from itself—to being eternal and from itself; from degrees of being to the highest being, since the highest being cannot have what it is from an inferior being, and so must have it from itself; for if nothing were from itself, nothing would be from eternity, and then there would be no origin or succession of things, which contradicts experience; finally, from the fact that whatever exists has the possibility of being either from itself or from another¹⁵.

PETER LOMBARD († 1160), bk. 1, dist. 3, proposes four arguments: first, following Ambrosiaster, the invisible maker is known from the visible work; the second, third, and fourth are from St. Augustine, City of God, bk. 8, ch. 6; cf. his Commentary on Romans (ML 191, 1327 s.)¹⁶.

WILLIAM OF AUXERRE, († between 1231 and 1237), Summa, bk. 1, proves first from the relation of cause to effect; second, from the flow of things (one thing flows from another); third, from the fact that being is included in the highest good, or in what is best; fourth, by Anselm's argument¹⁷.

ALEXANDER OF HALES († 1245) reports several arguments: with Richard, from being that had a beginning; with Damascene, from the mutability of things; with the Auxerre master, from the fact that nothing can be its own cause; with Anselm, by the ontological argument¹⁸.

74. ST. BONAVENTURE¹⁹, in 1 d. 3 p. 1 a. unic. q. 2, shows that God can be known through creatures “because the cause shines forth in its effect, and the wisdom of the craftsman is made manifest in his work; therefore God, who is the craftsman and cause of creation, is known through creation itself.” The foundations are Sap 13, 5 and the authority of Isidore, together with arguments, the first of which is that the cause is known from its effect. He raises certain doubts about the Master's arguments and shows what they presuppose (Dubia circa lit. mag. dub. 1). He admits Anselm's argument (in 1 d. 8 p. 1 q. 2, and elsewhere). In On the Mystery of the Trinity, q. 1, art. 1, second way: “Every truth proclaimed by every creature is an indubitable truth; but every creature proclaims that God exists; therefore. That every creature proclaims that God exists is shown by ten conditions and self-evident suppositions.” These are: if there is a later being, there is also an earlier being; if there is a being from another, there is a being not from another; if there is a possible being, there is a necessary being; if there is a relative being, there is an absolute being; if there is a being in a certain respect, there is a being simply; if there is a being for the sake of another, there is a being for its own sake; if there is a being by participation, there is a being by essence; if there is a being in potency, there is a being in act; if there is a composite being, there is a simple being; if there is a mutable being, there is an immutable being. Likewise, On the Hexaemeron, coll. 10, nos. 12–18.

75. ST. THOMAS 1 q. 2 a. 3 shows by five ways that God exists: from motion, from the notion of an efficient cause, from the possible and the necessary, from the degrees found in things, and from the governance of things. These arguments have been explained in philosophy. He does not admit the ontological argument²⁰

76. In works certainly authentic, SCOTUS clearly teaches that God's existence can be proved, not indeed a priori (by a demonstration propter quid), but a posteriori (by a demonstration quia) (Oxon. in 1 d. 2 q. 2; De primo principio, ch. 3)²¹, saying: “As far as we are concerned, the existence of an infinite being cannot be demonstrated propter quid, although, from the nature of the terms, the proposition could be demonstrated propter quid. But as far as we are concerned, the proposition can be demonstrated by a quia demonstration from creatures” (Oxon. in 1 d. 2 q. 2 nr. 10). He then shows that there is something “simply first in efficiency, and something simply first in the order of finality, and something simply first in eminence” (ibid. nr. 11). He admits Anselm's “colored” argument (it can be conceived without contradiction) in some way (l. c. nr. 32).

77. The Scholastics are thus truly in agreement²² that God's existence can be proved; this agreement persisted among later theologians of various schools. Perhaps very few are to be excepted, such as WILLIAM OF OCKHAM²³ and PETER OF AILLY, who follows Ockham: for him, the proposition “God exists” is not evident to us or demonstrable with evidence, but is naturally probable (in I, q. 3, art. 2). Yet these thinkers cannot undermine that consensus²⁴. The theologians treated this question as not merely philosophical but theological, and ground it in positive sources. There is no consensus, however, about the theological qualification of this teaching. BÁÑEZ (in I, q. 2, art. 2) holds it to be most certain and says the opposite is rash; MOLINA (in I, q. 2, art. 2) says it is “not only rash, but also quite unsafe in faith, to say no more”; VÁZQUEZ (in I, dist. 20, ch. 3, nr. 8) reports that theologians generally call the opposite view rash, which seems excessive to him; SUÁREZ (De Deo, bk. 1, ch. 1, nr. 13) judges the opposite rash and close to error; in nr. 15 ss. he refutes what Vázquez said; VALENTIA (in I, disp. 1, q. 2, part 2, assertion 3): “that it can also be proved by an evident demonstration from God's effects that God exists… is so certain that to deny it is plainly erroneous in faith, if not even manifest heresy.” Among theologians of our time, KLEUTGEN (De ipso Deo, nr. 156) says “although not heretical, it is nonetheless scarcely safe in faith”; PESCH (proposition 5) calls it theologically certain; MUNCUNILL (p. 19), “theologically certain”; VAN DER MEERSCH (p. 47 s.), proximate to faith and formally, implicitly contained in revelation.

Our thesis today seems to be established at least as theologically certain, on account of the consensus of theologians, grounded in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers; because it is a conclusion from the definition of the Vatican Council; and because the Church explicitly upholds it²⁵.

The consensus concerns not merely some demonstrability of God in the abstract, but in concrete terms includes at least that way of argument by which God's existence is proved from the visible world, as cause from effect. A Catholic is in no way free to accept or reject this argument (cf. Oath against Modernism, Denz 2145). There was never, however, a consensus about St. Anselm's (ontological) argument; theologically, this is a completely open question²⁶.

S. TH. 1 q. 88 a. 3; FRANZELIN, thes. 7; 10; 11; KLEUTGEN, nr. 125-138; DE SAN, n. 23-26; BILLOT, thes. 2; PESCH, prop. 9; MUNCUNILL, nr. 9-11.

78. The knowledge of God's existence of which we have spoken thus far is such that something else (not God) is first known directly and immediately, and from it one arrives at knowledge of God's existence; God himself as he is in himself, the divine being itself, is not the immediate object of this knowledge. The question now is whether this is the only way of knowing God, or whether, besides mediated knowledge, there is also another, immediate kind by which the existing God is directly perceived immediately in himself.

Mediated and immediate knowledge are understood in this thesis in the strict sense with respect to every created objective medium. In a less proper sense, immediate knowledge can be called a natural, spontaneous, obvious inference, when it is compared with scientific knowledge acquired through investigation (someone who sees smoke “immediately” knows that fire is present); moreover, knowledge without an inference or conclusion properly so called can be called immediate, as distinct from knowledge reached by a proper inference (cf., e.g., above, nr. 60, note 63); finally, in a certain sense one could also call immediate the knowledge drawn from analysis of the subject alone, as opposed to knowledge that is a posteriori (for example, the “ontological” argument for God's existence). But in knowledge of the existence of an object that is immediate in the strict sense, every objective medium is absent, that is, an object which itself must be known in order to arrive at knowledge of the thing; such knowledge cannot be through a form belonging to something else. In this strict sense we deny knowledge of God without any created objective medium, and specifically “naturally, in this life.” The discussion, then, concerns only knowledge that can be attained by purely natural means; what can or does take place supernaturally is not asked in this thesis. Further, it says in this life, that is, during the soul's union with the body, leaving aside what may be true of the separated soul.

79. EUNOMIUS is said by some to have taught immediate perception of God, which others deny; it is beyond doubt, however, that he taught comprehensive knowledge of God¹.

The ONTOLOGISTS certainly asserted an immediate, natural perception of God; see above, nr. 10 ss.

G. C. UBAGHS²: “The idea of God is that intelligible light, always present to our mind, by which it comes about that God can be known by us, even if he is not always known. Many regard this idea as a kind of intellectual form representing God, distinct from God and naturally implanted in our mind; to us, however, this idea seems to be God himself, never absent from our mind, although not always known to us” (nr. 8; cf. nr. 14).

“The existence of a self-existent being can be proved in many ways. First, if the idea of a self-existent being is an immediate idea, a self-existent being must exist just as necessarily as it is necessary that what we see exists, provided that we truly see it. For it can hardly be denied that we have within us a true and clear idea of a self-existent being; moreover, if this idea is immediate, as I maintain it is, the object of this idea—or rather, this idea—is the very self-existent being whose existence we see” (nr. 93; similarly nr. 101 and 107, from the idea of an infinite being; in his Ontologia, ed. 4, Lovanii 1854, nr. 63; nr. 35, 6 and 7; nr. 5).

The Ontologists nevertheless said that this immediate perception of God is wholly different from the beatific vision: it is natural knowledge, which (according to some) is continuously present in the soul as direct knowledge, but becomes reflexive on the occasion of objects presented by the senses; it is obscure knowledge; it is not a vision of the divine essence itself; it is a perception of divine being under the aspect in which it is the exemplar of every being, whereas the blessed see God's inner life; it does not make a person blessed.

ROSMINI taught an immediate perception of God. According to him, indeterminate being, which manifests itself immediately to the intellect in created things, is something divine in itself, belonging to the divine nature, an actuality not distinct from the rest of divine actuality (above, nr. 12)³.

Since the thesis is expressed in universal terms, among the positions opposed to it one may also include the view that the beatific vision itself is natural for a person living in this life. Such was the view of the Beghards and Beguines condemned at the Council of Vienne. We shall discuss them later, when we treat the supernatural character of the beatific vision.

CHURCH DOCUMENTS

80. The propositions of the ONTOLOGISTS cannot safely be taught (above, nr. 11; Denz 1659 ss.); the corresponding propositions of ROSMINI were condemned (above, nr. 12; Denz 1891 ss.). The VATICAN Council, however, did not treat Ontologism in a formal conciliar manner (above, nr. 33).

The decree of the Holy Office against the Ontologists does not seem to address directly every doctrine holding that immediate knowledge of God is naturally possible for a human being. The decree speaks directly of the doctrine that immediate knowledge of God, at least habitual knowledge, is said to be essential to the human intellect, so that without it the intellect can know nothing; the doctrine at issue is therefore that this immediate knowledge of God is essential to the human being and is the principle and foundation of all certain knowledge. Thus someone who affirmed that some immediate knowledge of God is naturally possible for a human being, but denied that it is essential to the human intellect, such that all certain knowledge depends on it, and who denied the Ontologists' doctrine concerning being and universals, would not be proposing the doctrine which, according to this decree of the Holy Office, could not safely be taught. One would have to judge otherwise, however, if it could be proved that the meaning of this decree is: because all immediate knowledge of God is naturally impossible for a human being, this particular doctrine of the Ontologists cannot safely be taught. But this does not appear from the words of the decree.

The doctrine of the BEGHARDS and BEGUINES condemned at the Council of VIENNE (Denz 475) cannot be reconciled with the doctrine of immediate perception of God. What is directly condemned there is the claim that the beatific vision of God is natural, whereas the Ontologists wish to establish a perception of God that is immediate yet different from the beatific vision. But the immediate intellectual perception of an infinitely simple being is necessarily perception of his whole essence; it is impossible to perceive something of God immediately—for example, this or that attribute—without seeing the whole God immediately. Indeed, not even between the divine essence and the persons is there any distinction on the part of the thing itself: the divine essence is the Father, is the Son, is the Holy Spirit, so that whoever sees the essence immediately cannot fail to see the persons. Thus the distinction the Ontologists claim for immediate perception of God is impossible. Therefore anyone who says that some immediate perception of God is natural for a human being must consequently say that the beatific vision is natural for a human being. The Ontologists' doctrine is consequently opposed to the teaching of the Council of Vienne. Hence a doctrine asserting that immediate perception of God is natural for a human being, whether in the manner proposed by the Ontologists or in another manner, cannot indeed be called heretical by the definition of the Council of Vienne, but must be called erroneous; and the opposite doctrine is theologically certain.

HOLY SCRIPTURE

81. Holy Scripture says nothing about any natural, immediate perception of God; when it speaks of our natural knowledge of God, it always indicates mediated knowledge (Wis 13; Rom 1): from creatures to God, not from God to creatures. Through this mediated knowledge, “the invisible things of God” are perceived by the intellect. It presents as immediate, however, the knowledge of God that the blessed will have in heaven, and sets it against even the supernatural knowledge of this life (1 Cor 13; more on this text at nr. 126).

FATHERS

82. According to the holy Fathers, we do not naturally see God by intellectual vision; rather, we are led from sensible things to knowledge of God.

St. IRENAEUS (above, nr. 53) says that angels know God naturally only from his works, from his providence; likewise, human beings came to know God from the created world.

St. ATHANASIUS, Oratio contra gentes 35: “For God, who is good and gracious, cares for the souls he created. Since his nature cannot be seen or comprehended and surpasses every created substance, it was to be expected that the human race would not attain knowledge of him, since man was made from nothing, while God is without any beginning. For this reason he so aptly ordered created nature by his Word that, since he cannot be seen by his own nature, he might at least be known by human beings from his works. For often the artist is known from his works, even when he is not seen; and, as they say of the sculptor Phidias, his works presented him, though absent, to those who looked at them, through the mutual proportion and arrangement of their parts. So too, from the structure of the world one must understand God, its maker and creator, even though he is not seen by bodily eyes. For God has not misused his invisible nature (let no one allege this), nor has he left himself wholly unknown to human beings. Rather, as I was saying, he so ordered created nature that, although he cannot be seen by his own nature, he may nevertheless be known from his works”; in support of this teaching he appeals to Rom 1, 20; Acts 14, 14–16 (MG 25, 69; R 747).

83. St. BASIL, Adversus Eunomium, 1. 1. n. 14: “I believe that comprehension of him exceeds not only human beings but every rational nature. By ‘rational’ I mean created. For the Father is known only to the Son and to the Holy Spirit... For... it is established that the essence itself can be conceived by none but the Only-begotten and the Holy Spirit; but, being raised up by God's works and understanding the Creator through the things that have been made, we thus perceive his goodness and wisdom. For what is known of God, God has made manifest to all human beings”⁴ (MG 29, 543; R 931). Epistula 234 (ad Amphilochium) nr. 1: “We say that our God is known by us from his works, but we do not promise that we shall reach his very essence. For his works descend to us, while his essence remains inaccessible” (MG 32, 870; R 923); cf. epist. 235, 1 (MG 32, 871; R 924; above, nr. 54).

St. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Oratio theologica 2, 12: “For us, who are held fast by earthly bonds, to use Jeremiah's words,⁵ and are covered by this gross flesh, it is clear that it is as impossible to be joined to things understood by mind and reason without the aid of bodily and sensible things as it is impossible for anyone, however quickly he walks, to pass beyond his own shadow (for as far as you overtake it, it always remains just as far ahead); or for the eye to join itself to visible things without the intervening light and air; or for fish to swim outside the water” (MG 41, 42; R 986).

St. CHRYSOSTOM, In act. apost. hom. 2 nr. 4: “See what Paul says: ‘His invisible things are clearly seen, being understood from the things that have been made, from the creation of the world’⁶. Surely the devil says that both are made of matter, so that we may know God from nothing at all”; similarly nr. 5 (MG 60, 31 s.). De incomprehensibili hom. 3 n. 1: “Let us therefore call him the ineffable, unintelligible, invisible, incomprehensible God, surpassing the power of human speech, exceeding the comprehension of mortal minds, untraceable by angels, invisible to the Seraphim, unintelligible to the Cherubim, unseen by the Principalities, Powers, and Virtues, and, in short, by every creature; known, however, only to the Son and the Holy Spirit” (MG 48, 720; R 1125); similarly hom. 4, 3 (MG 48, 730; R 1128); in In Ioan. hom. 15, 1 (MG 59, 98; R 1161) he says that God is invisible to creatures.

84. St. JEROME, Com. in epist. ad Galatas, on ch. 3 v. 2: “Someone might ask: if faith comes only from hearing, how can those born deaf become Christians? One can indeed understand God the Father from the greatness and beauty of creatures, and the creator is consequently recognized from the things he has made. But Christ's birth, cross, death, and resurrection cannot be known except by hearing” (ML 26, 349).

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS, De divinis nominibus, c. 7 nr. 3: “Moreover, we must ask how we know God, who is perceived neither by sense nor by intellect, and is not at all among the things that exist. Or is it not truer to say that we know God not from his nature (for what his nature is remains unknown and surpasses every account and mind), but from the order of things, as though from an arrangement made by him, which contains in itself certain images and likenesses of his divine exemplars? In order to know that highest good and end of all goods, we ascend according to our ability, by way and order, through negation and transcendence of all things, to the cause of all” (MG 3, 870 s.; R. 2284).

GREGORY THE GREAT, Moralia, 1. 27 cap. 5 (al. 3), on Job 36, 25 (“All people see him; each one beholds him from afar”): “Every human being, by the very fact of being created rational, ought to infer by reason that the one who created him is God. To see him in this way is, surely, to discern by reasoning that he holds dominion⁷. Since it has been said, ‘All people see him,’ it is rightly added, ‘Each one beholds him from afar.’ For to behold him from afar is not yet to see him in his form, but still to estimate him solely from admiration of his works. Here even the elect behold him from afar, because they do not yet grasp his glory through the keenness of inward vision. Although they are close to him through love, they are still separated from him by the burden of their earthly dwelling; and, though they cling to him by living well, they sigh at being far from the vision of his presence... But when it is said, ‘Remember that you do not know his work,’ and then added, ‘All people see him,’ to see him, as we have said, is to infer by reason his essence, which transcends all things. It is a matter of great wonder that we both perceive him and do not know his work... We see by reason that he exists, though we do not comprehend his judgments; yet we still behold him from afar, because the cloud of our weakness separates us from his strength” (ML 76, 403).

85. But the Fathers seem to have taught an immediate perception of God⁸; for 1. they teach that the idea of God is innate in human beings. Yet it is by no means certain, and indeed in many cases improbable, that they understood “innate idea” in the strict sense. Rather, they describe the ease—and hence the universality—of this knowledge in a person who truly possesses human nature and a developed human intellect⁹. Further, even if one supposed that these Fathers taught an innate idea in the strict sense, it would still not follow that knowledge of the existing God is immediate.

St. JUSTIN, Apologia 2 nr. 6: “Father, God, Creator, Lord, Master are not names, but appellations drawn from his benefits and works... The appellation ‘God’ is not a name, but an inborn natural opinion among human beings of a thing that cannot be described” (MG 6, 453; R 130).

TERTULLIAN, De testimonio animae 5: “These testimonies of the soul are as true as they are simple; as simple as they are common; as common as they are shared by all; as universally shared as they are natural; as natural as they are divine... But whoever did not think that such outbursts of the soul were a doctrine silently entrusted to nature and to a congenital and inborn consciousness, will rather say that the use of speaking in this way has been strengthened as a kind of habit, indeed a fault, by opinions dispersed among the people and made public through literary works” (ML 1, 616)¹⁰.

86. 2. The Fathers posit a spontaneous, obvious, common knowledge of God, which seems immediate. But this may indeed be called immediate in a broad and improper sense, not in the proper sense.

87. 3. Specifically concerning St. AUGUSTINE¹¹ It is asserted that he taught immediate knowledge of God, common to all human beings and natural to them. For according to him intellectual knowledge is knowledge in eternal, immutable truth, which is God himself, the sun of truth who enlightens us, in whose light we see truth. The Ontologists invoke St. Augustine's authority in support of their doctrine.

Conf. 1. 12 nr. 35: “If we both see that what you say is true, and both see that what I say is true, where, I ask, do we see this? Certainly not in you, nor in me, but both in the immutable Truth itself, which is above our minds,” which he later calls the very light of the Lord our God (ML 32, 840). De vera religione, nr. 56 s.: “Now, when the square forum, the square stone, the tablet, and the square gem are judged according to the whole rule of squareness, and again the movements of the feet of a running ant and of an elephant walking by the same rule are judged to correspond to one another according to the whole rule of equality, who would doubt that this rule is neither greater nor smaller according to distances of place and time, since its power surpasses all things? Since this rule of all the arts is wholly immutable, while the human mind, which has been granted the ability to see such a rule, can undergo the mutability of error, it is clear enough that above our mind there is a rule called truth. Nor should we doubt that the immutable nature above the rational soul is God, and that the first life and first essence are there, where the first wisdom is. For this is that immutable truth rightly called the rule of all the arts and the art of the almighty Artificer. Thus, when the soul perceives that it does not judge the appearance and movement of bodies by itself, it must at the same time recognize that its own nature is superior to the nature it judges, while a nature by which it judges—and which it cannot itself judge in any way—is superior to it. I can explain why the limbs of every body must correspond to one another in likeness on both sides: I delight in the highest equality, which I contemplate not with the eyes of the body but with the mind. Therefore I judge the things I see with my eyes to be better insofar as, according to their nature, they are closer to those I understand with my mind. But no one can say why those things are so, and no one would soberly say that they ought not to be so, as though they could be otherwise” (ML 34, 147)¹².

88. Such statements and similar ones, considered in themselves alone, might perhaps be understood as referring to an immediate perception of God; but not within St. Augustine's own doctrine. The immediate knowledge of God known to St. Augustine is in no way natural to human beings or common to all, nor is it the beginning and foundation of intellectual knowledge. In this life it is granted only to a few perfected persons and belongs to the blessed life: it is the beatific vision itself. The natural knowledge of human beings, however, proceeds not from God to creatures but from creatures to God. For St. Augustine, “seeing” God does not always mean immediate knowledge, but also mediated knowledge through creatures.

Epistula 147 (ad Paulinam) De videndo Deo, nr. 3: “Since, then, we do not now see God either with the eyes of the body, as we see heavenly or earthly bodies, or with the mind's gaze, as we see those things I have mentioned, some of which you most certainly perceive within yourself (that is, yourself living, willing, seeking, knowing, and not knowing), why do we believe that he is seen, unless because we put our faith in Scripture, where it is written: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’?”; similarly nr. 12. Cap. 13 nr. 31: “Then one may ask how the very substance of God could have been seen by certain people who were in this life, because it was said to Moses: ‘No one can see my face and live’¹³, unless the human mind can be snatched by divine power from this life into the angelic life before it is released from the flesh through the common death of this life. For this is how the one who heard there unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a human being to speak, was snatched away. There was such a withdrawal of attention from the senses of this life that he said he did not know whether he was in the body or outside the body—that is, whether, as often happens in a more intense ecstasy, his mind had been removed from this life into that life while the body's bond remained, or whether he had been wholly released, as happens in full death¹⁴. Thus what was said is also true: ‘No one can see my face and live’; for the mind must be withdrawn from this life when it is taken up into the unspeakable vision of that life. Nor is it incredible that this excellence of revelation was granted to certain saints who had not yet died in such a way that their bodies remained to be buried” (ML 33, 610); cf. epist. 92 (ML 33, 318 ss.).

Sermo 141 (above, nr. 57): The philosophers of this world saw God, the stable truth in which are all the reasons of created things, but they saw him from afar; “they too saw the creator through the creature, as far as a human being can see.” De Genesi ad litteram 1. 4 n. 49: “The human mind first experiences through bodily senses the things that have been made and apprehends knowledge of them according to the measure of human weakness; then it seeks their causes, to see whether in some way it can reach those causes which abide principally and immutably in the Word of God, and thus perceive his invisible things, understood from the things that have been made¹⁵. Who does not know how slowly and with what difficulty it does this, and how much time it takes because of the corruptible body that weighs down the soul,¹⁶ even when the soul is seized by the most ardent zeal to do this eagerly and perseveringly?” (ML 34, 316 s.).

89. There is much disagreement about how St. Augustine's doctrine of “illumination” should be explained positively. Some think that the light is nothing different from the soul itself; others say that it is distinct from the soul but created; still others say that it is uncreated light. Just as the sun makes bodies visible to us by its light, so that we see bodies illuminated in the sunlight without seeing the sun itself immediately, God is the sun of our intellect, radiating a light by which eternal, immutable truths are made “visible” to our intellect. Thus, in the light of eternal truth, we know such truths without gazing upon the sun itself, God himself¹⁷.

THEOLOGIANS

90. Among the scholastics, many embraced St. Augustine's doctrine of illumination for the “higher reason,” while maintaining the doctrine of abstraction for the “lower reason”¹⁸. The doctrine of knowledge in the eternal reasons, in the uncreated light, is proper or distinctive to “Augustinianism” (especially in the Franciscan school: Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure), as distinct from “Aristotelianism,” which posits the theory of abstraction universally¹⁹.

In the Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, q. 4²⁰, St. Bonaventure sets out three interpretations of knowledge in the light of the eternal reasons. The first mode is “to understand that the evidence of the eternal light concurs in certain knowledge as the whole and sole reason for knowing.” This mode must not be admitted, because according to it the knowledge of the wayfarer would not differ from the knowledge of the blessed. The second mode is “to understand that the eternal reason necessarily concurs in certain knowledge by its influence, so that in knowing, the knower does not attain the eternal reason itself, but only its influence.” This explanation is not sufficient according to St. Augustine's words. “And so there is a third mode of understanding, as it were holding the middle between the two ways: namely, that the eternal reason is necessarily required for certain knowledge as a regulating and moving reason, not alone and in its full clarity, but together with a created reason, and as contemplated by us in part, according to the state of the wayfarer.”

“Since, then, certain knowledge belongs to a rational spirit insofar as it is the image of God, it therefore attains the eternal reasons in this knowledge. But because, in the state of the wayfarer, it is not yet fully conformed to God, it does not attain them clearly, fully, and distinctly; rather, the more or less it approaches conformity to God, the more or less it attains them, yet always in some way, because the character of an image can never be separated from it. Thus, because in the state of innocence it was an image without the deformity of sin, though it did not yet possess the full conformity to God of glory, it attained them in part, but not in an enigma. In the state of fallen nature, however, it lacks conformity to God and bears deformity; therefore it attains them in part and in an enigma. In the state of glory, it lacks all deformity and possesses full conformity to God; therefore it attains them fully and clearly. Again, because the soul is not wholly an image of God by itself, it attains along with these reasons the likenesses of things abstracted from the phantasm, as proper and distinct reasons for knowing. Without these, the light of the eternal reason is not sufficient for it to know while it remains in the state of the wayfarer—unless perhaps it were to transcend this state through a special revelation, as in those who are carried away and in certain prophetic revelations.

Therefore, as reason shows and Augustine's authorities expressly assert, we must concede that in every instance of certain knowledge the knower attains those reasons for knowing, although the wayfarer and the one who comprehends, the one who knows and the wise person, the prophet and the person who understands commonly attain them in different ways.”

To objection 15—“A proper reason for knowing corresponds to each knowable thing, so that certain knowledge of it may be had; but no intellect of a wayfarer distinctly perceives those reasons for knowing; therefore nothing can properly and determinately be known in them”—he replies: “Because we do not see the reasons in themselves with complete distinctness, they are not the whole reason for knowing. Along with them, therefore, the created light of principles and the likenesses of the things known are required; from these one has a proper reason for knowing with respect to each thing known.”

To objection 16—“If whatever is known with certainty is known in the eternal reason, and that by which each thing is known is itself better known, then the eternal reasons are better known to us; this is plainly false, since they are most hidden from us”—he replies: “As is already clear, the eternal reason does not move us to know alone, but together with the truth of principles; in the state of the wayfarer it does not do so in a particular way with respect to itself, but in a general way. Hence it does not follow that it is known to us in itself, but rather as it shines forth in its principles and in its generality. In this way it is, in a certain respect, most certain to us, because our intellect cannot in any way conceive that it does not exist; this cannot be said of any created truth.”

In his reply to objection 19, he says: “For intellects of those who know attain such reasons as guiding, but the intellects of the wise attain them as leading back and bringing to rest. And because few attain them in this way, there are few wise people, although many know. Few indeed know that they attain those reasons; indeed, what is more, few are willing to believe this, because it seems difficult to an intellect not yet raised up to contemplate eternal things that it should have God so present and near, although Paul says in Acts 17 that he is not far from each one of us.”

91. Just as St. Augustine's doctrine has been explained in different ways, so too St. Bonaventure's doctrine has different interpretations. LUYCKX summarizes it roughly as follows:

What is the ground of certainty in our knowledge of truth? Creatures cannot provide absolute certainty; therefore it comes from God's immediate illumination. Few inquire into this ground: simple people do not think about it, the learned rely on the certainty of first principles, but the wise understand that even these are not sufficient, since they too are created. By “resolving fully,” the wise person clearly understands that his absolute certainty of truth has its immediate ground in a special, immediate illumination from God himself. The wise person is astonished at the blindness of people who fail to notice what they see first, without which they can know nothing. The wise person first sees God, the first cause of truth; he sees how we know with absolute certainty through God's illumination. The eternal reasons are not the natural object of our knowledge in this life; rather, they are the medium by which we obtain absolute certainty of truth.

According to others (ROSENMÖLLER, SCHWENDINGER), however, in every certain act of knowledge a person intuits eternal truth as an object; the eternal ideas in certain knowledge are indeed a direct object (that is, not reached by way of a conclusion), but a secondary object, known only implicitly and without awareness.

However one explains St. Bonaventure's doctrine, it is certain that he does not teach immediate knowledge of God. In 2 dict. 23 art. 2 q. 3, on the question “whether Adam in the state of innocence knew God by the kind of knowledge by which we expect to know God in the state of glory,” he replies that Adam's knowledge of God lay between the knowledge belonging to the state of misery and the knowledge that will belong to the state of glory. “Only in the state of glory will God be seen immediately and in his substance, so that there will be no obscurity. In the state of innocence and in fallen nature, however, God is seen through a mirror, but differently: in the state of innocence God was seen through a clear mirror, for there was no cloud of sin in the soul. In the state of misery, however, he is seen through a mirror darkened by the sin of the first man; and therefore now he is seen through a mirror and in an enigma.” Opp. omnia 2, 544 s.

92. It is clear that the “Aristotelian” scholastic theologians do not teach immediate perception of God. According to St. THOMAS, natural knowledge of God is mediated and comes from creatures alone: in 1 d. 3 q. 1 a. 1–4; De veritate, q. 18 a. 2. The immediate vision of God is not natural to a human being: De veritate, q. 13 a. 3; Contra gent., 1. 3 c. 47; 52; Summa Theol., 1 q. 12 a. 4; 11. Immediate knowledge of God is the same as vision: in 4 d. 49, q. 2 a. 1; Contra gent. 1. 3 c. 53. In In Boethium de Trinitate, q. 1 a. 3, he explicitly denies that God is the first thing known by the mind:

“Some have said that the first thing known by the human mind, even in this life, is God himself, who is the first truth, and that through him all other things are known. But this is plainly false, because to know God through his essence is the happiness of a human being; it would follow, then, that every human being is blessed. Moreover, since in the divine essence all the things said of it are one, no one would err concerning what is said of God; experience shows this to be false. Again, the things that are first in the intellect's knowledge must be most certain; hence the intellect is certain that it understands them, which is plainly not the case here. This position also conflicts with the authority of Scripture, Exod 33, 20: ‘No man shall see me and live.’”

He then rejects another opinion: “that the divine essence is not the first thing known by us in this life, but rather the influence of its light; on this account, God is the first thing known by us. But this too cannot stand.” For how St. Thomas understands knowledge “in the eternal reasons,” see 1 q. 84 a. 5; Contra Gent. 1. 3 c. 47.

93. St. Thomas's words contain the arguments theologians usually bring against immediate perception of God: knowledge of God would be the most certain knowledge; error concerning God would be impossible; everyone would be blessed.

How Ontologism prepares the way for Rationalism, Pantheism, and Eclecticism is explained in the “Postulatum” presented at the Vatican Council (above, nr. 33).

Objections

94. It seems possible to show from the beatific vision itself that an immediate perception of God, distinct from and inferior to the beatific vision (that is, obscure and not necessarily a vision of the whole God), is possible. For in the beatific vision not everything that God eminently or virtually includes in his perfection is known, and there are different degrees of clarity²¹; therefore the argument from the Council of Vienne (nr. 80) seems ineffective.

I answer: every blessed person sees God wholly, and there is nothing of God that he does not see. The degrees, however, are within the clear vision of God; obscure knowledge is not a lower degree of clear knowledge.

We have already discussed what is commonly objected to the thesis from the doctrine of the Fathers and theologians; the objections drawn from reason (that the first thing known is the first ontological principle, that knowledge of the finite does not lead to knowledge of the infinite, and the like) have been discussed in philosophy.

S. TH. 1 q. 13 a. 1-6; 12; PETAVIUS, De Deo, 1. 7 c. 1; FRANZELIN, thes. 12; 13; BILLOT, thes. 17; 18; PESCH, prop. 15; VAN DER MEERSCH, nr. 280-291; 316-324.

After it has been proved that by the natural light of reason we can know God, and indeed only mediately, from creatures, we must now inquire more precisely what this knowledge is like and what it can accomplish.

95. The EUNOMIANS, as was already said supra nr. 79, claimed that they possessed wholly perfect (quidditative), comprehensive knowledge of God.

Concerning Eunomius himself, St. CHRYSOSTOM says, On the Incomprehensible, hom. 3 nr. 2: “A man has dared to say: ‘I know God as God knows himself’” (MG 48, 712; R 1124); and of the same man SOCRATES says, Hist. eccl. 4, 7: “God knows nothing more of his own substance than we do; nor is it better known to him, while more obscure to us. But whatever we know about him, he knows all of it; and conversely, whatever he knows, you will find the same knowledge in us, without any difference” (MG 67, 474). Concerning Aëtius, Eunomius’s teacher, EPIPHANIUS says, Adv. haeres. Panarion, haer. 76 c. 36: “This man, together with his followers, fell into such madness that he said he knew God not by faith but naturally, by knowledge, just as one knows whatever is visible, as if one were to take a stone or a piece of wood in one’s hands. Thus speaks this rash man: ‘I know God as well as I know myself; indeed, I do not know myself as well as I know God’” (MG 42, 634).

96. The extreme contrary position is AGNOSTICISM¹, which, in our subject, may be distinguished well with CHOSSAT into Pure Agnosticism (neither God’s existence nor his nonexistence can be proved; all the more, every knowledge of the divine nature is impossible; the reason is that cognition cannot transcend phenomena) and Dogmatic Agnosticism (the existence of the absolute can indeed be known, but not what it is like; we cannot form true judgments about the divine nature). Such was MAIMONIDES in the twelfth century, in whom much of what is proposed by more recent agnostics is found. Agnosticism is also the Modernists’ theological Symbolism, about which Pius X says in the encyclical “Pascendi”: “For the philosopher it is certain that the representations of the object of faith are merely symbolic; for the believer, likewise, it is certain that the object of faith is God in himself; therefore the theologian concludes that the representations of divine reality are symbolic. Hence theological symbolism … Since these are symbols with respect to their object, but instruments with respect to the believer, they say that the believer must first beware of adhering too strongly to the formulas as formulas, but must use them solely in order to adhere absolutely to the truth which the formula both reveals and veils, and strives to express without ever attaining it” (Denz 2087). “If all intellectual elements, as the Modernists say, are nothing but symbols of God, would not even the very name of God or of the divine personality be a symbol? If so, one could now doubt the divine personality, and the way to pantheism would be open” (Denz 2108).

97. Against these extreme positions this thesis asserts that our natural knowledge of God is indeed imperfect knowledge (against the Eunomians), but is true knowledge (against Agnosticism).

St. THOMAS explains how something can be known, In Boeth. de Trin., q. 1 a. 2 c.: “A thing is known in two ways. In one way, through its proper form, as the eye sees a stone through the species of the stone; in another way, through the form of something else like it, as a cause is known through the likeness of its effect—for example, a man through the form of his image. A thing is known through its own form in two ways. In one way, through a form that is the thing itself, as God always knows his own essence, and an Angel knows himself; in another way, through a form that is other than the thing itself, whether abstracted from it—when, that is, the form is more immaterial than the thing itself, as the form of a stone is abstracted from the stone—or impressed upon the knower by it, as when the thing is simpler than the likeness through which it is known, as Avicenna says that we know intelligences through their impression in us … An effect is of two kinds. One is proportionate to the power of its cause, and through such an effect the power of the cause is known fully and, consequently, its quiddity; the other effect falls short of the aforesaid proportion, and through such an effect the agent’s power cannot be comprehended and, consequently, neither can its essence, but only that it exists can be known of the cause”²

Immediate cognition is cognition through the proper form of the object. Mediate cognition, by contrast, is through an alien form, at least if the object can be known only mediately; but if the object is one that can also be known immediately, it may perhaps be disputed whether its mediate cognition is also had through its proper form.

If cognition is through a proper form, the object’s proper concept is had per se, by which the thing is conceived as it is in itself. In cognition through an alien form, however, a distinction must be made: if it arises from an effect proportionate to the cause’s power (a univocal effect), and if the object can also be known immediately, the concept is proper per se (proper from proper things); but if it arises from an effect not proportionate to the cause’s power (an equivocal effect), and the object can be known only mediately, the concept is not proper per se, nor univocal. Such a concept, insofar as it is solely a concept of this object, may be called proper in opposition to a concept common to several things (proper from common things).

We shall show in three parts: 1) we do not know God through a proper form; 2) but through the form of creatures; 3) we truly know God’s quiddity.

I. We do not know God through a proper form.

98. Cognition through a proper form is either through a form that is the thing itself, or through a form impressed by the thing to be known, or abstracted from that same thing (supra nr. 97). But God’s proper form cannot be abstracted from God, because there cannot be a form more immaterial than God; nor can it be a form created by God and impressed upon the human intellect, because such a finite likeness cannot be the proper form of an infinite being. Therefore, the only proper form of God is his very essence. But cognition of God through his essence is natural to God alone, and is granted to the blessed supernaturally. Therefore, we do not know God naturally through God’s proper form (S. THOM., In Boeth. q. 1 a. 2).

Natural knowledge of God is only mediate (thesis 3); therefore, it is not through a proper form. Hence it is clear that the qualification of this part of the thesis is the same as that of thesis 3: it is theologically certain.

SACRED SCRIPTURE

99. This doctrine is contained in Sacred Scripture insofar as it establishes that our natural knowledge of God is only mediate.

FATHERS

100. The Fathers explicitly deny that we can know God’s very essence; such is especially the case with those who wrote against the Eunomians. Many passages are found in R ser. 109, of which some may be selected.

St. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, Cat. 6, c. 2: “For we do not speak of God as much as is fitting—for these things are known to him alone—but as much as human nature can grasp and as much as our weakness can bear. For we do not declare what God is, but frankly confess that we lack exact knowledge of him; for in relation to God, it is great knowledge to confess ignorance” (MG 33, 540; R 821).

St. HILARY, De Trinitate, l. 2 nr. 7 (ML 10,56; R 861).

101. St. BASIL, Epist. 234, 1 s.: “God’s operations are various, but his essence is simple. We say that our God is known to us from his operations, but we do not promise to approach his very essence. For his operations come down to us, while his essence remains inaccessible … Know, then, that this is the word of mockers: ‘If you are ignorant of God’s essence, you worship what you do not know.’ I know that he is; but what his essence is, I consider to be beyond understanding. How, then, am I saved? By faith. Faith, moreover, is fully adequate for knowing that God is, though not what he is, and that he rewards those who seek him. Knowledge of the essence, then, consists in perceiving that he cannot be comprehended; and we worship him of whom we have learned, not what his essence is, but that this essence exists” (MG 32, 869; R 923).

102. St. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Orat. theol. 2, nr. 17: “But what God is by nature and essence, no human being has ever discovered, nor can discover. Whether anyone will ever discover it, let whoever wishes ask and investigate. In my judgment, he will discover it only when this Godlike and divine element—that is, our mind and reason—is joined to its kindred nature, and the image has ascended to that archetype of its own which it now longs for. And it seems to me that this is the foremost principle of philosophy: that one day we shall know only as much as we have been known. But in this mortal life, whatever reaches us is nothing other than a small stream, as it were, or a little ray of a great light” (MG 36, 48; R 988).

St. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Contra Eunomium, l. 12: “The human intellect, carefully investigating by whatever reasonings it can, seeks and reaches toward the inaccessible and exalted nature; it does not see so keenly as to behold the invisible clearly, yet it is not so wholly removed from approach that it can grasp no likeness of what it seeks” (MG 45, 956; R 1048, cf. 1049).

103. St. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, De incomprehensibili, hom. 1 nr. 3: “For after saying, When I was a child³, he added, ‘Now we see through a mirror, in an enigma.’ For this is shown by the example of our present weakness, and by the fact that knowledge is imperfect; thirdly, it is proved by these words: ‘In an enigma.’ For a child sees, hears, and speaks many things, yet sees, hears, and speaks nothing clearly; and indeed has understanding, but none of it fully. So I too know many things, but do not know their manner. I know that God is everywhere, and likewise that he is wholly everywhere, but I do not know how; I know that he is without beginning, unbegotten, everlasting, but I do not know how. Nor can human reason grasp how there can be a substance that received its being neither from itself nor from anyone else. I know that he begot the Son, but I do not know how; I know that the Spirit is from him, but I do not know how he is from him … nr. 5: Therefore, he knows God in part⁴; he said ‘in part’ not because he knows one thing of God’s substance and is ignorant of another—for God is simple—but because he knows that God exists, while he is ignorant of what he is in substance” (MG 48, 704; 706; R 1121; 1122).

St. CYRIL, Thesaurus de sancta et consubstantiali Trinitate, ass. 31 (MG 75, 452; R 2073; 2074).

104. These passages also show that when the Fathers deny that we know what God is, they are not professing Agnosticism, but, against the Eunomians, denying that we have a quidditative concept of God. They themselves affirm many things about God’s attributes, as will appear below.

THEOLOGIANS

105. On the substance of the doctrine in this part, everyone agrees; there is, however, some difference in the manner of speaking, insofar as the earlier disciples of St. THOMAS said that we can know of God that he is, but not what he is, whereas the disciples of SCOTUS said, on the contrary, that we can also know what he is. The former denied quidditative cognition; the latter affirmed cognition of the quiddity.

If we do not have quidditative knowledge of God, we have all the less comprehensive knowledge. God’s incomprehensibility was defined by the FOURTH LATERAN COUNCIL (Denz 428) and the VATICAN COUNCIL (Denz 1782).

II. God is known through the form of creatures.

106. Since God is not known by us naturally through a proper form, he is known through an alien form, which can only be that of creatures. As effects of God, they have some likeness to their cause; in some way they manifest the cause’s perfection, and so they can also lead to some knowledge of the cause. But since they are equivocal effects, not proportionate to the cause’s power, they manifest the cause’s perfection only imperfectly. Hence the concept of God and of the divine perfections which we form by this way do not represent God and his perfections as they are in themselves, but according to the manner in which the perfections are found in creatures that imitate God.

107. These concepts are formed by a threefold way. The way of causality or affirmation: Whatever pure and simple perfection is found in creatures must be found in God as their cause; therefore, such perfections can be affirmed of God: God is wise, powerful; God is wisdom, power. The way of negation: In creatures, however (God’s equivocal effects), perfections are not found in the manner in which they are in God; consequently, our concepts do not present them in the manner in which they are in God, and hence they can rightly be denied of God. “We deny, however, not perfection insofar as it is perfection, but that imperfection which is mixed into every concept of perfection we form. Thus, first of all, we deny of God whatever objectively contains imperfection; so we say: God is immaterial, immense, infinite. Next, we also deny simple perfections of God insofar as these perfections are limited by our manner of conceiving. Thus, we deny wisdom, life, and substance of God, not because God falls short of the nature of wisdom, but because wisdom as conceived in our manner falls short of God’s nature. For God’s wisdom is wholly identical with all the divine perfections. But we cannot form such a concept. Therefore, wisdom as conceived in our manner is not in God. Properly speaking, then, we deny nothing of God except negations, which is the most emphatic manner of affirmation” (PESCH, nr. 97).

The way of eminence, excellence, or excess: Since God is an infinite being, we further determine the perfection we attribute to God in such a way that it transcends every limit and every created manner of conceiving: God is omniscient, omnipotent.

These three ways do not stand separately nor are they adequately distinct, but each includes the others. When I affirm some perfection of God, I deny its imperfections and deny that it is in God in the manner in which I conceive it; indeed, I attribute this perfection to God in such a way that it surpasses both created perfection and created cognition. St. Thomas says: “According to the teaching of Dionysius (c. 1, myst. Theol. et cap. 2 caelest. Hierarch. et cap. 2 et 3 de div. Nom.), things are said of God in three ways. First, affirmatively, as when we say, ‘God is wise’; this must indeed be said of him because there is in him a likeness of wisdom flowing from him. Yet, because there is not in God wisdom such as we understand and name it, it can be denied, so that we say, ‘God is not wise.’ Again, since wisdom is not denied of God because he falls short of wisdom, but because it is in him in a more eminent way than it can be said or understood, we must say that God is supremely wise” (De potentia, q. 7 a. 5 ad 2).

SACRED SCRIPTURE

108. The way of affirmation is found in Rom. 1 and Sap. 13; in the latter passage, the way of eminence may perhaps also be indicated in some fashion: from beauty, the source of beauty is known.

FATHERS

109. The way of affirmation:

St. BASIL, Adv. Eunomium, l. 1 nr. 14 (supra nr. 83).

St. GREGORY OF NYSSA, Contra Eunomium, l. 12: “Since, as the Apostle says, his eternal power and divinity are perceived and seen through the creation of the world⁵, therefore every creature, and above all, as the text says, the adornment that is in the heavens, through the portion shown in created things, demonstrates the wisdom of the Creator” (MG 45, 985; R 1050).

St. AUGUSTINE, Confessiones, l. 11 c. 4 (supra nr. 70).

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS, De div. nominibus, c. 7 nr. 3: “… from the order of all things … we ascend, as far as we are able, by a path and order toward knowing that supreme good and the end of all goods, through the denial and transcendence of all things, and through the cause of all” (MG 3, 869; R 2284; supra nr. 84).

St. JOHN DAMASCENE, De fide orthodoxa, l. 1 c. 12: “Accordingly, some divine names are spoken by way of negation, declaring that he surpasses every essence: for example, when he is called beyond essence, timeless, without beginning, invisible—not because he is inferior in any respect or lacks anything (for all things are his, and from him and through him they are, and in him they subsist)⁶, but because he is exalted above all things in an eminent manner. For he is none of the things that exist, but is above all things. There are other names, however, which are expressed by way of affirmation, namely, those said of him as the cause of all things … These are the affirming and denying names. From both, moreover, a most delightful conjunction is formed, such as superessential essence, superdivine deity, a principle higher than every principle, and other similar expressions” (MG 94, 845; R 2347).

110. The way of negation:

CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, Stromata, 5, 11, 71, 3 ss.: “If, therefore, after removing everything belonging to bodies and everything called incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ and from there advance in holiness into his immensity, we shall somehow attain to an understanding of the Almighty—not, however, so as to know what he is, but what he is not. Figure and motion, position and seat, place, right and left are not even to be conceived of the Father of all, although these things are written of him; but what each of them signifies will be shown in its proper place” (MG 9, 109; R 423, cf. 424).

S. EPHRAEM, Carmina nisibena, carm. 3 (R 718).

S. GREGORIUS NYSSENUS, Contra Eunomium, 1, 12: “From the negation of what is not in him and the affirmation of what is piously understood of him (that is, God), what he is is apprehended” (MG 45, 956; R 1048).

S. AUGUSTINUS, De Trinitate, l. 5 c. 1 n. 2: “What, then, we do not find in our better nature, we ought not to seek in him who is far better than our better nature; thus, if we can, let us understand God as far as we can: good without quality, great without quantity, creator without need, presiding without position, containing all things without posture, wholly everywhere without place, everlasting without time, making mutable things without any change in himself, and suffering nothing. Whoever thinks of God in this way, even if he cannot yet discover in every respect what he is, nevertheless piously takes care, as far as he can, not to think of him as something he is not” (ML 42, 912; R 1658).

S. CYRILLUS ALEXANDRINUS, Thesaurus de s. et consubstantiali Trinitate, ass. 31 (MG 75, 452; R 2074).

PS-DIONYSIUS, S. IOANNES DAMASCENUS, in the places cited above (nr. 109); IOANNES DAMASCENUS, also De fide orthodoxa, l. 1 c. 4 (MG 94, 800; R 2340).

111. Way of eminence:

EUSEBIUS CAESAREENSIS, De ecclesiastica theologia, l. 2 c. 14: “We must necessarily acknowledge⁷ one divine reality, ineffable, good, simple, uncompounded, uniform, which is above all things, which is God himself, mind itself, the Word itself, wisdom itself, light itself, life itself, beauty itself, goodness itself, and whatever better than these anyone might conceive, and which is moreover above every mind and beyond every inquiry and thought” (MG 24, 928; R 674).

S. EPHRAEM, Adversus scrutatores, sermo 45 (R 734).

S. GREGORIUS NYSSENUS, Oratio catechetica, 1: “In the supreme nature, whatever is said of it is at once exalted in proportion to the greatness contemplated” (MG 45, 13; R 1028).

S. AMBROSIUS, De fide, ad Gratianum, l. 1 c. 16 nr. 106: God is “incomprehensible to sight, indescribable in speech, immeasurable to sense, to be followed in faith, to be venerated in religion; so that whatever can be thought with greater piety, whatever is more excellent in beauty, whatever is more exalted in power, you may understand to be fitting to God” (ML 16, 552; R 1266).

S. AUGUSTINUS, De Trinitate, l. 8 c. 3 n. 4 (ML 42, 949; R 1671).

PS-DIONYSIUS and S. IOANNES DAMASCENUS in the places cited above (nr. 109).

III. We know not merely extrinsic denominations, but truly, though imperfectly, the quiddity of God.

112. Up to this point we have considered how we arrive at our concepts of God, how we think about God, and what the nature of this knowledge is. We now ask about its value. Our answer is: although it is imperfect, it is nevertheless true knowledge.

That our knowledge of God is imperfect is clear from the first and second parts. But this imperfection is not such that nothing is known that truly and intrinsically belongs to God himself. Thus, although our knowledge proceeds also by way of negation, it is not merely negative—that is, we know of God not only that he is not a stone or something similar. Nor are our concepts merely relative, so that nothing absolute can be predicated of God himself (for example, only that God is the cause of life, while we do not know whether the perfection of living belongs to him absolutely). In general, we know not merely extrinsic denominations, which say nothing absolute that intrinsically belongs to God himself; rather, we truly know also God's absolute attributes, which belong to God positively and formally. In this sense we truly know the quiddity of God—that is, not only what God is not, but also what God truly is. We do not, however, know God's quiddity quidditatively. For quidditative knowledge of an object is that by which a thing is known as it is in itself, according to its own proper mode; therefore it can be had only of objects that can be known immediately, that are known through their own proper form, or of which one has a proper per se concept. It is already clear from the first part of the thesis that our natural knowledge of God is not of this kind.

CHURCH DOCUMENTS

113. THESIS 1a SUBSCRIBED BY BAUTAIN: “Reasoning can prove with certainty ... the infinity of his (God's) perfections” (Denz 1622).

Pius IX, letter Gravissimas inter: “It is the task of philosophy ... to demonstrate, vindicate, and defend the existence, nature, and attributes of God ... by arguments drawn from its own principles” (Denz 1670).

THE VATICAN COUNCIL established the possibility of natural knowledge that gives rise to the obligation to worship God and to tend toward God; therefore God can be known as personal, as principle and end, as Lord.

LEO XIII, encyclical Aeterni Patris: Reason “shows God to be singularly preeminent in the sum of all perfections, above all in infinite wisdom, from which nothing anywhere is hidden, and in supreme justice, which no perverse desire can ever overcome; and hence it shows that God is not only truthful, but truth itself, incapable of being deceived or deceiving.”

PIUS X, encyclical Iucunda sane: “That invincible force of argumentation is rejected by which the cause is inferred from its effects, that is, God and his attributes, bounded by no limits.” Encyclical Pascendi on the “Symbolism” of the Modernists (supra nr. 96). PIUS XII (nr. 41).

SACRED SCRIPTURE

114. 1) It speaks of the natural knowledge of God, from which follows the obligation of religious worship of God: a personal God.

2. Wis 13: the beauty of God; the power of God; Rom 1: eternal power; divinity.

FATHERS

115. ORIGEN, De principiis, l. 1 c. 3 nr. 1: “Although no one can speak worthily about God the Father, nevertheless some understanding can be gained through consideration of visible creatures and from what the human mind naturally perceives” (MG 11, 147; R 455); cf. Contra Celsum, l. 6 c. 62 (MG 11, 1393; R 532).

S. ATHANASIUS, Epistula de synodis, nr. 35 (MG 26, 753; R 786).

S. BASILIUS, Adversus Eunomium, l. 1 nr. 10: “There is indeed no name that can express the whole nature of God by encompassing it; but many and varied names, each with its own particular signification, together provide us with an understanding that is altogether obscure and very slight when compared with the whole, yet sufficient for us. Thus, among the names said of God, some signify what is in God, while others, conversely, indicate what is not in him. From these two—the denial of what is absent and the confession of what is present—a kind of imprint of God is formed in us” (MG 29, 533; R 930).

S. GREGORIUS NYSSENUS, Contra Eunomium, l. 12 (MG 45, 953 ss.; R 1047-1049). S. IOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS, De Incomprehensibili, hom. 1, nr. 5 (MG 48, 706; R 1122). S. CYRILLUS ALEXANDRINUS, In Ps 11, 3 (MG 69, 792; R 2049). Texts from the second and first parts may also be compared.

116. This part of the thesis seems to be a matter of faith; as regards God's relative attributes, it is explicitly defined at the Vatican Council, and is also explicitly found in sacred Scripture and Tradition; as regards the absolute attributes, it is explicitly found in sacred Scripture and Tradition and seems to be defined at the Vatican Council, at least it is contained in that Council’s definition.

117. From what has been said, we know God through concepts drawn from creatures, which present perfections as they are found in creatures, not as they are in God. Our concepts of God and his perfections are inadequate: they are neither univocal nor merely equivocal (which would be Agnosticism), but analogical (cf. S. TH. 1 q. 13 a. 5; De pot. q. 7 a. 7). If perfections were attributed to God in the same way as they are found in creatures and conceived by us, our knowledge would be false. This is avoided by the threefold way described in the second part, by which our judgments about God are brought into agreement with the objective order, that is, are made true. “Now, the perfections that we conceive through inadequate and analogical ideas truly belong to God, although they are in him in a more perfect mode than we conceive or can conceive. Therefore, when we affirm that these perfections are in God, while at the same time denying that they belong to him in the imperfect mode in which we perceive them, and understanding that they are in God in a far more eminent way, although we do not distinctly grasp how they are in God—that is, while we know that they are, but do not know what they are through proper notions according to their infinite account—our judgment certainly corresponds to its object, even though the ideas we combine in it do not present the object as it is in itself. Thus knowledge is true, but imperfect” (FRANZELIN, De Deo uno, p. 168).

This imperfection of our knowledge is also the reason why we must think of the supremely simple divine being through different concepts. These concepts (of divine omnipotence, uncreated wisdom, infinite mercy, etc.), although they imperfectly present the same supremely simple object, are not identical, nor are the names said of God synonyms. For different concepts present the object through different, deficient likenesses of the divine essence, reflected in creatures as in a mirror (S. TH. 1 q. 13 a. 4; De pot. q. 7 a. 6).

Names signify God “according to the way our intellect knows him. Now, since our intellect knows God from creatures, it knows him in the way creatures represent him. But it was shown above that God possesses beforehand in himself all the perfections of creatures, as one who is simply and universally perfect. Hence each creature represents him and is like him insofar as it has some perfection—not, however, as representing him as something of the same species or genus, but as an eminent principle whose effects fall short of its form, though the effects attain some likeness to it ... Thus the foregoing names signify the divine substance, though imperfectly, just as creatures also represent it imperfectly. Therefore, when it is said that God is good, the meaning is not that God is the cause of goodness, or that God is not evil; rather, the meaning is: what we call goodness in creatures preexists in God, and does so in a higher mode” (S. Th. 1 q. 13 a. 2 c.). Our intellect, “since it knows God from creatures, forms, in order to understand God, concepts proportionate to the perfections proceeding from God into creatures. These perfections preexist in God in a unified and simple way, while in creatures they are received in a divided and manifold way. Thus, just as the diverse perfections of creatures correspond to one simple principle represented variously and manifoldly through the diverse perfections of creatures, so our intellect's various and manifold concepts correspond to one altogether simple reality, imperfectly understood according to such concepts” (S. Th. 1 q. 13 a. 4). It follows that our predication of God must conform to the formal aspect under which we represent the simple divine being by different concepts. Although the divine intellect and divine will are one and the same supremely simple divine perfection, it would nevertheless be false to say: God knows by his will, God loves by his intellect; rather, God knows by his intellect and loves by his will.

118. Our concepts of God are analogical; much is debated in philosophy about this analogy. Our representation falls short of divine reality in that our concepts present perfections according to the mode of creatures, which is essentially potential, whereas divine reality contains them according to the mode of pure act, with every potentiality excluded. We do indeed know that perfections are in God according to the mode of pure act, but we know this very thing not according to the mode of pure act, but of a potential being. From the fact that perfections are verified in God in a different way than they are conceived by us, it follows that we cannot affirm a priori that it is impossible for perfections to be affirmed of God at the same time which, if they were found according to the mode of creatures, could not coexist in the same subject and therefore also seem to us to exclude one another in an infinite being. For this reason, then—that is, because we do not understand how these can be true of God at the same time—such a fact, if it seems otherwise well established, is not yet to be denied, but we must inquire why they seem to us incapable of coexisting in the same subject. If the reason lies precisely in potentiality, which every created perfection implies, it is clear that this reason does not hold in an infinite being and therefore there is no reason to deny these perfections of God. At the same time, however, we understand that our concepts cannot tell us how they can coexist; in this sense, then, there is a difficulty here, which is not objectively in the thing itself, but arises precisely from our mode of conceiving⁸. This “difficulty,” however, is perfectly resolved if it is shown to arise precisely from the nature of our knowledge of God (for example, freedom and immutability). In this sense, therefore, it follows from the very nature of our knowledge that it cannot be proved impossible for mysteries to be found in God.

Objections

119. 1. The Fathers deny that we can know what God is; therefore we do not know his quiddity.

I answer: they deny quidditative and comprehensive knowledge of God, which their opponents asserted, I grant; they deny imperfect knowledge of the quiddity, I deny (cfr. nr. 104).

2. The Fathers teach that “our knowledge is more perfect when we have come to know that God cannot be understood.”

I answer: “This is not said as though complete ignorance were a more perfect knowledge—for what could be imagined more absurd? Rather, the more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we understand the reason why in this life he can neither be comprehended nor understood as he is in himself. That reason is, of course, God's own infinite perfection in comparison with our finite and imperfect mode of knowing. Accordingly, in the reverse order as well, the more fully and deeply we understand this reason for our relative ignorance, the more truly and deeply we understand God's perfection” (FRANZELIN, p. 160 s.).

S. THOMAS sets out very many objections of the agnostics, De potentia, q. 7.