Human Reason Can Know God

Part I: The Knowability of God

Chapter I: Human Reason Can Know God

Human reason is able to know God by a contemplation of His creatures, and to deduce His existence from certain facts of the supernatural order.

Our primary and proper medium of cognition is the created universe, i.e., the material and the spiritual world.

In defining both the created universe and the supernatural order as sources of our knowledge of God, the Church has barred Traditionalism and at the same time eliminated the possibility of Atheism, though the latter no doubt constitutes a splendid refutation of the theory that the idea of God is innate.

Section 1: Man Can Gain a Knowledge of God from the Physical Universe

Article 1: The Positive Teaching of Revelation

In entering upon this division of our treatise, we assume that the reader has a sufficient acquaintance with the philosophic proofs for the existence of God, as furnished by theodicy and apologetics.¹ As against the attempt of atheists and traditionalists to deny the valor and stringency of these proofs, Catholic theology staunchly upholds the ability of unaided human reason to know God. Witness this definition of the Vatican Council:² “Si quis dixerit, Deum unum et verum, creatorem et Dominum nostrum, per ea quae facta sunt, naturali rationis humanae lumine certo cognosci non posse, anathema sit — If any one shall say that the one true God, our Creator and Lord, cannot be certainly known by the natural light of human reason through created things; let him be anathema.” Let us see how this dogma can be proved from Holy Scripture and Tradition.

1. The Argument from Sacred Scripture. — a) Indirectly the possibility of knowing God by means of His creatures can be shown from Rom. II, 14 sqq.: “Cum enim gentes, quae legem non habent, naturaliter ea quae legis sunt faciunt, eiusmodi legem non habentes ipsi sibi sunt lex: qui ostendunt opus legis scriptum in cordibus suis, testimonium reddente illis conscientia ipsorum et inter se invicem cogitationibus accusantibus aut etiam defendentibus, in die cum iudicabit Deus occulta hominum secundum Evangelium meum, per Iesum Christum — For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves: who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them, and their thoughts between themselves accusing, or also defending one another, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”

The “law” (lex, νόμος) of which St. Paul here speaks, is identical in content with the moral law of nature, the same which constituted the formal subject-matter of supernatural Revelation in the Decalogue. Hence, considering the mode of Revelation, there is a well-defined distinction, not to say opposition, between the moral law as perceived by unaided human reason, and the revealed Decalogue. Whence it follows, against the teaching of Estius, that “gentes,” in the above-quoted passage of St. Paul, must refer to the heathen, in the strict sense of the word, not to Christian converts from Paganism. For, one who has the material content of the Decalogue “written in his heart,” so that, without having any knowledge of the positive Mosaic legislation, he is “a law unto himself,” being able, consequently, to comply “naturally” with the demands of the Decalogue, and having to look forward on Judgment Day to a trial conducted merely on the basis of his own conscience — such a one is outside the sphere of supernatural Revelation.³

From this passage of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans we argue as follows: There can be no knowledge of the natural moral law derived from unaided human reason, unless parallel with it, and derived from the same source, there runs a natural knowledge of God as the supreme lawgiver revealing Himself in the conscience of man. Now, St. Paul expressly teaches that the Gentiles were able to observe the natural law “naturaliter” — “by nature” — i.e., without the aid of supernatural revelation. Since no one can observe a law unless he knows it, St. Paul’s supposition obviously is that the existence of God, qua author and avenger of the natural law, can likewise be known “naturaliter,” that is to say, by unaided human reason.

b) A direct and stringent proof for our thesis can be drawn from Wisdom XIII, 1 sqq., and Rom. I, 18 sqq.

α) After denouncing the folly of those “in whom there is not the knowledge of God,”⁴ the Book of Wisdom continues (XIII, 5 sq.): “A magnitudine enim speciei et creaturae cognoscibiliter⁵ poterit creator horum videri… . Iterum autem nec his debet ignosci; si enim tantum potuerunt scire, ut possent aestimare saeculum, quomodo huius Dominum non facilius invenerunt? — For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creature, the creator of them may be seen, so as to be known thereby… . But then again they are not to be pardoned; for if they were able to know so much as to make a judgment of the world, how did they not more easily find out the Lord thereof?” A careful analysis of this passage reveals the following line of thought: The existence of God is an object of the same cognitive faculty that explores the visible world, i.e., human reason. Hence the medium of our knowledge of God can be none other than that same material world, the magnitude and beauty of which leads us to infer that there must be a Creator who brought it forth. Such a knowledge of God is more easily acquired than a deeper knowledge of the creatural world; in fact, absence of it would argue unpardonable carelessness. As viewed by the Old Testament writer, therefore, nature furnishes sufficient data to enable the mind of man to attain to a knowledge of the existence of God, without any extraneous aid on the part of Revelation or any special illumination by supernatural grace.

β) We have a parallel passage in the New Testament — Rom. I, 18 sqq., which reaches its climax in verse 20: “Invisibilia enim ipsius [scil. Dei] a creatura mundi per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspiciuntur⁶ sempiterna quoque eius virtus et divinitas, ita ut sint inexcusabiles — For the invisible things of him [God] from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.” In other words: God, Who is per se invisible, after some fashion becomes visible to human reason (νοούμενα καθοράται). But how? Not by positive revelation, nor yet by the interior grace of faith; but solely by means of a natural revelation imbedded in the created world (τοῖς ποιήμασιν). To know God from nature appears to be such an easy and matter-of-fact process (even to man in his fallen state), that the heathen are called “inexcusable” in their ignorance and are in punishment therefor “given up to the desires of their heart unto uncleanness.”⁷

c) By way of supplementing this argument from Holy Scripture we will briefly advert to the important distinction which the Bible makes, or at least intimates as existing, between popular and scientific knowledge of God. The former comes spontaneously and without effort, while the latter demands earnest research and conscientious study, and, where there is guilty ignorance, involves the risk of a man’s falling into the errors of polytheism, pantheism, etc. We find this same distinction made by St. Paul in his sermons at Lystra and Athens, and we meet it again in the writings of the Fathers, coupled with the consideration that, to realize the existence of a Supreme Being men have but to advert to the fact that nations, like individuals, are plainly guided and directed by God’s Providence. In his sermon at Lystra, after noting that God had allowed the Gentiles “to walk in their own ways,” that is to say, to become the prey of false religions, the Apostle declares that He nevertheless⁸ “left not Himself without testimony, doing good from heaven, giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”⁹ Before the Areopagus at Athens, the great Apostle of the Gentiles, pointing to the altar dedicated “To the Unknown God,” said: “God, who made the world, … and hath made of one [Adam] all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times and the limits of their habitation, that they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him,¹⁰ although he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and are.”¹¹ In the following verse (29) he calls attention to the unworthy notion that the Divinity is “like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.” Both sermons assume that there is a twofold knowledge of God: the one direct, the other reflex. The direct knowledge of God arises spontaneously in the mind of every thinking man who contemplates the visible universe and ponders the favors continually lavished by Providence. In the reflexive or metaphysical stage of his knowledge of God, on the other hand, man is exposed to the temptation wrongly to transfer the concept of God to objects not divine, and thus to fall into gross polytheism or idolatry.¹² We have, therefore, Scriptural warrant for holding that the idea of God is entirely spontaneous in its origin, but may easily (though, it is true, only by an abuse of reason) be perverted in the course of its scientific development.¹³

2. The Patristic argument may be reduced to three main propositions.

a) In the first place, the Fathers teach that God manifests Himself in His visible creation, and may be perceived there by man without the aid of supernatural revelation.

Athenagoras calls the existing order of the material world, its magnitude and beauty, “pledges of divine worship”¹⁴ and adds: “For the visible is the medium by which we perceive the invisible.”¹⁵ Clement of Alexandria, too, insists that we gain our knowledge of Divine Providence from the contemplation of God’s works in nature, so much so that it is unnecessary to resort to elaborate arguments to prove the existence of God. “All men,” he says, “Greeks and barbarians, discern God, the Father and Creator of all things, unaided and without instruction.”¹⁶ St. Basil¹⁷ calls the visible creation “a school and institution of divine knowledge.”¹⁸ St. Chrysostom, in his third homily on the Epistle to the Romans (n. 2), apostrophizes St. Paul thus: “Did God call the Gentiles with his voice? Certainly not. But He has created something which is apt to draw their attention more forcibly than words. He has put in the midst of them the created world and thereby from the mere aspect of visible things, the learned and the unlearned, the Scythian and the barbarian, can all ascend to God.” Similarly St. Gregory the Great teaches:¹⁹ “Omnis homo eo ipso quod rationalis est conditus, debet ex ratione colligere, eum qui se condidit Deum esse — By the use of his reason every man must come to the conclusion that the very fact that he is a rational creature proves that his Creator is God.”

b) The Fathers further teach: From even a superficial contemplation of finite things there must arise spontaneously, in every thinking man, at least a popular knowledge of God.

To explain how natural it is to rise from a contemplation of the physical universe to the existence of God, some of the Fathers call the idea of God “an innate conviction, planted by nature in the mind of man,”²⁰ a knowledge which is “not acquired,”²¹ but “a dowry of reason,”²² and which, precisely because it is so easy of acquisition, is quite common among men. Tertullian calls upon “the soul of the Gentiles” to give testimony to God — not the soul which “has learned in the school of wisdom,” but that which is “simplex, rudis, impolita et idiotica.” — “Magistra natura,” he says, “anima discipula — Nature is the teacher, the soul a pupil.”²³ St. Augustine says that the consciousness we have of God blends with the very essence of human reason: “Haec est vis verae divinitatis, ut creaturae rationali ratione iam utenti non omnino ac penitus possit abscondi; exceptis enim paucis [sc. atheis] in quibus natura nimium depravata est, universum genus hominum Deum mundi huius fatetur auctorem — For such is the energy of true Godhead, that it cannot be altogether and utterly hidden from any rational creature. For with the exception of a few in whom nature has become outrageously depraved, the whole race of man acknowledges God as the maker of this world.”²⁴ Seeking a deeper explanation, several Fathers (e.g., Justin Martyr and St. Basil) have raised the rational soul to the rank of an essential image of the Eternal Logos, calling it a λόγος σπερματικός, which irresistibly seeks out and finds God in the universe.

c) The Fathers finally teach that human reason possesses, both in the visible world of exterior objects, and in its own depths, sufficient means to develop the popular notion of God into a philosophical concept.

The Greek Fathers, who had to combat paganism and the heresy of the Eunomians, generally relied on two arguments as sufficient to enable any man to form a philosophical concept of God; viz., the cosmological and the teleological. Augustine’s profounder mind turned to the purely metaphysical order of the true, the good, and the beautiful, to deduce therefrom the existence of Substantial Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.²⁵ This trend of mind did not, however, prevent him from acknowledging the validity of the teleological and cosmological argument. “Interroga mundum, ornatum coeli, fulgorem dispositionemque siderum, … interroga omnia et vide, si non sensu suo tamquam tibi respondent: Deus nos fecit. Haec et philosophi nobiles quaesierunt et ex arte artificem cognoverunt… . Quod curiositate invenerunt, superbia perdiderunt.”²⁶

Readings: — Cfr. the compendiums of Hurter, Jungmann, Bautz, Einig, Heinrich-Huppert, Wilhelm-Scannell, and Hunter. — Also, in particular, Card. Franzelin, De Deo uno, ed. 3a, Romae 1883. — Kleutgen, De Ipso Deo, Ratisbonae 1881. — Heinrich, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. III, Mayence 1883. — Scheeben, Katholische Dogmatik, Vol. I, Freiburg 1873. — *De San, De Deo uno, 2 vols., Lovanii 1894–97. — *Stentrup, De Deo uno, Oeniponte 1878. — *L. Janssens, O.S.B., De Deo uno, 2 tomi, Friburgi 1900. — A. M. Lepicier, De Deo uno, 2 vols., Parisiis 1900. — Ronayne, S.J., God Knowable and Known, 2nd ed., New York 1902. — D. Coghlan, De Deo Uno et Trino, Dublinii 1909. — P. H. Buonpensiere, O.P., Comment. in 1 P. (qu. 1–23) S. Th. Thomae Aquinatis, Romae 1902. — Chr. Pesch, S.J., Praei. Dogmat., Vol. II, ed. 3a, Friburgi 1906. — R. F. Clarke, S.J., The Existence of God, London 1892. — Of the Scholastics, especially St. Thomas, Summa Theol. Ia, qu. 1 sqq. and Summa contra Gentiles, l. I, cap. 10 sqq. (Rickaby, Of God and His Creatures, London 1905, pp. 9 sqq.); also the treatises of Suarez, Petavius, and Thomassin, De Deo uno, and Lessius, De Perfectionibus Moribusque Divinis, ed. nova, Parisiis 1881. — The teaching of Franzelin and Palmieri is summarized in English by W. Humphrey, S.J., in “His Divine Majesty,” or the Living God, London 1897. — Other references in the text.²⁷

Article 2: The Idea of God Not Inborn

1. The Theory that our Idea of God is Inborn. — Several of the Fathers insisted so strongly on the original and spontaneous character of our knowledge of God, that a number of theologians²⁸ were led to claim Patristic authority for the theory of innate ideas evolved by the famous Descartes. According to the teaching of these theologians, the Patristic concept of God is not based upon a conclusion of human reason (idea Dei acquisita), but is inborn (idea Dei innata). Our “consciousness of God,” says e.g. Kuhn, is but part and parcel of our “self-consciousness,” that is to say, it is “a knowledge of God founded upon His revelation to the human mind.”²⁹ It is a plausible enough theory. For as, e.g., Justin Martyr terms the idea of God “ἔμφυτον τῇ φύσει τῶν ἀνθρώπων δόξαν — an opinion implanted in the nature of men,”³⁰ so also Tertullian teaches: “Animae enim a primordio conscientia Dei dos est, eadem nec alia et in Aegyptiis et in Syris et in Ponticis — From the beginning the knowledge of God is the dowry of the soul, one and the same amongst the Egyptians, and the Syrians, and the tribes of Pontus.”³¹

2. Refutation of this Theory. — The theory that the concept of God is inborn in the human mind, cannot stand the test of either philosophy or theology. Without entering into its philosophical weaknesses, we will only remark that aside from the danger of idealism which it incurs, the very possibility of atheism renders this theory improbable. While not perhaps deserving of formal theological censure, it cannot escape the note of “hazardous,” inasmuch as it is apt to endanger the dogmatic truth that the existence of God is strictly demonstrable on rational grounds.³² At any rate it can be shown beyond a peradventure that the Patristic teaching of the primordial character of human belief in God, is by no means identical with the theory of Descartes, and cannot be construed as an argument in favor of the proposition that the idea of God is inborn.

a) In the first place, the assumption that it can be so construed does not square with the noetic system of those very Fathers who speak of our knowledge of God as “innate.” Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Augustine and John of Damascus, uniformly teach that all our concepts, including those we have of God and divine things, in their last analysis are drawn from experience by means of a consideration of the material universe; hence they cannot possibly mean to say that our idea of God is inborn.³³

b) A careful comparison of all the Patristic passages bearing on this subject shows that the Fathers nowhere assert that our idea of God is innate, though they frequently insist on the spontaneity with which, by virtue of an unconscious syllogism, this idea springs from any, even the most superficial, consideration of nature. What is inborn in our mind is not the idea of God as such, but rather the faculty readily to discover God in His creatures.³⁴

3. The Necessity of Proving the Existence of God. — If the idea we have of God is not inborn, but owes its origin to a consideration of the cosmos, it necessarily follows that the existence of God must be demonstrated syllogistically.

a) The knowableness of God, as taught by Holy Scripture and the Church, ultimately resolves itself into His demonstrability. To question the validity of the ordinary proofs for the existence of God, and to say, as e.g. W. Rosenkranz says:³⁵ “The so-called metaphysical proofs, which theology has hitherto employed, have one and all failed when put to a critical test,” is to advocate scepticism and to miss the meaning intended by the Church. If no conclusive argument for the existence of God had yet been found, it would be safe to say that none such exists, and that the case is hopeless. Gregory XVI obliged Professor Bautain, of Strasbourg, to assent to the thesis: “Ratiocinatio Dei existentiam cum certitudine probare potest” (Sept. 8, 1840). Fifteen years later the S. Congregation of the Index ordered Bonnetty to subscribe this proposition: “Ratiocinatio Dei existentiam, animae spiritualitatem, hominis libertatem cum certitudine probare potest”³⁶ (Dec. 12, 1855).

b) If we inquire into the nature of the middle term that is indispensable to a valid syllogistic argument for the existence of God, we find that Sacred Scripture and the Fathers agree that we must ascend to God a posteriori, i.e., from the material world that surrounds us. This fact alone would explain the distrust which theologians have ever shown towards the a priori or ontological argument of St. Anselm.³⁷ Of the other proofs for the existence of God, it may be noted that two, namely, first, that which from the consideration of possible or contingent beings passes on to the conclusion that at least one necessary being exists; and, secondly, that commonly called teleological, which draws this conclusion from order and beauty in the physical universe, are imposed on us both by Holy Writ and the teaching of the Fathers. Nor, as the example of St. Paul shows,³⁸ can the moral and historical proofs (conscience, providence) be brushed aside as lacking cogency. Whence it appears that these arguments cannot easily be improved, except perhaps with regard to method, and by formulating them with greater precision. Since it is not the object of Revelation to furnish an exhaustive course of proofs for the existence of God, such other arguments as that of St. Augustine based upon the metaphysical essences, and the one drawn from man’s desire for happiness, must also be accepted as valid, provided, of course, they do not move in a vicious circle.

c) The a posteriori demonstrability of God is confirmed by the great theological luminaries of the Middle Ages. Thus St. Thomas Aquinas, the Prince of Scholastic theologians, teaches: “Simpliciter dicendum est, quod Deus non est primum quod a nobis cognoscitur; sed magis per creaturas in Dei cognitionem venimus, secundum illud Apostoli ad Romanos (I, 20): Invisibilia Dei per ea, quae facta sunt, intellecta conspiciuntur. Primum autem quod intelligitur a nobis secundum statum praesentis vitae, est quidditas rei materialis.”³⁹ That St. Anselm’s view, apart from his ontological argument, was in substantial agreement with that of St. Thomas, has been established by Van Weddingen.⁴⁰

Section 2: Our Knowledge of God as Derived from the Supernatural Order

In relation to our knowledge of God the facts of the supernatural order may be viewed from a twofold coign of vantage: either as premises for a syllogism demonstrating the existence of God from the standpoint of human reason; or as a praeambulum to supernatural faith in God (actus fidei in Deum), which, being a cognitio Dei per fidem, differs essentially from the cognitio Dei per rationem.

Article 1: The Facts of the Supernatural Order Considered as Premises for Unaided Reason

1. State of the Question. — Both nature and the supernatural order — the latter even more convincingly than the former — tell us that there is a God. The arguments which can be drawn from the supernatural order — the fulfilment of prophecies, miracles (in the Old and the New Testament), Christ and His mission — are historical, and therefore appeal most forcibly to the student of history, though scarcely any thinking mind can escape their force.

We must call particular attention to the fact that the proofs for the existence of God drawn from the supernatural deeds of the Almighty Himself, are really and truly arguments based on reason, and hence do not differ essentially from others of the same class. All of them depend for their validity upon the law of causation. But the proofs here under consideration possess the twofold advantage of being (1) more perfect and (2) more effective. They are (1) more perfect, because the supernatural effects wrought by God far surpass those of the purely natural order, inasmuch as greater effects point to a more perfect cause. They are (2) more effective, because they are based, not upon everyday phenomena constantly recurring in accordance with Nature’s laws, but upon rare and startling facts (such as prophecies and miracles) which cannot fail to impress even those who pay little heed to the glories of Nature.

2. Sketch of the Argument. — From the mass of available material we will select three prominent phenomena, which prove the existence of a Supreme Being.

a) The first is the history of the Jews under the Old Covenant. As the Chosen People of God for two thousand years they led a religious, social, and political life radically different from that of the heathen nations around them. It was not due to a racial predisposition, such as e.g. a monotheistic instinct, that the Jewish people, encompassed by pagan nations, were able to preserve their peculiar belief, constitution, and discipline; for was not the inclination to practice idolatry one of their chief faults? The true explanation is that all their peculiarities were bottomed upon supernatural causes, a long, unbroken chain of prophecies and miracles, visible apparitions of a hidden Power to individuals (Moses) and to the whole people (the legislation given on Mount Sinai). The entire Old Testament is a most wonderful revelation of God and His attributes, and furnishes cogent proof for the existence of an almighty and gracious sovereign.⁴¹

b) Secondly, there is the person of Jesus Christ. Cfr. Heb. I, 1, 2: “Multifariam multisque modis olim Deus loquens patribus in prophetis, novissime diebus istis locutus est nobis in Filio, quem constituit haeredem universorum, per quem fecit et saecula — God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke, in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the world.” The Old Testament was plainly a mere preparation for the New. In the person of the Messiah, God appeared bodily on earth. His wondrous conception, His miracles and prophecies, His superhuman teaching, His instituting the Church, His resurrection and ascension, triumphantly prove Christ to be what He claimed to be: the true Son of God. Hence God exists. Historians and philosophers are constrained to acknowledge in the words of the Evangelist (John I, 14): “And we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Like the two hands of a clock, universal history, before and after Christ, gives testimony of Jesus: antiquity pointing forward as a paedagogus ad Christum, while the Christian era points backward to indicate fulfilment. The Incarnation represents the climax and culmination of God’s self-revelation to humankind. Thus Christ is in very truth the axis of the universe and of universal history, the living proof of Theism.⁴²

c) A third argument is derived from the wonderful religious and moral regeneration of the Mediterranean races wrought by the influence of Christianity in the first three centuries of its existence. Oppressed by the “shadow of death,” the Gentiles before Christ walked in the ways of evil and darkness, or, as St. Paul puts it, God “in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.”⁴³ The fourth century of the Christian era found these same nations radically changed — they had become “a new generation” walking in “the way of the cross,” “burning what they had previously adored.” The bloody persecutions of the Caesars had proved so ineffective in stamping out the new religion, that Tertullian was able to exclaim: “Sanguis martyrum semen Christianorum.” Leaving aside all other considerations, from the purely historical point of view alone such a radical transformation of the family, and of economic and political life, the conversion of the masses, and their preservation, even at the risk of life, in a state of moral purity such as the world had never known before, demands an adequate explanation. Where are we to seek for this explanation? Surely not in the circumstances, either extraneous or internal, of the regenerated masses themselves. For both in doctrine and morals Christianity was the antithesis of paganism, and therefore could not possibly have developed from it. All attempts to derive the Christian religion from remnants of Oriental beliefs or the philosophic theories of the Greeks (Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Philo) have utterly failed. Far from aiding in the regeneration of the corrupt masses under the Roman Empire, philosophy made common cause against Christianity with a fanatical Jewry and a paganism already struggling in the grip of death. Nor did the new religion owe its final triumph to force. The rulers of the mighty Empire, far from favoring Christianity and advancing its spread with the powerful means at their command, turned these engines against it as a deadly foe, and sought to drown the new faith in the life-blood of its adherents.⁴⁴ It was not until the day of Constantine that a change set in. There is no satisfactory explanation for all this except that a superhuman Being guides the destinies of men and lets the gentle sun of His providence shine upon the weak and the strong alike. Filled with a conviction of this great truth, the unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus writes: “Ista non videntur hominis opera, haec virtus est Dei, haec adventus eius sunt demonstrationes.”⁴⁵

Article 2: The Supernatural Facts as a Preamble to Our Belief in the Existence of God

1. State of the Question. — The supernatural facts described in the previous article are more than mere arguments of reason for the existence of God. Inasmuch as they prove the Christian religion to be divine, they are also a praeambulum to the supernatural act of faith in the existence of God. To work out this argument in detail is the business of apologetics.⁴⁶

There is another consideration that must be emphasized. While the Revelation made through Jesus Christ, in spite of its demonstrability on rational grounds, does not necessarily compel supernatural faith, but may leave the unbeliever entirely unconvinced, it produces in the mind of him who receives it willingly the act of faith. Inasmuch as, with regard to their contents, the praeambula fidei form an essential part of divine Revelation, they enter as a necessary ingredient into this actus fidei. From a mere outwork of (subjective) faith they become a part of its essence; what was previously an historic and apologetic certainty, is transformed into the certainty of faith. Nature gives way to the supernatural in the heart of man. Objectively, purely rational demonstration cedes its place to the infallible authority of God’s word, while subjectively, a supernatural light instead of the natural light of reason becomes the source of faith. Like the “preamble” itself, the existence of God becomes a formal dogma, to be embraced and held with the supernatural certitude proper to faith.

2. The Existence of God as an Article of Faith. — The knowableness of God being an article of faith, His existence must be a dogma a fortiori. Although, as Heinrich says,⁴⁷ supernatural faith is an impossibility unless in the very act of faith itself we believe with supernatural certainty in the existence and veracity of God, inasmuch as a revelation postulates the existence of a revealer; nevertheless, the fact that there is one who reveals constitutes a separate and independent article of the depositum fidei. “Si quis unum verum Deum, visibilium et invisibilium creatorem et Dominum negaverit, anathema sit — If any one shall deny one true God, Creator and Lord of all things visible and invisible, let him be anathema.”⁴⁸

a) In his Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul declares belief in the existence of God to be an indispensable condition of salvation. Hebr. XI, 6: “But without faith it is impossible to please God. For He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.” Here belief in the existence of God is coordinated, separately and independently, with belief in the truth that He rewards those that seek Him. Both these truths are based not only on philosophical arguments, but likewise on that supernatural faith which is the foundation of man’s justification. “De hac dispositione [ad justificationem] scriptum est: Credere oportet accidentem ad Deum, quia est et inquirentibus se remunerator sit — Concerning this disposition it is written: ‘He that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that seek Him.’”⁴⁹ The examples of faith which St. Paul gives in Hebr. XI, 1 sqq., where he concludes with a reference to Christ as “the author and finisher of faith,”⁵⁰ admit of no other interpretation.

b) The Fathers reecho this teaching of St. Paul, so much so that Suarez⁵¹ was able to state it as the conviction of the Schoolmen that “Fide catholica tenendum est, Deum esse.” We have the most succinct proof for this proposition in the first article of the Apostles’ Creed: “Credo in Deum — πιστεύω εἰς Θεόν.” The paraphrase which the Vatican Council gives of this article⁵² shows clearly that “God” here means not the first person of the Most Holy Trinity (i.e., the Father), but God in His absolute essence and inasmuch as He is apt to be the object of a sure knowledge attainable by unaided reason. There can be no mistake about this; else how account for the fact that the canons attached to this proposition expressly condemn, not some anti-Trinitarian heresy, but atheism, materialism, and pantheism. If Atheism is a heresy, the existence of God must necessarily be a dogma — the fundamental dogma upon which all others rest. This explains why, as early as 1679, Pope Innocent XI condemned the proposition: “Fides late dicta ex testimonio creaturarum similive motivo ad justificationem sufficit — Faith in the wide sense, that is faith as based upon the testimony of creatures or some similar motive, suffices for justification.”⁵³

3. Knowledge vs. Faith. — It may be objected that if the natural cognoscibility of God and the necessity of supernatural faith are both supernaturally revealed, these dogmas would seem to exclude each other, inasmuch as no man can know God for certain by his unaided reason, and at the same time firmly believe in Him on authority. At the root of this objection lies the assumption that we cannot know a thing and believe it at the same time, because, what we believe on the authority of another we do not know, and what we know we do not and cannot believe. It is true St. Thomas⁵⁴ seems to have held that an evident knowledge of God is incompatible with belief in Him; but Estius confessed himself unable to reconcile this opinion with the teaching of St. Paul in Hebr. XI, 6; while St. Bonaventure,⁵⁵ De Lugo,⁵⁶ Suarez,⁵⁷ and others, openly defended the contrary. Some theologians, like Cardinals De Lugo and d’Aguirre, interpreted St. Thomas in favor of their own dissenting view.

Whatever may have been the Angelic Doctor’s theory as to the subjective compatibility of knowledge with faith, it seems certain that we are not free to doubt the necessity, much less the possibility, of a co-existence of both modes of cognition in the same subject, especially since St. Paul and the Tridentine Council condition the justification of each and every man, whether he be learned or ignorant, upon a belief in the existence of God. The Vatican Council expressly defines both the knowableness of God from the consideration of the physical universe, and the necessity of supernatural faith in God, as dogmatic truths. Hence we must conclude that both modes of cognition can co-exist in the same subject without conflicting. Such teaching involves no contradiction, for it does not oblige us to hold that we can know and believe the same truth under the same aspect or from the same point of view. Manifestly the material object of both acts (scientia — fides) is the same: “God exists.” But between the formal object of the one and the formal object of the other, there is this essential difference, that rational knowledge depends on the degree of evidence in the argument, while faith flows from the authority of God Himself testifying to His own existence.⁵⁸ There is this further difference, that to know God by purely natural means does not require supernatural grace, while faith, on the other hand, is conditioned by the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost (gratia actus fidei), without which no man can have that belief in God which is necessary for salvation.⁵⁹

Readings: — Alb. a Bulsano, Instit. Theolog. Dogm. Specialis, ed. Graun, t. I, pp. 16 sqq., Oeniponte 1893. — Heinrich, Dogmat. Theologie, Vol. III, § 149. — Franzelin, De Deo Uno, thes. 8 sq. — W. Humphrey, S.J., “His Divine Majesty,” pp. 28 sqq., London 1897.

Section 3: Traditionalism and Atheism

Article 1: Traditionalism a False System

1. The Traditionalist Teaching. — a) Reduced to its simplest formula, the teaching of Traditionalism is this: Tradition and oral instruction (language) are absolutely essential to the development of the human race, so much so, that without them man can attain to no knowledge whatever, especially in the domain of religion and morality. Consequently, the knowledge of truth is propagated among men solely by oral tradition, and the source and fountainhead of all knowledge must be our first parents, or rather God Himself, who in what is called Primitive Revelation committed to Adam and Eve the treasure of truth to be kept and handed down to their descendants. Inspired by the best of intentions, i.e., to destroy Rationalism, the Traditionalists depreciate the power of human reason and exaggerate the function of faith.

b) In its crudest form⁶⁰ Traditionalism asserts that a man can no more think without language than he can see without light — that without language reason would be dead and man a mere brute. Hence the Creator had to endow man with the gift of speech before He could impress upon his mind the ideas of God, immortality, liberty, virtue, etc.; and it was only by means of language that Adam and Eve were able to transmit to their offspring the system of natural religion and ethics based upon these ideas. Hence faith is the foundation not only of supernatural knowledge and life, but likewise of purely human science and reason. De Lamennais,⁶¹ the inventor of the “sens commun” as the supreme criterion of truth, insisted even more emphatically than De Bonald on the necessity of Primitive Revelation, from which alone, he says, all man’s religious and moral knowledge is derived. Traditionalism reappears in a somewhat moderated form in the writings of Bonnetty (1798–1879) and P. Ventura (1792–1861).⁶² Bonnetty admits that human reason is able to deal with the truths at least of the material order independently of language and instruction, but that for the fundamental doctrines of metaphysics and ethics we are dependent on Revelation. Ventura goes so far as to admit that unaided reason can form the basic notions of being, substance, causality, virtue, and so forth, but his Traditionalistic bent moves him to insist that these basic notions must needs remain unfruitful, so far as our natural knowledge of God is concerned, were it not for the aid of language and instruction, that is to say, ultimately, Primitive Revelation. Traditionalism was still further attenuated by the Louvain school of Semi-Traditionalists, whose chief representative, Ubaghs,⁶³ expressly admits the revealed teaching that human reason can acquire a knowledge of God from the consideration of the physical universe, though he hastens to offset his own concession by explaining that the full use of reason (in a child) depends essentially on education and instruction in divine things, and that the concept of God which it is the business of education to convey, is derived from the Primitive Revelation given to our first parents in Paradise. This theory is calculated to raise anew the question as to the extent of the cognitive power of human reason, and traces the notion of God back to Tradition as its sole source. Were it not for its admission that reason can subsequently, by its own powers, perceive the existence (and essence) of God from nature, Traditionalism would openly contradict itself.

2. Why Traditionalism is Untenable. — The different systems of Traditionalism are philosophically and theologically untenable.

a) Philosophically, the fundamental fallacy of Traditionalism lies in the false assumption that language engenders ideas, while in matter of fact it is quite plain that, on the contrary, language necessarily presupposes thought and ideas already formed. Man must first have ideas before he can express them in words. “Verbis nisi verba non discimus,” to quote St. Augustine,⁶⁴ “nisi sonum strepitumque verborum… . Nescio tamen verbum esse, donec quid significet sciam. Rebus igitur cognitis, verborum quoque cognitio perficitur.” It is quite true that language and instruction play an important, nay, a necessary part in the formation of ideas, but only in so far as the spoken word of parent and teacher leads the child to think for himself and supports and aids him in such independent thinking. We may also concede that without the family and society no child can fully develop his mental faculties.

b) From the theological point of view Traditionalism is open to the following objections. Inasmuch as it denies that reason can attain to a knowledge of God from a consideration of nature, and asserts that all our knowledge of God is derived from language, human tradition, and Primitive Revelation, exaggerated Traditionalism manifestly contradicts the teaching of the Vatican Council. The milder form usually called Semi-Traditionalism runs counter to dogma only in so far as it questions the certainty of the knowledge of God acquired by unaided reason. It can therefore be squared with the dogmatic definition of the Council on condition that it be expressly understood that the knowledge of God handed down among men from generation to generation is derived not from Primitive Revelation in the strict sense of that term, but from an infused primitive knowledge.⁶⁵

Of the different Traditionalist schools only one, that of Louvain, has made an attempt to interpret Sacred Scripture and Tradition in accordance with its teaching. Its representatives endeavored to persuade themselves that the Bible and the Fathers refer to man as he grows up among his fellowmen, and converses with them by human methods, and consequently, when they employ the phrase “natural knowledge of God,” do not mean that concept of God which each individual human being forms anew under the influence of parents and instructors, but that concept which, derived from human instruction and tradition, has its roots in Primitive Revelation and can at most be confirmed and deepened by individual consideration of nature. If this explanation were true, we should have to interpret Wisdom XIII, 1 sqq., and Rom. I, 20, thus: A man is inexcusable if he does not know God, for the reason that all men derive a knowledge of God from Primitive Revelation and are, besides, able to perceive Him in nature. Is this the sense of Holy Scripture? We are at liberty to assume an elision only when there is reason to think that a writer has omitted something which, being self-evident, did not require express mention. Is the indispensableness of tradition, oral instruction, and Primitive Revelation self-evident in the passages under consideration? Certainly not; hence the sacred writers can not have meant to pass this point over per ellipsin. This becomes still plainer when we reflect that the Traditionalist interpretation is a modern innovation, excogitated for the purposes of a philosophical system that was entirely unknown in the past. Nor can the teaching of the Fathers be quoted in favor of Traditionalism. True, the Fathers admit the existence, in Paradise, of a Primitive Revelation upon which the human race is perpetually drawing; but they never regarded this Primitive Revelation as an absolutely necessary instrument of education: they merely advert to it as an accidental fact with which it is necessary to reckon. They insist that the original purity of Primitive Revelation was tarnished among the heathen nations, and that the genuine knowledge of God had to be constantly rejuvenated in the perennial purity of the springs of nature.⁶⁶

Readings: — *Kleutgen, De Ipso Deo, p. 1, qu. 1, art. 3. — Chastel, S.J., De la Valeur de la Raison Humaine, Paris 1875. — Denzinger, Vier Bücher von der religiösen Erkenntnis, Vol. I, pp. 149 sqq., Würzburg 1856. — For a philosophical appreciation of Traditionalism, see Schiffini, S.J., Disput. Metaphys. Specialis, Vol. I, n. 338 sqq.; B. Boedder, S.J., Natural Theology, pp. 149 sqq., New York 1891; Jos. Hontheim, S.J., Theodicaea, pp. 33 sqq., Friburgi 1893.

Article 2: The Possibility of Atheism

1. Definition of Atheism. — Negative Atheism (Agnosticism, Criticism, Scepticism) holds that the existence of God is “unknowable,” because there are no arguments to prove it. By positive Atheism we understand the flat denial of the existence of a supreme being apart and distinct from the cosmos. Its chief forms are the different varieties of Materialism (Sensualism, Positivism, Mechanical Monism) and Pantheism, which constantly assumes new shapes, and has therefore been justly likened to Proteus of ancient classic mythology. Polytheism and Semi-Pantheism (e.g., the “Panentheism” of Krause) cannot, however, be branded as Atheism. For though both systems logically culminate in the denial of God, their champions in some fashion or other hold to the existence of a supra-mundane and absolute being⁶⁷ upon which all other beings depend.

2. The Possibility of Atheism and its Limits. — Seeing that Holy Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching of the Church emphatically insist on the easy cognoscibility of God, our first question, in coming to treat of Atheism, naturally is: Is Atheism possible, and how is it possible?

a) We must, in the first place, carefully distinguish between atheistic systems of doctrine and individual professors of Atheism. The history of philosophy shows beyond a doubt that there exist philosophic systems which either expressly deny,⁶⁸ or in their ultimate principles virtually exclude,⁶⁹ the existence of God. It must be noted, however, that by a happy inconsistency the atheistic tendency of these systems often remains more or less latent, inasmuch as their adherents, in spite of atheistic (or pantheistic) premises, seek to uphold a belief in God.⁷⁰

In considering the case of individuals who profess themselves atheists, the first question to suggest itself is not: Are there practical atheists? (that is to say, men who live as if there were no God), but rather: Can there be theoretical atheists in the positive sense of the term? It is certain that no man can be firmly and honestly convinced of the non-existence of God. For, in the first place, no human being enjoying the full use of reason can find a really conclusive argument for the thesis that there is no God. In the second place, the consciousness that there is a God, is so deeply ingrained in the human heart, and has such a tremendous bearing upon life and death, that it is impossible for any man to rid himself of it for any considerable length of time. Not even Agnosticism can plead extenuating circumstances. For every thinking man is constrained by the law of causality, consciously or unconsciously to form the syllogism: Where there is order, some one must exist who produced it; now, nature evinces a wonderful order; therefore there must exist a superhuman power that produced it, namely, God. The premisses of this simple syllogism must be self-evident to every thinking man, no matter whether he be learned or unlettered; and the conclusion flowing from these premisses forces itself with absolute cogency on the mind of every one who realizes that there can be no effect without a cause. Hence it is held as a sententia communis by theologians that no thinking man can be permanently convinced of the truth of Atheism. This does not, of course, imply that there may not exist here and there feeble-minded, idiotic, uncivilized human beings who know nothing of God. Their ignorance is due to the fact that they are unable to reason from effect to cause, which is a necessary condition of acquiring a knowledge of God from His creatures.

b) As we have intimated above, even learned men may, from quasi-conviction, temporarily harbor a species of unbelief; though, of course, this always involves grave guilt. “Dixit insipiens in corde suo: Non est Deus — The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God.”⁷¹ Not scientific acumen nor a desire for truth, but folly is the source and fountain-head of Atheism. In most cases such folly is traceable to a corrupt heart, as St. Paul plainly intimates in his Epistle to the Romans, and as St. Augustine⁷² repeats in his commentary on the Psalms: “Primo vide illos corruptos, ut possint dicere in corde suo: Non est Deus… . Dixerunt enim apud se non recte cogitantes. Coepit corruptio a mala fide, inde itur in turpes mores, inde in acerrimas indignitates: gradus sunt isti.” The psychological process of apostasy from the faith may be described as follows: First a man loses his faith; then comes a period of practical unbelief, nourished sometimes by sensuality, sometimes by pride, until finally he is deluded into theoretical Atheism. Not infrequently moral corruption precedes infidelity as a cause. Cfr. Eph. IV, 18: “Tenebris obscuratum habentes intellectum, alienati a vita Dei per ignorantiam, quae est in illis propter caecitatem cordis ipsorum — Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts.”⁷³

3. Why Atheism is Intrinsically Possible. — Since the idea of God is spontaneous and forces itself almost irresistibly upon the human mind, purely moral causes do not suffice to explain Atheism; there must in each instance exist an intellectual factor also. This intellectual factor must be sought partly in the fallibility of human reason, which is controlled by the will, and partly in the circumstance that the proofs for the existence of God do not produce immediate certainty. On the one hand man has it in his power to disregard the more or less cogent features of these arguments and by concentrating his thoughts on the manifold objections raised against them, to delude himself into the notion that there is no God. On the other hand, these arguments, as we have said, carry no immediate, but only a mediate certainty, inasmuch as the conviction which they engender depends upon a long chain of middle terms.

The number of real atheists is impossible to ascertain. It depends on conditions of time, of milieu, of degree and method of education, and on various other agencies. Our age boasts the sorry distinction of being immersed in a flood of Atheism which it may take a social revolution to abate.⁷⁴

Readings: — Segneri, S.J., L’Incredulo senza scusa, Venezia 1690. — W. G. Ward, Essays on the Philosophy of Theism, 2 vols., London 1884. — Kaderavek, Der Atheismus, Wien 1884. — L. v. Hammerstein, Edgar, or From Atheism to the Full Truth, St. Louis 1903. — W. M. Lacy, An Examination of the Philosophy of the Unknowable, Philadelphia 1883. — A. W. Momerie, Agnosticism, London 1889. — Id., Belief in God, London 1891. — G. J. Lucas, Agnosticism and Religion, Baltimore 1895. — G. M. Schuler, Der Pantheismus, Würzburg 1881. — Id., Der Materialismus, Berlin 1890. — E. L. Fischer, Die modernen Ersatzversuche für das aufgegebene Christentum, Ratisbon 1903. — H. Schell, Der Gottesglaube und die naturwissenschaftliche Welterkenntnis, Bamberg 1904. — F. Aveling in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. II, s.v. “Atheism.” — F. Hettinger, Natural Religion, New York 1890. — W. S. Lilly, The Great Enigma, 2nd ed., New York 1893. — L. A. Lambert, Notes on Ingersoll, Buffalo 1883.⁷⁵ — T. Finlay, S.J., “Atheism as a Mental Phenomenon” in the Month (1878), pp. 186 sqq.