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Page 1 of 51913 · PDF PAGE 390
THE EQUINOX FAITH. Doubtless, but they are certainties for me, since without those hypotheses I should be doubtful even about your certainties. SCIENCE. But if you begin where I stop, you begin always too rashly and too soon. My progress bears witness that I am ever advancing. FAITH. What does your progress matter, if I am always walking in front of you ? scIENCE. You, walking! Dreamer of eternity, you have disdained earth too much; your feet are benumbed. FAITH. I make my children carry me. sciENCcE. They are the blind carrying the blind ; bew…
1913 · PDF PAGE 397
…s seems to force her to recognize and to admit. Science submits the reasons of persons and things to the universal mathematical reason ; faith seeks, or rather supposes, an intelligent and absolute reason for (and above) mathematics themselves. Science demonstrates justice by justness; faith gives an absolute justness to justice, in subordinating it to Providence. One sees here all that faith borrows from science, and all that science, in its turn, owes to faith. Without faith, science is circumscribed by an absolute doubt, and finds itself ete…
1913 · PDF PAGE 313
THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES which balances faith, and it constitutes the whole merit of faith. Nature herself induces us to believe; but the formule of faith are social expressions of the tendencies of faith at a given epoch. It is that which proves the Church to be infallible, evidentially and in fact. God is necessarily the most unknown of all beings because He is only defined by negative experience ; He is all that we are not, He is the infinite opposed to the finite by hypothesis. Faith, and consequently hope and love, are so free that man, fa…
1913 · PDF PAGE 398
THE EQUINOX scepticism and despair, for faith nothing but rashness and fanaticism. If faith insults science, she blasphemes; if science mis- understands faith, she abdicates. Now let us hear them speak in harmony! “ Being is everywhere,” says science, “it is multiple and variable in its forms, unique in its essence, and immutable in its laws. The relative demonstrates the existence of the absolute. Intelligence exists in being. Intelligence animates and modifies matter.” “Intelligence is everywhere,” says faith ; “ Life is nowhere fatal because…
1913 · PDF PAGE 324
THE EQUINOX Faith is not the stupid credulity of an awestruck ignorance. Faith is the consciousness and the confidence of love. Faith is the cry of reason, which persists in denying the absurd, even in the presence of the unknown. Faith is a sentiment necessary to the soul, just as breathing is to life; it is the dignity of courage, and the reality of enthusiasm. Faith does not consist of the affirmation of this symbol or that, but of a genuine and constant aspiration towards the truths which are veiled by all symbolisms. Ifa man rejects an unw…
1913 · PDF PAGE 304
THE EQUINOX destroy itself. Science will then never be able to perform the work of faith, any more than faith can decide in a matter of science. An affirmation of faith with which science is rash enough to meddle can then be nothing but an absurdity for it, just as a scientific statement, if given us as an article of faith, would be an absurdity on the religious plane. To know and to believe are two terms which can never be confounded. It would be equally impossible to oppose the one to the other. It is impossible, in fact, to believe the contr…
1913 · PDF PAGE 364
…mnly manifested itself in the Roman Church, when it declared in the four articles of its decree of the 12th December, 1845 : 1°.—That if faith is superior to reason, reason ought to endorse the inspirations of faith ; 2°.—That faith and science have each their separate domain, and that the one should not usurp the functions of the other; 3°.—That it is proper for faith and grace, not to weaken, but on the contrary to strengthen and develop reason ; 4°.—That the concourse of reason, which examines, not the decisions of faith, but the natural and…
1913 · PDF PAGE 392
…derstand you, or rather, I see that I shall never understand you. This being so, let us remain separate; I shall never have need of you. FAITH. I am less proud, and I recognize that you may be useful to me perhaps. Perhaps, too, you will be very sad and very desperate without me, and I will not leave you unless Reason consents. REASON. Be well ’ware of doing so! I am necessary to both of you. And I, what should I do without you? In order to be just, I need to know and to believe. But I must never confound what I know with what I believe. To kno…
1913 · PDF PAGE 393
…OF THE MYSTERIES Science ; and Science, as the manifestation of the light of God within the human intelligence, pertains to the realm of Faith. Science and Faith must then admit each other, respect each other mutually, support each other, and bear each other aid in case of need, but without ever encroaching the one upon the other. The means of uniting them is—never to confound them. Never can there be contradiction between them, for although they use the same words, they do not speak the same language. FAITH. Oh, well, Sister Science; what do y…
1913 · PDF PAGE 399
… at philosophy is already to philosophize,” said Pascal, referring to that sceptical and incredulous philosophy which does not recognize faith. And if there existed a faith which trampled science underfoot, we should not say that to laugh at such a faith would be a true act of religion, for religion, which is all charity, does not tolerate mockery; but one would be right in blaming this love for ignorance, and in saying to this rash faith, ‘Since you slight your sister, you are not the daughter of God!” Truth, reality, reason, justice, Providen…
1913 · PDF PAGE 314
…been, and will always be, the father of all others. What is the Man-God? He who realizes, in the most human life, the most divine ideal. Faith is a divination of intelligence and of love, when these are directed by the pointings of nature and of reason. It is then of the essence of the things of faith to be inac- cessible to science, doubtful for philosophy, and undefined for certainty. Faith is an hypothetical realization and a conventional determination of the last aims of hope. It is the attach- ment to the visible sign of the things which o…
1913 · PDF PAGE 396
…n exact notion of being. Being, truth, reason and justice are the common objects of the researches of science, and of the aspirations of faith. The conceptions, whether real or hypothetical, of a supreme power, transform justice into Providence; and the notion of divinity, from this point of view, becomes accessible to science herself. Science studies Being in its partial manifestation; faith supposes it, or rather admits it a Jrtord as a whole. Science seeks the truth in everything; faith refers every- thing to an universal and absolute truth.…
1913 · PDF PAGE 389
RESUME OF THE FIRST PART IN THE FORM OF A DIALOGUE FAITH, SCIENCE, REASON SCIENCE. You will never make me believe in the existence of God. FAITH. You have not the privilege of believing, but you will never prove to me that God does not exist. sciENCE. In order to prove it to you, I must first know what God is. FAITH. You will never know it. If you knew it, you could teach it to me; and when I knew it, I should no longer believe it. scrENCE. Do you then believe without knowing what you believe ? FAITH. Oh, do not let us play with words! It is yo…
1913 · PDF PAGE 375
ARTICLE III SOLUTION OF THE THIRD PROBLEM THE RATIONALE OF THE MYSTERIES Fartu being the aspiration to the unknown, the object of faith is absolutely and necessarily this one thing—Mystery. In order to formulate its aspirations, faith is forced to borrow aspirations and images from the known. But she specializes the employment of these forms, by placing them together in a manner which, in the known order of things, is impossible. Such is the profound reason of the apparent absurdity of symbolism. Let us give an example: If faith said that God w…
1913 · PDF PAGE 373
…er of Charity, and creator of Charity in her own turn, true religion is essentially that which realizes; she believes in the miracles of faith, because she herself accom- plishes them every day when she practises charity. Now, a religion which practises charity may flatter herself that she realizes all the dreams of divine love. Moreover, the faith of the hierarchical church transforms mysticism into realism by the efficacy of her sacraments. No more signs, no more figures whose strength is not in grace, and which do not really give what they p…
1913 · PDF PAGE 302
… it affirms this intervention with all the warmth of its heart, with all the docility of its intelligence. If separated from this act of faith, the need of religion finds no satisfaction, and turns to scepticism and to despair. But in order that the act of faith should not be an act of folly, reason wishes it to be directed and ruled. By what? By science? We have seen that science can do nothing here. By the civil authority? It is absurd. Are our prayers to be superintended by policemen? There remains, then, moral authority, which alone is able…
1913 · PDF PAGE 391
… say, that the Infinite has made itself finite, that the Eternal died, that God punished his innocent Son for the sin of guilty men... . FAITH. Say no more about it. As enunciated by you, these propositions are in fact absurdities. Do you know what is the number of God, you who do not know God? Can you reason about the operations of the unknown? Can you under- stand the mysteries of charity? I must always be absurd for you; for, if you understood them, my affirmations would be absorbed by your theorems; I should be you, and you would be me; or,…
1913 · PDF PAGE 400
…ething super- eminent and transcendental. Q. POPO> 0° What is that? The supreme reason of being. Do you know it, and can you define it ? Faith alone affirms it, and names it God. Is there anything above truth? Above known truth, there is unknown truth. . How can one construct reasonable hypotheses with regard to this truth? Go 1020BPOPOPOPO> . By analogy and proportion. How can one define it ? By the symbols of faith. Can one say of reality the same thing as of truth ? Exactly the same thing. Is there anything above reason ? Above finite reason…
1913 · PDF PAGE 532
…y the teachings of experience; it is improbable or absurd when it is rejected by this teaching. Experience is science, and hypothesis is faith. True science necessarily admits faith; true faith neces- sarily reckons with science. Pascal blasphemed against science, when he said that by reason man could not arrive at the knowledge of any truth. 234
1913 · PDF PAGE 395
…res. But I must find by seeking; and in order to seek, I must doubt. REASON. Work, then, and seek, O Science, but respect the oracles of Faith! When your doubt leaves a gap in universal enlightenment, allow Faith to fill it! Walk distinguished the one from the other, but leaning the one upon the other, and you will never go astray.