Kitabı oku: «The Freedom of Science», sayfa 12

The Duty to Believe and Scientific Demonstration

But cannot the believing Christian submit to scientific investigation the doctrine of faith itself, which he must without doubt hold to be true? This must surely be allowed if he is to convince himself scientifically of the truth of it. Indeed, this is allowed. He may critically examine everything to the very bottom, even the existence of God, the rationality of his own mind. But how can he, if no doubt is permissible? To examine means to search doubtingly; it means to call the matter in question – this, too, is right. It is, on the one hand, a doctrine of the Catholic Church that they who have received faith through the ministry of the Church, that is, they that have been made familiar with the essential subjects of the faith and the motives of their credibility by proper religious instruction, must not doubt their faith. They have no reasonable excuse for doubting because they are assured of the truth of the faith. We have discussed this point before.⁴

As a matter of course only voluntary doubts are excluded, doubts by which one assents deliberately and wilfully to the judgment that perhaps not all may be true that is proposed for our belief. Involuntary doubts are neither excluded nor sinful. These are apparent counter-arguments, objections, difficulties against the faith, which occur to the mind without getting its conscious approval. They are not unlikely, because the cognition of the credibility of Christian truths, while it is certain, is yet lacking in that obvious clearness which would render obscurity and counter-argument impossible; the assent to faith is free. Doubts of this kind are apt to molest the mind and buzz round it like bothersome insects, but they are not sinful because they do not set aside the assent to faith any more than the cloud that intervenes between us and the sun can extinguish its light. The assent to faith is withdrawn only when the will with clear consideration approves of the judgment that the doubt may be right.

But what about doubts which one cannot solve? Would we not owe it to truth and probity to withhold assent to faith for a while?

The answer lies in the distinction of a twofold solution of difficulties. It is by no means necessary, nor even possible, to solve directly all objections; it suffices to solve them indirectly, that is, by recognizing them as void; since faith is certain, whatever is contrary to it must be false. If one is convinced by clear proofs of the innocence of a defendant he will not be swayed in his assurance, no matter how much circumstantial evidence be offered against the defendant. He may not be able to account directly for one or the other remarkable coincidence of circumstances, but all the arguments of the other side are to him refuted, because to him the defendant's innocence is a certainty. Thus the faithful Christian may hear it solemnly proclaimed as a scientifically established fact that miracles are impossible, because they would be tantamount to God making correction on His own work, because they would imply a self-contradiction, or they would be against the law of preservation of energy; he hears of atrocities in the history of the Church, of the Inquisition, of the Church being an enemy of civilization – he knows not what to say: but one thing he knows, that there must be an answer, because he knows, enlightened by faith, that his belief cannot be false. Nowhere is it demanded that all objections be directly answered, in order that the conviction be true. If I, with the whole world, am convinced that I am able to recognize the truth, must I therefore carefully disentangle all the cobwebs ever spun about the truth by brooding philosophical brains? If I am in the house, safe from the rain, must I, in order to keep dry, go out and catch every drop of rain that is falling? Such doubts may indeed harass the untrained mind, may even confuse it. This is the juncture where grace comes in, the pledge of which has been received at baptism, bringing enlightenment, peace, assurance; then we learn from others and from ourselves that faith is also a grace.

Nevertheless a scientific examination of the foundations and truths of faith is allowed and wholesome. Nearly all the theological works written by Catholics since the days of Justin and Augustine are nothing but examinations of this kind. At every examination one proceeds with doubt and question. This is admitted; but this doubt must be merely a methodical one, not a serious one, nor need it be serious. These two kinds of doubt must be clearly distinguished. In case of a serious doubt I look upon the matter as really dubious, and withhold my assent. I am not yet convinced of its truth. This kind of a doubt is not allowed in matters of faith and it is the only one that is forbidden. In case of a methodical doubt I proceed as convinced of a truth, but I do not yet see the reasons plainly, and would like to be fully conscious of them. Evidently there is no need of casting aside the convictions I have hitherto held, and of beginning to think that the matter is by no means positively established.

For instance, I am convinced that a complicated order must be the work of intellect; however, I would like to find the proof of it. Hence I proceed as if the truth were yet to be found. But it would evidently be absurd to think in the meantime that such admirable order could be the result of blind accident. Or, I am convinced that there must be a source for every event: I desire to find the demonstration of it. In the meantime shall I think it possible for another Nova Persei to be produced in the sky without any cause? Or, investigating to see whether I am capable of recognizing the truth, shall I seriously become a sceptic till I am convinced that I ought not to be such? As soon as I really doubt that I can recognize anything at all as true, obviously I cannot proceed any further. Kant begins his “Critique of Pure Reason” with this doubt, and many imitate him, but only by evident inconsistency are they able to continue their researches by means of reason. Scientific examination does not consist in repudiating a certainty held hitherto, in order to arrive at it anew; it consists in bringing to one's clear consciousness the reasons for that certainty, and in trying to formulate those reasons precisely. To investigate the light it is evidently not necessary first to extinguish it.

Thus the believing Christian may most certainly probe into his religious conviction without interfering with his adherence, and by doing so proceed unprepossessed in the fullest sense, for unprepossession does not mean the rooting up of all certainty. At the threshold of wisdom does not sit Scepticism.

What Unprepossession is Not

But the deeper, modern meaning of unprepossession is precisely the right to doubt seriously everything, especially the truths of the Christian faith; this is the freedom demanded. Scepticism, the stamp of our time.

Many a misconception may have contributed to the definition of this unprepossession. For instance, overlooking the important difference between methodical doubt and serious doubt.

Then there is the erroneous opinion that we should and could proceed everywhere in the same way as in the natural sciences. Almost parallel with the progress in the natural sciences grew the doubt of the correctness of the ancient physical and astronomical notion of the world; piece after piece crumbled away under the hand of research; new truths were discovered. In just admiration of these results it was concluded that all provinces of human cognition should be “researched” in the same way, not excepting religion and theories of the world; here, too, science should cast a radical doubt upon everything and discover truth – as if here we had to deal with matters similar to astronomy and physics, in the state they were centuries ago; as if all mankind was still ignorant of the truth and science had to discover it.

This right to doubt is claimed especially in the higher questions of religion. Certain cognition by reason is, after all, impossible here, such is the presumption, and therefore, first of all, it is the right and duty of man, as soon as he has attained his intellectual maturity, to shape by doubt his views of the world to the satisfaction of his mind and heart, to win them by a struggle; nor is this true only in the case of the single individual, but also of entire generations. To see problems everywhere, not to have any convictions, this is taken to be true unprepossession.

“Man must learn,” so we are told, “that there is no absolute miracle, not even in the domain of the religious life, which supernaturally offers truth at a point or by an institution, but that every man and every era as witnessed by the authority of history must conquer truth by themselves for their own sake and at their own risk” (E. Troeltsch, Internationale Wochensch. 1908, 26). Thus the mind of man cannot slake its thirst for positive truth at the divine fountain of revelation, but only by search and research. Such is the cheerful message of this science. “Amid grave crises,” we are told again, “a new concept of science has forced its way to the front since the beginning of the eighteenth century and conquered the universities.” “Science is not a finished system, but a research to be forever under examination” (A. Harnack, Die Aufgabe der theol. Facultaeten, 1901, 17).

Research without ever arriving at the sure possession of the truth, this is now the meaning of science, especially of philosophy. Hence there cannot be a philosophy conclusive and immutable, and any point which seems established may at any time be revised according to new perceptions. “There is no question that may not be asked; none which in the abstract could not just as well be denied as affirmed. In this sense philosophy is unprepossessed” (Paulsen, Die deutschen Universitaeten, 1902, 304 seq.). The highest achievement it declares itself capable of, is not to point out the truth to its disciples, for it does not know the truth itself, but only this: “We expect, or at least we should expect, that during the years of study the mind give itself earnestly to philosophy, and strive for a firm grasp of ideas. The great pathfinders in world thought, Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, and whoever may be ranked with them, remain the living teachers of philosophy.” Thus we hold those great intellectual achievements, Plato's doctrine and ideas, Spinoza's atheistic pantheism, Aristotle's objectivism and Kant's subjectivism, with other views of the world of most variegated patterns, all contradicting and excluding one another, all dubious, none sure. What would be said of an astronomy that could do nothing better than fix the telescope on the different stars and then tell its disciples: Now look for what you please, ideas of Ptolemy or Copernicus; Aristotle's theory of the spheres or Newton's theory of gravity; each has its points, but of none can it be said it is certain! Such an astronomy would probably be left to its deserved fate.

In the most important points of religion mankind has ever, even in pagan times, recognized the truth, albeit imperfectly. This is evinced by the conviction that there exists a personal God and a hereafter; convictions which can be proved historically. God's revelation has provided those who desire to believe with a fuller knowledge of the truth: heaven and earth will pass away, but these words will not pass away. But what is already in our safe possession cannot be once more discovered by research. What has already been found is no longer an object of research. Mankind's lot would be a sad one indeed were this unprepossessed science in the right; if in the most important questions of life it were condemned forever to tantalizing doubt. God's providence has ordained matters more kindly for humanity.

On the other hand, it is a poor science that has nothing to offer but an eternal query for the truth. A poor science, that with self-consciousness promises enlightenment and what not, but finally can give nothing but ceaseless doubt instead of truth, tormenting darkness instead of cheerful light. Why, then, research where nothing can be found? Why raise searching eyes to the sky when the stars do not show themselves? What kind of progress is this when science does nothing further than dig forever at the foundation? The great St. Augustine has long also passed judgment on this kind of science: “Such doubting is abhorred by the City of God as false wisdom, because among the things which we grasp with our intellect and reason there is a knowledge, limited, it is true, because the soul is weighed down by a perishable body, as the Apostle says: ex parte scimus– but which has full certainty” (De Civitate Dei, XIX, 18).

An Erroneous Supposition

The errors just dealt with, and the demand that scientific research must doubt everything, is based on a supposition often stated expressly as a principle, and which appears quite plausible even to a mind not trained in philosophy. It says: There is but one certainty, the scientific certainty; the certain possession of the truth can be obtained only by scientific research. To rid the world of error, we are told, “there is but one way, viz., scientific work. Only science and scientific truth are able to dispose of error” (Th. Lipps, Allgemeine Zeitung, Muenchen, August 4, 1908). “Truth is scientific truth, based on criticism, hence the religion of modern man must also rest on critical truth… There is no other authority but science” (Masaryk, Kampf um die Religion, 13).

This sort of speech we hear from the college chair as the slogan for education and enlightenment: any one deficient in science or in education belongs more or less to the unthinking mass who have no convictions of their own, but submit blindly to impressions and authority.

Such unclarified conceptions, with their inferences, are even met with where they would not be expected, for instance, we read: “What the average individual needed was a good shepherd, a shepherd's devotion and love, that uplifts and urges onward; it was authority, Church-ministry and care of souls, that was needed. The Church is an organized pastorate, for the average individual likes to go with the flock. The chosen are they who feel within themselves the great question of truth as the care of their heart and task of their life, who experience its tremendous tension, and who are struggling to the end with the intellectual battles provoked by this question of truth. The average people, i. e., the many, the great majority, need something steady to which they can cling – persons and teachers, laws and practice.” And why this uncharitable distinction between people belonging to the flock and the chosen ones, as if the Church and its ecclesiastical functions were only appointed for the former? Particularly because “without methodical scientific work man cannot attain to the truth” (H. Schell, Christus, 1900, 125, 64).

Thus science may summon everything before its forum, no one having a right to interfere; in the superiority bestowed by the right of autocracy it may sweep aside everything that is opposed to it, no matter by what authority. Hence science must be free to jolt everything, free to question the truth of everything, which it has not itself examined and approved. This is the fundamental supposition of modern freedom of science; also a fatal error, betraying a woeful ignorance of the construction of the human intellect, in spite of all its pretentiousness. As a rule we have a true certainty in most matters, particularly in philosophical-religious convictions, a certainty not gained by scientific studies; by aid of the latter we may explain or strengthen that certainty, but we are not free to upset it.

We cannot avoid examining this point a little closer. There is a twofold certainty, one, which we shall call the natural certainty, is a firm conviction based on positive knowledge, but without a clear reflexive consciousness of the grounds on which the conviction is actually resting. Reason recognizes these grounds, but the recognition is not distinct enough for reason to become conscious of them, to be able to state them accurately and in scientific formulas. scientific certainty is a firm conviction, with a clear consciousness of the grounds, hence it can easily account for them. Natural certainty is the usual one in human life; scientific certainty is the privilege of but a few, and even they have it in but very few things.

Everybody has a positive intellectual certainty that a complicated order cannot be the result of accident, and that for every event there must be a cause, though not every one will be able readily to demonstrate the truth of his certainty. But if the philosopher should look for the proof, he would do so in no other way than by reflecting upon his natural and direct knowledge, and by trying to become conscious of what he has thus directly found out. To illustrate by a few examples: We are all convinced of the existence of an exterior world, and any one who is not an idealist will call this conviction a reasonable certainty, and yet only a few will be able to answer the subtle questions of a sceptic. This certainty again is a natural but not a scientific one. How difficult it is here also for reason to attain scientific certainty, how easy it is to go astray in these researches, is proved by the errors of idealism so incomprehensible to the untrained natural mind. Let us ask, finally, any one: Why must we say: “Cæsar defeated Pompey,” but not “Cæsar defeated of Pompey”? He will tell us this is nonsense; maybe he will add that the genitive has another meaning. But should I ask further how the meaning of the genitive differs from that of the accusative, as both cases seem to have often the same meaning, I shall get no answer. There is a certitude, but only a natural one. Even if I should ask modern students of the psychology and history of languages, like Wundt, Paul, or whatever their names may be, I should not get a satisfactory answer either. The whole logic of language, with its subtle forms and moods of expression – how difficult for scientific research! And yet the mind of even a child penetrates it, and not only a European child, but the Patagonian and negro child, who is able to master by its intellectual power complex languages, with four numbers, many moods, fourteen tenses, etc.

These examples will suffice, though volumes of them could be written. They show us clearly a twofold certainty. The difference between the natural and scientific certainty is not that the former is a blind conviction formed at random, but only that one is not clearly conscious of the reasons on which it rests, whereas this is the case in scientific certitude. We see further the untrained power of the intellect manifest itself in natural knowledge and certainty; for this purpose it is primarily created; philosophical thought is difficult for it, and many have no talent at all for it. It is also unfailing in apprehending directly things pertaining to human life. Here the mind is free of that morbid scepticism of which it too easily becomes a prey when it begins to investigate and probe scientifically. What it there sees with certainty cannot always be found here distinctly, and thus the mind begins to doubt things it was hitherto sure of, and which often remain instinctively certain to the mind despite its artificial doubts. Now we can also understand why philosophers so often have doubts which to the untrained look absurd, and why philosophers differ in their opinions on most important things, whereas mankind guided by its natural certitude is unanimous in them.

This certainty is destined to be the reliable guide of man through life. It precedes science, and can even exist without it. Long before there was a science of art and of jurisprudence the Babylonians and Egyptians had built their monuments, and Solon and Lycurgus had given their wise laws. And long before philosophers were disputing about the moral laws, men had the right view in regard to virtue and vice (cf. Cicero, De Oratore, I, 32). The same certitude is also destined to guide man in the more important questions, in the questions of religion and morality. The Creator of human nature and its destiny, who implanted instinct in the animal to guide it unconsciously in the necessities of life, has also given to man the necessary light to perceive with certainty truths without which it would be impossible to live a life worthy of man.

It is just this natural knowledge and certitude that gives man certainty of divine revelation, after God vouchsafed to give it to mankind for its unfailing guidance and help. For revelation was not only intended for theologians, Bible critics, philosophers, and Church-historians, but for all. And God has taken care, as He had to do, that man has ample evidence that God has spoken, and that the Church is the authorized Guardian of this revelation, even without critical research in history and philosophy. We have elsewhere briefly stated this evidence in the words of the Vatican Council.

This evidence is seen in the invincible stability of the Church and its unity of faith, the incontestable miracles never ceasing within it, the grand figures of its Saints and Martyrs, virtue in the various classes, a virtue increasing in proportion to the influence the Church exerts, the spectacle that everything truly noble is attracted by the Christian faith and the contrary repulsed. In addition the intrinsic grandeur and harmony of the truths of faith, above all the unique figure of Christ, with His wonderful life and sufferings, also the calm and peace of mind effected in the soul of the faithful by living and thinking in this faith; all these tell him that here the spirit of God is breathing, the spirit of truth. The natural light of his intellect, further illuminated by grace, suffices to give him a true intellectual certainty of his faith, based upon these motives and similar ones, even without scientific studies. The calmness of the mind that holds fast to this faith, the compunction and unrest which follow defection from the faith, both so characteristic of Catholics, prove that their minds embrace the truth in their faith.

Hence it betrays little philosophical knowledge of the peculiarity of man's intellectual life, if infidelity approaches an inexperienced, believing student, perhaps even an uneducated labourer, with the express assurance that his faith hitherto has been but a blind belief, an unintelligent following of the lead of a foreign authority, with the distinct admonition to turn his back on the faith of his childhood.

What has been said above makes it clear why a Catholic is not permitted to have a serious doubt about his faith under the pretext that he ought first to form a certain conviction all for himself by scientific investigation. He has it already, if we presuppose sufficient instruction and normal conditions; he may raise his natural certitude to a scientific one by study if he has the time and talent for it, but he must not condition his assent upon the success of his scientific investigations. He has certitude; he has no right to demand scientific knowledge as a necessary condition, because it is not required for certitude, and also because it lies altogether outside of the conditions of human life. It would amount simply to shaking off the yoke of truth. The Church teaches as follows: “If any one says that the condition of the faithful and of those who have not yet come to the only true faith is equal, so that Catholics can have a just cause for suspending their assent and calling in question the faith which they have received by the ministry of the Church until they have completed the scientific demonstration of the credibility and truth of it, let him be anathema.”

How high this wisdom rises above the limited thought of a science that imagines itself alone to be wise! Sad indeed would be the lot of mankind could it attain to certain truth in the most important questions of life only by lengthy scientific investigations. The overwhelming majority of mankind would be forever excluded from the certain knowledge that there is a God, an eternity, liberty, that there are immutable moral laws and truths, on the value of which depends the woe and weal of humanity.

Behold the wisdom of the world that is put before us: “In order to arrive at a definite conclusion by our own philosophical reasoning (on the existence of God and the possibility of miracles) what a multitude of things must be presupposed!” Thus we are informed in a philosophical novel of modern times which aims at proving the incompatibility of the Catholic duty to believe with the freedom of the intellect [Katholische Studenten, by A. Friedwald (nom de plume). An explanation of the ideas contained in it is given by the Academia 18, 1905-6, December and March. The ideas found in the novel are also advanced by A. Messer, Einführung in die Erkenntnistheorie, 1909, p. 158 seq.]. And Prof. Rhodius, who put the ideas of the novel in formulas, teaches: “The question whether our knowledge could penetrate beyond what we know by our experience and even our senses, is answered, as you know, in the negative by a noted philosophical school. Hence, before attacking those metaphysical questions regarding the existence of God and His relations to the world, we must first try to have definite views as to the essence of human knowledge, of its criterion, its scope, and of the degrees of its certainty. But these preliminary questions of theoretic knowledge, how difficult and perplexing they are! You probably have not the faintest idea into what a mass of individual problems the main questions must be dissected, nor what a multitude of heterogeneous views are struggling here against one another” (p. 181).

Consider how shortsighted a wisdom is manifested by these words. Is it seriously intended to summon the peasant from his plough, the old grandmother from behind the stove, and lead them into the lecture rooms of the university in order that they might there listen to lectures on phenomenalism, and positivism, and realism, and criticism, until their heads are swimming? Or else can they not hope to arrive at the truth? Do they seriously think that the truth asked for by every man, the truth in the most vital questions of mankind, is the exclusive privilege of a few college professors? And how very few. More than twenty-four hundred years have elapsed since the days of Pythagoras, and yet modern philosophy still stands before the first preliminary question in all knowledge, whether a man can know what the eye does not see. “Many views are at variance there.” If this be the only way for mankind to reach certain truth, then we are indeed in a pitiful plight!

We esteem philosophy and its subtle questions, and we heartily wish our Catholic young men in college to obtain a more thorough philosophical training. But if, involved in theories, one will lose his insight into the world and human life to such a degree as to make of the “wisdom of the world” an isolated narrow speculation which boasts of being alone able to discover the higher truths, while withering in neurasthenic doubt – such wisdom should be left to its deserved fate, sterility.

Or should it be possible to the ideal of Protestantism – and therefore also of the modern spirit – to console mankind by pointing out that the knowledge of the question which concerns us most deeply, “the knowledge of God and the knowledge of good, remains but a leading idea and problem, though we are confident of advancing nearer to its solution”? Is thus mankind to be eternally without light in the most important questions and problems? Every little plant and animal is equipped by nature with everything it needs – and man alone to be a failure? The young shoots of the tree strive to bring forth blossoms and fruit, and succeed; the bird flies off in the fall in quest of a new home, and finds it; hunger and thirst demand food and get it; only the aim of the human mind shall never be fulfilled – he alone shall ever pine without hope! —Dicentes se esse sapientes stulti facti sunt. What a difference between such principles and the grand thoughts of Christianity! A difference like that between peace and eternal restless doubt, like that between man's dignity and man's degradation, between man's short-sightedness and the wisdom of God.

Hence the result of our discussion is: independent of science mankind has its positive convictions, independent of science it finds here rest and gratification in its longing for truth. Scientific study and research are for the purpose of setting these truths in a brighter light, of defending the patrimony of mankind. But the fosterer of science must not claim the freedom to ignore these positive convictions in himself and in others, to endanger the patrimony of mankind by doubts and attacks instead of protecting it, much less must he condemn the human mind to the eternal labour of Sisyphus, to the eternal rolling of a huge stone which, recoiling, must always be lifted anew.