If this be the fact, then it follows in turn that in the life of higher culture, where the health of the soul and the marrow of mental life is at stake, there can rule but a single principle, the objectivism of Christian thought, the principle of absolute submission, without variance and change, to a truth against which man has no rights. The submission of Christian thought to a religious, teaching authority, recognized as infallible in all matters pertaining to its domain, while not an exhaustive presentment of this principle, is its perceptive and concrete effect.
A Rock in the Waters.
The history of human thought of all ages, but especially of the last centuries, proves how necessary a divine revelation is to man; viz., the clear exposition of the highest truths in the view of world and of life, emphasized by a divine authority, which links the human mind to the one immutable truth; not only in ignorant nations, not only in the man of the common people, but also, and more especially, in the educated man and in the scientist, he, namely, who, through the moderate studies of a small intellect, has collected a little sum of knowledge that is apt to confuse his limited understanding and to rob him [pg 298] of modesty. It is just as manifest that revelation alone does not suffice, that there is needed also the enduring forum of a teaching Church, which in the course of centuries gives expression to truth with infallible, binding authority.
The full truth of this is felt even by those unfavourably disposed toward this authority. A recent champion of autonomous freedom of thought, the Protestant theologian, F. Troeltsch, makes this concession in the words: “The immediate consequence of such autonomy is necessarily a steadily more intensified individualism of convictions, opinions, theories, and practical ends and aims. An absolute supra-individual union is effected only by an enormous power such as the belief in an immediate, supernatural, divine, revelation, as possessed by Catholicism, and organized in the Church as the extended and continued incarnation of God. This tie gone, the necessary sequel will be a splitting up in all sorts of human opinions.”[17]
This is to the Catholic a caution to appreciate the ministry of his Church ever more highly, and to cleave to it still closer. He will not agree with those who think that in our time the principle of Authority must retire. The more his eyes are opened by the present situation, the more clearly he realizes where thought emancipated from faith and authority has led, the more he will affirm his conscious belief in authority. His foothold upon the rock of the Church will be the firmer the more restless the billows of unsafe opinions rise and roll about him. The Catholic of mature, Catholic, conviction would consider it folly to abandon the rock for the restless and turbulent play of the waves. Many, indeed, who are looking for a safe place of truth, we see for this reason taking refuge in a [pg 299] strong Church; many are impressed by the stability of Catholic authority.[18]
The present situation is similar socially to that of the ancient world at its close, and also in regard to the spiritual life. Then, as now, there was learning without idealism, corroded by scepticism, without harmony and cheer. Then, as now, there was but one power to offer rescue. Faith and Church. A longing for help is now also prevailing in the world. It feels its helplessness. If they only had the conviction of a St. Augustine, who prayed for deliverance from his errors: “When I often and forcefully realized the agility, sagacity, and acumen of the human mind, I could not believe that truth was hidden completely from us—rather only the way and manner how to discover it, and that we must accept these from a divine authority” (De utilit. credendi, 8).
It was a solemn hour, pregnant with profound significance, when at midnight at the beginning of this century all the churchbells of the Catholic globe were ringing, and, while everything around was silent, their blessed sound was resounding alone over the earth, over villages and cities, over countries and nations. Grandly there resounded into the whole world, over the heads of the children of men about to enter upon a new century of their history, that the Catholic Church is the Queen in the realm of mind, that she alone preserves infallibly the truths and ideals of which mankind is in quest, by which they are raised above earthly turmoil—those truths and [pg 300] ideals in which the heart and mind of earthly pilgrims find rest and peace on their long journey to the goal of time. Since she assumed the mission of Him who said, “I am the Way and the Truth,” and, “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world,” the Church has travelled a long way through the centuries, has withstood hard times and fierce storms. And she has faithfully preserved for mankind the precious patrimony from God's hand. And now, at the dawn of new times, her bells proclaimed that she is still alive, holding the old truths in a strong hand. And after another century the bells of the globe will ring again, they will, so we hope—ring more loudly and more forcefully, over the nations. And these bells will also ring over the graves of this present generation, over fallen giants of the forest and over collapsed towers, over mouldy books, and the wreckage left by a culture that the emancipated, fallible human mind created, but which truth did not consecrate. And again the bells will proclaim to a new century that God, and the world's history, are thinking greater thoughts than the puny child of man is capable of thinking within the narrow compass of his years and of his surroundings.