Chapter I: Research And Faith In General

Introduction.

When the youth growing to maturity begins to feel the development of his own strength, it may happen that he finds his dependence on home unbearably trying. Perhaps he will say, “Father, give me the portion of substance that falleth to me,” and then depart into a strange country.

The men of Europe have for centuries lived in the Christian religion as in their fathers’ house, and have fared well. But to many children of our time the old homestead has become too confining. Modern man, we are told, has at last come to his senses. He wants to develop his personality, thoughts, and sentiments freely, independently of every authority. He turns his back on his father’s house. His parting words are the accusation: The old Church “opposes the modern principles of free individuality, the right to drain the cup of one’s own reason and personal life, and it sets itself against the whole of modern feeling, investigation, and activity” (_Th. Ziegler_, Gesch. der Ethik, II, 2d ed., 1892, p. 589).

We are already acquainted with this freedom. We approach now the main question: What is the true relation of the freedom, which man may rightly claim for his scientific activity and reason, to external laws and regulations? Is man really justified to reject them all on the plea that they degrade his intellect and are an obstacle to his development, or does this rejection but manifest an error into which his desire of freedom has decoyed him? This is the question, it will be remembered, that we reached soon in the beginning of our investigation. We have already found the categorical answer—an emphatic rejection of such justification; we also traced the hypotheses on which the answer rests. We now return to the question to discuss it in principle. We begin with the freedom of scientific _research_, in order to take up afterwards the freedom in _teaching_.

What are those external powers that may interrupt or caution the scientist in his investigations and problems? Here we do not yet consider the scientist as a teacher, communicating to the public the result of his investigation, his ideas and views, from the university chair to his scientific audience, or to a wider circle of hearers by means of publications; we here regard him in his private study only, in the pursuit of which he perhaps encounters new questions, and new solutions suggest themselves to him. What freedom can he and must he enjoy here? This private freedom must evidently be judged from a point of view other than that from which the freedom in teaching should be judged. With the latter, the interests of his contemporaries must be taken into account, and the question must be considered, whether they suffer by such teaching. The freedom of the scientist is greater than that of the teacher. Moreover, research is the principal and most important activity of science: nothing, surely, is taught that has not been previously investigated. If, therefore, research is in any way restricted, so also is teaching; but not _vice versa_. Are there, then, exterior authorities that may restrain research and reasoning, and what are they?

One who lives in the Christian world knows at once of what authority to think. It is not the state. The state cannot directly influence the private work of the student: if it may exert its influence directly upon anything, it is only upon freedom in teaching. No, the authority to think of is the authority of the faith, revealed religion and its guardian, the Church.

Of course, this is not the only authority. Even if a revelation from heaven had not been given us, yet those _general convictions of mankind_, common to all nations and times, of the immutability of the laws of thought and morality, of the existence of a supramundane God, of the retribution for moral conduct to be made in the world to come, of the sanctity of state-authority, of the necessity of private property, and others, would ever remain most revered utterances of truth. No one would be allowed to contradict this avowal of all mankind, relying on his own reasoning, which he calls science, and give the lie to the reasoning of all other men, in order to make his own reason the sole measure of truth.

But for the present let us pass over the natural authority of mankind, of its convictions and traditions. It is surpassed and replaced by the _authority of faith_ which belongs to _our Christian religion_. The latter comes to us claiming to possess the only true view of the world, and laying upon us the obligation of accepting it. It has even the courage to put its anathema upon propositions which the scientist may call science; it dares write out a list of the propositions which it condemns as untenable. Against this authority the protest is raised: Where is freedom of research, if one cannot even indulge in his own ideas, if the intellect is to be cropped and fettered? What is to become of frank, unprejudiced investigation, if I am from the outset bound to certain propositions, if from the outset the result at which I must arrive is already determined? It is intellectual bondage that the man of faith is languishing in. Thus reads the indictment; thus sounds the battle-cry. Is the indictment justified? Can and shall science take faith as a guide in many instances without detriment to its own innate freedom? And where, and when?

First, the more general question: Is freedom of research compatible with the duty to believe, or do they exclude each other in principle?

What Faith is Not.

What, then, is faith, and what does the duty to believe demand of us?

Here we meet at once with a false proposition which the opponents of the Christian faith will not abandon. To them faith is always a blind assent, in giving which one does not ask, nor dare ask, whether the proposition be true—_a belief without personal conviction_. According to them the believer holds himself “captive to the teaching of his Church. He cannot reflect personally, but follows blindly the lead of authority and force of habit.” Thus “Catholicism is the religion of bondage” (_W. Wundt_, Ethik, 3d ed., 1903, II, 255, 254). To them it is but an “uncritical submission to the existing authority, uninfluenced either by the testimony of the senses or the reflection of the intellect” (_K. Menger_, Neue Freie Presse, 24 Nov., 1907). The campaign for liberal science is denouncing those who “even to-day dare to demand blind faith,” “without proof or criticism,” faith in the “word of the Popes and men pretending to be interpreters and emissaries of God, men who have proved their incompetence and inability by the physical and religious coercion to which they have subjected mankind” (_T. G. Masaryk_, V boji o nábozenstvi, The Battle for Religion, 1904, p. 10, 23).

To be sure, if the Christian faith were such, it would be intellectual slavery. If I am compelled to believe something of which I cannot know the truth, this is coercion, and conflicts with the nature of the intellect and its right to truth. Infidelity would then be liberation. But faith is _not_ that.

As a rule this view is based on a presumption, which has already been extensively discussed, viz., that faith and religion have nothing at all to do with intellectual activity, but are merely the _product of the heart_, a sentimental, freely acting notion; for, of metaphysical objects no human intellect can form a certain conviction. It is subjectivism that leads to this view. According to it the subject creates its own world of thought, free in action and feeling, not indeed everywhere,—in the sphere of sense-experience the evidence of the concrete is too great,—but at least in the sphere of metaphysical truth.

Such modes of expression find their way also into Catholic literature and language; even here we meet with the assertion that religion is a matter of the heart, and for that very reason has nothing to do with science. On the whole it is a remarkable fact that among believing men many expressions are current that have been coined in the mint of modern philosophy, and have there received a special significance. They are used without real knowledge of their origin and purposed meaning; but the words do not fail to colour their ideas, and to create imperceptibly a strange train of thought.

One who is of the opinion that religion and views of the world are but sentiment and feeling, which change with one’s personality and individuality, can, of course, no longer understand a dogmatic Christianity and the obligation to hold fast to clearly defined dogmas as unchangeable truth. I can hold dogmas and doctrinal decisions to be unquestionably true only when I can _convince myself of their credibility_ by the judgment of my reason. If I cannot do that, and am still bound to believe them, without the least doubt, then such obedience is compulsory repression of the reason. Then it would indeed be necessary for the Church, as _Kant_ says, “to instil into its flock a pious dread of the least deviation from certain articles of faith based on history, and a dread of all investigation, to such a degree that they dare not let a doubt rise, even in thought, against the articles proposed for their belief, because this would be tantamount to lending an ear to the evil spirit” (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 3. Stueck, 2. Abtlg.). Fixed dogmas may then at the very most, according to the great master of modern thought, be of pedagogic value to a minor, until he be grown to maturity. But to more advanced minds must be unconditionally conceded the freedom to construct dogmas as they think best, viz., as symbols and images for the subjective thought they underlie. This also, as is well known, is an article of Modernism, which here again follows in the steps of _Kant_.

“Ecclesiastical faith,” says _Kant_, “may be useful as a vehicle
to minors who can grasp a purely rational religion only through
symbols, until in the course of time, owing to the general
enlightenment, they can with the consent of everybody exchange the
form of degrading means of coercion for an ecclesiastical form
suitable to the dignity of a moral religion—that of free faith.”
“The membranes,” he says in another place, “in which the embryo
first shaped itself into man must be cast off, if he is to see the
light of day. The apron-strings of sacred tradition with its
appendages, viz., the statutes and observances which at one time
did good service, can gradually be dispensed with; they may even
become a harmful hindrance when one is growing to manhood.”

Of course, to him who takes the position of _Kant’s_ _dualism of belief and rational judgment_, freedom from every authority in matters of faith, and in this sense tolerance, will appear to be self-evident. Whatever has nothing to do with knowledge, but is merely the personal result of an inner, subjective experience, cannot be offered by external authority as matter for instruction. The sole standard for this belief is the autonomous subject and its own needs. In this sense _Harnack_ tells us: “The kernel of one’s being is to be grasped in its own depths and the soul is merely to recognize its own needs and the road traced out for their gratification. This can only be done with the fullest freedom. Any restraint here is tantamount to the destruction of the problem; any submission to the teaching of others ... is treason to one’s own religion” (Religioeser Glaube und freie Forschung. Neue Freie Presse, 7. Juni, 1908). To have one’s religion determined by any authority, even a divine one, would be treason to the sovereignty of man!

Viewed from this standpoint, the _reconciliation between faith and science_ is no longer a problem. And they congratulate themselves on the solution of this vexing question. Now, they say, deliverance from an oppressive misery has been found, now the peace sought for so long is restored. A fair division has been made: two worlds, the world of the senses, and the world above sense experience. One belongs to science, where it now rules supreme; the other belongs to faith, where it can move freely, undisturbed by, and even unapproachable to science. Just as the stars in the sky are inaccessible to the custodian of civil order,—he can neither support them nor hinder them, nor pull them down,—just so the realm of faith is inaccessible to science: peace reigns everywhere.

Cheered on by this treaty of peace, _Paulsen_ writes: “Thus
critical philosophy has solved the old problem of the relation of
knowledge to faith. _Kant_ is convinced that by properly setting
the limits he has succeeded in laying the foundation for real and
enduring peace between them. In fact, upon this in the first place
will rest the importance and vitality of his philosophy. It gives
to knowledge, on the one hand, what belongs to it for unlimited
research, the whole world of phenomena; on the other hand it gives
to faith its eternal right, the interpretation of life and the
world from the view-point of values. There can be no doubt that
herein lies the cause of the great impression made by _Kant_ upon
his time; he appeared as the liberator from unbearable suspense”
(Immanuel Kant, 1898, 6).

To a critical observer, such peace-making is utterly incomprehensible. They probably did not consider that in this way _religion and faith_ were not liberated, but _dispossessed_; not brought to a place of safety, but transferred from the realm of reality into the realm of fancy. Similarly an aggressive ruler might address a neighbouring prince thus: We cannot agree any longer, let us make peace: you retain all your titles, and I shall see to your decent support, but you will have to lay down your crown and sovereignty and leave the country—in this way we can have peace. Religion, once the greatest power in the life of man, for the sake of which man made sacrifices and even laid down his life, has now become a matter of sterile devotion; it may, moreover, no longer claim power and importance; it is now reduced to a poetic feeling, with which one can fill up intellectual vacancies. No longer is man here for religion’s sake; religion is here for man’s sake. A buttonhole flower, a poetic perfume to sprinkle over his person. For he does not want to give up religion entirely. “We are the less inclined to give up religion forthwith, since we are prone to consider a religious disposition as a prerogative of human nature, even as its noblest title.” Thus _D. F. Strauss_, when he asked of those who sympathized with his opinions, Have we still religion? (Der alte u. neue Glaube, II, n. 33). Of course religion has now become something quite different; it has been _consigned to deep degradation_.

To be sure, feeling is of great importance in religion. Dissatisfaction with the things of this earth, man’s longing for something higher, for the Infinite, his craving for immortality, for aid and consolation—are all naturally seeking for religious truths. If these are known, they in turn arouse fear and hope, love and gratitude; they become a source of happiness and inspiration. But these feelings have no meaning unless we are certain that there exists something corresponding to them; much less could they of themselves be a conviction, just as little as hunger could convince us that we have food and drink. If one cannot perceive that there is a God, a Providence, a life beyond, then religion sinks to the level of a hazy feeling, without reason and truth, which must appear foolish to men who think,—as “the great phantasmagoria of the human mind, which we call religion” (_Jodl_, Gedanken über Reform Katholizismus, 1902, 12),—which departs from the sphere of rational intellectual life, and which many have even begun to contemplate from the view-point of psychopathology. It is only due to the after-effect of a more religious past that religion is suffered to lead still a life of pretence: moral support in struggles it can give no more, nor comfort in dark hours, much less may it presume to guide man’s thought. It stands far below science.

Despair of the possibility of knowing higher truths is confronting us, the disease of deteriorating times and intellectually decaying nations. But just as Christianity, once in youthful vigour, went to the rescue of an old World dying of scepticism, just as the Catholic Church has ever upheld the rights of reason, especially against Protestantism, which from its beginning has torn asunder faith and knowledge: so the Catholic Church stands to this day unaffected by the doubting tendency of our times, upholding the rights of reason. It also upholds faith. But its faith has nothing to do with modern agnosticism.

What Faith Is.

What, then, according to Catholic doctrine, is faith and the duty to believe?

Let us briefly recall to mind the _fundamental tenets_ of the _Christian religion_. It tells us that even in the Old Testament, but more especially in the New, through His Incarnate Son, God has revealed to man all those religious and moral truths which are necessary and sufficient for the attainment of his supernatural end. Some of them are truths which reason by itself could not discover; others it could discover, but only by great labour. And this divine revelation demands belief. Belief is natural to man. The child believes its parents, the judge believes the witnesses, the ruler believes his counsellors. God wished to meet man in this way, and to give him certainty in regard to the highest truths.

But revelation was to be an heritage of mankind, it was to be transmitted and laid unadulterated before all generations. For this reason it could not be left unprotected to the vicissitudes of time, or the arbitrary interpretation of the individual. It would have utterly failed in its purpose of transmitting sure knowledge of certain truth,—the history of Protestantism proves this,—had it been given merely with the injunction: Receive what I have committed to your keeping, and do with it what you please. No, it had to be made secure against subjective, arbitrary choice.

To this end Christ established an international organization, the _Church_, and committed to it His Gospel as a means of grace, together with the right and sacred duty to teach it to all men in His Name, to keep inviolate the heirloom of revelation, defending it against all error. “Going, therefore, teach ye all nations” (Matt. xxviii. 19), was His command. “Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mark xvi. 15). “He that heareth you, heareth Me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me” (Luke x. 16). “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Matt. xxviii. 20). He gave His divine aid to the Church, in order that she might _infallibly_ keep His doctrine to the very end of time.

Thus the divine revelation and the Church approach all men with the duty to believe: “he that believeth shall be saved,” God gravely commands; “and if he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican” (Matt. xviii. 17). They lay their teachings before the human intellect, bidding it retain them as indubitable truth, upon their infallible testimony, yet only after convincing itself that God has really spoken, and that this Church is the true one, which cannot err. And only after having convinced itself of the credibility of the proposed teaching is it obliged to believe. Hence, according to the Christian mind, faith is the _reasonable conviction of the truth of what is proposed for belief, by reason of an acknowledged infallible testimony_.

The Catholic dogma we find explained in the definition of the
Vatican Council, which had to expose so many errors that are
liable in our days to confuse the faithful in their notions of
faith and Church. “This faith,” says the Vatican Council (Sess.
III, chap. 3), “which is the beginning of human salvation, the
Catholic Church teaches to be a supernatural virtue, by which,
through the inspiration and co-operation of the grace of God, we
believe to be true what He has revealed, not on account of the
intrinsic truth of it, perceived by the natural light of reason,
but on the authority of God who gives the revelation, who can
neither deceive nor be deceived.... Nevertheless, in order that
the service of our belief might be in accord with reason (‘a
reasonable service’) God willed to unite to the internal helps of
the Holy Ghost external proofs of His revelation, to wit, external
works divine, especially miracles and prophecies, which, clearly
demonstrating God’s omnipotence and infinite knowledge, are most
certain signs of divine revelation and are suited to the
intelligence of all.” The Council adds expressly the canon: “If
any one say that divine revelation cannot be made credible by
exterior signs, and that men ought therefore to be moved to belief
solely by their interior experience or individual inspiration, let
him be anathema.” We have here stated the Catholic dogma as
unanimously taught by all Christian centuries, by all Fathers and
theologians.

Hence, the act of faith by which I believe that the Son of God became man, that I shall rise from the dead, is first of all a _judgment of the reason_, not an act of the will, or a feeling of the heart. It is, moreover, a _certain_ rational judgment upon weighty reasons, not, indeed, such which I draw from intellectual knowledge, but those which rest upon the infallible testimony of God. The act of faith agrees therefore with assent to historic truth in that it is of the same kind of knowledge, but upon the authority of infallible testimony. Just as I believe that Alexander once marched victoriously through Asia, because there is sure testimony to that effect, so I believe that I shall rise from the dead, because God has revealed it. The difference being that in the former case we have only human testimony, whereas in the latter God Himself speaks. Thus, according to Catholic teaching, faith and knowledge may be distinct from each other, but in a sense quite different from that of the representatives of modern, sentimental faith. The latter understand knowledge, in this connection, to be any judgment of the reason based upon evidence, and they deny that faith is such; but to a Catholic, faith, too, is a _judgment of the reason_, and in this sense true knowledge; only it is not knowledge in the more common sense of a cognition derived from one’s own mental activity _without_ the external means of authority.

As we have heard from the Vatican Council, it is the recognized fact of divine revelation which bestows upon the matter of faith its certainty in reason. Hence the knowledge of this fact must precede faith itself. But the knowledge must be certain, not merely a belief, for it is the very presupposition of belief, but a knowledge, derived from the intellect, which may at any time be traced back to scientific proofs if there is the requisite philosophical training. So long as man is not certain that God has spoken, he cannot have faith according to the Catholic view. One of the sentences condemned by _Innocent XI._, to say nothing of other ecclesiastical testimonies, is this: “The assent of supernatural faith, useful for salvation, can exist with merely probable information of the fact of revelation, even with the fear that God has not spoken.” And very recently there has been condemned also the proposition: “The assent of faith ultimately rests upon a sum of probabilities” (Decretum Lamentabile, July 3, 1907. Sent. 25).

It cannot be our task here to show at length how the Christian arrives at this certain knowledge. Our present purpose is only to state the Catholic concept of faith. We have already heard the Vatican Council refer to miracles and prophecies. To most of the faithful the chief fact that offers them this security is the wonderful phenomenon of the _Catholic Church_ itself, which proposes to them the doctrines of faith as divine revelation.

Thus again the Vatican Council defines clearly: “To enable us to
do our duty in embracing the true faith and remaining in it
steadfastly, God has through His incarnate Son established the
Church and set plain marks upon His institution, in order that it
may be recognized by all as the guardian and interpreter of
revelation. For only the Catholic Church possesses all those
arrangements, so various and wonderful, made by God in order to
demonstrate publicly the credibility of Christianity. Indeed the
Church of itself, because of its wonderful propagation, its
pre-eminent sanctity and inexhaustible fecundity in everything
good, its Catholic unity and invincible duration, is a grand
permanent proof of its credibility and irrefutable testimony in
behalf of its divine mission. Thus, like a ’standard unto the
nations,’ it invites those to come to it who have not yet
believed, and assures its children that the faith they profess
rests upon a most firm foundation.”

The Catholic looks with pride upon his Church: she has stood all
the trials of history. He sees her endure, though within harassed
by heresies and endangered by various unworthiness and incapacity
of her priests, and attacked incessantly from without by
irreconcilable enemies, yet prevailing victoriously through the
centuries, blessing, converting nations and beloved by them; while
by her side worldly kingdoms, supported by armies and weapons, go
down into the grave of human instability. The most wonderful fact
in the world’s history, contrary to all laws of natural,
historical events,—here a higher hand is plainly thrust into human
history; it is the fulfilment of the divine promise: “I am with
you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” “The gates
of hell shall not prevail against it.” He sees the Saints, who
have lived in this Church and have become saints through her,
those superhuman heroes of virtue, who far surpass the laws of
human capacity.

In the most widely different states of life in the Church he sees
virtue grow in the degree in which one submits to her guidance. He
witnesses the remarkable spectacle, that everything noble and good
is attracted by the Church, and their contrary repelled. He sees
the miracles which never cease in her midst. Finally he beholds
her admirable unity and vigorous faith; she alone holding firm to
her teaching, not compromising with any error; she alone holding
fearlessly aloft the principle of divine authority, and thus
becoming a beacon to many who are seeking a safe shelter from
spiritual ruin. In addition we finally have that harmony and
grandeur of the truths of faith, and—perhaps not in the last
place—that calm and peace of mind, produced in the faithful soul
by a life led according to this faith, by prayer and the reception
of the Sacraments. This is a clear proof that where the Spirit of
God breathes there cannot be the seat of untruth.

These are sufficient proofs to produce even in the uneducated, and in children, true and reasonable certainty, provided they have had sufficient instruction in religion. It must, however, be emphasized that this conviction produced by faith need _not first be gained by scientific investigation_ of the motives of faith, or by minute or extensive theological studies. A wrong notion of human knowledge frequently leads to the opinion that there is no true certainty at all unless it is the result of scientific study—a presumption on which is based the claim of freedom of science to disregard any conviction, be it ever so sacred, and the claim that it is reserved to science alone to attain the sure possession of the truth. Later on we shall dwell more at length upon this important point. Let it suffice here to remark that the intellect can attain real certainty even without scientific research; most of our convictions, which we all hold unhesitatingly as true, are of this kind. They constitute a belief that is based upon the real knowledge of the reason, which knowledge is not, however, so clear and distinct that it could be demonstrated easily in scientific form.

The certainty of faith, therefore, is based upon the knowledge that God Himself vouches for the truth of the teachings of faith. This relieves the faithful from the necessity of obtaining by his own reflection an insight into the intrinsic reasons of the why and the wherefore of the proposed truth, and to examine in each instance the correctness of the thing. He knows that God has revealed it, that His infallible Church vouches for it; hence it is credible and true; that suffices for him, just as trustworthy evidence suffices for the historian concerning facts which he himself has not observed.

Let no one say that faith is a _blind belief_ and blind obedience, and that dogmatic Christianity, or, to use another phrase, “the religion of the law, demands first of all obedience: it is true it would like, besides that, an interior assent for its thoughts and commandments, but where this is lacking the law itself furnishes the ways and means to compensate the lack of this internal assent, if only obedience is there” (_A. Harnack_, Religioeser Glaube u. freie Forschung. Neue Freie Presse, June 7, 1908). Nor let any one say that free research has “at least this advantage over dogma, that its claims can be proved, which is not true of the other’s claims” (_J. H. van’t Hoff_, ibid., Dec. 29, 1907). These are misrepresentations.

There is no obedience to faith which is not _internal assent and conviction_, and there is no clinging to dogmas which is not based on motives of faith, or which could not at any time be subjected to scientific investigation. If the term “blindness of belief” were intended to express only that the believer holds the revealed doctrine to be true, not because he has discovered its truth by his own reasoning, but on the authority of God, then we might suffer the misleading word. But it is utterly false in the sense that the believer has no conviction at all. Even though others have it not, the faithful Catholic, the believing Christian, has it, and it is personal conviction. He has convinced himself that God has spoken, and of the credibility and hence the truth of the revealed doctrine, by his own reason, and this is why he assents.

Still greater is the misrepresentation of the real motive of
faith, if it is held to be the opinion of the Pope or of Roman
Prelates. _Wundt_ thus misstates the Catholic position: “Not every
one can acquire knowledge. But any one can believe. The
enlightened leaders of the Church, and the Church herself first of
all, have knowledge, and by dint of authority determine what is to
be believed” (Ethik, 3d ed., 1903, I, p. 342). According to the
popular scientific propaganda of unbelief, we have to deal in the
Church merely with “ignorant monks, Asiatic patriarchs, and
similar dignitaries, some very superstitious, who, for instance,
assembled in the third century and decided _by vote_ that the
Gospel is the word of God; we have to deal with men who have
proved their incapacity and incompetence” (_Masaryk_, Im Kampfe um
die Religion, 1904, pp. 22-23).

Any one who shares such ideas about the supernaturalness of the
Catholic Church has, of course, forfeited his claim to understand
Catholic life and faith. The Catholic believes in his Church, not
on any account of Asiatic patriarchs and superstitious
dignitaries, but because she is led by the Holy Ghost, and the
Pope must believe the same as the humblest of the faithful:
neither the Pope himself relies upon his own judgment, nor does
the Catholic who trusts in the word of the Pope.

We add a few remarks which may further illustrate the action of
faith.

The knowledge of the fact of revelation, hence of the credibility
of the truths revealed, is certain, as shown above. Nevertheless,
_it does not compel_ reason to assent. Under ordinary
circumstances it would be impossible to think of one’s own
existence, of the elementary laws of mathematics, without being
constrained by the evidence to give direct internal assent. But
insight into the truth of a thing is not always of this high
degree of clearness. In such cases it is an empirical law of the
mind that reason discerns of itself the _logical_ necessity, that
is, if it desires to proceed according to the merits of the case,
without, however, acting under _physical_ constraint. There
remains then the determination, the command of the will. This is
generally true of many judgments about natural things, but
especially true of belief. The knowledge of the fact of revelation
is true and certain, though it might be still clearer. The truths
offered by divine revelation are too deep for us to comprehend
them fully; they imply questions and difficulties for us to
ponder. We feel the physical possibility of pondering these
difficulties, although we see at the same time that the difficulty
is exploded by the certainty of the fact of revelation; but we
remain _free_ in giving our assent.

Herein lies the possibility of _meritorious_ faith, the
possibility of the creature rendering to God the free tribute of
his free submission. At the same time it opens the possibility of
turning voluntarily to doubts, and of submitting to them more and
more, till the mind becomes clouded and ensnared by error. Thus,
since faith depends on free will, the will is strictly commanded
to impel the intellect to assent and cling to faith and to put
aside doubts. God has revealed the truths of faith that they may
be firmly believed.

Hence faith is a product of the will also, and may become part and
parcel of the sentimental life. Firmly believed, revealed truths
engender in man love and gratitude, fear and hope. And being
beautiful and comforting, they are embraced fervently by the
heart, and become objects of desire, sources of comfort and
happiness. Nevertheless they are in themselves, and remain,
rational judgments, based upon insight and knowledge; just as the
fond recollections of home are and remain acts of cognition,
though our affections are twined round those reminiscences like
wreaths of evergreen.

What has just been said illustrates also another point,—the
_relation of faith to grace_. The Vatican Council says: “Faith is
a supernatural virtue by which, through the inspiration and
co-operation of the grace of God, we believe to be true what He
has revealed.” Faith is called a gift of God, a work of grace. But
this must not mislead us to think that it is a mystical process,
taking place in the human mind, indeed, but not moving along the
natural course of human cognition, but along quite a different
course: perhaps an immediate mystical grasp of the revealed truth,
while natural intelligence stands aside, not understanding it.
This would be returning to our starting point,—making faith
anything but a judgment of the reason. It is a common doctrine of
theology that the process of faith differs nothing in kind from
the natural process of human intellect in its apprehension of the
truth. It is belief on grounds recognized as sufficient motives
for assent.

What then does grace do? Two things. First, it elevates the act of
the soul in the process of believing to a higher sphere. Just as
sanctifying grace elevates the soul itself to a supernatural
sphere, permitting it to partake of the nature of God, so does the
grace of faith raise the acts of the soul to the supernatural
order. The _kind_ of cognition, however, remains the same: just as
a ring does not alter its form by being golden instead of silver.

In the second place, grace is _assistance_: it enlightens the
intellect that it may be able to see more clearly, not giving to
motives of faith an importance which they have not of themselves,
but helping the intellect to see them as they are; removing the
troubles and dangers of doubt which beset the mind, so that it may
retain that calmness which generally accompanies the possession of
the truth. The pledge of this assistance is given the Christian at
baptism and with each increase of sanctifying grace. But the
actual effect of grace depends on many conditions. If one omits
prayer and neglects religious duties, deafens one’s ear to the
word of God, incurs knowingly unnecessary dangers to faith,
forsakes the path of virtue, then grace may withdraw to a
considerable extent; doubts become stronger, intellectual darkness
and confusion increase, and man goes on apace towards infidelity.

This is the Catholic doctrine concerning faith.

Faith and Reason.

But to return to our question: In what relation do faith and the duty to believe stand to freedom of research? We said that freedom of research consists in exemption from all unjust external restraint, that is, from those external hindrances to the action of the human intellect which prevent it from attaining its natural end. Now what is this natural end? The answer will make clear what restraint and laws must be respected by the human mind, and which may be rightly rejected.

On the coat-of-arms of Harvard University is written the beautiful word “Truth.” Upon the human mind, too, is inscribed the word _Veritati_—_for the truth_. The human mind exists for the sake of truth; for the truth it reasons and searches; it is its natural object, as sound is the object of the human ear, and light and colour the object of the eye. And truth attracts the mind strongly. The child wants the truth, and tries to get it by its many questions; the historian wants the truth, and tries to get it by his incessant searching and collecting. “I can hardly resist my craving,” _William von Humboldt_ confesses, “to see and know and examine as much as possible: after all, man seems to be here only for the purpose of appropriating to himself, making his own property, the property of his intellect, all that surrounds him—and life is short. When I depart this life I should like to leave behind me as little as possible unexperienced by me” (apud _O. Willmann_, Didaktik als Bildungslehre, 3d ed., II, 1903, p. 7). The great physicist, _W. Thomson_, a few years ago closed a life of eighty-three years—he died in December, 1907—devoted to the last to unabated search for the truth. It is true not all are called to labour in this field like _W. Thomson_. But every one who has capability may and should help to promote the noble work. Only they are excluded who do not want to look for the truth, or who are even ready, for external considerations, to pass off falsehood for the truth, unproved for established results. “I know of nothing,” says the ancient sage, _Plato_, “that is more worthy of the human mind than truth” (Rep. VI, p. 483 c.). And so the poet _Pindar_ sings: “Queen Truth, the mother of sublime Virtue.”

If this is the aim of the human mind and its science, there is but one freedom of research, the _freedom for the truth_, the right not to be hampered in searching for the truth, not to be forced to hold as true what has not been previously vouched for to the intellect as true; in a word, the freedom to wear but one chain, the golden chain of the truth. Hence, if the scientist should be compelled by party interest, or public opinion, to pursue a course in science which he cannot acknowledge as the right one; if the younger scientist should feel constrained to conform the results of his research to the pleasure of his older colleagues or of men of name, against his own better judgment, then he would be deprived of his rightful freedom of searching for the truth, and of deciding for himself when he has found it. But there is one sort of freedom the scientist should never claim—_freedom against the truth_, freedom to ignore the truth, to emancipate himself from the truth. He is bound to accept every truth, sufficiently proved, even religious dogmas, miracles too, provided they are authenticated. Not freedom, but truth, is the purpose of research: emancipation from the truth is degeneration of the intellect, destruction of science.

What, then, does the duty to believe require of the faithful Christian? He is required, first of all, to assure himself of the certain credibility of those truths which he is required to believe, and here authentic proofs are offered him. On his perception of the credibility of these truths, he ought to assent to and accept God’s testimony. Hence there should be no coercion to believe without interior conviction, no obstacle put in the way of recognizing the truth. _Where, then, is here any opposition to the lawful freedom of research_, to the right of unimpeded search for the truth? How is reason hindered in its search for the truth when truth is offered it by an infallible authority? We have here no opposition to the laws of reason, but due honour to its sacred rights; no bondage, but elevation and enrichment, completion and crowning of its thought, for the highest truth has been communicated to the reason that it may be of one mind with that Infinite Wisdom which has shaped reason for the truth, and from which it obtains its light as the planet from the sun around which it revolves.

Therefore, it cannot be said that “the Catholic resolves to believe as true what the Church teaches in the Apostles’ Creed, but were he offered anything else as Church doctrine he would accept it as well. Hence these doctrines do not express his own personal opinions, they are something extraneous to him.” (_W. Herrmann_, Roemische u. evangelische Sittlichkeit, 3d ed., 1903, p. 3). No, what the Catholic, what any true Christian, believes by faith, that is his innermost conviction, as it is the firm conviction of the historian that what he has drawn from reliable sources is true.—But what if the contrary were offered him? Well, this assumption is absurd; and why? Because God and His Church are infallible, and an infallible authority cannot speak the truth and its contrary at the same time. Much less than a reliable historical witness can testify to the truth and its contrary at the same time.

This same conviction gives to the faithful Christian the firm assurance that no certain result of human research will ever come in conflict with his faith, just as the mathematician does not fear that his principle will ever be contradicted by any further work. Truth can never contradict truth. “Thus we believe and thus we teach and herein lies our salvation.” It is the very old conviction of the faithful Christian “that philosophy, that is, the study of wisdom, and religion are not different things.” _Non aliam esse philosophiam, i.e., sapientiae studium et aliam religionem_ (_Augustinus_, De Vera Religione, 5). It is precisely this that enables the believing scientist to devote himself with great freedom and impartiality to research in every field, and to acknowledge any certified result without fear of ever having to stop before a definite conclusion.

Such is the _peace between faith and science_ according to Christian principles. They are not torn apart, but join hands peacefully, like truth with truth, like two certain convictions, only gained in different ways. Similar is the peace and harmony between the results of various sciences, as physics and astronomy, geology and biology, which results, though arrived at by different methods, are still not opposed to each other, because they are both true.

The authority of faith, however, must be _infallible_; the authority of a scientist, a school or the state, can never approach us with an absolute obligation to believe it, because it cannot vouch for the truth. To the Catholic his Church proves itself infallible; hence everything is here logically consequent. Protestant Church authorities have not infallibility, nor do they claim it. Hence their precepts are seen more and more opposed. Hence to the Protestant the firm attachment of the Catholic to his Church must ever remain unintelligible, and it is regrettable that Catholics take instruction from Protestants about their relation to their Church.(2)

We must go a step further. If there is a divine revelation or an infallible Church—we speak only hypothetically—then no man and _no scientific research can claim the right_ to contradict this revelation and Church. Scientific research is not the hypostatized activity of a superhuman genius, of a god-like intelligence. No, it is the activity of a human intellect, and the latter is subject to God and truth everywhere. There can be no freedom to oppose the truth; no privilege not to be bound to the truth but rather to have the right to construct one’s views autonomously.

But here lies the deeper reason why to-day thousands to whom _Kant’s_ _autonomism in thought_ has become the nerve of their intellectual life, will have nothing to do with guidance by revelation and Church. They can no longer understand that their reason should accept the truth from an external authority, not, indeed, because they would not find the truth, but because they would lose their independence.

It was _Sabatier_ who maintained that “an external authority, no
matter how great one may think it to be, does not suffice to
arouse in us any sense of obligation.” And _Th. Lipps_ says on
this further: “If obedience is taken in its narrower sense, that
is, of determination by the will of another, then no obedience is
moral.” “In brief, obedience is immoral—not as a fact but as a
feeling, betokening an unfree, slavish mind” (Die ethiseben
Grundfragen, 2d ed., 1905, p. 119). And _W. Herrmann_ assures us.
“We would deem it a sin if we dared treat a proposition as true of
which the ideas are not our own. If we should find such a
proposition in the Bible, then we may perhaps resolve to wait and
see whether its truth cannot be brought home to us after we have
obtained a clearer and stronger insight of ourselves. But from the
resolution to take that proposition as true without more ado, we
could not promise ourselves anything beneficial.”

It is for the sovereign subject himself to decide whether the ideas offered are compatible with the rest of his notions. A truth offered from without is acceptable to the subject only when, and because, he can produce of himself at the same time what is offered; but he cannot accept the obligation of _submitting_ to that truth in obedience to faith. “There is no infallible teaching authority on earth, nor can there be any. Philosophy and science would have to contradict themselves to acknowledge it,” says another champion of _Kant’s_ freedom (_Paulsen_, Philosophia militans, 2d ed., p. 52). Hence the reason why there cannot be any infallible authority is, not because it does not offer the truth, but because the human intellect must not be chained down.

Now, this is no longer true freedom, but rebellion against the sacred right that truth has over the intellect. It is rebellion against the supreme authority of God, who can oblige man to embrace His revelation with that reason which He Himself has bestowed upon man. It is a misconception of the human mind, for it is by no means the source of truth and absolute knowledge, but weak and in need of supplement. Many truths it cannot by itself find at all, while in the quest for others it needs safe guidance lest it lose its way. If it refuses to be supplemented and guided from above, it demands the freedom of the weak vine allowed to break loose from the needed support of the tree, the freedom of the planet allowed to deviate from its orbit to be hopelessly wrecked in the universe. The barrenness and disintegration in the ideal life of our own unchristian age, are clear testimony that freedom is not only lawlessness but a sin against one’s own nature.

Or, do they seek to save themselves by asserting that a divine revelation and the founding of an infallible Church are _impossible_? Very well, then, let them prove it. On this the question hinges. If they can prove it to us, that very moment we shall cease to be faithful Catholics, and Christianity will have been the most stupendous lie in history. But if the reverse is the case, then all declamations in the name of free research fall to the ground.

This impossibility, however, could only be proved by the aid of a presumption. This presumption is _atheism_, which denies the existence of a personal God, or at least doubts it. If it is admitted that there is a personal God, then it is self-evident that He can give a revelation, and found an infallible Church, and can oblige all to believe. But herewith collapses also the liberal principle that, in reasoning, one may reject an external authority. Hence the principle of liberal freedom in science can only then be taken seriously, when one advances to atheism. Then, of course, they will say with _Nietzsche_: God is dead; long live the transcendental man!

Our assertions are proved by experience. At the end of the eighteenth century the enlightenment began by excluding all revelation; but it was desired to retain the rational truth of God’s existence. Since then, liberal science has been aiming at atheism in philosophy, whether open or masked. And if we follow up the career of men who have left their faith, we shall soon find that if they do not seek peace in the sheltering harbour of thoughtlessness, they have reached the terminal station of atheism. There is no stopping on this incline.

Since it is the express fundamental principle of the liberal freedom of research, that science is not bound to any external authority, it is evident that it is nothing else but the refusal to submit to God’s authority, hence, also, to submit to truth if it appears as revelation. For, either it is admitted that if there is a divine revelation, we have to give it our assent—and in this event liberal freedom of science would have to be abandoned,—or this liberal freedom is adopted in real earnest—then it must be admitted that it is tantamount to _radical apostasy and defection from the truth_. If a man wishes to be a faithful Christian and at the same time to uphold the liberal freedom of science, then he has never made clear to himself what he wishes.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

_Ecce ancilla Domini._ Thus spoke the Mother of the Lord, when she heard the message that she was to receive the Word of the eternal Father in her bosom. This word of humility and submission was the condition under which she could receive in herself the eternal Wisdom of the Father.

Behold, the Handmaid of the Lord! This word of humility and submission to God must also be spoken by the creature’s intelligence, if it desires by faith to share in God’s truth. Without humility of mind a faithful attachment to God is impossible; pride and arrogance lead to desertion of God, faith, and truth. _Multum errant, quoniam superbi sunt_, says _Augustine_ of the erring companions of his youth. Only if there is humility does God’s wisdom cross the threshold of the creature’s mind, only if there is humility can it be said of man: _Et verbum caro factum est et habitat in nobis, plenum gratiae et veritatis_.