Mystery and Dogma

Chapter VIII.—Mystery and Dogma

Art. I.—Catholic and heterodox views.

A Mystery strictly interpreted is a truth which no created intellect, human or angelic, can understand, inasmuch as the truth is above (not against) reason.

A mystery has therefore three characteristics:

(1) It is beyond the comprehension of any created intellect.

(2) It requires Revelation for its knowledge.

(3) It remains obscure even after the revelation of its truth.

A dogma is a statement contained in Scripture or tradition and promulgated by the church as divinely revealed, either by a special decree of the church, or by her universal and ordinary magisterium.

Heterodox Ideas of Mystery and Dogma

(A) Rationalists reject supernatural mysteries or reduce them to natural truths cognoscible by reason. Kant explained the doctrine of the Trinity as indicating three attributes of God which can be known by reason. Hegel explained the same mystery as three aspects of evolution—thesis, antithesis, synthesis. To the rationalist, reason alone is the measure of truth, and dogma, at the most, is only a symbolical expression of a natural truth or mystery. Dogmas consequently vary in sense in accordance with the progress of science.

(B) Modernists too claim the application of the varying sense. The formula of the hypostatic union was true at the time of the council of Nicæa, because conformable to the philosophic knowledge of the period, but is no longer true because of a new conception of personality.

(C) Semi-Rationalists, such as the Catholic writers Hermes, Günther, Frohschammer, have taught that mysteries were supernaturally revealed, but after revelation may be proved by reason. The Vatican Council has condemned the demonstrability of mysteries, and also the proposition of Rosmini that the mystery of the Trinity can be indirectly proved after revelation.

Art. II.—Theological explanation of mystery and dogma.

I.—The word “mystery” taken in a wide sense may be described as a secret truth beyond our knowledge, but worthy of our knowledge.

A natural mystery is one which may be known, as far as its existence is concerned, without supernatural revelation.

A supernatural mystery cannot be known even as far as its existence is concerned without supernatural revelation.

Note the following divisions:

• Mystery
  • Natural
    • hidden as to existence
      • physical order—e.g., matter at the centre of the earth.
      • intellectual order—e.g., secrets of hearts.
    • hidden as to essence
      • relative to human intellect: gravitation, energy, electricity, nutrition, free-will, etc.
      • absolutely for any created intellect: compatibility of the attributes of God naturally known.
  • Supernatural
    • In a wide sense truths which become intelligible after revelation: Divine decrees—e.g., government of the Church under one supreme pastor.
    • In a strict sense truths which remain obscure after revelation: Trinity, Incarnation, etc.

The late Professor Huxley wrote: “The mysteries of the church are child’s play compared with the mysteries of nature. The doctrine of the Trinity is not more puzzling than the necessary antinomies of physical speculation.”

It is interesting to note the ubiquity of natural mysteries beyond human comprehension such as in the

(1) Physical order: nature of matter, of energy, of electricity, or gravitation, etc.

(2) Biological order: the processes of assimilation, reproduction, etc.

(3) Psychological order: nature of sensation, of free-will, etc.

(4) Metaphysical order: nature of a transient act, etc.

If we are thus surrounded by mysteries in the created natural order, can we wonder that in the uncreated natural order there are absolute mysteries such as compatibility of Divine simplicity with plurality of perfections, compatibility of Unchangeableness of God with Divine freedom, compatibility of Infinite power and goodness with permission of evil, compatibility of Infinite mercy and justice. Much less cause for wonder that the supernatural order should present mysteries which transcend created intelligence.

It has been said that a wayside flower is a natural sacrament—an outward sign of inward mysterious power—an idea beautifully expressed in the following stanza.

“Were I, O God, in churchless lands remaining, Far from all voice of teachers or divines, My soul would find in flowers of Thy ordaining, Priests, sermons, shrines!”

II.—Intelligibility of mysteries and their inter-connexion.

(A) Supernatural mysteries are incomprehensible and undemonstrable, but analogical knowledge of them is possible.

(1) Mysteries are not unintelligible. Those things are incomprehensible which are not fully comprehended, e.g., the attribute of Divine omnipotence. Those things are undemonstrable which cannot be deduced either from evident principles (demonstration a priori) or from facts of experience (demonstration a posteriori). That which is probable cannot be proved but is nevertheless intelligible. On the other hand that which is unintelligible is opposed to reason either because it is evidently absurd, or because it has no meaning.

Supernatural mysteries are incomprehensible and undemonstrable, but they are not unintelligible. A statement regarding them has an intelligible subject and predicate, though the connexion between subject and predicate remains inevident.

(2) Mysteries are intelligible analogically. Divine revelation makes use of human ideas naturally acquired—ideas which express directly something created and analogically something uncreated. The idea of paternity is applied to God the Father, the idea of natural filiation is applied to the Divine filiation of the Second Person of the Trinity. This analogy is the analogy of proportion and is not metaphorical (as when God is called “Sun of the Universe”) but real. The doctrine of the Trinity is expressed by analogical ideas of nature, person, generation, word, spiration, love, etc.

(3) Intelligibility of mysteries is not formally grasped apart from illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Supernatural truths, because supernatural, cannot become intelligible without the aid of Divine grace. Without this gift they can be known only materially. A man, for example, without a musical ear hears a symphony from the standpoint of sound, not from the standpoint of harmony. A man may interpret as mechanical something which is vital. A man may judge a truth as empirical, whereas it is really intuitive. Hence the contrast between formal and material apprehension of the mind.

(B) The inter-connexion of mysteries.

All mysteries are subordinated to the supreme mystery of the intimate life of God, i.e., the Trinity. Hence the following inter-connexion:

Trinity—participation in the life of God, i.e., Divine grace—loss of grace through original sin—Incarnation of the Second Person—Redemption and establishment of the Church—Mission of the Third Person—recovery of Divine grace—Faith, Hope, and Charity leading to the vision of the intimate life of God, i.e., the Trinity.

III.—Immutability of dogma and development of doctrine.

(A) After the time of Christ and the Apostles, Revelation, being complete, could not be increased or diminished. So-called private revelations do not belong to the infallible doctrine of the Church. The Church throughout the ages has proposed for the belief of the faithful only truths revealed in Scripture or Tradition. As occasion required, more explicit formulation was made of particular doctrines. Thus the Church teaches “nove,” not “nova.” The original formula describing the Incarnation was “the Word was made flesh.” A more explicit formula came later: “the Word consubstantial with the Father was made man.” Again, the formula describing the sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin was originally “gratia plena.” The fulness of grace was later declared to include the grace of her Immaculate Conception.

Development of doctrine has taken place in a threefold way:

(1) By scientific statement. The doctrine of the Trinity was explicitly held from the beginning, but in a popular way. The science of theology stressed later the consubstantiality of the Three Persons.

(2) By explicit statement. The “fulness of grace,” for example, implicitly includes the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which in 1854 was explicitly declared.

(3) By definite and clear statement of truths which had been taught only incidentally or in practice. Under this head comes the decision regarding the validity of baptism conferred by heretics.

(B) Before Christ the doctrine of Faith, substantially the same, was more explicitly manifested by successive revelations. St. Thomas tells us that certain primary truths were revealed—“God exists,” “God is a rewarder to them that seek Him,” etc.—which implicitly contained other truths to be revealed later, such as the Incarnation, Redemption, Trinity, etc. The Faith¹ was always specifically the same, because truths explicitly believed later were believed implicitly from the beginning.

Notes

Footnotes

1. Faith under the Old Testament was substantially the same as Faith under the New, because under both Testaments the primary formal object of Faith (the intimate life of God) and the formal motive of Faith (the authority of God revealing) were identical (Cf. IIa, IIae, q 1, a 7). St. Thomas writes: “Quaecumque posteriores crediderunt continebantur in fide praecedentium Patrum, licet implicite.” When it is stated that the doctrines, “God exists,” “God is a rewarder to them that seek him,” contain implicitly the doctrines of the Incarnation, Redemption, etc., the use of the word “implicit” should not be accepted in precisely the same sense as its use in regard to the development of doctrine subsequent to Apostolic times. The student will see the distinction in the following examples:— (1) The notion of being contains actually implicitly the less general notions of the modalities of being, and contains nothing outside being, because outside being there is nothing. Being is not a genus, for a genus contains only virtually (not actually implicitly) the specific differences extrinsic to the genus, as rationality is extrinsic to animality. Similarly the intimate life of God contains actually implicitly the supernatural mysteries subsequently revealed—e.g., Incarnation, Redemption, etc., which are not extrinsic to the intimate life of God. (2) A doctrine may be known at first confusedly, and later distinctly. In the second case the development of the doctrine is accomplished not by the addition of new ideas, but by the clearer apprehension of the original idea. It is in this sense that the “fulness of grace” of the Blessed Virgin implicitly contains the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. After the time of the Apostles the deposit of Faith was closed, and no doctrine (beyond what is implicitly contained in the deposit of Faith) has been or can be proposed by the Church. ↩