Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/66

 PHILOSOPHY

38

PHILOSOPHY

nothing but what is true is included in this science {sc. theology) ... it being supposed that what- ever is true by the decision and authoritj- of this science can nowise be false by the decision of right reason: these things, I say, being supposed, as it is manifest from them that the authority of this science and reason alike rest upon truth, and one verity can- not be contrarj' to another, it must be said absolutely that reason can in no way be contrarj' to the authority of this Scripture, nay, all right reason is in accord with it" (Henry of Ghent, "Summa Theologica", X, iii, n. 4).

But when is a theory certain? This is a question of fact, and error is easj-. In proportion as the prin- ciple is simple and absolute, so are its applications complex and variable. It is not for philosophy to establish the certitude of theological data, any more than to fi.\ the conclusions of chemistrj' or of physiol- ogj-. The certainty of those data and those conclu- sions must proceed from another source. "The pre- conceived idea is entertained that a Catholic savant is a soldier in the service of his religious faith, and that, in his hands, science is but a weapon to defend his Credo. In the eyes of a great many people, the Catholic savant seems to be always under the menace of excommunication, or entangled in dogmas which hamper him, and compelled, for the sake of loyalty to liis Faith, to renounce the disinterested love of science and its free cultivation" (Mercier, "Rapport sur les etudes super, de philos.", 1891, p. 9). Nothing could be more untrue.

X. The C.\tholic CnrRCH and Philosophy. — The principles which govern the doctrinal relations of philosophy and theology have moved the Catholic Church to intervene on various occasions in the his- tory of philosophy. As to the Church's right and duty to interi-ene for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of theological dogma and the deposit of faith, there is no need of discussion in this place. It is interesting, however, to note the attitude taken by the Church towards philosophy throughout the ages, and particularly in the ^Iiddle Ages, when a civilization saturated with Cliristianity had estab- lished extremely intimate relations between theology and philosophy.

A. The censures of the Church have never fallen upon philosophy as such, but upon theological appli- cations, judged false, which were based upon phil- osophical reasonings. John Scotus Eriugena, Rosce- Mn, Berengarius, Abelard, Gilbert de la Porree were condemned because their teachings tended to subvert theological dogmas. Eriugena denied the substantial distinction between God and created things; Rosce- lin held that there are three Gods; Berengarius, that there is no real transubstantiation in the Eucharist; Abelard and Gilbert de la Porree essentially modified the dogma of the Trinity. The Church, through her councils, condemned their theological errors ; with their philosophy as such she does not concern herself. "Nominalism", says Haureau, "is the old enemy. It is, in fact, the doctrine which, because it best accords with reason, is most remote from axioms of faith. Denounced before council after council. Nom- inalism was condemned in the person of Abelard as it had been in the person of Roscehn " (Hist, philos. scol., 1,292).

No assertion could be more inaccurate. ^Tiat the Church has condemned is neither the so-called Nominalism, nor Realism, nor philosophy in general, nor the method of arguing in theology, but certain applications of th.at method which are judged dan- gerous, i. e. matters which are not philosophical. In the thirteenth century a host of teachers adopted the philosophical theories of Roscelin and Abelard, and no councils were con\-oked to condemn them. The same may be said of the condemnation of David of Uinant (thirteenth century), who denied the distinc-

tion between God and matter, and of various doc- trines condemned in the fourteenth century as tend- ing to the negation of morality. It has been the same in modern times. To mention only the condemnations of Gunther, of Rosmini, and of Ontologism in the nineteenth century, what alarmed the Church was the fact that the theses in question had a theological bearing.

B. The Church has never imposed any philosophi- cal system, though she has anathematized many doctrines, or branded them as suspect. — This cor- responds with the prohibitive, but not imperative, attitude of theology in regard to philosophy. To take one example, faith teaches that the world was created in time; and yet St. Thomas maintains that the concept of eternal creation (ab (Fterno) involves no contradiction. He did not think himself obliged to demonstrate creation in time: his teaching would have been heterodox only if, with the Averroists of his day, he had maintained the necessarj' eternity of the world. It may, perhaps, be objected that many Thomistic doctrines were condemned in 1277 by Etienne Tempier, Bishop of Paris. But it is well to note, and recent works on the subject have abun- dantly proved this, that Tempier's condemnation, in so far as it applied to Thomas Aquinas, was the issue of intrigues and personal animosity, and that, in canon law, it had no force outside of the Diocese of Paris. Moreover, it was annulled by one of Tempier's successors, Etienne de Borrete, in 1325.

C. The Church has encouraged philosophy. — To say nothing of the fact that all those who applied themselves to science and philosophy in the Middle Ages were churchmen, and that the liberal arts found an asylum in capitular and monastic schools until the twelfth century, it is important to remark that the principal universities of the Middle Ages were pon- tifical foundations. This was the case with Paris. To be sure, in the first j'ears of the university's ac- quaintance with the Aristotelean encyclopa'dia (late twelfth century) there were prohibitions against read- ing the "Physics", the "Metaphysics", and the treatise "On the Soul". But these restrictions were of a temporary character and arose out of par- ticular circumstances. In 1231, Gregorj' IX laid upon a commission of three consultors the charge to prepare an amended edition of Aristotle "ne utile per inutile vitietur" (lest what is useful suffer damage through what is useless). The work of expurgation was done, in point of fact, by the .Vlbertine-Thomist School, and, beginning from the year 12.55, the Faculty of Arts, with the knowledge of the ecclesiasti- cal authority, ordered the teaching of all the books previously prohibited (see Mandonnet, "Siger de Brabant et I'averrolsme latin au XIIP s,", Louvain, 1910). It might also he shown how in modern times and in our own day the popes have encouraged phil- osophic studies. Leo XIII, as is well known, con- sidered the restoration of philosophic Thomism one of the chief tasks of his pontificate.

XI. The Te.\ching of Philosophy. — The methods of teaching philosophy have varied in various ages. Socrates used to interview his auditors, and hold symposia in the market-place, on the porticoes, and in the public gardens. His method was interro- gation, he whetted the curiosity of the audience and practised what had become known as Socratic irony and the maieutic art (/iaievTiKii t^x*''?), the art of de- livering minds of their conceptions. His successors opened schools properly so called, and from the places occupied by these schools several systems took their names (the Sloic School, the Academy, the Lyceum). In the Middle .\ges and down to the seventeenth century the learned language was Latin. The Ger- man discourses of Eckhart are mentioned as merely .sporadic examples. From the ninth to the twelfth century teaching wns confined to the mon^tic