PROOEMIUM

Concilium Vaticanum, Const. Dei Filius, cap. 4, edixerat:

«Neque enim fidei doctrina quam Deus revelavit, velut philosophicum inventum proposita est humanis ingeniis perficienda, sed tanquam divinum depositum Christi sponsae tradita, fideliter custodienda et infallibiliter declaranda. Hinc sacrorum dogmatum is sensus perpetuo est retinendus, quem semel declaravit sancta mater Ecclesia, nec umquam ab eo sensu, altioris intelligentiae specie et nomine, recedendum»

«Si quis dixerit, fieri posse ut dogmatibus ab Ecclesia propositis, aliquando secundum progressum scientiae sensus tribuendus sit alius ab eo quem intellexit et intelligit Ecclesia, anathema sit.».

FOREWORD

The Vatican Council [I], Constitution The Son of God, chapter 4, declared:

“For neither has the teaching of the faith that God revealed been proposed as a philosophical invention to be perfected by human ingenuity, but as the divine deposit of Christ, passed on to the bride, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly declared. From here this meaning of the sacred dogmas is to be held, which holy mother Church has declared once and for all, nor ever should [anyone] move away from this meaning in the guise and name of a higher understanding”

“If anyone says that it could happen that another meaning different from that which the Church has understood and understands would be given to the dogmas set forth by the Church, according to the progress of science, let him be anathema”.

«Fides non habet in terris mansionem permanentem, sed semper indiget transitoriis tabernaculis. Frustra autem conarentur eam retinere in formis iam antiquatis, quae alii mentalitati accomodatae, nihil plus nunc esse possunt quam veneranda monumenta temporis acti. Nunc enim, in praseentibus intellectualis culturae conditionibus, possibile amplius non est homini iudicanti secundum criteria vel solius sensus communis, conciliare id quod videt et legit in Scriptura, cum eo quod theologi nostri videntur affirmare de eiusdem Scripturae veritate universali et absoluta. Possibile amplius non est, conciliare historiam doctrinae christianae cum eo quod theologi nostri videntur asserer de perpetua eius ac semper perserverante identitate. Possibile amplius non est conciliare sensum naturalem textuum evangelicorum, etiam maxime authenticorum, cum eo quod theologi nostri docent aut docere videntur circa conscientiam et scientiam Iesu Christi. Possibile amplius non est retinere, ut adaequatam oeconomiae salutis, theoriam conceptam in ignorantia historiae hominis super terram, et historiae religionis in humanitate ipsa, etc. Ideo tandem aliquando, tempus est ponendi in tuto vacillantem undique fidem circa auctoritatem Scripturarum, ostendendo quid revera sint Biblia, et quale veritatis genus oporteat eis attribuere. Tempus est ponendi in tuto vacillantem fidem de redemptione et salute, quaerendo sub formulis seu ideis nunc mortius principium incommutabilis veritatis quod profunde in eis latet, et notionem demum intelligibilem earum quas Christus habet partium in morali regeneratione humanitatis. Tempus est ponendi in tuto vacillantem fidem de resurrectione Salvatoris et praesentia eius eucharistica, penetrando magis mysterium Christi immortalis, perenniter viventis in Deo et in opere suo, etc. Tempus denique est ut Ecclesia catholica serio recogitet quod a longo iam tempore non satis timuit scandalizare doctos; et quod catholicismus ipse fatali ruinae reservatur, quamdiu praedicatio eius videbitur imponere mentibus conceptionem mundi et historiae discordem ab ea quam proxime elapsorum saeculorum labor restituit; praesertim vero, quamdiu fideles retinebuntur in formidine offendendi Deum, cogitando et admittendo in ordine philosophico, scientifico, et historico, conclusiones et hypotheses quas theologi medii aevi non praeviderunt» (¹)

“Faith does not have a permanent abode in the earthlands, but always needs transitory tabernacles [tents]. In vain, however, do they try to keep it in already antiquated forms, which accomodated to another mentality can no longer be anything more than venerable monuments of time past. Now, in the present conditions of intellectual culture, it is no longer possible for a man who judges according to criteria or a man of common sense alone, to reconcile what he sees and reads in Scripture with what our theologians seem to affirm concerning the universal and absolute truth of the same Scripture. It is no longer possible to reconcile the history of Christian doctrine with what our theologians seem to assert concering its perpetual and always remaining identity. It is no longer possible to reconcile the natural meaning of the Gospel texts, even the most authenticated, with what our theologians teach or seem to teach about the consciousness and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is no longer possible to hold as adequate to the economy of salvation a theory conceived in ignorance of man’s history upon the earth, and the history of religion in humanity as such, etc. Therefore once and for all, it is time to put away in a safe place the faith, everwhere shaking, concerning the authority of the Scriptures, showing what the Books of the Bible really are, and what type of truth should be attributed to them. It is time to put away in safety the shaking faith concerning the redemption and salvation, seeking under formulas or ideas now dead the principle of unchanging truth that hides deep in them, and the notion at last intelligible of the role that Christ has in the moral regeneration of humanity. It is time to put away into a safe place the shaking faith concerning the ressurection of the Savior and his eucharistic presence, by penetrating more deeply the mystery of the immortal Christ who lives forever in God and in his work, etc. It is at last time for the Catholic Church to rethink seriously what has not sufficiently scandalized the learned now for a long time; and that Catholicism itself itself is reserved for fatal ruin as long as its preaching will seem to impose upon minds a conception of the world and history in discord with that which the work of the recently past centuries has restored; indeed especially, as long as the faithful are kept in fear of offending God by thinking and admitting in the philosophical, scientific, and historical order conclusions and hypothesis that the theologians of the Middle Ages had not foreseen”(¹)

Sane vero, non potuisset excogitari negatio magis radicalis omnium principiorum ac regularum fidei christianae catholicae. Devenitur enim, non solum deductione logica, ineluctabilique consequentia, verum etiam formali et diserta auctorum confessione, usque ad categoricam negationem omnis revelationis, id est verae et proprie dictae locutionis Dei. Sed haeresis ista, si tamen adhuc haeresis dici potest, non statim induit completam formam sub qua nunc sese prodit. Primas radices habuit in falso conceptu traditionis catholicae, quasi nimirum traditio ista esset reposita in nudo et simplici facto humano historico, cuius testimonia possent et deberent tractari secundum eadem criteria, easdemque regulas, nec plus nec minus, ac caetera quaecumque antiquitatis monumenta. Hinc prodiit sic dicta methodus historica in studiis theologiae positivae; qua methodo informati, nonnulli eruditi visi sunt sibi deprehendere manifestam oppositionem inter sensum dogmatis apud vetustiores Patres, praesertim antenicaenos, et sensum quam posterioris aevi Concilia et Doctores amplexi sunt. Hinc consequenter reintroductus in re dogmatica progressus ille Guntherianus a Concilio Vaticano iam confixus, addita solum quadam notivatis specie ex theoria evolutionis, quae post Darwinium, tantum ubique favorem obtinuerat, et originem dedit notioni fidei, ut aiunt, viventis, id est fidei quae prius in quodam germine continebatur, ac deinde, quasi ex ovo progrediens, et a specie in speciem transiens, Darwiniani animalis instar, per selectionis viam et sub influxu medii ambientis, sese semper transformat in melius. Ne autem quis sollicitus forte esset de modo conciliandi eiusmodi theoriam cum catholicis principiis de infallibilitate traditionis seu magisterii Ecclesiae, opportune resuscitatus est is quam Guntherus ediderat, conceptus veritatis relativae. Veritatem porro relativam dicunt, per oppositionem ad veritatem simpliciter, ad quam fuit hactenus, prout adiunctorum possibilitas ferebat, major minorve approximatio, longe tamen, longeque distans ab incognita veritate absoluta, suo forsitan tempore revelanda. Sed cum a veritate relativa facilis iam descensus pararetur ad negationem omnis veritatis obiectivae, ideo ulterio progredientes eruerunt ex officinis philosophiae kantianae ideam dogmatismi moralis, seu dogmatis quod nihil plus est quam subiectiva elucubratio intellectus sub determinatione voluntatis. Tandem ventum est ad systema completum quod in praecitato opere L’Évangile et l’Église sub compendio exponitur. In quo quidem, Trinitas, Incarnatio, Redemptio, Ecclesia, Sacramenta, omnia demum dogmata nostra, prout et in quantum nunc a nobis creduntur, non aliud sunt quam ideae mysticae pro certa evolutionis phasi. In quo etiam, critica historica et fides ita comparantur inter se, ut numquam sibi invicem contradicere queant, eo quod fides est de praesenti forma quam induit idea christiana, critica vero versatur circa formas omnino diversas quae in origine erant.

De his igitur per ordinem agere propositum intentionis est, et primo de eo quod toti theoriae liberam aperuit viam, hoc est, de erroneo conceptu traditionis. Et quia erroneus conceptus non innotescit nisi per principia vera, circa haec ipsa principia, in limine disputationis vertenda est mentis consideratio.

Truly, it would be impossible to think up a more radical denial of all the principles and rules of the Catholic Christian faith. For it has come, not only by logical deduction, ineluctable consequence, or the formal and eloquent discussion of authors, to the point of a categorical denial of all revelation, that is, a denial of God’s truly and properly spoken speech. But this heresay, if it can still be called a heresy, did not immediately take the complete form under which it now presents itself. It had its first roots in a false concept of the Catholic tradition, as if this tradition were excessively put back in a bare and simple human historical fact, the evidence of which could and shold be treated according to the same criteria, the same rules, no more no less, than the other monuments of antiquity. From here came forth the so-called historical method in studies of positivie theology; formed in this method, certain scholars seemed to see a clear opposition between the sense of dogma among the older Fathers, especially the ante-Nicene Fathers, and the sense that the Councils and Doctors of a later age embraced. From this, the Guntherian progress already nailed by the Vatican Council, reintroduced in dogmatics, with the addition only of an appearance of novelty from the theory of evolution, which after Darwin had won favor everywhere, and provided the origin for a notion of faith, as they say, that is living, that is, faith that is contained first in a sprout, then as if going forth from an egg, and passing from species to species, like a Darwinian animal, by way of selection and under the influence of the environment, constantly transforms itself into something better. Lest anyone would be concerned with how reconcile this kind of theory with the Catholic principles of the infallibility of tradition or the magisterium of the Church, the concept of relative truth that Gunther formulated was brought back to life at the right moment. They speak in turn of relative truth by oppposition to truth in the simple sense, to which up to now there has been a greater or less approximation, as the possibility of additons allowed, but very far indeed from the unknown absolute truth, perhaps to be revealed at its own time. But since the relatively easy descent from relative truth to the denial of all objective truth has been prepared, those who go further took from the workshops of Kantian philosophy the idea of moral dogmatism, that is, dogma that is nothing more than a subjective construction of the intellect under the determination of the will. Finally it came to the point of a complete system that in the aforementioned work L’Évangile et l’Église [The Gospel and the Church] has been presented in an abbreviated form. In that work, the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Church, the Sacrements, finally all our dogmas, as they are now believed by us, are nothing other than mystical ideas for a certain phase of evolution. Also in that work, historicla criticism and faith are compared such that they can never contradict each other, since faith concerns the present form that the Christian idea wears, while criticism concerns the completely diverse forms that were in the beginning.

Our plan is to consider these matters in order, first about what opens the way for the whole theory, that is, concerning an erroneous concept of tradition. And since an erroneous concept is not known except by true principles, the consideration of the mind should be turned to these principles at the outset.