The Freedom of Science Part 34

But this is only the smaller part of his province. In many departments, like the one of ecclesiastical history, there are almost no restrictions to his research, except those imposed by historical facts. Canon law and similar departments dealing with the laws of the Church, coincide in method and liberty of research with the profane science of law. Of all departments of theology, the dogmatical is the one most affected by the authority of faith. Yet even here a great deal is left to unhampered work.

Many a void has to be filled, many a question solved, which the theology of the past has never taken up; even the defined truths still offer a large scope for personal work, in regard to demonstration, or to the philosophic-speculative penetration of the dogmas and their interpretation.

As a fact, the reader of theological literature, both old and new, will, in a mult.i.tude of cases, meet with unrestrained individuality.

Ecclesiastical Supervision of Teaching.

The _Encyclica_ against Modernism (September 8, 1907) gave rise to fears that any free movement would henceforth be impossible for Catholic theology. These fears referred chiefly to the disciplinary measures, prescribed by the Encyclical for the purpose of supervising theological teaching in each diocese. Then came the papal Motu Proprio, of September 1, 1910, which, among other things, required the teacher of theology to confirm by oath his confession of the Creed and his intention to repudiate modernistic errors. Since then many a complaint has been heard about espionage and coercion. Similar complaint, about an imminent debas.e.m.e.nt of the Church, has been raised whenever important measures in the discipline of the Catholic Church were published, and they emanated primarily from the camp of the enemy.

It is not to be denied, however, that such an energetic call for watchfulness and action, issued from the highest ecclesiastical watchtower, like the one referred to, may lead in some cases to anxiety and false suspicions. This is no doubt regrettable; but it is an incident common to human legislation and will surprise no one who has any experience of life. A glance at these decrees will show that they are nothing more than an urgent injunction, and the exercise of that supervision of religious life and teaching which pertains to the authority of the Catholic Church, and which has been practised by her at all times.

The language is urgent, it has a severity which is softened in the execution. Its explanation lies in the eminent danger of the modernistic movement to the continuance of Catholic life. Modernism, as described and condemned by the Encyclica, is nothing less than the absolute destruction of the Catholic faith, and of Christianity.

The Protestant theologian, Prof. _Troltsch_, wrote after the publication of the Encyclica: "As viewed from the position of curialism and of the strict Catholic dogma, there existed a real danger. Catholicism had gotten into a state of inner fermentation, corresponding to the same condition caused by modern theology within the Protestant churches."

The danger of Modernism is often enhanced by a deceptive semblance of the right faith, and by the pretence to urge only the righteous interests of modern progress against obsolete forms of thought and life, now and then also by its secret propaganda. Hence this intervention by a firm hand, and this only after having waited a long time. They were measures of prevention, like those taken to stave off a serious danger; the tidal wave receding, their urgency disappears automatically.

The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10, 1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in solving the problems of civilization. "May they all recognize,"

they said, "how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to set bars only to one kind of freedom-the freedom to err." If the rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The truth above all. "The Church has at no time opposed the true progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the morbid aversion against the truth that comes from G.o.d. But we Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of n.o.ble, intellectual work and genuine mental education."

The fears of too great a pressure by the ecclesiastical authorities have been given trenchant expression in most recent times by a man who, while standing outside of the Catholic Church, has always shown himself well disposed towards it, namely, the noted pedagogue, _Fr. W. Forster_ of Zurich. _Forster_ has won merit and distinction by his manly and spirited defence of the Christian view in pedagogical science and mental culture. In the book referred to he again describes urgently the worthlessness and fatality of modern individualism, that knows a good deal about freedom but nothing of self-discipline, nor of authority or tradition, and which represents most superficial amateurism in the domain of religion and morals. Then he turns to criticize Church practice; and his criticism becomes a sharp accusation. His main charge is "fatal restraint of the spirit of universality." "Some groups in the Church," he a.s.serts, "of mediocre learning, have established a clique rule, under which the others, the more creative and intensive souls, become the victims of intolerance, espionage, and false suspicion"; "universality, which unites the different mental tendencies, has given way to separation"; "everywhere a one-sided denunciatory information of the leading circles by accidentally ruling groups and factions; anxious intolerance for everything unusual, disciplinary austerity and unintelligent pedantry, individualistic and unchristian spirit of distrust and mutual espionage"; "levelling of the mental life"; "one is tired," we are told, "of the spirit of incessant disciplining"; "of the invariable cold and disdainful forbidding and repression." In the Middle Ages and earlier times it was different; then "universality was the ruling spirit, the working of the many into a unit full of life; this policy was changed for no other reason than because of the struggle of the Church against Protestantism." "The greatest harm that Catholicism suffered by the great rupture of the sixteenth century is most likely seen in the tendency of the Church to view thenceforth religious freedom within Catholic Christianity with an anxious, even hostile eye."

Readers of the literature of the day will recognize here views often met with during the last years, and the same excited note, which is quite in contrast to the even temper that ordinarily characterizes _Forster's_ books. But what the reader will not find stated are the proofs for these enormous accusations.

Undeniably, things have happened in the wide range of ecclesiastical authority that cannot be approved. But where are the facts that would justify charges of such sweeping nature? A Protestant author can hardly be presumed to possess such a direct and positive insight into the ecclesiastical practice of the higher and the highest order, to give convincing strength to his bare a.s.sertion. Or is the number of dissatisfied voices that make these charges sufficient proof in itself? If the ecclesiastical authority be allowed, now and then, to emerge from its pa.s.siveness to take measures against dangerous doctrinal tendencies, is it not to be expected, as a matter of course, that some minds become disgruntled and complain about oppression and clique rule? Or must that right be denied the Church altogether? _Forster_ says himself: "The spirit of dignity and responsibility has never ruled all parts of the hierarchy in the same measure as now, and rarely if ever were there found in its leading circles so many men leading an almost holy life as at present." And yet we are asked to believe that it was reserved exactly for this worthy hierarchy, and for these saintly men, to forget the traditions of the Church in the most irresponsible manner. One will have to say: "If _Forster_ would examine without bias the situation and apply consistently in respect to authority the principles that he himself defends, he would be convinced that the Church could not have acted any differently than it did in regard to the regrettable events of the last years, and that it has ever been the aim of the Church, before the sixteenth century as after, to guard carefully the purity of traditions of faith against any attack" (Prof. _G. Reinhold_ in a review of _Forster's_ book).

The Church has never known a universality that did not oppose doctrinal errors. The Middle Ages did not know it; one need only read the many condemnations from Nicholas I. to Innocent VIII.; nor was such a universality known to the great Councils of ancient Christianity up to the Nicaean, which hurled its anathema against numerous teachings that opposed no dogmas defined at that time; nor did the Holy Fathers know such a universality, nor the Apostles, with their strict admonitions of unity of faith. The reply is made, the "Church must not yield the least of its fundamental truths," that "its centralizing power ought to remain within the region of the most essential"; whereas she actually exercises it in the domain of the incidental. The ecclesiastical supervision of teaching has never limited itself to the most essential, nor would this practice ever accomplish the object to preserve pure the doctrine of faith. Furthermore, what is the "most essential" what is the "incidental"? _Forster's_ book does not inform us about this most important question. The views against which the Church has made front in the last years, do they relate only to the incidental? Does this apply to the doctrines of a _Rosmini_ and _Lamennais_, who are referred to in pa.s.sing? No well-informed theologian will a.s.sert this.

We shall hardly be wrong in a.s.suming that the charge of overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in several other pa.s.sages of the book-on the view, namely, that in religion the intellectual moment should recede before the mystical, before antic.i.p.ation and inner experience. Hence the severe censure of "the narrow autocracy of the intellectual interpretation" against the "preponderance of the intellectual contemplation" in the Church, which is said to have become so prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons.

_Forster_, too, touches upon this important distinction when quoting _Saitschick_: "The inner perception overtowers feeling and logical reason-here, too, lies the source of a light s.h.i.+ning brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of reason"; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater extent the "inner perception." What is felt here vaguely has long since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.

Certainly a view that fails to lay, first of all, absolute stress on the protection of the _doctrine_ of faith cannot understand the Catholic point of view; it will a.s.sume only too easily that the supervision relates to incidentals. It will also engender a criticism against which the Church may rightly protest, because it starts from presumptions that do not apply to the Church.

No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to the Protestant denominations which he may cite before the court of his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words: "I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world."

There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries, deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.

The Oath Against Modernism.

The _Motu Proprio_ of September 1, 1910, decreed that teachers of theology, and also Catholic priests generally, had to bind themselves by oath to reject modernistic heresies, and to accept obediently the ecclesiastical precepts. Dispensed from this pledge were only the professors of theology at state inst.i.tutions, to spare them difficulties with state authorities.

This anti-modernist oath at once became the signal for a storm of indignation, than which there has been hardly a greater one since the days of the Vatican Council. A cry was raised for freedom of science, for the exclusion of theological faculties, even for another "Kulturkampf." The General Convention of German college professors, held at Leipzig January 7, 1911, issued a declaration to the effect that "All those who have taken the anti-modernist oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of an independent recognition of truth and of the exercise of their scientific conviction, hence they have forfeited all claim to be considered independent scientists." Interpellations were made in legislative bodies, it was demanded that the option of taking the oath should be taken away from university professors, because "the dignity of the universities would be lowered if their members had the opportunity to bind themselves by such an oath."

Even threats were made by statesmen, hinting at reprisals by the state, because its interests were being jeopardized, while, on the other hand, there were those who declared: "If the Catholic Church thinks it necessary for her ecclesiastical and religious interests to put her servants under oath, it is her own business; neither the state nor the Evangelical Church have a right to interfere" (Prime Minister _Bethmann-Hollweg_, in the Prussian Diet, on March 7, 1911).

The agitation of the minds will soon subside, as on former occasions of this kind; and, with calm restored, people will find, as _J. G. Fichte_ told the impulsive _F. Nicolai_, one hundred and thirty years ago, that the fact has only just been discovered that the Catholics are Catholic.

Yes, indeed, the Catholics are Catholic, and desire to remain Catholic-this and nothing else is the gist of the anti-modernist oath. It does not oblige to anything else but what was believed and adhered to before. It obliges to accept the doctrines of faith; but they are the old truths of the Catholic Church, propounded and believed at all times, and the necessary inferences from them. Even the proposition that truths of faith can never be contradicted by the results of historical research, or by human science in general, is as old as faith itself. In addition, the oath avows obedient submission to Church precepts; but this has been demanded for centuries by the _professio fidei Tridentina_, a pledge by oath to which every professor of theology has been before obliged: _Apostolicas et ecclesiasticas traditiones reliquasque eiusdem Ecclesiae observationes et const.i.tutiones firmissime admitto et amplector_. This was the opinion of all competent judges on this theological question. "We are convinced," declared correctly a prominent theological inst.i.tution, "that there is not a.s.sumed by this oath any obligation new in subject, and no obligation not already existing. The oath is but the affirmation of a duty already imposed by conscience" (the professors of Theology of Paderborn, December 12, 1910). The Breslau faculty said, in the same sense: "The faculty does not see in the so-called anti-modernist oath any new obligation, nor one exceeding the rule of faith ever adhered to by the faculty." And this declaration was fully approved of by Rome.

Cardinal _Kopp_, at the session of the German Upper House on April 7, 1911, commented on these statements as follows: "Against the opinions of these circles (having a different opinion of the oath) I set the testimony and the statement of the most competent people, to wit, the professors of university faculties and also those at episcopal seminaries. Those who have taken the oath, as well as those who have refrained from it by the privilege granted them by the Holy See, they both declare positively that the oath does not contain any new obligations, nor does it impose new duties on them; hence that, on the contrary, they are not impeded in the pursuit of their tasks as teachers and of their scientific work of research. Now, gentlemen, I do not think it would be proper to insinuate that these earnest men, appointed by the Government, or at least in office by its consent, would make this declaration against their conviction and not in full sincerity."

No wonder, therefore, that of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests hardly a handful have refused the oath.

Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge this oath, and the Jansenist _Racine_ complained that this demand was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian _Tournely_ and others cited a number of examples of this kind from the history of the Church.

Therefore the anti-modernist oath has not created anything new.

Consequently it has not changed anything in regard to the freedom of theological research. It is the same as before; nor has the oath changed anything in the quality of theological professors, they merely promise to be what they must be anyway; nor can, for instance, the oath induce the Catholic priest, in teaching profane history, to present the history of the Reformation in a different light than before, and thus render him unfit to teach history; the oath has created no new, confessional differences, hence has given no justified cause for excitement-provided one has the needed theological comprehension of the oath. If one has not this insight, and will not trust to information from a competent source, then it will be the act of prudence to leave the test to the future; and we can await this test serenely.

We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers, to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth.

These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same haziness and inconsistency. "Because they have thereby expressed the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth," namely, by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who clings to his Christian belief bound by this very fact to certain doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this "independent recognition of truth," as we have already seen. But cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom, nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of allegiance,-all of these will have to be protected against the insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression.

In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy.

This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they are guided by half-thinking.

Bonds of Love, not of Servitude.

People to whose mind Catholic thinking is foreign will never be able to appreciate the energetic activity of the Church authority.

On close examination, however, they will not deny that, _if_ the Christian treasure of faith is to be preserved undiminished, _if_ in the hopeless confusion and the unsteady vacillation of opinions in our days there is to be left anywhere a safe place for truth and unity of faith, this cannot be accomplished otherwise than in the shape of a strong authority that has the a.s.surance of the aid of G.o.d.

The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority: its theology demands complete freedom of research and teaching, making the most extensive use of both. The result is the demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession, the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state; neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore acknowledgment of the Catholic principle-for the Catholic an incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.

Many to whom the Catholic way of thinking is foreign, look upon the duty of obedience which ties the Catholic to his Church as a sort of servitude; to the Catholic it is the tie of love, uniting free people to a sacred authority. Many look upon the Church of Rome as a tyrannical curia, where Umbrian prelates are cracking their whips over millions of servile and ignorant souls; to the Catholic the Church is the divinely appointed inst.i.tution of truth, that possesses his fullest confidence. He knows that history has given the most magnificent justification to the Catholic principle of authority. Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental structure remained standing upon the rock of G.o.d-founded authority in the vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. And its ancient Credo, prayed by all nations, is the same Credo once prayed by the martyrs.

Chapter II. Theology And University.

"He is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings"; thus spoke in bygone ages the children of this world. "Let us therefore lie in wait for the just.... He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of G.o.d and calleth himself the Son of G.o.d" (Wisdom ii, 12 _seq._). Centuries later the children of the world treated in the same manner G.o.d's Son and His doctrine. And in these days, when the science of the faith is to be driven from the rooms of the school, let us recall that in olden times the children of the world planned similarly.

In the days when the private and public life of Europe's nations was permeated with the Christian faith, and their ideas were still centred in G.o.d and eternity, then the science of the faith was held to be the highest among the sciences, not only by rank but in fact.

And when, in the budding desire for knowledge, they erected universities, the first and largest of them, Paris University, was to be the pre-eminent home of theology, and wherever theology joined with the other sciences it received first honours. Thus it was in the days of yore, and for a long time. The secular tendency of modern thought led to the gradual emanc.i.p.ation of science from religion; unavoidably, its aversion for a supernatural view of the world soon turned against, and demanded the removal of, the science representing that view. Reasons for the demand were soon found. Thus the removal of theology from the university has become part and parcel of the system of ideas of the unbelieving modern man; the liberal press exploits the idea whenever occasion offers.