The Freedom of Science

No wonder, therefore, that of the hundreds of thousands of Catholic priests hardly a handful have refused the oath.

Nor is there anything new in the obligation to swear and subscribe in writing to a confession of creed. Very often in the course of the centuries decrees of creed and symbols had to be subscribed to in writing. In the days of Jansenism, when priests were required to swear to and sign a statement, many Jansenists tried to dodge this oath, and the Jansenist Racine complained that this demand was unheard-of in the Church. Thereupon the learned theologian Tournelyand others cited a number of examples of this kind from the history of the Church.

Therefore the anti-modernist oath has not created anything new. Consequently it has not changed anything in regard to the freedom of theological research. It is the same as before; nor has the oath changed anything in the quality of theological professors, they merely promise to be what they must be anyway; nor can, for instance, the oath induce the Catholic priest, in teaching profane history, to present the history of the Reformation in a different light than before, and thus render him unfit to teach history; the oath has created no new, confessional differences, hence has given no justified cause for excitement – provided one has the needed theological comprehension of the oath. If one has not this insight, and will not trust to information from a competent source, then it will be the act of prudence to leave the test to the future; and we can await this test serenely.

We referred above to the declaration of German college teachers, to the effect that all who have taken the oath have thereby expressed their renunciation of independent cognition of truth. These stereotyped ideas we have so often heard, with the same haziness and inconsistency. “Because they have thereby expressed the renunciation of independent cognition of the truth,” namely, by the acceptance of certain doctrines. But is not every one who clings to his Christian belief bound by this very fact to certain doctrines? Does every one who still prays his Credo express the renunciation of his independence? If the argument quoted is to mean anything at all, it means the full rejection of all Christian duty to believe; indeed, this is the real sense of this “independent recognition of truth,” as we have already seen. But cannot some one, because of his conviction, renounce this independence and believe, and in this conviction accept the doctrines of the Church? If this conviction is his, and he affirms it by oath, how can any one see in this oath a want of freedom, nay, a renunciation of truth? If an atheist solemnly declared his intention to be and to remain an atheist, he would hardly be accused of lack of character by the advocates of modern freedom of thought. The judge, the military officer, the member of a legislature, the professor, who must all take the oath of allegiance, – all of these will have to be protected against the insinuation of disloyalty to truth. If a man affirms by oath his unalterable Catholic faith, he is without any hesitation accused of untruthfulness. The government has been urged to forbid this spontaneous exercise of Catholic sentiment. The inconsistency of modern catch-phrases can hardly be given more drastic expression. In order to guard the freedom of thought the government is to forbid one from pledging himself to his own principles; in order to remain an independent thinker a man must be forced by penal statute to confess unconditionally the brand of free science prescribed by a certain school and by no means have an opinion of his own; in order to be free in his research the teacher in theology must be tied to the catch-phrases of liberal philosophy. This is modern freedom, a hybrid of freedom and bondage, of sophistry and contradiction, of arrogance and barrenness of thought, which will exert its rule over the minds as long as they are guided by half-thinking.

Bonds of Love, not of Servitude

People to whose mind Catholic thinking is foreign will never be able to appreciate the energetic activity of the Church authority.

On close examination, however, they will not deny that, if the Christian treasure of faith is to be preserved undiminished, if in the hopeless confusion and the unsteady vacillation of opinions in our days there is to be left anywhere a safe place for truth and unity of faith, this cannot be accomplished otherwise than in the shape of a strong authority that has the assurance of the aid of God.

The Catholic theologian may be permitted to point in exemplifying this fact to the recent history of Protestantism and of its theology. Protestantism does not acknowledge a teaching authority: its theology demands complete freedom of research and teaching, making the most extensive use of both. The result is the demoralization of the Christian faith, which is speeding with frightfully accelerated steps to total annihilation. The very danger which Modernism threatened to carry into the Catholic Church has overwhelmed Protestant theology: the metaphysical ideas of a modern philosophy penetrated it without check, and killed its Christian substance. The measures against Modernism were sharply criticized by many Protestants who, at the same time, laid stress upon the fact that nothing of the sort could happen among themselves. Indeed it could not, at least not consistently with Protestant principle. But there is not a single fact in all history which demonstrates more clearly the necessity of the Catholic authority of faith, than just the condition of Protestantism at the present time. On the part of believing Protestants this is admitted, if not expressly, then at least in practice. To stem the destructive work of liberal theology they resort to authority; invoke Evangelical formulas of confession, the traditional doctrine, sometimes even the aid of the state; neological preachers are disciplined by censures, even by dismissal, against the loud protest of the liberals. Such action is easily understandable; one cannot hear without sadness the cry for help of pious Protestantism, a cry that grows more desperate every day; one cannot help regretting its forlorn situation in view of the millions of souls whose salvation is jeopardized, who are in danger of being despoiled of the last remains of their Christian faith. Yet it must be admitted that this cry for authority and obedience signifies the abandoning of the Protestant principle, and the involuntary imitation and therefore acknowledgment of the Catholic principle – for the Catholic an incentive to cleave the more closely to his Church.

Many to whom the Catholic way of thinking is foreign, look upon the duty of obedience which ties the Catholic to his Church as a sort of servitude; to the Catholic it is the tie of love, uniting free people to a sacred authority. Many look upon the Church of Rome as a tyrannical curia, where Umbrian prelates are cracking their whips over millions of servile and ignorant souls; to the Catholic the Church is the divinely appointed institution of truth, that possesses his fullest confidence. He knows that history has given the most magnificent justification to the Catholic principle of authority. Opinions have come and gone, systems were born and have died, thrones of learning rose and fell; only one towering mental structure remained standing upon the rock of God-founded authority in the vast field of ruins with its wrecks of human wisdom. And its ancient Credo, prayed by all nations, is the same Credo once prayed by the martyrs.

Chapter II. Theology And University

“He is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings”; thus spoke in bygone ages the children of this world. “Let us therefore lie in wait for the just… He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God and calleth himself the Son of God” (Wisdom ii, 12 seq.). Centuries later the children of the world treated in the same manner God's Son and His doctrine. And in these days, when the science of the faith is to be driven from the rooms of the school, let us recall that in olden times the children of the world planned similarly.

In the days when the private and public life of Europe's nations was permeated with the Christian faith, and their ideas were still centred in God and eternity, then the science of the faith was held to be the highest among the sciences, not only by rank but in fact.

And when, in the budding desire for knowledge, they erected universities, the first and largest of them, Paris University, was to be the pre-eminent home of theology, and wherever theology joined with the other sciences it received first honours. Thus it was in the days of yore, and for a long time. The secular tendency of modern thought led to the gradual emancipation of science from religion; unavoidably, its aversion for a supernatural view of the world soon turned against, and demanded the removal of, the science representing that view. Reasons for the demand were soon found. Thus the removal of theology from the university has become part and parcel of the system of ideas of the unbelieving modern man; the liberal press exploits the idea whenever occasion offers. Resolutions to this effect are introduced in parliaments and diets, meetings of young students are echoing the ideas heard elsewhere. No wonder that the Portuguese revolution of 1910 had nothing more urgent to do than to close the theological faculty at Portugal's only university.

What are the reasons advanced? Many are advanced; the main reason is usually disguised; we shall treat of it when concluding. In the first place we are again met by the old tune of free science, which has been in our ears so long; the rooms of the colleges, it is said, are destined for a research which seeks truth with an undimmed eye, and not for blindfolded science confined to a prescribed path.

No need to waste words on this. Just one more reference may be permitted us, namely, to the study of law. There is hardly another science with less latitude than the science of law. Its task is not to doubt the justification of state laws, but to look upon constitutions and statutes as established, to explain them, and by doing so to train efficient officials and administrators of the law. When explaining the civil code the teacher of law has small opportunity for pursuing “free search after truth”; neither will his pupil be tested at examinations in the maxims of a free research that accepts no tradition; he will have to prove his knowledge of the matter that had been given to him. Yet no one has ever objected to the teaching of jurisprudence at the university. Therefore the objection cannot be valid that theology is restricted to the established doctrines of its religion and has to transmit them without change to its future servants. It should be borne in mind that our universities are not intended for research only, but also, and chiefly, for training candidates for the professions.

This disposes at the same time of the objection that theology has to serve ecclesiastical purposes outside of and foreign to science. Religious science, like any other science, serves the desire that strives for truth. True, it serves also for the practical training of the clergyman for his vocation. But shall we eliminate from science the interests of practical life? Then medicine and legal science would also have to be excluded, and for these there would be planted only sterile theories, and the universities transformed into a place of abstract intellectualism.

Again it is argued that religion and faith are not really cognition and knowledge, but only the products of sentiment, and hence theology has no claim to a place among the sciences; that religion can only be a subject for psychology which lays bare its roots in the human heart, and a subject for the history of religion, to trace its historical forms and to study its laws of evolution – sciences which belong to the philosophical faculty.

Thus we come back to the principles of an erroneous theory of knowledge. No need to demonstrate again that the Christian belief is built upon the clear perception of reason, and that it is not a sentimental but a rational function.

But has not the Church her theological seminaries? Let theology seek refuge there! We answer the Church herself desires this; she does not like theological faculties, they are in her eyes a danger to the faith.

Now, if the Church would be deprived of her authoritative influence upon the appointment of professors at theological faculties and upon the subject of their teachings, consequently, if there would be jeopardized the purity of belief of the candidates for priesthood, and through them of the people, then, we admit, the Church would rather forego theological faculties at state-universities. This could not be done without considerable injury to the public prestige of the Church, to her contact with worldly sciences and their representatives and disciples, even to the scientific study of theology. In the latter particularly by the loss of the greater resources of the state, and by the absence of inducement to scientific aim, which is more urgent for theologians than for others at college. Neither would the state escape injury, because of the open slight and harm to religion, and of lessening its contact with the most influential body in Christian countries. But if the Church is assured of her proper influence on the faculties, she has no reason for an unfriendly attitude toward them. The object the Church seeks to achieve in her seminaries is the clerical education of her candidates, their ascetic training, the introduction into a life of recollection and prayer, into an order of life befitting priests; this cannot be sufficiently done in the free life at the university.

This is not a bar to scientific instruction by the theological faculty. Seminary and faculty supplement one another. We see very frequently, at Rome and outside of Rome, the theological school separated from the seminary with the approval of the Church. But all these objections do not give the real reason, the roots lie deeper.

When the Divine Founder of our Religion stood before the tribunal of Judea He said: “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, servants would strive for me.” This was the whole explanation of why He stood there accused. The guardian of the doctrine of her Master may use these words to explain the fact that, in the eyes of many, she stands to-day accused and defamed. The mind of modern man has forsaken the world of the Divine and Eternal; no longer is he a servant of this kingdom. His ideals are not God and Heaven, but he himself and this world; not the service of God, but human rights and human dignity. This view of the world, which cannot grasp the wisdom of Jesus Christ, and which takes offence at the Cross, also takes offence at a science that confesses as the loftiest ideal Jesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum.

The real kernel of the question is: Does the Christian religion in its entirety still serve the purpose of to-day – or does it not? is it to remain with us, the religion wherein our fathers found the gratification of their highest mental aims, the religion that gave Europe its civilization and culture, that created its superior mental life, and still rules it to this hour? Or shall religion be expelled by a return to a heathendom which Christianity had overthrown? “We do not want Him to rule over us” – there is the real reason for the modern antipathy to Catholic theology. Else, whence the excited demand for its removal? Because it is superfluous? Even if this were the fact, there is many a category of officials, the little need of which can be demonstrated without difficulty, yet no one grows excited about it; many expenditures by the state are rather superfluous, yet there is no indignation. No, the matter at issue is not so much the scientific character of theology, nor misgivings about its progress or its freedom; the real question is this:

Do we Desire to Remain Christians?

For if we still recognize the Christian religion as the standard for our thought, if we are persuaded that it must remain the foundation of our life, then there can be no doubt that its facts, its truths, and standards of life require scientific presentation; then it cannot be disputed that this science is entitled to a place alongside of the science of law, of chemistry, or Indology. Indeed, then it must assume the first place in the system of sciences.

Surely a science ranks the higher, the higher its object and its sources, the surer its results, and the greater its significance for the most exalted aim of mankind. The subject of theology is God and His works, the ultimate causes of all things in God's eternal plan of the universe, the “wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory” (1 Cor. ii. 7). Therefore it is wisdom; for “the science of things divine is science proper” (Augustinus, De Trinit. xii, 14). A science, having as its subject Greek architecture, geography, or physical law, may claim respect, yet it must step back before a science of Religion, that rises to the highest sphere of truth by a power of flight that participates in the omniscience of the Holy Ghost; for such is the faith. For this reason its results, in so far as they rest on faith, are more certain than the results of all other sciences.

Finally, the aims of life which theology serves are not physical health or advantages in the external life, but the knowledge of God, the spread of His kingdom on earth, and the eternal goal of all human life.

So long as the Christian religion is the valued possession of the people of a country, and the roots of their lives rest more in Christianity than in mathematics, astrophysics, or Egyptology, so long is the science of religion entitled to a seat at the hearth of the sciences; and the people, then, have the right to demand that the servants of religion get their education at the place where the other leading professions get their training. If the state considers it its duty to train teachers of history and physics for the benefit of its citizen, then it is still more its duty to help in the education of the servants of religion, who are called upon to care for more important interests of the people and state than all the rest of the professions. Let us consider the task of universities. As established in the countries of central Europe, they are destined to foster science in the widest sense, and to educate the leading professions: to be the hearth for the sum total of mental endeavour, this is their vocation; hence all things that contain truth and have educational value should join hands here. To eliminate the science of the highest sphere of knowledge would be tantamount to a mutilation of the university. Here all boughs and branches of human knowledge should be united into a large organism, of unity and community of work, of giving and taking Theology needs for auxiliaries other sciences, such as profane history and philology, Assyriology and Egyptology, psychology and medicine. In turn it offers indispensable aid to history and other branches of science, it guards the ethical and ideal principles of every science, and crowns them by tendering to them the most exalted thoughts. Here is the place of education for the judge and official, for the physician and teacher; hence it should be the place also for the education of the servant of the chief spiritual power, religion.

The university should unite all active mental powers that lift man above the commonplace. But is there any stronger mental power than religion?

It is the oldest and mightiest factor in mental life; it is as natural to man as the flower is to the field; his mind gravitates to a religious resting place, whence he may view time and eternity, where he may rest. Therefore religion demands a science that inquires into its substance, its justification, its effect on thought and life. Man strives to give to himself an account of everything, but most of all of what is foremost in his mind. A system of sciences without theology would be like an uncompleted tower, like a body without a head.

The history of theology dates back to the very beginning of science and culture. If we trace the oldest philosophy we find as its starting point theological research and knowledge. Orpheus and Hesiod, who sang of the gods, and the sages of the oldest mysteries, were called theologians; Plutarch sees in the theologians of past ages the oldest philosophers, in the philosophers, however, the descendants of the theologians; Platoderives philosophy from the teachers of theology. Even more prominently was religious study and knowledge responsible for Hindoo, Chaldean, and Egyptian philosophy.

Was it reserved for our age to discard all the better traditions of mankind? Shall victory rest with the destructive elements in the mental education of Europe? Against this danger to our ideal goods, theology should stay at the universities, as a bulwark and permanent protest.

Theological Faculty in State and Church

For this reason the theological faculty has a birth-right at the university, whether state school or free university. Where it is joined to a state university, theology automatically becomes subordinate to the state, in a limited sense. More essential is its dependency upon the Church, because, being the science of the faith, theology is primarily subject to the authority and supervision of the Church. For the Church, and only the Church, is charged by its Divine Founder to teach His religion to all nations. Hence no one can exercise the office of a religious teacher, neither in the public school nor at college, if not authorized to do so by the Church. It is a participation in the ministry of the Church; and the latter alone can designate its organs. Whoever has not been given by the Church such license to teach, or he from whom she takes it away, does not possess it; no other power can grant it, not even the state. Nor can the state restore the license of teaching to a theologian from whom the Church has withdrawn it; this would be an act beyond state jurisdiction, hence invalid.

In granting the license to teach, the Church does so in the self-evident presumption that the one so licensed will teach his students the correct doctrine of the Church, as far as it has been established; and he binds himself to do so by voluntarily taking the office, and more explicitly by the profession of the creed. If he should deviate from the creed later on, it is the obvious right of the Church to cancel his license. In this the Church only draws the logical conclusion from the office of the teacher and from his voluntary obligation. He holds his office as an organ of the Church, destined to lecture on pure doctrine before future priests. Whether or not he has honestly searched for the truth when deviating therefrom, this he may settle with his conscience; but he is incapacitated to act still further as an organ of the Church, and it is only common honesty to resign his office if he cannot fulfil any longer the obligations he assumed. The professor of theology is therefore in the first place a deputy of his Church. Also he is teacher at a state institution and as such a state official; he is appointed by the state to be the teacher of students belonging to a certain denomination, he is paid by the state, and may be removed by the state from his position as official teacher. But withal the right must not be denied to the Church to watch over the correctness of the Christian doctrine, and to make appointment and continuance in the teaching office dependent upon it.

Indeed, this demand was urged by Prof. Paulsen, notwithstanding his entirely different position: he says: “The Catholic-theological faculties are in a certain sense a concession by the Church to the state; of course they are also a service of the state for the Church, and a valuable one, too; but they rest in the first place upon a concession made by the Church to the state, with a view to the historically established fact, and to peace. Naturally, this concession cannot be unconditional. The condition is: the professors appointed by the state must stand upon ecclesiastical ground, they must acknowledge the doctrine of the Church as the standard of their teaching, and they must receive from the Church the missio canonica. The Church cannot accept hostile scientists for teachers. Hence for the appointment an agreement must be reached with ecclesiastical authority. The universities are not merely workshops for research, they are at the same time educational institutions for important public professions; in fact, they were founded for this latter purpose: they are the outcome of the want for scientifically educated clergymen, teachers, physicians, judges, and other professionals. And this purpose necessitates restrictions: the professor of Evangelical theology cannot teach arbitrary opinions any more than his Catholic fellow-professor can; the lawyer is also restricted by presumptions, for instance, that the civil code is not an accumulation of nonsense, but, on the whole, a pretty good order of life. Just as little as we should dispute the lawyer's standing as a scientist on this account, so little shall we be able to deny this standing to the Catholic theologian who stands with honest conviction on the platform of his Church.” “We want the Catholic theological faculties to be preserved; of course, under the presumption of freedom of scientific research within the limits drawn by the creed of the Church.”