The bluster about unprepossession proceeds from shallowness and dishonesty. The most varied presumptions, that have nothing to do with science and the pursuit of the truth, may pass without notice; only when Christian and Catholic religious convictions, resting upon divine authority, are encountered, then tolerance gives way to excitement, a hue and cry is raised, the gate is shut, and entrance to the scientific world denied.
Philosophers arise, and each philosophizes according to his manner. Fichte says: “What philosophy to choose depends on the kind of a man one is.” The historian enters. It is reported that Treitschke said: “If I cannot write history from my own view-point, with my own judgment, then I had rather be a soapmaker.” According to trustworthy testimony, the well-known Protestant historian, Giesebrecht, used to preface his lectures in Munich with the words: “I am a Prussian and a Protestant: I shall lecture accordingly” (Hochschulnachrichten, 1901, 2, p. 30). Even here there are no objections in the name of Unprepossession. “Science,” says Harnack, “will tear off the mask of the hypocrite or plagiarist and throw him out of the temple, but the queerest suppositions it must let pass if they go by the name of convictions, and if those who harbour them are trying to demonstrate them by scientific means.”
Therefore the convictions, or, to speak with Harnack, the “prejudices,”of the Catholic “certainly deserve as much consideration and patience as the velleities, idiosyncrasies, and blind dogmas which we have to meet and refute in the struggle between intellects” (Internationale Wochenschrift, 1908, 259 seq.). “Science has been restricted,” the same authority also admits, “at all times; our progeny will find even modern science in many ways not ruled by pure reason only” (Dogmengesch. III, 3d ed., 1907, 326).
And what is to be said of those more serious suppositions, unproved and unprovable, which guide modern science wherever it meets philosophical-religious questions? That truly dogmatic rejection of everything supernatural and transcendental, that obstinate ignoration of a personal God, the rejection of any creative act, of any miracle, of any revelation,—a presupposition directly raised to a scientific principle: the principle of causality. Later on we shall make an excursion into various fields of science, and we shall show clearly how this presumption is stamped upon entire branches of science. Those solemn assurances of persevering unselfishness in desiring nothing but the truth; the confidence with which they claim a monopoly of the instinct for the truth, all this will appear in quite a strange light, the twilight of dishonesty, [pg 130]when we examine the documents and records of liberal science itself. We shall see sufficiently how truthful the self-confession of a modern champion of liberal science really is: “The recently coined expression, ‘science unprepossessed,’ I do not like, because it is a product of that shortcoming which has already done so much damage to free thought in its struggle with the powers of the past—because that word is not entirely honest. None of us sits down to his work unprepossessed”(F. Jodl, Neue Freie Presse, November 26, 1907). Here we shall touch upon only one more question.
The Duty to Believe and Scientific Demonstration.
But cannot the believing Christian submit to scientific investigation the doctrine of faith itself, which he must without doubt hold to be true? This must surely be allowed if he is to convince himself scientifically of the truth of it. Indeed, this is allowed. He may critically examine everything to the very bottom, even the existence of God, the rationality of his own mind. But how can he, if no doubt is permissible? To examine means to search doubtingly; it means to call the matter in question—this, too, is right. It is, on the one hand, a doctrine of the Catholic Church that they who have received faith through the ministry of the Church, that is, they that have been made familiar with the essential subjects of the faith and the motives of their credibility by proper religious instruction, must not doubt their faith. They have no reasonable excuse for doubting because they are assured of the truth of the faith. We have discussed this point before.[4]
As a matter of course only voluntary doubts are excluded, doubts by which one assents deliberately and wilfully to the judgment that perhaps not all may be true that is proposed for our belief. Involuntary [pg 131]doubts are neither excluded nor sinful. These are apparent counter-arguments, objections, difficulties against the faith, which occur to the mind without getting its conscious approval. They are not unlikely, because the cognition of the credibility of Christian truths, while it is certain, is yet lacking in that obvious clearness which would render obscurity and counter-argument impossible; the assent to faith is free. Doubts of this kind are apt to molest the mind and buzz round it like bothersome insects, but they are not sinful because they do not set aside the assent to faith any more than the cloud that intervenes between us and the sun can extinguish its light. The assent to faith is withdrawn only when the will with clear consideration approves of the judgment that the doubt may be right.
But what about doubts which one cannot solve? Would we not owe it to truth and probity to withhold assent to faith for a while?
The answer lies in the distinction of a twofold solution of difficulties. It is by no means necessary, nor even possible, to solve directly all objections; it suffices to solve them indirectly, that is, by recognizing them as void; since faith is certain, whatever is contrary to it must be false. If one is convinced by clear proofs of the innocence of a defendant he will not be swayed in his assurance, no matter how much circumstantial evidence be offered against the defendant. He may not be able to account directly for one or the other remarkable coincidence of circumstances, but all the arguments of the other side are to him refuted, because to him the defendant's innocence is a certainty. Thus the faithful Christian may hear it solemnly proclaimed as a scientifically established fact that miracles are impossible, because they would be tantamount to God making correction on His own work, because they would imply a self-contradiction, or they would be against the law of preservation of energy; he hears of atrocities in the history of the Church, of the Inquisition, of the Church being an enemy of civilization—he knows not what to say: but one thing he knows, that there must be an answer, because he knows, enlightened by faith, that his belief cannot be false. Nowhere is it demanded that all objections be directly answered, in order that the conviction be true. If I, with the whole world, am convinced that I am able to recognize the truth, must I therefore carefully disentangle all the cobwebs ever spun about the truth by brooding philosophical brains? If I am in the house, safe from the rain, must I, in order to keep dry, go out and catch every drop of rain that is falling? Such doubts may indeed harass the untrained mind, may even confuse it. This is the juncture where grace comes in, the pledge of which has been received at baptism, bringing enlightenment, peace, assurance; then we learn from others and from ourselves that faith is also a grace.
Nevertheless a scientific examination of the foundations and truths of faith is allowed and wholesome. Nearly all the theological works written by Catholics since the days of Justin and Augustine are nothing but examinations of this kind. At every examination one proceeds with doubt and question. This is [pg 132] admitted; but this doubt must be merely a methodical one, not a serious one, nor need it be serious. These two kinds of doubt must be clearly distinguished. In case of a serious doubt I look upon the matter as really dubious, and withhold my assent. I am not yet convinced of its truth. This kind of a doubt is not allowed in matters of faith and it is the only one that is forbidden. In case of a methodical doubt I proceed as convinced of a truth, but I do not yet see the reasons plainly, and would like to be fully conscious of them. Evidently there is no need of casting aside the convictions I have hitherto held, and of beginning to think that the matter is by no means positively established.