In face of such evident proofs of the limitations of the human mind, and with the object of preserving in one way or another the Christian Revelation, a reaction against the supposed infallibility of reason set in both amongst Protestant and Catholic scholars. Catholic philosophers were inclined to distrust reason entirely, and to rely solely on divine authority as a guarantee of truth. In other words they accepted Traditionalism, while Protestants, equally suspicious of reason, proclaimed that in judging the value of revelation the human will and sentiment must be heeded as well as the intellect, that is to say they accepted Sentimentalism.
The attempt to replace Scholasticism by some new philosophic system gave rise to various schools of thought, most of which can be traced back ultimately to Bacon and Descartes, the former a partisan of the inductive, the latter of the deductive method. /Rene Descartes/[7] (1596-1649) was born at Touraine, and received his early education with the Jesuits. In his desire to see the world for himself he took service as a soldier in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau, and later on in that of the Elector of Bavaria. He retired from active life to give himself up to the study of mathematics and philosophy. At first he found a quiet retreat in Holland, from which he migrated to Stockholm at the invitation of Queen Christina. Here after a few months' residence he died. Throughout his life Descartes remained a sincere and practical Catholic. Putting aside Revelation, with which he did not profess to deal, Descartes, by an application of his principle of methodic doubt, arrived at the conclusion that the foundation of all certainty lay in the proposition /Cogito ergo sum/ (I think, therefore I exist). From an examination of his own ideas of a most perfect being he arrived at the conclusion that God exists, and from the existence of a good and wise supreme Being who has given men reason, sense, and perception in order to acquire knowledge, he argued that these faculties cannot lead men into error, and that consequently the veracity of God was the ultimate basis of certitude.
The theories of Descartes were pushed to their logical conclusion by those who succeeded him. /Blaise Pascal/[8] (1623-1662) was influenced largely by the false mysticism of the Middle Ages. He distrusted reason and exalted faith, as the only means of answering the difficulties that pure intellectualism could not solve. /Arnold Geulincx/ (1625-1669) at first a Catholic and afterwards a Calvinist, arguing from the antithesis supposed by Descartes to exist between mind and matter, maintained that since matter was inert it could not produce the sensations and volitions which men experienced, and that therefore these must be caused by God. In other words he propounded the theory of Occasionalism. This doctrine of Occasionalism as furnishing an explanation of sensations was extended by Malebranche[9] (1638-1715), a student of the Sorbonne, so as to explain the origin of human ideas. These he maintained could not come from outside, because there can be no contact between mind and matter; they could not come from the mind itself, because creation is an attribute only of the infinite being, and therefore they must come from God. Hence, according to him, it is in God or in the divine essence that we see all things (Ontologism). If all activity and all knowledge come directly from God, it was only natural to conclude, as did /Spinoza/ (1632-77), that there exists only one substance endowed with the two attributes of thought and extension (Monism, Pantheism).[10]
From this brief sketch it will be seen that the rejection of the Scholastic System and the divorce between theology and philosophy led to dogmatic chaos, and ultimately to the rejection of divine revelation. By his attacks on the old proofs given for the existence of God and the motives of credibility, by the emphasis which he placed upon methodic doubt as the only safe way to certainty, and by the suspicions raised by him against the reliability of human reason, Descartes unwittingly paved the way for scepticism and atheism. Though his system was condemned by Rome and forbidden more than once by Louis XIV. it was taken up by the Oratorians and by most of the leading scholars in France.
The spirit of the eighteenth century was distinctly unfavourable to the religious orders. The Rationalists, the Freemasons, and the friends of absolutism joined hands in opposing the foundation of new establishments and in securing the suppression of the houses that had already been founded. In Austria, in Naples, in Spain, and in France a violent campaign was carried on to bring about the dissolution of several of the religious orders and congregations, or at least to so alter their rules and constitutions that they should be cut adrift from Rome and subject to the authority of the secular rulers. During the campaign many houses were suppressed in Austria and in the other territories of the empire, but by far the greatest victory of which its authors could boast was the suppression of the Society of Jesus.
Yet in spite of the enemies of the Church the religious orders held their ground, and apostolic men arose to lay the foundations of new bodies, that were destined to take a glorious part in the religious revival of the nineteenth century. One of the most remarkable of these was St. Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori[11] (1696-1787). He was born near Naples, adopted at first the profession of a lawyer, but he soon forsook the bar to give himself entirely to God, and was ordained a priest in 1726. In 1732 he laid the foundation of a new religious society, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, which was approved by Benedict XIV. in 1749. After having refused various honours he was compelled to accept the Bishopric of St. Agatha (1762) from which he retired in 1775 to devote himself to prayer, and to the composition of those spiritual treatises that have given him such a leading place not merely as a moral theologian but as a master in the ascetic life. In 1744 he issued his Notes on Busenbaum's Moral Theology, which notes formed the basis of his /Theologia Moralis/ published in 1753-55, and which went through nine editions during his own life-time. He was declared Venerable (1796), canonised (1839), and recognised as a Doctor of the Church (1871).
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (The Redemptorists) was founded by St. Alphonsus at Scala, near Amalfi, in the kingdom of Naples (1732), and was approved in 1749. The aim of its members was to imitate the virtues and example of Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, by consecrating themselves especially to preaching the word of God to the poor. The opposition of the Neapolitan prime minister, Tanucci, was a source of great trouble to the holy founder. On the fall of Tanucci St. Alphonsus thought that a favourable opportunity had come for securing the approval of the government, but he was betrayed by his friends into accepting a modification of the constitution, the /Regolamento/ (1779-80), which led to a separation between the Redemptorist houses in Naples and those situated in the Papal States. The dispute was, however, healed in 1793. The Society spread rapidly in Italy, in Germany, where its interests were safeguarded by Father Hofbauer, and during the nineteenth century houses were established in every country in Europe, in America and in Australia.
The Passionists[12] (The Congregation of Discalced Clerics of the Most Holy Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ) were founded by St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775). The latter was born at Ovada near Genoa, was ordained by Pope Benedict XIII. (1727) who at the same time gave his approval of the rules drawn up for the new society, founded his first house at Argentaro, and thereby laid the foundation of the Congregation of the Passionists. The new society received the formal sanction and approval of Clement XIV. (1769) and of Pius VI. (1775). Before the death of the founder several houses had been established in Italy, all of which were suppressed during the disturbances that followed in the wake of the French Revolution. The congregation was, however, re-constituted by Pius VII. (1814), and spread rapidly in Europe, in the United States, and in South America. The first house of the Passionists in England was established by the celebrated Father Dominic at Aston Hall in Staffordshire (1842), and the first house in Ireland was opened at Mount Argus in 1856. —————
[1] /Summa S. Thomas hodiernis Academiarum moribus accomodata/.
[2] New edition, 10 vols., 1902-5.