The Freedom of Science

by Josef Donat

It is just this natural knowledge and certitude that gives man certainty of divine revelation, after God vouchsafed to give it to mankind for its unfailing guidance and help. For revelation was not only intended for theologians, Bible critics, philosophers, and Church-historians, but for all. And God has taken care, as He had to do, that man has ample evidence that God has spoken, and that the Church is the authorized Guardian of this revelation, even without critical research in history and philosophy. We have elsewhere briefly stated this evidence in the words of the Vatican Council.

This evidence is seen in the invincible stability of the Church and its unity of faith, the incontestable miracles never ceasing within it, the grand figures of its Saints and Martyrs, virtue in the various classes, a virtue increasing in proportion to the influence the Church exerts, the spectacle that everything truly noble is attracted by the Christian faith and the contrary repulsed. In addition the intrinsic grandeur and harmony [pg 139]of the truths of faith, above all the unique figure of Christ, with His wonderful life and sufferings, also the calm and peace of mind effected in the soul of the faithful by living and thinking in this faith; all these tell him that here the spirit of God is breathing, the spirit of truth. The natural light of his intellect, further illuminated by grace, suffices to give him a true intellectual certainty of his faith, based upon these motives and similar ones, even without scientific studies. The calmness of the mind that holds fast to this faith, the compunction and unrest which follow defection from the faith, both so characteristic of Catholics, prove that their minds embrace the truth in their faith.

Hence it betrays little philosophical knowledge of the peculiarity of man's intellectual life, if infidelity approaches an inexperienced, believing student, perhaps even an uneducated labourer, with the express assurance that his faith hitherto has been but a blind belief, an unintelligent following of the lead of a foreign authority, with the distinct admonition to turn his back on the faith of his childhood.

What has been said above makes it clear why a Catholic is not permitted to have a serious doubt about his faith under the pretext that he ought first to form a certain conviction all for himself by scientific investigation. He has it already, if we presuppose sufficient instruction and normal conditions; he may raise his natural certitude to a scientific one by study if he has the time and talent for it, but he must not condition his assent upon the success of his scientific investigations. He has certitude; he has no right to demand scientific knowledge as a necessary condition, because it is not required for certitude, and also because it lies altogether outside of the conditions of human life. It would amount simply to shaking off the yoke of truth. The Church teaches as follows: “If any one says that the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet come to the only true faith is equal, so that Catholics can have a just cause for suspending their assent and calling in question the faith which they have received by the ministry of the Church until they have completed the scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of it, let him be anathema.”

How high this wisdom rises above the limited thought of a science that imagines itself alone to be wise! Sad indeed would be the lot of mankind could it attain to certain truth in the most important questions of life only by lengthy scientific investigations. The overwhelming majority of mankind would be forever excluded from the certain knowledge that there is a God, an eternity, liberty, that there are immutable moral laws and truths, on the value of which depends the woe and weal of humanity.

Behold the wisdom of the world that is put before us: “In order to arrive at a definite conclusion by our own philosophical reasoning (on the existence of God and the possibility of miracles) what a multitude of things must be presupposed!” Thus we are informed in a philosophical novel of modern times which aims at proving the incompatibility of [pg 140]the Catholic duty to believe with the freedom of the intellect [Katholische Studenten, by A. Friedwald (nom de plume). An explanation of the ideas contained in it is given by the Academia 18, 1905-6, December and March. The ideas found in the novel are also advanced by A. Messer, Einführung in die Erkenntnistheorie, 1909, p. 158 seq.]. And Prof. Rhodius, who put the ideas of the novel in formulas, teaches: “The question whether our knowledge could penetrate beyond what we know by our experience and even our senses, is answered, as you know, in the negative by a noted philosophical school. Hence, before attacking those metaphysical questions regarding the existence of God and His relations to the world, we must first try to have definite views as to the essence of human knowledge, of its criterion, its scope, and of the degrees of its certainty. But these preliminary questions of theoretic knowledge, how difficult and perplexing they are! You probably have not the faintest idea into what a mass of individual problems the main questions must be dissected, nor what a multitude of heterogeneous views are struggling here against one another” (p. 181).

Consider how shortsighted a wisdom is manifested by these words. Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? And how very few. More than twenty-four hundred years have elapsed since the days of Pythagoras, and yet modern philosophy still stands before the first preliminary question in all knowledge, whether a man can know what the eye does not see. “Many views are at variance there.” If this be the only way for mankind to reach certain truth, then we are indeed in a pitiful plight!

We esteem philosophy and its subtle questions, and we heartily wish our Catholic young men in college to obtain a more thorough philosophical training. But if, involved in theories, one will lose his insight into the world and human life to such a degree as to make of the “wisdom of the world” an isolated narrow speculation which boasts of being alone able to discover the higher truths, while withering in neurasthenic doubt—such wisdom should be left to its deserved fate, sterility.

Or should it be possible to the ideal of Protestantism—and therefore also of the modern spirit—to console mankind by pointing out that the knowledge of the question which concerns us most deeply, “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of good, remains but a leading idea and problem, though we are confident of advancing nearer to its solution”? Is thus mankind to be eternally without light in the most important questions and problems? Every little plant and animal is equipped by nature with everything it needs—and man alone to be a failure? The young shoots of the tree strive to bring forth blossoms and fruit, and succeed; the bird flies off in the fall in quest of a new home, and finds it; hunger and thirst demand food and get it; only the [pg 141]aim of the human mind shall never be fulfilled—he alone shall ever pine without hope!—Dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt. What a difference between such principles and the grand thoughts of Christianity! A difference like that between peace and eternal restless doubt, like that between man's dignity and man's degradation, between man's short-sightedness and the wisdom of God.

Hence the result of our discussion is: independent of science mankind has its positive convictions, independent of science it finds here rest and gratification in its longing for truth. Scientific study and research are for the purpose of setting these truths in a brighter light, of defending the patrimony of mankind. But the fosterer of science must not claim the freedom to ignore these positive convictions in himself and in others, to endanger the patrimony of mankind by doubts and attacks instead of protecting it, much less must he condemn the human mind to the eternal labour of Sisyphus, to the eternal rolling of a huge stone which, recoiling, must always be lifted anew.