De Deo uno

200. After considering what revelation teaches about the possibility of knowledge of God, we now ask what it says in fact about this knowledge: that is, whether all human beings know the true God, or whether there are people who know absolutely nothing about the true God.

From the sixteenth century, some Catholic theologians proposed the view that the possibility of ignorance of God, even for a longer time, might have to be admitted in some people (peoples) who were wholly uncultivated, uneducated, and dull; for they thought that, in fact, such irreligious people were to be found in regions discovered at that time. GRANADO cites MOLINA, ZUMEL, TRIGOSUS, and MEDINA in favor of this view (Controv. 1 gener., disp. 1 sect. 3), though he himself does not follow it.

201. MOLINA (on 1 q. 2 a. 1): “From what has been said (namely, that God’s existence is not self-evident), it may be inferred that some people can be so uncultivated and uneducated that we may affirm with the greatest probability that invincible ignorance of God can be found among them, as we observed in the first and second discussions, when we treated of ignorance. They will, moreover, be excused by that ignorance from the sin of unbelief, and the fact that they do not worship God or render him the honor due will not be imputed to them as a fault. Yet, considering human nature—whose members are indeed placed in the hand of their own counsel—and the order of things established by God, God has provided sufficiently and abundantly for human beings with respect to the knowledge they ought to have of the divine nature. For he not only gave them natural light and intellectual acuity, by which those of greater prudence could arrive at knowledge of the true God through the things that have been made and communicate it to others; he also, from the beginning, endowed the first parent with supernatural knowledge and faith, so that knowledge of the true God and of the other things necessary for salvation might pass down to his descendants; and then, at intervals throughout time, by the extraordinary light of divine things, through both the Incarnate Word and other preachers, he abundantly enlightened the whole world.”

ARRIAGA (De Deo, disp. 2 sect. 3): “Very often we find many people who, though simply capable of reason, are nevertheless so dull-witted that even when someone tries to persuade them of easier matters, explaining them with the simplest examples, they either do not understand or understand with the greatest difficulty. On what basis, then, can we say that these people and others like them will, even without any teacher, begin and carry on by themselves a reasoning process and argument so metaphysical as to prove God’s existence? I myself scarcely doubt that many may be found in whom no shadow of such reasoning is aroused. They could therefore have invincible ignorance; but a person of average intelligence, once the idea of God has been aroused in him, cannot be invincibly ignorant of God.”

202. According to CLAUDIUS SEYSELL (De providentia divina, Paris 1520, part 2, article 3), very many adult Gentiles are indeed excluded from supernatural beatitude, but after death descend to limbo, like unbaptized infants. One or another theologian defended this doctrine of “limbo for adults,” although it was commonly opposed.¹

BILLOT² distinguishes two classes of people who are adults in body and mind. One class comprises those who are mentally adult with respect to earthly, everyday matters, but not with respect to higher, religious, and moral matters; the other comprises those who are simply adult in mind. The former cannot attain knowledge of God by reason alone, but need instruction about God, which is an indispensable condition. If, therefore, they are not taught, they remain without personal fault in invincible ignorance of God. The others, however, can know God by the light of reason alone and are obliged to communicate this knowledge to others; if they fail in this obligation, others remain ignorant of God through their sin. Those who are adults in other respects but infants in religious matters cannot sin; if they die without baptism, they die with original sin alone.

203. In this thesis we deny that there are adults who, for a long time, remain in complete invincible ignorance of God without personal fault. Atheism is non-knowledge of the true God. It is divided into practical atheism, which denies God in practice and is present when someone lives as if there were no God, and theoretical atheism. The latter is further divided into positive theoretical atheism, when someone positively asserts a doctrine or philosophical system that denies God’s existence, and negative theoretical atheism, which consists in not knowing God, in mere ignorance of God; it is present when someone invincibly, without personal fault, knows or has known nothing about God. The thesis concerns negative theoretical atheism.

Adult means someone who has truly attained the use of reason. The thesis does not determine how or when a person attains the use of reason; this varies with aptitude and with external circumstances such as place, education, and so on. We do not, however, admit a distinction between adults simply speaking and adults in secular matters but not in religious and moral matters, since knowledge of God, as will become clear from the thesis, is not difficult. A different question is whether, in special cases, a person’s natural development in religious and moral matters (whether because of a defective disposition in the subject or because of the corrupting influence of others) can be so impeded that such a person does not attain knowledge of God, although in other matters he appears entirely adult. This does not seem absolutely impossible, but neither should it be readily assumed. Such a person would belong to those few “in whom nature is excessively corrupted,” as St. Augustine says (below, no. 221). We do not say that this knowledge is present as soon as a person attains the use of reason, much less that it is his first intellectual knowledge; rather, this knowledge too will be present a relatively short time after he attains the use of reason.

Knowledge of God is not understood as scientific knowledge, but as ordinary, “primitive” knowledge, sufficient for a person to be able and obliged to begin a religious life (cf. above, no. 43). He must know God as superior to himself, as Lord, whose precepts (the natural moral law) he must follow, and who is the vindicator of this law. Knowledge of this absolutely binding moral law makes the presence of knowledge of its lawgiver, God, clearly manifest.

Nothing is directly asserted about the way in which people in fact attain knowledge of God: whether by their own reason alone, or through instruction, tradition, or revelation. Without doubt, this knowledge is first handed on to most people. Whether there are people who have reached their first knowledge of God by reason alone is difficult to know. But even if knowledge of God is not communicated to an adult by others, primitive knowledge of God through God’s natural manifestation in creatures is so easy, accessible, spontaneous, and universal that, in fact, there is no adult who is ignorant of God.

The thesis does not speak only of possibility or of purely natural powers, but of human beings as they exist in the present supernatural order after original sin, that is, in the state of fallen and redeemed nature; nor does it exclude the help of graces.

TEACHING OF THE CHURCH

204. The Church teaches God’s earnest universal salvific will (cf. Conc. Trid. s. 6 c. 2 et 3; Denz 794, 795; Err. Ians. 5; Denz 1096; Alex. VIII prop. damn. 4 et 5; Denz 1294, 1295). Moreover, actual faith is required for the salvation of adults (Conc. Trid. s. 6 c. 8; Denz 801), and knowledge of God is necessarily presupposed for this faith (Conc. Vatic. s. 3 c. 3 et 4; Denz 1790, 1799). It seems scarcely possible to reconcile this doctrine with the existence of people who are truly adults yet, without personal fault, remain in invincible ignorance of God.

Alexander VIII condemned the proposition: “Philosophical or moral sin is a human act at variance with rational nature and right reason; theological and mortal sin, however, is a free transgression of divine law. Philosophical sin, however grave, in someone who either is ignorant of God or is not actually thinking about God, is a grave sin, but is not an offense against God, nor a mortal sin dissolving friendship with God, nor deserving of eternal punishment” (Denz 1290). This proposition was condemned as erroneous, as VIVA explains: “It is erroneous because it does not directly contradict revealed doctrine, but does so indirectly; for it is opposed only to a theological conclusion drawn from one premise of faith and another known by natural reason. For it is of faith that whoever offends God is liable to divine hatred and hell; while it is most clearly known by natural reason, as we shall explain shortly, that one offends God, at least as supreme lawgiver, when one recognizes that the action one performs is at variance with rational nature and right reason and therefore forbidden by the supreme lawgiver, since reason’s judgment is, as it were, the herald of divine prohibition—even if God is then unknown under the concept of the supremely good being who exists of himself, or of the first cause, or one is not then actually thinking of him under that explicit concept. Or at least it is known by the light of nature that God exists and forbids what is contrary to right reason, so that, under the present providence, it cannot morally happen that there is invincible ignorance of God, or unawareness of him, while one sins.”³ If this is the sense of the condemnation, it seems to imply that whoever (under the present order of providence) knows the binding moral law in fact has some knowledge of God.

205. The decision in the Louvain question (above, no. 14). When the question arose whether the condemnations issued on 11 October 1864 and 2 March 1866 had also condemned the doctrine set forth by the professors on 1 February 1860, Cardinal PATRIZI replied on 30 August 1866: “These doubts are not such as to require a new interpretation and declaration of a matter already decided; the replies of the Sacred Congregations themselves are more than sufficient to resolve them completely … Everything, indeed, pertaining to the question debated at Louvain, and hence also the exposition of doctrine subscribed to by the four professors of Louvain on 1 February 1860, was brought under examination and kept in view when the question was decided by the aforementioned replies.” And when the bishops sent their response to the University, they said in their letter (17 December 1866): “Further, it is clear from other letters of the same Eminent Cardinal that the aforesaid exposition of doctrine of 1 February 1860 is included in the resolution issued by both the Congregation of the Holy Office and the Congregation of the Index on 2 March of this year. These decisions are so clear and explicit that the case must be regarded as definitively settled.” According to the doctrine condemned here, instruction—external intellectual assistance—is required for a person to attain such a development of reason that he can read the natural law inscribed in hearts and know God with certain and clear knowledge (above, no. 14). It therefore seems possible to conclude from the condemnation that knowledge of God and of the moral law is not so difficult as to require that special development of reason.

PIUS IX, in the encyclical “Quanto conficiamur maerore” of 1863 (on indifferentism), says that “the natural law and its precepts are inscribed by God in the hearts of all” (Denz 1677). (In the Roman Catechism, on observance of the Decalogue, no. 3: “For there is no one who does not feel that a law implanted by God in his mind enables him to distinguish good from evil, the honorable from the shameful, and the just from the unjust.”)

The Vatican Council dealt only with the faculty, not its exercise, and therefore altered the wording of the canon so that it could no longer be understood as referring to exercise (above, no. 27).

SACRED SCRIPTURE

206. 1) In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul shows the universal culpability of human beings, who have deserved God’s just wrath. God had also manifested himself to the Gentiles in creation in such a way that they are without excuse if they do not worship the true God.

Nor can it be said that he is speaking only of philosophers. For the corruption of morals he describes and the sins he enumerates were not peculiar to philosophers, nor were they committed chiefly by the educated and wise; rather, they were universal, reaching down to the lowest common people. This corruption, moreover, was punishment for their failure to worship the true God: this is explicit in v. 24, 26, 28. Nor is the passage in v. 21, 22 about philosophers alone (if by those “wise men” philosophers are meant at all), for they are the same people as those in verse 23; and it cannot be said that it was precisely philosophers who worshiped birds, four-footed animals, and serpents as gods.

But St. Paul describes only the historical event of the human race’s defection from God, the original beginning of idolatry; for he uses the aorist (v. 21, 22), which refers to a single historical event.

I answer. In vv. 18–20 he uses the present tense, and guilt is asserted not of the past alone but also of the present time, and universally. The corruption of morals is a punishment and presupposes guilt. Moreover, it cannot be admitted that the aorist has this as its sole and exclusive meaning; rather, it signifies an action completed and brought to an end in itself (cf. v. 24 ss., where he undoubtedly speaks of things that were still happening at that time; cf. v. 32).

207. Then in chapter 2 he shows how the Gentiles too, who do not have God’s positive law, nevertheless have the law inscribed in their hearts, distinguish between good and evil, and will be judged according to this law at the judgment of God. They must therefore answer before God for their actions; but before God a person who is invincibly ignorant of God through no fault of his own cannot incur guilt. Thus St. Paul emphasizes the universality of guilt, both among Jews and among Gentiles, 3, 9 ss. 23.

208. Objection. In chapter 2 St. Paul is not speaking of Gentiles who do not have the grace of faith, but of Gentile Christians; this is how the text is explained in the tradition.

I answer. The Greeks (Cornely cites Origen, St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret of Cyrus, St. John Damascene, Theophylact, Oecumenius, and Euthymius), most of the Latins (he likewise cites Tertullian, St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, and St. Jerome; and among later interpreters Hervaeus of Bourges, St. Thomas, Nicholas of Lyra, etc., Salmerón, Toledo, and Bernardino a Piconio), and almost all recent exegetes understand the text to refer to Gentiles who have not converted to the faith. Although St. Augustine does not seem to deny that this interpretation is probable, he absolutely prefers the opposing interpretation, of Gentile Christians.⁴ According to Cornely, St. Prosper and St. Fulgentius follow Augustine; then some Latins (Peter Lombard, St. Thomas, and others) present both views without making clear which they prefer; later writers (Estius, Natalis Alexander, and others) regard the view concerning Gentile Christians as much more probable; finally, Baius rejected the former view as Pelagian and said only the latter should be held.

209. But St. Augustine’s interpretation has no basis in St. Paul’s text. For “by nature” (v. 14) does not mean, as the Pelagians wished, that they perform good works and virtues “by natural powers alone, without the help of grace.” Rather, “nature” (φύσει) is said in contrast to “positive law,” and the sense is “with nature as teacher and guide” (St. THOMAS: “by nature, that is, through the law of nature, which shows them what must be done”; cited in CORNELY, p. 136). For St. Paul is not speaking of the principles of actions, but of their norm and of how that norm is known. Indeed, this interpretation cannot even be properly reconciled with the context. “Against the opinion of St. AUGUSTINE we first point out that throughout this earlier part of the letter the Apostle is not speaking of Gentile Christians as opposed to Jewish Christians. His whole concern is to show that the Jews, although they have the written Law, are under sin no less than the Gentiles, who lack the written Law. The flow of the argument therefore prevents us from interpreting the word Gentiles as meaning Gentile Christians. Further, these Gentiles are said not to have the supernaturally revealed law; this cannot in any way be said of Gentile Christians, since they, no less than Jewish Christians, are under the law of Christ (1 Cor 9, 21). Moreover, elsewhere Paul contrasts nature with grace and teaches that nature is corrupted, when he says that by nature we are children of divine wrath (Eph 2, 3). With what justification, then, is it claimed that here he used the same word, without any qualification or caution, to mean grace—or rather, nature restored and elevated by grace? Why, furthermore, is he supposed to have said emphatically that Gentile Christians who did not have the Law do by a nature restored through grace the things of the Law, as though Jewish Christians, because they had the Law, did not do the things of the Law by a nature restored through grace? Finally, if one may rightly conclude that Gentile Christians, because they do the things of the Law through grace, are a law to themselves, one may likewise rightly conclude that Jewish Christians, because they fulfill the Law through grace, are a rule of conduct to themselves; and it is in no way clear what this whole statement is meant to convey here. Therefore, although the doctrine St. Augustine sets forth in the cited passages is true in itself, we cannot admit that it is taught or suggested by the Pauline words he seeks to explain” (CORNELY, p. 141 f.).

Therefore, in answer to the objection above, we should say: 1) the prevailing tradition does not support the interpretation concerning Gentile Christians; the reason St. AUGUSTINE preferred it is understood from the circumstances of his time; 2) considered in light of St. Paul’s own text, that interpretation appears impossible.

The view of BAIUS, that interpreting the passage as referring to Gentiles who have not converted to the faith is Pelagian, was condemned (Denz 1022; cf. 1025; 1035).⁵

210. 2) In Sacred Scripture, knowledge of the true God is never presented as a very difficult matter, but as easier than other kinds of knowledge. Thus Sap 13, 9 speaks of the “wise,” and from v. 10 onward of others who act with the utmost folly.

211. 3) In Sacred Scripture, ignorance of God is never excused. On the contrary, idolatry, worship offered to one who is not the true God, is always presented as a sin, and “idolatrous peoples are not regarded as innocent children, but always as the worst of men, liable to the gravest punishments” (Pesch, no. 24). Cf. Ps 113, 4-8; Sap 12, 4, 23 ss.; 1 Petri 4, 3 s.

THE FATHERS

212. ST. JUSTIN, Apologia II, no. 6, calls the name of God “a conception of an ineffable reality implanted in human nature” (MG 6, 453; R 130).

THEOPHILUS, Ad Autolycum, book 1, nos. 6 and 7 (cf. above, no. 67), shows how God is known from his works: God “whose spirit gives life to all things; if he were to withhold it, this universe would perish. By his spirit, O man, you speak; you breathe his spirit, and yet you do not know him. This happens to you because your mind is blinded and your heart hardened. But if you will, you can be healed: give yourself to the physician, and he will pierce the eyes of your mind and heart …” (MG 6, 1034 f.).

ST. IRENAEUS, Adversus haereses, book 1, 2, no. 6: “all things know this very thing” (above, no. 53).

213. MINUCIUS FELIX, Octavius, chapter 17: “For what could be so manifest, so acknowledged, and so clear as this: when you lift your eyes to heaven and look around at what lies below and all about you, that there is some divine power of supreme intelligence, by which all nature is inspired, moved, nourished, and governed?” He develops this further; see chapter 18 above, no. 68. Then he concludes: “What of this: do I not have everyone’s agreement on this point? I hear the common people, when they raise their hands to heaven, say nothing but ‘God,’ ‘God is great,’ ‘God is true,’ and ‘if God grants it.’ Is this the natural language of the common people, or the prayer of a Christian making confession?” (ML 3, 285 ff.).

214. TERTULLIAN, Apologeticus, no. 17: “This is the whole substance of the offense of those unwilling to acknowledge the one they cannot be ignorant of. Do you wish us to prove it from his works, so many and so great, by which we are sustained, supported, delighted, and even terrified? Do you wish us to prove it also from the testimony of the soul itself? Although pressed by the prison of the body, hemmed in by corrupt teachings, enervated by lusts and desires, and enslaved to false gods, yet when the soul comes to its senses—as after drunkenness, sleep, or some illness—and recovers its health, it names God, with this name alone, because he is properly the one true God: ‘God is great, God is good,’ and ‘What God grants’ is on everyone’s lips. It also calls him to witness: ‘God sees,’ ‘I commend this to God,’ and ‘God will repay me.’ O testimony of a soul naturally Christian! Finally, when it utters these words, it looks not to the Capitol but to heaven, for it knows the seat of the living God; it descended from him and from there” (ML 1, 375; R 275). De spectaculis, no. 2: “No one denies it, because no one is unaware of what nature spontaneously suggests: that God is the creator of the universe” (ML 1, 631; R 287). Adversus Marcionem, book 1, no. 10 (above, no. 53); De testimonio animae, 5 (above, no. 85).

215. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, Stromata 5, 13, 87, 1: “The manifestation of the one almighty God was entirely natural among all who think rightly, and many received the everlasting benefit of divine providence, those who had not wholly cast off shame before the truth” (MG 9, 128; R 425); 5, 14, 133, 7 f.: “All people everywhere perceive the Father and maker of all things by a certain inborn power and without the proof of instruction … No people anywhere—whether farmers, shepherds, or city dwellers—can live without having first been possessed by faith in a higher being” (MG 9, 196; R 425).

ORIGEN, Contra Celsum, book 1, chapter 4: “Those who bring God’s just judgment upon themselves would avoid the punishment due to their sins if all people did not have a sound understanding of moral matters according to common conceptions. It is therefore no wonder that God himself implanted in the minds of all people the things he taught through the prophets and the Savior, so that every person will be without excuse at the divine judgment, having the sense of the law written in his heart.”⁶ (MG 11, 661; R 512).

216. ARNOBIUS, Adversus Nationes, book 1, chapter 33: “Is there any human being who did not enter the day of his first birth with some awareness of this first principle? Who has not had it innate, fixed within him—or rather, almost imprinted and implanted in him while still in his mother’s womb—that there is a king and Lord, governor of all things that exist? If mute animals themselves could speak, if they could express themselves in our languages—or even if trees, clods, and stones, endowed with the sense of life, could utter sounds and form articulate words—would they not, with nature as guide and teacher and the faith of uncorrupted simplicity, understand that there is a God and proclaim him alone Lord of all?” (ML 5, 757).

LACTANTIUS, De divinis institutionibus, book 1, chapter 2, no. 5 (above, no. 68).

EUSEBIUS, Praeparatio evangelica, book 1, 2, chapter 6: “By nature and by thoughts taught by themselves, and even more by God, all people presupposed that something beautiful and useful exists, which the name and substance of God indicate; for all people, by common reasoning, have anticipated this, since the Creator of all things implanted it by natural thoughts in every rational and intelligent soul. Yet they did not make use of this presupposition, which is according to nature” (MG 21, 140; R 662).

217. ST. ATHANASIUS, Oratio contra gentes: he shows at length how God is to be known from created things and from the order of the universe, just as a ruler governing a well-ordered city is known though unseen. For order is the sign of a leader and governor. “Likewise, when we observe the harmony among the members of the body—how the eye does not oppose the ear, nor the hand disagree with the foot, but each member performs its own office without conflict—we necessarily conclude that there is a soul in the body governing them, although we do not see it. In the same way, from the order and harmony of the universe we must conceive of God as its governor, and as one, not many” (no. 38; MG 25, 75). “Since these things are so, and nothing exists outside him, but heaven and earth and all that they contain depend on him, foolish people nevertheless rejected knowledge and worship of him, preferring things that did not exist to things that did exist; and instead of the truly existing God, they made gods of things that were in no way real: they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator⁷, which was certainly most foolish and impious. It is just as if someone considered a work worthy of admiration, but not its maker, and, admiring the buildings of some city, despised the architect; or as if someone thought a musical instrument worthy of praise, yet scorned its maker. They are truly insane and utterly blind!” (no. 47; MG 25, 94 f.)

218. ST. HILARY, In Ps. 52, no. 2: “⁸ The fool says in his heart, There is no God; for if he wished to say this aloud, he would be shown by the judgment of public consensus to be as foolish as he is. For who, when he looks upon the world, does not perceive that God exists? Yet it often happens that, although the necessity of truth compels us to confess God, the pleasure of our vices persuades us that there is no God for us, and that what we believe contrary to the faith we nevertheless say at the prompting of an impious heart” (ML 9, 325; R 888).

ST. BASIL, In Hexaemeron, homily 9, no. 3, on the words Let the earth bring forth living creatures⁹, describes purpose and instinct in animals; then he says: “What speech could encompass these things? What hearing could take them in? What length of time would suffice to recount and describe all the wonders of the Creator? Let us too say with the prophet: How magnificent are your works, O Lord! You have made them all in wisdom¹⁰. Thus we cannot excuse ourselves for not having been taught in writing those things that are useful, since we may choose what is useful to us by the law of nature, without instruction. Do you know what good you ought to do for your neighbor? What you would want another to do for you. Do you know what evil is? What you yourself would not wish to suffer at another’s hands” (ML 29, 195).

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN, Orat. 2 theol., above, no. 55.

219. ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, Ad populum Antiochenum, homily 9, among other things asks why Sacred Scripture did not exist from the beginning. “What then, someone will say, are the Scriptures not useful? They are indeed most useful and quite necessary. And if they are useful, he says, why were they not given to us from the beginning? Because God wished to teach human nature not through letters, but through things. What does ‘through things’ mean? Through creation itself. For when the Apostle encountered this idea and addressed the Gentiles who said, ‘We did not learn knowledge of God from the Scriptures at the beginning,’ see how he answered (he cites and explains Rom 1, 18 ss.) … If he had taught through books and letters, the literate person would have learned from the writings, but the illiterate would have gone away without any help, unless someone else instructed him; the rich man would have bought a book, but the poor man could not have bought one. Again, one who knew what the written word signified would understand what was set down, but the Scythian, the barbarian, the Indian, the Egyptian, and all who lacked that language would have gone away without being taught. But this cannot be said of the heavens: the Scythian, the barbarian, the Indian, the Egyptian, and every person who walks upon the earth will hear this voice. For it enters our minds not through the ears but through our eyes. All share equally in visible things, without the differences found among languages. The uneducated and the wise, the poor and the rich, can alike look into this book; wherever one may go, by looking up at heaven one will receive sufficient instruction from the sight. The Prophet himself hinted at and showed this, that creation sends forth a voice intelligible to barbarians and Greeks and to all people everywhere, when he said: There are no speeches or languages whose voices are not heard¹¹. His meaning is this: there is no nation or language that cannot understand this voice; rather, its voice is such that all people can hear it” (MG 49, 105). In epistulam ad Romanos, homily 3, no. 2, above, no. 56.

220. ST. JEROME, Epistula ad Algasiam, chapter 8: “Beyond all this, the same Apostle teaches that the natural law is written in our hearts. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things prescribed by the Law, they, though they do not have the Law, are a law to themselves, showing that the work of the Law is written in their hearts, while their conscience bears witness to them¹². This law, which is written in the heart, embraces all nations, and there is no one who does not know this law. Hence the whole world is under sin, and all people are transgressors of the law; therefore God’s judgment is just, since he writes in the heart of the human race: Do not do to another what you would not wish done to yourself” (ML 22, 1024 s.)¹³. In Ps. 95, 18: “Both we and the whole human race naturally understand God. For there are no nations that do not naturally understand their Creator. Although they may worship stones and wood, they nevertheless understand that something greater than themselves exists, and in their error they suppose that they possess wisdom; that is, there is no nation that does not naturally understand God” (R 1393). In epistulam ad Galatas, book 1, chapter 1, 15: “It is not the same to say that he might reveal his Son in me as to say that he might reveal his Son to me. For to someone to whom something is revealed, something may be revealed that was not previously in him. But in someone in whom something is revealed, that is revealed which had previously been in him and was later disclosed. A similar saying occurs in the Gospel: There stands among you one whom you do not know¹⁴. And elsewhere: He was the true light, which enlightens every person coming into the world¹⁵. From this it is clear that knowledge of God is present by nature in all people, and no one is born without Christ, or without having within himself the seeds of wisdom, justice, and the other virtues” (ML 26, 326).

221. ST. AUGUSTINE, In Ioannem, tractate 106, no. 4: “The name by which God is called the God of all creation could not have been wholly unknown even to all nations before they believed in Christ. For such is the power of true divinity that it cannot be entirely and completely hidden from a rational creature that has already begun to use reason. For, except for a few in whom nature is excessively corrupted, the whole human race acknowledges God as the maker of this world. In this, then, that he made this world visible in heaven and earth, God was known to all nations even before they were instructed in the faith of Christ” (ML 35, 1910; R 1841). De vera religione 69 (ML 34, 153): denial of religion is always due to fault. Sermo 69, 3: “Few are found to be so impious that what is written is fulfilled in them: The fool says in his heart: There is no God. This madness belongs to a few. For just as great piety belongs to a few, so too great impiety, likewise, belongs to a few” (ML 38, 441). In Ps. 73, no. 25, above, no. 70.

222. ST. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, In Genesim, book 1, no. 2: “Although among those who serve idols the faculty of discerning who is the maker of the universe is corrupted and does not seem to be true, nevertheless an innate and necessary law moves them, and spontaneous knowledge prompts them to conceive of something more excellent and incomparably better than ourselves, namely, God” (MG 69, 36; R 2093). Contra Iulianum, book 2: “We shall even find that Julian himself, the accuser of our religion, confesses this very point when he asserts that knowledge of God is something not taught, but learned by people of themselves. He uses these words: ‘Let this be our first argument, that knowledge of God cannot be taught, but is given to people by nature: the desire for the divine is common to all people, privately and publicly, individually and among nations. For we all believe in some divine power, though no one has taught us; to speak precisely about it is not merely difficult for anyone, but entirely impossible even for those who have been instructed in knowledge of it …’ (After citing another text of Julian, he continues:) ‘You see, then, that after casting aside the crude, circular, and, so to speak, sordid error, and abandoning the opinion of common people, they were not altogether without any knowledge of God; rather, they grasped how great and surpassing his power is, since by laws of order he subjected so vast and marvelous a mass of the world. The others of whom we speak, however, did not recognize God from created things; they were held in such stupor and had lost all human sensibility to such a degree that they not only gave divine honors to heaven, earth, the moon, and the other stars, but also placed various images in temples and sculpted figures not only of human beings in them, but also of brute animals, birds, and reptiles, calling them gods and saviors’” (MG 76, 579 f.).

223. THEOPHYLACT, In Rom. 1, above, no. 58.

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT, Moralia 11, chapter 4: “Who does not know that the hand of the Lord has made all these things?¹⁶ As if he said plainly: whether you look for those slow of understanding or those wise in sublime matters, those devoted to earthly activities or those occupied with the inquiries of this world, all alike confess the Creator of all things and agree in living under his power” (ML 75, 956); book 27, chapter 5, above, no. 84.

ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, De fide orthodoxa, book 1, chapter 1: “God did not leave us in utter ignorance. For there is no one in whom he has not naturally implanted the knowledge that God exists. Indeed, created things themselves, their preservation, and their governance proclaim the majesty of the divine nature” (MG 94, 789; R 2338).

224. The Fathers’ teaching therefore contains the following:

1. Some knowledge of God is natural to human beings, implanted in their nature and possessed along with that nature; it therefore belongs to all who have this nature, and there is no one who does not have it. This knowledge is acquired by innate and connatural powers, and does not depend on any circumstance imposed by the free choice of other people.

2. This knowledge is spontaneous, easy, and accessible; it requires no inquiry and is had without a teacher.

3. Atheism and polytheism are culpable errors.

4. The moral law, binding in conscience is inscribed in the hearts of all people; this law can be known easily and is in fact known by all.

Nothing else is asserted here than that all adult human beings have (or have had) some knowledge of God; that there is no inculpable invincible ignorance; and that there are no adult negative atheists.

225. Objection. The Fathers certainly do not speak of infants, but of adults who have the use of reason. Yet perhaps their statements can be understood of adults in moral and religious matters. Hence, notwithstanding the Fathers’ teaching, one could admit that there are people who are mentally adult and have the use of reason in earthly, common, ordinary matters pertaining to individual and social life, but are not adult in religious matters, so that in religious and moral matters they are to be considered equivalent to infants (above, no. 202).

I answer. If “adult” is understood in this sense¹⁷, the Fathers’ doctrine would be a mere tautology: namely, all adults (that is, those who are adults in religious matters, that is, who know God and the moral law) know God and the moral law. Furthermore, the objection assumes that this kind of knowledge is more difficult, so that many neither have nor can have it without a teacher. The Fathers, on the contrary, teach that this knowledge is easy, arises spontaneously and without a teacher, and is found even among those who were not counted among the educated.

THEOLOGIANS

226. The theologians of the Middle Ages profess the very same doctrine. They make their own the words of HUGH OF ST. VICTOR (De Sacramentis, book 1, part 3, chapter 1), that from the beginning God so tempered knowledge of himself “that while it could never be comprehended what he was, it could never be ignored that he was.”

ALEXANDER OF HALES, Summa, introductory treatise, question 2, member 2, chapter 1, in response to the question “whether it is within the natural power to know God, or whether superadded grace is required,” replies: “According to Hugh in his Sentences (De sacramentis christianae fidei), God from the beginning so tempered humanity’s knowledge of him that, just as it could never be comprehended what he was, it could never be ignored that he was. Therefore we must say that knowledge that God exists can be had through natural reason, but knowledge of what he is cannot.” He then also cites John Damascene (De fide orthodoxa, book 1, chapter 1): “Creation itself, and the permanence and governance of things, proclaim the greatness of the divine nature; hence knowledge that God exists is naturally implanted in all.” Cf. Part 1, inquiry 1, treatise 1, question 1, chapter 2.¹⁸

ST. BONAVENTURE, in 1 d. 8, part 1, art. 1, q. 2: “Our intellect fails in its consideration of divine truth with respect to knowledge of what God is, yet it does not fail with respect to knowledge that he is. Hence Hugh says: From the beginning God … could never be ignored. Since, then, our intellect never fails in its knowledge that God exists, it could neither be ignorant that he simply exists nor think that he does not exist.”¹⁹

ST. THOMAS. His doctrine that one must turn to God as soon as one attains the use of reason (1, 2 q. 89 a. 6) excludes the possibility that there are adults who are invincibly ignorant of God without fault.²⁰ Cf. c. g. 3, 38.

227. As stated above (no. 200), from the sixteenth century some theologians thought, on the basis of early reports about the inhabitants of newly discovered regions, that there were people who remained ignorant of God for a long time. Better investigation, however, showed that those peoples were neither irreligious nor without moral ideas. These theologians could not prove their opinion from the sources of revelation, but nevertheless thought it could be reconciled in some way with the doctrine of tradition. The difficulty of demonstrating God’s existence by a strictly defined argument was also often offered as evidence. It may more readily be granted that not all adults are capable of such scientific argumentation; but the primitive knowledge properly at issue here need not be scientific argumentation.

It is therefore easy to understand why a much larger part of the theologians retained and defended the traditional doctrine.

228. SUÁREZ, Metaphysicae disputationes 29, section 3: “Although, strictly speaking, it is not known to us that God exists as something altogether self-evident, this truth is nevertheless so consonant with natural light and the agreement of all people that it can scarcely be unknown to anyone … This knowledge of God can be understood in two ways: first, under some confused and common conception, such as that of a higher divine power who can help us or make us blessed, or something similar. Although this conception applies to the true God, it can also be applied to false gods. In another way, it can be understood as knowledge of the true God through the concept of the supreme being, than whom nothing greater can exist, and who is the principle of all other things; Augustine seems to speak in this way … In the same sense Tertullian said in Apologeticus, chapter 17, and Cyprian in De vanitate idolorum: ‘The height of sin is to refuse to know him whom one cannot be ignorant of’; and others whom I cited above said the same, namely, that knowledge of the true God is naturally implanted in human beings. This knowledge does not arise in everyone from demonstration, since not everyone is capable of it, nor from the self-evidence of terms alone (the ontological argument) … This knowledge, then, could have arisen from two sources. First, from the great affinity this truth has with human nature: once this truth is presented and its terms explained, although it may not at once appear altogether self-evident, it immediately appears inherently consonant with reason and is very easily impressed on a person not wholly ill-disposed. For nothing in this truth appears repugnant or makes it difficult to believe; on the contrary, many things immediately incline one to assent to it—many, I say, not only metaphysical and physical considerations, but moral ones as well, and not only external but internal ones. For if a person reflects on himself, he recognizes that he does not exist of himself, that he is not sufficient for his own perfection, and that none of the creatures he experiences is enough for him. Indeed, he recognizes in himself a nature superior to those creatures, though imperfect in its own degree, since he knows himself to be weak and frail both in knowing the truth and in loving the good. Hence a person very easily persuades himself that he needs a higher nature, from which he derives his origin and by which he is ruled and governed. Second, this general knowledge is founded on the tradition and instruction of our elders, both children by their parents and the uneducated by their teachers. From this the general sense that God exists has spread and been accepted among all peoples. Hence this knowledge seems for the most part to have come by human testimony, especially among the common people, rather than by direct evidence of the matter. Yet it seems to have been accompanied by a certain practical and moral evidence, sufficient to oblige one both to assent to the truth that God exists and to worship him.” On how the natural law is known to all, see De Legibus, book 2, chapter 8, nr. 5 ss.²¹

229. DE LUGO, De Incarnatione, disputation 5, section 6, no. 106: “I reply that very weighty theologians deny that invincible ignorance of God in fact exists in any adult, and many passages from the Fathers are cited which prove at least that such ignorance is extremely rare.” No. 107: “But let us grant that someone may have such ignorance for a short time; I deny that it can last a long time, much less an entire lifetime. For there will always be some doubt about the obligation to inquire, and Father Jacob Granado proves at length that this also occurs among barbarians and the most uncultivated Indians.” VÁZQUEZ, disputation 19, chapter 3; ESPARZA, De Deo, book 1, q. 1, ad 1; LESSIUS, De providentia, book 1, chapter 2; BILLUART, De Deo, dissertation 1, article 4; and theologians generally say the same. And when, in recent years, the opinion was proposed that a large part of “adult” human beings were invincibly ignorant of God without personal fault, it was not commonly accepted.²²

Objections

230. 1. Experience shows that there are peoples without any religion or moral knowledge; moreover, the history of religions teaches that only after many generations did the human race gradually attain ethical religion and monotheism.

I answer. Experience shows the contrary: the more thoroughly one investigates, the more it appears that there are no peoples devoid of religion. The hypothesis of an upward evolution in religious matters does not correspond to the facts and is increasingly being abandoned.²³

2. If knowledge of God is so easy and universal, the moral necessity of revelation is no longer intelligible.

I answer. “In apologetics it is established that, in the present condition of things, the whole human race cannot quickly and universally attain a religious and moral state as developed as is fitting for the human race without the admixture of serious error. Here, however, it is established that individual human beings endowed with the use of reason can naturally attain the first elements of religious and moral knowledge. These two points are in no way contradictory” (PESCH, Compendium Theologiae Dogmaticae II, no. 9).

3. St. Paul explicitly teaches that the Gentiles do not have knowledge of the true God: Eph 2:12; Gal 4:8; 1 Thess 4:5.

I answer. It must be denied that, according to St. Paul, they are without fault.