Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/641

 THEOLOGY

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THEOLOGY

(2) Dogmatic Theology as a Science. — Considering that theology depends essentially on the Church, a serious difficulty arises at once. How, one may ask, can theolog>' claim to be a science in the genuine sense of the word? If the aim and result of theologi- cal investigation is settled in advance by an authority that attributes to itself infallil)ility and will brook no contradiction, if the lino of niarrh is, as it were, clearly mapped out and siriclly prescribed, how can there be any question of true science or of scientific freedom? Are not the dugniatic proofs, supposed to demonstrate an infallil)le dogma, after all mere dialectical play, sliam science, reasoning made to order? Prejudice against Catholic theology, prevalent in the world at large, is beginning to bear fruit; in many countries the theological faculties, stiU existing in the state universities, are looked upon as so much useless bal- last, and the demand is being made to relegate them to the episcopal seminaries, where they can no longer injure the intellectual freedom of the people. The downright unfairness of this attitude is obvious when one considers that the universities sprang up and de- veloped in the shadow of the Church and of Catholic theology; and that, moreover, the exaggeration of scientific freedom may prove fatal to the profane sciences as w'eU. Unless it presuppose certain truths, which can no more be demonstrated than many mys- teries of faith, .science can achieve nothing; and unless it recognize the limits that are -set to investigation, the boasted freedom will degenerate into lawless and arbitrary anarchy. As the logician starts from no- tions, the jurist from legal texts, the historian from facts, the chemist from material substances a.s things which demand no proof in his case, so the theologian receives his material from the hands of the Church and deals with it according to the rules which the scientist applies in his own branch.

The view, moreover, that scientifio research is ab- solutely free and independent of all authority is fanciful and distorted. To the freedom of science, the authority of the individual conscience, and of human society as well, sets an impassable Umit. Even the civil power would have to exercise its authority in the form of puni.shment if a university professor, presuming on the freedom of scientific thought and research, shoulil teach openly that bur- glary, murder, adultery, revolution, and anarchy are permissible. We may concede that the Catholic theologian, being subject to ecclesiastical authority, is more closely bounrl than the professor of the secular sciences. Yet the difference is one of degree only, inasmuch as every science and every investi- gator is bound by the moral and religious duty of ■subordination. Some Scholastics, it is true, e. g. Durandus and Vasquez, denied to Christian theology a strictly .scientific character, on the ground that the content of faith is obscure and incapable of demon- stration. But their argument does not carry con- viction. At most it proves that dogmatic science is not of the same kind and order as the profane sciences. What is es.sential to any science is not internal evidence, but merely certainty of its first principles.

There are many profane sciences which borrow unproved from a superior science their highest prin- ciples; these are the so-called lemmata, subsidiary proposit ions, which serve as premises for furt her con- clusions. The theologian does the same. He, too, borrows the first principles of his science from the higher knowledge of God without proving them. Every subaltern science supposes of course in the superior discipline the power to give a strict tlemon- stration of the assumed premises. But all scientific axioms rest ultimately on metaphysics, and meta- physics itself is unable to prove strictly all its princi- ples; all it can do is to defend them against attack. It is plain then that every science without exception

rests on axioms and postulates which, though certain, yet admit of no demonstration. The mathematician is aware that the existence of geometry, the surest and most palpable of all sciences, depends entirely on the soundness of the postulate of parallels. Never- theless, this very postulate is far from being demon- strable. In fact, since no convincing proof of it was forthcoming, there has arisen since the time of Gauss a more general, non-Euclidean geometry, of which the Euclidean is only a special case. Why, then, should CathoUc theology, because of its postu- lates, lemmata, and mysteries, be denied the name of a science? Apart from the domain of dogma proper, the theologian may approach the numerous controversial questions and more intricate problems with the same freedom as is enjoyed by any other scientist. One thing, however, must never be lost sight of. No science is at hberty to upset theorems which have been established once and for all; they must be regarded as unshaken dogmas upon which the entire structure is based. Similarly, the articles of faith must not be looked upon by the theologian as troublesome barriers, but as beacon-lights that warn the mariner, show him the true course, and preserve him from shipwTeck.

(3) Methods of Dogmatic Theology. — Whereas other sciences, as, for instance, theodicy, begin with proving the existence of God, it lies beyond the scope of theology to discover dogmatic truths. The subject- matter with which the student of theology has to deal is offered to him in the deposit of faith and, reduced to its briefest form, is to be found in the Catechism. If the theologian is content with deriv- ing the dogmas from the sources of faith and with ex^plaining them, he is occupied with "positive" the- ology. Guided by the doctrinal authority of the Church, he calls history and criticism to his aid to find in Scripture and Tradition the genuine, unalloyed truth. If to this positive element is joined a polemic tendency, we have "controversial" theology, which was carried to its highest perfection in the .seventeenth century by Cardinal Bellarmine. Positive theology must prove its theses by conclusive arguments drawn from Scripture and Tradition; hence it is closely re- lated to exegesis and history. As exegete, the theo- logian must first of all accept the inspiration of the Bible as the Word of God. But even when elucida- ting its meaning, he will always bear in mind the unanimous interpretation of the Fathers, the her- meneutical principles of the Church, and the direc- tions of the Holy See. In his character as historian, the theologian must not laj' aside his behef in the supernatural origin of Christianity and in the Divine institution of (he Church, if he is to give a true and objective account of tradition, of the history of dogma, and of patrology. For, just as the Bible, being the Word of God, was written under the imme- diate inspiration of the Holy Ghost, so Tradition was, and is, guided in a special manner by (!od. Who pre- serves it from being curtailed, mutilated, or falsified.

Consequently, he who from the outset declares the Bible to be an ordinary book, miracles and prophecies impo.ssible and old-fashioned, the Church a gri-at in- stitution for deadening thought, the Ivithers of the Church pious yirattlcrs, is quite incapable, <'ven from a piu-ely scientific .standpoint, of understanding God's momentous dispensations to mankind. From this we may conclude how unecclesi;i.stic.il and at the same time how unscientific are those historians who prefer to explain the works of the Fathers without due regard for ecclesiastical tradition, which was the mental environment in which they lived and breathed. For i( is only when we discover the living link which bound them to the Apostolic Tradition of which they are witnesses, that we shall understand their writings and establish the heterodoxy of .some pas.sages, as for instance, the Origcnistic apocalaslasis in the writings