PART I
THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS
CHAPTER I
THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF THE MODERNISTS
I. AGNOSTICISM
II. VITAL IMMANENCE
III. ORIGIN OF RELIGION IN GENERAL
IV. NOTION OF REVELATION
Q. What a philosophy is this of the Modernists! but does it end there?
A. ‘We have not yet reached the end of their philosophizing, or, to speak more accurately, of their folly.’
Q. What more, then, can they find in their alleged sense of the divine?
A. ‘Modernists find in this sense, not only faith, but in and with faith, as they understand it, they affirm that there is also to be found revelation.’
Q. Revelation? But how?
A. ‘Indeed, what more is needed to constitute a revelation? Is not that religious sense which is perceptible in the conscience revelation, or at least the beginning of revelation? Nay, is it not God Himself manifesting Himself—indistinctly, it is true in this same religious sense, to the soul? And they add:
Since God is both the object and the cause of faith, this revelation is at the same time of God and from God, that is to say, God is both the Revealer and the Revealed.’
Q. What is the absurd doctrine that springs from this philosophy, or, rather, these divagations of the Modernists?
A. ‘From this springs that most absurd tenet of the Modernists, that every religion, according to the different aspect under which it is viewed, must be considered as both natural and supernatural.’
Q. What further follows from this?
A. ‘It is thus that they make consciousness and revelation synonymous.’
Q. From this, finally, what supreme and universal law do they seek to impose?
A. ‘From this they derive the law laid down as the universal standard, according to which religious consciousness is to be put on an equal footing with revelation, and that to it all must submit.’
Q. All must submit? Even the supreme authority of the Church?
A. ‘Even the supreme authority of the Church, whether in the capacity of teacher, or in that of legislator in the province of sacred liturgy or discipline.’
V. TRANSFIGURATION AND DISFIGURATION OF PHENOMENA THROUGH FAITH