Moral Philosophy Adequately Considered
16. We should do well to dwell here in a very special way on the peculiar characteristics of those problems which concern the human person. In so far as they deal with the purely speculative study, whether metaphysical or psychological, of the psycho-physical functions and spiritual faculties of the human composite they involve no other difficulty than any other philosophic problem. But when we take as our object human action, -- that universe of man and human things envisaged in their moral dynamism and in relation to their proper end -- our considerations take an entirely new turn, in fact, a practical one. Here the case assumes a very special character. For we are face to face with an object which itself presents us with distinction between nature and state: an object which is natural by virtue of its essence, but whose state is not purely natural, and depends on the supernatural order.
Man is not in a state of pure nature, he is fallen and redeemed. Consequently, ethics, in the widest sense of the word, that is, in so far as it bears on all matters of human action, politics and economics, practical psychology, collective psychology, sociology, as well as individual morality, -- ethics in so far as it takes man in his concrete state, in his existential being, is not a purely philosophic discipline. Of itself it has to do with theology, either to become integrated with or at least subalternated to theology.
It is here that the combining of philosophic and theological lights which I mentioned a while ago acquires an exceptional importance. For one thing, theology, proceeding in conformity with its own proper mode, ex prima causa, and on the authority of the revealed word, encompasses this practical realm in its all-embracing wisdom. In virtue of its higher unity it is, as we know, in a formal and supreme manner, both a speculative and a practical science.
Then again, the philosopher cannot possibly refrain from scrutinizing, from his own peculiar standpoint and with his own tools, these same problems, and from entering into this universe of the specifically human -nay more, even into the world of spirituality, grace, and holiness, because this world is at the heart of the universe of man existentially considered.{21} And thus are we brought face to face with a philosophy that is Christian in a pre-eminent and altogether strict sense: a philosophy which cannot be proportioned to its object unless it makes use of principles received from faith and theology, and is enlightened by these latter. Here is a practical philosophy which remains a philosophy and proceeds according to the proper mode of philosophy, yet which is not purely and simply a philosophy. Here is a philosophy which must of necessity be a superelevated philosophy, a philosophy subalternated to theology,{22} if it is not to misrepresent and scientifically distort its object. What can happen in this latter respect is readily observable in our own day in the works of so many psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists, pedagogues, sociologists, or anthropologists, whenever they deal with religious and mystical phenomena, -- or even with the humblest ethical phenomena, or again even with psychotic and neurotic phenomena, -- with which the human being provides them at his own expense.
It is well worth our while thus to disengage the idea of an authentic philosophy of human things. It is, I think, of no small interest for us clearly to recognize the true place of this practical philosophy adequately considered, or taken in its fullest sense, which is Christian by reason of the very characteristics of its object and in which the lights of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology are inter-connected; and to recognize that it has yet many discoveries to make. When it has won a larger measure of self-awareness it will appreciate the vast field that lies before it.
From the epistemological viewpoint, philosophy here no longer appears as taken up as an instrument by theology, but as subordinating itself thereto for the purpose of exploring a domain which is not all its own. Thanks, moreover, to the supplemental light and knowledge thus received, it is able to go forward in accord with the method proper to it, proceeding ex propriis rerum causis and rationally elucidating experience. The domain we are discussing is common to theology and to this practical philosophy adequately considered. This latter, however, studies it in a way and from a viewpoint all its own: by virtue of its very nature as a human form of knowledge it is called upon while working therein to give itself over to a more particularized kind of research, in which induction, hypothesis, and probability will be accorded a much more prominent role. Theology, in contrast, cannot come to any conclusion without recourse to the revealed datum. In the latter case, faith appeals to reason, as it would to a servant and friend, to help it to unfold its own divine treasures; in the other, we have reason calling upon faith, as upon a divine friend, for help in discovering among its earthly treasures certain riches which a supra-terrestrial alloy has made either too heavy or too mercurial for its own hands.
{21} It is in this sense that for my own part I was led in works of a philosophical character (Cf. Distinguer pour unir ou les Degnés du Savoir) to undertake a study of the problem of mystical experience, while drawing my inspiration from St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross.
{22} See Note II, p. 61.