CHAPTER II.

THE RELATION OF THE HOLY GHOST TO THE HUMAN

REASON.

In the last chapter I have, I trust, established the indissolubility of the union between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church; from which follows, by necessity, its perpetual infallibility, both active and passive. I have indicated, at least in outline, the organs through which that infallibility is exercised, and have noted the degrees of authority possessed by them, and the kind and degrees of assent required by the acts and words of the Church or of its members.

In the present chapter I purpose to trace out the relation of the Holy Spirit to the reason of man, both the collective reason of the Church and the individual reason of its members taken one by one.

Now there are two ways in which the relation of the Holy Spirit delivering the revelation of God to the human reason may be treated.

1. First, we might consider the relation of revelation to reason in those who as yet do not believe; that

is, in the examination of evidence to establish the fact of a revelation, and to ascertain its nature.

2. Secondly, the relation of revelation to reason after the fact has been accepted.

In the first case the reason acts as a judge of evidence, in the second it submits as a disciple to a Divine Teacher.

In the former case the reason must, by necessity, act as a judge in estimating the motives of credibility. Adults in every age become Christian upon being convinced by the proper evidence that Christianity is a divine revelation. This process of reason is the preamble of faith. Once illuminated, the reason of man becomes the disciple of a Divine Teacher.

Such was the state of those who in the beginning came as adults to Christianity. Now they are the exceptions in Christendom. The rule of God's dealings is that revelation should be, not a discovery, but an inheritance. To illustrate my meaning I may say -Adult baptism was at first the rule, now it is the exception; Infant baptism is the rule of God's dealing with us. So we inherit revelation before we examine it; and faith anticipates judgment. Again, to state the same in other words, there are two ways of considering the relation of reason to revelation, the one according to the logical and the other the historical order.

S. Thomas treats it in the logical order. He says

that science or rational knowledge is useful and necessary to faith in four ways: (1.) Faith presupposes the operations of reason on the motives of credibility for which we believe. (2.) Faith is rendered intrinsically credible by reason. (3.) Faith is illustrated by reason. (4.) Faith is defended by reason against the sophisms of false philosophy.'

It will perhaps be easier if we take the historical order, because it follows more simply the method of God's dealing with us. We will therefore treat first of the rule, and hereafter, so far as needs be, of the exceptions.

I speak then of the relations of reason to revelation in those who are within the light and tradition of truth.

I. The first relation of reason to revelation is to receive it by intellectual apprehension. It is like the relation of the eye to the light. There are, I may say, two kinds of sight, the passive and the active; that is, in plain words, there is a difference between seeing and looking. In the former the will is quiescent, in the latter it is in activity. We see a thousand things when we look only at one; we see the light even when we do not consciously fix the eye upon any particular object by an act of the will. So the intellect is both passive and active. And the intellect must first be in

1 Sanseverino, I principali Sistemi della Filosofia sul Criterio. Napoli, 1858, p. 14.

some degree passively replenished or illuminated by an object before it can actively apply itself to it. What is this but to go back to our old lessons in logic, to the three primary operations of the mind— apprehension, judgment, and discourse or process of reasoning? Now the apprehension of our logic is what may be called the passive relation of the reason to revelation, by which it apprehends, or understands, or knows, call it which we will, the meaning or outline of the truth presented to it before as yet it has made any act either of judgment or of discourse.

And this may be said to be the normal and most perfect relation of the reason to revelation. It is the nearest approach which can be made in this world to the quiescent contemplation of truth. It is the state into which we return after the most prolonged and active process of the intellect; the state to which we ascend by the most perfect operations of reasoning. The degrees of explicit knowledge deepen the intensity of knowledge; but the difference of knowing God as a child and knowing God as a philosopher is not in kind but in degree of discursive knowledge, and the knowledge of the philosopher may be less perfect than the knowledge of the child.

The proof of this appears to be evident. Revelation is not discovery, or rather revelation is the discovery of Himself by God to man, not by man for himself. It is not the activity of the human reason

which discovers the truths of revelation. It is God discovering or withdrawing the veil from His own intelligence, and casting the light of it upon us. These are truisms; but they are truths almost as universally forgotten and violated in the common habits of thought as they are universally admitted when enunciated.

We may take an illustration from science. Astronomy is a knowledge which comes to us by discovery. It was built up by active observation, and by reasoning. A tradition of astronomy has descended to us from the highest antiquity, perpetually expanding its circumference and including new regions of truth. But its whole structure is the result of the active reason. Even star-gazing is an active process of search. Chemistry again is still more a science of discovery, of experiment, of conjecture, and of active inquiry after secret qualities in minerals, vegetables, gases, and the like. Hardly any part of it can be said to be self-evident, or to anticipate discovery. Much more all the truths which come by the application of science, by the crossing, as it were, of the races and families of truths in the natural world.

All these branches and provinces of human knowledge may be called discoveries, not revelations. They are the fruits of an intense, prolonged, and accumulated cultivation of the human reason, and of the distinct soil or subject-matter of each region of truth.

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