XII.—FALSE ACCUSATIONS OF MODERN INFIDELS.
The Catholic Church places no gulf between God and humanity, or divorce between heaven and earth, or antagonism between revelation and reason, or religion and science; and she repudiates the doctrine which emphasizes faith at the expense of good works. Hence the accusation of modern infidels against Christianity, as confining itself exclusively to man’s happiness hereafter—“a post-mortem happiness”—while ignoring his actual, present good—“ante-mortem happiness”—may have some show of reason as against Protestant sects, especially of the Calvinistic sect; but it is altogether false, and must be set down to defective knowledge, when made against the Catholic Church.
It is through the faithful reception of the divine action of the Catholic Church by individuals and society that the highest good possible for man here and hereafter can be surely attained; and this needs only clearly to be seen to restore to her true and visible fold all the descendants of the members separated from the Catholic Church by the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, who are in good faith.
And it is the bringing out into a clearer light the divine side of the church, and to the front those truths which eliminate the errors rife in our day and their stricter application to present evils, that, by the instinct of the Holy Spirit, now preoccupies the active intelligent mind of Catholics throughout the world, especially in countries where the dangers are most imminent, such as France, Germany, and Italy.
XIII.—PROMISES, FALSE AND TRUE.
There are two controlling forces, explain their origin as we may, visible in the conflicting movements of human affairs in this world. The one places man in possession of the Supreme Good, and makes him a co-worker with his Creator in the realization of the ideal for which God called this great universe into existence. The other is instigated by the enemy of God and the human race, seeking by false promises to lead man astray.
“You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil,” was Satan’s promise to our first parents. This promise contained what was desirable for man; God had implanted in the human soul the aspiration for its fulfilment. But what the enemy promised he had not the power to perform, and the road that he pointed out as leading to the fulfilment of the promise led in a wrong direction.
The right answer of our first parents to Satan would have been: “We know that God has made our souls in his own image and likeness, and that we shall be made participators of his divine Nature, and thereby deified; and as our Creator has endowed us with the gift of intelligence, we shall also gain the knowledge of good and evil—for this is its proper object. And we know also with certitude that we shall gain these great rewards by following the paths which God has pointed out to us.” Had they thus spoken, they would have, in the strength of their innocence and conscious rectitude, added: “Begone, tempter! Thou art a liar; for what thou dost promise it is not thine to give; and instead of wishing our elevation, thou seekest to accomplish our fall and utter ruin!”
As in the beginning, so now, Satan seizes hold of the noblest aspirations of the soul, and, by deceiving men under the guise of a real good, leads them quite astray. For what underlies the promises of Protestantism and its innumerable sects; and rationalism, so-called, and its different phases; and the secularists, positivists, scientists, atheists, radicals, materialists, spiritists, revolutionists, evolutionists, socialists, pessimists, free-religionists, communists, internationalists, optimists, theists, nihilists, kulturkämpfer, agnostics, intuitionists, transcendentalists, and other sects and parties too numerous to mention—for their name is legion, and their confusion of tongues is as great as that of Babel—what underlies their promises is in one aspect true and in a sense desirable. The right answer to all their fine promises is this: “You affirm undoubted truths and you hold out a desirable good; but the way that you point out for realizing the one and attaining the other is subversive of all truth and the supreme good, and it will not reach even what you aim at, but end in entire disappointment and anarchy. Put together the fragmentary truths affirmed by each of your different religious sects, and you will find them all contained in Catholicity. Make a list of all the honest demands for ameliorations and reforms in man’s social, industrial, and political condition—it will not be a short one—and you will discover that they have their truth in the spirit, and are justified by the teachings and the practice, of the Catholic Church.” O sincere seeker after truth! did you but know it, the path lies open before you to a perennial fountain of truth, where you can slake to the full that thirst which has so long tormented your soul. O sincere lover of your fellow-men! there is a living body which you may see and co-operate with, whose divine action is realizing a heavenly vision for the whole human race, brighter and more beautiful than the ideal which so often haunts your lonely dreams!
The divine ideal is a God-given aspiration to your soul, but the way to realize it is not by building up a tower of Babel.