Objective Contributions
7. First and foremost, there are those data which by their nature belong within the field of philosophy, but which in actual fact philosophers failed to recognize explicitly, and which were placed in front rank by Christian revelation. Take for example the idea of creation. Here also belongs the idea of a nature which, albeit real and intrinsically consistent (this the Hindus failed to see), is not an absolute closed upon itself, and is capable (this the Greeks did not see) of being perfected by a supernatural order. Or again, to take up one of Mr. Gilson's themes, there is the idea of God as Subsisting Being Itself: an idea which was set down by Moses, scarcely surmised by Aristotle (did he not call God arche kai to prôton tôn antôn?{17} though his main interest lay elsewhere), and which the Christian Doctors drew from Aristotle thanks to Moses. Then, in the moral sphere, we have the idea of sin, in the fully ethical sense of an offense against God, an idea of which in spite of manifold attempts Western philosophy has not managed to rid itself.
Ideas of this kind are of paramount importance for the whole of philosophy. And in the case of each, reason has unquestionably received a positive endowment from revelation, so that we may again join Mr. Gilson to speak of revelation begetting reason. But on this point, it seems to me, a few distinctions are in order.
Interpreted in its fullest sense, this expression would apply to theology, which bears on the entire revealed datum and studies it from the standpoint of God, its Source. When applied to philosophy, the word revelation should not be deemed to refer to the whole revealed deposit but simply to those elements of the natural order that are contained therein or related thereto. The moment philosophy is advised of these elements, it scrutinizes them according to its own order, which ascends from experience toward things divine (whereas revelation descends from God).
And yet, by the very fact that the data under discussion naturally belong in the rational or philosophic realm, should they not have been implicated in some way, even the most virtual, in the philosophic treasury of mankind; so that we may not say that prior to revelation they were totally overlooked by the philosophers? Surely it is not in terms like these that the question ought to be raised. For as a general rule, and even in the case 3which is not that of the notions which concern us here) of essentially supernatural revealed truths, the sudden appearance of absolutely original concepts (and nomenclature) is not required which holds true even when the truths to be expressed are absolutely new to reason. (Were they absolutely original, no one would comprehend them. God acts reasonably: that is a hypothesis which the critics who busy themselves with the "sources" of dogma might well entertain. In order, for example, that the essentially supra-philosophic notion of the consubstantial Logos might be imparted to mankind in useful form, there was needed -- the Christian outlook itself demands it -- a conceptual preparation and a prolonged philosophic concern with the idea of a logos. Thus logos, both as an idea and a term, was ready at hand to prepare on the side of "material causality" the conditions requisite for the revelation of the Son. In this revelation, however, we did not have the same idea of the logos, the revealed idea; the idea of logos differed essentially from the{18} philosophic one, and thus was manifest on the side of "formal causality" the transcendence of the revelation of the Son.)
But let us get back to our discussion of the revealed truths of the natural order and the nescience of the early philosophers relative to the profoundest and loftiest of them. We were in the course of saying that this nescience was less a sheer and total night than a twilight more or less shadowy wherein thought is brought to a standstill or goes astray. In short, the question at issue here is rather concerned -- and this is still of paramount factual importance -- with differences of clarity that are, to tell the truth, extraordinarily pronounced: what used to dwell in regions of shadow or mirage is brought forth in the full light of day. Concomitantly, with the center of irradiation thus displaced, and with regions which our naturally weak eyes find obscurest now sending forth a most vivid brightness, everything takes on a fresh hue, and every view is transfigured.
{17} "The first principle and first being." Metaphysica, A, 1073 a 23.
{18} On this subject of the Logos, allow me to mention for the benefit of those thinkers who are fond of disaffecting the term Word (Verbum), and who pretend in this way "to restore to the philosophers their rightful property." Father Lagrange's studies and Father Lebreton's book, Les Origines du Dogme de la Trinité. Whoever would go into the question of the Logos cannot afford to ignore these works.