This is the first in a series of articles investigating major aspects of Catholic fundamental theology and their significance for the doctrine of Creation.[1] By examining the foundations of theology—Divine Revelation and Faith, Scripture and Tradition, Magisterial Teaching—we will be able to better understand and evaluate the sources of revelation, and thereby come to greater clarity on what the Catholic Church actually teaches about Creation and related topics.
In this first article, we will briefly examine the nature of Divine Revelation and our God-given response to it, the supernatural virtue of faith. This will lead to a consideration of the science of sacred theology, which rests on faith, and how it relates to other (especially the natural) sciences. By doing so, we will begin to understand how Creation is a properly theological topic, and that therefore sacred theology can and ought to judge the natural sciences when they attempt to appropriate this fundamental subject.
Revelation
Divine and public revelation
The Deposit of Faith
When speaking of revelation in this article and those that follow, we will only be referring to divine, supernatural, public revelation;[2] the first Vatican Council defines this as follows:
the supernatural revelation [which], according to the faith of the universal Church, as declared by the holy synod of Trent, is contained “in the written books and in the unwritten traditions which have been received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ Himself; or, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit have been handed down by the apostles themselves, and have thus come to us”[3]
Note that this supernatural, public revelation of God is contained in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.[4] The entire content of divine revelation is referred to as the Deposit of Faith.[5]
Formal revelation
Formal vs. virtual revelation
A truth may be divinely revealed in one of two ways: formally or virtually. Formally revealed truths are those which God has directly revealed, explicitly or implicitly. These truths are supernatural in form, since God is the one manifesting them; truths supernatural in form (formally revealed) may be either supernatural or natural in substance; that is, they may either be such as can be known by unaided natural reason or could only be known by a supernatural revelation of God. For example: it is formally revealed both that God exists—God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM (Ex 3:14)—and that God is three persons in one divine essence—there are Three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one (1Jn 5:7). The first of these truths, that God exists, can be known with certitude by unaided natural reason, as the first Vatican Council infallibly teaches,[6] and so it is natural in substance even though in this context it is supernatural in form. The latter truth, that of the Trinity, could only be known from divine revelation,[7] and so is supernatural in both substance and form.
That God can (and has) revealed truths that are merely natural in substance, things which we could potentially know by natural reason alone, is an important point to remember as we progress through these articles. This importance will become more apparent as we consider further aspects of revelation and supernatural faith.
Virtually revealed truths are those which are deduced from formally revealed truths through rational discourse. Such truths, though not directly revealed (and not strictly part of the Deposit of Faith), are necessary for the protection of the Deposit. The most notable of these are called theological conclusions: truths which are logically deduced from one formally revealed premise and one naturally known premise. The Church can infallibly define these truths, but with a kind of assent different from that of formally revealed truths, namely that they be “definitively held” (de fide tenenda as opposed to de fide credenda).[8]
Distinctions regarding formal revelation
Returning to formal revelation, the focus of our treatment here, we need to examine two further distinctions in addition to that between truths supernatural in substance or only in form.
First, formal revelation may be either explicit or implicit. For example, it is explicitly revealed in Matthew 16 that Christ established the Church upon the foundation of St. Peter—And I say to thee: that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church (Mt 16:18). An implicitly revealed truth comes from an analysis of, or simple deduction from, the revealed truths alone.[9] In this example, by considering the revealed truth of the Petrine primacy[10] with that of other passages in the New Testament showing that the Apostles were to hand on their office to later generations,[11] it is therefore (at least) implicitly revealed that the successors of St. Peter are likewise the foundation of the Church.[12]
Second and more importantly, formal revelation is distinguished into things revealed properly and per se, and those which are revealed only consequently or per accidens. St. Thomas explains that “those things pertain per se to faith the sight of which we shall enjoy in eternal life, and by which we are brought to eternal life.”[13] These are the articles of faith,[14] which one must believe explicitly in order to be saved.[15] “The indirect [per accidens] and secondary object [of faith] comprises all things delivered by God to us in Holy Writ,”[16] which St. Thomas describes elsewhere as being “proposed to our belief, not chiefly on their own account, but for the manifestation of those mentioned above,” namely the articles of Faith, such as “the Divine majesty or the Incarnation of Christ.”[17] These per accidens revealed truths include all the things recorded in Sacred Scripture, for example, “that Abraham had two sons, that a dead man rose again at the touch of Eliseus’ bones,”[18] that Christ went up into a boat and sat (Mt 13:2), or that St. Paul left his cloak in Troas (2Tm 4:13). These latter are no less divinely revealed than the former, since they likewise are proposed for our belief, albeit not for their own sake but for the sake of the per se revealed truths. To use St. Robert Bellarmine’s words, these per accidens revealed truths are revealed not “as regards the topic,” but “as regards the speaker;”[19] since God is the true and primary Author of the whole of Sacred Scripture, whatsoever is contained in the holy books has God for its Author, and thus is formally revealed.
Importance of these distinctions
The importance of this distinction cannot be overstated, and will be revisited in a later article dealing directly with Sacred Scripture. While, strictly speaking, only per se formally revealed truths constitute the primary object of our faith and the Church’s infallible teaching, nevertheless per accidens formally revealed truths are also true matters of faith, albeit “indirectly and secondarily,” as St. Thomas says.[20] This leads to several important conclusions.
In the first place, the denial of per accidens revealed truths “leads to the corruption of some article of faith,”[21] since they are revealed for the sake of better manifesting or defending those articles, the per se revealed truths. This is why the Church repeatedly admonishes the faithful of their duty “to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy,”[22] not merely the heresies themselves, and to reject any proposition which, even “provided there be no direct denial of dogmas, would lead to the conclusion that dogmas are either false or doubtful.”[23]
Secondly, St. Thomas teaches that “there may be heresy in either way,” that is, with either per se or per accidens formally revealed truth, “even as there can be faith.”[24] Thus it would be heretical to deny, for example, that St. Paul left his cloak in Troas, not because it is some supernatural truth, but simply because it is recorded in Sacred Scripture that the Apostle asks St. Timothy to bring with him the cloak that I left at Troas (2Tm 4:13). And since all Scripture is divinely inspired, having God for its Author, the denial of even such a trivial fact would lead to the denial of Scripture’s inerrancy, and thus the conclusion that God erred, or worse yet, lied—either of which would be blasphemy. Therefore, while we are not strictly required to believe and confess explicitly all the per accidens revealed truths as we are with those revealed per se, nevertheless once we are aware that such-and-such a truth is clearly revealed in Sacred Scripture, even though it be only a per accidens revealed truth, we are then morally bound to assent to it with divine faith.
This is extremely important to keep in mind when dealing with subjects contained in Sacred Scripture which are in some manner related to those treated by the natural sciences, since such natural truths recorded in Scripture are no less divinely revealed than the supernatural ones. As we will see in a future article, the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture applies to everything, including all per accidens truths, contained in the sacred books—not merely matters of faith or morals. The per accidens truths are truly and formally revealed, not because they are supernatural in substance, but rather because they are at least supernatural in form, having been written under the inspiration and authorship of the Holy Ghost. Now these truths include many things which, though the part of the material object of Faith (as will be discussed below), fall also under the material object of other sciences, such as history, biology, astronomy, etc. Thus when Sacred Scripture records some historical or natural fact, such as (among many other and controversial things[25]) that Adam lived for 930 years (Gn 5:5),[26] one cannot claim “that this is not a matter of faith, since while it is not a matter of faith ‘as regards the topic’, it is a matter of faith ‘as regards the speaker’,”[27] and therefore one must be ready and eager to believe it, just as one is “prepared to believe whatever is contained in the Divine Scriptures.”[28] St. Augustine teaches this very thing, which Pope Benedict XV authoritatively repeats:
Holy Scripture is invested with supreme authority by reason of its sure and momentous teaching regarding the faith. Whatever, then, it tells us of Enoch, Elias and Moses—that we believe. […] we believe it simply because it is written in Scripture, and unless we believe in Scripture we can neither be Christians nor be saved.[29]
These and further considerations will be taken up again in the article on Sacred Scripture. For the time, it is clear from the above that one is in no way free to merely dismiss or reinterpret under some vague “religious sense” those revealed propositions in apparent (or real) contradiction with the testimony of modern science. Rather, as Ven. Pius XII admonishes, such matters “demand the greatest moderation and caution,” and must “be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure” requisite for things “in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved.”[30] And indeed, in these cases the burden of proof is on the natural sciences, not the Scriptures or sacred theology, as will become increasingly apparent as we progress through this and subsequent articles.
Mysteries
Definition of a mystery
To conclude this section on revelation itself, it remains to speak about the concept of a mystery, defined as follows:
In the strict sense, therefore, a mystery is a truth, whose existence can be known by human reason only by way of revelation, while its essence cannot be properly and fully understood, even after revelation. Thus, e.g., the mystery of the Holy Trinity.[31]
It is important for modern man to realize, or perhaps re-discover, that there are realities which surpass the abilities of his natural reason to grasp or comprehend. This is true not only in the case of supernatural or theological mysteries, but even at the level of nature: there are natural mysteries as well, truths of the natural world which can be recognized, but not comprehended in their essence.[32] For hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth: and with labour do we find the things that are before us (Ws 9:16). As St. Thomas famously stated, “our manner of knowing is so weak that no philosopher”—much less a natural scientist—“could perfectly investigate the nature of even one little fly.”[33] Our rational intellect is truly amazing, for it is there that the image and likeness to God is principally found in us[34]—but it is far less, infinitely less, than the divine intellect that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all (2Mc 7:23). The mysteries of God, then, and those which He has built into the nature of things, demand our respect—and our humility.
Creation as a revealed mystery
This brings us to the second half of the definition of a mystery:
In a broad sense we call it also a truth known only through revelation but comprehensible by reason once it has been revealed, e.g. the creation of the world in time.[35]
The creation of the world in time is a mystery, known only by divine revelation. This will appear obvious after brief consideration. For it seems to have escaped the notice of even some otherwise sound theologians of the past and present centuries that creation is a necessarily supernatural act. Only God can create; only God can produce something ex nihilo, which is to create in the strict sense, or produce a thing in its entire substance, which is to create in a broader sense.[36] True, man by natural reason (though the pagan philosophers never perfectly succeeded) can come to a knowledge of creation and the Creator generically, but it is only by divine revelation that we could know that the world did not always exist, or when it began to exist and in what circumstances, as St. Thomas ably proves.[37] When and how God created, then, in addition to being an intrinsically supernatural event, are what is known as a past contingent.[38] Just as only God knows future contingent events (which is the basis for true prophecy), so only He knows the past contingent of the precise time and circumstances of His creative act. This is why Pope St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others refer to Moses as “prophesying of the past” in writing the first chapters of Genesis.[39]
The doctrine of Creation, then, is a matter properly of divine revelation, a supernatural mystery, and not a matter for the natural sciences to investigate or explain. For how can one investigate, by means of the natural sciences and the method of observation and experimentation, a supernatural event that took place at a contingent time in the past, and is therefore far beyond the ability of men to observe? But the creation of the heavens and the earth and all things that are in them (Ex 20:11) is just such an event. While certain theistic evolutionists chide those holding to the traditional view on the grounds that “the author [of Genesis] never intended to provide an astronomical or a zoological record for an event at which he was not present,”[40] rather it is the natural scientists who were not present and can thus provide no “astronomical or zoological record” of any certitude; God, however, who is the primary author of Genesis and all of Sacred Scripture (as the Church infallibly teaches), was indeed present at His own Creative act, and gave us the absolutely inerrant account of both when and how He created—including any astronomical or zoological facts recorded (which would be per accidens revealed truths), as will be seen in the subsequent article. While the natural sciences can and should utilize all the powers of natural reason, illumined and guided by supernatural faith, to investigate the natural world as it is now, offering their service to support (but never prove, let alone disprove) the revealed truth about Creation—nevertheless an understanding of the creation event, or even of the world that then was, which perished in the Deluge (2Pt 3:6), is totally outside of their competence; that belongs to sacred theology alone.
Faith
Divine Faith
Definition of faith
The whole Deposit of Faith, all the truths which God has publicly revealed, must be believed by the virtue of divine faith which, as Vatican I defined,
“is the beginning of human salvation”, [and] is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.[41]
The points of this definition cannot be overlooked. In the first place, faith is a supernatural virtue: it “is in itself a gift of God,” which He infuses into our souls when we cooperate with the grace offered to us.[42] It is not owed to us since it is something above our nature, super-natural, just as is the salvation of which this faith is the beginning: For by grace you are saved through faith: and that not of yourselves, for it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8). This brings us to the second point: supernatural faith is absolutely necessary for salvation: for without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is: and is a rewarder to them that seek Him (Hb 11:6). Since both faith and the salvation for which it is requisite are above our nature and in no way owed to us, we must therefore humbly pray and ask our heavenly Father for that foundational grace, that free gift (which is what grace means), of true faith: the apostles said to the Lord: Increase our faith (Lk 17:5; cf. Js 1:5–6).
Above, not against, reason
Thirdly, by this faith we believe everything that God has revealed, that whatever He has revealed is true, and this whether or not we understand the things revealed—in fact, the mysteries of the faith proper cannot be demonstrated by natural reason, nor fully understood in this life (though they can be shown to be reasonable). Hence why faith is defined by the Apostle as the evidence of things that appear not, that is, an assent based on God’s authority to things which we do not yet see or understand, but hope for in eternal life (Hb 11:1).[43] To define faith more colloquially: “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” This does not mean that we set our God-given natural reason aside; far from it! Rather, the gift of faith is a supernatural perfection given to our rational intellect. Faith gives the intellect a participation in the divine nature, in the very knowledge of God, the First Truth, from which divine revelation comes: we have the mind of Christ (1Co 2:16).
Certitude
The final point from this definition is the absolute certitude of faith. Though subjectively faith might appear to us to be less certain, since it concerns things that appear not (Hb 11:1) and because of the weakness of our intellects, nevertheless it is objectively more certain than any other kind of knowledge, since it is assent to the Word of God, than which nothing is more certain, nothing more true.[44] Nor does it follow that things other than faith are not certain, since certitude admits of different grades: metaphysical or absolute (to which grade divine faith belongs), physical, and moral. While certitude generally only excludes all prudent fear of error, divine faith (objectively) is absolutely infallible, having the highest of all grades of certitude.[45] As such, any proposition put forward contrary to a truth of divine faith must necessarily and indubitably be false—a concept to which we will return shortly.
The object of faith
In order to see the proper relation between faith (along with divine revelation, its basis, and sacred theology, its derivative science) and the lower sciences, we need to distinguish the object of faith.
Material and formal objects
The object of any habit (such as faith[46]) or science (such as theology[47]) is distinguished into two: the material object and formal object. The material object is “the general or common subject matter,”[48] the things to which the given habit is directed—in colloquial terms, it’s your subject matter. For supernatural faith, the material object is the entire Deposit of Faith, all the contents of divine revelation, including everything recorded in Sacred Scripture. Everything said above, the distinctions regarding formal revelation, etc., thus apply here.
The formal object of a habit or science is “the specialized feature of study or the specialized viewpoint under which the subject [that is, the material object] is studied.”[49] It is the unifying aspect of the habit or science, the unique perspective by which the material object is considered. For faith, the formal object is God Himself, the First Truth, since it is on His authority, not any motive of natural reason, that we believe, and whatever we believe by faith has the aspect of having been revealed by God.[50]
Formal object and Formal motive
That God is the formal object of faith is better understood when we further distinguish between the formal object that is known (objectum formale quod, or the formal object strictly) and the formal object under which it is known (objectum formale quo, also called the formal motive). Both supernatural faith and sacred theology share a formal object (objectum formale quod): namely, God sub ratione Deitatis, God as He knows Himself, and all other things insofar as they relate to and are known by God in His inner life which He reveals to us.[51] In other words, we are giving assent to God, as God, and to everything He reveals as known and revealed by Him. The formal motives, however, of faith and theology are slightly different: the formal motive of supernatural faith is formal revelation (in dicendo),[52] the authority of God revealing, the veracity of God the First Truth revealing Himself; whereas that of sacred theology is virtual revelation, “the light of reason illuminated by faith […] that is, revelation as virtually containing conclusions that can be deduced through rational discourse.”[53]
Faith and Science
The Textbook Objection
The distinction of the sciences
The importance of these distinctions for the doctrine of creation begins to appear when we consider this important principle: habits and sciences are distinguished by their formal object, not by their material object.[54] This means that there can be many sciences dealing with the same material object, the same subject matter, but from many different points of view—that is, having different formal objects. Take, for example, a man: this man may be considered by a theologian as made in God’s image and likeness; by a philosopher as a rational animal; by a microbiologist in the operations of his cells and genetic information; by a psychologist in his mental processes or childhood experience; by a physician in the function of his bones, muscles, and organs; by a physicist as having a certain velocity while walking; and so on. While each of these scientists is considering the same material object, namely a man, they are all doing so with a different formal object, under a different formal aspect, depending on their science.[55]
Further, from that formal object distinguishing them flows the method proper to the given science. Therefore the method proper to one science will not be proper for another science. Failure to observe this principle results in an error in methodology, and thus an error in one’s conclusions. It would be an error, for example, to try and investigate theological subjects by the “Scientific Method,” or teach natural sciences with the method proper to sacred theology, namely by arguments from infallible authority.[56]
The textbook objection (in more ways than one)
Now, one often hears in the context of the creation debate the objection that “the Bible’s not a science textbook.”[57] In other words, the objector is asserting (at least tacitly) that, as a religious book, the Bible is only meant to teach on religious subjects; if it happens to say something about matters pertaining to the natural sciences, the natural sciences have the higher authority, since this is their proper object, and especially since these sciences have progressed so much since the times when the books of the Bible were written.
This objection, in addition to being very old,[58] makes at least three errors: first, it implies that sciences are distinguished by their material rather than formal object; second, it ignores the formal motives of both the natural and sacred sciences; third and following upon the second, it implicitly denies the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture. This third error will be addressed in a subsequent article; we will visit the first two here in turn.
Formal objects and Creation
The first error of the common objection is that it implicitly claims that faith and theology are distinguished from the natural sciences by reason of their material objects. It implies that the portions of Sacred Scripture which touch on matters also considered in the natural sciences have no relevance to the faith, and so are not inspired, revealed truths, and thus not inerrant. Rather, the implication is that these are the domain solely of the natural sciences, which have the true authority in these matters—faith, Sacred Scripture, theology: these only deal with “matters of faith and morals,” so the argument goes.
On the contrary, we saw above that habits and sciences are distinguished by their formal object, whereas many habits or sciences can share some or all of their material objects; St. Thomas explains:
[If] we consider, in faith, the formal aspect of the object, it is nothing else than the First Truth. For the faith of which we are speaking, does not assent to anything, except because it is revealed by God. […] If, however, we consider materially the things to which faith assents, they include not only God, but also many other things, which, nevertheless, do not come under the assent of faith, except as bearing some relation to God.[59]Faith—and thus sacred doctrine, which rests upon faith as upon its first principles[60]—is distinguished from other habits and sciences by its formal object, namely God the First Truth: that He is First Truth is the formal object quod; His supreme authority as First Truth is the formal motive. In this light, St. Thomas rightly delineates the material object of faith, saying:
In sacred science, all things [i.e. its material object] are treated under the aspect [i.e. formal object quod] of God: either because they are God Himself or because they refer to God as their beginning and end.[61]
St. Thomas is making a very important point: the material object of sacred theology, and of the faith itself, includes virtually everything insofar as it has some relation to God. Now the most fundamental relation that any thing can have to God is that of a creature to its Creator; therefore it pertains to faith and theology to consider the creation of things, the origins of the universe, or things insofar as “they refer to God as their beginning”: for it is by faith we understand that the world was framed by the Word of God (Hb 11:3).
The beginning, the origin of things, is thus a theological subject; it does not fall under the formal aspect of the natural sciences. For the natural sciences, being experimental, can only treat of things insofar as they can be observed and experimented upon. But Creation, being (1) a supernatural act, as shown above, and (2) being long past and beyond any present human experience, is thus unobservable. Further, as is divinely revealed in Genesis 6–9 and 2 Peter 3, the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished (2Pt 3:6); the world as it was before the Deluge is gone, and therefore we cannot reasonably extrapolate from present observations back to the circumstances prior to that cataclysm. Therefore the first origin of things cannot be the material object of the natural sciences, not falling under their formal object.
Granted, we can know God as the origin of all things from natural reason, deducing His existence as the one necessary being and first cause from the things that are made (Rm 1:20);[62] but this is a metaphysical truth. The natural sciences, being lower than that of metaphysics and other strictly philosophical disciplines,[63] must receive their principles from those higher sciences as they deal with the secondary causes, not the ultimate causes, of material things—their proper subject. “And if writers on [the natural sciences] travel outside the boundaries of their own branch,” Pope Leo XIII teaches, “and carry their erroneous teaching into the domain of philosophy, let them be handed over the philosophers for refutation.”[64] How much more if they stray into the domain of sacred doctrine!
Formal motives and Creation
Now it may be objected that the natural sciences can and should deal with matters of the past, based on the evidence and artifacts left over from a given time and on the testimony of any scientists from that given time. But there’s the rub, as it were. The artifacts left over from the past—rocks, starlight, fossils, etc.—are investigated by the natural sciences only insofar as they are present and presently observable, able to be experimented upon; they are removed from the actual historical event and circumstances purported to be studied by these sciences.
As for receiving testimony from earlier scientists and historians, that is not a matter of science, but of faith, for faith generically is an assent to truth received from an external source. The natural scientist must take on human faith the testimony of scientists and historians who went before him, especially considering that no one scientist can perform every experiment; he must necessarily rely on the testimony of others for at least some findings. Now there’s nothing wrong with this kind of faith; human faith is a natural and necessary part of everyday human life. But it is only human faith. The formal motive of that faith is the authority of the human testator being believed—and as we’re all painfully aware, men are not only liable to err, but also to lie.
What a natural scientist does when appropriating the question of origins to himself, then, is not merely to step outside of the bounds of object and method proper to his science. He also must de facto assume two things: first, that the condition of the world as it is observable now is the same as that when it was created. This is demonstrably false, both from scientific evidence itself[65] and from the text of 2 Peter quoted above.
Second, they must assume that only the artifacts or remnants of the origin of things and their early history remain. In other words, either there are no witnesses or testimony of that time, or if there are, they are not reliable. This is either an implicit denial of the existence of God, Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them (Ps 145:6), since He is the primary witness of the Creation, or a denial of the veracity of His revelation, especially in the sacred history of Genesis—which would mean that God, the First Truth, lied. Though tacit and most likely unrecognized by its partisans, such an assumption is nevertheless either atheism or blasphemy.
But since, as mentioned above, it can be demonstrated[66] by natural reason both that God exists and that He is the first cause of all things, it is therefore most irrational to exclude God and any divine testimony by attempting to investigate origins only by means of present conditions and artifacts. Further, we saw above how Creation is a mystery, and a past contingent. Since the time and circumstances of Creation are known only by revelation, it pertains to sacred theology to investigate the creation and origin of things. We thus can rationally demonstrate the presence of an infallible witness to the origin of the universe, whose testimony (when shown to exist) must be accepted. After all, only God was present for Creation, He didn’t forget what He did or when and how He did it, and He is utterly incapable of lying. This supreme authority of God, “who can neither deceive nor be deceived” as Vatican I teaches, is the formal motive of faith, from which comes the objective absolute certitude of that foundational virtue.
The natural sciences, on the other hand, insofar as they rest on the formal motive of human faith, are far less sure in their conclusions than the truths of divine faith. We are so often mistaken—so much so that, as Pope Leo XIII reminds us, “much which has been held and proved as certain” by the natural sciences “has afterwards been called into question and rejected”[67]—in other words, it wasn’t as “certain” as it was first purported to be. Further, as the same Pontiff reminds us, there is no shortage of “those who [make] evil use of physical science,” especially as a means to attack the Sacred Scriptures and their contents.[68] But if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater (1Jn 5:9); if we so readily give the assent of human faith to the testimony of scientists—so prone to error and overstatement, often atheists and materialists and thereby demonstrably irrational—with regard to the creation of things; why then do we doubt the testimony of God, the First Truth, the Creator Himself?
The Scriptures themselves point to this dichotomy. For while man is ignorant of things past and cannot tell what hath been before him (Ec 8:7, 10:14), such as the Creation of the world and of man, the Lord knoweth all knowledge, and declareth the things that are past (Sr 42:19). Further, even those things which can be observed, which do fall under the proper object of the natural sciences, are not well understood, for hardly do we guess aright at the things that are upon earth, and with labor do we find the things that are before us (Ws 9:16). But God, by the inspiration wherewith He composed the Sacred Scriptures, gave the human authors thereof the true knowledge of the things that are: to know the disposition of the whole world… the beginning, and ending, and midst of the times… the revolutions of the year, and the dispositions of the stars, the natures of living creatures, etc. (Ws 7:17–20).[69]
Thus while the just and holy are commended for meditating upon the works of God’s hands,[70] which are the heavens and the earth, and man himself,[71] the wicked are rightly condemned because they have not understood the works of the Lord, and the operations of his hands (Ps 27:5), having changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and having changed the truth of God into a lie, [worshipping and serving] the creature rather than the Creator (Rm 1:23, 25; cf. Ws 13:1–9). For the truth about creatures and their creation, though obviously not in the terminology of modern natural science, is purposefully and inerrantly declared in the pages of Sacred Scripture by its divine Author, as will be addressed in a later article, and is also handed down in Sacred Tradition going back to our first parents themselves—since it is by the things that are made that we first come to the understanding of the invisible things of God (Rm 1:20). And hence St. Thomas rightly teaches, after giving several arguments using the same Scriptures quoted above, that
the opinion [therefore] is false of those who asserted that it mattered not to the truth of faith what opinions one holds about creatures, so long as one has a right opinion about God, […] since error concerning creatures […] amounts to a false opinion about God, and misleads the minds of men from God, to Whom faith strives to lead them.[72]
Thus St. Thomas upholds, following the same psalm, the condemnation upon those who have not understood the works of the Lord (Ps 27:5), who being ignorant or in error about the nature of creatures, “ascribe the creation of things […] to causes other than God,” or say that “things proceed from God, not by the divine will, but by natural necessity,” or say other things “derogatory to the divine power” or “derogatory to the dignity of man.”[73] One thinks of assertions such as that man was made to the likeness of an evolved brute primate rather than to the likeness of God, the son of God (cf. Gn 5:1–3, Lk 3:38)—so much for the dignity of man; or that God made the present world through the material, necessary processes of chemical and biological evolution, working from chaos to less imperfection, rather than by an act of infinite power and wisdom, bringing all things out of nothing into not merely being, but perfection—so much for the dignity of God.
It is clear, then, that what God has revealed touching upon material realities, things also part of the material object of this or that natural science, is spoken by Him with absolute truth, corresponding perfectly to the nature of the phenomena described; whereas merely natural science can only with difficulty and error investigate the true nature of said natural phenomena, insofar as it is observable and experimentable. But since the work of Creation is a mystery, a supernatural act far removed from present observation and normal experience, it belongs to God to reveal the particulars about His creative act, to supernatural faith to assent to His supremely truthful testimony, and to sacred theology to investigate, explain, and defend that testimony.
Theology and Science
This brings us to our final point, which concerns the relationship between theology and the natural sciences. It was mentioned above that supernatural faith provides theology with its first principles, namely the entire contents of the Deposit of Faith, everything that God has revealed. St. Thomas elaborates on this point:
since faith rests upon infallible truth, and since the contrary of a truth can never be demonstrated, it is clear that the arguments brought against faith cannot be demonstrations, but are difficulties that can be answered.[74]
And further:
[T]he knowledge proper to this science [i.e. theology] comes through revelation and not through natural reason. Therefore it has no concern to prove the principles of other sciences, but only to judge of them. Whatsoever is found in other sciences contrary to any truth of this science must be condemned as false.[75]What St. Thomas is explaining here is that, as the highest of all sciences and based on the most certain authority, the truths of supernatural faith and of sacred theology are of such veracity that any assertion made by a lower science—such as the natural sciences—which contradicts one of these truths must be false, simply because it is in such contradiction. Therefore, since divine revelation and sacred theology occupy such an exalted position, they possess “the right and the duty to proscribe what is falsely called knowledge [scientiam],” most especially by means of the Church’s Magisterium, of which the first Vatican Council is here speaking.[76] The true Catholic theologian, and a fortiori the Magisterium, can judge not merely the conclusions of the natural sciences but even their principles,[77] as St. Thomas here says, so that by correcting a small error in the principles of a lower science, far greater errors in the conclusions may be avoided, for “a small error in the beginning becomes great in the end.”[78]
Msgr. Fenton,[79] following not only St. Thomas but the Magisterium’s explicit teaching,[80] expounds this concept in such a manner as to highlight its significance for the origins debate:
Thus sacred theology is able to say with perfect certitude that a statement denying the fact of creation, and put forward under the heading of biology or of geology is utterly false. In the formation of this judgement sacred theology makes use only of those resources which constitute its essential equipment. It has no need of the apparatus which is proper to the physical sciences themselves. The statement which is criticized by sacred theology is evidently false in so far as it contradicts the manifest content of divine revelation. It would be absolutely incorrect to assert that sacred theology has or claims the power to deny scientific facts. There never has been, and there never will be a truth enunciated by any inferior science which contradicts the actual content of sacred theology. The statement contradictory to the principles of theology and set forth in the name of another science is either a groundless hypothesis or a crass misinterpretation of a fact.[81]
Theology can—and must—take a critical look at the natural sciences and judge, using all of its proper methods and resources, that not only are the conclusions of the natural sciences false which run contrary to the traditional Catholic teaching on the origin of all things, but their very principles are in error insofar as they seek to appropriate to themselves a subject which does not fall under the proper formal object of their science, but rather to that of sacred doctrine. From there, recognizing that these natural sciences have strayed outside their proper bounds, supernatural faith and sound theological inquiry can correct, illuminate and guide the natural sciences, providing them with utterly indubitable truths by which they can proceed to better investigate their proper material objects.
One wonders why most modern ecclesiastics assume that it is the faith, not the natural sciences, which have not been understood correctly; perhaps, because the sciences have been taught more dogmatically than sacred theology—as we have imbibed the Enlightenment notion of religion as a private affair, a matter of personal opinion and not objective, absolutely certain reality, as well as the fundamental principle of materialism, which results in natural sciences usurping the rank of theology and philosophy. Indeed it is most lamentable, and has had a grievous effect on souls, that so many priests and theologians have placed the testimony of men above that of God (cf. 1Jn 5:9), and taken as “held and proved as certain” by the natural sciences that which “has afterwards been called into question and rejected” as contrary to both natural observations and experimental data.[82] So many, it seems, of the pastors and teachers of the past century apparently forgot that Creation is a supernatural event, and took the assertions of modern geology especially—which, in addition to being contrary to observed fact, were popularized by one whose explicit objective was to destroy faith in the text of Genesis[83]—leading them to state such absurd things as “there is nothing in Scripture to indicate how long the human race has inhabited the earth.”[84] One wonders whether they had ever read the inspired Book, or the works of the Fathers, to whose unanimous consent the Catholic is bound under pain of anathema to adhere.[85] For, among other things, it is only from Sacred Scripture—as St. Augustine argues against the Pagans who held things such as “more than a hundred thousand years” of human history—that, “being sustained by divine authority in the history of our religion,” we know the true age of the world, which in his day was “not yet six thousand years.”[86]
The time, circumstances, and nature of the Creation are revealed truths, not puzzles for the natural sciences; and thus it behooves every Catholic, but especially priests and theologians, to put their faith not in the words of men but in the Word of God (1Th 2:13; cf. 1Co 2:4–5), to recall Whom they have believed (2Tm 1:12), and to denounce the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge [scientia] falsely so called (1Tm 6:20; cf. Cl 2:8).
We will resume in the next article by considering the Word of God inspired and written down, the Sacred Scriptures, and the bearing their true nature and interpretation have on the doctrine of Creation
Footnotes:
[1] These articles are adapted and expanded from several chapters of an upcoming book by the author, Thou art Dust: Recovering the Catholic Doctrine of the Origin of Adam’s Body.
[2] As distinguished from natural divine revelation, which is God’s manifestation of truth insofar as He is the Author of nature, that is, those things we can know about him by the contemplation of created things alone. It is also distinguished from private revelation, which is a supernatural revelation of God coming to individuals. True private revelations, though also coming from God and never in contradiction to public revelation, are handled very differently, and so will not be addressed here. For a sound introduction to the topic of private revelation, see Dr. Mark Miravalle, Private Revelation: Discerning with the Church (Queenship Publishing, 2007).
[3] First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Faith Dei Filius (April 24, 1870), ch. 2, par 3, in Heinrich Denzinger et al, eds., Enchiridion symbolorum, definitionum et declarationum de rebus fidei et morum, 43rd ed (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2012), par. 3006 (hereafter cited by paragraph as DH).
[4] Sacred Tradition, referring to the contents thereof (called objective Tradition), is taken in two senses: in the strict sense, it is distinguished from Sacred Scripture as the unwritten from the written public revelation of God. In the broad sense, it encompasses everything thing which has “come down to us,” having been handed down from the apostles through their successors until now. In this broad sense, Tradition encompasses Sacred Scripture and many other things, in fact everything which has been handed down to us from the apostles.
[5] CCC 84; cf. 1Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:12–14. We can also distinguish this objective Tradition from active Tradition, which is the act or process of handing on that sacred Deposit, which is done primarily through apostolic succession: O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust (“depositum custodi”) (1Tim 6:20). In a later article we will investigate Sacred Tradition more directly with respect to Creation.
[6] Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 2, par. 1, in DH 3004.
[7] Cf. ST I.32.1.
[8] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio Fidei,” (June 29, 1998), par. 6–9. We might call this type of assent, as some theologians do, “ecclesiastical faith,” since as the CDF here explains “the assent is based on faith in the Holy Spirit's assistance to the Magisterium and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium,” rather than “based directly on faith in the authority of the Word of God.” As such, these doctrines are believed with divine faith only indirectly, but with no less certitude.
[9] This is distinct from a theological conclusion, where a naturally known premise is used in conjunction with a formally revealed premise via an objectively illative (i.e. deductive) discourse. Rather, an implicitly revealed truth must be discovered by merely explanatory discourse, or by illative discourse wherein both premises are of faith. See Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, On Divine Revelation, trans. by Matthew K. Minerd, vol. 1 (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2022), 98–100, both the text and note 44.
[10] See Mt 16:13–19, Lk 22:31–32, Jn 1:42, 21:15–17, Is 22:20–22, etc.
[11] See Mt 28:19–20, Ac 13:2–3, 1Tm 3:1ff., 4:14, 5:22, 2Tm 1:6ff., 2:2, 4:1–2, Ti 1:5–9, etc.
[12] See First Vatican Council, first Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ Pastor Æternus (July 18, 1870), ch. 1–2, in DH 3053–58.
[13] ST II-II.1.8 resp., translation edited for clarity; cf. ST II-II.1.6 ad 1.
[14] See ST II-II.1.4, 6–8. There are very important notions of what constitutes Faith and the articles thereof contained there ancillary to our discussion.
[15] ST II-II.2.5 resp. Note, however, that the number of articles that must be believed explicitly increases with time and circumstance, not in itself (since the Deposit of Faith neither increases, decreases, or changes), but by the increase in understanding by the Church—see ST II-II.1.7. At the absolute minimum, however, one must believe in God and His providential retribution for man, according to Hebrews 11:6 (see ST II-II.2.5 s.c.); whether anything over and above this must be believed explicitly with a per se necessity of means is debated by Theologians. And of course, Faith alone does not suffice for salvation, but Faith working through charity.
[16] ST II-II.2.5 resp.
[17] ST II-II.1.6 ad 1; cf. ST I.1.2 ad 2.
[18] Ibid.
[19] St. Robert Bellarmine, letter to Paolo A. Foscarini (April 12, 1615), second point, in M. Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkely, CA: University of California Press, 1989), 67–69.
[20] ST II-II.11.2 resp.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ven. Pope Pius XII, encyclical Humani generis, par. 18; cf. CIC17, can. 1324; cf. Vatican I, Dei Filius, epilogue, in DH 3045.
[23] Pope St. Pius X, “Oath against Modernism,” cf. DH 3545.
[24] ST II-II.11.2 resp.
[25] Given the quotes from Bellarmine’s letter to Foscarini in this regard, the Galileo controversy comes to mind. And given that the theological principles expounded in that eminent saint and Doctor’s letter, also developed in this series of articles, have since been even more clearly and authoritatively taught by the Popes and Vatican I—given that, one might wonder whether the question of the movement and location of the earth may have been poorly dealt with by the natural sciences in the past century or two, and whether ecclesial authorities have true grounds for their apologies and retractions from the 17th century teaching. See the documentary “Journey to the Center of the Universe” (2015) for more on this subject.
[26] Indeed, St. Augustine takes this as a revealed fact in his City of God, bk. 15, ch. 9–14, esp. ch. 12 & 14, where he avers that the years of the antediluvian patriarchs were of the same duration and kind as our years now, and so we should take the list of their ages as accurate.
[27] St. Robert Bellarmine, letter to Foscarini.
[28] ST II-II.2.5 resp.
[29] St. Augustine, Against Faustus 26.3, 7, quoted by Benedict XV, encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus, par. 25, in PE 1903–1939, 182. It is worth noting that St. Augustine, earlier in that very paragraph quoted, rebukes Faustus for overlooking “the fact that Adam died, though he was not born. Who will venture to say that the Son of God could not, if He had pleased, have made for Himself a true human body in the same way as He did for Adam; for all things were made by Him?” in NPNF1 4:323, emphasis added.
[30] Pius XII, Humani generis, par. 35–36.
[31] Pietro Parente, Antonio Piolanti, and Salvatore Garofalo, Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology, trans. Emmanuel Doronzo (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company, 1951), 196, s.v. “mystery”, emphasis added.
[32] “Natural mysteries are those that belong to the things of nature, not to God; thus they are: 1) things that are hidden only by a lack of manifestation, like interior thoughts; 2) things that are recognized as to their existence, but not as to their intimate nature: life, human freedom, the law of gravity…” BAC IA, 122 (no. 92).
[33] St. Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Symbolum Apostolorum,” prologue. It is ironic that the chief evangelists of modern science tout their findings as curbing man’s hubris, putting him back in his unimportant place in the universe, whereas the pride is theirs for placing their scientistic belief above even the testimony of observable evidence, let alone the divine testimony. For example:
“…all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe. In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe. There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy, too. This, as we have seen, was Friedmann’s second assumption. We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption. We believe it only on grounds of modesty: it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe.” Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988), 42, emphasis added.
[34] Cf. ST I.93.6.
[35] Parente et al., Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology, 196, s.v. “mystery”, emphasis added.
[36] ST I.45.1, I.47.1, I.65.3–4, I.91.2, etc.
[37] ST I.46.2; cf. also his De æternitate mundi on the same subject.
[38] See Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Trinity and God the Creator, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1952), 405–06.
[39] ST I.46.2 s.c., II-II.171.3 s.c.; St. Gregory the Great, Homiliæ in Ezechielem I.2, in PL 76:787; cf. St. Ambrose, Hexameron, hom. 2, ch. 2, no. 7, in FOTC 42:7; cf. Origen, Against Celsus bk. 1, ch. 44, in ANF 4:415; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate q. 12, a. 14; cf. Ex 33:11, Nm 12:6–8, Dt 34:10.
[40] John Baptist Ku, O.P., “Interpreting the Creation Narratives in the Bible,” Thomistic Evolution, accessed Sept. 26, 2016. http://www.thomisticevolution.org/disputed-questions/interpreting-the-creation-narratives-in-the-bible/.
[41] Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 3, par. 1, in DH 3008.
[42] Ibid, par. 3, in DH 3010.
[43] See St. Thomas on Hb 11:1, and also ST II-II.4.1.
[44] Cf. ST II-II.4.8, I.1.5 resp., I.1.8 ad 2.
[45] Certitude consists in the firmness of assent which excludes all prudent or reasonable fear of error. Metaphysical certitude is absolute, infallible, as is the case of self-evident propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and conclusions deduced from metaphysically certain propositions. Physical certitude, the next level down, is based on the essences of things, the laws of nature; there is no prudent fear of error, for example, in judging that a stone when dropped will fall to the ground—but a higher cause (God, the angels) might intervene (a miracle) to cause the stone to remain suspended. Moral certitude, the lowest degree of certitude, is based on the psychological constancy of human action; for example, it is morally certain that a mother will love her child, as this is natural to human behavior; though we are all too well aware that in our day, inundated as we are in innocent blood, this is not always the case. While physical and moral certitude are not absolutely infallible, they still do not admit of a reasonable fear of error, and in the case of exceptions the rule is rather proven than disproven.
[46] Supernatural Faith is an infused virtue, and a virtue is a kind of habit, i.e. a stable disposition of the soul towards a particular mode of being or acting. Cf. Bernard Wuellner, S.J., Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing, 1956), 54, s.v. “Habit.”
[47] While in modern discourse we tend to restrict “science” to the natural sciences (physics, biology, etc.), classically a science, from the Latin scientia (knowledge), was generically defined as “the certain intellectual knowledge of something in its causes; universal, demonstrated, organized knowledge of facts and truths and the reasons or causes of these.” Wuellner, Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, 112, s.v. “science,” n. 1. Science then referred both to the subjective intellectual habit, and to the objective body of knowledge with its organizing formal object, motive, and method. In this classical understanding, philosophy (especially metaphysics, or “first philosophy”), since it considered the highest objects and obtained the greatest degree of certitude, was considered the highest of the natural sciences. Sacred theology stands even above philosophy, however, as the true queen of the sciences, being supernatural, most certain, and having the highest possible object. What was called “Physics” was the philosophical consideration of the natural world, of which our present-day natural sciences are a (frankly) more materialistic and highly specialized derivation. Ironically, in the classical schema what we now call natural sciences were among the lowest of the sciences, being some of the least certain and least universal.
[48] Wuellner, Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, 82, s.v. “Object”.
[49] Ibid.
[50] ST II-II.1.1 resp.; cf. ST II-II.4.6 resp.; ST I.1.3 resp., ad 2.
[51] Cf. ST I.1.3, II-II.1.1.
[52] Here we mean formal and virtual revelation, not as regards the matter, but the manner of revelation, i.e. the authority of God revealing things formally, vs. the authority of reason enlightened by supernatural faith reasoning upon those revealed principles. The formal motive of faith is absolutely inerrant and certain, since God is First Truth, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived; the formal motive of theology is certain insofar as it correctly reasons upon the principles it receives from Faith.
[53] Garrigou-Lagrange, On Divine Revelation, 1:82–87, 666–69; cf. Fenton, The Concept of Sacred Theology, 27ff., 74 (ch. 2, §Bff.; ch. 4, §E).
[54] See Bernard Wuellner, S.J., Summary of Scholastic Principles (Chicago: Loyola University, 1956), 47 (no. 178), q.v. for many references in St. Thomas.
[55] Cf. ST I.1.3 resp., ad 2; I.1.4 resp.; II-II.1.1 resp.;
[56] Not that arguments from authority belong strictly to sacred theology, but theology alone relies on them principally, since while such arguments are the weakest in merely human sciences (since human authority is highly variable and less certain than logical demonstration), in sacred science the authority is God and His Church, who cannot err, and therefore arguments from these authorities, rightly used, are most certain. Cf. ST. I.1.8 ad 2.
The late John Senior observed that the natural sciences were being taught dogmatically, as if they were a collection of truths obtained from a church-like authority (the so-called “scientific community” or “scientific consensus,”), whereas theology has lately been employing the methods of other sciences, it’s own proper method not being understood or appreciated. Hence one finds a predominance of the historical-critical method, which is drawn from non-sacred sciences, and even the employment of methods such as that of the science of poetry, in investigating divine truths. This is an inversion of the proper hierarchy and methods of the sciences.
[57] Cf. e.g. Fr. John Laux, Chief Truths of the Faith (Benziger Brothers, 1934; TAN, 1990), 79–81, 92–94.
[58] A careful reading of the Fathers finds them already addressing substantially this objection, such as St. Ambrose in his Hexaemeron, bk. 6, hom. 9, ch 2.7–3.9.
[59] ST II-II.1.1 resp.
[60] “The object of the principles [i.e. God] and of the whole science [i.e. theology] must be the same, since the whole science is contained virtually in its principles.” ST I.1.7 resp.
[61] ST I.1.7 resp., emphasis added.
[62] “Thus reason proves and faith holds that all things are created by God.” St. Thomas Aquinas, De potentia, q. 3, art. 5, in On Creation, trans. S. C. Selner-Wright (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2011), 39; cf. SCG II.15–16; cf. BAC IIB, 34–35, 80–81 (nos. 49–50, 154–55); cf. Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 2, in DH 3004.
[63] Though the natural sciences themselves are, as it were, merely highly technical branches of that arm of philosophy classically called “cosmology” or “physics,” which is the rational consideration of the material universe, requiring a certain degree of experience thereof. But that philosophy is looking into the ultimate causes and essences of things, whereas the natural sciences (properly) deal almost exclusively with secondary causes.
[64] Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Providentissimus Deus on the study of Holy Scripture (Nov. 18, 1893), par. 19, in The Papal Encyclicals: 1878–1903, ed. Claudia Carlen (Ypsilanti, MI: Pierian Press, 1990), 335.
[65] Among other examples, the fact that so-called “constants,” by which mathematical calculations are made to extrapolate present natural processes backwards in time, have been shown to fluctuate, such as the speed of light and the rate of radioactive decay.
[66] When speaking of “demonstration” here and in subsequent articles, we are referring to a scientific aka logical demonstration, a proper syllogism where the conclusion follows with necessity from the premises.
[67] Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, par. 19, in PE 1878–1903, 335. As a review of the history of rationalism and modernism will show, perhaps the most primary target of these enemies of Sacred Scripture was the text of Genesis 1–11, followed shortly thereafter by the Gospels, the rest of the Pentateuch, then the prophets. Because, as Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson accurately reflected, “if the very first chapter of the good book was nonsensical and untrue, why would the rest be any more credible or useful?” Matthew Chapman, Trials of the monkey: an accidental memoir, (New York: Picador USA, 2002), 5; cf. Pope St. Pius X, encyclical Pascendi, par. 36.
[68] Ibid., par. 18, p. 334.
[69] Hence Pope Leo XIII teaches that “by supernatural power, [God] so moved and impelled [the human authors] to write—He was so present to them—that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture.” Providentissimus Deus, par. 20, in PE 1878–1903, 336, emphasis added. Pope Benedict XV, encyclical Spiritus Paraclitus, par. 8–9, in PE 1903–1939, 179.
[70] I remembered the works of the Lord: for I will be mindful of Thy wonders from the beginning. And I will meditate on all thy works (Ps 76:12–13); I remembered the days of old, I meditated on all Thy works: I meditated upon the works of Thy hands (Ps 142:5); For I will behold Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers: the moon and the stars which Thou has founded (Ps 8:4); wonderful are Thy works, and my soul knoweth right well (Ps 138:14); Thou hast given me, O Lord, a delight in thy doings: and in the works of Thy hands I shall rejoice (Ps 91:5); I will now remember the works of the Lord, and I will declare the things I have seen (Sr 42:15). Cf. SCG II.1–2.
[71] In the beginning, O Lord, Thou foundedst the earth: and the heavens are the works of thy hands (Ps 101:26); The heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of His hands (Ps 18:2); For the sea is His, and He made it: and His hands formed the dry land. Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us (Ps 94:5–6); And [Thou, O Lord] hast set [man] over the works of Thy hands… all sheep and oxen, moreover the beasts also of the fields. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea (Ps 8:7–9); Thy hands have made me and formed me (Ps 118:73); But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee: and the birds of the air, and they shall tell thee. Speak to the earth, and it shall answer thee: and the fishes of the sea shall tell. Who is ignorant that the hand of the Lord hath made all these things? (Jb 12:7–9); Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me wholly round about (Jb 10:8); I made the earth: and I created man upon it: my hand stretched for the heavens, and I have commanded all their host (Is 45:12); And now, O Lord, Thou art our father, and we are clay: and Thou art our maker, and we are all the works of Thy hands (Is 64:8).
[72] SCG II.3. The whole chapter, along with the preceding one, is very important to the origins debate.
[73] Ibid.
[74] ST I.1.8 resp.
[75] ST I.1.6 ad 2, emphasis added.
[76] Vatican I, Dei Filius ch. 4, in DH 3018; cf. 1Tm 6:20, being referenced there.
[77] See the excellent treatment of the significance of this in Gregory F. LaNave, “How Theology Judges the Principles of Other Sciences,” The Thomist 81, no. 4 (2017): 567–93.
[78] « Parvus error in principio magnus est in fine, » my translation. Aristotle, De Cœlo et Mundo, 1.5, quoted in St. Thomas Aquinas, De ente et essentia, proœmium; cf. CCC 280.
[79] Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton (1906–1969) was an eminent American theologian, professor of fundamental dogmatic theology at the Catholic University of America, and editor of the American Ecclesiastical Review from 1943–1963. He was a student and friend of Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., and served as peritus to Cardinal Ottaviani at the second Vatican Council. He has been called (somewhat pejoratively), along with his friend and colleague Francis J. Connell, C.Ss.R., one of “the last Supernaturalists”—in other words, one of the last theologians of the 20th century who actually believed in the supernatural order and the divinity of the Catholic Church: cf. R. Scott Appleby and John H. Haas, “The Last Supernaturalists: Fenton, Connell, and the Threat of Catholic Indifferentism,” U.S. Catholic Historian, 13:2 (Spring 1995): 23–48.
[80] “The deceptive appearance of such a contradiction [between Faith and reason] is mainly due to the fact that either the dogmas of faith have not been understood and expounded according to the mind of the Church, or fanciful conjectures are taken for verdicts of reason.” Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 4, in DH 3017, emphasis added; “So we should show that whatever [natural scientists] have been able to demonstrate [i.e. give certain proof with necessity] from reliable sources about the world of nature is not contrary to our literature, while whatever they may have produced from any of their volumes that is contrary to this literature of ours, that is, to the Catholic faith, we must either show with some ease, or else believe without any hesitation, to be entirely false.” Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, par. 18, quoting St. Augustine, De Gen. ad litt. 1.21.41 (trans. in WSA 13:188), emphasis added.; “[N]ot a few insistently demand that the Catholic religion takes these sciences into account as much as possible. This certainly would be praiseworthy in the case of clearly proved facts; but caution must be used when there is rather question of hypotheses, having some sort of scientific foundation, in which the doctrine contained in Sacred Scripture or in Tradition is involved. If such conjectural opinions are directly or indirectly opposed to the doctrine revealed by God, then the demand that they be recognized can in no way be admitted.” Pope Pius XII, encyclical Humani generis, par. 35, in PE 1939–58, 181, emphasis added.
[81] Fenton, The Concept of Sacred Theology, 179, emphasis added.
[82] Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, par. 19, in PE 1878–1903, 335.
[83] This refers to Charles Lyell, the famous British geologist and friend of Charles Darwin, who popularized the geological doctrine of uniformitarianism, which is the basis for the modern scientific chronology of the geological column and fossil record—i.e., for a very old rather than a <8000 year old Earth. Darwin (and the Communists) acknowledged Lyell as providing a scientific basis for their views, and Darwin records that “Lyell is most firmly convinced that he has shaken the faith in the [Genesis flood] far more efficiently by never having said a word against the Bible, than if he had acted otherwise.” Charles Darwin), in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Chicago: Elephant Paperbacks, 1996), 387, emphasis added. Both observed historical phenomena, such as (among many other examples) the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980 and the formation of Burlingame Canyon in Washington State in 1926, as well as new laboratory experiments in sedimentology, have shown Lyell’s musings and the entire geological foundation for an old Earth to be patently false.
[84] “How old is the human race? Nobody knows the answer. This is a question for scientific research. Our faith tells us nothing on the subject. The genealogies which we read in the Bible are obviously incomplete; and there is nothing in Scripture to indicate how long the human race has inhabited the earth.” Fr. William J. Grace, S.J., The Catholic Church and You: What the Church Teaches and Why (1954; repr. Refuge of Sinners Publishing, 2022), 68. While Fr. Grace’s book—complete with shining imprimatur from the Archbishop of Milwaukee—is typical of vernacular literature of the time, this is in flagrant contradiction to both Scripture and Tradition. Just one example: Fr. Thomas Malvenda, O.P. (1566–1628) spends an entire book (Book II, some 63 double-column pages) analyzing the monuments of Tradition with regard to the age of the world in the first volume of his De Antichristo (Lyons, 1648); in fact, he spends many pages simply cataloguing the various opinions of Fathers and Theologians as to the precise date—for, while the exact chronology varies depending on the translation and contextual evidence, the young age of the Earth (less than 6000 years or so before Christ) is unanimously held. Most of the Theologians contemporary with or recent to him place the world’s creation at ca. 4000 B.C. And all of them, with all the Fathers, take this as a matter known directly from Sacred Scripture. So much for Fr. Grace et al.’s opinion.
[85] Council of Trent, Decree on the Vulgate Edition of the Bible and on the Manner of Interpreting Sacred Scripture (Sess. 4b, April 8, 1546), in DH 1507; Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 2, in DH 3007; cf. Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, par. 18; cf. also the Tridentine Creed, promulgated by Pope Pius IV in the bull Iniunctum nobis (Nov. 13, 1564), in DH 1863, which was required to be sworn by priests and theologians until its abandonment after Vatican II in favor of the new Professio fidei.
[86] “Unbelievers are also deceived by false documents which ascribe to history many thousands of years, although we can calculate from Sacred Scripture that not even six thousand years have passed since the creation of man.” St. Augustine, City of God 12.10–12 and 18.40, in NPNF1 2:232–233, 384. He is arguing against the Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, in particular Plato.
