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Show CAN SCIENCE AFFECT DOGMA? The dogmas of the Catholic faith are as unchangeable un-changeable as the Divine Truth; the Catholio Church is the guardian of them and is fully responsible re-sponsible for them. But it is different with other tenets, large in number, which are believed and held as revealed, to some extent, at least, by God. These are not. or at least they are not as yet, dogmas of faith. They may be changed. After more thorough investigation investiga-tion it may be found out that they were never revealed re-vealed by God, or at least that the special meaning heretofore attached to them was not revealed truth. If the object of such a tenet is within the range of some natural science, the testimony of that science will be received with due deference. Since the Catholic Church proclains that truth is one, that there cannot be conflict between natural and supernatural super-natural truth, between science and faith, it is entirely en-tirely consistent to admit that any fact or opinion dispro-ed by science has not been revealed by God; that the previous probability of its being revealed is brought to naught' by the verdict of science. We speak of real science, the data of which are positive, unquestionable, definite, and not of hypotheses, hy-potheses, theories, ephemeral systems of philosophy, to which their authors could not warrant even a few years' continued and worthy life. Between the data of science and the real dogmas of faith, there was never any conflict, nor can there be. The "reason, "rea-son, of this is that there is hardly any common ground upon which both can come into serious conflict; con-flict; or at least the regions where the supernatural object of faith and the natural object of science meet, are too abstract, too far removed from all experimental ex-perimental verification, to allow human science any claim of certainty in its speculations. Alexander Mercier, 0. P., in the October Catholic World. J Ti" "" "' iwnw. .mm in juwiiwmi u m 1 1 ' 11 """" "' - ' -" |