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Show term 'Infallible. " I t : By Rev. Dr. Lambert in New York Freeman's Journal. Sir Your editorial, "The Bible and Its Interpreter," in your issue of June 30, called my -attention to an article in the Catholic World on "The Place of the Bible in the Catholic Church," by Dr. De Costa. You close your remarks by saying: "His (Dr. De Costa's) presentation pre-sentation of the Catholic attitude toward to-ward the Holy Scriptures is clear and correct," ad I wish to add, as interpreted by the Rev. Dr. Lambert, Lam-bert, editor of the Freeman's Journal. Indeed, if Dr. De Costa had not forgotten forgot-ten your "lower and upper case of higher criticism" and used it as a model in his article, I would have been spared the painful task of "demurring" again. Your few words: "In the case of inspiration inspi-ration the judgment cannot rest on the testimony of the senses, because the fact is supersensible," are so forcible and clear that the conclusion is inds-putable. inds-putable. Thus speaks Dr. Lambert, but not so Dr. De Costa. In fact, Dr. De Costa's article does not represent the attitude of the Church and leaves the Church open for attack, and hence I "demur." Dr. De Costa starts out correctly by saying that the first thing to be assured as-sured of is "that the Bible i3 an inspired in-spired Book" and proceeds to ask: "Who is it that answers the question, 'Is the Bible Inspired?' ' and he states that the Catholic Church answers the question and is alone "capable of giving answer." But why the Church is Tone capable to gve that answer is nowhere explained in the article, and the answer is given in your editorial, because only divine and infallible authority can give judgment on a supersensible fact. Dr. De Costa claims "Catholics, whatever what-ever they may think or teach about the composite character of the Pentateuch, or the authorshps of particular books, find a limit in the Encyclical of Leo XIII." Now, what is one to understand by such loose expression "find. a limit?" What is that limit and where is it expressed? ex-pressed? Again in another. place: "One, perhaps, may or may not" tninK inai a. certain book is actually the work of a certain author." After havng stated that whatever Catholics "think" on that subject they "find a limit in the Ecyclical of Leo XIII." What, in this connection, does the word "perhaps" or the words "may not" or "think" or "actually" "ac-tually" mean? It is this loose way of dealing with a serious question, this lack of a trained terminology and studed rhetoric, which makes of the whole article "a city of confusion." One gathers from the article arti-cle that the Encyclical Providentissi-mu3 Providentissi-mu3 Deus teaches that the Bible is "plenary inspired," "contains no error," is "an infallble record" and that biblical bibli-cal criticism which claims that there are errors in the Bible is not to be tol erated. From all that it is not ai a.u clear what we are to understand by the Bible. Does it mean the Bible as we possess it? For that is the one which biblcal criticism deals with. Then the Vulgate fr the Masoretic text is "plenary "plen-ary inspired" and "contains no error." This being the case, the study which the Encyclical speaks of and recommends recom-mends as "simulque in arte quam vo-cat vo-cat criticam" is quite useless, and certainly cer-tainly textual criticism is dangerous. Unless it be that criticism i3 permissible permissi-ble as to the "unimportant verbal variations," va-riations," of which "all scholars (?) know" that "the trifling differences do not affect the authoritative sense" wheh criticism would be a "trifling" in itself. Is it to go abroad that this i3 the position of the Church on the Bible Bi-ble and on the inspirations of the Holy Scriptures? It is needless for me To state that Leo XIII. teaches nothing of the kind, and that the Encyclical deals with the question as to howr far inspration extends to the original manuscripts. man-uscripts. This Dr. De Costa would have found if he had read the Encyclical Ency-clical with care. Had he done so, he would have known that Dr. Mivart'3 trouble was mainly that he did notin-derstand notin-derstand the Encyclical. Dr. De Costa was quite able in tha pulpit and is undoubtedly so today as a popular lecturer. But the apparatus of speech used in those places is not the one employed by trained theologians theologi-ans in , approaching the discussion of a question which demands the coldblooded cold-blooded temper of the scholar, and not that of the rhetorician. How can a theologian the-ologian write down these words: "The written word described (where?) as 'infallible truth' has no power to impart im-part infallibility to the mind." This means that the written word which cannot lead into error cannt prevent the mind from being led into error. I suppose "all scholars know" this to be correct. Or this sentence: "The Church invites no conflict between science sci-ence and the Bible, knowing well that there can be no disagreement between true religion and ture science." Here; "true religion" is carelessly made synonymous syn-onymous with the Bible, and made t say that there can be no disagreement between the Eible and science. Yet the Holy Father distinctly declares only on-ly that "Nulla quidem theologum inter ' ft physicum vera dissensio intercesser-it." intercesser-it." It is this carelessness in seriou ; questions which leads the venerahk- Doctor to add the Holy Father to his other "cloud of witnesses," th two ecclesiastics and the professor, as saying say-ing that the Bible is "the infallible Word of God," and he adds: "It sh-uM be noted that the Holy Father do.-s say that it is infallible truth." As a matter of fact, all that the Pope says is that the writers of the origial manuscripts, "et fideliter I conscribere vellen:, et apte infal'ibili veritate experiroerent." This wouM not justify to predicate infallibility ot the record. My high esteem for Dr. De Cocta and I his faithfulness to conscience makes it N- painful indeed to utter any criticism on his Words. Nor is he the only one I infallible writing. But surely it id high time that we cease playing with words; and the sad case of Dr. Mi van should lead us to read the Encyclical with more deliberation. i-JOHN i-JOHN M. REINER. Elizabeth, N. J. Comment We thing our esteemed correspondent i.s somewhat hypercritical. hypercrit-ical. We held, and still hold, that the term "infallible" cannot with technical correctness be applied to the Bible considered con-sidered simply as a written recoid. We so hold because we believe that the Bible Bi-ble is not the category of things of which infallibility can be affirmed. In this sense there 13 no imputation that the Bible is not inspired or is not absolutely ab-solutely true. The denial of infallibility infallibil-ity to the Bible does not raise the question ques-tion as to its inspiration or truthfulness. truthful-ness. Let us make this clear by illustration. illus-tration. If one should say a triangle 1 is white, we should not object to the adjective as not predicable of that relation re-lation of lines and angles called a triangle. tri-angle. The triangle is not in the category cat-egory of things of which whiteness can be affirmed. This illustration shows that denial of infallibility to the Bible Bi-ble is not based on any hypothesis taht there may be textual or typographical errors in it, but on the principle that what was equally applicable to the original manuscripts before the ink ; used by the inspired and infallible writers was dry. That principle is, that infallibility cannot be affirmed of a written record of thought and events, even of an inspired, and therefore absolutely ab-solutely true, record. But Dr. De Costa explained the sense in which he used the term, and that sense is, in our judgment, correct and Catholic. He said: "The infallible record rec-ord does not lend itself to prfvate judg ment, it nas not the powt r to burn L its meaning into the bran and infallibly fix the meaning of the words in the mind." This makes it clear that he does not affirm infallibility in any sense which can justify the Protestant in appealing: ap-pealing: to it as an infallible teacher while his private judgment is the only interpreter. That is certainly the Catholic Cath-olic position on the relation of theBi-ble theBi-ble to the individual mind. Modern Protestants began to use the word infallble in reference to the Bible for the purpose of setting up an antl to the Catholic claim of an infallible Church. After three centuries of discussion dis-cussion they saw the necessity of an infallible in-fallible authority as to the meaning of revealed propositions. And they at-trbuted at-trbuted to the Bible that infallibility which they had denied to the Church, and held that the Bible had the power to convey to the mind its true meaning. mean-ing. It is in this sense that they asserted as-serted infallibility of the Bible; and it , is in precisely this sense that Dr. De Costa denies infallibility of the Book; that is, that it can infallibly give Its meaning to the private judgment of the individual reader. As to the unfortunate Dr. Mlvart, we believe he understood perfectly the meaning of the Encyclical, and that he denied its teachng in the very sense in which the Sovereign Pontiff affirmed it- r We think some of our correspondent's minor points are not well taken. They have the appearance of criticism for the sake of criticism. For instance, he notes the following words of Dr. De Costa: "The Church invites no conflict between science and the Bible, knowing know-ing well that there can be no disagreement disagree-ment between true religion and true science," and comments thus: "Here true religion is carelessly made synonymous sy-nonymous with the Bible, and made to say that there can be no disagreement between the Bible and science." Dr. De Costa has left no doubt as to his meaning of the word "Bble," that it is the word of God only in the sense and interpretation of the Infallible Church. And in that evident sense our correspondent as a good Catholic must agree with the Doctor that there is no ; ' , conflict between the Bible and true science. After a careful re-reading of his article, we are for:ed to our former conclusion, that Dr. De Costa has correctly cor-rectly stated the Chtholic attitude toward to-ward the Holy Scriptures. |