By reading again what we said above, especially the urgent admonitions of St. Augustine not to look upon the Scriptures as a text-book of profane science, one will be able to appreciate the scientific quality of the book in question.
The fancy of this writer has distorted Christianity and the Church into a monster that has nothing more important to do than to tread down and crush science and civilization. A few examples will suffice to show how he proves the contradictions between faith and science. The Christian religion teaches that man is subject to death as a penalty for original sin: prior to that sin death had no power over Adam and Eve. It is claimed that this is a contradiction of science. But how? Long before Adam, thousands of animals and plants had died, the author asserts. “The doctrine declared to be orthodox by ecclesiastical authority is overthrown by the unquestionable discoveries of modern science. Long before a human being had appeared on earth millions of individuals, nay, more, thousands of species and even genera had died” (p. 57). The author has completely missed the point. The matter in question is not the death of animals and plants, but the death of man. The infallibility of the Pope is refuted by the fact that he failed to foresee the result of the war between France and Germany. “Notwithstanding his infallibility, which implies omniscience, His Holiness did not foresee the issue of the Franco-Prussian war” (p. 352, also p. 362).
How high his historical statements are to be rated is shown by the assertion that Cyril of Alexandria had much to do with the introduction of the worship of the Virgin Mary (p. 55); that auricular confession was introduced by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 (p. 208). He asks when the idea originated that the Pentateuch was written by Moses under divine inspiration, and he finds that “not until after the second century [of the Christian era] was there any such extravagant demand on human credulity” (p. 220). It would seem incredible that any one could write such stuff.
The author says in his preface: “I had also devoted much attention to the experimental investigation of natural phenomena, and had published many well-known memoirs on such subjects. And perhaps no one can give himself to these pursuits, and spend a large part of his life in the public teaching of science, without partaking of that love of impartiality and truth which philosophy incites” (VIII-IX). We do not care to argue with the author about his experience in experimental research, nor about his love for the truth, but he himself has shown superabundantly that they have not sufficed to keep him clear from scientific shallowness and the grossest blunders. Nevertheless, it seems that his scientific ability obtained for him in the consideration of many the weight of an authority. Haeckel, in his “Weltraetsel,” refers repeatedly to the book, and recommends “its truthful statements and excellent discussion” to his readers (Weltraetsel, 17. Kap., Wissenschaft u. Christentum).
Such is the fashion in which contradictions between faith and science, and the Church's hostility towards scientific research, are proved.
The result is that we must distinguish clearly between dogmas of faith and private opinions or interpretations. Of course it may frequently happen, and has happened, that the Christian savant is too timorous, and looks askance at the discoveries of science, and even thinks he ought to resist them, because he is afraid that religious truth might be opposed by them. Nor can it be said that this timidity is altogether without excuse, for there was hardly one scientific discovery of the nineteenth century that was not immediately grasped and exploited by eager enemies of the Christian religion. Too often has science been made the menial of infidelity, and the assertion has been untiringly repeated that science and faith cannot agree. No wonder, then, that timid souls become suspicious, that they are prone to resist the whole theory of evolution in a lump, instead of trying to distinguish between what is of scientific value in it, and what is misused for the purpose of denying creation.
Nevertheless, such narrow-mindedness is strongly to be censured. It has often caused the reproach, that Catholics lack the freedom to admit scientific discoveries. They forget the wise admonition of the prince of mediæval theologians, that it were advisable, in regard to scientific views which have nothing to do with religion, neither to set them down as truths of faith, nor either to reject them as contrary to faith lest occasion be given to think contemptuously of the faith. As long as men are and men think, narrow-mindedness will never be lacking. Hence if the believing scientist wants to know whether he is running counter to faith in any particular, he has to ascertain from theological text-books what the Church declares to belong to faith, what explanation of Holy Scripture is unconditionally binding, and not what is the individual opinion of theologians, much less what some pious nurse is telling the little ones.
This is the first rule concerning the relation between faith and science: it states what the scientist is not tied down to.
2. Science Retains its Method of Research
But when and how may the scientist be restricted? Here we come to the second point: the directions which faith may give to the profane sciences are in themselves not of a positive but of a negative kind; revelation and Church cannot tell the scientist what he is to assert or defend in the field of the profane sciences, but only what propositions he must avoid. Thus every science is left free to pursue its own method of research. It is not difficult to understand this.
Faith draws from divine revelation; profane sciences, as such, do not draw from divine revelation, but only from experience and reason. Philosophy would cease to be philosophy and become theology did it demonstrate the immortality of the soul by revelation. The anthropologist would cease to be an anthropologist and become a theologian if he would attempt to prove the common origin of mankind by Holy Scripture.
In other words, the profane sciences are distinguished from faith and theology by their formal object, by the end they have in view, by the scientific method with which they handle their subject. Theology, of course, uses revelation extensively; and in this it differs from the other sciences. Hence faith cannot command the anthropologist to defend also in profane science the common origin of the human race from Adam and Eve, because it is held to be a revealed truth. He must say: I believe as a Christian that this is true, established by divine revelation, and no science will ever prove the contrary; but whether I can positively defend this fact as resulting from anthropology, depends on my ability to corroborate it by the methods of this science, that is by the testimony of profane history. And just as little could the historian be required to obtain historical results of which he cannot produce the evidence according to his method.
Therefore faith can only tell the profane scientist that he must not assert anything which is held by faith to be erroneous; that it is false to say there is nothing but force and matter, that the human soul ends in death, or that the various families of the human race have not a common origin. As soon as the scientist knows by faith that a thing is false, he is bound to refrain from asserting it: bound in the first place by the duty to believe, but also by the principles of his own science, which is to find not error, but truth, which forbids to assert what has been proved to be erroneous. Perhaps his own means will not enable him to prove the truth independently of revelation; then from the standpoint of his science he must say, Non liquet.
The position of the Catholic Church agrees with these principles. She knows, and emphasizes that science has its own method, and hence a natural right and freedom to proceed in its own field according to its method. The Church rejects but one kind of freedom, viz., the freedom to propound a doctrine proved by faith to be erroneous. “The Church by no means forbids these disciplines to use in their own field their own principles and method,” declares the Vatican Council. “But, while acknowledging this lawful freedom, the Church takes care to prevent them from taking up errors in opposition to divine teaching, or from creating confusion by transgressing their limits and invading the realm of faith”