Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/658

 636 L I G U O 11 I morality, as not merely inexpedient, but as positively and intentionally evil, as designed to make religion odious by making it impossible, and so to prepare the way for the triumph of unbelief. He identified all teaching of the sort with Jansenism, and Jansenism, from its resistance to various pontifical decrees, seemed to him all but equivalent to atheism. Hence the opinions of rigorist theologians find almost no place in his writings, save for the purpose of censure, since he did not regard them as authorities to be relied on ; and accordingly the line he draws is not, what he probably thought it, an intermediate one between rigorism and laxity, but between a greater and a lesser degree of laxity, depending on the working of the principle known as &quot; Probabilism.&quot; The meaning of this principle (due to the scholastic form of the Aristotelian dialectic, and thus visible in germ as early as St Thomas Aquinas, though not taking final shape till the writings of Medina, Valencia, Vasquez, and others, mainly, but not exclusively, Jesuits, at the close of the 16th century) is simply this : when a doubt arises as to the binding force of some divine or human precept in any given case, it is permissible to abandon the opinion in favour of obedience to the law technically known as the &quot; safe &quot; (tuta) opinion for that which favours non-compliance, provided this laxer opinion be &quot; probable.&quot; And by &quot; probable &quot; is meant any judgment or opinion based on some reasonable grounds, though with some doubt that the opposite view is perhaps the true one (Gury, Theol. Jl/or., vol. i. n. 51). It may be probable in two chief ways, intrinsically, because of reasons drawn from the nature of the thing itself, or extrinsically, because supported by one or more theologians of repute ; and its degree of probability may vary according to a variety of conditions. Casuists are divided into six classes according to their mode of regarding probability: (1) lligorists, who lay down that the safer way, that of obedience to the law, is always to be followed ; (2) Mitigated lligorists, or &quot; Tutiorists,&quot; who, holding that the law is always the safer and better way, yet allow that an opinion of the highest intrinsic probability in favour of liberty may sometimes be followed; (3) Probabiliorists, who hold that the law is always to be obeyed unless an opinion clearly very probable (probabilior) is opposed to it ; (4) Equiprobabilists, who teach that in a balance of opinions the less safe opinion may be lawfully followed, provided it be as probable, or nearly as probable, as its opposite ; (5) Moderate Proba- bilists, according to whom it is lawful to follow the less safe and somewhat less probable opinion, provided it have some degree of real probability, even if the opposite opinion be clearly more probable ; (6) Laxists, who hold that even slightly probable opinions may be followed ; but, as they were condemned by Innocent XL, they no longer exist as an avowed school, but are still latent under classes 4 and 5. On further examination, it appears that the right of judging of the intrinsic probability of an opinion is restricted to persons of considerable learning, and specially versed in moral theology, since they alone can know that there is not any certain argument in opposition. All other Inquirers must fall back on extrinsic probability, that is, on what may be called &quot; counsel s opinions.&quot; And, in forming a judgment on this basis, the following rules are laid down by F. Gury : a moderately educated person may accept as probable any opinion which he finds asserted by distin guished theologians of the present day, and may follow even a single author of repute, though teaching contrary to the commonly received view, provided he brings forward some fresh argument, and can urge reasonable pleas against former solutions ; while an ignorant man may take the word of any person whom he thinks trustworthy, able, and learned, that a particular opinion is probable (Theol. Mor., vol. i. n. 54). Some classes of things are, however, ex cluded by Roman casuists from the operation of this prin ciple ; as, for example, all questions relating to matters of faith, in which the very highest degree of probability is not sufficient to excuse from following the safe opinion, which is that of the Roman Church. Liguori s own posi tion is that of an equiprobabilist, and he therefore, as a rule, leans to the laxer side. Before proceeding to illustrate the exact nature of his teaching by extracts from his works, it is desirable to ascertain what degree of authority attaches to those works in virtue of the position now accorded to him. In the first place, one of the earliest steps in the process of canonization is a strict review of every writing of the candidate proposed, whether published or unpublished. Every single proposi tion therein must be separately considered, and be judged on its own merits, without taking the author s probable intention into account, and if even one passage be found which fails to stand this test, as containing any moral or theological error, the process is stopped at once, unless proof be adduced that the author had in his lifetime formally and fully retracted the erroneous opinion. But a decree of the Congregation of Rites, confirmed by Pius VII. in 1803, declared that in none of the writings of Alfonso de Liguori was anything found meriting censure, and the testimony of Artico, bishop of Asti, and prince-prelate of the papal household, is that the examination had been unusually severe, that Liguori s system of morality had been discussed more than twenty times, and that the approval of the congregation was perfectly unanimous. Next, in the year 1831, Cardinal Rohan-Chabot, archbishop of Besangon, submitted a case to the cardinal grand penitentiary, desiring to know, whereas the teaching of Liguori s Moral Theology was resisted by some persons in his diocese, as too lax, dangerous to salvation, and contrary to the moral law, whether a professor of theology might safely follow and teach the opinions in that work, and further, whether a confessor should be molested for follow ing those opinions in the confessional, solely on the ground that they had been pronounced free from censure by the apostolic see, and without having examined them inde pendently himself. To the former of these questions an affirmative reply was given, to the latter a negative one. Thirdly, in the bull of canonization, issued by Gregory XVI. in 1839, the entire absence of error in Liguori s writings is once more asserted. So far, no more is implied than the entire orthodoxy and moral soundness of Liguori s writings, vouched for to the ordinary Roman Catholic by the fact of his canonization. And, though the liberty is thereby taken away of directly censuring any proposition in the writings of a saint as dootrinally or morally untenable, yet there is no precise obligation to follow all things contained therein. It is still lawful to challenge the opinions of a saint, if it be done modestly and with the production of strong reasons (Bened. XIV., De Canoniz., ii. 32, 12); but this liberty is very seriously abridged if the saint be also a &quot; Doctor of the Church.&quot; For the meaning of that title is that the person who bears it is one who has not merely transmitted the teaching of the church to others, but has taught the church itself (Bened. XIV., De Canoniz., iv. ii. xi. 11), and whose doctrine has consequently been generally followed and authorized by the church. The number of these doctors of the church is very small ; and, in the special case of Liguori, he is not only the latest so named, but the only post-mediaeval casuist who has yet been canonized. Accordingly, it is not merely permissible, as heretofore, to follow his teaching, but it is now clothed with so high a degree of authority that it becomes matter of grave doubt