This is the final part of a three-part series on the twelve condemned propositions of 1924.
For part one see here, and for part two see here.
Proposition 10: Miracles Do Not Provide a Solid Argument for Revelation
| A miracle, taken in itself (as a fact evident to the senses which can be attributed to divine power alone, excluding both its symbolic significance and the subjective needs of man) does not provide a solid argument for Revelation. | Miraculum in se nude sumptum, scilicet prout est factum sensibile quod soli potentiae divinae attribui potest praecisione facta tum ab eius significatione symbolica, tum ab exigentiis subiectivis hominis, non praebet solidum argumentum Revelationis. |
In the background of this condemned proposition is a Positivist insistence that people should only believe what can be (scientifically) proved. Influenced originally by figures like David Hume (d. 1776) and Voltaire (d. 1778) positivist ideas were repackaged in the 1920s by the Vienna Circle, as logical positivism. That view insisted that claims about unverifiable miracles (like the Resurrection) were essentially meaningless.
One of the problems with appealing to miracles is that such appeals can rarely, if ever, meet the criteria of scientific tests and proofs. Miracles do not occur in sterile labs and they cannot be replicated upon demand. So, some people dismiss them as (in the words of the condemned proposition) unable to “provide a solid argument for Revelation.”
In 1870 Vatican I rejected the appropriateness of that kind of thinking. The Council stated:
If anyone says that all miracles are impossible… [or] that all reports of them, even those contained in sacred scripture are to be set aside as fables or myths; or that miracles can never be known with certainty… let him be anathema. (Dei Filius Canons 3.4)
Issues about miracles continued to raise theological questions. In 1907 the Vatican condemned the following proposition:
Jesus did not speak with the object of teaching He was the Messiah, nor did His miracles tend to prove it. (Lamentabili 28)
This 1924 condemned proposition simply provides a reiteration of issues which the Vatican had been insisting upon for at least fifty years.
However, there is an additional contextual factor in 1924, provided by the 1917 Fatima Miracle of the Sun. The popes of the era quickly accepted that miracle and publicly referred to it. (See Fatima – Approvals by the Popes). From a Vatican perspective a contemporary 1917 miracle must have made it seem even less appropriate for some people to be claiming that miracles could not provide a “solid argument.”
Questions about miracles have continued to be discussed throughout the twentieth century in the Philosophy of Religion. However, the old foe which Positivism represented has now morphed into Scientism, as Pope John Paul II noted in 1998, when he said that:
In the past, the… idea emerged in positivism and neo-positivism, which considered metaphysical statements to be meaningless. Critical epistemology has discredited such a claim, but now we see it revived in the new guise of scientism. (Fides et Ratio 88)
Proposition 11: Religious Practice Is Not the Result of Certainty
| Appropriate religious practice is not the result of the certainty which people have about truth. But, on the contrary, it is the only medium for obtaining certainty about this truth. | Praxis religiosa legitima non est fructus certitudinis quam homo habet de veritate, sed, contra, medium unicum obtinendi de hac veritate certitudinem. |
In the background of this condemned proposition are versions of fideism, especially ideas influenced by Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834). The core idea of fideism is that there is a separation of faith from reason, so that faith need not be (partially) caused or explained by reason(s).
When religious practices are understood in a fideistic way, there is no reason or explanation for religious certainty. This means that religious certainty becomes an aspect of religious commitment (rather than a cause for it). Thus, as Søren Kierkegaard (d. 1855) suggested, it can be the passion or enthusiasm of a person’s religious practice which causes an inner subjective certainty (not the rationality of argument).
That kind of (fideistic) separating of faith from reason has been repeatedly rejected by the Church. This is because once the practice of religion is separated from reasons for that practice, then there is (literally) no reason for believing in any specific creed or dogma. And so, there is no reason to think doctrines and dogmas are immutable.
In 1840 Pope Gregory XVI engaged with a version of this kind of thinking. He insisted that a fideist must renounce his views and accept the claim that:
The use of reason precedes faith and, with the help of revelation and grace, leads to it. (See “Fideism”.)
In 1870 Vatican I also engaged with these issues. The Council insisted that faith must be linked to reasons and evidence, when it stated that:
in order that the submission of our faith should be in accordance with reason, it was God’s will that there should be linked to the internal assistance of the holy Spirit external indications of his revelation, that is to say… miracles and prophecies. (Dei Filius 3.4)
Fideistic issues cropped up again in 1907, as one of the implications of Modernism. Pope Pius X explained the problem by stating that:
the Modernists… grant… that certain… doctrine(s)… have no rational foundation to rest on. (Pascendi 36)
These issues were still a matter of theological concern at the end of the twentieth century. Writing in 1998, Pope John Paul II noted that they had subtly changed their focus. He stated that:
There are… signs of a resurgence of fideism… One currently widespread symptom of this fideistic tendency is a “biblicism” which tends to make the reading and exegesis of Sacred Scripture the sole criterion of truth. (Fides et Ratio 55)
Proposition 12: Dogmas Should Evolve to Acquire New Senses
| Even after faith has been received, people should not rest in the dogmas of religion and adhere fixedly and immovably to them. But [people should] always remain anxious to progress to a further truth by evolving what they believe into new senses, and even by correcting it. | Etiam post fidem conceptam, homo non debet quiescere in dogmatibus religionis, eisque fixe et immobiliter adhaerere, sed semper anxius manere progrediendi ad ulteriorem veritatem, nempe evolvendo in novos sensus, immo et corrigendo id quod credit. |
In the background of this condemned proposition is the theological evolutionism which has already appeared in proposition 3. That earlier proposition rejected the view that there can be no immutable or “fixed” truths, because truth is constantly evolving and so religion constantly needs new expressions of faith.
This proposition condemns a slightly different version of theological evolutionism. Some people wanted to treat the wording of ancient creeds and dogmas as “fixed,” for sentimental reasons. So, they proposed that the meaning (or sense) of dogmas should be constantly evolving and changing, even though the actual words themselves remained constant. This twelfth proposition condemns that view and rejects the idea that people should be looking for “new senses” (novos senus) in the Church’s traditional dogmas.
This condemnation was largely repeating a point made by Vatican I in 1870. The Council stated:
If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema. (Dei Filius Canons 4.3)
The idea of a changing “sense” of dogma was re-rejected in 1907 as the (Modernist) claim that:
The chief articles of the Apostles’ Creed did not have the same sense for the Christians of the first ages as they have for the Christians of our time. (Lamentabili 62)
That same point was re-rejected in the 1924 condemned proposition above. And it can be seen as re-re-rejected by Pope Pius XII, in 1950, when he stated:
Hence…Pius IX, teaching that the most noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is contained in the sources of revelation, added these words, and with very good reason: “in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church.” (Humani Generis 21)
This issue has continued to prompt theological questions, especially due to a greater modern awareness of the way that specific cultures can impose a degree of inappropriate cultural relativity upon language. As a result, Pope John Paul II felt it necessary to return to this issue in 1998, when he insisted that:
Dogmatic statements, while reflecting at times the culture of the period in which they were defined, formulate an unchanging and ultimate truth. (Fides et Ratio 95)
John Paul II explained his conviction for why cultural relativity does not undermine the immutability of dogmatic truths, by appealing to Divine Providence. He stated that:
the Church cannot abandon what she has gained from her inculturation in the world of Greco-Latin thought. To reject this heritage would be to deny the providential plan of God who guides his Church down the paths of time and history. (Fides et Ratio 72)
Are These Propositions Condemning Maurice Blondel?
When the Vatican condemned twelve propositions in December 1924, they described them as “pertaining to the philosophy of action.”
At that time, Maurice Blondel (d. 1949) was the main proponent of a Philosophy of Action. His views can be seen in his pre-1924 works, such as L’Action (1893), his 1897 Letter on Apologetics and his 1904 booklet on History and Dogma.
It is all too easy to assume that the 1924 propositions are condemning Blondel, especially as they use particular words and phrases which can also be seen in Blondel’s own writings. However, there is a very real question about whether Blondel ever made any of the claims which are specifically condemned in these twelve propositions.
For example, proposition 9 condemned a rejection of “extrinsic” proofs for God’s existence. Proposition 10 condemned those who reject the role of miracles in apologetics. And proposition 8 condemned those who said that apologetics should be based on human needs, not on arguments.
On the surface it may look as if Blondel held those condemned views. But a closer reading of Blondel quickly shows that he was actually making a very different point. He was saying that proofs and arguments from miracles are ineffective when his contemporaries do not accept the premises of the arguments (see Letter 1.6). As a result, he thinks that apologetics needs to find a different approach, based on human needs which show the necessity of the premises in people’s lives.
What this shows is that the Vatican was rejecting specific views about ARGUMENTS but Blondel’s claims were focused on PREMISES, not arguments. This means that despite considerable similarities of language, Blondel was not making the claims which the Vatican condemned in propositions 8, 9 and 10.
We can see similar issues in proposition 5. On the surface it seems to explicitly condemn Blondel’s definition of Truth, by asserting that the definition makes truth mutable and thus destroys the Church’s view of immutable dogmas.
But Blondel was very clear in his essay on History and Dogma that he did not believe that all truths were mutable. Indeed, he explicitly rejected what he called the “Historicism” of the Modernists, precisely because it made truth relative and dependent on historians’ discoveries. So, despite referring to Blondel’s definition of Truth, proposition 5 is not actually condemning what Blondel himself argued for.
Similar issues can be seen throughout the propositions. On the surface they sometimes look as if they are condemning ideas of Blondel, but a closer study typically shows that what Blondel actually argued for, is not what the propositions actually condemn.
This may be due to the fact that the Vatican was condemning distorted versions of Blondelian views. Or it may even be due to the fact that the Vatican misunderstood what Blondel was trying to argue for. If so, that would not be entirely surprising, as Blondel’s thinking is (very) abstract and complicated. For example, his book, L’Action (1893) was an equivalent of a Ph.D. thesis. But it is so complicated that one of his examiners said that he had spent an hour reading and rereading a single page and he still could not understand that page. Blondel’s complex style means that some of what he wrote was (and remains) extremely difficult to interpret and understand.
Blondel has never been explicitly condemned by the Church. We also know that Pope Pius X (d. 1903) and Pope Pius XI (d. 1939) expressed positive views about Blondel. (See Maurice Blondel: A Philosophical Life). More recently, Pope John Paul II described Blondel as:
an eminent representative of Christian philosophy. (Address, 18 November 2000)
What this all means is that although there are similarities between the wording of some of the condemned propositions and claims that Blondel made, people should nevertheless avoid jumping to premature conclusions that Blondel held any of the specific views condemned in these 12 propositions.
Conclusion
The twelve condemned propositions of 1924 are scarcely a footnote in the history of twentieth-century theology. Yet they are interesting because they bring together a range of philosophical and theological problems, which the Vatican identified as challenging the Church’s theology in 1924.
The problems raised in the propositions are not new. They can all be seen in earlier condemnations and rejections. Yet, despite the historical context in which they arose, they arguably retain a degree of modern relevance, as many of the issues embedded in those propositions have continued to feature in the background of theological discussions throughout the twentieth century. This means that an awareness of the propositions, and the issues which they raise, can be a useful introduction to a deeper understanding of some of the philosophical aspects of contemporary theological problems.
13 thoughts on “Are the 12 Condemned Propositions of 1924 Still Relevant? – Part 3”
I have just cursorily read these articles since I first saw them today. So I am not sure how they apply to what I am currently doing.
I am writing a presentation on why one should be a Catholic. It is a topic that seems completely missing from current Catholic communication either in communication during Mass or in Church teaching. In a time when atheism is extremely popular and a large percentage of elderly Catholics constantly admit that their children have rejected the Church, it seems to be paramount that it would be front and center. But it is almost nonexistent.
This presentation is based on evidence and reasoning using logic. For example a set of steps leading to a creator starts with, the physical world either had a beginning or it existed forever. The latter is called infinite regress. It is essentially an “A” or “not A” approach. “A” is the physical world had a beginning.
Would any of the these propositions from 1924 negate such an approach? This is basic logic. My background is mathematics which is completely logic based so rejecting logic/reasoning seems illogical.
It sounds as if what you are exploring is the style of apologetics which can be found in Catholic literature between Vatican I (1870) and Vatican II (1965). Vatican I can be read as saying that there are deductive (ie logically necessary) proofs for God’s existence and that there is an argument from the ‘motives of credibility’ for the Church’s position.
One of the difficulties confronting that view (which Blondel among others noted) is that arguments are only as effective as their premises, and so the key issue is the plausibility of the premises, rather than just the logic or content of the argument (which is what those kinds of approaches had tended to mainly focus upon).
Blondel (and transcendental scholastics) thought that the best way to move forward the issue of premises, was to take the inner turn to consciousness and subjectivity. That approach can sound like an anti-realist, subjectivist, relativist approach, and so it was rejected by mainstream Catholic theologians.
However, one of the issues is whether the turn to subjectivity was misunderstood (by these 12 condemned propositions, and by scholastics in general), and it is in fact a valid and useful strategy for apologetics (?). Or, is there a better way of staying within the traditional Realist, Objectivist perspective, which establishes the plausibility of the premises upon which apologetics can build arguments?
My premise is that physical existence either had a beginning or it didn’t. Is there a third alternative? I’m not aware of any. So logic says one of these two is true because they are exhaustive. It is “A” and not “A.”
Given that the basic premise has to be true by definition , what are the implications of each part of this premise? If one part of the exhaustive premise leads to absurdity then it can be rejected and the other part must be accepted.
So I argue that physical existence must have a beginning and then explore this. We are now at a new premise, “A” that physical existence had a beginning.
Is there anything wrong with this conclusion? Is anyone then denying it guilty of some sort of logical fallacy just because they don’t like the implications of this new premise?
I’m trying to find a new premise that must be true by breaking down a series of “A” and “not A” alternatives and eliminating one of the two parts. At each step, finding the part that must/should be accepted base on implications of each part.
Yes, the principle of excluded middle (either P or not P) seems a plausible starting point for reflection, although Mathematically inclined Intuitionists sometimes reject that principle as an unwarranted assumption.
Are you familiar with the work of Garrigou-Lagrange, as he argues somewhat similarly to elements of what you seem to be suggesting (although Thomists had a carefully nuanced position to the idea of a beginning of the universe). A free copy of his ‘Reality’ is available online – https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/reality-a-synthesis-of-thomistic-thought-10148 (It is arguable whether that is his best book, but it has the merit of being freely available for perusal).
Thank you for your comments.
Based on what you’ve said, I understand that using the excluded middle approach to determine whether God exists and to define the characteristics of such a God is acceptable.
Will this method work? What is the likelihood of identifying the correct set of affirmatives and negatives to arrive at the most probable conclusion?
I haven’t read your link on Garrigou-Lagrange yet; it’s equivalent to a 400-page book.
From my discussions with others, it appears that there will always be limitations in any attempt to address the existence of the Judeo-Christian God, or any deity for that matter. This limitation seems to be by design because the certainty of a divine creator would undermine the meaning of existence. There must always be some doubt, which is essential.
Consequently, proving a proposition using the excluded middle approach will likely never yield absolute certainty, but it may lead to conclusions that are overwhelmingly probable.
As a side note, I prefer the excluded middle approach because it is generally simple and easily understood by the average person.
Perhaps it would be helpful to distinguish between the principle of Excluded Middle (either p and not-p) and the principle of non-contradiction (both p and not-p). The traditional kinds of arguments which (I think) you are contemplating (including those by Garrigou Lagrance) generally appeal to the principle of non-contradiction as a central consideration.
Whether the arguments work, depends largely upon the background and framework assumptions within which the arguments operate. Perhaps needless to say, there are considerable disagreements among philosophers about many of the relevant issues, so there are not necessarily ‘simple’ (or non-controversial) answers to the questions which you are interested in.
Thank you for your comments. It is becoming clearer because of them.
After several years of discussions with intellectuals and convoluted explanations I prefer
“the height of sophistication is simplicity” – Claire Booth Luce
Whether the excluded middle or the principle of non-contradiction, the argument employed should work with the average person. Philosophers are not the target unless they can explain simply why something must be or cannot be so.
For example, “Evolution happened by natural selection” and “Evolution by natural selection alone is mathematically impossible.” The evidence/science favors the second. This does not eliminate a natural process or mean that natural selection didn’t contribute or mean a deity directly created individual species but transfers the exploration for an explanation for Evolution to another path. By the way, Richard Dawkins prefers the second.
Similarly, physical existence had a beginning or physical existence had no beginning. The latter leads to nonsense so can be eliminated. We are then led to physical existence had a beginning as the overwhelming explanation. Are there competing explanations for this beginning? Etc.
Yes aiming for simplicity is always helpful in arguments. On the matter of the beginning of the universe, it sounds as if you are taking an approach known as the Kalam argument. William Lane Craig is a contemporary author who has written about it extensively. Thomas Aquinas took the very different view that the beginning of the universe cannot be proved philosophically, and that it is a matter of revelation. You can read more about that approach in contemporary authors such as Brian Davies.
I’m not entirely sure about my specific approach other than following logic. Math has always been my strong suit, as it is a subset of logic.
If a premise contains contradictions or absurdities that make it impossible to be true, I will reject it. I dismiss the idea of infinite regress; the absurdities involved are too far-fetched to be credible. My objections are not mathematical in nature.
Today, I read about the Kalam argument on Wikipedia, as you suggested, and I agree with some aspects of it, but not all of them right away. I haven’t fully digested all the details yet, but I plan to explore it further.
A few months ago, I ordered “The Logic That God Exists: A Handbook on Belief in God through Simple Reason to Bring You Peace.” I will revisit it to see if it adds anything to my argument. As I recall, the book discusses how science points to a creator. This mainly indicates the creator’s objectives, rather than serving as direct proof of a creator.
I’m looking for simple explanations that a 10-year-old could understand, and I believe there is one out there.
I am always seeking help, and your comments have been very useful.
“If anyone says that all miracles . . . even those contained in sacred scripture are to be set aside as fables or myths; .. . .”
Prop 10 is actually a very liberal statement as the word ‘all’ implies a much-needed dubia – , if only the church could differentiate between which ones may be suspect and those that are not.
Yes, that’s a interesting observation about the significance of the wording of Vatican 1 (cited under Proposition 10). It could have condemned the denial of ‘any’ miracles, but it chose instead to condemn the denial of ‘all’ miracles.
With regard to the complexities of what counts as miracles in the gospels, I’m reminded of a question from a school child about Jesus riding an ass and a colt (See Matthew 21,7). Was that meant to be a miraculous simultaneous riding of two animals…?
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