Page:Summa Theologica (2nd rev. ed.) - Volume 1.djvu/23

Rh most certainly true, and that the arguments brought against the Faith are not in accord with right reason, the Catholic philosopher should bear in mind that he will violate the rights both of Faith and reason, if he embrace any conclusion which he understands to be contrary to revealed doctrine.

We know indeed that there are to be found men who, exalting too highly the powers of human nature, contend that the understanding of man falls from its native dignity when it becomes subject to Divine authority, and that being thus bound, as it were, in a yoke of slavery, it is greatly retarded and hindered from reaching the heights of truth and excellence. Such teaching as that is full of error and falsehood. The end of it is that men, in the height of folly and sinful thanklessness, reject all higher truths. They deliberately cast away the Divine blessings of faith, from which the streams of all good flow, even to civil society. Now, the mind of man is shut up and held in certain bounds, and narrow enough those boundaries are. The consequence is that it falls into many mistakes and is ignorant of many things. On the other hand, the Christian Faith, resting as it does on the authority of God, is the certain teacher of truth. He who follows this guidance is neither entangled in the nets of error nor tossed about on the waves of doubt. Hence the best philosophers are they who join philosophical study with the obedience of the Christian Faith. Then the brightness of Christian truths falls on the mind, and by that brightness the understanding itself is helped. This takes nothing from the dignity of the reason; nay, rather, it adds to the reason a great deal of grandeur and subtlety and strength.

Worthily and most fruitfully do we use the keenness of the understanding when we set ourselves to refute opinions against the Faith, and to prove those things which agree with it. For in disproving errors we ascertain their causes, and then show the falsity of the arguments by which they are bolstered up; while in proving truths we use the force of the reasons by which they are demonstrated with certainty, and by which all prudent men are persuaded. If,