LIPPI, Filippino
Triumph of St Thomas Aquinas over the Heretics (detail)
1489-9

FAITH is not solely a matter of reason. If it were, then belief would be as simple as understanding a mathematical equation or proof. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, “To believe is an act of the understanding adhering to divine truth by command of the will, which is moved by the grace of God.” Faith involves an assent of the will. At the same time, supernatural truth is never in contradiction with reason.

“Faith and Reason,” by the Rev. Bernard Vaughan, S.J., is a very good short essay on this subject. It comes from Beautiful Pearls of Catholic Truth, starting on page 428. Here is an excerpt:

They say, then, they cannot believe in the truths of revelation, because to believe, on the word of another, what we cannot ourselves prove, is to put reason in fetters—it is mental slavery. This objection against Faith, which in one form or another is so often made to do duty against Catholic doctrine, may sound plausible at first, but I undertake to show it is very shallow, and as cowardly as it is unfair.

In the first place, ought not a moment’s reflection to suggest to our adversaries this question: If it is so very unreasonable to submit to the word of authority, how comes it that hundreds of millions of our fellow-beings, quite as intellectually gifted as we are, and quite as devoted to truth and liberty, find no such opposition between Faith and Reason as we fancy we have discovered ? Surely these rationalists, who pride themselves on their unbelief, can scarcely delude themselves into imagining that they have the monopoly of Reason and freedom.

They can hardly venture to persuade themselves that their forefathers, who formed their language, framed their laws, founded their universities, faced their enemies, and fought their battles, were of so mean an intellectual make that for more than a thousand years they bowed before the tyrannical rule of Faith, and meekly submitted to have its fetters placed upon their Reason ?

Do not tell me that lovers of freedom, such as they, who wrested from a despotic king the Magna Charta, that great charter of our liberties, who established trial by jury, who created our representative system, who were up and ready at Poictiers, Har-fleur, Crecy, and Agincourt to defend our real or imagined rights, were made of such poor stuff that they were ready, on the offer of a bribe, to barter away freedom for slavery!

To these intellectual giants, who have made the stupendous discovery that submission to authority in matters, of religion is the annihilation of Reason and destruction of freedom, I should like to put one question. I would fain ask them how, if this be so, do they save their own Reason and freedom from meeting with a similar fate? For I charge them, one and all, with doing themselves precisely what they condemn so scornfully in others. From the cradle to the grave, are they not being anxiously guided throughout their secular life by the leading strings of authority.

I put it to them. When they were yet children, was it not on the autuority of their mother’s word that they believed some things were good for them and others would do them harm; that one line of conduct was right and another wrong ? And when they grew to be of an age to leave the nursery and go to school, was it not still on the word of authority that they learned there was a right and a wrong way of parsing their sentences or construing the author set before them? Was it not to the authority of their teacher that they looked for the truth of all the multitude of miscellaneous facts which came before them in the course of their studies ? And did they innovate upon this time-honored practice, when from school they passed on to the university?

Nay, I will ask them further: Does the period in life ever arrive when they can afford to fling away the crutches lent them by authority, and walk by their own strength ? When they are sick, is it their practice to dictate to the physician in attendance upon them the line of treatment he must prescribe in their case; or do they leave themselves to be guided by his authority? If they find themselves entangled in a law-suit, do they quarrel with their solicitor because they cannot understand all the intricacies of the law; or do they submit to be ruled by his judgment ?

Such instances might be multiplied; but surely these are enough to make it clear that if Catholics are to be condemned as nothing better than slaves because they elect to be guided in their spiritual life by authority, then worldly men are under the same condemnation for submitting to be led by authority in their secular lives. They may traverse the assertion, and deny that they are so led. Let them then quote in support of the charge what Mr. Gladstone has to say upon this point. He says : “The fact to which we ought all to be alive, but for the most part are not, is that the whole human family, and the best and the highest races of it, and the best and highest minds of those races, are to a great extent upou the crutches which authority has lent them.”

[O’Reilly, Bernard, 1823-1907. Beautiful pearls of Catholic truth]

— Comments —

George W. writes:

I am not a Catholic and never have been.  Why?  I protest.  Who is this Pope who is “infallible” in matters of dogma?  Was he not selected by other men?

Vaughan writes, “If it is so very unreasonable to submit to the word of authority, how comes it that hundreds of millions … find no such opposition between Faith and Reason as we fancy have discovered here”?  Wow!  This “argument” would not have passed muster in my fifth grade class.  It’s “argumentum ad verecundiam”.  Or perhaps bandwagon propaganda.  Whaaat?  Fifth grade?  Yes!  As my mother used to say, “If everyone else is jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge will you join them”?

We are not amused.

How can one be a sedevacantist anyway?  After all, the College of Cardinals ….

Laura writes:

I don’t see what you find so objectionable in the passage you quote. Vaughan is not saying that because millions of intelligent people previously accepted the faith that fact alone is proof that it is true. He is addressing the issue of authority only. If submitting to Church authority is absurd, then why have so many intelligent people done it? It is a reasonable question.

As far as papal infallibility, I wonder how familiar you are with the concept. It does not mean that a pope can overturn previously defined dogma or infallible statements by other popes. Nor does it encompass every utterance of a pope. In any event, yes, the pope is chosen by men, but the office is guided by the Holy Spirit and was established by God.

At some point, everyone must recognize an infallible source of dogma. According to Protestantism, individual judgment is infallible. It may be an individual preacher or the founder of a sect or the conscience of the believer. Instead of the infallibility of one man who has studied theology, been chosen in most cases for his holiness, wisdom and discretion, and prayed for most of his life, there is the infallibility of millions of theological amateurs with their various impulses and whims. Theological democracy has led to doctrinal anarchy and widespread atheism.

Sedevacantism is simply the position that by virtue of any sustained heresy, which is such an extraordinary occurrence that it is unprecedented, a pope automatically loses his office in the eyes of God, and thus must not be recognized as pope by the faithful even though legally he still holds the office. The Church has battled heresy since its beginnings. It possesses the structure and divine guidance to right itself during a storm.

John writes:

Laura wrote:  “According to Protestantism, individual judgment is infallible. It may be an individual preacher or the founder of a sect or the conscience of the believer.”

I spent the first 18 years of my life in the Catholic Church.  After a long hiatus, I spent another 15 years in a conservative Protestant sect, one with which I am no longer associated.  I have some perspectives on both traditions.  I’ve never encountered, in mainstream evangelical thinking, any suggestion that the judgment or interpretation of an individual believer is, or ever could be, infallible.  The precise opposite is taught.

Despite the tendency to fragment, there is substantial agreement in evangelical circles over the essentials of faith.  These include the infallibility of scripture as sole authority, salvation by faith alone, and the sacrificial atonement by Christ for sin.  For the most part, the mainstream evangelical community regards believers as orthodox if they adhere to these essentials and do not venture into “private revelation.”  Disagreements are numerous, but they tend to be over things of lesser import.  There is a good deal of self policing that goes on over cultists and self-styled “prophets of God.”

This is not to say that Protestantism does not have an authority problem.  When the Reformers separated from Rome, they needed a supreme authority to replace what they regarded as a corrupted church hierarchy.  They found it in scripture.  And since they needed to avoid re-establishing any new hierarchy, they had to believe that scripture was basically self explanatory and accessible to those who diligently studied it.  Moreover, the study of scripture would tend towards unity among believers.  Clearly, this is not what happened.  People don’t agree because they are human; they see in the bible what they want to see; they shut out what they don’t care to deal with.

It’s true that Catholicism does not have the same problem, at least not in the same way.  It still has an intact and functioning teaching hierarchy, insofar as it has survived two major separations.  But while the authority remains, the body of believers is in defacto schism (as amply demonstrated by comments at this site.)  Vast numbers of others have simply walked away.  This is not a success in any real sense, and provides no basis for anyone’s pointing fingers.

There is much that has been written here about why society and the Church are in such a bad state; and much of it has been directed at what Protestants are doing or have done.  It would be more accurate, and honest, to say that the main problem with the institutional church is its failure to defend itself––any by extension, society as a whole––against the onslaught of atheistic naturalism.  This has been going on now for some 700 years.  To take the foremost example, the Church seems unable to mount any serious defense against the central pillar of the atheistic world view, Darwinism.

Laura writes:

I’ve never encountered, in mainstream evangelical thinking, any suggestion that the judgment or interpretation of an individual believer is, or ever could be, infallible.  The precise opposite is taught.  

Why did the people you know choose one Protestant church over another? Wasn’t it because in their minds, that particular church taught the truthful interpretation of Scripture? They would say that Scripture is paramount, but Scripture is open to interpretation on hundreds of issues, from the nature of baptism to the structure of church governance to the role of women to issues of sexual morality. Ultimately, the choice to belong to any Protestant sect rests on the judgment of individual believers. Of course, the choice of becoming a Catholic rests on individual judgement too. But one is not faced in that case with choosing among various interpretations of Scripture. By the way, as an aside, some Protestants today are closer in their thinking to the full deposit of faith than many of those who call themselves Catholic.

These include the infallibility of scripture as sole authority, salvation by faith alone, and the sacrificial atonement by Christ for sin. 

Yes, there is a good deal of agreement in some quarters as to these issues even though the Bible speaks of the necessity of works, the existence of one Church, the authority of one man, and bread transformed into Christ’s flesh, but never defines the books of the Bible and the infallibility of Scripture.

When the Reformers separated from Rome, they needed a supreme authority to replace what they regarded as a corrupted church hierarchy.  They found it in scripture.

The reformers established themselves as supreme authorities over the Church.

But while the authority remains, the body of believers is in defacto schism (as amply demonstrated by comments at this site.)  Vast numbers of others have simply walked away.  This is not a success in any real sense, and provides no basis for anyone’s pointing fingers.

I’m not sure what schismatics you are referring to. Members of the Society of Saint Pius X are in schism because they have set up an alternative church. Someone who believes that the pope is in heresy and does not support any alternative structure to the Church, and remains faithful to all the doctrines of the Church, is not in schism.

Success is not the issue. Nor are numbers. Even if there was only one believer on the face of the earth, there would still be the basis for, not pointing fingers, but defending the essentials for salvation and unity.

There is much that has been written here about why society and the Church are in such a bad state; and much of it has been directed at what Protestants are doing or have done. 

At least as much has been said about the effects of Vatican II.

It would be more accurate, and honest, to say that the main problem with the institutional church is its failure to defend itself––any by extension, society as a whole––against the onslaught of atheistic naturalism.  This has been going on now for some 700 years.  To take the foremost example, the Church seems unable to mount any serious defense against the central pillar of the atheistic world view, Darwinism.  

There has never been a problem with the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church was established by Christ and its teachings are perfect, though they are further clarified and understood over time. There are always problems with human beings within the Church. It is not true that the Church has not condemned evolution and atheistic naturalism. The 19th and early 20th century Popes strongly reacted to these trends. For instance in 1950, in Humani Generis, Pope Pius XII wrote:

5. If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principal trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all this, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribed to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.

6. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.

John responds:

I can’t answer every point of yours, so let me make some general comments.

I said the Catholic Church was in defacto schism, as opposed to actual schism.  One might also call it cultural schism.

In the liberal branches of Protestantism, one may find institutional support for homosexual marriage, adultery under certain circumstances, abortion rights, cohabitation, and other modernist positions that are at odds with historical Christianity.  Not surprisingly, there are practicing Catholics who support these modernist positions too.  The difference is that in Protestantism these people cluster in the more liberal denominations, while in Catholicism, they coexist––cohabitate if you will­­––under the same roof, where they (pardon the crude expression) stink up the pews and work to undermine Church teaching in various ways.  It would be hard to find, in the evangelical denominations, anyone who voices support for gay marriage or abortion rights, because these things are not believed in.  The evangelicals do not regard themselves as being in communion with the liberals.

A friend left the Episcopal Church a few years ago because she could no longer attend a church she loved after it had ordained an openly homosexual and cohabitating bishop.  That was the proverbial last straw.  It would be facile to say her decision was simply a matter of her interpretation of scripture.  It’s somewhere between difficult and impossible to read any acceptance of homosexual behavior into scripture.  The difference is that she read and honored the traditions of her faith, while the woman sitting next to her had a “gay” brother and was angry that his lifestyle was not granted equal status.  For her, it was all about “Christian love.”  Among Episcopalians at least, this latter position has become politically dominant.  Thus the church splits, and people move elsewhere.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church––at least the older version I have––in order to be a Catholic in good standing, one must believe everything the Church teaches.  I know enough Catholics to recognize how widespread the disregard for Church moral teaching is, especially on such matters as birth control and pre-marital sex.  Clearly, there is a failure to catechize if the Church cannot reach and convince even her own members with the same success the evangelicals have reaching theirs. 

The same cultural split that has divided Protestants exists also in the Catholic Church; and I strongly suspect it is not just the laity, but the hierarchy that is troubled.  There may be institutional unity, and this unity may provide the basis for eventual rehabilitation; but as Jesus once said, Let him among you who is without sin…

Laura writes:

You seem to be saying that there is a culture war among Catholics and a culture war among Protestants — therefore they are both weakened.

There is no “cultural split” within the actual Church, which is comprised of those who accept Catholic teaching. The Catholic Church represents a clearly defined body of immutable doctrine. 

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