The first objection against supernatural religion, upon which modern Rationalists so much insist, is the supposed unreasonableness of religious faith. By some occult process of reasoning they seem to have satisfied themselves that religious faith presupposes an intellectual dependence which is out of keeping with our present state of mental development. Men abreast of the times must see for themselves; they must analyze, weigh, and measure. They glory in being disciples of the doubting Thomas, who would not believe in the Resurrection except he saw with his eyes and touched with his hands the body of his risen Master, though thereby he merited and received a rebuke that cured him forever of his incredulity.{1}
That this position, so confidently taken by modern Rationalists, is fundamentally false, may readily be shown by pointing out the contradictions which it necessarily involves, and the false assumptions upon which it rests. This, therefore, will be the subject matter of the present chapter.
First, then, the rejection of religious faith, on the score that it implies intellectual dependence, involves a contradiction; because the same dependence enters human faith as well, yet human faith must be and is admitted by all without exception. Be a man's profession what it may, he is always thrown back upon faith with regard to a vast variety of facts which he holds as absolutely certain. Every time he looks up in reverence to his father, or thinks in loving affection of his mother, he makes an act of faith. Does he know from his own personal observation the father who begot him, or the mother who bore him in her womb? Does he not take it on the authority of their word that they are the authors of his being? And what is the acceptance of that authority but an act of faith? Lie holds as true what father and mother tell him, because he knows that they are not deceived in the matter, and would not deceive him; he admits the truth of a statement on the known authority of reliable witnesses, and that is the essence of every act of faith, whether natural or supernatural.
Again, every time a judge condemns or acquits an accused person, he bases his decision upon an act of faith. No matter what personal knowledge he may have of the iniquitous doings of the criminal, it can have no bearing upon his verdict. That verdict must rest upon the testimony of witnesses, and the acceptance of that testimony is an act of faith. He condemns the murderer to the gallows, not because he has seen him strike the fatal blow, but because he believes that the witnesses have knowledge of the facts in question, and that they state these facts truthfully. He makes an act of faith, and in virtue of that act of faith he signs away the life of a fellow man.
Similarly our whole social, moral, and intellectual life is built upon faith. The family circle is opened without difficulty to a person who is introduced by a trusty friend of that same family; the suitor for the hand of a favorite daughter is accepted by father and mother because of his good name and his protestations of love; the business man is admitted to partnership on the strength of his reputation for talent and integrity: yet the word of a friend, the protestations of a lover; the reputation of a business man, can give rise only to an act of faith, and all that is done in pursuance thereof is built upon that same act.
So also without faith the acquisition of knowledge becomes practically impossible. Is not our whole educational system founded upon faith? The ipse dixit of teachers prevails much more with pupils than the conclusions of their own personal investi< REASONABLENESS OF FAITH 109 -->gations. As St. Augustine reminds us, "Authority is the first, though not the only source of knowledge." A modern writer puts this very strikingly when speaking of free thought in the matter of education. It has, of course, become the fashion among our new-fangled pedagogues to insist upon personal investigation. Their ever-recurring refrain is: "Think for yourself, investigate for yourself, let not your intellect be enslaved to any man, however exalted, accept nothing because it is old, accept nothing from tradition, accept nothing from any man, but examine for yourself, satisfy yourself, assert your freedom of thought, which is the birthright of every human soul." Thus the modern pedagogue. "But now," continues the writer, "suppose this idea is put into practice, what becomes of education? These would be golden days for school boys. We could imagine a precocious pickle thus delivering himself: 'Why should I submit to the school? I cannot accept what Professor Jones says or what Dr. Brown dictates. How am I to know whether they be true? I want to examine for myself. I want Freethought, and that's what's the matter with me.' Truly, a fine state of things this would be. Reject dependence on human authority in the matter of education, and you may just as well close the school-room." And what is true in the case of pupils, holds good also with regard to their teachers. Let them cast off all faith, and there is not one of them who could qualify for the position of an instructor in any one of our schools. It is only through faith in human testimony that we have any knowledge of the past. We know all about the conquests of Alexander, the wars of Caesar, the constitution of the Roman Empire; yet what is the source of that knowledge if not faith in the testimony of historians? It never enters our minds to doubt that there are other countries besides the one over which float the stars and stripes as freedom's sacred ensign; yet how many of us know of these countries except through the testimony of our fellow men? Reject faith, and there can be no knowledge of history, no knowledge of geography, no knowledge of ethnology, nor of any other branch of learning which is not wholly based upon personal investigation.
The same is true even when there is question of scientific knowledge more strictly so called. Even the most original thinkers and scientific investigators base nine-tenths of their conclusions upon data supplied by others, and what is this but to condition their knowledge by faith? There is not a respectable scientist living to-day, who would hesitate for a moment to accept the conclusions of two or three eminent scientists in his own line of inquiry, without having recourse to personal verification; yet such an acceptance is purely and simply an act of faith. Hence Fechner, himself no mean scientist, has well said: "By far the greater part of human knowledge is conditioned by faith. Knowledge of the past is based upon the reliability of historical sources; knowledge of the present depends on the truthfulness of eye-witnesses; knowledge of the future is bound up with the laws that govern human actions into one and all faith enters as a necessary condition." {2}
Now, with such a universal and acknowledged dependence on faith entering every phase and condition of human activity, does not the rejection of faith in religious matters seem unreasonable? For why is religious faith rejected? Professedly because men. consider it as a sign of intellectual weakness to hold as true what they cannot subject to the criterion of their own personal experience; and yet these very men admit every day of their lives hundreds of facts which elude this same criterion. Perhaps it will be objected that "religion is always more or less involved in mystery," and that therefore religious faith is essentially obscure. So it is, but is not science likewise involved in mysteries, and is human faith always clear? When scientists discuss so learnedly about the laws of gravitation, do they even seriously pretend to explain gravitation itself, and is not the faith which ordinary people have in scientific conclusions necessarily obscure? Even Huxley admits the limitations of science in its own proper field, when he says: "The little light of awakened human intelligence shines so mere a speck amid the abyss of the Unknown and Unknowable, seems so insufficient to do more than merely illuminate the imperfections that cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot be realized of man's nature." Scientific men are forced to concede that "as religion without mystery is absurd, so science without mystery is unknown." Hence the obscurity of religious faith, which is so often brought forward as an objection against it, does not detract from its reasonableness, so long as that faith is based upon unimpeachable authority.
This leads us to a consideration of the second part of our discussion, namely, that the rejection of religious faith is based upon a false assumption. The chief difficulty, which Rationalists experience in this matter, rests upon the assumption that religious faith is a merely subjective condition, devoid of solid foundation in fact. They confound faith with feeling. With them religious faith is an act of the will, not of the intellect. They fancy that it implies a subjective admission for which the intellect can assign no reason beyond a blind impulse of the appetitive faculty; a purely subjective conviction unsupported by external proofs.
Now this is a gross misconception of the nature of faith. Faith, religious or human, is like knowledge, an act of the intellect, affected by the will only in so far as it presupposes a readiness to accept the arguments for a given truth in proportion to their objective value. Faith as such does not differ from scientific knowledge in regard to the faculty of which it is an act; nor in the firmness of intellectual assent; nor yet in the certainty of its conclusions: but only in the motives upon which it is based. Scientific knowledge rests upon personal investigation and physical experiments: whereas faith is proximately based upon authority. Apparently, this is sufficient to exclude it from the realm of knowledge, yet it is not so in reality. Before the intellect bows to authority in making an act of faith, it must be convinced of the reliability of the testimony advanced in favor of the truth in question. Now this conviction implies certain knowledge of two distinct facts. First of all the intellect must see clearly that the witness is fully acquainted with the facts to which he testifies, so that he can tell the truth; secondly, the intellect must realize that the witness in giving testimony adheres strictly to the facts as known, so that he not only can, but actually does tell the truth. When these two conditions are complied with, the testimony is authoritative, and of its very nature inclines the intellect to give its assent, which assent has all the qualities that constitute true and certain knowledge. It is a knowledge essentially the same as that which the witness himself possesses, though it flows from a different source. As the sunlight loses none of its essential qualities when it comes to us by reflection from the moon, so neither is experimental knowledge deprived of any intrinsic perfection as it is conveyed through the medium of reliable testimony.
This matter may perhaps become still clearer when viewed in the concrete. Thus, to give an example of human faith, when an astronomer of known ability and truthfulness announces that on a certain day, and at a certain specified time of that day, there will be an eclipse of the sun, we accept his statement without hesitation. Nay, we not only accept the statement, but we know the fact predicted, and we know it with certainty. Our knowledge of the coming event is equally as certain as his own, though it is derived from a different source. His knowledge is based upon calculations as made by himself, whereas ours rests upon a truthful statement of the conclusion of these same calculations. His knowledge is more or less immediate, ours only mediate; yet ours possesses all the perfections of his own. And so with regard to every other fact that is accepted as true on the authority of some reliable witness. There is always an intellectual assent based upon the manifest knowledge and truthfulness of the witness in question, and the assent thus given by the intellect is vested with all the qualities that distinguish true knowledge.
Now, what has just been said with regard to human faith, is equally true when there is question of divine faith as postulated by supernatural religion. Human faith and divine faith have this in common that both are acts of the intellect, and are only indirectly affected by the will. The pia credulitas, or wish to believe, demanded by theologians as a prerequisite to supernatural faith, consists simply in this, that the will inclines the intellect to give its assent to the proposed truth, when the motives for believing are apprehended as sufficient.{3} Religious faith, therefore, is not a blind admission of facts for the truth of which the intellect can assign no reason; on the contrary, it is an intellectual assent that is motived by God's own infallible word, and in consequence exceeds in firmness every other act of the cognoscitive faculty. The certainty of supernatural faith is the greatest of all certainties, and can be attained only with the help of God's grace.
The objections of modern Rationalists, to the effect that faith is merely a subjective condition which has its source in the appetitive faculty, have indeed considerable force when urged against Protestants; for with most of them faith is identical with trust or confidence in God's goodness and mercy. Since they regard faith as the sole cause of justification, they naturally emphasize the subjective element of religion, and thus almost necessarily replace faith by an act of trustful reliance on the mercy of Christ as the cause of their salvation. In an act of this kind, it is true, feeling decidedly preponderates; but then this is not an act of faith. It is a mere caricature in which not even the general outlines of true faith are recognizable.
To make this important matter somewhat clearer, it may be well to analyze briefly the mental process necessarily involved in the formation of an act of faith. If we take such an act in its simplest form, we may word it thus: "O my God, I firmly hold as true all Thou hast revealed, because Thou canst not deceive nor be deceived." Here you will notice that the one reason assigned for belief is God's infinite knowledge and truthfulness. We believe because God knows the truth of what He reveals and is truthful in revealing what He knows. We may not perceive the intrinsic evidence of the truth revealed; it may be a mystery the inmost nature of which lies beyond our comprehension; yet that matters little: for our faith is not based upon our imperfect knowledge of the revelation in itself, but upon the manifest, and unimpeachable authority of God's infallible testimony. As certainly as God is God, so certainly must His revelation be true; because He vouches for it by pledging His own infallible word.
Possibly you will say that all this, plausible as it may appear in reality avails but little; since in the act of faith it is taken for granted that God exists; that He is omniscient and infinitely truthful, and that He has certainly revealed truths which He wishes us to believe. Hence before any one can say: "0 my God, I believe," he ought to prove that there exists a God of infinite knowledge and truth, and that He has certainly spoken. Assuredly He must, and he easily may if only he will go about it reasonably. If he will but use his common sense, he must sooner or later come to the conclusion that there is a personal God, Who is necessarily infinitely perfect, as has already been pointed out in the preceding chapters. Nor will he find it very difficult to become convinced of the fact of revelation; for that is an historic event which is proved by arguments fully as solid as those are by which the best attested facts of profane history are proved. It is precisely these arguments, which prove God's knowledge and truth, and the fact of revelation, that are called the motives of credibility, and as such are postulated by every Catholic theologian as indispensable prerequisites to an act of supernatural faith. They make it clear that it is reasonable to believe, and through their own intrinsic evidence incline the unbiased mind to accept revealed truth on the sole authority of God's infallible word.
In its true significance, therefore, religious faith is not a mere subjective condition determined by a blind impulse of the appetitive faculty; it proceeds from the intellect as acted upon by solid external motives; it is an act of knowledge based upon unimpeachable authority. It is true, when there is question of supernatural faith, the intellect must be assisted by God's grace, but this assistance does not change the nature of the act as far as it proceeds from the cognoscitive faculty. It is, like human faith, an act of knowledge, though it belongs to a higher order of mental activity. Thus, for instance, when we believe on the authority of God, and with the assistance of divine grace, that there is a heaven, where the blessed shall enjoy the Beatific Vision for all eternity, our faith is knowledge in as true a sense as when we believe on the word of man, and by the power of our unaided reason, that there is a city called Rome, where Pius X reigns as Supreme Pontiff over all the faithful. In either case our faith is an act of the intellect founded upon the testimony of reliable witnesses.
Viewing the matter in this light, as we needs must, it is quite manifest that religious faith does not violate any laws of sound reason, but is in perfect harmony with the same. Is it a violation of reason to show by solid arguments that there exists a Divine Witness, Whose testimony cannot be impeached? Or to accept the testimony of that Witness on the highest authority that can be brought to bear upon the human intellect? Yet this is all that religious faith demands of us. Render unto God a reasonable service, said the Apostle of the Gentiles to his first Christian converts; and this exhortation the Church has ever urged upon her children. Know and understand the reasons why you believe. Behold the creatures round about you, and learn that they point with unmistakable clearness to a Creator. Meditate on the perfections of that Creator, and understand that He is a God of infinite knowledge and truthfulness. Con the history of the human family, and gather from infallible signs that this God of knowledge and truth has spoken to the creatures which He made to His own image and likeness. Open your mind to the voice of truth, dispose your heart to the influence of divine grace, and exclaim with all the intensity of which your being is capable: "O my God, I believe; I believe all the sacred truths which Thou hast revealed, because Thou canst not deceive nor be deceived." This is religious faith. This is faith approved by reason; and this is the faith rejected by men who pose before the world as reason's champions. Does it not seem as if to them were applicable the words of the Apostle: "Professing themselves wise, they became fools"?
How even the uneducated may easily come to a knowledge of the true faith, has been strikingly pointed out by Mallock, when writing of the Catholic Church. "First," he says, "she asks us to make some acquaintance with herself; to look into her living eyes, to hear the words of her mouth, to watch her ways and works, and to feel her inner spirit; and then she says to us: Can you trust me? If you can, you must trust me in all; for the very first thing I declare to you is, I have never lied. Can you trust me thus far? Then listen, and I will tell you my history."{4}
{1} John XX, 29.
{2} Three Motives and Grounds of Faith, p. 8.
{3} Because such an act of the will is required, hence it is that persons may be convinced of the truth of religion and yet not give it the assent of their faith. This is well stated by Cardinal Newman. "The arguments for religion," he says, "do not compel any one to believe, just as arguments for good conduct do not compel any one to obey. Obedience is the consequence of willing to obey, and faith is the consequence of willing to believe; we may see what is right, whether in matters of faith or obedience, but we cannot will what is right without the grace of God." Discourses to Mixed Congregations, XI, p. 224. -- Of course, as the grace of God is given to all who do what in them lies, unwillingness to believe, when the truth is sufficiently apprehended, is ultimately reducible to an imperfect disposition of the will, for which the person himself is responsible.
{4} Is Life Worth Living, p. 304.