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Show BIO PROBLEMS. Relations Between Philosophy, Theology and Religion Philosophy the Knowledge Knowl-edge of Phenomena Acquired by the Aid of Reason Religion the Knowledge Knowl-edge of God and the Soul, Acquired by God's Aid and Reason Philosophy Seeks Truth Theology Finds It Religion Possesses It. (Special Correspondence Intermountain Catholic.) It was a common axiom among the Christian ' Humanists (Christian philosophers) of the later I Renaissance that Philosophy sought Truth, while Theology found it, but Religion alone possessed it. But even great men, when they t.ry to be brief, sometimes become obscure, and here is an instance. The formula to a casual reader looks beautiful, but a closer analysis will reveal the need of a little lit-tle explanation. There are, indeed, many other phrases which have been current and are now cur-: cur-: rent, that also need some explanation. , Thus a; ' dictum of English law is that "the king can do no wrong." To a lawyer there is no difficulty in understanding this, but the unlegal mind will at once think that what is intended is that the sov ereign of Britain is incapable of violating any part of the Decalogue. And again when a Cath olic Theologian reads the Canon of the Vatican Council wherein the Pope is declared to be infallible, in-fallible, he straightway knows what is meant, but the laity, to some of whom technical expressions have only a vague indefinite significance, need a clear exposition in order to comprehend the doctrine. doc-trine. There are, in addition, another class of formulas for-mulas which might be aptly named catch-phrases, formed to deceive the ignorant. When these cease to be effective, they are cast aside and new ones pubstituted. We read in books of controversy that freedom of intellect is the goal toward which all men should strive without ceasing. How, it may be asked ,can the intellect be free? The fact is that the intellect is the very slave, as Fr. Lambert well points out, of the impressions it receives re-ceives from outward phenomena. Let the image of a horse be imnlanted on the retina of the eye, going go-ing thence to the brain, and then by some mysterious myster-ious process to the soul, no amount of intellectual effort can make that horse a tree. Philosophy is, in truth, the quest of knowledge, but to say that it '13 always seeking Truth and never finding it is to deny the assured results of reason and religion alike, and if that opinion were to prevail, it would land the whole human race in hopeless skepticism. No one would care to endure the hard discipline which must be undergone in the search for Truth, if he had not some hopes of coming to certainty at least on one point. Religion Reli-gion is, moreover, totally opposed to the view that human reason cannot of its own powers ever arrive ar-rive at the knowledge of Trulh. "Those who know not God," says St. Paul, "are inexcusable, because the visible things of God from the Creation Cre-ation of the world show forth His eternal power and divinity." And the last General Council of . the Vatican repeats the same doctrine almost in the same words. Reason and Revelation cannot be opposed to one another seeing that the same God is the author of both. But here the question arises, why is there so much agreement in Theological conclusions and so little in philosophical? The answer is easy. Philosophy is the study of the operations of the human mind. But since the human hu-man mind can work only through the impressions or ideas which it receives from the outer world, it is necessary also to analyze, classify, systematize systema-tize and co-ordinate the phenomena which come to the mind through the senses so that there may be data to go upon in drawing conclusions. Then there is the further question: Why is it that , scarcely any two thinkers in philosophy agree in I their deductions from well-known facts? The an-I an-I swer to this is likewise easy. We know very little ' about ourselves. Thousands who have attempted I to solve the problems of their own existence have j given up in despair. As philosophy deals with sensible phenomena, ! so theology deals with the unseen world. Theol-l Theol-l ogy is nothing else than an analysis and systemat- ie study of the data which religion supplies. It : has two problems before it: First, to show that i ihere is no real contradiction between the results unived at by Philosophy and those arrived at in J its own peculiar sphere. A thing cannot be true in one and false in the other. The second problem prob-lem which Theology has to deal with arises from I the fact that all the great religions of the world ! base their claims to the fealty of men upon a rev- hit ion of God. As it is well known that some of I those religions originated partly in fraud and 1 panly in ftelf-deception, it is the business of Thc- -gy to sift the true from the false, the fraudu-I fraudu-I h'nt from the self-deceptive. As Cicero well said, 1 'it is possible that all religions now in the world 5 may be false and the true religion has not yet I been announced to men; but it is certain that only I one of them can be true." The materials which a I Theologian has to use are the ordinary rules by I which the truth or falsehood of human evidence ? may be tested. As God has allowed impostors to J deceive mankind by their juggleries, so he has i given human reason enough of strength to deter-I deter-I mine where the fraud lies. ; A distinction has been made between Theology I and Religion, and rightly so, for Religion is the f I j putting into practice the rules of right conduct and the use of those ceremonies, such as prayer and sacrifice, whereby we acknowledge our total dependence on our creator. These rules and ceremonies cer-emonies "sanetissimae1" religkmes" Cicero calls them have become known to us either from God revealing them, or we have learned them ourselves from the natural light of our human reason. On the other hand, one may be a Theologian of a religion re-ligion in which he utterly disbelieves. It is a well known fact that manv Europeans understand Mohammedanism' Mo-hammedanism' far better than the most learned of its votaries, and it is to be feared that some non-Christians understand the Scriptures better than many of those who read a chapter each day. Religion alone possesses Truth. Those who are really religious make the will of God the guide of their lives. They honor God with the heart and'not with the lips. Their prayer is as pleasing to God as prayer of those who knenv all the learning learn-ing in the world. Here is a quotation from Madame de Stael which explains what religion is in the fewest possible pos-sible words: Superstition is related to this life, religion to the next: Superstition is allied to fatality;1 religion reli-gion to virtue: it is by the vivacity of earthly desires de-sires that we become superstitious, it is by the sacrifice of these desires that we become religious. |
