The Freedom of Science

The progress that Catholic theology has made since the days of the Fathers, the vast amount of mental work it has performed, is perhaps made most clear by a glance at the “Nomenclator literarius theologiae catholicae,” by H. Hurter (2d ed., 3 vols.; the 3d ed. is in 6 vols., 5 being ready). It gives in concise briefness the biographical data and the more important works of Catholic theologians of greater repute. Counting the names there presented, we find not less than 3,900 from 1109 to 1563; about 2,900 from 1564 to 1663; about 3,900 between 1664 and 1763; finally, from 1764 to 1894 about 4,000 theological authors; hence in the period from 1109 to 1894 nearly 14,700 theologians. That these 14,700 scientists – and their number is not exhausted by this figure – should have written their works without offering in them any new knowledge, would surely be a bold assertion! In addition consider the long rows of tomes which some of them wrote. Perhaps it would not be wholly amiss to refer to the restless zeal of many of them, as recorded by their biographers. Baronius (died 1607) could truthfully assert before his death, that for thirty years he had never had sufficient sleep; he usually slept only four or five hours. Pierre Halloix (died 1656) likewise was content with four or five hours of rest. Dionysius Sanmarthanus (died 1725) gave only four hours to sleep and devoted less than half an hour daily to recreation; likewise Fr. Combéfis (died 1679), during the last forty years of his life. A. Fr. Orsi (died 1761) contented himself with three or four hours of sleep; Fr. Clement (died 1793) and H. Oberrauch(died 1808) are said to have slept but two hours daily. J. Caramuel de Lobkowicz (died 1682) persevered for fourteen hours every day at his books; Chr. Lupus (died 1681) even for fifteen hours daily. The theologian Lessius is characterized by “Parcissimus erat temporis, laboris pertinax”; the same holds good of hundreds of others of these men.

A science, enumerating its disciples by so many thousands, with the greatest intellects among its workers, which has commanded so much zeal and work for centuries, should be safe from the reproach of having back of it a history of stagnation.

Theology and Freedom of Science

To many it seems obvious that theology lacks at least the other predicate of science, freedom; because it is bound to dogmas and ecclesiastical authorities, at least Catholic theology is.

Although this claim is pressed persistently and with confidence, we may dispose of it very briefly. The freedom missed in theology, and demanded in its behalf, is none other than the liberal freedom of science, the nature of which we have had sufficiently long under the searchlight, so that there remains nothing to be added. We have proved sufficiently that this freedom is not a freedom from unnatural fetters, but a dissolute subjectivism, that claims the right not to be bound to any unchangeable, religious truths. We admit that the Catholic theology does not possess THIS freedom. Convinced of the truth of the doctrines established by divine testimony, and by the infallible voice of the Church, theology sees not freedom but a sin against truth in the license to assert the contrary of what it has recognized as the truth.

There is but one freedom which science may claim: it is freedom from hindrance in reaching the truth in its legitimate domain. If this truth is transmitted to science infallibly, by the highest instance of wisdom – and of this every theologian is convinced – how can science be said to be hindered thereby in attaining the truth? Restrained it is, but only by truth: truth, however, can only be a barrier to license, but not to precious freedom. This restraint theology shares with the rest of the sciences. The physicist is tied to the facts brought forth by the experiments of his laboratory; the astronomer is tied to the results reported to him by the instruments of his observatory, the historian is tied to the events disclosed by his sources. Moreover, all sciences are tied to their methods. In this way, and in no other way, the theologian, too, is tied to the facts given him by Revelation, and to his method. Every science has its own method. The astronomer gains his facts by observation and calculation, the mathematician arrives at his facts by calculation and study; the historian, by human testimony; the theologian, however, by divine testimony, at least as to fundamental truths. That they are transmitted to him not by his personal study, but by external testimony, does not matter; the historian too draws from such sources. Nor can theological knowledge be less certain because vouched for by divine authority: it makes it the more certain. Or is there no divine authority, and can there be none? This is exactly the silent presumption, which is the basis of the charge against theology. But where is the proof for it? It can only be demonstrated by denying the existence of a supermundane God; for, if there is an Almighty God, there can be no doubt that He can give a Revelation and demand belief.

Perhaps it may be said further, the theologian is not permitted to doubt his doctrines, hence he is prohibited from examining them; he surely cannot be unprepossessed.

We can refer to what we have previously said. Unprepossession demands but one thing, namely, not to assume something as true and certain that is false or unproved; it demands strong proofs for anything that needs proof. We may safely assert that there is no other science more exacting in this respect than Catholic theology, both of the present and of the past. It has not a single position that is not incessantly tested by attacks as to its tenability. Any one not unacquainted with theology, who knows the works of St. Thomas and of the later theologians, with their exact methods of thinking, who observes the conscientious work in Catholic biblical-exegetic, historical-critical field, must be convinced of the serious atmosphere of truth prevailing here. Unprepossession does not demand to doubt, time and again, that which has been positively proved, to rediscover it by new research. Positive facts are no longer a subject for research; in their case research has fully achieved its end. Methodical doubt, proper in scientific examination, is proper also in regard to religious truths.

Furthermore, the latitude of the theologian is much larger than presumed by those who derive their information solely from modern assertions about dogmatic bondage. One may safely assert that the freedom of movement of the mathematician is more limited by his principles, his train of thought more sharply prescribed, than is the case with the theologian. Of course the theologian is bound by everything he finds infallibly established directly by revelation and by the authority of the Church; or indirectly by the concurring teaching of the Fathers or the theologians; he is bound also by non-infallible decisions, especially those of congregations, though not absolutely and not irrevocably.

But this is only the smaller part of his province. In many departments, like the one of ecclesiastical history, there are almost no restrictions to his research, except those imposed by historical facts. Canon law and similar departments dealing with the laws of the Church, coincide in method and liberty of research with the profane science of law. Of all departments of theology, the dogmatical is the one most affected by the authority of faith. Yet even here a great deal is left to unhampered work. Many a void has to be filled, many a question solved, which the theology of the past has never taken up; even the defined truths still offer a large scope for personal work, in regard to demonstration, or to the philosophic-speculative penetration of the dogmas and their interpretation.

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

Ecclesiastical Supervision of Teaching

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

It is not to be denied, however, that such an energetic call for watchfulness and action, issued from the highest ecclesiastical watchtower, like the one referred to, may lead in some cases to anxiety and false suspicions. This is no doubt regrettable; but it is an incident common to human legislation and will surprise no one who has any experience of life. A glance at these decrees will show that they are nothing more than an urgent injunction, and the exercise of that supervision of religious life and teaching which pertains to the authority of the Catholic Church, and which has been practised by her at all times. The language is urgent, it has a severity which is softened in the execution. Its explanation lies in the eminent danger of the modernistic movement to the continuance of Catholic life. Modernism, as described and condemned by the Encyclica, is nothing less than the absolute destruction of the Catholic faith, and of Christianity.

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

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

The German bishops stated in their pastoral letter of December 10, 1907, that in some Catholic lay-circles there was uneasiness about the Encyclical, fearing that it might endanger scientific endeavour and independence in thought and research, and that the Church intended to prohibit or render impossible co-operation in solving the problems of civilization. “May they all recognize,” they said, “how groundless such fears are! The Church desires to set bars only to one kind of freedom – the freedom to err.” If the rules and precepts of the Church do sound harsh sometimes, it is because the Church adheres unconditionally to the principle: The truth above all. “The Church has at no time opposed the true progress of civilization, but only that which hinders its progress: heedlessness, haste, the mania for innovation, the morbid aversion against the truth that comes from God. But we Catholic Christians can join free and unhampered, with all our strength and talent, in the peaceful strife of noble, intellectual work and genuine mental education.”

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

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

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

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

We shall hardly be wrong in assuming that the charge of overstraining the ecclesiastical authority is based upon a presumption of a philosophical nature, which is in evidence in several other passages of the book – on the view, namely, that in religion the intellectual moment should recede before the mystical, before anticipation and inner experience. Hence the severe censure of “the narrow autocracy of the intellectual interpretation” against the “preponderance of the intellectual contemplation” in the Church, which is said to have become so prevalent as to exert unavoidably a paralyzing effect upon the entire religious life. Here we have the result of the notion that theory of life, religion, and faith, depend but little on rational knowledge. This notion is also in accord with the argument about the impossibility of an independent scientific ethics. We have discussed this elsewhere. We demonstrated that religion and faith relate to positive truths that can be realized, and that can therefore be accurately defined; they must be so defined. Of course this realization need not be a scientific one, it can be of the natural kind that is not clearly conscious of its reasons. Förster, too, touches upon this important distinction when quoting Saitschick: “The inner perception overtowers feeling and logical reason – here, too, lies the source of a light shining brighter, stronger, and incomparably more true than any light of reason”; and again, when his advice is, to foster to a greater extent the “inner perception.” What is felt here vaguely has long since been expressed much more lucidly in Christian philosophy.

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

No one will be astonished to find a Protestant author lacking the clarified conception of the supernatural character of the Church that is possessed by the Catholic; to see him view the Church almost invariably in the light of a human organization, similar to the Protestant denominations which he may cite before the court of his individual reason and force to bow under the yoke of his criticism. The Catholic has a better understanding of the words: “I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.” There will be foreign to his mind the idea that the Church has since the days of Reformation, for now nearly four centuries, deviated from the right way, and degenerated more and more to a separatistic and insignificant community; a church able to forget its traditions to the extent of grossly misconceiving its proper sphere of authority, and fettering itself in a narrow spirit to incidentals, could not keep his confidence any longer.

The Oath Against Modernism

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

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

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

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

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

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