Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 13.djvu/668

 SCIENCE

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SCIENCE

suits of historical research are treated on scientific methods. All we know from history we know upon the authority of testimony. It belongs to the science of history to search into the existence and trustwor- thiness of the sources and into the unfalsified trans- mission of their testimony to us. Nor is that all. The science of history will arrange the chain of dis- covered facts, not chronologically only, but with a view of causality. It will explain the why and the how in the rise and the downfall of men, of cities, of nations.

(2) The science of faith is theology. — Human testi- mony is here replaced by Divine authority. The premises of faith have been elaborated into a scientific system called apologetics. The Divinely revealed truths have been studied on historical, philosophical, and linguistic hnes; they have been analyzed, defined, and classified; theoretical consequences have been drawn and applications to church discipline made; boundary lines between faith and science have been drawn and points of contact established; methodical objections and solutions have been applied; and at- tacks from outside logically refuted. The results of all these studies are embodied in a number of scientific branches, like the Biblical sciences, with their subdi- visions of historical criticism, theoretical hermeneu- tics, and practical exegesis; then dogmatic and moral theology, with their consequences in canon law and sub-branches of pastoral theology, homiletics, litur- gies; again church history and its branches, — patrol- ogy, history of dogmas, archaeology, art-history. The men who represent these sciences are the Greek and Latin Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, among them the founders of Scholastic theology, not to men- tion more recent celebrities among the regular and secular clergy. A vast literature may be found in Migne's edition of the Fathers and in Hurter's "No- menclator". The widest field is here open for re- search eminently scientific. If science is knowledge of things from their causes, theology is the highest grade of science, since it traces its knowledge to the ultimate cause of all things. Science of this kind is what St. Thomas defines as wisdom.

(3) Let it not be said that there is no progress in the sfience of faith. Dogmatic theology may appear as the most rigid of its branches, and even there we find, with time, deeper understanding, preciser definitions, stronger proofs, better clas.sifications, profounder knowledge of dogmas in their mutual relation and hi.s- tory. Canon law has not only kept abreast with, but has gone ahead of, civil law, above all in its scientific foundations. Progress in the Biblical, historical, and pastoral disciplines is so apparent as to need only a passing mention. The answer to the question, whether there should be no progress of religion in the Church of Christ, goes as far back as the fifth cen- tury and was given by St. Vincent of Lerins in the fol- lowing words: "Certainly let there be progress, and as much as may be . . . but so that it be really progress in the faith, not an alteration of it. " About alterations he gives the following explanation: "It is the peculiarity of progress for a thing to be developed in it.self ; and the peculiarity of change, for a thing to be altered from what it was into something else" (Commonit<^>rium, L23; see P. L., L). The same dif- ference between evolution and change was established by the Vatican Council: "If any one shall say that it is possible that, with the progress of science, a sense may ever be given to the doctrines proposed by the Church, other than that which the Church has under- st^jod and understands, let him be anathema" (Sess. Ill, can. iv, de fide et ratione. 1, can. 3). Science that is changed is not developed out abandoned, and so it is with faith. True development is shown in the parable of the mustard seed which grows inUj a tree, without destroying the organic connexion between the root and the smallest branches.

(4) The scientific character of theology has been called in question on the following grounds : (a) Mys- teries are said to be foreign to human science, for a double reason: they rest exclusively on Divine revela- tion, a source foreign to science; and then, they cannot be subjected to scientific methods. The objection has some appearance in its favour. Mysteries, prop- erly so called, are truths which are essentially beyond the natural powers of any created intellect, and could never be known except by supernatural revelation. Yet the objection is only apparent. As far as the source of knowledge is concerned, science should be so eager for truth as to welcome it, no matter where it comes from. It should esteem the source of knowl- edge the higher the more certainty it gives. Science is bound to accept Divine Creation as its source; why should Divine Revelation be excluded from its domain? Natural sciences may confine themselves to the for- mer, but the latter is in no way foreign to the histori- cal and philosophical sciences, least of all to theology. The assertion that mysteries are beyond scientific research is too general. First, their existence can be proved scientifically; secondly, they can be analysed and compared with other scientific concepts; finally, they yield scientific consequences not otherwise access- ilDle. If the objection had any real force, it would apply similarly to mysteries improperly so called, i. e., to natural truths that we shall never know in this life. Every science is full of them, and they are the very reason why the most learned scientists consider themselves the most ignorant. The sources of their knowledge seem to be closed forever, and scientific methods fail to open them. If this be an objection to the scientific character of a branch, then let history, law, medicine, physics, and chemistry be cancelled from the list of sciences.

(b) Scientific research is said to be impossible, when a proposition cannot be called in question, being bound up by the consensus of the Fathers and Doctors and the vigilant authority of the Church. A simple dis- tinction between interior and methodical doubt will remove the difficulty. Methodical doubt is so much applied in theology that it may be said to be essential to Scholastic methods. And it is quite sufficient for impartial research. This is proved to evidence by the notorious faet that all the scientific proofs we now have for the Copernican system, without exception, have been furnished by men who could never entertain any interior doubt of its truth. The Catholic divine sees in the traditional doctrine of the Church a guiding light that leads him with great security through the fundamental questions of his science, where human reason alone is apt to lose itself in a labyrinth of inventions, surmises, hypotheses. Other difficulties touching upon science in general are mentioned in the next section.

V. Coriflicts. — The conflicts between science and the Chureh are not real. They all rest on assertions like these: I'aith is an obstacle to resoiirch; faith is contrary to the dignity of science; faith is discredited by history. Basing the answers on the jirinciples explained above, we can dispel the phantoms in the following manner.

(1) A believer, it is stated, can never be a scientist; his mind is boun<l by authority, and in case of a con- flict he has to contradict science, (a) The a&sertion is consistent on the supposition, that faith is a human invention. The believer, however, bases faith on Divine Revelation, and science on Creation. Both have their eommon source in God, the Eternal Truth. The pritK-ijtal i)oints of contact between the two are enumerated above in section A (I), and only there can there be tiuestir)n of conflicts. It is shown in the same place (IIj that every one of the pretended conflicts, without exception, rests on arbitrary axioms. As far as scientific facts are concerned, the believer rests assured that, so far, none of them has ever been in