CATECHISM ON MODERNISM – PART I – THE ERRORS OF THE MODERNISTS – VII. ACTION OF THE INTELLECT IN FAITH

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
V. TRANSFIGURATION AND DISFIGURATION OF PHENOMENA THROUGH FAITH
VI. ORIGIN OF PARTICULAR RELIGIONS
VII. ACTION OF THE INTELLECT IN FAITH

Q. You have said that the Modernists find faith in sense has the human intellect, then, no part in faith?

A. ‘So far there has been no mention of the intellect. It also, according to the teaching of the Modernists, has its part in the act of faith. And it is of importance to see how.’

Q. But did not sense, according to the Modernists, seem to be sufficient to give us God, Object and Author of faith?

A. ‘In that sense of which we have frequently spoken, since sense is not knowledge, they say God indeed presents Himself to man, but in a manner so
confused and indistinct that He can hardly be perceived by the believer.’

Q. What, then, is wanting to this sense?

A. ‘It is necessary that a certain light should be cast upon this sense, so that God may clearly stand out in relief and be set apart from it.’

Q. Is this the task of the intellect in the Modernist’s act of faith?

A. ‘This is the task of the intellect, whose office it is to reflect and to analyse; and by means of it man first transforms into mental pictures the vital phenomena which arise within him, and then expresses them in words. Hence the common saying of Modernists, that the religious man must think his faith.’

Q. Can you give us the comparison which the Modernists employ to determine the role they attribute to the intellect in regard to this sense in the act of faith?

A. ‘The mind, encountering this sense, throws itself upon it, and works in it after the manner of a painter who restores to greater clearness the lines of a picture
that have been dimmed with age. The simile is that of one of the leaders of Modernism.’

Q. How does the intellect operate in this work of the formation of faith?

A. ‘The operation of the mind in this work is a double one.’

Q. What is the first operation?

A. First, by a natural and spontaneous act it expresses its concept in a simple, popular statement.

Q. What is the second?

A. ‘Then, on reflection and deeper consideration, or, as they say, by elaborating its thought, it expresses the idea in secondary propositions, which are derived
from the first, but are more precise and distinct.’

Q. How, then, do these formulas, the result of the action of the intellect upon its own thought, become dogma?

A. ‘These secondary propositions, if they finally receive the approval of the supreme magisterium of the Church, constitute dogma.’

VIII. DOGMA

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