As an instance, we point to the method described in a previous chapter, by which all supernatural factors are rejected by the arbitrary postulate of “exclusively natural causation,” without valid proofs, based only upon the arbitrary decision of so-called modern science—in the gravest matter an unscientific process that cannot be outdone.
Another instructive instance, of serious matters treated with levity, is furnished in the unscrupulous way in which the Catholic Church, her teaching, institutions, and history, are passed upon in judgment by those having neither knowledge nor fairness.
Without Reverence.
True wisdom accepts advice and guidance. It feels reverence for sacred and venerable traditions, for the convictions of mankind on the great questions of life, and greater reverence still for an authority of faith that has received from God its warrant to be the teacher of mankind, and which has stood the test of time. True wisdom is convinced that continuity in human thinking and in knowledge is necessary. Life is short, and gives to the individual hardly time to attain mental maturity. Philosophy, and this is the matter before us at present,—philosophy can never be the work of a single person; it is the achievement of centuries; succeeding generations, with searching eye and careful hand, building further upon the achievement for which past ages have laid the foundations. By nailing together beams and boards the individual may erect a house good enough for a short time to serve his sports and pleasures; and if wrecked by the first storm, it may be replaced by another. But the building of massive and towering cathedrals that last for ages required the work of generations. And only skilful and experienced hands may do the work; haste is out of place here. The ancient sages of Greece, Plato, Pythagoras, and Aristotle, had this reverence for the philosophical and religious traditions of the past. These representatives of true wisdom did not consider philosophy and theology as the product of individual sagacity, they did not attempt to be free rulers in the realm of thought; on the contrary, they looked upon wisdom as the patrimony of the past, which it was their duty to preserve.
They pointed to their venerable traditions, however meagre they were. “Our forefathers,” says Plato, “who were better than we are, and stood nearer to the gods than we, have handed down to us this revelation.”[13] That the testimony of the great sages, to the effect [pg 276]that the most essential elements of their philosophy had their origin in religious traditions, is based upon truth and not on fancy has been proven by O. Willmann, whose knowledge of ancient civilization was very extensive, in his monumental “History of Idealism.” Delhi, the home of mysteries, the generations of priests in ancient Egypt, the doctrinal traditions of the Chaldeans, the Magi of Medes and Persians, and the wisdom of the Brahmins of ancient India are witnesses to the fact. “The Ancients were correct,” says Willmann, “in tracing their philosophy to earliest traditions ... they knew what they owed to their forefathers better than we do. They direct our astonished eyes to a very ancient reality, to a towering remoteness of living thought.” This fact is very much against the taste of our times.... An inherited wisdom, springing from an original revelation, adapted to the nations, shining with renewed brightness in true philosophy, is quite the opposite to a philosophy that seeks the source of mental life only in isolated thinking; that thinks its success to be conditioned upon unprepossession; that holds the refutation of tradition to be the test of its strength.
Unfortunately this latter view is widespread in our time. Research is often directed, not by reverence for the wisdom inherited from many Christian centuries, but by the mania, unwise and fatal alike, of seeking new paths. “Love of truth,” so we are told, “is what urges on the great leaders of humanity, the prophets and reformers, to seek new and untrodden paths of life. ‘Plus ultra’ is the rallying-cry of these pathfinders of the future, who are clearing the way for the mental life of mankind. No authority can restrain them, no prejudice, however holy: they are following the light which has dawned upon their soul” (Paulsen).
And a multitude discover this light in their souls, and join the prophets and pathfinders! Everybody goes abroad looking for untrodden paths; from all directions comes the cry: Here and there, to the right, to the left, is the right way! Do we not only too often see self-willed and self-satisfied thinkers, whose shortsighted conceit gets within the four walls of their study puffed up against God and religion, offer us for holy truth the fanciful products of their narrow brains? Do we not see, only too often, champions of shallow reasoning, without discipline of thought and without ethical maturity, recommending their undigested efforts as the wisdom of the world? Youthful thinkers there are in numbers, each of whom claims that he at last has succeeded in solving the world riddle; they [pg 277] offer us new theories of the world, new ideas on ethics, on law and theology, for a few dollars per copy or less. The holy abode of truth has become the campus for saunterers, each eager to displace the other so that he may be sole proprietor, or at least a respected partner. Day by day new solutions of “problems,” “vital questions,” or at least “outlines” of them; new “views of the world”; new forms of religion and of Christianity for the “modern man”; “reforms” of marriage and of sexual ethics, and so on. Truth had not been discovered until the newcomer puts his pen to the paper. Every one is free to join in. Yea, more, he may not only join in, but lash those who do not applaud him. According to this notion, nothing has a right to exist, no “sacred prejudice” may be claimed once this self-appointed representative of science takes the field for “research.” Behold the Christian truth, it has stood the test of centuries: but it cannot resist these scientific freebooters, they rush over it with banners flying.
Severe speech would here be in order. A painful spectacle, these doings of modern thought in the sacred precincts of truth. “Put off the shoes from thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground,” we imagine to hear; yet this sanctuary of truth has been made a profane place of bartering.
While still a pagan, but moved by his desire for truth, the philosopher Justin went to the schools of his day to seek the solution of his doubts and queries. First he turned to a Stoic, but as he taught nothing of God, Justin was unsatisfied. He next went to a Peripatetic teacher, then to a Pythagorean, but failed to find what he desired. The Platonist at last gave him something. Walking alone along the beach, and musing over Plato's principles, he met an old man who referred him to the truth of Christianity, to the Prophets and the Apostles: “They alone have seen the truth and proclaimed it unto man, they were afraid of no one, knew no fear; yielded to no opinion; filled with the Holy Ghost, they spoke only what they saw and heard. The Scriptures are still extant, and he who takes them up will find in them a treasure of information about principles and ultimate things, and all else the philosopher must know, [pg 278] if he believes them.”[14] And Justin found truth and peace, and bowed to the yoke of the doctrine of Jesus Christ.