A Commentary on the First Vatican Council’s Dei Filius

Historical Overview

On 6 December 1864, at a meeting of the Congregation of Rites, Pope Pius IX privately informed the cardinals present that he intended to hold an ecumenical council. ¹² In March of 1865, he appointed a Central Preparatory Commission. In April of that year, a letter was sent to a select group of bishops asking them to specify issues that should be addressed at the council. The issues related to faith and reason that appear in their responses are as follows: pantheism, naturalism, rationalism, socialism, communism, spiritism, religious indifference, and various teachings in regard to the inspiration, authority, and interpretation of Sacred Scripture. ¹³ Based on the responses, five subordinate commissions were established: (1) Faith and Dogma, (2) Ecclesiastical Discipline and Canon Law, (3) Religious Order and Regulars, (4) Oriental Churches and Foreign Missions, and (5) Politico-Ecclesiastical Affairs and Relations of the Church and State. ¹⁴ Each commission would compose a schema for its respective field. The Faith and Dogma Commission is of exclusive interest in this article, for it is the commission that composed Dei Filius. Due to the war between Austria and Prussia, the commissions did not begin to function until the summer of 1867. ¹⁵ In the fall of that year, the Faith and Dogma Commission adopted Pope Pius IX’s encyclical Quanta Cura and its accompanying Syllabus Errorum as its primary guides.

On 29 June 1868, Pope Pius IX selected 8 December 1869 as the date of the opening of the council. In the meantime, votum discussions would take place. ¹⁶ In the summer of 1868, discussion took place of a key votum drawn up by Johann Baptist Franzelin. ¹⁷ The fruit of the discussion of this votum was a document, composed chiefly by Franzelin, entitled Definitio doctrinae catholicae contra multiplices errores ex impio rationalismo derivatos vel contra multiplices absoluti ac temperati rationalismi errores. ¹⁸ This document will be referred to hereafter as the first schema. A second schema arose when the first was revised and given a new title: Schema constitutionis dogmaticae de doctrina catholica contra multiplices errores ex rationalismo derivatos. ¹⁹ This schema, which contains eighteen chapters, was also composed chiefly by Franzelin.

In late November of 1869, council participants began to gather in Rome. ²⁰ There would be three kinds of sessions at the council: private sessions for discussing schemata, general congregations (primarily) for deciding whether or not a schema is adequate, and public sessions for the promulgation of an accepted schema. ²¹ At the first general congregation, held on 10 December 1869, a total of 679 participants were in attendance: 43 cardinals, 605 bishops, and 31 abbots and generals of religious orders. ²²

On 28 December 1869, discussion commenced over the second schema. ²³ In early January, it was decided that the schema should be ‘retained in substance’ but ‘shortened . . . and made more clear,’ and that ‘its tone should be tranquil, as befits the decree of a General Council.’ ²⁴ The proposed emendations were sent to the Deputation on Faith, a 24-member group elected by the council, whose president was appointed by Pope Pius IX. Three members of the Deputation on Faith were chosen to carry out the emendations: Victor Auguste Dechamps, Louis François Désiré Pie, and Konrad Martin. ²⁵ Martin, the head of the group, asked for the assistance of two theologians: Joseph Wilhelm Karl Kleutgen and Charles Louis Gay. ²⁶

On 1 March 1870, Martin delivered a schema that condensed Franzelin’s into nine chapters. ²⁷ This third schema, which was ‘the work of . . . Kleutgen,’ ²⁸ subsequently underwent corrections—but only to its first four chapters. Hence the fourth and final schema read aloud at the general congregation on 18 March 1870 contained only those four chapters. ²⁹ On 24 April 1870, after some final revisions to the fourth schema, the council promulgated the Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (Dei Filius). ³⁰ All 667 members present had voted placet. ³¹

On 18 July 1870, the council promulgated a second document, the First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ (Pastor Aeternus). ³² Discussion of remaining schemata followed but was impeded by the withdrawal of French troops from Rome in August and the occupation of Vatican City by Italian troops in September. ³³ In an apostolic letter dated 20 October 1870, Pope Pius IX suspended the council.

With the development of the constitution in view, I can now turn to isolating and commenting on passages that have a strong bearing on the relationship between faith and reason. My approach will be to comment on one chapter and its canons at a time. ³⁴

Commentary on Chapter One

Chapter one of Dei Filius is entitled ‘God, Creator of All Things.’ One passage in particular obliges commentary. It reads,

The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intellect and will, and in every perfection; who, although He is one, singular, altogether simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, must be proclaimed distinct in reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things which are or can be conceived outside Himself. ³⁵

Ambrose Ryan submits that the function of the delineation of divine attributes above is to clarify the notion of God found in Catholic doctrine. ³⁶ Thus there is no intent to suggest that these particular attributes fall (or do not fall) within the purview of human reason. If one misses this point, one might mistakenly read the constitution’s second chapter as asserting the rational knowability of these attributes for all people—an overreaching view.

Commentary on Chapter Two

Chapter two of Dei Filius is entitled ‘Revelation.’ This chapter contains the most well-known passage in the constitution. The passage appears in all four schemata, albeit with subtle changes in each. It reads, ³⁷

{2A} The same Holy Mother Church holds and teaches that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certitude by the natural light of human reason from created things; ‘for the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made’ (Romans 1:20). ³⁸

In stating that God can be known by the natural light of human reason, rather than stating that God is known in such a way, the authors of the constitution focus on the power of human reason, not its actual achievement. ³⁹ No mention is made of specific arguments for the existence of God, such as the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. ⁴⁰ One can begin to understand why this is the case by considering precedents for the passage. Earlier in the 19th century, the Roman Catholic thinker Louis-Eugène-Marie Bautain had advanced the view that human reasoning could not arrive at knowledge of the existence of God. ⁴¹ Bautain’s bishop responded by asking him to sign a series of declarations, one of which contained this thesis: ‘Reason can prove with certitude the existence of God. Faith, a heavenly gift, is posterior to revelation; hence it cannot be brought forward against an atheist to prove the existence of God.’ ⁴² A thesis similar to this was subsequently administered to Augustin Bonnetty. ⁴³ With Bautain a fideist ⁴⁴ and Bonnetty a radical traditionalist, ⁴⁵ it should come as no great surprise that passage 2A, an echo of the two theses, is also directed at fideism and radical traditionalism. ⁴⁶ Ryan relates that the word ‘can’ and the phrase ‘natural light’ were chosen to counter these two -isms. ⁴⁷ Through them, the constitution rejects the view that faith and/or tradition are absolutely necessary factors in knowing that God exists.

Although passage 2A is primarily directed at fideism and radical traditionalism, some of its words also extend to other -isms. A relatio from Bishop Vincent Ferrer Gasser explains that the phrase ‘with certitude’ is meant to counter French Encyclopedism and early German critical philosophy. ⁴⁸ Both movements undermine the possibility of knowing that God exists with certitude—the former through its scepticism, the latter by rendering the idea of God a practical postulate. Here again, passage 2A is directed not so much at atheism as it is those -isms expressing hesitation about genuine knowledge of the existence of God.

Gasser also reports that ‘the Deputation on Faith resolved to select the milder phrase [to know with certitude] rather than the more demanding one [to demonstrate].’ ⁴⁹ The term demonstration does appear later in the constitution, but its employment in that instance is not technical in nature, thus it does not serve as a corrective to the ‘milder phrase.’

What remains to be commented on from passage 2A is the phrase ‘from created things.’ This phrase functions first and foremost as a means of being in fidelity to Romans 1:20. ⁵⁰ A secondary function, however, is to emphasize that any knowledge of God acquired by human reason is mediated. The question arises here as to whether the phrase refers exclusively to created things outside of the human subject.

A relatio by Gasser explains that the authors do not exclude ‘the image that has been impressed on the immortal soul of the human being.’ ⁵¹ The ‘image’ being referred to is the image of God in human beings described in Genesis 1:26–27. Let us assume that the authors concur with Aquinas’s association of the image of God with the human capacities to understand and to love. ⁵² These capacities are ‘created things,’ but not physical things outside of the subject, thus the authors would seem to be open to a variety of media through which God can be known with certitude by reason. As Ryan observes, several ratione from the council corroborate this openness: the authors consciously chose not to condemn Cartesian innatism, ontologism, and Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological argument. ⁵³

I will now discuss the canon pertaining to passage 2A. It reads, ‘If anyone shall have said that the one true God, our Creator and our Lord, cannot be known with certitude by those things which have been made, by the natural light of human reason: let him be anathema.’ ⁵⁴ This canon, as it appears in the third schema, invokes the word ‘demonstration.’ That the word ‘demonstration’ disappears in the fourth schema and the constitution itself coincides with the decision (discussed above) to employ the milder phrase, ‘known with certitude.’ Moreover, whereas the third schema specifies that even in their fallen state, human beings can know God with certitude, the fourth schema and the constitution itself speak only of a power of human reason in the abstract. According to Fergus Kerr, the authors evade controversy in refraining from specifying whether the light of human reason being referred to is prelapsarian light, postlapsarian light that is graced, or postlapsarian light independent of the effects of grace and sin. ⁵⁵

A second key passage in chapter two reads,

{2B} [N]evertheless, it has pleased His wisdom and goodness to reveal Himself and the eternal decrees of His will to the human race in another and supernatural way, as the Apostle says: ‘God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son’ (Hebrews 1:1). ⁵⁶

René Latourelle submits that by ‘Himself’ the authors mean God’s existence and attributes, as well as the interior life of the Trinity. ⁵⁷ Note that the first two items lie within the purview of reason, hence the phrase ‘another and supernatural way.’ Latourelle goes on to state that by ‘the eternal decrees of His will’ the authors mean those things which pertain to Creation, the Incarnation, Redemption, and the call of the elect. ⁵⁸

A third and final key passage in chapter two reads,

{2C} Indeed, it must be attributed to this divine revelation that those things, which in divine things are not impenetrable to human reason by itself, can, even in this present condition of the human race, be known readily by all with firm certitude and with no admixture of error. Nevertheless, it is not for this reason that revelation is said to be absolutely necessary, but because God in His infinite goodness has ordained man for a supernatural end, to participation, namely, in the divine goods which altogether surpass the understanding of the human mind, since ‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him’ (1 Corinthians 2:9). ⁵⁹

The transitive verb ‘can’ and the noun ‘certitude’ reappear here, this time in reference to truths about God that could be known by human reason, but are in fact known by faith. To use Aquinas’s terminology, there are truths about God that overlap the fields of divinitus revelabilia (divinely revealable) and divinitus revelata (having been divinely revealed). ⁶⁰ Regarding such truths, the first part of passage 2C declares that faith, unlike reason, can offer a certitude that is firm and free from error. ⁶¹ A ‘firm certitude’ is possible because of the authority of God revealing and the internal aids of the Holy Spirit.

Commentary on Chapter Three

Chapter three of Dei Filius is entitled ‘Faith.’ A first key passage in chapter three offers a quasi-definition of faith. It reads,

{3A} Since man is wholly dependent on God as his Creator and Lord, and since created reason is completely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound by faith to give full obedience of intellect and will to God who reveals. But the Catholic Church professes that this faith, which ‘is the beginning of human salvation,’ is a supernatural virtue by which we, with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God, believe that the things revealed by Him are true, not because the intrinsic truth of the revealed things has been perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. For, ‘faith is,’ as the Apostle testifies, ‘the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not’ (Hebrews 11:1). ⁶²

Let me offer three comments on this passage.

First, one believes in things revealed by God not only because of ‘the authority of God Himself who reveals,’ but also because God ‘can neither deceive nor be deceived.’ Faith, then, involves more than just the will; it involves an intellectual recognition of the infallibility of God. However, George Smith clarifies that the motive of faith is still the divine authority itself, not one’s knowledge of that authority as accrediting revealed truths. ⁶³ He helpfully explains that in immediate knowledge one’s assent is caused by grasping the intrinsic truth of a statement, whereas in faith one’s assent is motivated by something extrinsic to a statement: the authority of God. ⁶⁴

Second, the phrase ‘with the aid and inspiration of the grace of God’ introduces a third component of faith—the first two being the obedience of the intellect and the obedience of the will. This characterization of faith echoes Aquinas’s oft-quoted statement, ‘[T]he act of believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the Divine truth at the command of the will moved by the grace of God.’ ⁶⁵

Third, in describing faith as a supernatural virtue ‘by which’ we ‘believe that’ something is true, the constitution echoes a well-known maxim of Augustine of Hippo: ‘[T]hose things that are believed are one thing, but the faith by which they are believed is another thing.’ ⁶⁶

A canon pertaining to passage 3A anathematizes those who say ‘that human reason is so independent that faith cannot be enjoined upon it by God.’ ⁶⁷ This canon opposes the view—described well by Latourelle—of ‘full autonomy and sufficiency for unaided human reason.’ ⁶⁸ The word ‘so’ indicates that what is opposed is the full autonomy of reason; reason must retain some integrity in order for faith to be ‘enjoined’ upon it.

A second key passage in chapter three reads,

{3B} However, in order that the ‘obedience’ of our faith should be ‘consonant with reason’ God has willed that to the internal aids of the Holy Spirit there should be joined external proofs of His revelation, namely: divine facts, especially miracles and prophecies which, because they clearly show forth the omnipotence and infinite knowledge of God, are most certain signs of a divine revelation, and are suited to the intelligence of all. ⁶⁹

Each external proof is—to use an expression that appears later in the constitution—a ‘motive of credibility.’ ⁷⁰ This more commonplace expression will be used hereafter. The motives of credibility evince the fact of revelation; that is, they are certain signs of the divine origin of revelation, and what is of divine origin ought to be believed because God cannot deceive. ⁷¹ Put differently, the motives of credibility show that someone has spoken, and that that someone is God. To accept what God has spoken is to make the assent of faith; this is an act that the constitution will address shortly.

It is important to note that miracles and prophecies are not the only motives of credibility named in the constitution. In a later passage, the constitution declares that ‘the Church itself . . . is a very great and perpetual motive of credibility.’ ⁷² Also note that God wills the joining of ‘internal aids’ with ‘external proofs’ so that the obedience of faith is consonant with reason. ⁷³ This highlights the divine regard for the integrity of human reason.

One canon pertaining to passage 3B anathematizes those who say ‘that miracles can never be known with certitude, and that the divine origin of the Christian religion cannot be correctly proved by them.’ ⁷⁴ The latter part of this canon, while certainly extending to sceptics of various types, also pertains to Roman Catholic thinkers who reject miracles as effective motives of credibility—thinkers such as Bautain. ⁷⁵

A third and final key passage in chapter three reads,

{3C} Moreover, although the assent of faith is by no means a blind movement of the intellect, nevertheless, no one can ‘assent to the preaching of the Gospel,’ as he must to attain salvation, ‘without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who gives to all a sweetness in consenting to and believing in truth’ (Council of Orange). ⁷⁶

The first part of the passage implies that the motives of credibility dissolve the view that the assent of faith is a blind movement of the intellect. The metaphor of blindness helps to reiterate the importance of the involvement of the will and the intellect in faith, for without the latter, one could rightfully claim that the more blind faith is, the greater it is. ⁷⁷ The second part of passage 3C implies that even the direct observation of a miracle would not suffice to elicit the assent of faith, for that assent requires the intervention of God’s grace. This is what the authors mean in speaking of a ‘motive’ of credibility; it is a help to the intellect in the assent of faith, but it does not bring about assent of faith.

Commentary on Chapter Four

Chapter four of Dei Filius is entitled ‘Faith and Reason.’ A first key passage in chapter four reads,

{4A} By enduring agreement the Catholic Church has held and holds that there is a twofold order of knowledge, distinct not only in principle but also in object: in principle, indeed, because we know in one way by natural reason, in another by divine faith; in object, however, because, in addition to things to which natural reason can attain, mysteries hidden in God are proposed to us for belief which, had they not been divinely revealed, could not become known. ⁷⁸

I take ‘mysteries hidden in God’ to be synonymous with ‘the mysteries of faith,’ a more commonplace expression. Although the constitution itself does not name them, it is likely that the authors have three principal mysteries of faith in mind. ⁷⁹ Using the phraseology of ecclesial documents, they are ‘the Most Blessed Trinity,’ ⁸⁰ ‘the Incarnation of the Lord,’ ⁸¹ and ‘the supernatural elevation of man and his supernatural intercourse with God.’ ⁸²

A second key passage in chapter four reads,

{4B} And, indeed, reason illustrated by faith, when it zealously, piously, and soberly seeks, attains with the help of God some understanding of the mysteries, and that a most profitable one, not only from the analogy of those things which it knows naturally, but also from the connection of the mysteries among themselves and with the last end of man; nevertheless, it is never capable of perceiving those mysteries in the way it does the truths which constitute its own proper object. For, divine mysteries by their nature exceed the created intellect so much that, even when handed down by revelation and accepted by faith, they nevertheless remain covered by the veil of faith itself, and wrapped in a certain mist, as it were, as long as in this mortal life, ‘we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith and not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5:6). ⁸³

The metaphor of mist has a precedent; it appears in Pope Pius IX’s 1862 brief, Gravissimas Inter. ⁸⁴ Just as it was valuable to explore precedents for passage 2A, namely the declarations administered to Bautain and Bonnetty, so too we must explore the catalyst for Gravissimas Inter. The brief was directed at Jakob Frohschammer, a rationalist ⁸⁵ who claimed that the natural powers of reason could gain a true understanding of the mysteries of faith. The Roman Catholic thinker Anton Günther had advanced a similar view, which also provoked a papal brief. ⁸⁶ What one gleans from these precedents is that the constitution targets not so much atheists, who reject the mysteries of faith outright, but Roman Catholics who see them lying within the purview of reason.

Importantly, passage 4B delineates three manners in which reason illustrated by faith can attain some understanding of the mysteries of faith. ⁸⁷ Thus the mysteries do not oblige the complete abandonment of reason; rather, they oblige the cautious use of it in the light of faith.

A third key passage in chapter four reads,

{4C} But, although faith is above reason, nevertheless, between faith and reason no true dissension can ever exist, since the same God, who reveals mysteries and infuses faith, has bestowed on the human soul the light of reason; moreover, God cannot deny Himself, nor ever contradict truth with truth. But, a vain appearance of such a contradiction arises chiefly from this, that either the dogmas of faith have not been understood and interpreted according to the mind of the Church, or deceitful opinions are considered as the determinations of reason. Therefore, ‘every assertion contrary to the truth illuminated by faith, we define to be altogether false’ (Lateran Council V). ⁸⁸

To paraphrase this passage, a judgment made via the divinely bestowed light of reason cannot truly contradict an assent made via the divinely infused light of faith, for both types of light are from God. If the appearance of contradiction arises, either the former is the fruit of deceitful opinion or the latter is not in concord with ‘the mind of the Church.’

As Denys Turner points out, applying the last sentence of passage 4C to the constitution itself yields a fact that is challenging to grasp: among those things which are contrary to the truth illuminated by faith is the claim that God cannot be known with certitude by the natural light of human reason from created things. ⁸⁹ In other words, even if an atheistic philosopher came to rationally convince all Roman Catholics that one cannot know God in this way, they would still be required to faithfully affirm that one can. ⁹⁰

Conclusion

The constitution exhibits a respect for human reason that is shared by the authors of the best sellers. This makes it especially well-suited as a resource for responding to them. The constitution enables Roman Catholics (and other interested persons) to meet the best sellers on the common ground of reason and argue within ‘shared rules of contest,’ to borrow an expression from Turner. ⁹¹