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 CERTITUDE

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CERTITUDE

system of Traditionalism (which was condemned by the Church) consists in its exaggeration, in its main- taining that the truths of natural religion are known solely on authority, that each generation simply inherits them from the preceding, and that unless they had been revealed to the first parents of the race human reason never could have discovered them.

If we take the cognitive faculties, one by one, the senses are not in themselves deceived concerning their proportionate object, but owing to circumstances they are so liable to deception that they need the vigilant supervision of the reason. The nature of sensible phenomena is not their object, but that of the reason. It should be remembered, however, that the scientific theories concerning the nature of sound, of colour anil light, and of heat, have been thought out by the aid of data furnished by the senses, and therefore confirm the trustworthiness of the senses within certain limits. That men of science have no doubt as to the reality of extension, figure, movement, and space, any more than of force, is shown by their discussions concerning atoms, elec- trons, and ions. Consciousness is infallible as to the fact of its present states, e. g. that I am feeling warm, or well, or that I am thinking. The memory often errs, but often is trusted with certitude. Reason, within a narrow sphere, is infallible, viz. in the per- ception of self-evident truth, e. g. that whatever is is, that every movement or change must have a cause, that things equal to the same are equal to each other. Truths which are clearly and easily deducible from self-evident truth share in their certitude. Next to such certitude, we may place the certainty of truths affirmed by the whole human race, especially as regards practical principles. "That which seems to all men, this we say is; and he who rejects this ground of belief will not easily assign a more solid one" (Aristotle, Ethics, X, ii). Universal consent is not, however, the sole criterion. To make it such was the error of Lamennais. Be- sides the truths resting on self-evidence (or easy deduction from it) and those resting on the authority of the human race, there is a considerable body of truth which each man of average intelligence comes to know with certitude in the course of his life. Most of these truths are first learned upon authority and afterwards verified by one's own reflection or experience. It may even be said that a practical Christian in the course of his life has by experiential verification an additional moral certitude of the truth of revelation, since he has experience of the power of the Christian religion to sustain the soul against temptation and to strengthen every virtuous and noble aspiration.

The Teaching of the Church Concerning Cer- titude. — The Church pronounces judgment concern- ing the sphere of certitude, not so much for the sake of speculative knowledge, as in the interest of re- ligion and morality. The mind of the Church upon this subject is manifested (1) by placing books deal- ing with the question upon the Index, or by oblig- ing ecclesiastics. or teachers in Catholic institutions, or editors of Catholic periodicals to subscribe some proposition; (2) by "condemning" a proposition ex- tract.''! from some work, in the sense in which it is found in that work; (3) dogmatically, by a solemn affirmation of some truth or the anathematization of a falsehood. When a proposition is "condemned" or anathematized, th>' contradictory (not the con- trary) proposition is asserted as true.

Concerning (In- sphere of certitude in religion, "Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the first cause (prineipium) and last end of all things, may be known with certainty, by the natural light of the human reason, through the medium of things 1" (Vatican Council. Constitut. de Fide Cath., cap ii); an.l this affirmation is supported by an

anathema of the contradictory proposition (ibid., can. i). The condemnation of the Agnostic position concerning God may be studied in the Encyclical "Paseendi gregis dominici", in which the subject is admirably treated.

That "the freedom of the human will and the spirituality of the soul may be known with certainty, by the natural light of the reason", is a truth which the pope, approving of a decree of the Sacred Con- gregation of the Index, obliged Bonnetty, editor of the "Annales de philosophic chretienne", in 1855, to subscribe (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", n. 1506). It would seem that these truths concerning the human soul are also in some measure implied in the definition and anathema cited above, concerning our knowledge of God; for the attributes of God are known by the natural reason only, through the things that are made; and therefore freedom and morality must be known to be attributes of some creature before they can be attributed to God.

The limitation of natural knowledge and certitude has been repeatedly asserted by the process of plac- ing books upon the Index, by the "condemnation" of propositions, by papal Briefs, and finally by a dogmatic decree, which alone is sufficient, viz: that of the Vatican Council (De Fide, cap. iv) which de- clares that "there are two orders of knowledge, dis- tinct both in their source and their object; distinct in their source, for the truths of one order are known by natural reason, and those of the other by faith in divine revelation; and distinct in their object, be- cause, over and above the truths naturally attain- able, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which can be known through divine revela- tion alone". This solemn affirmation is supported by an anathema against any one who shall deny that there is an order of knowledge higher than the nat- ural, or who shall say that man can naturally by progress attain at length to the knowledge of all truth (De Revelat., can. iii). Moreover, even as re- gards the natural knowledge of God, the Vatican Council teaches that "truths not unattainable by the natural light of the human reason have, by divine mercy, been revealed in order that they may be known by all easily, and with certainty, and without any admixture of error" (De Fide, cap. ii).

As regards certitude concerning the fact of Divine revelation, the Vatican Council teaches that the proofs are not, indeed, such as to make assent in- tellectually necessary (De Fide, cap. iii and can. v), but that they are sufficient to make the belief "agreeable to reason" (rationi consentaneum), being "most certain and accommodated to the intelligence of all" (De I r ide, cap. iii). Anathema is pronounced against any one who shall say that Divine revelation cannot be made credible by "external signs" but only by "inner experience or personal inspiration" (De Fide, can. iii), and against any one who shall say that "miracles are not possible", or that "miracles can never in any case be certainly known" to be such, or that "by miracles the divine origin of the Christian religion cannot be properly proved" (rite probari; De Fide, can. iv). It is, then, moral certi- tude that is attainable by the reason as to the fact of Divine revelation. The certitude of faith is super- natural, being due to Divine grace, and is superior not merely to moral certitude, but to the certitude of physical science, and to that of the demonstrative sciences. When it is a question whether any par- ticular truth is contained within the deposit of rev- elation, the certainty of faith can be obtained only from the authority of the "teaching Church", but a human certitude may !><■ obtained by arguments drawn from the inferior and subordinate authorities .such as the Fathers and the "Schola Theologica".

John Rickaby, The First Principles of Knowledge (London, 1890); Newman, Grammar of Assent (London. 1870); \V. G.