Volume Iii Part 97 (1/2)

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From D. Appleton & Co., New-York. The Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1865. 8vo, pp. 850.

From Hurd & Houghton, New-York. Revolution and Reconstruction. Two Lectures delivered in the Law School of Harvard College, in January, 1865, and January, 1866, by Joel Parker. 8vo, pamphlet, pp. 89.

Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility, and Suicide. By A.

O. Kellogg, M.D., a.s.sistant Physician State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N.Y. 12mo. pp. 204. Pictures of Country Life. By Alice Cary. 18mo, pp.

859.

From D. & J. Sadlier & Co., New-York. Parts 18. 19, and 20 of D'Artaud's Lives of the Popes; and Vol II. of Catholic Anecdotes.

From P. O'Shea, New-York. Nos. 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32. and 33 of Darras's History of the Catholic Church.

From A. D. F. Randolph, New-York. The Lady of La Garaye. By the Hon.

Mrs. Norton, 12mo, pp. 115.

From J. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark, N.J. Jesus and Mary. A Catholic hymn-book. Selected from various sources, and arranged for the use of the children of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Newark, N.J. 12mo, pp. 76, paper.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. III., NO. 17.--AUGUST, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.

V.

THE REVELATION OF THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER, AND ITS RELATION TO THE PRIMITIVE IDEA OF REASON.

Our reason in apprehending the intelligible is advertised at the same time of the existence of the super-intelligible. It is necessary to explain here the sense in which this latter term is used. It is evident that it can be used only in a relative and not in an absolute sense. That which is absolutely without the domain of the intelligible is absolutely unintelligible and therefore a non-ent.i.ty. The super-intelligible must therefore be something which is intelligible to G.o.d, but above the range either of all created reason, or of human reason in its present condition. It will suffice for the present to consider it under the latter category.

Our reason undoubtedly apprehends in its intelligible object the existence of something which is above the range of human intelligence in its present state. The intimate nature of material and spiritual substances is incomprehensible. Much more, the intimate nature or essence of the infinite divine being. All science begins from and conducts to the incomprehensible. Any one who wishes to satisfy himself of this may peruse the first few chapters of Mr. Herbert Spencer's ”Principles of Philosophy.” That portion of the first article of the creed which reason can demonstrate; namely, the being of G.o.d, the Creator of the world, in which is included also the immortality of the soul, and the principle of moral obligation; advertises therefore, of an infinite sphere of truth which is above our comprehension. The natural suggests the supernatural, in which it has its first and final cause, its origin and ultimate end. The knowledge of the natural, therefore, gives us a kind of negative knowledge of the super-natural, by advertising us of its own incompleteness, and of the want of any principle of self-origination or metaphysical finality in itself. A system of pure naturalism which represents the idea of reason under a form which satisfies completely the intelligence without introducing the supernatural, is impossible.

What is nature, and what do we mean by the natural? Nature is simply the aggregate of finite ent.i.ties, and the natural is {578} what may be predicated of these ent.i.ties. A system of pure naturalism would therefore give a complete account of this aggregate of finite ent.i.ties, without going beyond the ent.i.ties themselves, that is, without transcending the limits of s.p.a.ce, time, the finite and the contingent. Such a system is not only incapable of rational demonstration, but utterly unthinkable. For, when the mind has gone to its utmost length in denying or excluding every positive affirmation of anything except nature, there remains always the abyss of the unknown from which nature came and to which it tends, even though the unknown may be declared to be unknowable. Those who deny the super-intelligible and the supernatural, therefore, are mere sceptics, and cannot construct a philosophy. Those who affirm a First Cause, in which second causes and their effects are intelligible, affirm the supernatural. For the first and absolute Cause cannot be included under the same generic term with the second causes and finite forces of nature. The more perfectly and clearly they evolve the full theistic conception of pure reason, the more distinctly do they affirm the supernatural, because the idea of G.o.d as the infinite, intelligible object of his own infinite intelligence is proportionately explicated and apprehended. It is explicated and apprehended by means of a.n.a.logies derived from finite objects, but these a.n.a.logies suggest that there is an infinite something behind them which they represent. By these a.n.a.logies we learn in a measure the meaning of the affirmation _Ut Deus sit_. We do not learn _Quid sit Deus_, but still we cannot help asking the question, What is G.o.d, what is his essence? We know that he is the adequate object of his own intelligence and will, and therefore we cannot help asking the question what is that object, what does G.o.d see and love in himself, in what does his most pure and infinite act consist, what is his beat.i.tude? Our reason is advertised of an infinite truth, reality, or being, which it cannot comprehend, that is, of the super-intelligible.

Those who base their philosophy on pure theism, or a modified rationalistic Christianity, are therefore entirely mistaken when they profess to be anti-supernaturalists, and to draw a distinctly marked line between themselves and the supernaturalists. The distinction is only between more or less consistent supernaturalists. Those who are at the remotest point from the Catholic idea, see that those who are a little nearer have no tenable standing-point, and these see it of those who are nearer than they are, and so on, until we come to the Anglicans and the Orientals. But the extremists themselves have no better standing-point than the intermediaries, and in their theistic conception have admitted a principle from which they can be driven by irresistible and invincible logic to the Catholic Church. For the present, we merely aim to show that they are compelled to admit the supernatural when they affirm G.o.d as the first and final cause of the world. In affirming this, they affirm that nature has its origin and final reason in the supernatural, or in an infinite object above itself, which human reason cannot comprehend. That is, they affirm super-intelligible and super-natural relations, of man and the universe. These relations must be regulated and adjusted by some law.

This law is either the simple continuity of the original creative act which explicates itself through con-creative second causes in time and s.p.a.ce, or it is this, and in addition to this, an immediate act of the Creator completing his original, creative act by subsequent acts of an equal or superior order, which concur with the first towards the final cause of the creation. Whoever takes the first horn of this dilemma is a pure naturalist in the only sense of the word which is intelligible.

That is, while he is a supernaturalist, in maintaining that nature has its first and final cause in the supernatural, or in {579} G.o.d; he is a naturalist in maintaining that man has no other tendency to his final cause except that given in the creative act that is essential to nature, and no other mode prescribed for returning to his final cause than the explication of this natural tendency, according to natural law. Consequently, reason is sufficient, without revelation; the will, without grace; humanity, without the incarnation; society, or the race organized under law, without the church. It is precisely in the method of treating this thesis of naturalism that the divarication takes place between the great schools of Catholic theology and between the various systems of philosophy, whether orthodox or heterodox, which profess to base themselves on the Christian idea, or to ally themselves with it. It is not easy to find the clue which will lead us safely through this labyrinth and preserve us from deviating either to the right hand or to the left, by denying too much on the one hand to the naturalists, or conceding too much to them on the other.

Nevertheless it is necessary to search for it, or to give up all effort to discuss the question before us, and to prove from principles furnished by nature and reason the necessity of accepting a supernatural revelation.

The true thesis of pure naturalism or rationalism is, that G.o.d in educating the human race for the destiny in view of which he created it, merely explicates that which is contained in nature by virtue of the original creative act, without any subsequent interference of the divine, creative power. He develops nature by natural laws alone, in one invariable mode. The physical universe evolves by a rigid sequence the force of all the second causes which it contains. The rational world is governed by the same law, and so also is the moral and spiritual world. The intellectual and spiritual education of the human race develops nothing except natural reason, and the natural, spiritual capacity of the soul. Reason extends its conquests by a continual progress in the super-intelligible realm, reducing it to the intelligible, and eternally approaching to the comprehension of the infinite and absolute truth. The spiritual capacity advances constantly in the supernatural realm, reducing it to the natural, and eternally approaching the infinite and absolute good or being. All nature, all creation, is on the march, and its momentum is the impulsive force given it by the creative impact that launched it into existence and activity.